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Read "Recapture the Rapture" by Jamie Wheal or at least watch his video with Rebel Wisdom. You can also read "The Religion of Tomorrow" by Ken Wilber, although that's largely just a reiteration on Integral Theory applied to religion as an example if you're already familiar with that model. Watch "Awakening From The Meaning Crisis" lecture series on YouTube by John Vervaeke. He does touch on a possible re-imagination of religion without the dogmaticism in the later lectures.

Yes. There are a few tips that can help provided you already do meditation. Capture it. Particularly if you're the type who talks to himself a lot keep the phone with a recorder app nearby. If you think more than talk write down the main ideas when you feel like the sudden brainstorm is dying down. Revisit these once in a while and over time the signal will get separated from the noise. Good ideas will tend to stick and resurface again when watching podcasts or reading stuff. You want a record of it so you can pursue further at a later time. This takes me to the second point. Get into the habit of exploring these ideas once captured. Try to formalize to a certain degree a time period when you specifically reflect back on those insight. Meditation is necessary but not sufficient. It will still your mind but will not in and of itself necessarily improve the way you use your mind. You'll be more aware of the mind, gain the capacity to gain distance from it, but training how to use the mind when it needs to be used is a different thing.

I recommend reading "Recapture the Rapture" by Jamie Wheal or at least watching his video with Rebel Wisdom

If, at least in theory, you know that what you are trying to learn will in one way or another bring you closer to what you want, then it becomes a matter of acclimatizing yourself with the initial awkwardness and discomfort specific in learning any new skill. To do this, I found consistent meditation with emphasis on concentration very useful (using breath as an object you bring your attention back to whenever you are distracted). Doing this for one hour a day will increase your capacity to pay attention to whatever you choose regardless of discomfort or frustration. I've noticed clear improvements after about 3-4 weeks. Now specifically to address the sense of discomfort and frustration any disruptive type of practice will help. The most useful for me was Wim Hof breathing method. 2-3 rounds of WH breathing will suffice. Make sure you do it first before sitting down to learn whatever it is you're trying to learn. I've found that it's not a good idea to sit down and learn straight after meditation because my mind is too still, whereas the learning activity requires me to be more mentally active. This is why is supplement with WH breathing right before I start learning (usually after meditating). You can also do a round of breathing whenever you feel like you're starting to get frustrated just to recalibrate. But don't neglect meditation. It's quite invaluable for long term attention training.

Absolutely. I've seen it happen in my and in my best friend to the point where I find the idea that people don't change to be silly. Change is hard, and maybe we can't change people, but people can change. And maybe it would help if we replaced the term "Change" with "Become/Grow". For in this case I feel like "Change" implies that something is lost or left behind, whereas I think it's more the case that something is consciously observed, integrated, and accepted and thus something more novel as well as "whole" emerges as a result.

What you are experiencing is most likely Flow, which is a universal peak experience that can be had within almost any type of activity provided it meets certain conditions that are conductive towards immersion. Modafinil most likely puts you in a state of decreased mental chatter that makes it easier for you to become immersed with the activity you're engaged in, thus leading to a state of Flow. Being in Flow makes the activity you're engaged in intrinsically rewarding. So to answer your question, I think it's both the nootropics and the activity you engage in. And I don't think it's an illusion at all, perhaps the impression that it is an illusion is itself the illusion.

Kindly recommend you watch this

Definitely. I would also encourage anyone to try and engage with the objects they use in day to day life from an "I-thou" perspective rather than "I-it" perspective. If you will, to have respect for an object as part of reality is to honour its final cause. That is, if I own an object, I choose to see it as my duty to use it in such a way that it can meet its potential - that it can actualize the purpose for which it was built. I think this goes hand in hand with minimalism, for if we were to personify objects, we could argue that an object's suffering could be caused by its inutility or its lack of use. There is a sense of pleasure in using objects particularly after a long meditation session. In that state I find that I am much more aware of my direct interaction with an object and I am more able to connect with it as if it were an extension of myself rather than a mere disposable tool. And so I don't merely use an object as a means to an end, rather I extend myself through that object to actualize something of increased novelty which I would have not had access to without it. In more spiritual words, it is reality interacting with itself to find ways of creating itself in more novel ways.

I often see Daniel Schmachtenberger being talked about in the context of systems thinking because his most popular content revolves around that area, but I feel like his depth of understanding goes beyond although he seldomly chooses to address the spiritual or the mystical. I think this video is quite turquoise.

What a beautiful write-up. You're a beautiful person and I hope your parents are aware of that above all societal customs. I don't really have much advice to offer but I wish you all the best and empathise dearly with your struggle. Living on your own is easier than it may seem. There's a few basic routines that you need to create. Limit what you eat to a few recipes that are easy to cook and as healthy as possible. You don't want too much variety, it just takes a lot of time, you want to find a few staple recipes that you'll cook most of the time. You can always cook something fancy once in a while. Clean as you go. Wash the dishes after you're done eating. Only takes a minute or two. Take an hour or so to do a more thorough cleaning once a week, I'm talking hoovering, removing dust with a wet cloth, mopping (pro-tip, you can skip mopping and just clean the messy parts with a napkins and some dezinfectant). You also want to do the washing on the same day every few weeks or once a month depending on how many clothes you wear. Don't let the wardrobe become too cluttered, takes a few minutes to fold the clothes neatly after you do the washing. You want to have two sets of bed sheets so you can cycle between them when the one you're using needs washing. I change mine every 2-3 months, some people do it more often, but it should be fine for a pretty long time if you shower before bed, don't sweat at night, and open the windows to let some fresh air in every day. Know what bills you have to pay and when you have to pay them. Don't procrastinate on this, might be a little overwhelming at first but it becomes a habit after a few months. Don't own a lot of things. You don't want clutter, takes time to clean and can be distracting. House might look a little bit empty at first if you come from a culture where you keep a lot of things in your house (god knows I do), but you'll soon realize how nice it is to live in a clutter free environment. There's three essential things you want to focus on to make your quality of life top notch, and in my opinion those are: 1) Sleep, 2) Diet (whatever works for you, rule of thumb is to try it for a month to see how you feel - some people go for plant based diet, some people go for a very low carb/carnivore diet. Don't listen to people preaching about diets, try it for yourself and see what works best - once you have it, as I said above, have some staple recipes that you cook most of the time. As an example, it only takes me about half an hour two cook, eat, and wash the dishes, and I only eat two times a day, which makes about an hour in total) 3) Meditation (honestly one hour a day has made a lot of my "problems" just fade away). As far as budgeting goes, rent/utilities/food are highest priority. Know how much you need to spend each month on essentials and put that sum aside no matter what, make it non negotiable. The secret is to find a few simple routines that make for a sustainable lifestyle. You just have to stick with them even though if feels awkward and clunky at first. Will save you a lot of time in the long term. Just as a reference, I never did any chores growing up. My family would take care of everything, cooking, cleaning, buying groceries, bills, etc. I had to learn everything from scratch. You'll be absolutely fine.

Amazing series. He's like a Ken Wilber of academia.

Try not to overthink. Increase meditation to one hour a day. Good luck!

Meditate for one hour a day and most of these nuisances will become irrelevant pretty fast.

If you really want to create a commonplace books use Notion.so - it's by far the most advanced note taking service out there, you can structure it however you want. This video is a good representation of what you can create. But bear in mind you don't have to go that deep unless you need to, the service itself is very easy to use.

Not at all, still trying to figure out how to make my life purpose a reality. 50% of my Zone of Genius turns out to be "structuring fragmented information", so there you have it I guess, haha. I also like doing research a lot and my brain gets fired up whenever I come across anything resembling "second-tier" or "yellow". There's this Youtube channel called Rebel Wisdom which is basically a "yellow" goldmine. Once you start looking into the work that some of those people are doing you start to get a much bigger picture, and you just keep coming across interesting stuff and I write that stuff down. Glad you find these useful. Ken Wilber's Integral Theory and John Vervaeke's Awakening From The Meaning Crisis are a good starting point because they give a pretty good big-picture understanding of, well, pretty much everything you'd want to know from a bird's eye view. Meaning Crisis gets a little bit technical and hard to follow after episode 26 when it gets into Cognitive Science stuff, but the first 25 episodes are amazing - basically an account of the evolution of philosophy as we know it. So definitely check out these two. Also I saw that you are not very keen on meditation. I'd kindly as you to reconsider and give it another try at some point. Enligthenment and spirituality aside, it's probably the best bang for the buck thing to do in life. Honestly it feels like a lot of self-help/self-improvement was largely distraction from me meditating one hour every day. Some of the issues you're having in life simply fade away as you meditate, and living in general just becomes more pleasant, experientially speaking. So much so that I kind of stopped caring about spiritual enlightenment, I decided that meditation is simply something I'll do for it's own sake for the rest of my life (Mastery by George Leonard style). If you want a good guide I warmly recommend The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa (John Yates). It's pretty great, covers all the bases, gives you models to help you understand how the mind functions, and sructures the meditation journey across 10 stages (a-la the Ox-Herding Pictures). He's integrating many meditation traditions/meditations models into that one book. It's both accessible and comprehensive. It's with this book that I finally started a consistent meditation habit. And of course, meditation in general is something you want to consider if your calling is seeing what is possible for a human being to achieve in a life-time (becoming superhuman). Also, you probably already know Wim Hof. If you don't check him out, he achieved some pretty mind blowing stuff and is currently teaching his method. Quite simple and effective and very much superhuman, haha. Good luck!