Joshe

A daily alignment practice could help, but that also gets stale. Even if you remember the principles, you need drive to live by them. You could try to put yourself through some sort of self-designed boot camp where you brainwash your mind to respect your highest principles. What you want is to be able to act in ways that align with your goals and ideals, and your current strategy is to rely on principles/mindsets/thoughts, etc., to provide you with drive to take those actions. IME, this is the hardest thing to do because it requires an insane level of commitment and discipline, which would literally look insane and make you feel like you're insane because to do this, you have to radically brainwash yourself, at least, that's what it seems to take for me. I have not found any specific collection of thoughts, perspectives, principles, etc, that won't fail in the presence of negative emotion. I've tried creating an entire school of thought and daily principles/alignment practice that I wanted to connect to. I called it "The Advancing Life". I collected audio recording of my most important reminders, favorite principles, symbols, imagery, you name it. This all turned out to be a procrastination trap. I just ended up adding more and more to it and never focused on the absolute essentials. One thing always leads to another, which is why, IMO, essentialism is the most important principle for self-dev work. There's not enough time and energy to fix everything, so we have to only work on one or two at a time. If you were to actually integrate the principle of essentialism, that in itself would solve most of your problems. The hard thing about this principle is that there are many things that you're interested in that you will have to surrender but I can't think of another principle with a higher payoff. Maybe the first principle should be "know thyself", but that's a huge project. And the principle of "balance" is important too. As far as I can tell, these 3 principles are the most important. But, I just thought that some sort of principle that connects you with the finitude of your lifespan is probably necessary as well. Maybe attach a bunch of ideas to a symbol of an hourglass! (there I go procrastinating again) When it comes down to it, after you define your goals and strategy, stop all thought, know your "why", and put one foot in front of the other, without hesitation, over and over and over. It really can be that simple. I'm still trying to let go of all the fun thinking and dreaming, which I tell myself is productive, but I'm not ready yet. When I am ready, I need to actually implement what I've laid out above. That's my plan to solve this problem.

I imagine it's a gray area and he is aware of legal loopholes. If Trump wins, Elon stands to win big. If Trump loses, Elon can easily use his money and social media platform to clean up his image, so I don't see it as a huge risk to his reputation in the long run. I just saw a Trump TV ad that takes Kamala out of context, making it appear as if she is saying she thinks all transgenders in prison should be eligible for federally-funded gender-affirming surgery and that she voted for that. Clips were clearly chopped up and taken out of context but the average person can't discern it. I don't see how such an ad could be legal, but I guess it is. I heard the other day that anti-woke/left videos are the topmost sought after videos on YT. That seems absurd to me but if it's true, that could go a long way in explaining why Musk, Rogan, and the like, have been cultivating that audience. Trump has created an audience that is so big and so easy to dupe, people like Musk saw it and just couldn't help himself. I think the Haitian cat story was a huge success. I talked to an ex gf in Pennsylvania who was never political but now she is and she don't like the fact that immigrants are taking over. lol. The right's propaganda machine is doing a great fucking job. I'm back to thinking Trump will win, and largely because of the immigration angle, transgender ads, Elon Musk, etc.

When it becomes obvious one's integrity and moral development are on par with—if not lower than—the average MAGA cultist, it should become clear that whatever virtue you think he might have is useless in the context of beneficial societal impact. At this point, he's a billionaire on his way to becoming the first trillionaire, with an agenda to grow the MAGA cult. People can talk about his virtue in an attempt to be balanced, but at a certain point, when you understand survival and psychology sufficiently, to speak of Elon as someone who isn't every bit as worthy of condemnation as Trump himself, for the societal harm he's causing, is absurd. He's now buying votes for $47.

Sweet. Thanks @Keryo Koffa. I'll check that out. I'm dealing with the fallout from hurricane Helene and this is the first I've had a chance to hop on here. Laptop is dying again. I shall return.

I feel like ideological drive will lose steam without Trump. Before Trump, they were all fine in their disparate bubbles and we didn't have to resist their lies all the time. Do you think it would go back to that or will the void from Trump's absence create demand for another like him? I worry Tucker Carlson might fill his shoes. I'm trying to get an idea of the degree we'll have to resist falsehood after Trump is gone. Any reason to think things will improve or do we just have to wait and see? What do you think is likely?

I say stay here because you're the best source of fresh wisdom I've currently got. 😆 Aside from that, what's the point? Intellectual/spiritual/reality exploration, testing limits, etc. To fix something To maximize the now (fix something) Understand yourself All of the above + 20 other ideas 😂 This desire/fantasy makes more sense if you're older. How old are you? Are you wishing you had more time to explore? If the desire/fantasy is more utilitarian than exploratory, then imagine how useless altering the past would be if you ceased all mentation that associated negative thoughts with your present circumstances. From this orientation, you would essentially have the same amount of creative power now to create your future as you'd have if you were creating it from the past. The only difference would be, in the past, you'd have a slightly better shot at predicting the chain of events, but that slight edge wouldn't account for much because there's too much complexity for you to handle. God made sure Keryo wasn't going to timehop that easily. I hope this makes sense. I'm loopy. All that could be done from the past could be done from the present. You could always maximize and always want more, like Kenneth Copeland. Tomorrow, you could wake up and get on a plane and fly to Japan and become a buddhist. That would alter your future. THINK OF THE POWER! As long as your rose-colored glasses are being used to look ahead, there is no difference in creative potential. One foot in front of the other is what creates the future and you do that now, whether it's in the past or the present.

^ this. It's not very sustainable to rely on motivation. Eventually, you will have to "force" yourself to do things. Which can be done, but ideally, you would not force yourself to engage in something. Your energy stores will deplete relatively quickly compared to not forcing. When I was building my freelance business, I could work 14 hours days and never tire, day after day. Now, I get fatigued after 3 hours of client work but I can still be happy working 14 hours days when I'm doing my own projects. If I must force myself to do things I don't want, what helps me is to bring something I like into it, for example, efficiency. Efficient routines, processes, infrastructure, etc. I use that to make the drudgery more palatable. Save energy everywhere you can. Get shoes you don't have to tie. 😂 Minimalist environment. It really just all depends on everything about you, but the above were some strategies for me.

Any analysis that doesn't factor in and deal with with the campaigns currently underway to undermine the separation of church and state in the U.S, and fails to acknowledge their success, is just not good. The separation of church and state is objectively under attack and those who seek to undermine it are making great progress. Christian nationalist are infiltrating the government. Just this week, yet another state partnered with PragerU to bring PragerU Kids to children in public schools. Florida: In July 2023, Florida became the first state to approve the use of PragerU Kids videos in public schools for grades K-6. Oklahoma: In September 2023, the Oklahoma Department of Education launched a partnership with PragerU Kids. Montana: PragerU is listed as a "bonded textbook dealer" on a Montana state website, and the state's superintendent of public instruction announced a partnership with the organization. New Hampshire: In September 2023, the New Hampshire State Board of Education unanimously approved the use of PragerU courses to satisfy financial literacy requirements in high schools. South Carolina: As of September 2024, South Carolina has aligned its state standards with PragerU content, allowing educators to access PragerU Kids' supplemental educational resources through the state's official learning portal. One state brought in PragerU. Then another. Then another. Then another. It will continue to infiltrate the schools and they will continue to infiltrate the government. It's not going away. Trump showed them it can be done, and so it is being done. My local county council meetings kick off by everyone standing up and listening to the board president make up a prayer on the spot, and he says shit like "dear lord we thank ya lord, and we just really thank ya lord, and look over Susan when she's having surgery lord, and dear lord let this meeting be productive lord, in your holy precious name we pray, Amen". It's on the rise.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-election-campaign-watches-c6000a9944a5e9116b99ca2fe8b95cb0 "He’s sold Bibles, sneakers, photo books and cryptocurrency during his third campaign for president. Now, Donald Trump is launching a new business venture: diamond-encrusted watches. The Republican presidential candidate unveiled the “Official Trump Watch Collection” on Thursday. The most expensive, listed as including 122 diamonds on its bezel and available in three 18-karat gold styles, costs $100,000. Another “Fight Fight Fight” model is listed at $499."

To change a single red or blue person is incredibly difficult. There are so many factors out of our control that their ego's are vulnerable to. The best answer I've come up with is something like: strategic politics > strategic education > consistent collective effort > results show up 20 years later. Here's how to do it: Get rich. Create and spread high-conscious propaganda via influencer marketing and entertainment. Next, pull a Peter Thiel and find you a high-conscious JD Vance—get many of them into the political system and then have them overhaul the education system. Dennis Prager has the right idea. He's already in 5-8 public school systems. His latest success was this week.

Instead of saying "No it's your world.", why not first ask questions and try to confirm your intuition is correct? Come to the Bible belt of the US and it will be in your world. Christianity was on its last legs and some studies say it still is, but I've lived here most of my life and I can tell you, Christianity is growing in my area and it's not just some information silo I'm stuck in. Is it growing world-wide, IDK, but there most certainly is a marked resurgence where I live. I suppose it could be the "loud minority" or whatever that's called, but it doesn't appear so. When I was growing up here, Christianity was largely kept out of the public but this isn't the case anymore. There are more churches than ever, more church marketing efforts than ever, more social media religious posts than ever, more noticeable at school events, etc. Arizona state senator invites prayer group in chamber, speaks in tongues: AFAIK, this is new.

Thanks @Keryo Koffa - I know this is true. I appreciate you articulating it. Fully integrating this will be my next big leap but I'm not sure when I'll take it. There's something about it that troubles me. I have fully embraced it in a trip before and it was probably the most impactful experience of my life. I'm not afraid of letting go of my positionalities but it feels like I can't carry the weight of the love or something. I tear up just thinking about it. Yeah, I did get hooked by "There is no evil". The trouble with communicating on the forum is that it's hard to know which ideas are directed at or suitable for whom, and it's easy to get wires crossed. I try my best to read personalities and tailor my communications to them or the situation, so ideas for one might not be suited for another... and of course, some of my ideas can just not be good. Also, I sometimes fuse communications meant for multiple people into a single message, and one person might get it but I confuse the other... lol.

Can you explain? I am wasting time like a boss but I'm not arguing without nuance, and lacking "perspectival integration" seems assumptious. Maybe "evil" has too much baggage. What I call evil is "that which is detrimental to the individual and/or the whole". The more detrimental, the more evil. Both the individual AND the collective are taken into account when assessing detriment. Of course, what's good for one thing is often bad for another and vice versa, but this truth does not make me indifferent to that which is detrimental. I don't know how any spiritual person ever could be indifferent to that which is detrimental. I can see how they think it makes sense, but I think it's fallacious af. If perspectives are detrimental, I don't simply say "that there's another perspective" and ignore that it's detrimental, because that is absurd and I don't think any amount of consciousness or spiritual development would produce an attitude of indifference in this regard. This doesn't mean I am narrowly focused in on some evil to the point that I lose sight or can't, in a single second, go into a higher perspective. I've chosen to value that which is good and my chosen highest good is the health and peace of the the planet and all life on it. If I make that decision and honor it, I have to make distinctions of what is good and what is bad for it. Hence, I will call bullies and rapists "bad" or "evil" or "detrimental" to my chosen highest good. This is not a blindspot.. it's intentional. I could decide to tear down all these structures I've built, but I choose not to. They were put in place for a reason. Sort of like how you have to fabricate your life purpose, you have to fabricate what is the highest good. This game is better than the indifference game. What is wrong with this position? I do not see any flaws. Maybe it's too much head and not enough heart.

@Lyubov You yourself acknowledge that some things are evil and should be avoided, and I agree with you. That was my point. I was making a point about not justifying evil with some higher truth, especially if one does not actually live from that. Yes, I believe it's possible as well, but to do it, you'll have to surrender some selfishness rather than double down in it. Devils cannot attain this.

Buck is right. This is not relevant. Girls have to deal with a crazy amount of creepy shit. When a woman stares at a man, we don't usually perceive it as creepy, but rather, as a signal. Also, I think most of the people who don't like women staring at guys are guys the women don't stare at. Otherwise, I don't know why it would be a problem.

Someone has said that from the absolute perspective, evil does not exist. But do you live in the absolute? Because here in the relative, if I tie you up and drag you to my basement and burn your face with a hot iron, you will call me evil, and if I tell you I'm really not evil, and that from God's perspective, I'm good, and you're just wrong and biased, you would call me a lunatic and you would then call God a fucked up piece of shit for accepting my evil into his kingdom. 😂 So, let's get real. Evil does exist. We can call it what it is, but doing so restricts the devil. (awareness alone is curative) Considering others interferes with the Devil's prime directive, which is to allow their animalistic whims as much uninhibited expression as possible. 😂

In case it's useful to anyone: Google has a grant program that gives non-profits $10,000 per month in free advertising.

@Leo Gura Have you kept up with SEO? If so, I'm curious how significant it is these days. I know it's important for local SEO stuff but is content marketing for SEO still a thing or have people mostly given up on it? Also, now that Google is answering many questions at the top of SERPs, I wonder if it's more and more a lost cause.

Anytime @Javfly33. Thank you.

I was a total fucking prick when I was 17-22. I was the epitome of "fuck it, fuck them, I'm looking out for myself, the world is cold, I will be colder". I would lie, steal, cheat, you name it... It took some time but the karma showed up and my life slowly turned to absolute shit and it only got worse and worse. The lies add up. The enemies add up. Your reputation becomes known and you are hated and you hate the ones who hate you and you act like you don't care. After a few years of living like this, it becomes too heavy. Amidst all the suffering and acting like I didn't give a fuck, it eventually became obvious that I couldn't continue on like this. My options were either to change or to kill myself, so I thought that I would stop being bad and see if my life improved. I wasn't spiritual and didn't have any good concept of karma but I had good intuition and pattern recognition, so I thought it was worth a try to see if being good would solve my problems. What do you know... by the time I was about 25, my life wasn't an absolute disaster anymore. After I made the decision to be good, I had to wade through my karmic debt for another 2-3 years, but eventually, all the suffering that came from it was gone. I didn't have anymore enemies and no one was lying to me and I wasn't lying to anyone else. I didn't hate people and they didn't hate me. This transformation was probably only possible because I moved away from my hometown where I incurred all the karma from. I probably would have commited suicide if I didn't stop because the consequences of my ways produced a life that was not worth living. You don't simply "burn through" karma of this type. You have to live with it and carry it and suffer the consequences and you might think you're big and bad and can handle it, but you should heed my warning if you embrace this path. It's not something you really want to fuck around and find out about. But... you gotta do what you gotta do. In other words, it is in YOUR best interested to not be a piece of shit. The person who benefits the most from being good is YOU and the person who suffers the most from being bad is YOU. This is reason number one to be good. It's not just about contribution or morality. It's so YOU don't suffer.

Tools like this are badass as well. Infinite canvas whiteboards with AI integration. I haven't found a great option for this yet but this is the best I've come across so far. https://www.heuristi.ca/discover/ca392ec1-face-4685-a686-87387adb5a18

By style, I don't mean aggressive. Consider how Vernon Howard might yell something like "GOOD GOD MAN, LOOK AT HOW PATHETIC YOUR LITTLE EGO IS". 😂 Some people would call this cruel, over the top, and just too much, but some, myself included, appreciate it because I don't want to be pathetic, I don't want to be weak, so it's motivating. It doesn't hurt me... it jolts me and makes me say, "how am I being pathetic?". If I see the weakness I've been operating on or by, that weakness is not Vernon Howard's fault and I'm glad to have someone be blunt and direct with me. I prefer this style of communication. I don't want any sugarcoating. This is an aspect of Leo's teachings as well. IDK the best label for this style, but "aggressive" is not it. It's coming from a good place, even though it might seem harsh or aggressive. Since I have no prior history to judge from, IDK if kksd's critique came from a good place or not, but I could see how it could have, so I had no reason to assume it was aggressive. If it was coming from an ego kicking down, then of course, I would condemn that, but that wasn't discernable to me from the post.

@Javfly33 James Allen touches on this topic a lot. It is commonly supposed that to get ahead in business, one has to deceive and play games. People justify their deceptions by saying things like "other people are doing it, and the only way to play against them is to play their game... if you don't play, they will take advantage of you and you will not win... you HAVE to play because it's the only way to win". It reminds me of a time Leo said something like he doesn't own a gun and he said others might say "Well, what if you need one? What if someone kicks down your door and a gun could have saved you?" And Leo said something like "yeah, that's the risk I take by not partaking in guns". James Allen talks about the character you build when you take the high road and do not deceive. Sooner or later, the deceiver's karmic debt will mount up and their whole game will collapse, whereas the man who never lies and who builds his life from integrity will never have those regrets and can build on solid ground. They will show others that it can be done and in the process, will gain far more reward than the deceivers because they will earn the trust of their fellows and their psyche will be guilt-free and can rest in peace knowing they have done good. You cannot have this peace if you embody devilry. If you're interested in James Allen's teachings, I think they are in the public domain but here's a PDF of most of his works: https://1lib.sk/book/23422791/948a89/james-allen-21-books-complete-collection.html

Yeah, I like to just put out what comes out and then refine a little bit afterwards. My 11th grade education level doesn't help much but I do the best I can without going deep into structure. I at least try to punctuate and spell correctly. I should set aside some time to improve my punctuation. I often ask AI how I can articulate my thoughts better, which is probably one of the best tools available for this sort of thing. Grammarly seemed cool a few years ago but it was getting on my nerves and interfering with stuff in Chrome, but I think I will have a look at some tools like this. I recently started using "windows + h" for speech to text into any textbox. Pretty nice.

Big lesson: How you do anything is how you do everything. Try to do everything well. If you get red squigglies under your words when typing, try your best to correct it and after you can't, look it up on Google. This is how I learn to spell. Example: I just learned the problems with this word: This lesson is hard to balance though. I don't want to spend too much time on spelling.