Bjorn K Holmstrom

I sadly don't enjoy games as much as I used to, maybe it is my depression, maybe I just changed. But I play with friends sometimes, last game was PEAK, a pretty fun little collaborative climbing game.

Some additional points to the OP: Friendships might be rarer nowadays, which in appropriate form take pressure of romantic partnerships. We are also not taught how to build relationships. And then there is the limiting belief that you have to find the perfect rather than building compatibility through shared experiences and efforts.

Alone vs not alone is from a certain perspective just a duality. But loneliness is still a serious issue of course. I personally feel like taking care of everyone no matter who they are is equally important (still not a saint though), so my priorities are not that I must have a family of 'my own' like my parents felt, though I totally understand and appreciate them for creating me. As opposed to what @How to be wise wrote, I feel it is strange to me that people do feel the urge to reproduce!! The picture from the OP is funny but very accurate. It seems people more and more resemble those complex puzzle pieces as we progress in development. And some try to over-fit and cannot change their shape much. Thinking more about that, there is probably an opportunity for a dating app that allows for more complexity and better matches people, the big apps don't seem to optimize for good matching (since it would make people use them and waste less money on them). Imagine a high consciousness, open source, p2p, free to use system that respected people's data completely. It could also help find profound friendships, collaborators, and community, the other types of connections that prevent the dysthymia @Schizophonia mentioned.

Let's trace the spiral! I had the two AI:s DeepSeek and Gemini help me with this analysis, but the "what comes next"-scenario is also based on a longer work using also Claude, Grok and ChatGPT. I hope you don't mind (forum rules require this disclosure): - The nation state was a monumental leap that replaced stage red/purple (tribal, feudal, imperial) with blue, law and bureaucratic order, national identity, creating stability and large-scale cooperation. The UN is largely a stage blue institution managing this blue world order. - Then the nation state became the vehicle for stage orange achievement, competition and progress. This is where the hypocrisy identified by zazen becomes most visible, using blue language of rules to mask orange strategic interests. The rise of the transnational corporation, a purely orange entity that sees nations as markets, is the logical conclusion of this stage. - Currently we have a strong green backlash. Green deconstructs blue hierarchies and orange excesses. It emphasizes equality, human rights, multiculturalism, and the flaws of the existing system. The call for understanding multiple perspectives is a classic green value, but green finds it difficult to synthesize a new whole. What could come next? - Yellow understands that the nation-state is a necessary but insufficient structure for this century's challenges. Instead of seeking to abolish it (reactionary red+green) it integrates it into a larger, more fluid network, seeing all the values of the earlier stages; the stability of blue, the innovation of orange and the empathy of green. Characteristics of a yellow/turquoise global system would be: - Functional, not just geographic governance. Problem-solving entities that operate at the appropriate scale, from the hyper-local (bio-regions) to the global (climate systems), working together with, not replacing, current nations - Meta-frameworks instead of monolithic government: A constitution for the planet that sets the rules of the game for all actors (states, corporations, cities, communities), enabling emergent self-organizing solutions rather than a one-size-fits-all top-down control. - Transcending the power/principle dichotomy: It would design systems where enlightened self-interest (orange), ethical obligation (blue) and systemic survival (yellow) are aligned. You wouldn't have to be a saint to do the right thing, the system would be structured to make the sustainable/regenerative choice the most viable for you. To summarize: What could replace the current stage blue/orange competing systems in a positive way wouldn't be a single world government but a polycentric, adaptive, and integrated meta-governance network. A world where we outgrow the need for a single ruler and learn to manage our collective complexity with the sophistication it demands. The blueprint for such a system would look less like a bigger UN and more like a planetary operating system, designed for resilience and the flourishing of all life. Why not a single world government? A single, centralized world government is a classic blue-order solution to a yellow-complexity problem. It's the ultimate expression of the impulse to impose a single, unified system on a messy reality. Think of it as scaling up the 19th-century nation-state to a planetary level.

If I've understood you correctly, you have applied exactly what I meant. You have the source of fuel of your truth and you can channel it productively, you didn't betray yourself through suppression and you didn't sabotage yourself by misdirecting the energy. That is great!

Glad it was helpful! Yes, in Spiral Dynamics terms, we use the ill reputed stage Red to empower all the other stages, especially the later ones. For example: - Beige: Help us survive - Orange: Build organizations/businesses, do science - Green: Build strong community - Yellow: Change and evolve the systems - Turquoise: Help the planet and pursue holistic understanding If you get seen and get attention, see it as a side-effect of your mastery, not the goal. Enjoy it, but know the trap is making the attention the source of your fuel, instead of the result of your building. Note that spiral dynamics is just a map, and its useful to step outside of it as well. I'm a huge spiral nerd, but there is much more to reality.

That sounds like a good balance, if you can figure it out. To do that, you would want to put your power in service of your values. From dominance over others to mastery of a domain. For example, my father always wanted to be the best at what he did, and to choose the hardest thing he could excel at. You can ask questions to yourself that integrates your whole picture: - How can I win while honoring my values? A win-win-win, myself, others and the system wins. - How can I create something that is so beneficial that my ambition and my compassion are aligned? Turn it from a conflict into a creative challenge.

I can tell you one thing, I for sure do not judge you. For a while I leaned over to loving truth over materialism, and it gradually stripped me of everything. It was very beautiful, and for as long as it lasted I was the happiest I've ever been. Scam? Not sure... But now I'm more aware how we construct and overlay dualities (materialism/immaterial), (normal/"enlightened/self-realized"), and I'm acutely aware of this while relying on my normal self to get by.

You've dismissed the forest monk path as dogmatic escapism, but what about the other option. A true yogi's path, as I know from direct experience, has very little to do with dogma. It's a practical science of the mind, a direct investigation into the nature of the self and contentment you claim to have. So, the real choice isn't between society and dogma. The real choice is between: Your current path: Total dependency on the most complex systems of the society you disdain, all to serve a personal, competitive drive for mastery. A path like the yogi's: Radical independence and a direct inquiry into the contentment with nothing you speak of. You've chosen the first but framed it as a philosophical stance. You call the second escapism, but isn't immersing yourself in a virtual world of bleeding edge tech just another, more complex form of escape? At least the yogi is escaping into reality. And as always, I think, why not do a bit of both, see where it leads? The need to choose one pure, absolute identity might be the very thing that's causing the suffering.

I can relate to the tension. I once left society completely, but came back on a whim. Being here is a lot of suffering, and I'm personally just afraid of giving up my comforts again. This makes me wonder about you: if you are truly content with nothing, why can't you be a mountain yogi or forest monk? It sounds a bit like you want to eat your cake and have it too.

Why not both?

This reminds me of a quote from my ex-girlfriend's toxicology book, it went something like "Everything is toxic, it's just a matter of the amount".

I guess Walmart is "evil" in that it operates at a lower developmental level, stage orange instead of let's say green or yellow/turquoise. It doesn't take into account the systemic impacts even if no action is explicitly malicious per se. Deepseek when queried identifies three "evil" frameworks: Systemic Harm (systemic net suffering), Consciousness Level (profit maximization instead of stakeholder welfare) and Externalized Costs (low prices don't take into account the true societal and environmental costs). It feels like we are in a transitional period. To be successful in the long term, businesses like Walmart will probably have to adapt towards higher stages. The current system punishes long-term thinking for short-term profits though.

The question itself is a bit of a trap. Why do we have to choose between two flawed systems of the last century? Could we create something better?

I've paid for Claude consistently the last year, but that might end eventually, I've noticed they reduced Claude's capacity for multi-view integrative thinking towards more of a stage Orange rational fundamentalism in 4.5 Sonnet. If I would code more, Claude would still be worth it though. Grok is very generous in its free usage, so no need to pay for now. I started to enjoy Gemini just before summer, and have been paying for it since. I recently cancelled my ChatGPT subscription since I rarely use ChatGPT, these days, I find I like DeepSeek more for just throwing ideas at.