Purity of Speech Project

i'm trying to cut out frivolous references to sex or initiating discussion of sexual subjects. i'm not like that in many circumstances and you wouldn't find much evidence of this in my posts but in real life i have a rather lose tongue, often using sexual imagery for humor or illustration and i'm almost a go to person to talk to about any kind of sexual challenge because ppl think i won't mind or be shocked. and i'm not.
however, this also supports a kind of ongoing interest in that world and often i have ended up in pornographic vicinity or pornography just to check on some curiosity. the line between [wholesome or justifiable] interest and indulgence is rather blurry there for me and so i like to cut this out. my aspiration is to track this until i have a kind of purity for 108 days that i'm somehow satisfied with. i don't expect this to change my life but i'm open to anything. after all, speech is a huge part of identity, both in expression and formation. anybody with thoughts on this, quotes, experiences that they like to share: i would be interested to learn.

 

my starting point is today because i said something today that i would consider a slip. i said to a woman that i would have sex with a specific kind of shaven russian punk type lady, basically, i guess, just to say i'm a cool dude. i don't have to really, because she knows i am but it's they type of banter we just tend to throw around. for the record: i have had not sexual interest in either the rocker nor the lady i said this to. but it frames me, most importantly to myself, as someone comfortable with - and by extension 'close to' - low threshold sexuality. it's almost as though i'm putting the question in my mind: 'so how would this happen, if you were a girl?' ...'what kind of girl would you be?' etc. it didn't in this case, but it has in many others.

 

thanks, david,
my first step was to try to announce this to people and i have just done so with the lady mentioned above. i think one huge problem with wanting to change especially speech is that people expect you to repond in a certain way. it's actually a lot less content, i think, via which we bond but certain exchange patterns, almost like a dance. if you opt out of a behaviour without giving people something else that is equally cool - actually it needs to be a bit better to make it worthwhile their willingness to change - you may lose the friendship. but even if you are willing to be heroic in this way and take the loss, your unconscious needs may [perhaps even justly] rebel and just spontaneously put out the old behavior.
because my brash, cocky style is a bit over the top and thereby funny [i regularly get this: 'you didn't just say this, right??' kind of look...], i hope i can replace it with an also slightly funny choir boy, innocent piousness play which will give me some space to experiment & develop habits.
so i told this lady, that i would like to get her help and she agreed right away, offering me a little gold star for every day i make it. i asked her, of course, also to admonish me and avoid putting triggers in the way - so let's see how this works out. my excuses are certainly becoming less...

 

yo... crew is key! i like the Buddha on this: suggested by an inspired student that the path is 50% noble friends, he replied that this is incorrect, as it is actually 100%. that is a lot for a teaching that is entirely founded on the notion of intentionally & individually generated effort. and this is repeated on several occasions, almost to make sure that it's not taken to be hyperbole. somewhere in the 90%s this becomes demanding to conceive but the point is really that there is nothing in the mind that didn't get there from elsewhere and for those programs that go against instinct & impulse these open social channels [i.e. friendship = trust = lack of defensiveness] in combination with social needs are really the only way to get them in.
i guess that is one reason why speech is so important. few things, if any, will condition these people connections as dominantly as the speech faculty. it's also why speech is difficult to change unless you want to completely change scenes. with changing speech, you're also always changing others, almost without their permission. and with friends that can go fairly deep, so changing speech is in a way like robbing somebody of something that they are used to, basically without permission.

 

alright, or maybe - not alright, i will have to reset my counter and refine my rules a bit. i restrained myself on a number of occasions but also had a few slips.
basically the slips were of a type that is quite typical for my system: a well intended remark made kind of funny with some little rudeness. the last one was today, when i said to someone who is competing at the top of his field in a card game, that in people at the top of their field often virtue is a hidden aspect of their set. i quoted a study on the difference between models and supermodels where the supermodels were found to be never smoking and calling their moms all the time, which wasn't the case with the models. so far, so good. but my description was something like: "... to find some sanity in the crazy world of gay photographers and..."
most fashion photographers are gay, this is not homophobic [and i'm not homophobic] but just an illustration [actually based on good data; i asked a former model who topped out at 8000 eu/day about this]. however, it is just a bit close to home: that over-familiarity with slightly sleazy insider detail about sexual things.
the other one was yesterday, with my nephew, when visiting my sister: he's just in school and has some problems with 'math'. i tried to get him interested in matching number synesthetically, i.e. with colors, scents etc. when i arrived he as all excited, measuring everything with a rule. i engaged him on this with some little hacks but as he is also at the age where everything mildly sleazy, especially about excrement, farting etc. cracks him up i took it a little that way to keep his interest by making it fun and not to be to paedagogic but make his interest more intrinsic.
so, i suggested he measure his dick when he held the rule near it, perhaps only accidentally [he had already measured it and shot back: '6 cm!'] and as he goofed around i told him, he could measure my sister's breasts [which she objected to]. - it was all impulsive & fluid and quite normal for me but due to my resolution i afterwards disliked it.
these things were not to incite sexual desire or release it but i find they perpetuate a kind of personality that finds it natural to be interested in and close to a sexual interest that inclines toward stimulation.
i guess, i'll have to do this by counting hours, too... [sigh!] restart at 11 am today, then...

 

aesthetically, i like these kind of exhortations, only i find they often don't do justice to the real world situations i find myself in. there are just so many situations in which i found street speech & street cred reaches good people for significant purposes so much better than the grace bestowing wise counsel type interactions i've come to witness. i would really like to hear the experience of someone who found a good way to transition from the funny, fluid, tolerant, image-rich language of the street to some pious form, with or without sacrifices...

 

so with my new count, starting from the unnecessary 'gay photographer' reference, i now have about 36 hrs of relatively pure speech. however, largely this coincided with me hardly speaking to anybody at all, except in very formal settings, i.e. discussing linquistic intricacies of a dead language.
there may be wisdom in that, too: just to stay away from to informal type communication is - if not always useful - then certainly during transition.

 

today, i was reminded of a disadvantage of informal rough speech that i would otherwise probably brush off. two months ago, a correspondence with an acquaintance trailed off [he didn't reply anymore]. this happens.
however, in the mail i had mentioned a rather rude, humorous thing i said. it was well received in the original circumstance, but i couldn't stop wondering if he had found this offensive and didn't reply because of that or if that contributed as a factor.
i think that makes quite a good standard for good speech: if one writes a mail and doesn't get a reply, does one have to wonder if it's something written in the mail?
for example, this post: the way it's phrased now, i don't think i'd have such a concern. ppl may not like the style or that i don't capitalize properly but that wouldn't cause me worry or regret. but if i had quoted that bit of rude speech, i mentioned above, i might worry, as well as regret.
that rudeness was not made with intention to hurt or offend and it worked like a charm to diffuse a tense situation. but rude, confrontational & critical speech, even gossip, require extremely specific settings to work out. even if sort of 'wholesome' in intend: if the reciprocation is not perfectly as intended, they tend to come back to haunt, often for long... in that aspect purity is simply peace: nothing to explain...

 

i find these lamas, especially the tibetan ones usually extremely heart-warming as people but i wonder sometimes if their teachings aren't a bit 'priced to sell'.
i dont think, for example, that the Buddha would say something like that. in fact, the Buddha not only forbade monks to live together without speaking but also illustrated speech-activity as thought and consideration, explicitly saying that this is because it is these thoughts that become speech. some of this is covered by the scientific term [and fascinating research on] subvocalization.
don't get me wrong: i love being alone or in in silent communal contexts. but when i'm in a sexual-obsession mode, for example, there is absolutely nothing purifying about it. quite the contrary: it's a laboratory to prefab later speech even more than social situation with their predictable range.
certainly for me, purifying speech is a much bigger job - almost like becoming another person. more careful, more kind, more thoughtful... quite a bit more earnest...

 

today, i have a bit of a test. quite a few opportunities to let things slip. it's great to have this place to make a forward announcement, instead of just assuming that everything will be fine. i'll post my transgressions or challenges...

 

quite a few challenges today. with regards to one, in particular, i'm not sure if i should reset or not. at the time and before i thought not, just now i'm more inclined to start over.
the intention was good but.... i asked a lady of my acquaintance who is working in the millieu, if that's explicit enough, if beauty was a factor in the industry. i tried to get her out of some truly unproductive annoyance loops. with women, especially young women, pointing out that anger makes you ugly works perhaps better than any other kind of incentive to let go of anger, i find. my point was that she would perhaps not be so angry if she considered it an indulgence that cost her 20 000 bucks. she listened and gave me an interesting expertise to the effect that beauty is massively overrated and often avoided by customers. from the tone, i believe she wanted to deflect but at the same time heard me.
at the time i thought that this wasn't in my range of alerts because there was no intention to provoke, nor any sexual interest, nor was it putting anybody down or the like. i carefully abstained from using any kind of street language, using just vague terminology, like '...the industry', and brining it up was not offensive in any way to her; almost the contrary.
but just thematically and considering that i've just started this program, i'm now more inclined to reset. a factor for resetting would also be that i raised this, in other words, it wasn't brought to me. and being ADD i have a basically limitless amount of ideas & means to argue my point, so i could have thought of something else. this was just easy, strong and a well-worn path, using the advantages of prior bonding & letting her be the expert while hearing me out. i'll think about it overnight but you are certainly welcome to weigh in.
i'm happy to listen but indulge me if i decide differently. i find one weakness of this and similar forums is that ppl incline towards advising decicively with very little prior inquiry or knowledge of complex circumstance - myself included... but in this and similar cases a lot is in the fine print, the history, established roles etc. - still, i'm most interested to listen and retain positions for later, even if i decide different in a case at hand.

 

thanks for the response. are you talking about steven levine, the one with ondrea as a wife?
i'm not sure if i understand correctly your point - please explain, if you would - but my own position is that a lot of what many people consider harsh or rude speech is in many circumstances anything but. many forms of especially jocular rudeness actually function as intimacy indicators that take the edge of criticism, while it can still make it possible to be straight. in print or quoted out of context, it can be look terrible to call someone 'm*******r' or 'b***c' but in many settings this can be a very kind, considerate thing to say.
is that what you're driving at?

 

I'm really dragging my feet a bit on this 'project'. The problem is that I'd like to make myself into this pious boy who has never heard about the things that ppl have to do to procreate, let alone thought such things. I love the idea, but can't find a way there. I'm the polar opposite. It's not only bad, though. That is the problem.
Example: So, I have this girl coming over [it’s not a sexual thing] and she likes to make these elaborate arrangements. As a result, a feather drops & she’s going ballistic, inside. So, whenever she’s planning a cool thing, I’m now saying to her: 'You know that this could be the worst day of the year, right?' … so, she’s like metaphorically nodding like a kid and I’m: ‘So what you gonna do when that happens? Suck it up, like a bitch, right?’ [caught smirk, nod…]… totally works. I just don’t know how to make these kinds of things go over the same way with a very pious speech form. It would come out preachy; even if I muffle it [I could give her a funny look and wiggle my finger at her in a humorous way], to me, that’s just a loss of of a cool tool for nothing. Rude speech allows me to be direct without being hurtful because it's humorous. - Not sure, where this is going...