I can’t believe I’m actually adamant to write about this. I mean, why, right? First of all the title already says it all, and it would be better to wait until I have some clarity on how to unstuck myself from this. How to get back some faith in myself, instead of wallowing in everything I did wrongly.

Maybe by using a term like “writing off” I hope to at least be thorough this time. That by admitting I did few things right, and the things I did do right have been undone or I m unable to enjoy anymore, that at least that means I m at rock bottom.
And they always say rock bottom is a solid foundation.

And I m not even at rock bottom because of any causes from outside of myself: Financially, health-wise, socially? I ve had so much luck and so much support. It would be hard to blame this on anyone or anything else, there are no mitigating circumstances. Maybe autism, but since I m self-diagnosed also because after 5 months on a waiting list I didn’t want to lose even more precious time waiting for my life to pick up, that doesn’t really count.
Besides with the amount of help and love I receive, and the talents I have, it should not matter that much that I m autistic. I don’t even have any of the sensatory sensitivities.
So I m not going to give that as a validation.

No, as far as I m concerned, this is my fault and since I m almost 50, I m in a hurry getting back on track and not wasting whatever time remains.

The good news is that I ve developed a model that explains why I ve chosen wrongly. Why those 25 years ended up in the drain and those 25 kilos on my hips. The model will become my signature system under my real name, to explain life, the universe and everything else, although it would have been more timely if I had invented this when turning 42. 
And since I prefer to keep this alterego as separate from my real name as I Google-wise can, I will not be using the same terminology.

So although the definitions and the model, the schedule, is precise in the model which I developed, and I can use it to explain every aspect of life, I will now choose to use the different levels in a more storytelling style.
Not a visual one.
And also, and this is something I CAN do here, and that will be on the background for my other work, I will start by illustrating it with the example of my sex life.

The only area of my life, as far as I am concerned, where I chose correctly and managed to thrive in something that is uniquely me.
And that I would have given priority to keep going, if all the extra weight and probably more importantly the weight of not succeeding and being frustrated, had knocked the unbridled joy out of that as well.

I m like: Why would I have sex, if I can’t even set up a fucking decent career? Why would I rejoice in my physicality, if all I ve done is gaining weight?
This is not the body I want to have sex with, and this is not the life I want to have sex in.

So even that success, of designing a good sex life, is past its due date. But it is still a great illustration of the general model. And why I fucked up my life, big time.
So here we go.
My model that explains life, the universe and everything else, illustrated with my sex life.

I will give them names that have to do with food. Since I m probably not going to have that anymore! 

level 1: room and board
The first level of sex, is the level you end up with if you just put one foot in front of the other, and limit your excesses to your youth and to groups and cultures where such behavior is allowed. At least temporarily.
So you re always staying within the moral code of your social circle.
In the most positive scenario, you end up with a wholesome, reliable, loving sex life. In the most negative case, you end up completely stuck in monogamy or with a relationship you do not want, or you do not have a sex life even though you would want one. 
Level 1 is where you are greatly dependent on your surroundings, and where if you want change you either have to remove yourself from the whole system, throw in all your social skills to win key figures for your agenda, or even turn into an activist and change the whole society you live in.
Level 1 is characterized by a high level of unfreedom.

level 2: home cooked meals
The second level of sex is where you deliberately craft your own sex life. You learn what your options are. You re not afraid to seek out a therapist, read books, study, talk, experiment, and to end relationships when the sex is no longer satisfying.
Even if circumstances are not ideal, you manage to serve something wholesome.
At level 2 you have an understanding of the ingredients that go into cooking, and are able to create a desired outcome.

level 3: your own recipes
The third level of sex is where you have your own sexual, cultural lingo, a narrative of your sexual history; You develop sexual concepts, or adapt existing sexual concepts to make them your own.
Level 3 is where as you age, your cooking improves significantly. You cultivate and expand on your own past recipes and incorporate the old with the new.
By now the way you cook has become uniquely yours, and it is no longer just functional.
Engaging in it, has become equally important. Cooking has become an activity you engage in for its own sake.

level 4: Chef level
The fourth and final level of sex, is where your understanding of what you’re doing, of the dynamics of it, greatly outweighs that of the average participant or consumer. You, as well as others who are at your level, do not even possess the vocabulary to describe what it is that happens at this level. All you know is that you recognize each other, and that ultimately whether you re talking about having sex or cooking or anything else;
That ultimately being at this level, sets you apart from society in both good and bad ways.
It can affect your connection at the first level, since no one dares to cook for you anymore.
Although “Chef” of course indicates that there is a predictable outcome (that of Michelin star worthy food) at level 4,  cooking has really transcended  to something that is no longer cooking.
When you are in the kitchen now, anything can happen.
The kitchen has become a playground, and you could even experiment with moving the kitchen to camping, or to cooking fish under the hood on the motor engine.

Sexually, I have been at level 4.

Creatively, I have been at number 3, yet the coat of being a writer has never fit me.

But professionally?
Professionally, I have wasted my life – or 25 years to be exact – to whining and complaining that it just.did.not.work!
At level 1.
Of course it didn’t work at level 1, anymore than my frickin’ sex life was going to work there!

But I ve also kept toying with the thought of setting up a bonafide level 2 business,  in coaching, elearning, or yoga. 
And yet, it always ended with me NOT doing that, and getting extremely angry and irritated with myself as well. I knew that for me being at level 2 was even a bigger waste than being at level 1.
At level 1, you have friends, family, society at large.
At least there is some social groundedness and love, to balance out the constrictive conservative energy surrounding that whole level.
But level 2?

Why on earth would I turn myself inside out to set up a professional monetary structure one way or the other, when it was absolutely not what I wanted to do?
I need to be able to walk away! And to BURN the entire idea of building a business or career that would basically just stack one limitation, and contractual obligation onto the next.
Yes, I want to be able to see my skills being rewarded with cash.

But not while simultaneously building a prison of liabilities and structures which have to be maintained for decades to come.

I m not going to give my freedom to act in order to become a successful professional, anymore than I have been willing to give my sexual freedom to be an accepted member of society.
But the pull of building a level 2 business model is strong… just this weekend I considered buying a laptop (my current one doesn’t have a camera or microphone) that would allow for me to give coaching calls.
Stopped myself in my tracks reminding myself that if it wasn’t part of my endgame, it wasn’t worth investing in.

That Madonna didn’t become Madonna because she tagged along Patrick Hernandez to Paris.
That it was all lost time, half a year I believe. She flew home disillusioned but also understanding that if she wanted success no one was going to help her.
She was going to have to build it brick by brick herself.

I look back on almost four years of still considering to join Patrick Hernandez in Paris because my own music is not making me any money and “he” (a bonafide level 2 business model, and the exposure that comes with it) can give me the money, the recognition AND a stage!

In hindsight, the moment I set out to develop my sexuality, and 7 years ago established Chef level;
Everything changed.

You can’t have sex at chef level and expect the rest of your life to stay the same. The only level I will ever be satisfied doing anything, is level 4. The rest will not taste even half as good, gastronomically speaking. The clothes at level 1, 2 and 3 will always be too small, fashionably speaking. And that’s not just because I consider myself 25 kg overweight.

Technically it’s not 25 kilos. It’s less. But I have lost weight before and plateaued at a healthy weight that was higher than what I m aiming for now.
I think partially, I aim for 25 kilos gone because then I m at least below that plateau. That I no longer have to be afraid to gain it all back and more, like I ultimately did, because I will no longer stop where I stopped that time.
I will push through to an even lower weight.

As if I m like:
“Well, since that end weight didn’t work, I m going to push through it.”

But you know?
Now that I m writing this to you, I think the problem the last time I lost weight, had nothing to do with not having the right end weight.
But with me doing it, in a very level 2 like fashion.
I lost weight because I ate less and exercised more. It was very outcome focused. Very, very level 2.

So I think the solution is not to lose 25 kilos this time. Although for literary reasons, in the title, 25 is of course the right number in combination with the 25 years, which is 1997, the year my performance project is taking a place.
I want to become a time capsule artist.
I want to live in 1997 as an almost 25 year old, as the series on this blog also indicates.

I started this 25 year ago series in 2019, and it takes time to get my head around it and be consistent in this time capsule, or time travel art.
But I think I understand how it is all related now!

What I need to do, losing the weight, is not focus on how much kg, nor be eager to compare it for good or for bad with the last time I successfully shed the pounds in a conventional, level 2, manner.
What I need to do is get losing weight and recreating my life and career, all the way UP to level 4! 

I need my money making activities and weight loss project to transcend not just the level of society (level 1), transcend the level of measurable results (level 2), transcend the level of having a recognizable system that I designed and that I can talk about (level 3);
I need to go all the way to level 4.

I will not lose weight until I bring losing weight at the level my sex life used to have. Level 4: Transcending it to something that is more than just a lighter body.
Instead I will bring it to being a 25 year old and 25 kilogram lighter version.

Neither will I have a career until I bring it at the level 4, a mastership level where I decide what it is: The career Lauren Harteveld will have in 1997.

The book says the number 42, is the answer to life, the universe and everything else. I remember that birthday. I was emotionally entangled with two men that year, they had both meant a lot to me in the past. I was convinced I would remember the year forever, because of them suddenly being in it.
But that wasn’t the case.

In December I met the man who would become my lover. The lover with whom I now notice I can no longer enjoy the sex the way I used to, because my body, career, and entire life are no longer at the level of our sex life.
Our sex life is still at level 4.
But I am not.

Although that summer of 2014, was so legendary, nurturing, wonderful; I remember 2014 more strongly, because of meeting him.
And I was at level 4 then, exactly at the right place to meet a man of such caliber.

But maybe the answer is indeed that the reason I was entangled with 3 wonderful men that year, was because I turned 42.
And that it really is, the answer to life, the universe and everything else.

I think I ll aim at losing 24 kilos 😉 

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/