Leo Gura

Meditation is the precise opposite of addiction. All addiction is the avoidance of the emptiness of Now. Addiction is the avoidance of meditation.

No. But addiction comes in many kinds and degrees. The kind and degree matters a lot. No. You are stretching too far.

That's a good start. It won't be enough, but a good start. You need to really appreciate the seriousness of your goal.

You should be preparing for a market crash, not guzzling AI hype.

Kriya yoga and/or hardcore meditation retreats. Serious mindfulness practice. Eckhart Tolle sat on a park bench for a year. That is the work no one wants to do.

Guys at the gym love being called rats.

That is not going to happen without heavy manual spiritual practice. The thing you want is so rare and so hard that the work it requires, no one is willing to do. You want the fruits without the work, which is a fantasy. Either get serious about the work or stop wanting the sweet fruits. It is like you are saying, I wanna be a billiinaire but I don't wanna work hard. Can't happen.

Like academia

@Grateful Dead Welcome back.

Drug addiction is the desire to always be high. That way lies ruin. So be careful.

That is not possible. That's a very wrong expectation. You cannot always feel good because how will you feel when a psychopath spears you with a pitchfork? Consciousness of God cannot guarantee you will always feel good. Anything that feels good means you can feel bad. And every emotional high must end because it had a beginning. Emotions are inherently unstable. Ironically, the solution is to surrender to the fact you will feel bad. Gurus do not always feel good. They have stopped caring how they feel. That means they feel bad and they don't care. You trying to escape or avoid bad feelings is an avoidance of Truth. Truth includes bad feelings. Basically, just stop caring how you feel and pursue your life purpose and creative work.

I originally used the word rat to mirror gym-rats. Why is gym-rat acceptable but science-rat no? Double-standards much? When I say science rat, I mean it like gym-rat. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a science-rat. Obviously a science-rat will not appreciate being called a science-rat. Is it the best idea to call them science-rats? Obviously no. But it is funny.

Science goblin has a nice ring to it. But people would still hold it against me. I accept that I need to be more responsible and have less fun with words.

Cute, but it is stealing.

@Basman Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Don't be that guy.

If you are going to be cocky, you need the substance to back it up, otherwise you end up looking like a fool. I am cocky in certain areas because I know I got the substance. But even so, being cocky never looks good optically. I know that, which is why I am reducing it. In the end, I am tuning my communication style so it is less abrasive and less threatening.

I can steelman your point to make it even better. The correct response to Nietzsche is this: Even if it is true that your book is the best ever written, you should still not say it because it is too self-indulgent to do so. I agree that writing a chapter: "Why My Book Is The Best" is in poor taste, regardless of its truth. Even if you are the best in the world at something, you don't need to announce it. It comes off as obnoxious. Good question. I am open to someone having a deeper political analysis than me. If you show me an example of such, then I would look at it and if it is better, then I will admit that it is better. Of course that judgment is still circular in the sense that I can't escape my own judgment. Look: there is no escaping your own judgment. At the end of the day, your mind has to take a stand on something. And any time it takes a stand on anything , it could be wrong. Could I delude myself that my politics is better than other politics? Sure. Of course. But this is not unique to me, this is a universal problem of Mind. Everyone thinks he has good politics. The solution is to actually have good politics. What actually is good politics? Of course this can only be decided by you, and you can be wrong about it. When it comes to politics, I am always open to hearing new intelligent renditions of politics. But this is so rare that I almost never hear it. I crave new intelligent politics. No one is doing it. Online political discourse is grade-school level. 95% of it is stupid. I am happy to consider the 5% that is serious. But you need to remember that I don't just say this out of arrogance. I have spent 20 years studying and following stupid politics. I know every strain of stupidity in American politics. I've considered it all, from far left to far right. That's why I'm so confident that it's stupid. When you deeply understand a field, you can immediately tell what is stupid and what is smart. A serious physicist immediately sees that Flat Earth is stupid, but a normie cannot. It DOES compromise. Being cocky is dangerous. It is like playing with firecrackers. It is like doing a little dance in the boxing ring to taunt your opponent. It could be fun, or it could get you knocked out.

I will try.

I know you do. Which is why I have retired it. But in my mind it will always be funny. You can't realize God as deeply as I have and watch a scientist smugly pontificating about materialism, and not see him as a rat, and laugh.

Yes, I've done it plenty of times.

That was Pete the Peacock. Another trial altogether.

#PinkLivesMatter

You guys miss the point that when I call someone a rat, it is a joke. You are supposed to laugh, not take it personally. Calling scientists rats is funny. But people get so butt-hurt over it. I can't even make jokes with you people because you misunderstand it and then hold it against me. I call scientists rats to take them off the pedestal that you've placed them on. Otherwise you will be worshiping rats rather than God. A scientist is a rat next to God. Appreciate the poetry of that. I am not insulting people for no reason. There is an intelligence behind the madness.

I do not deny that I am arrogant. I am. And it is a problem I am working to reduce. But I can't fix it overnight. It is a serious internal process. Character doesn't change just because you want it to or someone tells you to. You can notice that in yourself.

Protests make the politicians listen. Otherwise the politicians are too comfortable and just serve the donor class.