Amaranth Samsara and Other Tales

Exploring the dynamics of manipulation reveals how often we allow ourselves to be played in relationships. By understanding our vulnerabilities and cultivating mental wellness, we can reclaim our power and embrace our journey toward self-realization.

• Importance of recognizing manipulation in relationships 
• Vulnerability as a double-edged sword 
• Crazy wisdom and its dangerous beauty 
• The five pillars of mental wealth for empowerment 
• Meditation as a tool for clarity and focus 
• The paradox of humiliation and power dynamics 
• Embracing the fool's journey as a path to self-discovery

And then... the main event. Our feature presentation...

AMARANTH SAMSARA: A Bite-Sized Erotic Thriller

A Fever Dream of Desire, Surrender, and Transcendence

Enter a world where pleasure and pain dissolve into one, where the line between self and oblivion blurs, and where the sacred meets the profane in a dance of submission and awakening.

Amaranth Samsara is not just an experience—it is a descent, a ritual, a transformation. A hypnotic, erotic, and esoteric odyssey into the depths of craving and release, where every touch burns, every whisper commands, and every surrender is a step closer to oblivion.

Lose Yourself in the Amaranth Spiral Drown in the ecstasy of dissolution. Find liberation through surrender.

Are you ready to be unraveled? To be consumed? To awaken beyond the boundaries of what you thought you were?

 AMARANTH SAMSARA — LET GO OR BE TAKEN.

Emerson Dameron's Sophistication Nation - April 4th - All major music-delivery platforms

Chapters

• 0:46 Know When You're Being Manipulated
• 6:09 Crazy Wisdom: An Insanely Brief Introduction
• 8:51 The Well-Rested Fool (made possible in part by Magic Mind)
• 12:29 Perspectives on Winning
• 21:01 Amaranth Samsara: A Bite-Sized Erotic Thriller by Emerson Dameron

Transcript

Emerson Dameron: 0:47

know when you're being manipulated and decide how deep you want to go with it. Everybody's getting manipulated all the time. There's not a lot of straight up or else coercion going on in modern society. That's a short ride. I don't know what it's going to be like if this authoritarian trend continues that was said to be sweeping the globe. I have a feeling more subtle, manipulative manipulation is what we're gonna see more of People getting you to do something by making you think it was your idea, getting you to ignore their hypocrisy through distractions and misdirection, magic tricks and not unlike a magic show.

Emerson Dameron: 1:32

In many cases you will suspend your disbelief because you want to enjoy the show and how it makes you feel, and you know that it's slight of hand, slight of mouth, the slow, blinking eyes, seduction but you're there for it. You like the way it makes you feel. You like the payoff getting paid in the currency of good feelings that come from thinking that somebody likes you. The excitement of uncertainty when the inconsistency of their actions indicates that they may not like you that much. That makes it more exciting because now you really want them to like you and you know that you're being manipulated.

Emerson Dameron: 2:14

But you don't know that. You know, know when you're being manipulated and know that you know, go from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence. That's when you know you're getting rolled. You've become aware of things that you weren't aware of before, that were causing you problems, and now you feel like it's even worse. It was easier when you didn't know that you were bad at this and you were getting rolled and taken advantage of, but you're on your way to conscious competence. Just when you spend an hour a day every day for 90 days working with this and you rework your assumptions about it, you start to notice different things and you notice. What you notice you notice when you're vulnerable to manipulation is when you're desperate at loose ends and a certain amount of denial about the direness of your situation makes you easy pickings and you may go a lot deeper than you want to go.

Emerson Dameron: 3:17

Know when you're being manipulated and decide how deep you want to go with it. If you have a feeling that it's going to end in tears, is that something you can handle realistically? When are you going to want the truth? When are you going to force that conversation and how bad is it going to make you feel when you find out what's really going on and who you really are in this deal? If that happens a worst case scenario getting played for everything you had humiliation, mean stuff where they were just trying to hurt you and succeeded How's that going to hit you? I've been there. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts, it hurts. It makes it hard to trust people. It makes it hard to trust your own instincts and experience.

Emerson Dameron: 4:04

And if you're letting yourself be manipulated and you go deep with somebody who is inconsistent, it can happen and when it does, you will hate the player who played you. But work on seeing this from the perch of your highest intelligence. Don't hate the player or the game. Admit that you got played and you played the fool. Don't hate yourself for that. Understand why it was appealing, why it seemed like the thing to do, and understand that that's the way of the world Hurt people, hurt people, hurt people, etc. There are horrible people who just hurt people for fun or because they're on a power trip and you may have encountered one of those. They tend to go for easy mobs. So think about is that worth it? Under what circumstances will you set yourself up to get played? When is the game more fun than knowing what's really going on? That'll bring you quite a bit closer to understanding when you're getting manipulated, the risks involved and, yes, some opportunities for feeling good excitement, suspension of disbelief, being in a story instead of just the series of events we call reality. Decide how deep you want to go and if you're going deep in that person who's manipulating you, that might be a reason to go deep at least a few times. Just know what you're doing. Some fun has a price. There's fun out there. That's a clean buzz. It's not all about power. If you keep yours, you don't get played. If you name the game and you're both down anyway.

Emerson Dameron: 5:49

Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes is LA's number one avant-garde personal development program. Tonight we have Amaranth, samsara, a bite-sized erotic thriller, and other tales. No matter what happens, just remember I'm Emerson Dameron. I love you personally. Levity saves lives.

Emerson Dameron: 6:08

For now, I stopped drinking when my pancreas exploded and I was left with wide swaths of free time and a dearth of meaning. I needed something new, something else, and, at the recommendation of an unorthodox therapist, I got into Shambhala Buddhism for a hot second. Shambhala now has a bit of a dicey reputation. It kind of always did, and a lot of that had to do with not so much the central edict established by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, which was people are basically good, although there was some irony as it was spoken by someone who's now widely considered to be bad. It got choppy right around the concept of crazy wisdom. Crazy wisdom is an aggressive, confrontational approach to enlightenment. It's about subverting patterns, breaking scripts, destabilizing the sense of self, sometimes bringing about ego death, creating an opportunity to change, albeit a very dangerous one. Sometimes the truth hurts, and the more it hurts, the more true it is. Sometimes the fool and the master roll together. Sometimes the only way to wake somebody up is to smack them metaphorically or literally, as is the case with some Zen teachers.

Emerson Dameron: 7:33

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was an abusive alcoholic cokehead who did manage to crash his car into a joke shop with his child bride riding shotgun before he drank himself to death. But that wasn't the only thing he got accomplished. His successor knowingly gave a whole lot of people HIV. Trump knew about this and didn't do anything about it. I think the coolest way to punish Shogun Trump Rinpoche is to take crazy wisdom and reclaim it, refurbish it. Perhaps add the wisdom, the lucidity of the well-rested fool.

Emerson Dameron: 8:12

Discipline, not self-indulgence, respect for the weapon that must be handled appropriately, because crazy wisdom in the praxis of Shambhala is not sustainable. The comedian Tina Fey once said something to the effect of Integrity is dangerous and expensive, and the same can be said of crazy wisdom, really any sort of insanity. But the responsibilities one takes on and releases by adopting the mantle of crazy wisdom lead predictably to burnout, dependency and slow erosion of one's sense of self, which could be a good thing. If you're tired of your own company, you'll miss it when it's all the way gone. Enter the well-rested fool.

Emerson Dameron: 9:27

We talk about the fool's journey. The archetype of the fool is the open-hearted wanderer, eternally fresh, eternally receptive. Unlike Crazy Wisdom, the Fool is not obliterating his ego. He needs it to truly make a fool of himself, he dances with it. They are best buds and he can give of himself and open himself in that way and we're going with he. I'll do someone else's pronouns next. I'm obviously talking about myself here. The Fool has the power of well-rested foolishness. The well-rested mind of the wise and playful fool is elastic, it's experimental, it's adaptable, it's fluid, always in flux. It is really the only game in town.

Emerson Dameron: 10:13

The closest you can come to knowing what the hell is going on these days is starting from the assumption that you don't. The well-rested, well-refreshed, psychologically cleansed, wise fool knows the joy of a clean buzz. He knows that laughter always sounds a little bit more authentic when you're not running on cortisol fumes. If you're afraid of losing your tether with reality or you just want to reroute your directions and take a fool's journey of your own, you can start with what other people have already figured out. Some heuristics are better than others, depending on what's useful for you, and they are everywhere, all over the place.

Emerson Dameron: 10:57

My buddy over at Magic Mind here in Venice talks about something called mental wealth. That rests on the five pillars of exercise, sleep, diet, stress management and exogenous compounds. I have a mnemonic device for that. I exercise my right to sleep and when I die it makes it easier to manage stress management. And guess what? The afterlife is full of exogenous compounds. I totally understand what those do, even though I don't really need to, because right now I'm enjoying the benefits of the Magic Mind Focus Shot. They hook me up with the focus and sleep, and I gotta say that has made me a well-rested fool.

Emerson Dameron: 11:40

Sometimes you don't know how crazy things were getting, until you get a good night's sleep and wake up ready to do the damn thing. That is an experience I want for you and that's why, right now, if you go to magicmindcom slash Emerson Jan, you can get the one, two, the yin and the yang, the in-breath and the out-breath, the masculine feminine, the moment that you're born, screaming, in the moment you die in the gutter. Yes, the polarity of magic mind, focus and sleep. Get them together for half off. Magic mindcom slash, emerson jan.

Emerson Dameron: 12:16

e-m-e-r-s-o-n-j-a-n you only have the options that you know that you have, and when you get rest and clarity, a lot of other options open up. Your fool's journey could go in any number of directions. You're here on this sad, broken planet to carve out your destiny. You get too far up in your feelings. You make yourself vulnerable to manipulation. So sit down, shut up and meditate. With meditation you'll defestrate fear, dominate weakness, put your boop heel on your heart and make your mind your bitch with the power of rock Hard mental focus. Destroy indecision and annihilate the sucker inside with meditation, because equanimity is the most beautiful brutal revenge. Everyone's doing it and no one's talking about it. That's how powerful it is.

Emerson Dameron: 13:03

People brag about using other drugs, but no one brags about the drug that makes you brag a mile a minute about everything else. They want you to think their swagger and overachievement come from within, but they'd be worthless without cocaine. It's also fun to do and people want to hoard all the fun for themselves. But now the secret is out, and that secret is cocaine. Even if you're down on yourself and you have every reason to be, cocaine will turn things around. If you have no motivation, no talent and no redeeming qualities, cocaine will transform you into a rock star and a prophet. You'll never be lonely with cocaine. You'll have pointless but animated conversations with geniuses who love you. You'll fall out with most of these new friends, but you can always find newer ones when you bring enough cocaine for all of us. If your life is so boring that it's boring you to death, cocaine is the drug for you. Cocaine creates a whole new you and the party won't start till you walk in. Just don't tell anyone why.

Candy Rider: 13:59

There's an.

Emerson Dameron: 13:59

Aesop's Fable, one of the better ones. A lot of them are just stupid, insipid garbage. But there's one I like. It's about a fox. He's walking down the road. He sees some nice juicy, purple, fat, luscious, sexy looking grapes hanging from a tree just out of his reach. He climbs up the tree, tries to get over the branch he's on, falls off. He lands on his ass down on the ground. He tries to get some help. He tries to trick a bird into getting the grapes for him. That doesn't work out. The bird is too stupid. It's another bird that betrays him in the end and flies off with half of the grapes. He takes a big lunge to get at the rest of the grapes and once again falls down. He's got birds laughing at him now and squirrels. He says you know what? Those grapes were sour anyway. And that's because he's pretending he didn't want the grapes in the first place, because he can't handle taking the L. And that's how it is.

Emerson Dameron: 14:58

You pretend that life is not a competition. Life is obviously a competition. It's a bunch of different competitions going on at once. If you think there's one big competition with one elite set of winners, you've got to change your frame and the way you look at things and change the game Meaning, get out of the game that doesn't suit you and find the game that you can dominate in. You were born to dominate. You're born to win, born to put wins on the board. Every loss is a gift and an opportunity to develop, to learn from your errata, thicken your skin and win in the end and then move on to the bigger leagues, where you might eat dirt at first, because that's how you get better and life is a competition.

Emerson Dameron: 15:46

Life began with you racing millions, millions of other sperm and winning. You were a winner when you came out of the womb. You're a winner before that. You're a winner before. You are a person From the moment you are conceived. You're born to win. You can glom onto winners. That's a victory of a sort.

Emerson Dameron: 16:06

I find it to be a hollow one. I always want to be in the game that I know I can dominate and I can be on top. I can be number one. I like to be worshipped. I like for people to respect me and peak game. I don't even mind when people pretend to like me and respect me. I don't take them seriously. I don't let them get too close. That's why I put up walls. The higher you go, the more you got to protect yourself.

Emerson Dameron: 16:31

People who don't know anything in life except losing Try to manipulate winners to get around that. There are no rules, but there are laws of physics, there's gravity, there are the forces of nature. You've got to win in harmony with the forces of nature. Truly use your power to make your mark on the world and win. You may have noticed that everything is a competition. Anybody who tells you otherwise is trying to get you out of the game because they're afraid of your power. You don't want to trust that person. You don't want to crush that person under your boot heel. That's what they really want. That's what's good for them. Steamroll that person. You may have noticed that nature grins ear to ear and smiles when winners win and laughs when losers lose. Life is a competition and you're either winning or you're losing and improving. Or you're losing because you can't handle your own power, or you're on the sidelines cheering, trying to decide who's got the biggest schlong and go suck later. That's me. I ain't hard to find. My name is in lights because I'm winning.

Isabella Rose: 17:53

Oh, darling, come here, sit with me for a moment. No, don't say anything just yet. Let me really look at you. There you are, that face. Do you even know the kind of power it holds? You could stop hearts with that crooked smile of yours, though you might be too modest to admit it. Modesty can be charming. But don't hide too much of your self-love. The world deserves a peek at the captivating masterpiece I'm seeing right now.

Isabella Rose: 18:14

You've been carrying something heavy, haven't you? I can tell your shoulders your jaw tense, haven't you? I can tell your shoulders, your jaw tense, clenched, as if bracing for impact. What if you didn't have to hold all of that? You could let it all slip slide away, just for tonight, just for me. I don't mind, it's a privilege. Really, there's something irresistibly sexy about a soul who can surrender even for a moment.

Isabella Rose: 18:43

Strength isn't in how much you carry, but in knowing when to set it down. Do you feel that? My fingertips on your arm? That's heat, darling Electricity. You're alive, you're here. Every inch of you is buzzing with orgone. Your hands, they're the hands of an artist. Hands that could shape the world, hands that could hold someone like me and make me feel safe.

Isabella Rose: 19:12

You have no idea how much I adore that about you, that quiet, simmering power you have. It's intoxicating. You know, I've always believed that we're made to feel everything the highs, the lows, the soft sighs and the sharp edges. It's all part of the synesthetic symphony, isn't it? But if you've been dancing too long to the slower songs, maybe it's time to change the rhythm. What would you say to a new beat, a wild one, something that makes your blood race and your heart pound, something that reminds you what it feels like to be unstoppable?

Isabella Rose: 19:48

I'll let you in on a little secret. I see you, not the person you think you have to be, but the one who's already perfect. The you who doesn't have to apologize or explain, the you who knows deep down that you're a sexy, glimmering star, that you command attention, and, oh, how I want to see you come alive here, lean in closer. That's it. Do you hear my heartbeat? It's yours.

Isabella Rose: 20:18

Now, if you want it, let it remind you of the fire inside you because, darling, there's nothing dull or broken or small about you. You're vibrant, you're magnetic, you're everything a girl like me dreams about. So don't sit there and tell me you don't feel it. That's life begging you to play with it, and I'd be very disappointed if you didn't, because when I see you, I don't see someone who's stuck. I see someone who's just about to break through, someone who's already won, who's too caught up in life to know it. Yet Now show me that flirty, dirty smile again. Yes, that one. There you are, my heartbreaker, my world shaker. Let's see what kind of trouble we can cause together.

Emerson Dameron: 21:29

You are here, you are listening, you are breathing, and as you listen, you begin to realize that everything you've been told about wisdom is wrong. They told you wisdom is quiet. They told you wisdom is passive. They told you wisdom is about waiting your turn. And yet, as you reflect, you begin to see that wisdom, real wisdom, is something else entirely.

Emerson Dameron: 21:46

You've met people who play by the rules. You've seen them obey, submit, disappear. You've noticed how they wait for permission that never comes and beg for forgiveness. They don't need living their existences steeped in risk aversion. Forgiveness, they don't need living their existences steeped in risk aversion, rampantly infectious boredom and anxious, impotent lassitude. And now you begin to understand. The wise do not wait. The wise do not kneel. The wise shatter illusions, seize power and drop nukes that make the comfort zone uninhabitable. You've heard power belongs to the loudest, the richest, the cruelest. You've been told that only fools embrace chaos, art, love, the Dionysian dark side, the ledge beyond the edge. And yet, as you dig deeper, you begin to realize chaos is a good start, madness is a strategy. The trickster, the rebel, the coyote, the holy fool they do not follow. They lead, sometimes, generally by accident. They dance always. You know that the world runs on scripts. You've seen how people stumble through their lives saying what they're told to say, thinking what they're told to think, even if no one ever tells them anything.

Emerson Dameron: 22:56

And now, as you grasp this truth, something shifts in you you start to sense a new hunger, not just for knowledge but for mastery, Not just for answers but for understanding, for power. You feel it now. The world is created and shaped by those who dare to break the pattern. And now, as you realize this, you know it's time to break your own, or you could start with somebody else's.

Candy Rider: 23:22

And now our feature presentation Ameris Samsara, a bite-sized erotic thriller by Emerson Dameron. Enjoy what you will.

Emerson Dameron: 23:29

Every flame burns with purpose. Every beast has a hunger. The only hunger that survives is the hunger that eats itself. You feel it, don't you? That hungry ghost skulking around in your ribcage, that itch, that ache, that thing. You can't quite crystallize, that drone with no name, that vibration that penetrates and stimulates you when you pretend you don't want it to.

Emerson Dameron: 23:54

I know what it is.

Emerson Dameron: 23:55

It's the hunger for oblivion To be consumed, to be taken in and spat back out as something less human, less preposterously complex, something more true. You will kneel, you will bleed, you will burn like wet paper, but in the ruin you will finally and forever know who you are. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm not here to finish you. I'm here to complete you. Now open your mouth.

Electric Doll: 24:20

They say it starts with a whisper, but no, it starts with a hunger. I'm not here to finish you, I'm here to complete you. Now open your mouth. They say it starts with a whisper, but no, it starts with a hunger. Not the clean kind, not the kind you can name, the kind that gnaws, the kind that makes you shift in your seat. When a voice like molten brass says come here, little girl, I tell myself I am still me, that I have teeth, that I am sharp, that I am something more than a thing to be kissed, bitten, ruined. But when he presses one single finger against my lips, I forget my own name. Maybe that's the trick, maybe that's the point. Maybe names are just paper tags tied to the ankles of dead girls and I am only alive when I let go of the lie that I was ever free.

Emerson Dameron: 25:05

The body is a miserable lie. You think it belongs to you. Tell me this If I tie your wrist, do you still have a hand? If I muzzle your voice, do you still have words? If I slice through your skin, do you still have a soul? No, you are not a body. You are a reaction A gasp, a tremor, a series of sharp little pain noises and wide wet eyes and soft, strangled vowels that beg without ever forming words. Having lost the fabled incantation that could supposedly have saved your ass. You are nothing but a mirror. I am the light that makes you visible. Shh, don't fight it. There is no you here. There is only the next moment and the next, and the next, and the next and the next. Now scream.

Electric Doll: 25:54

There is a place inside me red silk, red lips, red lanterns where the walls breathe like animals, where the ground melts like candle wax, where my body bends, twists, folds itself into origami submission. I am no longer a girl, I am a gesture, a whisper on hands and knees, a silent vowel dripping from his fingertips, I am the gas between words, I am the space between syllables, and oh, how lovely it is to be ruined with such precision, to have my soft parts shattered like porcelain, to be peeled, like fruit, to be scooped clean, like the inside of a mango, sweet and glistening in his. They call it degradation, I call it becoming.

Emerson Dameron: 26:32

Let's begin At the beginning. What is humiliation? An illusion, a hoax, a story you told yourself to avert your attention from the mirror. There is no humiliation, there is only revelation. The moment you admit that you were never strong or proud or possessed of any real structural integrity, never in control, never anything but a soft thing made to be handled, you will laugh oh how you will laugh, and it will feel like the realest, funnest funnel of freedom. So go on, beg Crawl, let me hear you whisper it. I was born to be brought to my knees. Good girl, doesn't that feel better?

Electric Doll: 27:12

Tell me again who is the hunter, who is the prey? You thought you were the cage, the master, the god. But I have seen the way your breath catches when I move, just so, when I tilt my head, when I flutter my lashes, when I let my voice go soft and syrupy, when I let you believe you still hold the whip. Poor darling, didn't anyone tell you A doll is just a doll? Until you play with her for real, for keeps. Until you let her see the cracks in the mask, until you let her hear the tremor in your voice, until you let her feel that tiny, tiny little moment where you break. Just enough, just enough for me to slip inside. I kneel for you. Yes, I let you name me, I let you carve your will into my skin. But kneeling isn't the same as losing, and submission isn't the same as surrender. Now, hush my love. You taught me well. Let me show you what I learned.

Emerson Dameron: 28:06

There's only one way to be born again the chrysalis must rot, the caterpillar must dissolve into salty soup. A writhing, absurd thing. No bones, no self, just a memory of a notion, of a shape. Only in that filth does the new form emerge. You think this was suffering? No, my darling, this was digestion. You're almost ready, it's almost over. The old self is soft now. Your old self is mush. You could put your hands into your own body and pull out something brand new. So do it, take that final step. Be the spiraling whirlwind you were always meant to be. Say it with me now. I was never here at all. I was never here. I am Skyrim.

Emerson Dameron: 29:15

A king cannot be ruled, a god cannot be shamed, and yet, and yet, there's a joke hidden in the bones of the universe. It goes something like this A lion finds a doll. The doll is soft, the doll is weak, the doll begs to be broken, the doll is broken. And then, one night, the lion wakes up and the doll is smiling. The doll does not ask, the doll does not beg, the doll just watches, because the doll has learned the game and the joke, the punchline, the horror, the thing that will keep the lion up at night is this A doll can always be replaced, but a lion? A lion is driven by hunger. A lion only lives until the arrival of the next hunter, the next bigger fool. Ah, so that's how it is then.

Emerson Dameron: 30:04

Well played, breathe in, breathe out, Awareness, rest, circle of life, union of opposites, that big, sexy Ouroboros destiny. You can have it all. Try your Focus and Sleep Starter Kit from Magic Mind at 45% off for listeners to Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes If you go to magicmindcom. Slash emersonjan E-M-E-R-S-O-N-J-A-N. Focus Sleep Repeat Magic Mind, proud sponsor of LA's number one avant-garde personal development program, emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes.

Candy Rider: 31:02

K-Chung, los Angeles, 1630 am. Kchungradioorg. You're listening to Emerson Dameron's Medicated Minutes, the only good podcast, the show that loves you back. Levity saves lives ¶¶.

Speaker 1: 31:13

Thank you.