@mr_engineer
   Because this is your worldview and bias and double standard. You are too strongly identified, ideologically, and indoctrinated by Alt-right media and alternative media. You are basically a talking piece for those mind viruses, in a narrative, political and ideological warfare, a pawn/stone in a game of Chinese Go/Shodan/Baduk, yet you lack the necessary level of stage of development, cognitive and moral development, ego development and personality typing, state of consciousness, life experience and other lines and areas of development to appreciate how your mind is coopted, and is distorting reality, deleting challenging information and labelling them as misinformation from your POV, to obfuscate and suit your survival bias as an EGO, to serve under whatever collective ego you are brought up and raised up on.
   So, until you check out, study and practice Sadguru's inner engineering program, you are nowhere able to break free from the matrix, from MAYA, Mr. Anderson.!

This is where you are wrong. It is the purest art.
I want to be able to create a movie or a video game simply by telling a computer exactly what I want to see and how I want it to work. And in this case, I would be the artist. The artist is the architect of the whole thing, not the monkey who draws the lines.
You need to move up one level of abstraction. Go from illustrator to art director.
Yes, stock photos for articles will be replaced. The real question is why do you have such a limited definition of art? That's like the bottom of the barrel of the art world. I mean, at that point you might as well be painting McDonalds burger wrappers and calling it art.
The fucking Atlantic? Think bigger.

Here's your problem: You don't have a juicy enough reason to be getting out of bed. If you did, you could barely sleep.
When your life has no purpose you have no reason to get out of bed, and you will even die sooner. Because why live? Your life is pointless and so literally your body will shut down sooner.

Love of life is not an luxury. Either you proactively cultivate it or you will become a bitter, jaded zombie.

A lot can be researched online these days. But you could also buy books, talk to experts, find mentors, go to seminars, buy courses, etc.
You need to study how other businesses in your niche work. What makes them work? What are they doing well? What are they doing poorly? What opportunities are they missing? How much money do they make? What are the profit margins like? How did they become successful? How did others fail? How saturated is this niche? What is necessary to succeed in this niche? Who are the customers/clients? What do they seek? What problems do they have which you could help them solve? How much money do they have and how much can you charge them?
The better you know the answers to all these questions the higher your odds of finding your niche.
You can answer all those questions by doing lots of online research, reading books, and talking to people from the industry you're into. You can also answer those questions by running small tests on the market. Try to sell or create something within that niche and see how people react. These small tests show you what works and what doesn't work.
And perhaps the most fundamental form of research is just massively consuming content within your niche. For example, if want to become a video game designer, play a ton of games. That's research. Or if you want to be therapist, hire a lot of therapy sessions for yourself so you get a deep experience of what makes for good vs bad therapy. Try to become the biggest fan/consumer of your own niche. If you want to be filmmaker, study the shit out of film. Watch it, analyze it, criticize it, dissect it. Have more experience with film than most filmmakers. Talk to other filmmakers and pick their brain. Slowly make industry connections. Then it will be quite easy to succeed as a filmmaker.

They don't have to be criminals to justify a 100% tax.
There is no reason whatsoever that society should allow billionaires to exist. There is no right to be a billionaire.
A conscious society would recognize that any individual holding over a billion dollars is harmful to the society as a whole, simply in principle. In the same way individuals holding nuclear weapons is harmful to society as a whole and it is thus not allowed.
What you have yet to realize is that just the very fact of holding a billion dollars harms the billionaire, his family, his friends, his colleagues, and society at large. It is like being morbidly obese. It is not good for you and it is a poor allocation of social resources.
See, if you had a billion dollars and you mother was dying of cancer due to inability to pay for her doctor, but you desired to hoard your billions, we would call that a sick situation.
Well, that's what's happening in society at large today. And you are justifying it as normal and even as a right of yours.

So then you gotta contemplate the root of that resistance and become conscious of what is it and why it's there.
Another easy way to access Love is through Beauty. Spend more time just contemplating and connecting to the fundamental beauty of reality -- whatever that means for you. Might be animals, nature, sex, music, art, etc. Find those specific things that make you excited about life. Reconnect with the beauty of life. I can't go more than a few days without crying at the beauty of it all. But this had to be cultivated.
The bottom line is: you take life and reality so for granted. If you didn't, you'd be crying tears of joy every day.
It's not about taking a few trips. You must use the psychedelics to become more conscious of your self and really do the work with them. And high doses are not necessarily best for you. That resistance needs to be cleared up and make conscious at lower levels. You probably have a lot of life baggage to work through first before you can break into the epic metaphysical stuff.

Your view of mastery is far too narrow.
Of course.
Of course.
Obviously not.
Of-fucking-course.
Yes!
Of course.
Keyword there is "could".
Traps abound. Navigate consciously. Life requires exquisite balance.
- - - - -
The real question you should be asking is along the lines of: when I am taking a shit, how can I turn that act into part of my process of mastering sci-fi writing?
For an artist, life itself is an endless source of creative inspiration and lessons.
Don't draw you lessons too narrowly.
Embody what you want to become. BE it!

I did a lot of work questioning and challenging all my limiting beliefs about attracting and dating. And I had A LOT of them.
The beliefs have to deconstructed and challenged directly. Write out each of your beliefs and then conjure up evidence and logic to counter each one. Keep challenging them as you hit the field, until finally you slay them all.
I am working on a course that will teach you how to do this.

@SamC You have to build a steelman of feminism in your mind before you attempt to deconstruct it.
What is the genuine good intent behind feminism? What is the spirit of feminism? That's what you should contemplate deeply and grasp. Once you grasp that, then you can do some deconstruction and critique of its excesses, keeping in mind that nearly all social movements have excesses. If you don't like the excesses of feminism how about the excesses of toxic masculinity and patriarchy? Don't just conveniently forget about those.
Make a distinction between criticizing feminism from below vs from above. The kind of stuff JP does is from below. He has not integrated it properly and is therefore reacting against his own shadow on behalf of his fan base.
Basically, notice when you are reacting to shit like an animal, and stop it.

You should chase living an authentic life aligned with your top values, your top passions, helping spread truth, consciousness, love, and beauty across the Universe via which ever way most excites you and suits your unique strengths and talents.
You are right that you should not just sit around twiddling your thumbs. You should be constantly working on your life purpose and evolving yourself towards that end.
Life is short. Don't squander it sitting around in confusion and inaction.
False success is chasing what others tell you is good.
True success is devoting your life to expressing the Love that you have for the world in your unique way, and doing so skillfully and eagerly.
False success will not make you happy, but true success will.

We got a lot more time than that.
If your worldview leads you to fear and depression, then obviously something is wrong with your worldview -- NOT with the world!
The point of this work is to cut through the BS that is fear and depression. If this work is not making your happier, lighter, and more playful , you need to change your understanding of this work.
Being fearful, frustrated, and sad is not a conscious or truthful state and it is not how we heal the world.

Forget about that. Focus on the joys of the creative process.
You will never reach a state of "being great". It's a dumb idea. Drop it.
Don't try to be some great person. Just be creative and enjoy it.

The one thing in common that all bad people have is this:
They are unwilling to sit alone in a room and contemplate their own mind, instead they think the world is wrong and try to fix it.
The one thing all the good people have in common is this:
They sit alone in a room and contemplate their own mind until they realize that everything they thought was bad or wrong in the world was actually just the delusions of their own mind.
Bad is not in the world. Bad is your own mind because you are selfish.
It's so simple, But you refuse to hear it because you want some external evil to fight. But all you're ever fighting is yourself.

Even with a Biden victory, this election has revealed just how under-developed the American population is. We over-estimated America's development.
Biden winning by a razor thin margin after 4 years of Trump's disastrous admin is very troubling. It should have been a landslide but people are so uneducated and my guess is that 50% of the country is stuck in a right-wing brainwashing alternative media echochamber that has rotted their minds.
This does not bode well for future elections. That alt-media echochamber is not going away with Trump.

To still be supporting Trump in 2020, one or more of the following most likely applies ;
(1) The person is a literal white supremacist who wants to live in a White Ethno-State
(2) The person is part of the tiny economic elite that happens to be benefitting personally from Trump's looting of the country, and has found a way to rationalize thier highly selfish behavior
(3) This is the most likely : the person is at a low stage of cognitive and moral development, and is vulnerable to being manipulated by  a charismatic con-man who knows how to capitalize on conspiracy theories and propaganda to advance his own highly selfish egoic agenda.

Make a check-list of what you want, then roll up your sleeves and get to work.
All that material shit is straight-forward to get. There's no mystery to it.
If you sleep with 20 girls, you'll find at least a few who are what you want.
You gotta get serious about building out a life. Stop dabbling and being meek about it. Go fucking do it.

As your mind develops and your consciousness expands you will have to take on the burden of realigning every aspect of your life with a higher vision and purpose. This includes your career/biz, your relationships, sex, how you interact with people, your diet, etc.
That's what makes this work so challenging and rarely done. Upgrading all that stuff is hard. No one is gonna hold your hand through it. You must learn to lead yourself.

We need a Loveocracy

You can't ever win that game because that kind of good vs bad is dualistic and relative. So no matter how much "good" you create and how much "bad" you avoid, you will always fail.
True Goodness is Absolute, which means it includes the "bad".
The ultimate solution to "bad" stuff is not to avoid it, but to stop seeing it as "bad".
"Bad" is a projection of the ego-mind thanks to its endless desire to survive. So this problem cannot be solved at the level of consciousness you're trying to solve it at.
Absolute Good does not mean that your ego will get everything it wants.

@Seed Here's a key question you should start contemplating now:
How can I do this work in such as way that I actually start to feel better?
What must I change about my approach?
What is the counter-intuitive move that I'm missing?

@GroovyGuru You just need to burn through some karma.
You're young. Go enjoy life. Come back when you're exhausted chasing material rewards.
Spirituality requires high maturity and ripeness.

*phew* I can keep my political principles (anti-capitalism, sry it's just my belief).
ps I'm starting a belief reset, doing lots of reading
 
 

pls follow list

I see a chronic problem on this sub-forum, which is young males who complain about lack of success with women and failing to take responsibility for their situation.
The #1 rule of all growth and personal development is taking 100% responsibility for your situation. I know how hard that can be when you're struggling with women/sex. It feels very much like life is treating you unfairly and that it's the women's fault. Let me tell you right now: this is a total ILLUSION! It's not the women. It's not society. It's not post-modernists. It's not the Marxists. It's not the feminists. It's YOU!
This is not me blaming you. This is simply how all personal development works. Whatever problem you have in life you must begin by getting honest with yourself how you created it. Sometimes this is difficult to accept. It's much easier to blame someone else, or even blame yourself (for being too ugly or too short or too introverted). I am not suggesting you blame yourself. Rather, take ownership of the fact that you are the creator of your life. Whatever is missing in your life, you can correct, but only if you stop blaming yourself and others.
Be very mindful of how your ego-mind creates narratives which justify your sense of lack, brokenness, or inability to attract women. All of these narratives, justification, rationalizations, logic, "facts", scientific studies, proofs, etc are sneakily fabricated by your own mind! Your own mind is the enemy! Watch it like a hawk. Your mind will try to come up with reasons and excuses for why your life is unfair and how success with women is impossible. This is all horseshit! Do not believe your own mind here. Your mind is clouded by fear, insecurity, and neediness. That is totally normal and understandable, but you cannot resolve your problems from such a place. From such a place your problems will get worse as you start to blame the world and solidify your victim worldview with cherry-picked evidence, "science", and "logic". Be extra suspicious of "logic" and "science" here. There is nothing logical or scientific about your victim attitude or lack of success with women. It's purely about meeting the survival needs of your ego. Sex is a very powerful survival need which will drive your mind towards all manner of mental gymnastics to ensure that you get it, or at least feel better for not getting it.
There's good news and bad news. The good news is: Your looks are NOT the problem! The bad news is: your personality, attitude, and mindset are terrible! The good news is, it's possible to change that. The bad news is, it won't be easy and you will resist it like the devil that you are.
So what's the solution? Take ownership of your problem and commit to resolving it. For this you need faith and confidence in your ability to self-actualize. You must have enough hope and vision to see yourself get much better with attracting women. This is NOT a pipe dream or fuzzy thinking. The reality is that any man can become 100x better at attracting women if he really takes ownership of the matter. Yes, it takes serious work. But it's also highly worth it. Imagine that within 3 years you're able to attract pretty women and feel confident about yourself when it comes to dating. Isn't that worth the effort? It sure is. This is not a fantasy. I've done it, many men have done it, and so can you! Your looks are NOT the bottleneck, your mindset is.
So what do you do after you've established this vision? You must do lots of research to educate yourself about how dating actually work (not how you think it works). Find videos, find books, buy online courses, hire a coach, take a bootcamp, take a workshop, etc. There are literally hundreds of excellent resources available online these days. Most of them are legit, not scams. Study them hard and then get into the field. Start talking to women. Start approaching women. Start flirting with women. Start being much more social.
If you struggle attracting women I can tell you right now what your top problems are. It's not lack of money, looks, muscles, car, height, or dick size. Remember, attraction and dating is EXTREMELY counter-intuitive. It's works exactly the opposite of how you initially think.
Your top problems are:
You live in your mancave and never go out! You must go out into social spaces where real women hang out. You spend WAY too much time online, indoors You spend WAY too much time on Youtube, Netflix, and playing video games You work too much You are never around cute single women You never start conversations with strangers You have terrible body language due to lack of experience You are not comfortable doing small-talk and being emotional and random in conversations You are far too logical You approach zero women on a regular basis You are terrified of approaching a women who you find attractive, talking yourself out of every approach You have terrible eye contact, you don't smile, and you don't project your voice properly You are crippled by fear and tongue-tied You are unable to start and sustain an interesting conversation with a human being You are disconnected from your body, your heart, your feelings, your emotions You have terrible self-image issues. You hate yourself, you hate how you look, you judge yourself way too harshly. You judge yourself just as harshly as you judge women. You have a bad sense of dress style and you don't groom yourself well You have no experience with physically touching women in a non-creepy way. You don't know how to rapidly physically escalate on a women without creeping her out. You don't know how women think or what they truly value in a man You don't know how to flirt and be authentic You are trying to be masculine in all the wrong ways -- fake masculinity You are needy, needy, needy You are terribly inexperienced You have no sense of passion or purpose in life, which robs you of confidence and masculine vitality Your attitude sucks: you whine, complain, bitch, moan, blame, and are so negative You think you understand life, reality, and how attraction works -- you don't! So work on fixing all of that before you go blaming women. All of the above can be deliberately worked on and fixed.
You need to learn how to be a real man. Being a real man has nothing to do with big muscles, big dick, or a fast car. A real man is grounded on the INSIDE. It's ALL about inner game! You need to cultivate that confidence. It doesn't come naturally. You must build it!
80% of getting good with women is just actually being much more social. You need to deliberately re-structure your life so that you're automatically being more social. So that you're going out every weekend. So that you're bumping into new people constantly. So that you're making new friends all the time. This kind of re-structuring is very doable. You just have to be willing to change your lifestyle.
And stop watching or listening to any of the following:
Jordan Peterson, MGTOW, RedPill, Incel material/forums/reddit All of that is cancer of the mind. It's reinforcing your victim mindset and robbing you of your ability to change yourself.
I've been where you are. I know it's tough. But hang in there, hold your vision, have hope, get to work, and things will dramatically improve for you. You will become a new person by the end of this journey and you will be so proud of yourself. You will become a real man, not some whiny JP fanboy.
The #1 thing a real man does is take 100% responsibility for all his problems. A real man NEVER blames anyone, and certainly not women or feminism. A real man is a feminist. A real man fearlessly works on himself.
So start right there! Start by fixing that.