XYZ

Acceptance that inequality and biases will always exist, and not being emotionally invested in these aspects of human nature. This includes your own biases which you may or may not be consciously aware of. More pragmatically, think of how "social justice warrior" policies and political decisions that try to enforce equality of outcome (rather than equality of opportunity) tend to only create more inequality and systemic biases. Reminds me of this entrance to the holocaust exhibit in the Museum of Tolerance:

What tests are you guys using?

Is your attitude about inequality different in situations when you are personally placed at an advantage or disadvantage to others, as opposed to a detached observer?

@TeamBills The reality of existence I was/still am trying to escape with gambling is so much more stressful, and depressing than when my lottery tickets turn into worthless paper. I'm stuck in a unique kind of situation, lacking the resources and infrastructure to do anything successful, but having some access to money and credit that I've been abusing to gamble with. My attitude's changed again, I've accepted that I'm a helpless victim in life, and don't know if I can ever be a value creator. Even if I one day do actually create things of value, I wouldn't expect them to be profitable, and I have no ability to compete with other people. I loathe competition, and comparing myself to others, just want to be a passive consumer and enjoy life, not a 'human doing.' No amount of shedding limiting beliefs could change the objective circumstances I find myself in. There's no opportunity to make money for me, it's a barren desert. Haven't had any success finding someone to host me in their house in exchange for working in their lifestyle business. Now my tentative plan is to limit gambling to $5 a week so I haven't given up completely, and get a mental health evaluation, official diagnoses for autism, ADD and whatever else they can find, pay off all debt and put any remaining funds in a pooled trust and go on welfare. There's literally nothing much I can do in my current situation, but if they can give me a safe and comfortable home environment to live in, it's possible I can manage to get enough sleep, sleep more normal hours, and actually do productive things. Right now life is just one big cope, trying to sleep in an open living room with constant noise and no temperature protection. 0% chance I can do anything productive through working on the computer though, learned zero technical skills my whole life, my attention span while looking at a screen has melted to non-existent, and just use internet as a passive learning medium and means to distract and entertain myself. I'd also never work full time again, too depressing, especially since my slow pace of doing things means work takes up the whole day pretty much. Free time isn't really free when you have to stay near home cause you got to be in bed or at work in a few hours. Like to be outside and go for long walks every day, too much sitting or staying indoors makes me depressed. California is on fire now, but I still have to go outside and brave the smoke and ask since I'd go nuts just staying indoors all day on the computer or reading.

Bear with me while I explore some fundamental observations about ego and emotions, through my own unique unusual experiences. As a child, at some point I became aware that other people could tell what I was feeling just by looking at my face, even before I was consciously aware of it. I also observed the way other people interacted, they seemed to instinctively react to each other's faces involuntarily, particularly in the are around their eyes. Both these things frightened me, I felt like I had no emotional privacy: Other people could tell when I'm scared, angry, bored, aroused, mischievous, or sad, and this made me deeply uncomfortable. Likewise, absorbing other people's emotions with no filter via eye contact and facial expressions perturbed me. So from around age 8 or so, I made a conscious, determined effort to keep a straight face all of the time, which prevented conveyance of emotion with other people, but also blunted my own experience, and I felt emotionally numb around people. But the underlying psychological mechanisms were still there, I remember lots of times someone smiled at me, and the mirror neurons kicked in right away, causing me to form a smile with out realizing it. Though the moment I became conscious of what was happening, my face fell flat, straight paralyzed pokerface. Instead of numb I felt afraid and/or disgusted usually, like my emotional privacy had been invaded. If it was someone I would not want to smile at, it felt like emotional rape when I was caught off guard and they made me start to smile back at them. Several years ago I became aware that something was very abnormal about the way I interact with people, it became very evident at my last job, which involved lots of customer service, and of course, lots of complaints about the way I said things, even though from my perception I was just thinking thoughts and formulating sentences to convey information. My flat affect was interpreted as rude, aggressive or condescending, even though I was just being matter-of-fact, not feeling/expressing any emotions. At the time though I assumed the problem was "I don't know how to make facial expressions" because I never learned due to abnormal childhood and limited experience socializing. I read books on body language, practiced making faces in the mirror, but it was of no help, my face was still frozen when other people looked at me. Through a long and indescribable process of letting of of psychological trauma, stop repressing emotions and let go of baggage, I'm now able to allow myself to open up to people I feel comfortable with, to look them in the eyes and smile, to react to their faces. It's still not the same as neurotypicals talk though, with what to me looks like all kinds of micro expressions, being all animated with lots of automatic nodding and eye movements. It is still unnerving when people try to make eye contact and facial expressions at me, my mirror neurons trying to get me to react, while my ego wants to avoid any emotional engagement. At this point though, I wonder not what is wrong with me, but why do people do this, what is the point, and how does something that feels so invasive to me like eye contact and smiling with a stranger in passing a thing people do all the time without thinking about it? I've only recently learned the definitions of "cognitive" and affective" empathy. When I encountered the term empathy for most of my life, I interpreted it on a cerebral level, like observing other people and inferring how they are feeling. I am good at the type of tests that show pictures of people and ask you to describe their emotional states, this is cognitive empathy. Affective empathy is actually experiencing other people's emotions as your own, direct contagion of feelings. Seeing it spelled out like this gave me lots of clarity why I'm resistant to, and overwhelmed by people directing emotional expressions at me and anticipating a reciprocation. To do that would feel like I am surrendering control of my emotions, making myself vulnerable to feeling other people's feelings with no filter. Someone makes a face at me and I automatically reflect it back, and feel the corresponding emotions. The idea of that is very uncomfortable, if not outright frightening. There is an exception though, I've found that it actually feels pleasant, even heartwarming, to engage in nonverbal rapport with women I find attractive. It's obvious why, as it is a very sensual experience, and having direct empathy with someone is the next best thing to touching their body. But I couldn't help but feel some unease at the notion that I want to lock eyes and smile deeply at some cute girl, but my body won't let me show affective empathy towards men and unattractive women I encounter. It just feels so shallow and conceited, especially since it's obvious to people who observe me displaying cold, detached, avoidant & dismissive body language towards some, but lighting up and being all warm and welcoming towards a woman who is easy on the eyes. An epiphany that pooped into my head while on a walk today is that Affective empathy dissolves my sense of individual self, and eliminates boundaries between self and other. This is why it's so scary to directly empathize with people in general, but why it's so pleasurable to empathize with beautiful women, because in moments of emotional resonance, it's like we're becoming one together. So this definitely confirms my suspicions that I'm actually somewhat of an empath rather than autistic as I used to suspect. I feel emotions on a deep visceral level, and sharing emotional states with people in real time is like baring my soul to them, and I lose any sense of psychological separation. Now I don't know if I am just a hypersensitive person, or if normal people are just used to this and it doesn't even register when they're infected with other people's emotions. What now, I'm not sure. I doubt that I would want to be emotionally vulnerable to people. I focused mostly on how I dislike having involuntary emotional reactions, but I generally don't feel any emotions towards other people in the first place. When I'm happy I smile to myself, not at people. I've also mastered my emotional feedback loop my being able to feel happy just by smiling widely until I feel the corresponding emotional state, and it feels really good. In this manner, it's like I live in an emotional bubble, where I author my own emotional states and don't want any outside interference. At the same time though I am seeing how this bubble prevents me from forming connections with people when I want to. For example, a few days ago a friend told me how one of our yoga instructors was in a car accident and couldn't make it. All I could manage to say was a deadpan "that sucks" which felt so indifferent and detached in hindsight. When other people heard, they said thinks like aww gosh, and made sad or concerned faces at each other. I don't know what I want really, to open myself up to more empathy, or tune out other people's feelings and keep living in an emotional bubble.

Simple open ended question: How can you tell if you, or another person, is actually practicing true spirituality, or just using/abusing spirituality to serve their own ego?

Not procreating, though this is more about not wanting to bring new people into a world being unavoidably devastated by climate change than to actually address the problem, and I probably wouldn't want to have children anyway even without the issue of climate change. I've expressed before how it looks like humanity and planet Earth is fucked beyond saving, enjoy it while it lasts, and we'd be lucky not to be die a slow and painful death of excessive heat, drought or famine in the next 50 years. But as of recently, climate change is such an obvious in-your-face reality across the entire planet that humanity is forced to address it. It's easy to ignore abstract data, but not so easy to ignore extreme weather phenomena that affects everyone. Pragmatic solutions actually have to come from industry, not activism, virtue signaling or personal lifestyle choices. As for what the average person can actually do, not being a scientist, engineer, farmer etc. this rings a bell.

@Black Flag Hoarding capital stagnates the economy and worsens wealth inequality, whereas when people and businesses spend more, there are more resources to go around, more jobs, more productivity, investing in growth, technology development, etc. What product or service could you provide to people who have the money to pay you generously for it? Something that there is an under-served demand for, creating a new niche, or doing it better than what already exists.

This I've identified as a fundamental issue to address in personal development, to change my personality from being a passive freeloader to active creator of value. Changing a lot of unconscious, lifelong habits, in all areas of life from interacting with people, making/spending money, and use of my free time. Looking for any book, video or other resource recommendations to get into the creator mindset. As an INTP/ENTP I feel I have been extremely creative within my own mind, but severely lacking in actually producing value that can be received and reciprocated with the world around.

I have conceived of life purpose as a broad concept, but never as a clear specific goal and personal vision to guide my every action. Understanding that this is not something predetermined to discover, but a choosing, I could choose anything, the possibilities are unlimited. But how can I expect myself to stick with anything, knowing how everything is objectively meaningless, and there is really no self to give meaning to things? I may have felt passionate about things before, such as promoting environmentalism, teaching people happiness, writing a book, or selling mattresses, but eventually realized, wait a second, I really don't give a fuck, nothing really matters, and what can I really do anyways? This has aspects of self-doubt, but also self-transcendence and apathy. Letting go of ego and attachments appears to me at odds with having a directed life purpose, adhering to values and principles. To say my life is about X, or I am working to accomplish Y feels very egocentric, quite un-zen: How is this compatible with a sense of outcome independence, non-attachment, and experiencing being rather than doing? My own situation may be a fairly unique case of coming from a life of extreme nothingness. In a nutshell, after high school I spent 4 years as a retail wage slave, 3 years as a college student, and then the last 5 years as a 'NEET' indulging in mainly 3 activities: Lots of sedentary, passive internet use with addictions to things like porn, computer games and TV shows, going for long walks outside all the time, and also going to a yoga & meditation center, more recently also doing more of the practices at home and in everyday life. All throughout though, life was never about anything, except maybe just coping with existence, seeking pleasure, avoiding discomfort, and staying entertained. I thought I was becoming more spiritual in recent years, but now it looks like I was just using spirituality to serve the ego, pursuing zen hedonism rather than enlightenment. Presently, I have no reason to get out of bed, and I only do so because of the need to urinate or desire to eat. I feel happy emotionally, but I have nothing to live for except satisfying base drives and purely selfish reasons for doing things. So why even bother with life purpose? Because for many years I had known that purposefulness is a practical necessity, a choice always has to be made, otherwise stagnation will occur, do much of nothing, rinse and repeat, die. I am no longer resistant to having a LP seeing as how rejecting LP and being passive/indecisive is just as much a choice as committing to a vision and seeing it through. The latter at least offers more personal agency and potential for material prosperity aligned with purpose-driven action. Still though, I very much doubt my ability to remain passionate about anything, because I have never had that experience before. Reason I am hesitant to delve into books, workshops and courses about developing life purpose is because I fear there might be just nothing to work with, so little sense of self at all. I'd assume such tools rely on the presupposition that there are things people can find meaningful in the first place, but so far my life seems to have been like a reality show about nothing.

My entire outlook on life which has emerged over the past 5 years is based upon the idea of self-exceptionalism, prioritizing concern for my own self above all else. This is the ultimate coping strategy I've developed for facing the reality of existence, and it feels almost necessary in order to function, otherwise everything would completely fall apart, and there would be no reason to do anything ever. I never chose to be born, this life was forced upon me having no say in the matter, and it's irrelevant whether or not I even exist in the metaphysical sense. But since I am stuck in the realm of living as the human body, my way of coping with existence has been evolving psychological mechanisms to prioritize my own well being above everything and everyone else, even if that means living directly at the expense of others, or distorting reality to make it more tolerable. This has become much more clear over the last few months while learning about spiral dynamics, watching actualized.org videos, practicing abstinence from sexual release and increasing my time spent on breath and mantra meditation. Believe what you want about no-fap, but that is been a crucial factor in personal development; doing that constantly had dulled my senses and clouded my thoughts. Once cutting that out, over time everything I had been avoiding and repressing, every fear and self-delusion will come to the surface to be dealt with, there is no escape now. It is a process of continued opening, realizing how strong, resilient and creative I can be, and also seeing how fucked up the whole situation is, finding more and more blocks to overcome. This is a big one here. Beforehand I had assumed I had gotten rid of my ego and wasn't afraid of death, but that was based on a misunderstanding of what is actually the ego. Ego is the sense of separateness that fights to keep up the illusion of me as an individual entity, and it will spin whatever narratives are necessary to maintain a sense of self, and a will to live. When I first watched the spiral dynamics mini-series, I related mostly to stage yellow for all except one area, which was self-centeredness. I suspect that many parts of my personality have actually reached that stage of development, particularly my view of what I perceive as things outside of me, but fundamentally I am still at stage red when it comes to personal things and how I interact with the world. More recently when I watched the video about Trump on Leos blog, recognized how my "reality distortion field" is constantly working to keep of this illusion of separateness, and maintain an attitude of self-exceptionalism. It want me to keep seeing myself as a self, of there being a me that is this mind and body, and because I'm this physical human being on this physical plane, all that matters to me is having my own needs and wants met any any cost. Now here is what I am afraid of: If I were to let go of the ego, really transcend the false division between "myself" and everything else, I would wake up the next day, and there would be no reason to get out of bed. Nothing exists, nothing matters, the illusion of this body could just lie there until it died. Why bother doing anything if there is nothing to do and nobody to do it? Is ego actually a necessity for life to continue at all, and by contrast, true ego death would mean actual death? Where is the sweet spot between purposefulness and beingness?

Try reading books outside.

Literally me! But it was this attitude of passive victimhood that I used to rationalize a gambling addiction. As of recently though, I am making myself open to changing this attitude, challenging my past freeloader mentality and learning to become someone who creates value, and is compensated for it. No way I'm ever going back to a classroom or "wage slave" job either. This is utterly mindfucking, both because the possibilities are endless, and none of them has a clear path to follow, it's all 'do your own research, experiment and figure it out.'

Might want to look into Platelet Rich Plasma therapy

Relax. Your voice is something you have immense capacity to control. Vocal resilience improves naturally when you fix your breathing habits and talk at a slower pace. And there are also plenty of resources available, you can start by scouring youtube for useful relevant videos. Chances are your high school can provide you with a speech therapist as well!

can you be more specific?

@aurum Discipline with regard to bringing in is much more challenging than letting go. Cutting out destructive habits is conceptually as simple as stop doing them, using will power. You don't have to do anything, just stop doing stuff. But creative or productive discipline can't run on will power alone, as it involves figuring things out for the first time, both actual skills and mustering the mental effort to put yourself through the whole endeavor . If I was going to build a brick wall and then paint it, such a task would be straightforward, just do it, sheer willpower, go go go. Totally different that learning to meditate, develop a life purpose, or creating a business, because there are so many layers of complexity involved beyond just taking immediate action to finish a clear-cut project. In this case discipline is sticking with the process despite how confused, bored, lost, uncomfortable, uncertain and minfucked you feel.

'All you need is love and everything will align' sounds nice but is empty advice, like "just be yourself." It would only be true if you already had a call to action beforehand, then are motivated by love to keep pursuing that goal. THIS is a missing factor in clarity of purpose, I finally realized today. A specific vision to manifest, rather than a vague idea of something. I may not know what my something is yet, but at least now I know that forming a clear vision is the key to actual growth vs. mere idealism.

I can dive right into a creative project if its something I can just do right away, without being concerned with technical skills, popularity or profitability. Most creative projects I've engaged in are through writing, in my personal blog, forum posts such as this one, or emailing with friends to share ideas with each other. I am very motivated to write because it helps sort out my thoughts in ways that are often not possible just thinking about them, leave a record of important things I'd otherwise neglect to be mindful of later one, and also get important feedback from others, which helps me expand my awareness and consider other perspectives I may have been blind to. A creative project I have been itching to start over the last few years is running a YouTube channel. This is because of many reasons. Easiest to address is to stop procrastinating on learning some basic video editing skills and learning how to set up the microphone I bought 3 years ago and sat in a drawer. Also been very indecisive as to what I'd want the channel to be about and whether to show my face making videos, or just record audio accompanied by images, as lots of channels I listen to do. What I really struggle with though is the fear of recording things in my own voice that I look back on as cringeworthy and regrettable. I clearly remember how in August 2015 I wanted to make a MGTOW themed YT channel where I discuss all manner of armchair psychology topics. Lots of videos I scripted in my head, some even drafted on paper felt like low-consciousness inane drivel, and I'm glad I didn't take action. There is also the fear of success, or popularity. I honestly believe that I could invest in some high quality video making equipment, make videos about topics like happiness, self-esteem, overcoming loneliness, introversion-extroversion etc. I wouldn't try to monetize the project at all at first, since that would be a distraction to the creative process, just produce content, and popularize it throughout the internet, share it with self-help communities, market the shit out of it on social media, etc. But then, I fear that such popularity would make me too public, too well known, would have so much unwanted attention online and in real life. I also desire to spend less and less time sedentary, more time being active, and unfortunately the only creative outlets I have access to involve long hours sitting at the computer.

I can get into this state sometimes by trying to dissociate from language completely, produce no words internally, and any I hear are just sounds, when words stop, thoughts stop, you get a taste of pure experience and it's like micro-awakening.

@How to be wise How might one integrate Blue, if this is the missing link to evolve out or Red? Feels like I, and most others on the forum would be past the point where we can earnestly engage with dogma as if it were absolute, too open minded to go back. Most of the examples of stage Blue seem to be centered around adhering to religion or respecting authority figures, being subsumed by ideology. I was more observant of religion as a child, and obeyed/respected authority more, but never completely. I always questioned ideology, doubted the validity of teachings, and had a self-centered perspective all throughout. Perhaps it will be helpful to mention that my parents were very stage blue, while as a child and teen I would often say things like "fuck you, I hate you!" to them whenever they tried to impose their moral values upon me. More generally, I had a persistent fear of authority figures of any type, be they teachers, police, parents, or even store employees. Now maybe that's just normal childhood and teenage experience I'm describing, or I had an all out rebellion against stage blue, which is why I have so much red still.

@Psyche_92 Worst that could happen is nothing, back to the original conundrum, which is why even get out of bed, except for concerns of the body or ego. Yes, I really do wonder why, there is no point, why not just do nothing, it doesn't matter, there is no self. Usually something like, well I can't sleep anymore at this point, lying here is boring, might as well get up and do something, or feeling hungry, needing to urinate, needing to work or go to an appointment, wanting to check emails, watch videos, read books, go outside. But all that is rudimentary self-preservation and ego gratification. Fundamental concern, maybe, is to reconcile the idea of choosing a life purpose, engaging in purpose directed action, while at the same time realizing no-self, letting go of attachments, need for comfort, sense of separation, etc. Why is this important, well to have responsibility, initiative, agency over the course of live instead of being a passive victim drifting through it haphazardly. Unifying high consciousness mind-body experiences with actual high consciousness living of everyday life. Have I fallen into the trap of becoming a 'zen hedonist' taking self-acceptance to such an extreme that I've become idly complacent and indecisive?

@ajasatya @Andreas So comfort seems to be they key term here. Yes I am very addicted to comforts, and being comfortable is probably the reason why I do or don't do most things. But there is also the ability to maintain internal comfort while facing highly stressful and unpredictable situations. This I see as being a very beneficial skill to develop, as it will free up capacity to take more actions and make more sacrifices, overcoming the 'comfort zone' of past laziness.

What exactly is discipline? Maybe try to define it in your own words.

@Psyche_92 Realizing this only leads to feeling more passive and indecisive