[2025-11-28 at 19:04] note
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RvBTrUqgSI
he keeps saying "it's just sensations" and "the meaning we attach to it is not real" but idk what he actually means
bc the meaning is obviously real and the sensations feel Very Very Bad
but surely he means smth else than what i'm interpreting
like i can even decouple the "story"/"meaning" from the "sensations", and i can put aside the "story" but those sensations still just feel incredibly bad, like the worst cold shower
i don't see how the sensations just feel neutral bc they do feel bad
event --> uncomfy but mostly neutral sensations ("chest is tense lol") --> suffering, tension, mental flinching ("the blob of badness in my chest feels rly rly bad") --> action, coping mech, stories / mental chatter
and it's like . wtf gap are they talking about
"the fact that XYZ happened is actually not that bad, it's just a bunch of sensations"
it just feels like bypassing -- but i know he's not bypassing, so i wonder what he is trying to point to, and how our language mappings are mismatched
is he talking about the uncomfy-but-mostly-neutral sensations??? or the suffering sensations??
or perhaps he's talking about both but i still consider the suffering to be a sensation ???? (*)
when he says "sensations" does he have the model of like
event --> uncomfy but mostly neutral sensations --> gap --> suffering, mental flinching --> gap --> physical flinch, coping mech, stories, thoughts, mental chatter
and then the sensations he's saying are like
[uncomfy but mostly neutral sensations --> suffering, mental flinching] (before the gap --> reaction)
but to him that's just the same thing??
like is it the same thing as when people say "the cold shower is just sensations" like it's not that bad -- like they're not denying that the sensations feel really bad (theyre not denying the [suffering, mental flinching]) but they're saying like . you dont have to
UGH it's really like a sha hash
Hm interesting that im also so reactive to him invalidating reactions like when he says "ok he did, so what?"
it just feels so invalidating and bypassy/repressy
but then hm okay maybe he doesnt mean bypassing/repression, and maybe he means only "so what" in the sense of the suffering/flinching
ok wait yeah im becoming more confident in my hypothesis (*) of what he means
like . he's referring to the gap as [before thoughts] instead of [before suffering] and then perhaps he means "it's just sensations" talking about [uncomfy sensations + suffering/flinching] and means "it's just sensations" to mean . you didnt need to do the second step, he's saying it like descriptive of the "what you see actually matters, underlying" not descriptive of what youre feeling rn
but when i hear "it's just sensations" it's like he's denying the fact that the cold shower feels rly rly rly bad
like .
o wait he said like .
Oh it's a one out of 10. Okay, that and then I'm sitting with the sensation.
1:03:38
If I'm noticing that it seems like like often times if it's if it's higher than a 3, four, five, it's like this feels
1:03:44
like it's a you can pretty much bet that you're not sitting with a sensation. You're already comparing to some ideal
1:03:50
how you would prefer to feel.
so he means the suffering/flinching is already the meaning added but i dont think he actually means that
The thoughts are not trying to change the situation. You know how
1:04:13
often I I I get to I have the benefit of
1:04:18
uh seeing people realize that they're actually not their overthinking is not problem solving. I think every situation
1:04:24
seems like, oh, I'm trying to do this. It's like every situation has the feeling component and the problem
1:04:30
solving component. And most often aversion is actually playing as problem solving.
is this true???????
like i believe this for tanha but not macro aversion
like it feels like all macro aversion is actually computationally very smart, and locally optimal\
perhaps theyre just talking abt differnet things
and perhaps michael is just talking abt like . intellectualization as a coping mech, or like, anxious monkey mind as a coping mech
or like perhaps he's talking about the exploded gradient SGD vs healthy SGD
https://x.com/Plus3Happiness/status/1944620449301664178
https://x.com/Plus3Happiness/status/1951892990454043108\
like this just feels as imprecise as saying there is only the 5 senses + thoughts, everything else is fictional
but it's like no, there's also proprioception, ETC!\
the leading metacognition on this stuff might be as bad as drawing (non-DRSB), language (SLA comprehensible input), music (amateur MLT)
they might actually be wrong and imprecise just like stephen krashen on comprehensible input while still leading to mostly kinda fruitful results
this note is kinda all over the place lol, just scattered thoughts me trying to think through things