The "mental-game"

[park]

Hello everyone,

Some things have become clearer to me lately so I share here. Feel free to share your thoughts, questions, perspectives... While I prefer people agreeing with me, I fully expect disagreement and will just have to take it in stride!

I am going to present a crude categorization of our „states/levels of mind“ which I claim can be categorized into higher and lower. Based on a poker analogy, I call these states A-F. I observe how these states of mind are playing out in my current (individual) life but also how they have historically played out socially/politically in my country.

All of this is crude but I hope illustrates the point that our spiritual/philosophic/existential understanding can operate at a multitude of levels, that the content of thought/belief is relatively predictable while on a certain level, and that these levels can be observed both on an individual and social/political level.

I understand that some members will shoot me down because I talk about levels, instead of a strict dichotomy between clear/enlightened and unclear/deluded or a non-dichotomy between any levels. However, observing both myself and the world around me, it does seem to me at this time that the unclear/deluded camp can be further broken down/categorized into varying degrees of unclarity/delusion in a helpful way. I do not claim that I have „solved the riddle“ but offer only preliminary thoughts on the issue.

The „mental game“ – a poker analogy
* Stay with me, I'm using poker only as an analogy and entry-point
Winning professional poker players talk a lot about and practice the „mental game“. The mental game is the state of mind one is in while playing poker. The mental game is hugely important as it directly and in a large measure impacts the profitability of an individual poker session. At the extremes, while playing their „A game“, poker players can implement easily and in full their technical knowledge of the game, as well as their intuitions and „reads“. This provides for a very profitable session, excluding effects of luck ie. over the long term. At the other extreme, when playing their „F game“, poker players are said to be „tilted“ and their mind is totally clouded by negative emotion and/or substances and/or irrational thinking and/or tiredness etc. When playing their F game, excluding luck ie. over the long-term, even professional players playing against the same opponents as in the previous example are usually losing money. Since poker players classify their mental game into A-F grades, I'll do the same in what follows.

Towards a categorization of levels (philosophic/spiritual/existential) of states of being/thinking/understanding for individuals (A-F):
- as observed just by me for my current overall state of being over the past few years.
- note: Even though my therapists tell me there is nothing fundamentally wrong with me, I have had a historical (10+ years) problem with mental-health. Hence, your mileage may vary in the specifics, but I suspect that you might be able to find the same phenomenon of levels of states of being in your own life, they will just manifest differently in your life.
- I find that the content of thought is relatively predictable while in the various levels ie. I tend to think about similar things while in the A-F states.
- I find that I can quite easily imagine a lower state while in a higher, but have difficulty imagining the higher, while in the lower, even though I have experienced it before or even recently.

A) I find everything to be easy, clear, direct, humorous
B) I experience moderate amounts of anxiety but can function well
C) I experience strong anxiety and moderate compulsive/forced negative thoughts; can still function at a moderate level
D) I experience strong anxiety and strong compulsive/forced negative thoughts and hypervigilance. Difficulty functioning.
F) Mental-health breakdown, retreat from the world.

Towards a categorization of levels (philosophic/spiritual/existential) of group political thought as observed by an example in my country (A-F):
- based on a simple model. This model is not thorough or all-encompassing but rather aims to illustrate the point that the political differences between the Left and Right can at different times and/or for different political actors be of a higher or lower level.
- as observed by me in Croatia, examples of levels taken from the past 75 years ie. since during WWII. The biggest issue(s) between the Left and Right in your country, or the way they have historically dealt with the issues presented below (which is only an example), may be different. However, I suspect that the main point that there are levels of thought and the proposed solutions to these issues - holds also in your country.
- Of course, this is a crude model. There are always parties and actors outside this model or who act on a different level during a time where the majority acts on a particular level.
- The example taken are the attitudes of the Left (L) and Right (R) towards priests, capitalists, national and religious minorities in Croatia over the past 75 years, a period which has included two big wars, and three political systems: nazism, communism, and liberal-democracy.

A) Not sure I've seen much of this level, but here's a possible sketch: Everyone agrees that everyone should participate equally in the political and social system, there is cooperation towards a mutual benefit taking into account the different and appreciated differences in values/interests/goals/etc. There is high social trust in the populace and between groups. Conflict exists but is minimal and there are efficient ways of dealing with it.

B) Everyone should participate equally in the political and social system BUT
L: harbours mostly unspoken suspicion towards priests and capitalists
R: harbours mostly unspoken suspicion towards national and religious minorities

C) Everyone should participate equally in the political and social system BUT
L: expresses huge contempt towards priests and capitalists
R: expresses huge contempt towards some national and religious minorities

D)
L: priests and capitalists should be excluded from participation in the political and social system
R: members of some national and religious minorities should be excluded from participation in the political and social system

F)
L: priests and capitalists should be shot
R: members of some national and religious minorities should be shot

F-)
L: priests and capitalists are actually shot
R: members of some national and religious minorities are actually shot

To end on a lighter note, here are some followup questions for discussion:
- Is it helpful to categorize your level of state-of-mind into (say) A-F states?
- Do you observe them changing in your life in this way?
- If so, is what and how you are thinking about while in the various states relatively predictable?
- If so, are there ways&means to "move up" a rung on the ladder? What are they for you?
- Taking a historical view or looking at various present political actors, can you observe the same A-F states of mind playing in the political sphere?
- Insert and answer your own question 😊

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!

[laughter]

Paused halfway through reading to write this: the baseline under anxiety is existential dread. Realizing the existential truth ends that. In the meantime, there are ways to mitigate it. Based on your writing, I'm sure you've already spoken with people fare more experienced and educated on the topic in terms of that potential mitigation. But in terms of the pathless path, it can be a clarifying opportunity. An opportunity to pause, take a deep breath, and know, here and now. But no mitigation effort is infallible. The existential truth, beckons.

After I read the rest, what I'd say is that the "render unto Caesar" parable is deep water, so that, on one hand, there is some validity to your model. On the other hand, you might make a conclusion as to what "level" someone is acting from based on their actions that is incorrect, or, at least, partially incorrect. And you don't even need the parable to see this in action, all you need is to consider the nature of action, and how the thinking process characterizes action: thinking always involves abstraction, and the "real world" will always break any abstraction, given the right set of circumstances.

[andrew]

Apr 18, 2024 8:11:58 GMT -5 park said:

Hello everyone,

Some things have become clearer to me lately so I share here. Feel free to share your thoughts, questions, perspectives... While I prefer people agreeing with me, I fully expect disagreement and will just have to take it in stride!

I am going to present a crude categorization of our „states/levels of mind“ which I claim can be categorized into higher and lower. Based on a poker analogy, I call these states A-F. I observe how these states of mind are playing out in my current (individual) life but also how they have historically played out socially/politically in my country.

All of this is crude but I hope illustrates the point that our spiritual/philosophic/existential understanding can operate at a multitude of levels, that the content of thought/belief is relatively predictable while on a certain level, and that these levels can be observed both on an individual and social/political level.

I understand that some members will shoot me down because I talk about levels, instead of a strict dichotomy between clear/enlightened and unclear/deluded or a non-dichotomy between any levels. However, observing both myself and the world around me, it does seem to me at this time that the unclear/deluded camp can be further broken down/categorized into varying degrees of unclarity/delusion in a helpful way. I do not claim that I have „solved the riddle“ but offer only preliminary thoughts on the issue.

The „mental game“ – a poker analogy
* Stay with me, I'm using poker only as an analogy and entry-point
Winning professional poker players talk a lot about and practice the „mental game“. The mental game is the state of mind one is in while playing poker. The mental game is hugely important as it directly and in a large measure impacts the profitability of an individual poker session. At the extremes, while playing their „A game“, poker players can implement easily and in full their technical knowledge of the game, as well as their intuitions and „reads“. This provides for a very profitable session, excluding effects of luck ie. over the long term. At the other extreme, when playing their „F game“, poker players are said to be „tilted“ and their mind is totally clouded by negative emotion and/or substances and/or irrational thinking and/or tiredness etc. When playing their F game, excluding luck ie. over the long-term, even professional players playing against the same opponents as in the previous example are usually losing money. Since poker players classify their mental game into A-F grades, I'll do the same in what follows.

Towards a categorization of levels (philosophic/spiritual/existential) of states of being/thinking/understanding for individuals (A-F):
- as observed just by me for my current overall state of being over the past few years.
- note: Even though my therapists tell me there is nothing fundamentally wrong with me, I have had a historical (10+ years) problem with mental-health. Hence, your mileage may vary in the specifics, but I suspect that you might be able to find the same phenomenon of levels of states of being in your own life, they will just manifest differently in your life.
- I find that the content of thought is relatively predictable while in the various levels ie. I tend to think about similar things while in the A-F states.
- I find that I can quite easily imagine a lower state while in a higher, but have difficulty imagining the higher, while in the lower, even though I have experienced it before or even recently.

A) I find everything to be easy, clear, direct, humorous
B) I experience moderate amounts of anxiety but can function well
C) I experience strong anxiety and moderate compulsive/forced negative thoughts; can still function at a moderate level
D) I experience strong anxiety and strong compulsive/forced negative thoughts and hypervigilance. Difficulty functioning.
F) Mental-health breakdown, retreat from the world.

Towards a categorization of levels (philosophic/spiritual/existential) of group political thought as observed by an example in my country (A-F):
- based on a simple model. This model is not thorough or all-encompassing but rather aims to illustrate the point that the political differences between the Left and Right can at different times and/or for different political actors be of a higher or lower level.
- as observed by me in Croatia, examples of levels taken from the past 75 years ie. since during WWII. The biggest issue(s) between the Left and Right in your country, or the way they have historically dealt with the issues presented below (which is only an example), may be different. However, I suspect that the main point that there are levels of thought and the proposed solutions to these issues - holds also in your country.
- Of course, this is a crude model. There are always parties and actors outside this model or who act on a different level during a time where the majority acts on a particular level.
- The example taken are the attitudes of the Left (L) and Right (R) towards priests, capitalists, national and religious minorities in Croatia over the past 75 years, a period which has included two big wars, and three political systems: nazism, communism, and liberal-democracy.

A) Not sure I've seen much of this level, but here's a possible sketch: Everyone agrees that everyone should participate equally in the political and social system, there is cooperation towards a mutual benefit taking into account the different and appreciated differences in values/interests/goals/etc. There is high social trust in the populace and between groups. Conflict exists but is minimal and there are efficient ways of dealing with it.

B) Everyone should participate equally in the political and social system BUT
L: harbours mostly unspoken suspicion towards priests and capitalists
R: harbours mostly unspoken suspicion towards national and religious minorities

C) Everyone should participate equally in the political and social system BUT
L: expresses huge contempt towards priests and capitalists
R: expresses huge contempt towards some national and religious minorities

D)
L: priests and capitalists should be excluded from participation in the political and social system
R: members of some national and religious minorities should be excluded from participation in the political and social system

F)
L: priests and capitalists should be shot
R: members of some national and religious minorities should be shot

F-)
L: priests and capitalists are actually shot
R: members of some national and religious minorities are actually shot

To end on a lighter note, here are some followup questions for discussion:
- Is it helpful to categorize your level of state-of-mind into (say) A-F states?
- Do you observe them changing in your life in this way?
- If so, is what and how you are thinking about while in the various states relatively predictable?
- If so, are there ways&means to "move up" a rung on the ladder? What are they for you?
- Taking a historical view or looking at various present political actors, can you observe the same A-F states of mind playing in the political sphere?
- Insert and answer your own question 😊

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!

I found that very interesting to read, and can appreciate/relate to your self-awareness. I too pay attention to states of mind/being, and can experience a variety, though my frame of interpretation/understanding is different to yours. There's a lot that could be said, but I found your use of the word 'function' to be an interesting one. I know what it's like to be non-functional. In fact, I've been through phases of non-functioning, in which I suspect many other people would have taken themselves to hospital lol (I find it funny, but I'm also serious). What I've noted is that there are times when life says, 'it's time to withdraw', 'it's time to be still and go within'. And the physical prompts cane be VERY insistent. There might be some of what other people call 'anxiety', but I don't really experience it as 'anxiety' in the way that others do. It's more a particular felt/experienced quality of 'energy'. I don't have judgements of it, or create a big problem out of it. It can be intense, but it is observed, and I take it as a signal to 'adjust'. This can sometimes be making practical adjustments (maybe it's time to make a decision on something), or it might be time to adjust my focus/attention. Often this energy shows up in physical manner too. To give one example....I can sometimes partake in exercise routines, but when life gives me a prompt to 'stop', I will have great difficulty in making my legs or arms do the exercise routine that I have been doing. It's an extremely physical signal. In fact, it has occurred to me that this is what many auto-immune issues are about at their core. People are given signals, and then interpret them as there being something 'wrong', but in reality, it's just life being firm with us.

Anyway, that was a long paragraph, but I wanted to contribute something about my experience, as it's clear you've given your situation a lot of consideration.