Extreme Z7

<07-28-16> A Step In The Positive Direction I forgot to write yesterday's journal entry again, didn't I? Oh well, I was busy enjoying myself at the arcade again. Still worth it, though. Speaking of which, I drew a new pixel art drawing that i would like to share with you today. To be honest, I didn't think I'd make something this good until maybe after several more months of practice. But it turns out, all I needed was to look up some pixel shading tutorials, and look for more tutorials on how to draw pixel eyes, clouds, etc. Then use what I've learned from my sketching practice to draw the line art. Choose the right colors and you've got a pixel art piece that's bright and colorful. It's still kind of simplistic though, and the shading could be better, but why should I even expect it to be perfect? It would just ruin the satisfaction from creating art. I would definitely call it a step in the positive direction. It seems I've kind of transformed myself to be more interested in art than before. Even when I first started this journal, I wouldn't think I would change in such a way that drawing would be something that would even be remotely close to the forefront of my mind. Of course, I would think about it and value it a little bit, but I just wouldn't believe that it would become one of my higher creative values like it is now. If you're wondering, it took me close to a couple hours to draw. I drew it while bored, sitting at an office, supposed to be doing a web development internship job. Nobody around me seemed to care that I was just fucking about drawing so I just continued on my merry way until I was done. I expect to make more pixel art in the future and also experiment with other digital and traditional art as well so I can see which art mediums do I like the most or rather which ones are the most appropriate for my tastes in art. I find that the more creative projects I take on, be it music, drawing, video editing, or game development, that I slowly step away from some forms of creative work and get attracted to other forms. I think its important that I find all that I would really enjoy creating and avoid ones that I don't really have a passion for. The problem is that I still don't have the big picture of what that's going to be. So I need to keep experimenting, trying new things, failing and failing until success is the only option that remains. . .

<07-27-16> OMAGHERD! THE DISTRACTIONS ARE WONDERFUL I've been playing this game called The Improbable Island. Basically, it's a text-based browser based game set in a fantasy world where a reality-altering machine has gone haywire creating all sorts of anomalies and you have to fight (I stopped writing by this point because I switched back to the tab where I was playing the game. I can't say I feel really focused today, I think I'll sleep earlier than normal so I can stop playing this game earlier and get a clearer headed.)

@Ryan_047 Right, you really shouldn't be focusing on grades as it will completely distract you from the true learning that's possible when you choose to learn what you want to learn. However, I will say that you should study subjects that the school forces you study anyway even if you don't like them and study them well. The reason for this because it helps you practice open-mindedness and will help you broaden your perspective on life and not get too dragged into your own ego bubble. Leo has other videos on open-mindedness, just search for them on his channel. Don't underestimate the difficulty of trying to cultivate open-mindedness, though, it's actually more difficult than you might think. There are many people out there that think they're already open-minded but the moment you bring up topics that they barely think about or already have preconceived ideas about, (e.g. meditation, spirituality, non-duality, personal development etc.) they'll just dismiss it out right or claim they "already know" what's being talked about. Don't be those people. They live miserable lives. You don't want that.

<07-26-16> A Review On The Five Ways I forgot to write yesterday's entry again. I decided not to ignore it anyway because I didn't find yesterday too interesting. But anyway, let's get to today. Today I finished reading Shinzen Young's free e-book, Five Ways To Know Yourself. It's a 183 page e-book detailing five modes in which one can practice basic mindfulness plus more content and models on how one can view their perspective on mindfulness and its significance in the world. The first half was what I would call the "practical" part of the book where Young outlines basic instructions to achieve different kinds of basic mindfulness. The five main ways of practicing mindfulness as listed in the book are: The Way of Thoughts and Emotions The Way of Physicality The Way of Tranquility The Way of Flow The Way of Human Goodness You're supposed to be able to do each of these 5 practices in order to get the benefits out of doing mindfulness but I found myself being geared towards doing the Way of Tranquility most of the time, it is the easiest to do of the five because it includes the "Do Nothing Technique". The second half talks more on abstract models but I actually thought it was more interesting. I enjoyed reading all the different goals and benefits that one should strive for when doing this kind of work and also brief advice on how to advance one's mindfulness/meditation habit. I'd definitely recommend this e-book for anyone who's interested in doing mindfulness work especially if you're a beginner or rookie. Don't worry about having to pay anything, like I said, it's free.

@Leo Gura Psychedelics is one of my least favorite topics but I'm excited to hear what you have to say anyway.

@Hardik jain Meditation + Removal of as many distractions as possible

<07-24-16> Just Keep Growing Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing. . . Growing. . . Growing. . . Finding the truth about my life. . Hmm . . . hm hmm. .hmm Hmm. . .Hmmm. . . Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing. . . Growing. . . Growing. . .Hmm . . . hm hmm. . The words above are just a tune that popped into my head when I tried to think about something to write today. It's a simple tune inspired by Dory from Finding Nemo's "Just Keep Swimming" song and Leo's new video about the 3 Levels of Personal Development which I absolutely recommend you check it out. I can talk about what I thought about the video but I really don't want to. What I want to do right is to just post this entry. Turn off my laptop and lie in bed, relax, and enjoy the night. P.S. Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing. . . Growing. . . Growing. . . Finding the truth about my life. . Hmm . . . hm hmm. .hmm Hmm. . .Hmmm. . . Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing. . . Growing. . . Growing. . .Hmm . . . hm hmm. .

<07-23-16> Experiencing Some Backsliding This Weekend I've been backsliding back to my soft addictions again today, and something tells me tomorrow isn't going to be any different because I p;an to visit the mall again to play around in the arcade. I remember Leo making a video on this once. It would be best to watch it again to keep myself on track. Oh yes and tomorrow is Sunday again which means an exciting new episode of Actualized.org is coming! Also, I'm making a new blog post detailing progress I've made on my game again. I have nothing else to say. As I said, I backslided in some of my old habits today. Not completely, I did spend most of the afternoon walking outside so I could relax, but tonight I'm kind of falling back to my YouTube pleasures again.

I've been meditating consistently for 1 hour everyday for almost an entire year. The more I do it, the deeper I feel I go into exploring the nature of my human experience. Today I want to share just another epiphany I had while I was having an unpleasant experience. Just a few hours ago, I washed my clothes by hand which is a chore I always found to be very unpleasant. I hate how tedious it feels, I hate the feeling of having water splash on my arms and my feet. As I finished and started to pick up the clothes to hang outside the house, I started to notice very subtly how my body tries to avoid these certain feelings, I noticed that when I walk barefoot on the wet ground, that the soles of my feet where slightly lifted up to prevent my feet from feeling the water around the dirty ground. My body was trying to avoid a pleasant experience. I decided to instead release my feet to feel the wetness of the ground. I suddenly felt a release from suffering. I could actually see that the entire time, the experience was not the thing causing my suffering at all, I was creating it out of my own resistance! The suffering was artificially created, all I had to do was to let go and accept and. . . . there was no more suffering. It made me think about all the other times I've "suffered" in life. Of course, the story above involved a very small and petty kind of suffering but what if the more significant problems we see in our lives are actually just combinations of numerous small, petty, self-created problems combined into huge messes of complicated suffering? Furthermore, if it is the case that it's always been created by the self, then that kind of means we don't really have to expend any effort to get rid of suffering (besides the consciousness work required to see this, of course). All we need to do is recognize that we are creating our own suffering and . . . that's about it, actually. The question that comes to my mind now is, "Where does it come from?". Do we, as human beings, have good reasons to create suffering in our lives. Our do we really just create it out of freaking nowhere?!! I'd love to know what you think about this.

I honestly wish 99.99% of people I meet would read that.

Easy there buddy . . . that's great and all but I'm sure you know that you can't control your level of suffering even after you realize this because there isn't anyone there to control your body and mind. If there was, then both of us would be perfectly capable of stopping suffering completely, no exceptions! But we're still not perfect at it, all there is now is a small step towards letting go of resistance and big bags of thought.

What? What's going on? What is this?

<07-22-16> Do We Create Suffering Out Of Nowhere? (Link Below) One weird thing about me is that I'm a lazy yet hardworking kid. (I prefer not to call myself a "man" because I don't feel like one). I can spend hours a day working towards a huge project by myself while at the same time, I'm always looking for ways to cut the amount of effort I have to put into something but still maintaining the quality I want out of it. One thing that non-programmers don't know about programmers is that all we really do when we try to invent new programming technologies (e.g. a new programming language or a new API system) is to find ways to make things more convenient and require less effort. Why do I mention this? Well, I'm too lazy to actually write a journal entry today. So instead I'm going to link to a thread I recently made on the 'Self Actualization' sub-forum. Hey! I made some effort to make content, that new thread is basically my excuse not to expend more effort in today's entry.

<07-21-16> Still A Slave To Foolish Human Desires I was a Windows 8.1 user last night and after reading that the Windows 10 upgrade offer would cease to be free by July 29, 2016, I decided to get my ass excited and start downloading it. The download and install process took so long, I literally stayed up until 1:00 am, even though I knew that I would have internship duty today and I need to get up early. All that hassle just so I could monitor the installation process and be there the moment my new OS was ready. Also, isn't it interesting that I didn't give a shit about Windows 10 for months but the moment it was announced that it was going to be gone in a couple of weeks, I suddenly want it very badly, human psychology is a bitch. I know deep down that this wasn't a very wise choice to do. Giving away hours of sleep time just so I could see my shinier new OS quicker. Now I believe that I may have to suffer the whole day at internship duty with sleep deprivation. Fortunately, I don't really have much work to do at that job but sleep deprivation still feels awful. It's quite important that I stop writing this now and get to meditation. Every time I fall off track, I think it's pretty wise not to stay off-track for way too long before something I might really regret happens. See ya and have a nice, hopefully sleep-deprivation-free, day.

<07-20-16> I'm Scared Of Suffering I don't have much mental energy to write about anything today. I usually just let my mind flow and words come out giving details on my reflection of today's experience. But today, I don't feel like anything's coming out. I didn't even have the motivation to draw anything today. Oh well, at least I meditated properly, today. What's that about the title you ask? Well, I do remember thinking a lot about suffering and what it really is and how do I lessen it today and especially during the last few hours. But then again, everyone does not like to suffer so it's nothing special. But I do feel a lot more conscious with my suffering than with most people but that's a different topic.

@Lorcan There's a very simple yet tricky way to see if you're lying to yourself, raise awareness of your monkey mind! If you have a lot of monkey chatter, I can almost guarantee that you're going to lie to yourself about different things during the day and sometimes do some pretty irrational stuff on varying degrees. If you have little monkey chatter, that makes you a little closer to truth than most people.

<07-19-16> Close Encounters With Ego Kind I forgot my smartphone on my way to internship duty today. When I realized, I felt my emotional self fire up with anxiety, my mind jumped up and down like a monkey, worrying that maybe I didn't leave my phone behind, it may have actually dropped off my pocket somehow. Good news was it did turn out I forgot it at home and my irrational chimp mind couldn't help but fire up my lower self. Even after doing so much personal development work, I'm still amazed at how little psychological development I actually have. In fact, the more I grow with this journey with the help of Leo's content, the more I see how little growth I actually have. If I was more conscious, something as petty as losing my phone wouldn't bother me so much. I'm not even addicted to my phone, I don't even use the damn thing that much. It's just become so routine for me to bring it around whenever I go outside that the thought of doing something even slightly different from how I usually do things already feels threatening to me. On the brighter side of things, though. I'm not actually that worked up about it. I actually sort of accept and am not too emotionally guilted that my mind is still basically a chimp mind. I owe it mostly to my consciousness work. When that experience about forgetting to bring my phone happened this morning, I actually was able to become conscious of all the different thoughts and emotions that went on in my experience as it happened to the point where half the time, I didn't feel like I was suffering. Of course, I was not perfect at it, I did suffer a lot and I did have all these different negative thoughts come up, yelling at me for being careless. But ultimately, in the end I actually just felt it as just another experience. Really just another experience that happened, it wasn't bad, it wasn't something that shouldn't have happened, I still learned from it though. The aftermath of the experience, when I got back home and found my phone on my desk, was relief and for a while, I could actually feel emotional neutrality in my body and it was. . well . . peaceful. I didn't feel good or happy, I just felt nothing. My awareness started focusing on my vision for a while and my emotional center simply remained still, almost non-existent. So that ends my story of my close encounter with ego kind. I'm sure you can think of similar experiences in your life. I kind of like to know what your own experiences of your lower self do you remember vividly. If you're willing to share, go ahead and leave me a reply if you want.

@ZenBlue Good Luck, pal! What benefits can you say you've developed through meditation so far? Specifically the psychological benefits. Because that's ultimately what we want to get out of this habit, at least that's what I want anyway.

It's probably good advice to know that it's almost never a good idea to try to recruit someone engaging in low consciousness behavior into personal development work because it usually doesn't end well. Its common for these people to act offended, deny their need to improve, or at the very least just flat out ignore you. I've personally experienced these kind of reactions from people during my first months of personal development. I would like to know what your thoughts are on this topic though. My personal thoughts are: "It's good advice but there's a much bigger danger to not ever speaking about it. You can talk occasionally about personal development to people who need it but don't expect them to like what you have to say. Leave the information like a seed in their minds that may or may not grow into something useful someday."

<07-17-16> Perseverance, Patience, Persistence NEW INDIE GAME BLOG POST: LINK Whoops, I forgot to write this entry last night. Now I'm writing this about a half day too late. There are still stuff I want to say about yesterday, though, so I decided not to skip this one. Yesterday was a "good day". Not good in a sense that I felt good, it's just the day pretty much went as I planned. It was a Sunday and I wanted to take a break from all the things I work on during the week. I spent the morning working on promotional content for my game, though, made a few screenshots and recorded gameplay footage. In the afternoon, I went to the mall and played in the arcade for a long time. Then I got back home, edited the final gameplay video (I actually had fun doing it). I scheduled my day that way because at the time, that's what I felt I should do to make the day feel full of substance. But by the end of it all, especially after the mall time I spent, I still felt hollow inside. Then I watched Leo's newest video and I felt like I was blind-sided again by Leo's wisdom. This new video talked about something I have never heard before in my life. Why hasn't anyone else taught me this before? <07-18-16> Pain, Power, Pressure Things are getting really difficult now. Most of the things I thought I knew about reality are crumbling down if not already completely obliterated. Now, I just kind of realize how lost I am, and just how much pain and pressure I'm going to have to endure to have any sense of real life again. I'm hopeful, very hopeful, obviously. I'm not the type of guy who easily gives up. But I'm also not the type of guy who's used to extreme emotional labor. But then again, I highly doubt anyone I've ever met in real life can even begin to handle the stuff I've been through already so I do have some form of competence. Basically, what I'm trying to say is, I'm way too tired to really write about anything but my emotions and reflections today. I can't seem to focus on anything else but mindfulness work, too. Mindfulness or Consciousness work, in a kind of twisted way, is something I use to help me through the difficulty but at the same time, it is the reason why I'm even going through difficult challenges in the first place. Without it, I would still be a hedonistically-driven stimulation robot who really doesn't need any help with anything because I wouldn't be going through anything really demanding anyway. I can't think of anything else to write anymore. I hope I feel better tomorrow, to be honest.

Find my true self Express it ???

I think Leo would sooner become enlightened than make an episode on feminism anytime soon.

I'm pretty lazy when it comes to taking notes (although I do do it sometimes). Mostly I just listen then watch the video again on another day if I really want to internalize the message. Heck, sometimes, I'd even watch a third time but that's pretty rare.

<07-16-16> I'm pretty much getting to a point now that everything I see in the world, my behaviors, and just pure experience in general is directly affected by monkey chatter. I guess my mindfulness practice has really gotten my "being" to be very disconnected from my ego self-agenda. I find myself craving stimulation a lot more than I used to simply because I've been decreasing the amount of entertaining content I consume very drastically. I don't see the point of engaging in hedonistic behaviors anymore. Even a few months ago, I told my self that there is still some good side to having a little fun every now and again, especially with someone like me who suffers a lot from stress and anxiety issues. I used to tell myself that entertainment was a very easy and effective way to ease stress so I can end up being more productive. I was right about the "easy" part, but I was dead wrong with everything else. All these stimulating activities we engage in, most of which are perpetuated by modern day technology, are actually making our monkey minds feel more alive and excited. Not only does the result make us less productive, but monkey chatter keeps us too distracted to feel any sense of satisfaction in life, which is ultimately the entire reason we want to keep being productive and creating value in the first place, isn't it? As for stress and anxiety, well they are only temporary distractions. They can numb as emotionally to make us stressed out less and worry less but no amount of watching your favorite shows will ever make you realize that they're actually making you more miserable in the long term. You might be reading this right now and thinking "You don't need to tell me this. I already know how to properly moderate the stimulation I engage in to make sure I don't get distracted too much and still optimizing my level of happiness. Don't be such a smug arrogant smartass!" That is, assuming you are very unaware and probably have never tried doing mindfulness work in your entire life. (If that was an accurate representation of your thoughts as you read this, I strongly urge that you stop reading and ask yourself what on earth you're doing with your time) . . . actually, you know what?, I completely forgot where I was going with this paragraph. Nevermind. . . Anyway, long story short, practice of mindfulness to combat monkey mind turned out to be lot deeper and more profound than I originally thought. I found that raising awareness on monkey chatter does not actually weaken monkey chatter, it just makes it more apparent and less likely to trick you like it does to billions of people around the planet. I still don't know where this practice will take me in the next few months, though, let alone the entire fucking journey. But let's not think about the upcoming months, let's stay in the present. See you tomorrow, which does not exist because by the time tomorrow comes, it would have become the present.

@Leo Gura Sounds good. I've been practicing being more extroverted lately. It's a lot more difficult to do than I originally thought. I realized that it's quite challenging to act fully authentic in front of other people.