Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evolving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
Rules For the rest of the Site also accessible on the sidebar.
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Apathy can be defeated with discipline, "I dont even care much at this point", is apathy, not weakness. So, you stop analyzing the situation too much, as in, searching for the point. get yourself some new rules for your day, make a list of a regimen and you do it no matter how you feel, you stop spending your time depending on how you feel about it, and just do it. Feelings are not facts.Get up at the same time, and make it a time that is a bit uncomfortable for you, no matter what, stick to it. Make a list, shower, excercise, pray, go to work, or do the chores, but keep a schedule, and keep it hard. You break yourself down by mixing up self discipline with motivation, motivation comes from discipline, not some muse that flutters into your life to give it purpose. The purpose of life is life, it is a gift, it is singular to you, and to get back into it, you have to go through the motions until the motivation comes. If one of my sheep goes down, I cannot wring my hands over it, I cannot waste time trying to figure out how or why, in that moment, I have to get her back on her feet, shove her, kick her, get her moving, because if she doesn;t get up, she will die. Fake it till you make it. According to Gurdjieff, we have 4 centers, the Intellectual, the Emotional, the Instinctual, and the Moving center. We mess up when we let one do the others job. Take a walk in nature, just look at it all without daydreaming, look closely, learn the names of the trees and plants, let each day be a day that you are committed to learn something about the world you operate in, not the big world of politics and news, but the geographical history of your plot of land. Each disciplined day commit yourself to learning something about your environment, you put on a shirt? What is the shirt made of? Where is the cotton grown? Where are the textiles made? What is the history of the cotton plant? Simple stuff like that, each day learn something as well as you can, Pull your mind back from daydreaming as soon as it drifts. I remember hearing a lecture about consciousness, and the speaker said that the first addiction is fantasy, daydreaming, imagining. There is nothing wrong with it, but it is not the imagining of the great inventors, it is the imagining of pipe dreams. Touch grass, then learn about the grass. If we go deeper, instead of larger, there is an infinity of what we can learn in our own backyard. Everytime you pull yourself out of the mental doldrums, and get up and wash your socks out by hand, you are defeating the enemy of apathy.
I really appreciate your comment and I think you hit the nail on the head with apathy. And you're also right about being able to take action regardless of how I feel. That is where I struggle the most. I'm not going to just be able to reason myself to feeling better. I know I need the discipline to stick to a routine.