Dan502

Thank you Winternight

Zero

@Ibn Sina no but succinctness is I'm kidding. I did hear somewhere that introversion correlates with self-awareness. I think it was in one of Jordan Peterson's lectures about personality.

If you want to dance around with crystals, I don't see a problem with that. Dancing can be fun and relaxing. From a theoretical point of view, humans are opaque. We don't photosynthesise because we need more energy than plants due to all our movement, so we eat protein instead. I know some bacteria can photosynthesise but I don't know if they're particularly present in or around humans. If you want more light on your skin, why not go outside? The sun is brighter and healthier than artificial light.

Personal development at stages orange and green is a well trodden path. If you walk around a bookshop for five minutes wearing a blindfold and crash helmet, some of the books that fall off the shelves that you bump into will probably be useful. Leo, as I understand it, is pioneering a route to enlightenment and is documenting his own progress. This is his unique offering to the world and it's most important to him and others that he continues to make content that interests and engages him. Of course if that content happens to be practically useful at stage orange, I wouldn't complain. God knows I haven't exactly nailed that stage.

I'd be interested to attend a talk if Leo ever makes it to London, UK. I think I feel "triggered" (or whatever) by Leo sometimes because my ego is probably really jealous of him and can't stand being told that there are things I don't understand or am conscious of but I try to bring awareness to that and lay it on the table directly. I love how he has the courage to explore topics in ways that others don't dare to.

@Shadowraix Agreed. I may need to work on my own behaviour too in this respect. I sometimes use charity marketers in the street to practice awareness because I resent how they try to be all friendly when they don't know me. So I blank them, neither saying yes or no. There's that second or two when they realise that I can hear them and am deliberately not responding. Similarly, I occasionally use beggars for kicks like if one asks for a cigarette, I'll say no but them go buy them a pack of 20 just to witness their shock and gratitude. I'm not sure if this is entirely responsible. It does feel good but I suppose ideally I would just be kind without needing the added stimulation of that shock reaction.

The recent video about survival seemed to explain a kind of "everything is survival" perspective. I wonder if it's useful to explore this perspective a bit, conceptually, in order to understand and support it, with the added caveat that doing so has its limitations in terms of developing awareness which of course goes beyond concepts. I imagine such an exercise might be useful at or below stage yellow. For example, although it's not the only work of its kind, Dan Dennett's philosophy attempts to set out cultural evolution so that our thoughts and behaviours can be understood through the lens of survival. Perhaps more appealing to self-actualizers would be an individual thought experiment whereby we start off with some crude, simple concepts and introduce minor variations, over and over again, imagining how new concepts are created, seemingly through sheer probability, until we have something more complex and more closely resembling our usual idea of a person. Also, what does it mean to say that worrying about a meeting at work or a homework assignment IS survival? No doubt it's apparent that we may hurry to get there, fail to look both ways and get hit by a bus on the way to the office. *That* doesn't seem like survival. However the extent that our eyes see the bus before it hits us, the eye itself in fact, is something that, from a scientific viewpoint, evolved through repeated cycles of survival of lesser eyes. Still, lots of things don't survive. In fact the vast majority of living organisms throughout history, so I'm told, died childless. Presumably the perspective of survival is important to us because we see ourselves as the products of such processes. I'm not suggesting we cling too tightly to the theory here, rather that it could be beneficial to understand it in order to validate the perspective, which then acts as a base for awareness work. Afterall, maybe it's easier to recognise the survival perspective in everyday life if we have some knowledge around how it works and how it seems to have developed.

Lost Connections by Yohann Hari looks interesting.

What a great question. I agree with the previous answers. Also there seems an almost inevitable loss of passion after realising a possibility if the anticipation was what caused the passion to begin with.

Nice post, and well done!

@Leo Gura Thanks Leo

That hurts like fuck.

Scientists, lawyers, academics and some finance.

He'll be happy for a while because all the stress is gone. Then, maybe, the intellect and conscientiousness that got him that £80k job might get bored and go searching for a new meaning. Maybe.

Ha, the title of this thread sounds so pretentious from a certain perspective

@laptophaver I think the concerns expressed in your post might be useful if this were a forum solely dedicated to weight or confidence issues and if Leo was a user on that forum who was currently struggling with both those issues. I agree with @John Iverson that it could be inspirational, especially as Leo has been making weekly videos for so long that it's clear his current physique is something he's maintained consistently for many years.

I've just taken a look at the textbook. It's seriously impressive.

Cue Sg impersonation. See, um, In scientific lessons, we are taught all about physical evolution. Can you change your physical evolution? Can you? Have you tried? Can you evolve gills? Or a tail? No. At least if you manage it, please let me know, hahaha. So we are taught all the details of physical evolution yet physical evolution happens at its own pace. So what is the point of this? Unless you wish to become a scientist, which is perfectly fine I'm not objecting to that. Yet when we're talking about the other dimensions of life, there is plenty we can do in this lifetime to evolve. There are exercises you can do and you will evolve. Even in one year you can evolve So the question is just this, are you willing to evolve yourself?

I would also be interested to hear Leo's thoughts on whether, and the extent to which, he might benefit from a new focus or a change in focus and what that could be.

You could try asking about their values and beliefs. Having said that, a person's work history can say a lot, if it's disclosed in full.

If you desire solitude, seek it.

My biggest fear is suffering. I sometimes apply action or acceptance to small situations.

If each stage was summarised as a set of adjectives, a person could assess their performance in those areas using established tests. It would then be a case of translating each result into a score and then adding up all the scores. Then we could play Top Trumps with people.

I liked your post @CreamCat It can be useful to be aware of the tendencies of a particular teacher's approach.