Joshe

Interesting post! There's something about the downtrodden that I'm drawn to and fascinated by. When I'm talking to them, I do feel as if they are giving me lessons and they often seem to indirectly or accidentally address something relevant to me. It feels as if: everything is for me. I'm hesitant to build any metaphysics around it though. Happens all the time when I acknowledge the magic and am coming from that place, but if I'm not coming from that place, the only thing that pulls me into it is when the magic forces me to see it, which is often. I used to be enamored by it, but now, I just smile and keep going. The point of the magic seems to only be about the recognition of it itself. The recognition that this is magic. I no longer try to keep the magical state. It shows up when it does - often in spurts - with no rhyme or reason. It feels inevitable, so I don't feel like I have to grasp for it. Somehow, I can give myself goosebumps on command. This might actually be worth looking into because it suggests a strong link between the prefrontal cortex and the autonomic circuits. Maybe spiritual perception is enhanced when this link is strong. Or maybe that's just another story trying to understand the magic. Or maybe it's both.

Simple. Replace it with something else and don’t think about it. The addiction persists because it’s doing something for your nervous system. You cannot simply use awareness to convince your nervous system that it should no longer need it. The point of replacing the addiction with something else is to retrain the nervous system over time, and it will eventually forget all about it. This is 100x more effective than willpower or mindset.

No. Put all effort into financial stability and worry about self development later. Spirituality and self improvement in general is something that I wish I would have ignored early on. I can’t tell you how much time and energy I squandered trying to “improve” myself.

I torrent shit from time to time. I don't think it would be fair to call me a thief. If I didn't torrent it, they wouldn't get my money anyway because I wouldn't buy it. I don't torrent shit I need. Maybe that's even worse? lol I wouldn't torrent programs though... too risky. Don't become a cog in a Russian botnet.

I'm an INTJ. But I also once wanted to spread spirituality for social harmony, so maybe that has to do with an empathetic trait that MBTI doesn't track. I care about social harmony, I just don't want to be the one to implement it. I would love to architect it though, lol. I am aligned with your ideal and believe that the highest good is peace for all. Yes, I can definitely see how this would be a challenge for an Fe dom, but I'm sure you're better positioned to deal with that challenge than most of us here, lol.

Deep truth can emerge without having a passion for it it directly. And I wonder, if "love of truth" is sometimes a story we tell about a more basic drive, such as just being highly analytical. I was diving into why I seek coherence and I and just realized coherence isn't actually what I seek. I'm after "convergence". Coherence is the mechanism, convergence is the success condition. Truth emerges from convergence. Convergence requires coherence. Coherence requires vigilance. But Convergence is the goal. At least for me, I think. Truth is what you infer when your models stop needing revision. Convergence is when everything keeps pointing the same direction and reinforcing an underlying structure. Truth is what convergence looks like from the inside. Maybe truth isn't even the target. Now, why do I want convergence? 😂

But I was talking about a mechanism, not a value. Also, it's interesting that people are driven to truth by having a passion/love for it. I don't have feelings about truth. I'm driven toward functional coherence and I update my models/beliefs immediately as new evidence crosses my credibility thresholds - regardless of the costs. But I never felt a "passion" or "love" for truth. Truth only matters because non-truth breaks functionality.

Are your needs of a "profound" nature? Or are they simple and basic? It seems you're putting the cart before the horse. You have to handle the fundamentals before you worry about the profound. Profound comes later. Also, one of your biggest sticking points is in how you relate to the world. You are mad at the world for not noticing you and accepting you as you are, and you don't like the way they are and how they don't care, and you really, really wish they weren't like that - so you act out. This is normal, but your response to cast them out and isolate yourself from them is an unhealthy one. You want to use "profundity" as a tool to place yourself above them, but this is like a band-aid for a gushing wound. Both you and they are limited and everyone is doing the best they can with the information available at the time. The healthy response is to forgive them and yourself and work on uprooting the expectations and negativity sitting underneath it all. Characters such as yourself can be very stabilizing forces in the world if they can get to the bottom of this error and learn to forgive themselves and the others. People like you NEED the world to respond to them because you're oriented that way. That's actually a strength, but you need to figure out how to resolve cynicism, resentment, and forgiveness. I think you'd be one happy mother fucker, and probably quite successful with people if you would do this. And I think people would love you how you want to be loved if you'd build a bridge for them to do that. Put all your shame, ego, and resentment away. Teachers like Leo and Ralston aren't the best for this. I think James Allen could do you wonders. Stick with him and only him for the next year or two. You could get started with this one: Just listened to the first 5 mins. Gold! - "It is of no avail to fret and fume and chafe at the chains which bind you; you must know why and how you are bound. " - "You must cease to be a disobedient child in the school of experience and must begin to learn - with humility and patience - the lessons that are set for your development." Also, you might check out "As a Man Thinketh".

That's because alcohol is a major sleep disruptor, which I think is largely what makes hangovers so shitty. The bad sleep alone would be enough to bring about a shitty day. Then, compound that with toxins and dehydration. Saying you don't get hangovers is like saying aspirin doesn't thin your blood. There's no way around it if you ingest enough. And even ingesting 6 beers would cause impairment on some level. I get what you're saying though - alcohol does have a way of connecting you to emotions. I often go through a roller coaster of emotions when I drink and I do find it interesting and sometimes even useful and even cathartic because it makes releasing emotions very easy - so I think it does have some value. Also, I do find insights and ideas while drinking, but I find them when sober as well. It's just that when I'm drinking, they feel different and branch in different directions. As far as cognitive improvement, IME, there seems to be a very short window of enhancement but the threshold seems too easily crossed to ever be useful. Also, I've wondered if any enhancement is largely due to being more decisive and trusting my gut more. Certain brain games would reward that if intuition and pattern matching are built up enough for the specific game/exercise.

Is this it? Or maybe even take the knight with the rook instead of the bishop.

Yeah, you're right. Maybe "truth capacity" is better to describe the mechanism and "truth-orientation" is better to name the value. Everyone says they care about the truth. But what actually determines it? Tolerance/capacity.

@Entrepreneur Folks around here don't easily say their Apex isn't THE Apex. What they believe to be the ultimate is just impermanent conscious dust. They don't realize, there is no fucking apex. lol. But oh... how much safety it provides and how it serves the ego. They think because they explore "levels" of consciousness they are onto something. Unable to see what they're doing. As if the abstraction that they've defined as the "first" level of consciousness is any lesser than the abstraction of the "highest" level their human brains could comprehend. And oh boy, they want to fuse themselves with that highest level (ego 101). Their hierarchy is made of the same impermanent conscious dust as everything else they're trying to transcend, but they can't see it yet. They're constructing elaborate justifications for why their particular preoccupations are cosmically important rather than just... their preoccupations. lol I wouldn't be so brash if they weren't so arrogant.