Snader

I don't know about you but for me watching any sex scenes with family isn't okay. When I'm invested in a movie on emotional level and a sex scene comes up, to me many emotions may pop up, as sex to me means more than something mechanical that could be rationalized away. The awkwardness comes from everyone working their ass off to act cool or covering their emotions with jokes and humor. Of course in certain company those jokes help you to not make the situation socially awkward, which to many is way more important than emotional authenticity. Maybe some parents have educated their children to have a healthy sex-emotion relationship so that those scenes can be watched without any awkwardness or acts of emotional defence, but I think it's rare.

When you become conscious of the fact that you don't really need more of those things and start consciously controlling your action around your desires, your greediness starts to reduce. So we might say greediness = unconsciousness. After all it's just a label. In a way we will always be greedy as human beings, as long as we are alive. Where you draw the line is subjective, and is determined by your perspective, values, culture, personality and other stuff that make you who you are.

Yeah, no doubt. But for many that shallowness can also function as a damper to keep the experience from going too deep too fast.

Although solitude and purity of substance is optimal for pursuing truth with psychedelics, but isn't it a bit crude to completely talk down the ceremonial way of doing psychedelics? It's not the way for you, but it might be for many. Not everyone are highly introverted, independent and conscious. Many young people doing psychedelics drive themselves too deep to an existential crisis and cynicism that they will find it hard to operate in life. For many it might be best to have this social component to their tripping, at first at least. I think it's the solitude in the process that usually breaks people, and it seem to have a lot to do with personality. Some seem to need to have people around, until they might come to a point of realizing they don't need them. You have your way and you want to push people to do it that way too, but as role model I think it would be reasonable for you to be more supportive to other ways of doing things.

I get it. It's frustrating to see people (like Leo) labeling complex phenomenon or action as a stage of development, while you know it's not that simple. And it never is that simple. It's just a useful tool to give a rough estimate of the situation and when it comes to SD the estimation is pretty damn accurate and inclusive, giving a surprisingly truthful framework to look at it. Feel free to make a more useful model, it's definitely possible to do and will be done some day by someone. Using the SD framework it is always big picture and from there you have many ways to go deeper and many perspectives to approach from. As I've done that, I've noticed the SD framework holding its ground over and over again. It works great when you try to understand why societal stuff happen and why people do what they do - and as always, in a very big picture scale.

Most people only think about money, validation and prestige when doing career choices and they don’t see how it’s coming to bite them in the ass. You should work to get out of that prison of thinking about what others think, in the end that’s absolutely meaningless and it’s going to serve nobody, not even you. There are many aspects to consider. For example what kind of social environment is the profession most likely to put you in, what values are connected to the subject, what type of job opportunities does it open, how does the subject support your development? It’s wiser to get clear on the big lines and then let the process take you from there. Your understanding of sociology is most likely wrong and that’s because sociology can’t relly be defined one particular way. It really is a multidiciplinary field and when it’s done well, it becomes like magic. It really seeks to consider multiple perspectives in its truth-seeking efforts, which makes it one of the most truthful fields of science. There are so many different subfields and subsubfield that you would most likely not even study sociology per se, but find your own niche where you use your strengths and areas of interest. For example combining sociology with math and statistics is one valid option and it nicely amalgamates social topics with ”hard sciences”. I’ve also seen a Master’s program based on urban planning, where you put physics, biology and sociology together and you can select a study module that weights the subject you like the most. You need to make your own way and stop making your decisions based on what Ben Shapiro or anybody else says.

We don't advocate such irresponsible psychedelic usage here, nor should you.

That's very impressive. It must take plenty of courage and of course skill to pull that off in the limits of academic tolerance -- generally speaking. I've been to a lecture of this one very open-minded sociologist who constantly tried to take things to a deeper and more holistic sphere but clearly backed off as he noticed rolling eyes and received questions that he couldn't answer in a way that wouldn't make people roll their eyes even more. I put a little crumbs of outside the box thinking in my final essey and was glad to see that he recognized it in a positive way. I'm very curious how you actually do that. Wish I could attend those classes. I'm not a teacher, but I often try to open some of my relatively open-minded friends' minds and it's funny how I also need to present some ideas with such buzzwords just to lead them a bit deeper without compromising their openness. It's crazy how I can often feel the level of other persons' tolerance and sense how the level changes as I change the way I articulate. I hope to improve that skill for the future as I see myself doing teaching in one form or another. Interesting. Anchoring that to something familiar like Wim Hoff for example, could make people welcome it with less prejudice. I can only imagine how hard it might be to have that rare capability that you are restricted to use. I think it's also a special skill to understand that fact and hold back. Life keeps changing all the time and something that makes people's eyes roll today might be warmly welcomed in 10 years. Although for example Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were bold and ready to take risks, I still think they didn't have that skill, which is understandable as they couldn't quite anticipate how people will react and how their works would be framed as. Now we know better and know to be more careful. That's at the core of what I expected to hear (at best) when I originally asked you about integrating the two "sides" of life. Correct me if I'm wrong, but by what you've said it sound to me like that is the pinnacle or at least one of the sweetest fruits that have resulted from the integration of your career (the social mind) and your personal abilities and tendencies (the side of you alone in the forest). The fact that you bring your talent into an environment where it's not generally expected to be effective, leading to recognition of other people's hidden or suppressed talents, is astonishing to me. It's also soothing and inspiring to hear that there is room (or that room can be made) for deeper inquiry even in an academic setting. My university -- especially my faculty -- also has this strong marketing of multidisciplinarity. It's mostly like you described: there is a possibility to choose plenty of courses from many other faculties. Some teachers seem to be seriously trying to integrate that idea into their teaching, while the mass courses are still far from that. Anyway in the discipline I'm in there is this mutual understanding that we cannot come to any absolute truths or all-explaining explanations. In the research it is always emphasized how the output is only explaining a little part of the phenomenon while more truthful picture requires a broader range of perspectives and methods that need to be integrated together. That's what I really like.

Interesting. Do you think that phase of curiosity and psychedelics has somehow affected your ability (in good or bad) to relate to other people and be social in general?

Thanks a lot for taking the time to give such a thorough answer. I really appreciate it. Plenty of thoughts and few additional questions popped up and I kind of spit them out as they came. Oh yeah, I've had times like that, where I've had to struggle to get myself back "in touch" with myself and reality. It's like the fumes of social life following you wherever you go. Following your example of walking in nature: even as a person who has always loved spending time in nature and has plenty of experience from nature's healing capabilities, the mind occupied by the social content and survival can have such a strong grip that fighting it at the moment is impossible, even if you have some intuition of awareness of what's going on. Those moments have been common in times of big chance and chaos. Reflecting back, it comes down to the clearness of the sides as you say. The sides have been unclear, so there hasn't been possibility for disengagement. Wow! I spend 3-5 days on a remote island 1-2 times per year. Those trips consist of contemplation and chilling in nature and usually a psychedelic trip with a moderate dose. After I come back home I often experience this moment when I confront something about my social life and it kind of snaps the system back on, after which it takes a while to get back on track of what's going on in my life. Like moving files from an old usb drive, I slowly gather the data that I had pretty much forgotten. It's nothing too crazy, doesn't take long to be "up to date". I can only imagine what 3 months could do. Damn, such a waste. It's sad that these things are not recognized. That example tells a lot about the education system and the way in which society creates work force like cattle. Are you pressured into making binary decisions in your current job? If yes, how do you manage with it? It's funny how this elucidates the contrast between two environments in different developmental stages. From my teens to early adulthood I was mostly surrounded by stage orange people. As can be expected, the atmosphere was pretty individualistic and for example all school choices were made according to individualistic endeavors. Some of those people are still in my life and they question me as I've made changes from an individualistic career path to one that is more about contributing. Today I'm in GREEN-yellow environment which sounds a lot like the one you described. Through my own development and mystical experiences I've learned the value of contribution and giving. I've engraved them into my value system so that I won't lose them in the moment of fear and pressure, as I intuit their power and the importance of lining ones' life with them. I started to become dogmatic, in a way that I couldn't allow myself any goals or purposes that weren't about improving the lives of others. Later I went through processes where I struggled with dark and depressing meaninglessness. Sorting that all out brought me to first acknowledge and then accept the fact that I don't need to do work that is directly improving peoples lives, in fact I realized I don't need to do a damn thing. After some time and integration I came to find purpose in pursuing career that suits my personal preferences and also fills the demands concerning morality and purpose. There's probably plenty of factors, but could you possibly name some main points? I ask this because I'm currently in a process of career change, pursuing an academic career, as I think I might've found a niche from the academic field that offers a great balance of benefits and compromises in areas that I've come to see important in terms of my long term development and general life quality. It is something that is also supporting my other endeavors for the far future. I'm asking this as a form of research while I still have some time to affect the education path, and because I feel like your perspective here would be unique.

Thanks for your conversation, it was an enjoyable read. I have something to ask you guys relating to the quotes above. What thoughts do you have on integrating the two "sides" of life, the more personal and isolated (was it a superpower or features of developmental stage) and the more practical side (was it a social image or a career) in a way that the need for restricting or splitting oneself diminishes? To what extent do you think it is possible for example to have a money paying career in which you can use your gift of abstract thinking, wonder or curiosity, for example? If you don't mind sharing; what barriers do you see for that in your own life, considering society around you and your unique set of skills, experiences, personality, level of consciousness and general life situation (feel free to add other factors)?

yup, you can grind without making it grindy

Who are we to blame if someone specifically wants to grind? Sometimes learning requires a bit of grind and there are smart and stupid ways to do that.

I don't think there would be much integration and real learning with such a dogmatic grind set. I would rather dedicate myself to read x hours a day, ensuring consistency and avoiding burnout.

Very interested to see how that goes! He will be much much harder on you than Curt.