Cut out the root, starve the branches
January 1st 2019 will be the start of my NoFap Journey. I’m positing here to hold myself accountable and to provide motivation to others. These entries will be quasi-journal like.
Some background on who I am
- I am a 24-year-old male.
- I work as a Software developer.
- I Studied computer science in college and graduated with a high GPA.
- My salary 105K plus benefits (healthcare, 401k, some stock). I am very athletic looking with an average face.
- Most people would view my life as “wow, he’s going to be/is successful”.
Why am I telling you this? From the outside looking in, people think that I’m doing great. And while I do admit to be doing better financially than peers my age, as well as being more intellectually and academically gifted than the average person, these things are only a small part of life. Most people don’t realize that I’m crippling socially, emotionally, and mentally. The outside doesn’t always tell the whole story. Rich or poor, dumb or smart, hard working or lazy, attractive or unattractive: None of these attributes ever tell the whole story. As you will see if you continue reading, even these small gifts can also be severely hindered by pornography/sex addiction. I will not argue to meaning of life here, but I think you all get my gist.
So what brought me here? This past week I took a long and hard look at my current life, my past, and where I want to be. I’m not happy with most of my current life. Ill list the positives and negatives.
The positives:
- I have a good job
- I have a degree and a high GPA from a good university
- I’m relatively healthy and in very good shape.
The negatives:
- I do not have any close friends (I have had close friends in the past, but not at this current moment). This is obvious as it is New Year’s Eve and I do not have anyone to go out with; Part of this is from moving around a lot the past couple of years, but something else also largely contributed
- I am not involved in any serious relationship with any girl right now, and if I continue with my ways I doubt that will be changing any time soon. While this may not matter for some people, it does for me. I am happier, more fulfilled, and generally do better when I’m in a good intimate relationship
- I suffer periodically from anxiety and depression. I was bullied growing up for my looks which caused me to have a lot of anxiety and depression. As I matured after high school, I became much more attractive due to working out, eating better, losing weight etc. However, the bullied memories still remain. It effected the personality I have. One of the reasons I became a programmer because for various periods of my life I did not have anything better to do like go to parties, social events, etc. So my idea was why not just study a decent amount for school and do well in that. This is not the only reason for my mental health issues.
Through my reflection, I believe most of these issues stem from a root cause. If I remove the root, the other problems can no longer receive their life support and they will wither away and die. This is a good thing. So what is the root cause? Yep, you guessed it. Fapping.
Im addicted to porn/Instagram/online dating. Not in the ways you’d imagine either (for Instagram and online dating). My porn addiction is like many others on here, so I will not elaborate on that facet. I will elaborate on the others.
Online dating: Luckily I am attractive enough to get women to talk to me online. None of these women are that hot, most 5-6, but that’s not the point. My online dating addiction started when my brain got bored with porn. I used online dating to essentially create and masturbate to my own erotica in the conversations I have with women. I have a profile that is very sexual and indicates that I’m only interested in women who want to hook up. So the only women that respond to me are women looking for one night stands/hookups/fwb. I get the women to start talking “dirty” with, and we have pretty sexual conversations. I even explicitly tell them that I fantasize to them, and they almost always take it as a compliment. When they send me pictures I also let them know that I use them for jerking off, and again, they generally take it as a compliment. Have I slept with any of these women? A couple, but most I would never actually be attracted to in person. My brain only cares about the erotica, the Pavlonian variable reward content that is being created through each conversation. There is no fulfillment in this besides momentary short term pleasure. Conversation, ejaculate, done. Talking to these women is a huge waste of time because I know that I will never actually have a fulfilling relationship with any of them. It is awful to know that my brain would rather have me jerk off to this obscure and novel erotica than go out and meet women in real life. Women that I can actually have a relationship with.
Instagram: like porn but much more attractive women. Endless amounts of attractive women. My brain has become corrupt from this addiction.
As for the sex addiction. For a year in college I was having sex at least 7 times a week. However, this addiction eventually subsided too porn because porn was much easier to achieve ejaculation and required no actual work. I also would not consider sex addiction anywhere near as bad as pornography addiction for various reasons we will not get into on this post.
How does Masturbation make all the other negatives I posted even worse?
Social:
- A major reason why we socialize as humans, and specifically males, is to get laid. In a goal seeking system where the reward is to ejaculate, your brain will condition itself to keep repeating whatever is causing itself to achieve that goal. If fapping causes that goal to be accomplished, the desire to go out and socialize begins to erode and deteriorate. Why is this bad? Who cares? Just be anti social. Wrong. Humans are social beings. We need to be in groups. Im an introvert and I still need doses of socialization to stay mentally sane. The less we socialize, the less likely we will be involved in any group(s). The lack of involvement in a group leads to depression and anxiety for various reasons we will not to get into here.
- As we become more anxious and depressed, we use fapping as a coping mechanism to deal with the issues. This leads us to stay in on nights where we should be going out and socializing or fix the issues. Real life issues get pushed aside. Momentary pleasure takes its place. The issue now becomes deeper and harder to fix. Rinse and repeat. We become more anxious and depressed. We didn’t use that weekend to meet new people, find our social group, or foster previously existing relationships. We didn’t try to fix problems we have. We didn’t grow intellectually or spiritually. This vicious cycle continues as you fap more and more. The deeper you get in, the harder it is to climb out.
Dating:
- The desire to date dies down the more and more you fap. Why actually use effort to get laid when you can ejaculate in 20 minutes to any girl you want on your screen. This is very shallow pleasure and does not lead to the true long term fulfillment that an actual girlfriend will give you. It also has the vicious cyclical nature like the previous example
Anxiety and depression:
- I’m not sure which one causes the other, but my conjecture is that the more I fap, the more anxious I become and the greater likelihood I fall into depression. During periods of my life where I masturbate infrequently, I’ve noticed that I’m generally more confident, sociable, and fulfilled.
Time wasting:
- This is the absolute worst thing about fapping. It takes an hour of my day at minimum. 20 minutes of getting initially aroused and finally giving in. 20-30 minutes of fapping. 10-30 minutes of cleanup/being tired after ejaculating and laying around. Not to mention a lot of productivity lost after masturbating that is too difficult to quantify. The time lost contributes to the root issues. Time is only finite, and we are wasting it on momentary, short term, cheap pleasure. If I got that time back I could work on growing intellectually and spiritually, as well as working on side projects or learning a new skill. Or socializing and meeting people. The possibilities for that wasted time are virtually endless
Goals for 2019.
- Quit masturbating cold turkey for life. I hope this morning was the last time I have ever done it and will ever do it again. Cut out the root, starve the branches
- Get a social life again. This means using the time, energy, and psychological well-being to focus on becoming more social and getting a life. I have a plan of how and where I will socialize but I’d rather not get into details here
- Fix anxiety issues
- Grow in my career and business
- Grow intellectually
- Grow spiritually
NOTE: These goals are actually more concrete, specific, and in depth than what’s listed here(and I have about 10 for the year) However, I’d rather not write all of them out because it may give away my identity.
Remember men: Cut out the root, starve the branches
Wish me luck on my NoFap journey. There will be times when I may desperately need it. -TheBitcoinCarnivore
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