jbram2002

Conversation has tried and failed to stop me from overeating many times.

I recommend figuring out which of these downsides is least important to you and going with that choice. I think you seemed happiest on green tea.

I think the Jonathan Apples were the ones planted by Johnny Appleseed. I learned a bunch about him back in grade school cause, well, my name. Although the wiki for it is saying something else. The page for Johnny Appleseed says that because he was against grafting, the apples he planted actually didn't taste good and were only useful for making cider. In other words, he spread the gift of booze across America. That's something they never taught me in school . Hmm... funny enough, his brother had the same name as my brother. Definitely a coincidence. But yes, my name means I'm a literal gift of God. I'm not overly proud or anything

What if it's not your story to tell? Maybe it's everyone's story to write together.

(now they're all directed at me instead, so you're safe)

This journal is to help organize some of my thoughts about myself and the people around me. I encourage, no, request that anyone with insight jump in. I appreciate constructive criticism and feedback, and I know that simply talking to myself will not get me where I need to go. I know this because that's what I've done for the past ten years. Some background: Ten years ago, I went on a spiritual journey of sorts. It wasn't as deep as many of those here, but it was a start. I took a hard look at myself, my beliefs, my thoughts, my knowledge and threw it all away. I learned an important lesson during that journey: From there, I've tried to build my belief system from the ground up, accepting truths from many sources. I've spent a lot of time in my head as I've delved into a myriad of topics on a theoretical level, from Tarot to BDSM to public speaking and leadership roles to politics. I've tried to keep an open mind about all the things I've come across, although I can't say I've accepted everything I've heard as truth. That would be crazy. The problem is that I've had a lot of theory and almost no practice. I've never meditated, as I have a hard time shutting my mind down. I've attempted to several times in the past few weeks, but I never really felt like I had achieved it. I have a hard time accepting nonduality as a final state when duality is so useful in describing non-spiritual matters. I have a massive ego based around the knowledge I've gathered as I wish to be right more often than wrong. And I hate talking about myself, instead focusing on helping others. So this journal is going to be tough for me. I've never kept any sort of journal before, so I doubt I'll be able to write here daily unless I'm replying to people. To that end, I would appreciate any tips on how to start. Is there something that has spoken to you recently that you feel might help me to focus on? Are there any truths you wish to share? Feel free to post them and hold me accountable. I realize I am close-minded still about some things. This forum may not even be a great fit for me as I disagree with Leo's methods in many ways. But it's a start, and we all must start somewhere. I am willing to learn. Please teach me.

A phrase popped into my head this morning, and I wanted to write it down before I forgot. "Everyone is too young to die, too wise to learn, and too old to change." Not sure what it means, if anything.

@zeroISinfinity I believe it's impossible to go through life without harming anyone or causing some suffering. The trick is to avoid intentionally doing so, or to cause the least amount that you feasibly can, including to yourself. @Aakash You're all kinds of crazy and saying a bunch of things that are intended to be provocative simply for the sake of being provocative, but I like you. Which is odd cause you want to kill my kids with love, so I'm not sure how I'm squaring those two things, but you interest me. I know you said you didn't feel a journal was necessary, but it would be an interesting insight into what still makes you tick. Because you still exist in that mind. I can see it pretty clearly.

I feel like this could become a daily mantra with a little tweaking. It's good to ask yourself these questions constantly.

Don't worry about tone. I'm not going to get offended too easily. I'm fully expecting a lot of people on this forum really appreciate all of what Leo says and does. I'm simply not one of them. You're absolutely right. It's impossible to get a place that fits everything you want. We all just have to learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. The issue is when there's too much chaff for it to be worth it, and that's a personal decision everyone needs to make. So my point isn't that I want Leo to cater to my individual needs. I'll explain a little better: This forum is a community of individuals. There are a lot of them that enjoy Leo's content, but they are not Leo (asides from how we are everyone in a nondualistic sense, but that's not what I'm talking about). This forum may have been created by Leo, but it is not Leo. It is a community. The members of the community are, to some extent, able to police themselves and sort out issues without needing moderators, and the mods step in as needed. That's perfectly fine and even better than some forums I've been in where the mods had to constantly ban or suspend people. However, if the community wants X and it isn't even remotely difficult to provide it, why not give X? In this case, X is a place for new seekers to get information. Leo doesn't have to touch it. There are plenty of members who are willing to help out those who earnestly are seeking information or to better themselves. Some of these are simplistic questions or "low-quality" balking at tougher concepts. We have some people who are saying this forum needs to be more elitist, either via paywall or other hidden content that only specific people are allowed to access once they have proven their dedication. This is the exact opposite of what I would like to see. Theories about enlightenment have been hidden away for centuries, only to be shared with the elite. I want to share these things with the common man. I want everyone to gain access to awakening and self-improvement, for if they improve, we all improve. That means allowing the low-quality posts, as long as they aren't actually trolling. Like I said, some people here are still in kindergarten. Leo doesn't need to teach a kindergartener's course, though. Someone who has been through that can take up that mantle. You and I can help guide those people while Leo continues to do what he deems best for himself and his channel/vision. But even the most basic form of elitism is detrimental to what I believe his ultimate goal is.

You're my hero.

I apologize if I gave that impression... I was trying to expound my thoughts on the topic with the limited knowledge I have. I see both sides of this discussion, but I think it's moved beyond the point where I can contribute well in that thread. TA is saying that there are plenty of people who are nowhere near self-actualization, and we should be willing to help them achieve even the most basic levels of awakening. These people are often earnest seekers that have absolutely no clue what the first step is, or they think they know everything already. I know there have been a lot of times where I've felt left behind or left out of a conversation because I don't know the first thing about some of what's being discussed. My tactic is to look it up instead of asking questions, for the most part, because posting a thread saying "What is spiral dynamics and how does it apply to me?" would show that I haven't even put in the most basic effort. BUT some people aren't very good at Google, and Google is often not very good at sifting out the wheat from the chaff. The flip side is that moderation is a really tricky task, no matter what you're moderating. There are some things that are obviously trollish or spammy. And then there's a lot of borderline things. I think the latter is where the sticking point is. What bothers me about this particular response is that in context, Leo's statement feels haughty and egoic. "I need to delete the posts of those less learned in order to maintain a quality level I find acceptable." He would rather destroy a community than allow posts that are considered lower quality than his limit. Depending on what that limit is, this isn't an extreme point of view, but TA was talking about earnest posts from newcomers. "No serious spiritual school would allow such distractions." Is this a serious spiritual "school"? No, it's a forum. We're not here for homework. I'm certainly not here for three-hour weekly lectures. Most of us are here to improve themselves. If you want to keep the school analogy, we have some people who are in kindergarten, and some who are in their doctorate's program. If you want to lock out those who are new seekers, you will turn away people who could eventually become great spiritual leaders due to your haughtiness. Personally, if that's what the vision for this forum is, I would rather it be shut down.

The answer is yes. It's both. Connection is a part of your ego. You feel fulfilled by being connected. The question is whether that's beneficial to you in your path. There are a lot of downsides to connection, but a lot of benefits as well. You say you felt gutted when a teacher spoke to you. Why? I felt the same. I remember my 6th-grade teacher taking me outside the classroom to talk to me, and I had this massive pit in my stomach like I could almost not breathe. The reason I felt like that was because I wanted to be seen as the best student, to be the teacher's friend, to be seen as helpful. It was ego, and definitely not in a positive way. Trying to sound smarter is another part of your ego. Words are tricky; it's often hard to get a point across without either sounding too grandiose or too trivial. I think a lot of us aren't amazing at walking that line. But if you feel it's better to stay silent than to make a mistake, that's your ego holding you back. Embrace the mistake, learn from it, and continue to speak freely and proudly about what you feel is important. Just also recognize that what you feel is important might simply be your ego too.

@DrewNows Thanks for sharing the video! I've been busy this weekend, but I'll try to find time to watch it and share insights. From your description alone, I would say I believe the zero-sum game is often extremely dangerous to play. Not just in romantic relationships, but in all relationships. I'd say to @Bill W that you can translate a lot of the relationship advice to friendships as well... just dropping the romantic part of it. You say you don't think you need to enhance relationships, and you might be right. I have similar opinions about what you said. However, some people are more difficult to work with than others, and nearly everyone has moments where they are impossible to work with. Topics like this help us balance our own needs and interests with that of the other person. You say you want to be open-minded and humble? Then some of these topics can be super useful to understand, even if you don't apply them specifically to your situations. As for going back to zero-sum... I never have understood why people think any benefit to one person is a detriment to another. There are some things that are that way, of course. But even the most obvious examples (I give my wife $50, so I no longer have that $50) can serve to enhance both sides (she spends the money on something important or edifying for both of us, like food or a hairstyle that improves her mood). There are many things that seem like they're pointless or detrimental to one person in the relationship, but following through with that often helps both sides. One thing that feels pointless to me right now is trying to get my daughter to sleep in her own bed. There are several annoyances involved: A) it cuts into my limited free time, B) she's a super light sleeper, so any movement or anything wakes her up, and C) her floor and door make a lot of noise so it's impossible for me to sneak out when she's asleep. This leads to me waiting for an hour for her to get into a deep enough sleep before I try to tiptoe out, and still 70% of the time, she wakes up. At that point, it's over. She has to sleep in our bed or she's inconsolable and no one gets sleep. I could get frustrated at the wife for not putting in more effort to fix this on her own. But what would that serve other than getting her mad at me? She's super exhausted at night time after dealing with similar stuff all day long. It might be somewhat detrimental to me to do this, but there are plenty of positives with it too. I get to cuddle my daughter to sleep. I get to help my wife get some unhindered sleep at night. And on the few nights where she does sleep well, the wife can get several hours before my daughter wakes up. There are a bunch of other things I could go into, but they all boil down to the same thing: I'm investing into my family and my future happiness. Even if I'm temporarily frustrated, isn't it all worth it in the end? Instead of it being a zero-sum game, we should consider that anything that benefits one of us also benefits both of us. As long as the detriment to one of us doesn't outweigh the benefit to the other, we should be fine. But usually the benefits far exceed the detriments.

@Dylan Page In order to be successful in anything you do, you need to care about it to some degree. You can change your perspective. Most jobs have a very important role in society (some obviously don't). Instead of having a negative outlook on everything and prejudging ahead of time that you'll hate it, look at the positive aspects. A) You get money. Pretty important. B) Your job has its role. My 9-5 allows me to provide an important service to steel fabricators that allow buildings to be built. There's a lot of amazing interactions I would miss out if I refused to work a 9-5. The first semester of college is intended to get most people to the lowest rung on the ladder in order to build a foundation thereon. Again, this is a negative perspective you have that you can change. Instead of deciding that all college is useless based on the extremely simplistic 101 courses you began, realize that there was a lot of information there that many people don't know. They can then build on this information next year and not have to waste time teaching it all over again. These introductory courses often are the most boring and standardized courses available in college since the professors are just as bored as you are. Try researching who the best professors are for these courses. You might find some hidden gems. My Physics course PHY 101 was taught by an amazing professor because he wanted to engage with the students. All in all, you have an extremely negative perspective on your future, on your options, and on things you've never experienced. This extremely negative perspective will only serve to hold you back. You felt college was BS and stupid because you had a negative outlook on it. You think 9-5 jobs are something you won't care about because you have a negative outlook on it. The best guidance anyone can give you right now is to first fix your attitude problem, then pick a path and go for it. Once you pick your choice, go all in and work hard for it. If you want to build a business, you may need to work a 9-5 first in order to build up your personal income. Most businesses are not immediately successful in the first year... or even 5 years. If you want to go to college, accept that you'll need to dust off some rusty skills and those "boring" classes are the best way to do that. Search yourself to figure out what you really want to do with your life, then go all in. That doesn't mean that changing your mind is off the table, but proceed with confidence and excitement. With a positive attitude, you can do almost anything.

There's a rap section in this song whose lyrics are pretty deep, but no one ever listens to the lyrics in rap music. I suggest people look them up and dig into them, but here's a snippet: I had no clue who Bobby Brown was, so I looked him up. Asides from being a slang term for really bad weed, Bobby Brown was a sensational star, at one point called the King of R&B. He got together with Whitney Houston, and the two of them created a dynasty together. Then, the two of them started to fall into bad drug habits and things went really poorly for them. The media destroyed them both, but especially Bobby Brown whose career never recovered. "To be Bobby then" means to be the rich and famous. "You have to be Bobby now" means that people will shut you down and tear you apart once you've acquired your fame. It's an interesting way to look at accepting both the good and the bad that comes with your ambitions.

I do definitely see the unconditional love side, but the responses from the boy make me also see a much darker, almost abusive relationship as well. Interesting how two very opposite ideas can be so clearly displayed. Coldplay's music is some of my all time favorite.

100% this. I think this is something a lot of people struggle with. A lot of people tend to have an all or nothing approach. If I dislike X about someone, then I must dislike them entirely, or if I agree with Y from someone, I must agree with everything about them. Did you know Hitler had some amazingly good ideas? It's true! He was just so much of a terrible person that even saying that in some places are enough to get you ostracized, even though objectively, it only makes sense for someone who led a country to that extent to have something redeemable about them enough to get people to listen. I find it very eye-opening and useful to apply this to a lot of people, not just your mentors. For example, you're talking with Joe Bloggs in the grocery store. The guy's a close-minded bigot who doesn't know the first thing about enlightenment. But if you pay attention and want to actually learn from him instead of assuming you're above him, you can learn a ton from Joe, even about enlightenment. You just have to sift through more things that are not helpful. I have been seeing this in a ton of interactions I've been having from the carpenter that worked on my house to a frenemy online that just gets under my skin a lot. Once I stop putting myself on a pedestal and decide to actually treat them as equals, I learn a lot from them. Heck, even the frenemy is turning more into a friend because of this. Another thing to consider: Instead of only taking what you want, take what resonates the most, even the things you really don't like. Sometimes things negatively resonate with you. You find yourself violently pushing back against something... but if you stop to examine your reaction objectively, you might find it was illogical. Perhaps there's a deeper reason for your violent reaction. Perhaps it's a truth you really don't want to hear, but really need to.

@DrewNows One thing I've found is that even when you know you're wrong, it's still often hard to accept it and change your long-held belief. But admitting you're wrong is a great first step. What I did was just assume everything I held as truth was wrong, then built up my beliefs fresh. It was difficult to do and required a lot of effort and time, but it's helped me a lot.

I definitely understand this. I think one difference is that although I do have strong disagreements about Leo's point of view, I also recognize that my knowledge is limited and I'm willing to be wrong. I recognize my biases, and I don't feel like I need to live or die by them. However, I still feel he's extremely irresponsible with his recommendations, almost making them into a requirement. I also simply don't resonate with him anyways. I resonate more with Teal Swan, even though I disagree strongly with her on a few things as well. Leo just isn't my kind of mentor. He meanders too much for my taste, and he repeats himself a ton, just tweaking the specifics of what he's saying. For some people, that's a very powerful way of absorbing information, but it's not my favored method. All that to say... I don't think Leo is a bad person or a bad mentor. He just isn't the right person for me, and I disagree strongly with him on a few points. That doesn't mean I think people should throw out what he says. He has a ton of great advice.

@Zigzag Idiot I'm sure that my opinions are clouded both by my extreme prejudice against drugs from my upbringing and by the fact that 90% of what I've heard from him on drugs has been his posts on the forum, not his videos. It's just one of my hangups about Leo's methods in general. He has a lot of good advice out there, but it's hard for me to separate him from his former PUA / self-aggrandizing formula. Mandy tells me he's changed his tune a lot, but his tone on drugs simply seems to echo that (from my limited perspective). BUT if it's helpful for you, I wish you the best I just have a hard time believing it would be helpful for me specifically.

@hariseldon74 I'd be interested in hearing your deeper thoughts on the book

Being lighthearted is great, especially in a place where a lot of people are super serious. As I'm sure you're aware from your post, you don't have to be a party boy in order to be lighthearted. My biggest concern vis a vis Leo and psychedelics is that he is very active in pushing people to do them. He has told multiple people that their only options for advancing are to either take massive dedicated time for meditation or to do psychedelics. And honestly, who's going to choose taking a solid month off work and other commitments when he's providing a shortcut? It feels irresponsible in my opinion, especially for a leader of a community. He doesn't look at anything about the person that could be a negative factor. He doesn't send the person to a resource that would help them limit risks. He doesn't point out the critically obvious fact that it's illegal, and if caught, people could be in serious legal jeopardy. The fact that he's pushing an illegal activity so hard seems extremely irresponsible in my opinion. If Leo said something like "there's a lot of risks associated, but if you're having trouble finding time and are willing to deal with the risks, psychedelics may be an option. Check out this link for a lot of things you should be aware of." then I would respect his stance on them a lot more. As is, he basically says "You're worthless and you always will be until you do drugs." And them after-school specials told me to not give in to that sort of rhetoric.

I follow a similar definition for addiction, and I agree. Nearly every activity can become an addiction when improperly handled. Being on this forum can be addictive. Eating unhealthy food can be addictive. Swearing can be addictive. Cracking your knuckles can be addictive. Really, anything that has an unconscious trigger that you repeatedly fail to suppress can become addictive, even to the point of it being very difficult to overcome that addiction. Even positive activities can become addictive, such as exercise. There's a point where exercise can actually be unhealthy, especially if looked at in a non-medical view (although also possible medically). I've tried to be careful in not using the term addiction in relation to psychedelics here, but I think it's fairly obvious that Leo has made it an addiction for himself from what I've seen through his advice. If it's not an addiction, it's definitely a strong reliance that may be borderline unhealthy. From what I've seen, most psychedelics do not impose a physical addiction on most people. However, there are some people (like myself) who have an addiction-prone personality. By that, I mean that I am prone to falling into habits and repeating them unconsciously to the point where it's very difficult to stop. This could be almost anything from gaming to drinking soda to binge eating, as long as I don't consciously focus on these things. I've thankfully not had real problems with binge eating since I tend to focus on when I eat to some degree, but even after cutting soda 90% from my diet, I still feel myself unconsciously reaching for where they normally were kept when I open the fridge.

I remember reading that book, and I was blown away by how dark and depressing it is for a children's story. I thought it was a happier story when I was younger. But to me, it's about someone who gives and gives until she has nothing left, and then continues to give. It's almost a warning about how giving a piece of yourself is as dangerous as it is fulfilling.