u/windowsee

I'm not crazy about the album but I went in for another listen. I already knew a lot of the songs sounded like songs I've heard before, but these two literally jumped out to me today.

I get taking inspiration but.... The same melody and progression on two different songs back to back????? Baby no.......

I'm just so confused by this album still! I was expecting it to sound different because taemin was more in control.

Well it DOES sound different from his previous work. In his previous work, I never heard a song that sounded like a replica of another song. Even the R&B and hip-hop, which can sound like imitations of western songs which is known to be a thing with kpop artists, taemin always sounded original with how he did it. I'm not getting that at all with these songs (I do like float though).

It took me my entire life to start realizing this, but no one truly thinks the same things because everyone has a different life experience.

A lot of our actions/words are built on a foundation of things we've learned and experienced throughout our life. If you grow up with controlling/abusing parents or otherwise, that simple fact is contorted because rather than being able to be healthily self-centered, you become centered on keeping the peace and appeasing other people. This trickles down into everything that you do and think over time. "You" becomes intermingled with "everyone else" and it becomes very difficult to make out who "you" really are and how you really feel.

Nevermind that it's unhealthy, but it's fundamentally NOT TRUE. Even if you live the rest of your life people pleasing and always sacrificing yourself, not only will it hurt you, you will also actually not really be accomplishing anything. All you've done is created a specific role for yourself that everyone expects you to play because they can, and you will. You literally just become a tool at people's disposal, not much different from being a can opener.

This is NOT the same thing as being kind, considerate and caring. Those are traits that come from within. People pleasing/self-sacrificing are externally focused and they rest on the premise that your words/actions will be perceived how you THINK they will be. That does not work because you cannot read people's mind and you do not know what their life experience is. We've all experienced situations where we thought we were doing something kind/neutral, just to find out the other person took it as a slight to them and resents you for it. Or we've all had a deep belief about the world and fairness that we thought everyone shared, just to find that not to be true.

The lesson is to do what YOU want to do and what YOU feel is right because it is YOUR will. Obviously be mindful of others and balance putting others first sometimes if you want to be generous and it doesn't come at your detriment. But don't do things mostly because of how someone else will feel. You have no idea what is going on in their mind unless they tell you, and even then not necessarily.

Things will either:

1. be aligned to what you want and is what is true to you, and perceived well by others, or

2. be aligned to what you want and is what is true to you, and NOT perceived well by others, or

3. be aligned to what you want and is what is true to you, and be NEUTRALLY perceived by others, or

4. NOT be aligned to what you want and is what is true to you, and perceived well by others, or

5. NOT be aligned to what you want and is what is true to you, and NOT perceived well by others, or

6. NOT be aligned to what you want and is what is true to you, and be NEUTRALLY perceived by others.

You can't control how others perceive your actions, but you can control whether or not you do what aligns with you.

This is something I've been wondering for a while. I experimented with it plenty of times and the interesting thing is, my day basically goes by as usual minus the excess noise in my head.

But what about more complex decisions/actions? I find that especially when there's a decision I need to make and it's dragging out over the course of a few days or longer, it becomes quite hard to just remain an observer.

I'm in a pretty turbulent place in life rn and I have to make relatively big decisions quite often, and it feels almost impossible to not keep falling into thinking a lot.

I know that thinking isn't a "bad" thing and is simply a tool, but "how much" thinking is "okay"? Sometimes I feel like I should just wait until it's absolutely necessary to make a decision before really giving it a thought because I find that I just go back and forth and stress out until then.

What do you guys think?

I've lived here my whole life and have traveled/lived all over the world. No where else is daily life as nonsensical and frustrating as NYC.

The reason why is because this city is literally bait to get you to come and invest, and it gives you the absolute shittiest product in return for your money. But the idea is that no where else can you find this many shitty things so conveniently.

I say weaponized incompetence because living here and demanding things for your tax dollars, we are ALWAYS given the bottom of the barrel solution. The solutions are late, low quality, and doesn't even really solve the problem but we're told "the city is old and there's a lot of people and other cities in the US don't have this so just be grateful and shut up." The worst part is that it takes so fucking long to get anything completed here that by the time it's finished, you're just over the entire thing. It feels like things only get done to shut people up and just to say "look, we did it."

24/7 extensive subway that's the best in the US? Sure, but it's filthy, terrible air quality, riddled with mentally ill people, incredibly dangerous + police do nothing about it, not accessible if you have mobility issues, don't speak perfect English, or have any sort of hearing impairment. Rats EVERYWHERE. Trains/busses delayed constantly. And the cherry on top is increasingly frequent price raises.

The Port Authority Bus Terminal is an absolute embarrassment. Huge terminal that can take you all around, but incredibly confusing, falling apart, and basically zero proper signage for where you buses are.

The airports? JFK is AWFUL. You have to pay $8.75 just to get to transportation, the workers are rude, the place is grimey, and having to pay for luggage carts is beyond cruel (I know this is an American thing).

Most of these complaints relate to Port Authority, but it's everything. Affordable housing is a joke, the school system is a joke, law enforcement is a joke, politics are a joke, everything! All of these things that apparently have so much effort being put into them turn out to be just so poorly executed to the point where it's hard to imagine there was any real intention to get something done.

So often I Google/search reddit about things I experience and I find myself almost constantly ending up resonating with people on subreddits about OCD/ADHD/autism/anxiety/Aspergers/HSP (usually not depression though).

I do online assessments and I'm not where near what qualifies for potential diagnosis, and I also do realize that my "symptoms" don't seem to necessarily be as far-reaching as everyone else's. And also I've seen/interacted with people who actually are diagnosed with these and clearly I'm not at the extent.

But it lowkey makes it so hard cause if I did fit nicely, it would at least be a step in a direction. I've been putting off therapy because the experience of finding one with availability and quality and all that jazz is such a hassle.

I mostly just wanted to ask you guys if you had any experience with this?

Most people would probably agree that being in nature is good for our well-being, but I think that part is just the tip of the iceberg.

I would go as far as to say that your surroundings are probably the biggest influence on how well you can meditate and feel good.

Like physical work, mental work builds on itself. But physical work/healing is not super dependent on your environment - a cut heals whether you're in a busy city or middle of nowhere wilderness.

Mental healing/calmness is not quite as straightforward. A lot of healing on that front actually is facilitated by distance. Distance from your stressors, distance from the sources/reminders of your trauma, even distance from yourself and your thoughts.

Although not impossible to "get better," I genuinely believe that how well you heal emotionally/mentally is contingent on your ability to be in a healing environment (whatever that means to you). When I worked at the worst job I've ever had, there was no amount of meditation or yoga that ever really stabilized me. It was a CONSTANT struggle to meditate.

The mind is really a fascinating thing because it does an insane amount of work to protect you, whether you realize it or not. Although you think that you're okay staying in an uncomfortable environment because you've found ways to cope, I can almost guarantee that your body/mind are not as stable as you think they are.

The remarkable thing is that you actually will never know how much "healing" you need unless you remove yourself from those environments AND quite a bit of time has passed.

Meditation is not something you just start doing and think life will be easier/more peaceful. It's been discussed before but there is so much more to peace and well-being than being able to let your thoughts go by for 10-15 minutes of the day. It's so much more than that.

Simply meditating and not dissecting your life and identifying where your issues are coming from is like sitting in a burning house with your eyes closed and a candle lit. Most people don't decide to start randomly meditating. 9/10 times, it's because they are stressed/anxious/depressed about things in their life. Meditating will not fix those issues, you have to actually do something about them!

I've been on a "spiritual journey" and all that jazz. Astrology, meditation, consciousness, you name it.

Today I finally took shrooms and it was a rollercoaster to say the least.

I will say the one big takeaway I had is that although I may not know everything about the world or even myself, I am HAPPY to BE ME. I am so grateful that I exist as I do in this body with this mind.

During my trip, I felt like I became "not me" and just part of everything. That was fun for a bit, I guess, but I am sooooooo glad to be back to myself lol the entire time I was dying to get back to being me. I can't stop touching myself because I'm just so glad to be back in the "physical" world with my physical self.

Idk that was just my biggest feeling from it. Fuck the spiritual stuff, the metaphysical stuff, all of that. I AM ME IN THIS BODY!! That's all that matters!! I am a human with a body that experiences a sliver of existence and have limitations but also strengths, and that's enough!!!

I am fragile, made of flesh and bone. I can't see everything, I can't observe everything, feel, hear, or perceive everything. I have THOUGHTS!! I can move and interact with things and other people, and I can create stuff! I can eat food, feel pain, feel pleasure, be happy and be sad. that's sooo beautiful!!

This might be a silly question, but I just want to hear some perspectives so I feel a bit clearer.

I've recently read The Untethered Soul and it's been pretty striking. I was already working on separating myself from my thoughts, but this kinda took it up to another level and I'm actually not sure where to go.

Even when separating myself from my thoughts, I still allowed myself to be introspective and "learn more" about myself (whatever that means). But it was in this learning that I inadvertently created mental models and they all came crashing down in one day -- which is actually what triggered me to read Untethered Soul.

But now I'm at a loss. It's not that I think I've misunderstood EVERYTHING, it's moreso that I don't "know" or "feel" good/confident about my introspection. Everything feels like just thoughts and ramblings now.

Even when I try to sit and trace patterns that have occured in my life and try to learn from them, I wonder if I'm just feeding the cycle of engaging with thoughts. I wonder if I should just stop looking inward at all and just "do nothing."

Specifically, today I've been trying to unpack how I've viewed dating and my attractions. It was pretty insightful and it felt good writing down my thoughts/patterns and working through them.

But is this not just anti-meditation? If I'm separating myself from my thoughts, is it not counterproductive to unpack my history of thoughts? Is it not just convincing yourself of something that sounds like it makes sense, despite the fact that we're capable of thinking irrationally? In that vein, wouldn't therapy be useless if we were all just present at all times? (I feel like the answer to that is yes)

So I guess to sum up, is introspection just another way of allowing your thoughts to proliferate and to feel some sense of control? Theoretically, if we just remained present from here onward, would introspection be useless?

Now the reason I said this could be a silly question is that the big counterargument I can think of is:

The purpose of remaining the observer of thoughts is NOT to stop thinking because thinking is not bad or good, it just is. The purpose is to maintain a more objective view of reality, rather than projecting your thoughts outward and inward.

If you can see that you nor the world were ever your thoughts, you can release the perceptions that you had/have that hold you back. Just because you think something, does not mean it is or isn't.

You cannot control your thoughts, at all. Therefore there's no point in trying to stop thoughts because you will just wear yourself out. WHEN you have thoughts, if you can avoid identifying with them and just remain an observer, then you will be okay.

But idk this was just a stream of thoughts, I'm curious to what you guys think!

I mean, humans have gone through so much at this point. Just coming off of an extinction flood because of their evil and rebuilding from scratch. God even promised them he wouldn't do it again and literally just told them to go around the world and have fun.

Then you get this group of people who decide basically "I like this area, let's just stay here and be chill."

I imagine God is just looking at them like... "You guys i just had to remodel this entire freaking planet and there's a bunch of cool stuff here and you're supposed to explore... And you guys are just staying in this one spot??"

If anyone has ever hosted a big event/party/activity, especially for a group of kids, you know how frustrating it is to do a bunch of work to set up just for everyone to hang around one spot.

After a point, you're just like "I'm glad you guys are having fun doing this one thing, but it took me forever to set this up so YOU go over here, YOU go over there, and make this work worth it!!!"

Rules are like guardrails for your goals. Rules are important because they restrict. They keep things contained.

Rules are the line that separates "this" from "that." The more blurred (or non-existent) that line is, the less clearly something is "this" and not "that."

What are the "rules" or "lines" that separates a bowl of cereal and a bowl of soup? What are the rules that separate basketball from football?

What separates "your goals" from "not your goals?" What makes "your art" different from "my art?"

Most likely, you already have a good idea of what you want to achieve. If you're struggling, it's likely because you haven't done enough to clarify what you're aiming for. If your vision isn't clear to you, it will be easy to fall into the trap of doing work that doesn't actually help your goals.

So I challenge you, create rules! But NOT productivity rules. I'm NOT talking about making yourself work 15 minutes a day for a month.

Create rules that narrow your vision. Specifically, create rules that reduce the scope of what you can do so you focus only on what is core to your goal.

Of course as you get a better vision of your goal, you can create more rules or remove some, but not until you have made significant progress and you feel comfortable.

Examples:

• Music makers: make a rule that you can only use up to two instruments/sounds per song.
• Artists: make a rule that you cannot use any color, or only one color.
• People trying to become more active: make a rule that you will not spend more than 30 minutes per day exercising.
• Aspiring cooks: make a rule that you will only use salt and 1-2 seasonings for all of your cooking.

These sound super restrictive, but that is the point! Most of us actually are not capable of working with a wide toolbox, at least not initially. Even professionals aren't as versatile as you may think. Many found specific things that they focus on and improve - hence why we can enjoy such a variety of things in our society.

So go fourth and start laying down the law for yourself!

Even before meditation and the "spiritual journey", I feel like I've always had a sense of being an observer and not really fitting in with what was around me.

I've always been a bit confused/intrigued when I hear people talk about their life. Especially on Reddit, people do a really good job of painting a picture of their life. In general, people also seem very willing to share information about their life, things that have happened, their interests, their achievements, etc...

I realized I've never quite been able to do that. I am unable to summarize my life in a way that can actually give people context about who I am, primarily because I don't necessarily see my life as "who I am." My life just feels like "things that I have done/experienced."

I can talk about the trauma I endured as a child and my heartbreaks, and those things do make me emotional and have taught me a lot about the world. But that's really all I see it as: I experienced these things, it affected me, and now I no longer am experiencing the thing. And that's it.

And it's not that I don't remember, my memory is perfectly fine. It's just those things don't really feel like part of me? If I'm not thinking about it, it might as well have never happened. It's only relevant to me when I think about it and I need it to be relevant. Otherwise, I don't care all that much.

It also is partly why I feel uncomfortable/indifferent talking about my life. I cherish my experiences, but I don't necessarily enjoy recounting them to others. It feels like having to go over old data that I already processed and it's really uninteresting to me. I only really share stuff like that if it's relevant to the topic or if specifically asked.

I imagine it's why I can probably be quite optimistic about life and maintain positive self-talk. I can reflect on the past in a way where I focus only on the events without necessarily internalizing it.

Despite being bullied and disrespected for so much of my life, I've always been oddly self-confident (obviously I could've been MORE confident if not for that). Sure I wasn't always happy, but I do feel like I'm weirdly self-adjusted.

Even learning about my trauma, breaking away from toxicity, unlearning bad habits, meditating... I've been able to pick those things up relatively fast. Everything negative just feels like an obstacle that is to be overcome sooner or later. And it feels like it's because none of "this" is a part of me. It can all be recontextualized and removed if need be.

Is this some kind of spiritual thing? I'm not gonna lie, I sometimes worry if I'm bordering on psychotic break when I have these thoughts lol

If you get overwhelmed with a big idea or a big goal and your mind starts racing on all the possibilities and directions you take.

I suggest having all of the thoughts, and just do nothing. Just forget about them.

The reason why is that not all of our thoughts are valid/practical/sensible.

What happens is what I call "thought sandwiching." Thoughts that are relevant are accompanied by thoughts that are irrelevant/not as valid. But because they all came together, we might group all of them as "good" or "actionable."

In reality, most of those thoughts are nonsense, impractical, impossible to execute at the current moment, or just clutter distracting you from the most crucial aspects.

So I suggest, allow those thoughts to come but don't put pressure on yourself to act on them or do anything immediately. If you give it time, you'll find that most of those thoughts are completely forgotten and only the most crucial, actionable ones remain. Those are the ones you should actually look at first.

Don't worry about forgetting something. A lot of those thoughts are contingent on other things being true, so there's no reason to try to remember F when you aren't even sure about ABCDE.

Once the thought rush passes and the adrenaline dies down, you can actually take stock of what you have and what you're realistically capable of. The kicker is that often, just doing a few small things actually gets you quite far in your pursuit!

But that clarity only comes if you allow the noise to clear!

I think the psychological trap we fall into is feeling like the problem is MORE urgent because we're putting a lot of energy into it. But it's just a trap! Just because you thought of potential solutions doesn't change anything about the actual problem. Especially if it's been a problem for a while, a few minutes/hours/days/weeks is unlikely to move the needle much so there's no need to rush into implementing a solution.

I just am so fickle with people sometimes!

Apart from my closest friends, it's becoming harder for me to engage with people for longer than a few minutes without totally losing interest. Sometimes it feels like there's a script and nothing all that new or interesting is going to come of it. Interesting people do and say surprising things, but most people are not really that interesting.

My attention feels like a switch, I'm into it until I'm not and then I need MORE! I need to explore more, I need to dig deeper, I need to paint a clear picture.

It explains why temporary interactions (randomly meeting people in public) do not interest me at all. There is no "easy" path to dig deeper and I don't have enough information for me to feel like it's even worth pursuing it further.

It also explains why it's easy for me to get close to coworkers/develop crushes at work. There's ample time to really dive into people in a controlled, consistent way.

Even in dating/attraction, I can go from "wow I'd do anything to get them" to "who cares" in a few minutes. It also might explain why dating sounds miserable, but I think about married life often, positively.

I just feel no interest in intentionally getting to know someone, it has to happen as a side effect. The feeling of intimacy, trust, feeling like I know someone inside and out is what really endears me to people.

But even then, I can be very "take it or leave it." I can acknowledge that I really feel close to someone, but I also would be perfectly fine without them and don't even feel like going out of my way to maintain the connection.

Tbh if I'm being most optimistic, it does sound like extreme efficiency. There is an opportunity cost to relationships and we feel that deeply, so the best way for us to be comfortable with a relationship is to be able to kill many birds with one stone. Maintaining a relationship for its own sake feels like a waste of time and energy. Starting one also takes time and energy, so it's hard to turn that part of ourself on if it seems unlikely to be that beneficial.

I guess the caveat would be that you won't know someone is interesting until you give them the time, which I think is fair. But also, do I care that much? This person MIGHT be totally interesting and contribute something major to my life. I could invest time in that, OR I could invest time in something I definitely am interested in and that will definitely give me a ROI.

This isn't unique to us, people seek relationships to fill some need. Whether emotional, practical, creative, etc.. I think INTJs are just so self-sufficient that we outsource our needs far less. We feel confident enough with ourselves that we'd rather rely on in-house skill than to put up with any of the stress that comes from outside.

It's just that self-sufficiency is so underrepresented/undervalued in our society that we feel "wrong." Our society breeds traits like laziness, outsourcing, codependency, etc.. You've probably seen it when looking for guidance on something, many people's first instinct is to tell you to go to a professional. It's not necessarily bad advice, but people are used to putting off work to other people and it robs them of opportunities to learn and become more self-sufficient.

If you can imagine doing something or you see someone else doing it but you're struggling, you're almost certainly making a mistake somewhere and you almost certainly have no idea what it is. And the more you continue, the more you train yourself to make the mistake.

Whenever you find yourself struggling and things are not "clicking" after few attempts, usually you're doing something wrong. It's not necessarily that you lack the skill, it's moreso you haven't properly trained yourself to effectively use that skill.

The solution to this is to do something easier. Do the same thing, but easier. And do it until you get the result you want.

If you do something simpler and still do not get the result, you need to make it even more simple. Do not stop making it simpler until you get the result you want.

Once that happens, work your way back up incredibly gradually. Do not rush this! The idea is that you're training your body/brain gradually to integrate the most basic things. Usually what you'll find is that you'll hit a point where you can't do it properly at all, which is likely at a level a lot simpler than what you originally were attempting.

Just go back to keeping it as simple as possible and only progress when you can do things perfectly to your satisfaction. Don't cheat! If you rush this just to get to your goal faster, you literally will only be sabotaging yourself.

All complex things are just a bunch of basic things. The more you master the basic things, the complex things will literally just come naturally.

Examples:

• if you want to start meditating and are struggling to go for 10 mins, start with 30 seconds, then 1 minute, 2 minutes, etc...
• if writing a book is difficult, write a whole story in a few sentences. Then a paragraph, then 2 paragraphs, etc...
• if you're learning to code a website and are struggling, literally just get the most barebones of it. If you're creating a blog, focus only on getting the text on the screen. Once that is done, then you can gradually think about design.

I know this probably sounds insensitive to say in a sub like this, but I do want to share it because I'm sure some can relate.

It took me years to finally learn that just because most people are nice/pleasant with you, it says really nothing about their character.

For so long, people would be confused as to why I was friends with certain people. Particularly people who others tend to have "disagreements" with. I always assumed it was those people's personal problems and that since that person has never treated me poorly, I have no reason to think negatively about them.

Which is why I was always conflicted when I'd heard something, usually at work, about a manger/boss being super rude to a coworker. Of course I believe the coworker, but I always was skeptical and assumed they had to share some blame because I never had a bad experience with said person.

But after learning about my trauma and more about myself, I see how I've been under such a false spell my whole life. I've learned that, no, some people are just nasty and they pick and choose when to display it.

There's just something about me that, I suppose, makes people realize they'd be better of being nice to me. Perhaps they can use me for something and they'll keep me around as long as they're pleasant with me.

Most times it's not a big deal, but particularly damaged people do see that and kinda sink their teeth into you. It's really an exercise in gaslighting: always treating you well despite treating everyone else like shit. It makes you think there must be something wrong with other people. And it makes it difficult for you to have a "valid" reason to end the relationship /create distance because after all, they haven't done anything all that bad to you.

I think a lot of people's social struggles are rooted in them not being aware they're being taken advantage of because it's happening in a "nice" way. And it almost certainly begins with the family!

I just visited a cafe that apparently had recently opened. It's quite a nice place, it was so "LA" and I mentioned that to the barista. So far so good!

But then I noticed it just seemed to have a fake, plastic venner to it. Most of the workers looked like models and there were two groups of food reviewers that came in at the same time. It just seemed design for influencers in a strange way.

Then I realized that it kinda feels like this place belongs in LA.

And then I realized, oh shit that's what I said to the workers earlier! I didn't even mean it like that when I said it, but I just realized that you could interpret it like that. LA is already a pretty polarizing place so depending on what you think of it, me saying that could mean many different things.

But I didn't think of that lol I just said it because that's how the feeling I got. And if you were someone who didn't care for LA, you could definitely take that in a negative way.

So yeah. I just realized how things can come off as totally cold/aggressive in a totally accidental way.

That being said, a younger me would care. But this me thinks they can take it however they like and I don't care if it's offensive lol it was just how I felt

I think at the root of it is just that words cannot fully convey the depth at which we communicate. When we make a judgement, it's usually quite thorough. We can acknowledge something has pros and cons, and feel comfortable speaking because in our minds, WE know how we actually feel about it. We know that something being one thing doesn't negate it being a bunch of other things -- and we've considered the other things.

It's so deeply intuitive that we don't usually even know what we mean until we think about it more after we say it. It just so happened that the feeling that became communicated was something that can be interpreted as negative, despite us not necessarily believing it to be that bad.

I find that a big part of my sexuality is not really being pleasured by other people.

I am most aroused when I'm observing someone in a sexual state. It's not being inside them necessarily that is interesting to me. It's knowing that they really want me inside of them and seeing them be so horny.

I enjoy pleasuring people and giving them what they want. It's funny because I'm incredibly dominant at heart, so even when I'm being "submissive" I'm still in control. 

I am deeply curious as to how people I find attractive look naked. I want to feel how their body feels. I want to know what turns them on. I want to see them be sexual, either docile or aggressive. I want to see them orgasm, what face they make, what sounds they make, what they do after.

I want to see how they interact sexually with someone else.

I know this sounds voyeuristic, but I don't take pleasure in people being unaware. I want them fully aware and consenting because that is fundamentally where the pleasure comes from.

What do you guys think?

I find that a big part of my sexuality is not really being pleasured by other people.

I am most aroused when I'm observing someone in a sexual state. It's not being inside them necessarily that is interesting to me. It's knowing that they really want me inside of them and seeing them be so horny.

I enjoy pleasuring people and giving them what they want. It's funny because I'm incredibly dominant at heart, so even when I'm being "submissive" I'm still in control. 

I am deeply curious as to how people I find attractive look naked. I want to feel how their body feels. I want to know what turns them on. I want to see them be sexual, either docile or aggressive. I want to see them orgasm, what face they make, what sounds they make, what they do after.

I want to see how they interact sexually with someone else.

I know this sounds voyeuristic, but I don't take pleasure in people being unaware. I want them fully aware and consenting because that is fundamentally where the pleasure comes from.

What do you guys think?

I find that a big part of my sexuality is not really being pleasured by other people.

I am most aroused when I'm observing someone in a sexual state. It's not being inside them necessarily that is interesting to me. It's knowing that they really want me inside of them and seeing them be so horny.

I enjoy pleasuring people and giving them what they want. It's funny because I'm incredibly dominant at heart, so even when I'm being "submissive" I'm still in control. 

I am deeply curious as to how people I find attractive look naked. I want to feel how their body feels. I want to know what turns them on. I want to see them be sexual, either docile or aggressive. I want to see them orgasm, what face they make, what sounds they make, what they do after.

I want to see how they interact sexually with someone else.

I know this sounds voyeuristic, but I don't take pleasure in people being unaware. I want them fully aware and consenting because that is fundamentally where the pleasure comes from.

The reason I ask here is because I know libido and sexual attraction have strong psychological roots. As I've embraced my shadow self, I've come to realize this has been a pattern in how I'm attracted to people. I'm wondering could this be an ego thing, a personality thing, or just something that is pretty common?