LastThursday

I checked my mail box today only to find a lonesome scrap of paper in the bottom of it. My first thought was, not more junk mail! And then I read what it said: The reverse was blank. My reaction was informative. Had it really been handwritten, just for me? Nope. No writing indentations, it had been printed. So probably everyone in my block received one? Maybe it fell out of a Christmas or birthday card (it was my birthday last week)? But then why not just write it in the card? The paper it was printed on was a little rough and felt cheap. So next I thought, well what a strange thing to post, if indeed it was posted to everybody or even just to me. However, in amongst all this mental machination the real message had got lost. Someone had gone to the trouble of hand delivering an inspirational post from Zig Ziglar, with no other view than to give me inspiration! Or perhaps just to cheer me on. A random act of kindness, a random act of love for a fellow human. For that I'm grateful, whoever you are.

Just thinking out loud: 1. You can't compare two people's level of consciousness. How would you do that without guessing? Is their outward behaviour the same as their level of consciousness? Can a person with a high level of consciousness ever behave like a complete idiot? 2. What on earth is a level of consciousness anyway? Is it just intelligence, empathy, knowledge, learned behaviour, insight, "goodness"? 3. Even if you look at your own consciousness, does it really increase over time? And if you believe it does, aren't you just comparing using your consciousness at that moment in time? Isn't there plenty of room for relativity and self deception here? There are no levels of consciousness, just levels in consciousness. Over and out.

Language is nothing without context. Context can be truth. "Orange" is just sounds or letters, only context makes it either a colour or a fruit. You don't see orange or taste orange with language.

@Someone here what is birth? Contemplate this using direct experience. Birth is in the past. There is no future or yesterday. Every moment is birth and every moment is death, one gives way to the other. And both of those are illusions.

Paradoxical. How often do I get born just once, or over and over? Every time I'm born, do I not die also? What is going on here?

How long do I get to live for? Now doesn't sound like a long time

As @dflores321 says there is only this - the present moment. You can spin your wheels conceptually all day long; but there is still only this. Just accept you don't know and you'll be closer to the truth.

@Hulia that's what really made me laugh. The answer is, is that there a pros and cons to both situations. The deeper answer is that you should be happy with either - where being happy is not dependent on the situation - but that takes a lot of self development and work.

That made me laugh. I thought the opposite.

More beautifulness

There is no future. But in that case what's left? From the book Supernature by Lyall Watson - the last sentence is key: In short if we want to see the future, we need to have a wider view of the present. To do that you would need to expand your level of awareness. Another way of seeing the future outside of time is to employ Jung's idea of motifs. Instead of seeing events or things that happen (a motif) as a short continuous block of stuff - for example playing a game of chess - we instead see events as being discontinous and spread over time. So say we make only one chess move a day. The motifs in this case are "moving a chess piece", and these repeat at various semi-random intervals. We can "see the future" because we know via the rules of chess, what may happen in the game. But notice how the game is no longer one event, but many smaller events linked only in the mind of the players. That's crucial. Predicting the future is simply linking in the mind a motif in the present with one held in the mind of the past.

Keep things simple. Keep busy and ground yourself with tasks that don't require too much thought. Stay in the moment with any tasks you do need to carry out. Take time off. Give yourself as much mental space as possible to integrate. Eat well, exercise regularly, sleep properly. Journal or speak to people about what you're experiencing if possible.

I've been struggling recently to get anything done. I think if I were a bear I'd be just about ready to hibernate. Even the simple task of filling out a Christmas card to my mother is proving impossible. I just don't give a fuck. My work clients want two new third-party systems integrated and set up for January - no chance. And, I just don't give a fuck. My father sent me an e-birthday card early by accident, he was apologetic. Except, I just don't give a fuck. An ex-colleague of mine contacted me and wanted to talk on the phone, I haven't contacted him back. I just don't give a fuck. I desperately need to vacuum my flat. Yep. I don't give a fuck. What have most of these things got in common? Expectation. I'm expected to care. Paid to care. Socially expected to care. I just don't give a fuck. I suspect that is what age does to you for some. Ideally, I would engage people on my own terms. Then, authentically I would be acting according to my own desires. But I think the upshot would be that I would barely engage with any of my family. And I would probably have a completely different set of friends. I definitely wouldn't work for someone else to survive. But in all honesty, I would care even less about clients if I worked for myself. I'm not high on the conscientious dimension. This feeling of not giving a fuck started about ten years ago. I think it stemmed from having the dawning realisation that everything I'd ever done I had done to please others, or if not that then to take a "path of least resistance", in which I put myself at the mercy of others' decisions. In turn that sort of shoulder shrugging existence was borne out of fatigue at having to deal with my family's problems. At this particular moment in time, what I want more than anything else is to simply to be left alone to stew in my own juices. Christmas, I don't give a fuck. New Year, I don't give a fuck. Brexit can fuck off. Covid can fuck off. Lockdown can fuck off. Ah well tomorrow's another day.

It's an unsatisfactory answer but: existence is its own context. There is no ulterior motive, plan, meaning, purpose, goal or anything more than just existence itself. But heck, what an existence! So no simulation. To say the universe is infinite, is to dream of two different ideas: universe and infinite. They are not enough. You can't define or understand existence in any way that describes all of it at once. But there's no need to describe it, because here it is. All that has to be "done" is to just be and let it happen - and it will describe itself to you (itself).

You believe you exist. It all comes from there. You can't get away from belief, not even with meditation.

@Parththakkar12 you are entitled to your opinion. I won't labour my point any more.

Come from a standpoint of love. Love and accept people for who they are, and love and accept yourself for who you are (jeez I sound like a hippie). So sometimes cutting friendships is an act of love in itself. Sometimes sticking around is also an act of love. What I'm getting at, is not to blame or shame others for how you feel - this is unloving. Take responsibility and admit that you're ready to move on and then actually move on when you're ready to.

Don't forget, the lockdowns are not caused by the virus, but by government themselves (look at Sweden). So people ARE scared of Covid, and this fear is represented by government. What people want is to remove the fear of dying from the virus. What I will say, is that people are pinning very high hopes on the vaccine, and that many people see it as a "cure" for the disease - which it isn't. It's just a way to reduce the infection rate, in the hope that it will eventually disappear or is kept at manageable levels (endemic in the population). The vaccine(s) will have been tested extensively before release. If therefore it show signs of harming people when deployed into the general population, then trust me they will immediately pull it, because there will be legal and criminal ramafications. The government and pharma companies are accountable to the law. The same law that says killing people is unacceptible.

From my experience there are two sides to social awkwardness. The first side is that there are unwritten rules to social interaction. You know, correct level of eye contact, saying the right things, talking enough, being relaxed. And a hundred other things. The only way to improve, is to pay attention to when you feel awkward and ask yourself "why?". The awkwardness is a signal that you've broken one of the rules of social interaction; find out which ones and correct them. The second side is that the feeling of awkardness is not real. It's not life or death, it's just a feeling that will pass. It's good practice to just let the feeling wash over you and to "own it" rather than to shrink away from it. Admit to yourself you feel awkward and say to yourself "so what?" and let it pass. If you can learn to do this with confidence, then it won't be a problem for you.

Naturally?

The latest version of me, so people know what they're dealing with...

It's all about risk. Is the risk of catching Covid - and being permanently injured or death - higher than the risk of taking a vaccine which is NOT the virus? The UK at least has NOT cut corners in testing the vaccine, instead it has poured a huge amount of resources into it, so it could be released as quickly as possible to for the good of the population. They stand to gain nothing from injuring the very people who put them there in first place. In any case, young fit people will be the last to have the vaccine, the old and infirm and health workers will be first. If there are any major negative effects from the vaccine, you can bet it will be pulled immediately.

Fair enough, but then it won't be a Yellow club. Not unless someone is there to continuously enforce Yellow ideals. Otherwise it degenerates. It's just like this forum, anything goes which is great. But don't expect high consciousness in return. Leo and mods are basically enforcing higher ideals from the top down. But if you want a certain standard from the get-go then you need a way to vet new comers.

If you start a club or organisation, you'll need entry criteria: a questionnaire (and a bouncer). And lo and behold top result in Google: Is actualized.org really the top resource on the internet for these things? Or does Google know me too well? Well done anyway!

@Tim R you're right. There will definitely be a skew towards the States - as Leo is American. You're not negating my main point though, in that bilingualism is not that surprising. Saying that however, being taught a language in school is in no way indicative of having any level of fluency (I guess that wasn't the question though). Mon French c'est terrible. So I wouldn't count my French as a second language.