- The term was coined, I believe, by Sasha Chapin
- Sasha posts
- His blog post from Jan 2022 → “How I Attained Persistent Self-Love, or, I Demand Deep Okayness For Everyone”
- A month later → A Few Dispatches from Okayland
- Enlightenment
From Sasha’s post
Deep Okayness is not the feeling that I am awesome all the time. Instead, it is the total banishment of self-loathing. It is the deactivation of the part of my mind that used to attack itself. It’s the closure of the self as an attack surface. It’s the intuitive understanding that I am merely one of the apertures through which the universe expresses itself, so why would I hate that? It’s the sense that, while I might fuck up, my basic worth is beyond question—I have no essential damage, I am not polluted, I am fine.
What it is like
- Greater feelings of immersion in the world, sense of the sublime beauty of existence
- Greater affection for other people, directly connected to less worrying about what they think of me
- Less worrying about what type of shithead I am for not getting things done, more getting things done
- Less guilt, more skillful action to repair things done wrong in the past
- Easier time reaching deep meditative states, due to massive decrease in inner conflict
- Everything more pleasant
What it is not like
- Mania — I am sleeping and eating and acting more or less normally, it’s just smoother and better
- Lobotomization on a mood level, I am still aware of suffering in the world, and still feel sadness, it just seems less ‘personal,’ less like a threat
- Lobotomization on a tactical level, being less critical of self doesn’t mean I can’t figure out what is in my self-interest
- Self-absorption, I am more concerned than ever before with the well-being of others, both immediate and distant
- Passivity, I feel more assertive than ever, just in different ways