I have friends, and people who I admire and care for. I feel warmth when I see acts of kindness and generosity between people. I abhor suffering and will go to great lengths to help anyone I come across who is in need or distress. These are all feelings of endearment, appreciation, empathy, and fraternity.
In contrast, I actively avoid all but the most essential and transactional encounters with people. I am keenly aware of that moment when a pleasant encounter edges close to a line, beyond which it becomes unpleasant. Perhaps the person is talking too much, negative, petty, or overly familiar (as in the case of family members). Whatever the case, I find people are best kept at a distance.
The truth about people is that they are features of my thirdself. And as with all thirdself forms, they feed on my confusion and illness. Even the most minor and benign of characters in my thirdself — the old man who quietly sits in the restaurant, for example — exist by virtue of my observation. I project them into my thirdself; when I close my eyes, they are gone. All thirdself forms — both pleasant and unpleasant — demand and consume my attention. All prevent me from returning.
In this way, all people are ghouls — they feast on my illness to exist. Without my awakening, they are not here. And by awakening, they are. Attachments I form to them are the bonds that keep me here lost, suffering, desiring. The most powerful and destructive of bonds are those of attraction and lust. Though people of my second and thirdself are mindless in the sense that there is no depth beyond that which I project into them, they are wholly organized to prevent my return.
My entire second and thirdself apparatus is designed to trap me here. I have a finite amount of awareness, and every bit I give to the people of my thirdself I take away from my omniself. To enter omniself I must understand the nature of people and sever all but the most transactional of attachments.
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