DarkestLight

@Serotoninluv Thanks I appreciate it. I have a tendency to romanticize every stage, trying to find the most idealized version of each stage as possible. Do you have any recommendations to get away from that sort of thinking and become more realistic in my perception? I have a tendency to automatically have strong compassion for people and animals but I realize this too may be a projection of my ego. I tend to project noble intentions or at least a form of innocence onto everything

@Serotoninluv I don't really think we're in disagreement here. I grew up in an environment that had a mix of strict blue and loving green values, so it's likely that's part of my bias/ego. For example, my mother is a White American liberal Roman Catholic and my father is a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist. They had some ideological elements of blue combined with multicultural and pluralistic thinking, and my temperament/way of seeing the world is similar to that. I had spent equal time in Buddhist temples as I had in Catholic cathedrals. I think I need to go talk to more people in blue and with my own experience see what drives them. I try to spend my time with people who are blue, orange, and green and synthesize their perspectives. I would say I recently hit a point where I began to move past orange over these past few months and really begun to come back to green. Perhaps I need to look at pure blue this time.

@Serotoninluv When I'm talking about blue, I'm mainly talking about the positive aspects of it. Not necessarily specific doctrines, but basic values that contribute to human survival. Red values strength/power, which is necessary to protect rather than destroy, and blue is about order and law, to allow prosperity not to oppress. I'm not saying go back to the past, but we can still learn some valuable lessons from these values and integrate them into green for example

What it seems like to me is that much of America is Blue-Orange. Promoting healthy blue and healthy orange is important. JBP helped me integrate blue better even though I don't necessarily agree with him on everything. Without the ethnocentrism and excessive dogma that tends to accompany blue (In America, but blue comes in many forms/many cultures), tradition has an important role to play in the stability society and grounded values in people. (Nietzsche's death of God and nihilism were a necessary stage for me, but it was miserable and destructive before moving more to a humanistic orange) The societal order and strictness is what allows orange to be born. The same thing with a strong emphasis on science and economics, because a society can't transition into green without first having the material infrastructure, education, and technology produced to have a post or less scarce society. We have healthy versions of each stage and mixtures of the stages like interlocking rings that support one another. We can't push people into stages they aren't ready for, we can only encourage them to manifest healthy versions of their values and when the time comes they change (Ideally, for the better) That's basically my perspective based on my experience and journey so far.

Just be careful about having your ego tell you that you're more aware than you actually are. I've experienced that myself. It's good that you've had some spiritual experiences, and what you're saying I can relate to. I've had what seemed to be non-dual experiences, thought they lasted a few seconds to a few minutes at most. Seems like you're going on the right path based on what you've said though. Good luck on your journey!

Those are models, and models are based off of perception. This is not about aliens, this is about your mind, and possibly other people's minds imagining what aliens would be like without ever experiencing them. Math is a linguistic construct to reflect the experience of human pattern recognition and a tool we can use. But our perception of patterns is likely to be a heuristic of a sort. It seems to be the nature of perception (Inner being), not the nature of an outward being. Since life's genesis, evolution has acted as a directive: to form of metaphorical immortality through survival and the proliferation of genes or in an abstract sense, legacy or purpose in humans. Like a virus or bacteria for example. But it all reduces to an illogical desire for survival in a sense. Why live or die? Well your emotions and sensations drive you strongly to live, or in some cases, die. But what we define as living, that's already hard to even know. At what point is something physics, chemistry, biology? Other than a useful model for survival and the desire for knowledge by extension, how can we say we are alive? Anyhow, the patterns become more complex, but the principle remains the same, perhaps again metaphorically and in different forms, but essentially the same. So our perception is most likely a way to frame what we perceive as relevant data, which is based off of the values/priorities underlying that. (That is, the urge to survive in any form) And so, when you generalize, you try to make sense of a tiny pocket of what appears to be reality. When you fit data into boxes, you already draw a box onto a seemingly infinite canvas. Models already go through a series of filters inside the mind. Intuition through experience and a higher degree of awareness has helped me, but honestly to even perceive any form of data as a piece is to create a box itself.

One thing that may help is building up to it. If you're honest with yourself, and it's too hard for you at the moment, you can always build up to it. Say, you get a foundation in learning some of the history of Western philosophy, maybe watch some videos doing a general overview of the topics to build a context, maybe get into some literature or art that you can relate to as a starting point, maybe get into some eastern thought after that. You can also get meta by trying to find books or learn lessons on how to increase your focus/discipline (Exercise, meditation, healthy diet) You can also learn some stuff on educational psychology and read/watch some videos on improving your reading/learning skills. Also consider reading books that are relevant to what you want to learn in life that are more at your level of reading, then build up to it. I'm working up to Heidegger too, not quite there yet, though I'm working up to it. Phenomenology is fascinating. It helped me get out of the dogmatic scientific rationalist mindset

This method is something I've been using lately. It's been really helpful in my journey.

Look, in the end what's important is your own journey. Am I wrong? It appears to me that you are seeking a conclusion, not greater understanding. At any point, take the advice that you take, and don't take the advice you don't take. That's within your freedom. You can also seek to understand the reason he behaves or may think a certain way, and if you have better advice, offer but don't force it. Enlightenment isn't a race. You'll end up where you'll end up. Call it the chain of causality, call it fate, the logos, the label doesn't matter (At least that's how it appears) If you stay at a healthy stage your whole life, ask yourself if there's really anything incorrect about that. It's not comparing who's consciousness is bigger (Lmao) We're pretty much all learning and figuring stuff out here

I've gotten into the habit of just letting myself walk a path without expecting anything. Convert to a religion and see how it affects me, become an atheist, see how that affects me. Live like an asshole or kind person, see what happens. Change the frame and follow its path, see where it goes. Then compare each path and see where it's common themes and differences are found. You then walk a path of common patterns, and a path of differences. It's like the Hegelian dialectic if that makes sense. Two phenomena that seem like opposites typically are indicative of a third single phenomena. It's data collection and experience. Using the senses and perception directly without any judgement, what seems to happen when you treat people as having inherent value as living beings. I'd say experiment with living your life as if all lives had equal existential value, and live your life as if they do not. Where they have common ground, and where the pragmatism drives you, there you'll have a closer answer I feel. But I honestly don't know if a full answer is even knowable. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Who knows?

I just wanted to say I'm sorry you haven't gotten what you desired in life. Living isn't always easy. But you're already here, you're already asking questions, and I think that's a huge step in the right direction. And in regards to the content on this thread, I personally think it all depends on your goals/desires. If getting laid makes you genuinely satisfied and fulfilled in life, then that's great! (Though if I'm being honest, personally I don't think so) If you want love, my experience has been to not get into the impressing people mindset. The desire to prove your value to others destroys the ability for people to connect at a deep level. And yes, looking to science is a useful heuristic, but lived experience is more real. For all the psychological studies there are in the world, it means little if you don't go out and actually collect the data directly. Collect more data, ask women themselves and observe their actions as human beings before making sweeping judgement. Your own two eyes/ears and an open mind can really help here. Are there skills and ways the human psyche seems to work? That's fairly likely. Don't disregard the biology, but recognize that if you're aiming for love. It's not easy for men or for women. It's why there's that frustration and confusion. Our biology isn't always the most kindred, but even so we can make the best of it, be mindful of it. In my experience, genuine love and friendship comes from moving beyond the transactions and standing strong in your devotion to valuing yourself and others regardless of the consequences. Pragmatically speaking, when you act is if you have inherent value as a human being and do the same to others, it improves your relationships with others dramatically. If you fully accept yourself and others, that's already a huge step that even I personally embodied it. Just discovered it recently. Keep in mind when you talk about the dating world and the forces of nature herself. Perhaps it isn't what you wanted, perhaps the circumstances were cruel as both man and woman. But that's what we're on here for. To open the channels of communication and establish that understanding if at all possible. Anyhow, I know it's frustrating, and it's by no means easy. I'll end with a quote from Alan Watts talking about Jung. "It is a moral achievement on the part of the doctor who ought not to let himself be repelled by sickness and corruption. We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate. It oppresses. And I am the oppressor of the person I condemn - not his friend or fellow sufferer. I do not say in the least that we must never pass judgement when we desire to help and improve. But if a doctor wishes to help a human being, he must be able to accept him as he is. And he can only do this in reality when he has seen and accepted himself as he is. Perhaps this sounds very simple, but simple things in life are often the most difficult" -Alan Watts