I am going to self-isolate in a monastery starting on July 1st

I don't think you can develop social skills by studying them alone from a third person perspective. They are something you develop organically via trial and error, normally during childhood and puberty.
Personally the biggest social butterflies I've known all went to acting school, but whether they developed those social skills there or those types of people are simply attracted to acting I don't know. It does sound more appealing than isolation in a monastery though.

You disagree that books on communication and emotional intelligence can offer valuable insights or at least guide lines on what works more or less and what does not?

Knowledge is borderline useless without experience for anything except a 1 on 1 fit. Like math.

Will you still have access to the children faggo?

I disagree that you can integrate those insights without putting yourself out there, which defeats the point of isolation.

>Personally the biggest social butterflies I've known all went to acting school
this is why I don't fucking trust extroverts
it's all an act for them, a game

okay. thanks.
Wanting to learn social skills and dealing with others better means I am not living in the moment and I am not simply being?
What about surviving in the world?

I am referring to this post

>What about surviving in the world?
there is something changing within me.
it is almost like I am indeed living more in the moment and becoming less attched to spooks of all kinds.
I am not quite there, but I almost feel like I like myself. My insecurities are less.

I am mainly focused on my ambition and how tiny my competencies are. And this is a spook.
Being alive and living life looks like something else, something more grounded in the moment. But then, I feel aimless... there is nothign I want to do.

I think you're just overthinking it. Don't lose yourself in the social games you think you have to play, say what you mean and mean what you say.
Maybe you say something awkward and that's fine, you learn from the experience and you do better next time. It's a long grind until it starts feeling natural but that's how it works. Take it from someone who's struggled with social relations until I had to work retail.

Another thing that helped me is reading autobiographical books, they do a great job at reminding you we're all human beings with thoughts, feelings, worries and insecurities.

>I am mainly focused on my ambition and how tiny my competencies are. And this is a spook.
real ambition is supposed to stem from external reality.
My current ambitions stem from spooks.

okay mr insightful dubs. i will think about it.
i would love if you kept talking to me.

you seek meaning in life, a higher reason. that's hard to do. is simpler to pray.

I don't really have anything else to add off the top of my head, but I'll get back to you if I think of something.
The real challenge you mentioned is figuring out what to do with life, and that's something I'm struggling with myself. A lot of what I want to do often feel like childish fantasies, and yet a life of boring mediocrity sounds even worse.
I hope these things have a way of working themselves out.

if I try to stay motionless, I do not feel okay with myself. I am feeling something bad I want to get rid of.

I am almost sure it is a problem of being detached from external reality. If I was attached to external reality I would be living life.

i want to know you. you speak of prayer. and i do not understand this very well. i would like to read your message if you want to expand on it.

take things as they come, figure things out later.
i've kept planning my life my whole life and i ended up doing nothing, because i targeted too high.
start small, keep going, but think everything you do.
all things will end up anyway how will they end, the sooner or later, depending on how you decide to take action.
that's pretty much it.

prayer is a some sort of connection with god, where you ask him for something, but mostly for help. this can be done through words, through actions, through music, through anything good. everything can be considered a prayer if it is done right, in the right spirit.

>The real challenge you mentioned is figuring out what to do with life
our immediate environment only offers so many options. I identify with activities that require some forms of thinking, but there isn't anything nearby where i can explore this.

besides, i doubt i really like to think. if i really did, i would explore the subject on my own without even trying, just for the mere fascination with the activity.
but i know i really dislike what i have available.

do i really like the arts of refined thinking or is this a spook.
and it fucks with me because i know most people do not really like their jobs, but they chose their majors based on what they thought would pay them more.

you don't need to over exert into figuring this out or to fall into extremes, any is actually a good amount, as long as you don't really force yourself or lose too much time.

Do you have any concrete ideas of what you would like to do? Thinking is rather broad.

not really, but just now i was thinking of entrepreneurship.

it is something available and it does require thinking.

it is difficult for me to define what i mean by thinking, i certainly find interesting what programmers do, but i lack resolve to really get into computers, and i like my idea of what an intelligence analyst does, but i fail to get interested in big boy thinking skills.
this must mean i 'like' them because of 'spook' reasons, they aren't reasons based on a real assessment of my compentencies and immediate environemetn, just some thing i saw on tv.

this *sort* of looks like the kind of thing i am into
youtube.com/watch?v=7LqaotiGWjQ

but if I am so into it, why i procrastinate so much to engage with the activity?
these silicon valley geniuses got into computers without even trying too hard, they just saw their first computer and felt attracted to the activity, like a moth feels attracted to light

like a ritual that is supposed to have an outcome on your mood, right?