LastThursday

I concur. That's the only way I've improved. But also be critical of your own writing. Always try finding the "best" way you can to get your point across. Another option is to use ChatGPT to improve your style and grammar, not to be lazy, but to see where you can improve.

God is uncountable. There is neither one nor many. Many and one are appearances, not the nature of God. You are confused because you believe in a "you" and "others", but they are also appearances within God.

You got it. You're creating it consciously (i.e. in awareness). You think there's a duality, but it's a mirage.

There is only consciousness. Or, to put it another way, you are aware of what you're aware of. There is no unconsciousness, because you're not aware of it.

You have to be super vigilant not to just get lost in words, definitions of words, and relationships between words. Words are NEVER the thing they represent. The correct way to use words is to use them as anchors or starting points for self-exploration. Don't assume you just "know" what consciousness is. You don't. Consciousness is just a word, not the thing it points to. Your enquiry needs to be done outside the realm of words and knowledge - otherwise you just get lost and confused.

If the GF needs something to do to keep her from distracting you, then just delegate some of your work to her. Two birds, one stone. Seriously though, either find a work space away from home, or work differently, maybe in one hour spurts or at night. Tell GF you are only distractable exactly on the hour. Or find her a day job.

I'd say discipline is an emotional process as well as a mechanical process. There's a feeling of it being somewhat robotic and potentially never ending. But we feel differently at different times, and being a robot goes against this freedom. To make discipline more palatable, there has to be a clearly defined payoff. If I lift weights, the payoff is clear: bigger muscles and better fitness. Sometimes the payoff is a long way away, so you have to build a good strong emotional narrative, to keep going. But discipline is also about habit. If practised enough, then a habit becomes unconcious. The point being that you stop consciously resisting the anti-emotional aspect of discipline. For example, I walk every day came rain or shine, even if I don't want to. But it's a habit, and all I have to do is put my shoes on and leave my flat. The payoff is also clear for me: baseline fitness and good circadian rhythm and better mental health. Conscious discipline is then being aware of the process of being disciplined. The most important thing however, is what are you being disciplined about? Are you trying to master something, improve yourself, doing it for it's own sake? Is the payoff worth it and can it be made into a habit?

Welcome. Thirty is young, you have many many years to get what you want. I would work on two fronts: 1. Work out how to meet as many women as possible. Don't put all your hopes in one thing. Are there any activities you like doing? Join a club doing that activity. Regular contact is the easiest way to meet someone. Be more sociable, go out as much as possible. Talk to as many people as possible (men and women). Learn how to have social energy. 2. Work on yourself. Improve your appearance, improve your diet, improve your fitness, sleep better, raise your consciousness, master something, work out your life purpose, learn empathy, give love. Actualize! Doing these things will make you 1000x more attractive, as well as improve your life. BTW your English is excellent.

Which is it? I listed companionship as a freedom, because you mentioned it as a consequence of restriction. When you're in a relationship the dynamic changes from when you're single. You're not free to see other people (unless you explicitly agree it upfront). But there are compensating freedoms, such as having someone care about you, financial stability, sense of purpose; I could go on. So if you cheat, then you could potentially forfeit those relationship freedoms. Freedom is never absolute, there's always strings attached, even if you're single, even if you're in an open relationship.

Insights and opinions are always about something. So there's always some background you need first to generate insights. For example if I wanted insights into spirituality, I should probably practise spirituality first or at least have enough knowledge about it. Sometimes the best way to get that background is to learn what other people have already said about it. I'm sure you've all learnt from Leo and and then had your own insights?

I relate to this in that I'm single basically because I like my particular type of freedom. Despite that, I think calling a relationship a restriction of freedom is not quite right. Realistically, you're exchanging one set of freedoms for another set of freedoms. There are certain freedoms I don't have because I'm single (for example companionship and intimacy). Another reason cheating hurts, is because when you're in a relationship the relationship itself behaves as a single entitity with its own identity. Cheating directly threatens that identity. The relationship itself wants to survive (as an entity unto itself).

It's called cheating for a reason. When you're in a monogamous relationship, then there's a tacit agreement that it will stay monogamous. By cheating you're disgregarding your partner's expectations, wishes and desires. They would have every right to punish you, be angry with you or leave you for breaking the agreement. By cheating you're signalling that you don't really care about your partner, and you may even be tempted to cheat in other ways. Every time you want to cheat, you should stop and consider how you would feel if someone cheated you the same way.

Boy I've done some stupid shit in my time. I still cringe thinking about it, I'm still sad about some of my actions, some things I'll never get closure on. And, I'll probably do more stupid stuff in future - I don't look forward to it. I would be gentle on yourself. We can only act from our current level of awareness. Forgive yourself for being human, truly. Put things in place so that you don't repeat the same mistakes again. Apologise to people if you can. Make amends, put yourself out for others, show them you mean it. Then carry on with your life, let it all go, it will only eat you up inside otherwise. Be the best version of yourself you can be.

No. It's to detach from it. You carry on thinking, but you know the thinking isn't really you, you stop identifying with it.

But we do this anyway, we just call them friends normally. In that sense we are polyamorous anyway, we can love more than one person at a time, albeit not sexual love. I'm obviously playing devil's advocate here for the sake of discussion. I'm unsure whether you're talking relationships or pure love. There's always a transactional element to relationships even sexual ones, so sure, you can call that ego if you want. Personally I wouldn't call it "taking bits and pieces", I would just call it "enjoying a person's uniqueness". In other words you love each person you encounter in a different way, because of the different things they express or you find attractive in them. That would be the allure of polyamory.

I wouldn't be polyamorous (despite the allure), I don't need the drama. I feel that to give polyamory justice requires a level of maturity that most people don't have. Mostly, because you're having to co-ordinate the emotions, needs and desires of several relationships, all at different stages, and to do potential conflict resolution (jealousy etc.). All of that stuff can be hard enough with one person let alone many. There's reasons people keep affairs secret. But every relationship does give you something different. Maybe Mary gives you the philosophical discussions you crave, and Jane is the adventurous type. Sometimes you just slip into something more than just platonic friendship, and what to do then with Mary and Jane? Date Jane and have an affair with Mary?

Welcome back! New sections to spice things up I guess. Also, you're talking nine months, it's just the natural churn of members/mods. I'm sure in another nine months it'll be different yet again.

Thanks for the book recommendation. Baron-Cohen is the OG of autism research. I've certainly read a lot about autism in my time. Funnily enough I was just watching this yesterday (at double speed ): Despite the title, it has some interesting commentary on brain differences and some graphs showing the spread of traits between males and females.

A very interesting link between autism and gender identity issues:

@Matt23 I think many people are on the spectrum either knowingly or unknowingly, because they are high functioning. I think that's the take home from the video, that autistic spectrum makes it difficult to know even your own desires and internals; gender identity issues is just an offshoot of that.

Amazing words.

Forget nature. I think societal norms and stereotypes are a much bigger hurdle here. But people came in all sorts of shapes, sizes and outlooks; just find someone that matches yours. That could mean playing a numbers game, and that goes against societal norms, but hey...

I think giving advice requires you to think more deeply than you normally would, especially if there's an ongoing dialogue; so that's healthy. It can also increase your empathy over time, because you're having to think about what another person needs. There is the question of whether the advice is actually helpful or damaging, but even there you become more attuned to people's responses with practice. There is also the matter of whether you should even be giving advice if you have little knowledge in a particular area (say depression) - I'd say not. With a forum the greatest problem with giving advice is the nature of the medium. Most of the context and all non-verbal cues are lost, so that's a lot of information, and you're left guessing more often than not, which is clearly not ideal for giving advice. And, some people's problems really do require professional treatment and advice, and this forum is not suited to that. If you're someone that empathises deeply with others, then each interaction will have a strong emotional connection, and that could be negative for you in the long run. Most counsellors for example, will have counselling sessions themselves to decompress and work through their own emotions.

Yes, yes, but it's not at all obvious that human curiosity will give you Truth in the end. Why should it?