trenton

@RendHeaven gen 5 music is amazing. There are a few relaxing themes from gen 4 I like. Gyarados could probably be added to a rain team with Milotic. The flying type kind of confuses me on Gyarados. You probably enjoy the convenient evolution timing with Gyarados. This is like when James kicked the magikarp and called it useless only to evolve at that second, it is a common joke. Perhaps there is a deeper story that could be made around this evolution line. When everybody thinks your pathetic and worthless, you never stop struggling until you prove your true potential which comes from always believing in yourself no matter what odds are stacked against you. I never played reborn or rejuvenation, and I might check it out. In the meantime here is some music. This is an interesting on. It is nice and peaceful until 1:10-1:16. The end of this song has the creepy ringing sound from the old chateau and it always bothered me in this otherwise relaxing theme. You can find that same ringing noise at the start of the old chateau theme. Other nice themes are like eterna forest, the early routes are playful, jubilife city is relaxing, and of course the starting town in many different games are fun. I like a lot to them. I love gen 5 music and there are a ton of themes I might not mention. This last one is simple, peaceful, and almost makes me want to cry. It speaks to my heart somehow. There are a ton of other themes from gen 5 I like. I could not name them all.

I tested Leo's claims about the hospitals and I discovered that he was right about their behavior. I asked them "how much do you charge for the emergency room?" They answered "it depends on your insurance." I asked "what if I don't have insurance?" They then said "it depends on your injuries." I asked "how much do you charge if my eye is torn out?" She then shrugged. What questions should I ask the hospitals in my area to get a straight answer on what they actually charge for these services? My doctor also underestimates the dangers of heavy metals, pfas, and micro plastics. He also advised against using psychedelics to see if they prove the existence of God. The last one makes sense if he would get in trouble for saying otherwise.

This has been happening to me since I was a kid. I would isolate myself from other people and be quiet. I was able to intuit why I don't like socializing but I did not know how to explain it nor did I want to. Basically, when I socialize with people they influence me. I then begin to change in the process and mimic what I am influenced by. The same happens with the influence of my culture. I change to match what they are and in doing so something is lost in the process and that would be who I was previously. In order to minimize influence I isolated myself from other people at home and school. I would instead pace back and forth at a distance from others. An analogy would be the collective identity of a nation. The reason there is so much fear regarding foreigners is because they influence the collective demographic and thus our national identity. The United States is a great example because it used to have a strong isolationist policy. This is designed to minimize influence of other nations through communicating with them on global affairs. This lead to the collective punishment of other races through things like the Chinese exclusion act. This racist history was the struggle to maintain the former identity which would be lost. Similarly, the hesitancy of Sweden when asked to join NATO was a manifestation of the goal to maintain the neutral identity. When the goal is to maintain who we are, then this can lead to a lot of misconceptions, lies, and fears that prevents us from seeing clearly. I hope some of you find this helpful. One way to twist spiritual truths like those in quietism would be to become a recluse. This can be a front of spirituality, but in fact it is a method of preserving the ego identity. Spirituality is doomed to fail if one fears the influence others as it entails ego death. What is it like to not fear the loss of my identity? I imagine that it would be more truthful as it does not stem from fear and emotional reactions to a possible change.

@Inliytened1 @LastThursday I think you both put this pretty nicely. I would like to make an analogy to how I approach chess because it works very well. I think of it as if I know that there are many things I don't know. Because of this there are many ways in which my judgement could be flawed. There is nothing wrong with this per say because over time experience will change my judgement as new knowledge comes to me. The idea that I'm getting is that if I could some how apply this logic to other areas of my life, then I would solve a lot of inner conflict and self doubt. In the case of socializing it could be that my identity changes in the process because other people will teach me something i don't know. Yes I am socially awkward now, but my judgement and behavior should change over time if I were not afraid of the appearance that there are so many ways to go wrong and make a bad situation. If I could somehow apply this growth mindset to my entire worldview, then I could have a lot of potential for self improvement.

@RendHeaven thank you for telling me I'm awesome. I saw that your a Pokemon fan too. I stopped playing the main stream games after generation 7. Unlike my sister I didn't want to buy new game consoles just to keep up with everything. I managed to collect nearly every Pokemon up to that point aside from a couple of event only pokemon. My first Pokemon game was gold version on the game boy color. I tried playing silver, but something was wrong with the game and it didn't save properly. Yellow version worked just fine though. I never played the third generation games because I didn't have a game boy advance and I stopped at sun and moon. I played with my sister and helped her get deoxys alpha sapphire though which was fun. I spent over one hundred hours on Pokemon platinum. I had finally gotten the villa toward the end of the post game. I remember that feeling or impulse I had which said "get them all." I then played everyday catching every Pokemon I could except for a couple of event pokemon. I transferred all of it to Pokemon white and I have well over 600 pokemon, I don't remember the exact number. I have over a hundred hours on that game as well. The only pokemon I didn't catch were mew, celebi, jirachi, darkrai, arceus, and melloetta. I have darkrai, arceus, and mew in another game now though. In later games I got everything but magerna and marshadow. I believe I finished the kalos dex. My favorite one to play might be black two and white two. These versions give you a lot to do like joy avenue, the championship matches, and so on. Some of my favorite Pokemon are mew, sylveon, gardevoir,( I was attracted to its trainer loyalty in platinum when it created a black hole to defend its trainer. I thought it was cool so I put it on my team, unaware of the porn.), Murkrow has a nice hat, Scolopede looks cool, zorua is cute, and a bunch of others. I once killed an arceus in a competitive battle with a level one rattata. I never saw my opponent's reaction so I can only imagine. If I had to choose a competitive team, I would use a sand storm team like tyranitar and metagross, set up spikes and stealth rock, something like this looks interesting. Rain teams are interesting too, especially with thunder and hurricane never missing.

I enjoyed Pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of sky. There are so many potential fan fictions of this master piece. Basically, your a human who travelled from the future and transformed into a Pokemon on a mission to stop the planet's paralysis. In this process you intend to change history, therefore causing you to disappear. The game says it is for like 10 year olds, but you are constantly on a suicide mission to defeat the God of time. It is an emotional roller coaster and fun to play. There are a couple of plot holes like the visions that are never fully explained though, and it looks like they are there just to conveniently advance the plot. PMDgang makes a lot of fan fictions on YouTube and there is some good music from this game and fan made music. The biggest disappointment is that the animated series of this only lasted 4 episodes instead of 200 episodes. there was so much potential for all the missions and stories. This is more disappointing than the Zelda animated series which could have been so much cooler. Imagine an episode of link gathering the chickens. The guard in front of death mountain recommends that He prepares himself by getting an empty bottle and filling it with a red potion. He climbs up the windmill as it pours down rain and the building is struck by lightning. He holds into some ropes like In the intro to links awakening. Finally he jumps off the windmill as the clouds part and the sunlight shines on link flying down with the chicken he caught. He then fills the empty bottle with a red potion to help him right king dodongo, so the filler episodes would actually be relevant. Pokemon mystery dungeon could do this with the side mission rewards such as max elixers, reviver seeds, and other useful items. These items are used in later dungeons against bosses.

I notice a common pattern in my thinking is to call myself names. This is often to cover up my embarrassment related to a thought I previously thought was smart but now think is not. The names include monster, idiot, genius, and more. I want to write this down because I am curious about how much better I would be off if I stopped this. I'd imagine that I would get better at detecting suppressed emotions and releasing them. This is key to mastery in chess and probably other parts of life as well. I also have a tournament coming up in a couple of days. It is the Indy 3500. I will be playing in the championship section of 1800+. I am about 1830 or so. This should be interesting if most players are higher rates than me. One challenge is that this is a one day tournament. There are four games back to back each about two hours. I need to wake up at about five o'clock to start going to Indianapolis. These two aspects make it seem more difficult, especially since I work Friday. I think I will be able to handle it. On a related note I am letting go of becoming a grandmaster. I asked other gms and they told me that if I have to hold down a job and I don't have the money to travel to a lot of tournaments then this kills the idea. It seems that something has to fall your way to get that far. This includes upbringing such as having a father who is rated 2000 train you since you were five. When it comes to my chess development I was mostly on my own with this interest as most of the family did not want to study these things. My chess development was slower and I may not get As far. I am not upset about these things and it feels almost relieving. It helps me to have a greater understanding for those who are slower in development as much of it depends on circumstances and upbringing. This way I can look at someone rate 1100 for instance and know that they are doing their best given their life circumstances. I am also careful to not turn this into a limiting belief. I know I am capable of becoming at least a life master because I defeated candidate masters and play very well in my peak form. I trained the first chess team at walnut hills and was the first in the history of the school to win the scholastic chess series. I still have a lot to learn and it can get overwhelming, but I am making steady progress.

I notice a common pattern in my thinking is to call myself names. This is often to cover up my embarrassment related to a thought I previously thought was smart but now think is not. The names include monster, idiot, genius, and more. I want to write this down because I am curious about how much better I would be off if I stopped this. I'd imagine that I would get better at detecting suppressed emotions and releasing them. This is key to mastery in chess and probably other parts of life as well. Meanwhile I started backsliding on my diet again and I am staying up later. I will perform better if I get back on track.

May 1 I am coming with an update from a chess tournament it was the 81st Indiana state championship. I was playing up in the open against much stronger opponents. I performed well in spite of my lower rating and went up by 100 points. I drove up to Indiana with mom and Dave. We checked into my hotel room where I would stay alone for two days. I was thrilled and this was a dream come true. Staying in a hotel in an unfamiliar location playing chess against strong opponents. This is the life! I did my best to eat healthy because there is an obvious difference in my performance when I eat fruit smoothies and tuna over sugar. Chess is a great motivator for personal development when it comes to emotional mastery and health. In round one I played a candidate master rated 300 points higher than me and won. He played an old variation of the Nimzo Indian Defense and I allowed him a few chances to equalize, but I was never in serious trouble. He was tempted to fudge the results after the game, but I didn't let him. I spent my time between rounds either practicing the najdorf variation or observing the emotions in my body. I didn't have much good so I had to order fast food from door dash. Ideally I would avoid this junk food too, but I didn't have enough to eat. That night I cried because I noticed that my mind was doing its best to understand itself but only being partially successful. It seems to be part of OCD and autism, and if I manage to grow and cope with some of the symptoms that effect my thinking system, then I can become an extremely powerful chess player. For example, I might think for less time and play equally powerful moves. This would be on the level of a life master of I accomplished this. I am working on all of this as I write this. I slept well in spite of the McDonald's. In round two I played another candidate master. I was kicking his butt early on, but I failed to convert the full point. He put up a stubborn resistance and drew. I need some work on converting won games. Round three I played a life master. I played aggressively early on, but I messed up and was on the back foot. Eventually I nearly drew, but my opponent looked at me and decided to take a risk because I was nervous. Since I was not confident he decided that I would probably make mistake and lose later on. My nervous bladder played a role in this game. Ultimately I lost even though I could have drawn had I been more confident. This was my Most instructive game of all. That night door dash canceled my dinner and I did not have enough to eat. This lead to an obvious difference in my state of mind for the rest of the tournament. I could not focus and I was making silly mistakes. Round 4 I trusted my memory over my concrete analysis and got a worse position out of the opening. I was then forced to improvise for the rest of the game, proving only partial compensation for the material sacrifice. I never took back the pawn if it meant giving white a position with better placed pieces as my pieces would be uncoordinated after winning back the pawn. Finally, after 40 moves won back the pawn and set up a snare. My opponent in his time trouble fell for the snare and realized it when it was too late. This allowed me to swindle the win and he was pissed. I made an enemy that day. Round five was poor. I was exhausted and had a better position out of the opening and dropped it to a knight tactic. I lost quickly in that game. I need to anticipate my fatigue and work to prevent it. Maybe if I had more and better food to eat last night I would have maintained higher performance. This moves themselves in an analysis are only one small part of the chess game. The real chess game includes all of the personal development that goes into diet, exercises, emotional mastery, and more. Of course I need to improve in every aspect of the game, but there is more to chess than just memorizing moves. You need to build yourself up as well, not just win the quiz show. A couple of interesting experiences included running into chess players who were studying the same thing as me. The champion and I were both using Chessable which was kind of funny. The guy I drew was the former champion of this tournament. Finally, I ran into Christians and it was interesting. First they were talking about Moses and discussing some of the prayers that Jews do. Next they started talking about bible studies and fear of God. I was familiar with this last time I went to church and there was a theme of fear. Those who fear God go to heaven. The man leading the bible study said that fear does not necessarily mean be afraid of God, he could mean have respect for God. This would avoid punishment and wrath without being paranoid and terrified. That seems a little new it reminds me of having respect for psychedelics versus being scared of them because of the war on drugs. one woman mentioned that we often get stuck in every day life trying to make ends meet and we fail to see the beauty of life. She then went on to say that she hears the birds more often and it helps her remember the infinite intelligence with which all of existence is designed. I walked outside and looked at the geese and noticed more intricate patterns on the feathers as if they are each unique like our faces or a leopards spots. It reminds me of racism when I feel like black people look more similar to each other than white people. It happens because I don't see the deep intelligence with which all of existence is designed and I thus focus on the obvious difference of skin tone. If I were exposed to more black people I would be better at spotting differences and getting used to names I am not used to. This is how mankind can be taught unconditional love through the appreciation of uniqueness in every aspect of creation. All in all a very fun experience. I look forward to future tournaments. In the meantime I will continue working to understand my mind and the effects of autism, OCD, and other mental conditions to master my life.

@Reciprocality explaining moral relativism in this way seems like a very straight forward way of avoiding an opinionated outcome. I was worried that trying to point to a bad influence would keep a child stuck in the same endless back and forth. I remember I used to make sense of this by looking at the holy wars. When judging from different moral values you reach different conclusions about who the bad guy is.

It seems that polarization is a going to remain a part of the heated discourse in American or Australian politics. A response I see in children is that they don't like the fighting at the dinner table when the family starts arguing over various political issues and they may quietly leave the room. This can include wealth inequality, elections, abortion, LGBTQ, and so on. Some children will leave the room and hide from the rest of the family because they see no way to stop the fighting. Imagine that five year old Jimmy is worried about all of the fighting in family. For example, mom and his sisters are fighting over abortion as grandma and grandpa insist that the election was stolen while using the N-word. Jimmy wants the fighting to stop so his family can be happy. Jimmy does not understand why the family is fighting so much. Your task is to explain polarization to Jimmy and teach him to navigate the situation. If I were to try this, I would start by informing the family that Jimmy is uncomfortable with all of this fighting and he wants the family to be happy. By first telling them that you are uncomfortable with the situation, the family should immediately become more aware of the fact that they are yelling and getting angry with each other. This alone should stop some of the fighting. I would also point out that the grandparents are a terrible influence and Jimmy should probably be removed the situation. This would probably cause more fighting, and it does not seem ideal if Jimmy wants his family to be happy rather than separated by political ideologies. If for some reason there is no way to stop the fighting, then I have never found a good answer to this scenario. I would try to tell Jimmy to avoid contributing the situation and making it worse. A common cause of this fighting comes from people looking at only one news source. People then repeat what they heard from that news source without comparing it to other sources. The problem with this is that it is a bit complicated to ask a five year old to do independent research and compare a dozen different sources to figure out what is actually happening in the world. The approach I am attempting to use is to teach children to value open mindedness so they don't get stuck in one point of view and thus contribute to the polarization. In fact there is likely not much that can be done to stop this fighting if the family is not open minded to new sources and they don't care about the child's feelings. At that point the best Jimmy could do is focus on doing better in school and try to let his family sort this out themselves. His family needs to learn that this kind of fighting can go on and on and on and they will not be happy. Maybe there is a better approach you could give young children on these sorts of issues. How would you explain polarization to a five year old?

Oh my God this is relatively true. There is a logical fallacy about appealing to authority, but in practice this is useless. I don't see a point in trying to convince people unless I find some celebrity they like. This becomes very frustrating and I lose interest in sharing cool ideas like colonizing mars in reaction to climate change. Everybody thought the idea was stupid until Stephen hawking came out and said that we should colonize mars in reaction to climate change. Now the idea is brilliant because a scientific celebrity said it. This is a major problem in science as well because if a big name scientist promotes simulation theory then everybody will think it is brilliant without thinking critically. How do you even calculate the probability that God created the universe? This is just silly. There might be a better way, but I have given up on talking to people who refuse to look at any research when I present the sources to them. I can't change willful ignorance.

Most of my family was interested in how I explained spiral dynamics and demonstrated the conflicts of mankind. I try to be very careful about leaving the impression that some states are better than others, but my sister still thinks of it as liberals are better than conservatives. Meanwhile, my grandma was interested in learning spiral dynamics, but she interpreted the model as Donald Trump being stage yellow. My brother is more interested in understanding how societies evolve, the implications in geopolitics, and what to expect in the future. He noticed that societies often evolve by the older worldviews dying off and becoming irrelevant. Then the younger generation repeats The cycle. My brother, two cousins, and my grandma on my mother's side seem to get The most benefit from research and development theories and we don't argue much at all. The interesting part is when I tried to apply spiral dynamics to the conflicts in my family. I strongly hesitate to say that I'm stage yellow as if I am the most developed in the family, as that would be an obvious sign of self bias. I also found that individuals can be very mixed and it is hard to say that they are just at x stage. They seem to be a mix of stage blue and green. Much of this is caused by our family's history of drug dealing. My family reacts strongly to psychedelics because of this, but on the other hand they also practice yoga, are open to other religions, and appear mostly liberal. Most of the conflicts in my family are the parts which are stage blue vs the parts which are stage green. For example, my grandma on my father's side is still saying the n word and calling Obama a Muslim. My grandma on my mother's side looks at her like she is stupid because we can have whatever religion we want. Most of my family is close minded to research into psychedelics, so I only discuss it with three people in my family. My transgender cousin appreciates me saying "him" as this becomes a point of conflict sometimes. My family seems to have very mixed feelings about abortion when they argue about it. I tried to tell my family that I would rather have a quieter discussion of politics as we compare and contrast many different sources to see what can find. My mom said that would be no fun and she just wants to make my sister upset. Meanwhile my sister thinks that the research isn't worth her time. So far the best I have managed to do is change the topic from politics. My brother is often disappointed in politics because it devolves into people shouting rather than learning. We share our research with each other and don't really argue. How would you approach this kind of family?

Today was interesting. I am noticing more and more how badly sugar years up my brain for chess. My family is still giving me candy for holidays and I don't want it anymore. I took my Easter candy and gave it away to a random kid near a park. I told him that I had a bunch of candy in my backpack but it made me sick to my stomach. I asked him if he wants all the candy. His eyes widened in disbelief as he said yes. I then unzipped the bag and gave him the candy. He was thrilled and the other kids got jealous when they found out. I noticed the kid backed away from me for a second as if uncomfortable. I told him that if his parents asked where he got the candy, then make sure they know I didn't tell him to jump into the back of my white van or anything of that nature. The candy was his no strings attached. I then left the area, but looked back when I saw the kids fighting over the candy. "My candy!" The boy yelled as he held the bag away from the other kids. Eventually they stopped and nobody was hurt. Anyway I'm glad I made his day. I decided to keep this from my family because they would probably chastise me for being a creepy man at the park and giving a kid some candy. I'm happy with myself though. Meanwhile with Chess I have been practicing a lot of najdorf variations on Chessable. I purchased a full course, but this one is not panning out as well as I would hope. The thing is that most players don't follow the theory of najdorf. I hope it works well for learning typical patterns which I have already picked up a couple, but the main thing I need is calculating the resulting positions when out of book. A gm can show me all the best moves, but without the ability to find such moves I am left with memorization. So far I have mixed feelings on the course but it is okay. I devised a better training method for my purposes. I found a list of games in the najdorf and started playing through those with my tournament board. This helps me much more when I sit down and practice calculating the positions. I will see a lot of typical patterns for white and black this way, but I also train how I think about it without just memory. So far my opinion of the najdorf somewhat favors white, but I will keep practicing. About a week ago I tried practicing the French, but found that black can easily stumble into a strategically losing position because of the bad bishop. I felt that the risk was not worth the potential queenside pressure which seemed promising at first. I did get a little better playing the French with both sides anyway. I think the key is not to get fixed on one color, and see how these games pan out in practice. I have a special gift in my enthusiasm, inner joy, and flow which make can make me play as well as a 2300. I am going to hone this gift by feeding my brain the right foods and getting rid of the things that make me groggy. Tuna and eggs are start. Smoothies will help for lunch or breakfast. Beyond that my options start to seem limited unless I stop saving the fruits for lunch and eat them as snacks. There are some veggies that I take as snacks too sometimes. But for lunch and dinner? I usually just cook something out of a box, or some oatmeal or something. I typically just go for convenience, but this just will not do for a chess brain. Neither will skipping exercise. If I want to hone this gift, I must treat it with care so I can tap into my inner genius.

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org Of course we have slavery and it never went away. 1. The 13th amendment bans slavery except as punishment for a crime. Slavery is still legal in prisons. 2. Developed countries merely externalize slave labor by importing from other countries and sending jobs overseas. The U.S.for example imports 91 billions dollars of electronic slave products. By the way Apple sometimes refused its sweatshop workers a minimum wage resulting in riots. 3. Human trafficking counts in Slavery and most of the victims are sex slaves. One tactic for solving this is to legalize prostitution, thus preventing people from turning to the black market where it becomes forced prostitution. 4. Some consider wage slavery a less overt form of slavery in that you are paid enough to survive. If you think about slave masters had to pay for your food and shelter any way, but this time it comes as a wage. 5. Open your eyes Sometimes the conditions of slavery are even worse because of overpopulation. It makes it easier to replace slaves with new victims rather than giving slaves medical care. When slaves had to be transferred from Africa, it was a long, difficult, and expensive process to get a slave. Now the process is easier, hence slaves are worked to death and replaced. For example, fishing boats may work you 23 hours a day because they don't care if you die. It is absolutely brutal.

To quote Wikipedia. "Sumerian and Akkadian texts from 4500 years ago document transgender or transvestite priests known as gala. Likely depictions occur in art around the Mediterranean from 9000 to 3700 years ago. In Ancient Greece, Phrygia, and Rome, there were galli priests that some scholars believe to have been trans women." apparently some trans women were priests. Perhaps they proved their dedication to God by cutting off their private parts and becoming female. The olden days were intense for religious faith. I guess that's one way to abstain from sex. Transgenderism would be an honor if used in this way to prove dedication and integrity. I remember some ancient emperors were afraid of their guards having sex with the harem of women. These guards were castrated to prevent them from having sex. I believe that was in Rome. They were called Eunuch.

All of that seems so astounding that I would have to see it to believe it. Life would be incredible if I discovered that the miracles of Jesus were more than just embellished fairy tales. I should probably check out that biography you mentioned. I'm immediately skeptical of these claims, but if they turn out to be true then it will blow my mind wide open. I remember a trap is to value gaining powers over actually seeking truth. It just makes my mind wonder what else in the universe could be possible. It is a little bit like the psychological benefits of religion when someone believes that miracles are possible. It makes me enthusiastic about exploring spirituality. It is not about getting powers and using them per say, I just want to know what else is possible that I assumed was impossible. If people can seriously levitate, walk on water, or live for 200 years through spiritual energy, then my paradigm which tells me what is possible or not would be shattered.

@Rokazulu I remember Neald Walsh wrote that God gave us bodies meant to last forever and a perfect God would give us no less. Just imagine what the world would look like if nobody needed food. It seems crazy to think about, but if it were possible it would make a world beyond recognition. Where did you hear about this ability to live without food? What is a higher source of alternative? How can I tap into it? Immortality is a fascinating topic.

I agree that the bear had beautiful eyes. I want you to not guilt yourself too hard for failing to live up to a vegan ideal. Remember, people who work in slaughter houses end up with all kinds of mental problems like ptsd. They must insist to themselves that animals are less valuable than humans in order to keep doing such a job. With your attitude, you probably would not work in a slaughter house, and most people don't want that kind of job. Sometimes factory farms have a hard time hiring people. Equating yourself to a deeply evil or unconscious person will only lead you to tearing yourself down and it is not resourceful. Keep in mind that humans could not have made it this far without killing fish and squirrels and cooking them over fire. If you want to help animals, then I think it would be most effective to frame it as an issue of human health. Yes it is selfish and biased, but this is how most people think. If we have more research done on the damages caused by micro plastics for instance, then we would have more proof that we are killing ourselves through feeding factory farm animals literal plastic garbage. I told my doctor about these things and he just assumed that there was not too much of it and we would be fine. Pushing science further in understanding human health and our relationship to the environment would ultimately translate into better treatment of some animals. As for poachers, it looks like some animals need to be moved to zoos for protection even though this is depressing for them. They walk back and forth in an anxious manner if you look at them long enough. They don't like being out of their natural habitat and they start going crazy. This is the dark reality underlying an innocent child laughing and saying "look at that cool tiger!". My grandfather used to be in prison for his drug deals and he never enjoyed the zoo after that because he could feel the animals were trapped like he was.

This is not true. Shapiro struggled in debates concerning religious views such as free will. Sam Harris outclassed him in this completely. Shapiro is also on shaky ground when he tried to cherry pick parts of religion to make a historical narrative that seemed more favorable. The problem is that the bible openly endorsed slavery and this shoots a lot of holes in moral absolutism. This forced Shapiro into mental contortions in order to deny moral relativism. Shapiro struggled in these kinds of debates and I think others aside from sam Harris could make him look like a fool. However, Leo is too conscious to engage in such a debate because Shapiro is not interested in deconstructing reality, therefore Leo would be dragged down by his low consciousness in such a debate.

my family said that my sister was going to sing in a choir. I decided to go to church. I didn't tell my family my true motives, and they thought it was to listen to the music. My true motives are to do two things. One to drop my fears and judgements surrounding religion. I would like to be more than just an ego defined by being non religious because this creates a shadow. Secondly, I am considering the possibility that I could use nearby churches to create experiences similar to what I can get through exercises in various spiritual books. In one of these experiences I panicked as I merged with all of existence as this entire experience is nothingness just like me. This was a glimpse, but if I could panic less, then that would help. My main motive is to conquer my fears and become more capable of love. I questioned my judgements of religion. A common one is that they are dogmatic, and many spiritual teachers echo this. The problem with using terms like "religion" is that it refers to billions of people with a ton of variety. Even just "Christian" is such a broad term referring to a billion people. When I think things like "Christians are fill in the blank" this is such a generalization that it seems racist. I decided to challenge my judgements by comparing and contrasting all of the different sects in Christianity at least. I could do this with other religions as well. It is possible that some religions are more developed than I am given how fearful and judgemental I am over the issue. I don't think my mind is mature enough to join a high conscious stage turquoise religion because I am far too judgemental to be able to handle it. I know not all religions are dogmatic because there are progressive, liberal, and liberation Christians. Martian Luther King Jr. Was a liberation Christian and these movements challenge culture and commonly accepted dogmas. Some versions of Christianity accept science rather than insisting that the bible is infallible which is what I typically think of when I hear "Christian." I read about 13 different ancient sects of Christianity. The adamites were interesting because they were naked during meetings and rejected the notion of absolute good and evil. Usually when I hear "Christian" I think of a dogmatic moral absolutist. Sometimes I imagine a Christian trying to stab me in the name of spreading his interpretation. The fearful response I have to this image drives my judgements of religion as my survival becomes about rejecting these ideologies. As a result I feel lost in life because I am in conflict with these images rather than exploring reality to its fullest. This fear is similar to how I responded to moral relativism initially when I imagined being shot in the head. This is an emotional reaction and I am not capable of changing this unless I meditate on the emotions and observe them rather than attacking the content of my thoughts as I typically do. To give you a poem discovered in a Nag Hammadi Library in 1945. The Thunder, Perfect Mind For I am knowledge and ignorance. I am shame and boldness. I am shameless; I am ashamed I am strength and I am fear. I am war and peace. (I am God). I might add this at the end of the poem.

@vizual I am referring to local and county laws, not state laws. The law that black people can't go out after midnight used to be on the books in Cheviot, Ohio, but isn't anymore. I looked at the laws in Cheviot, and did not find this law. This site gives a list of many towns in America which have a history of being sundown towns. These towns may have these discriminatory laws still on the books although not enforced. Most of them are not sundown towns anymore, but you should check for your town on the list. https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/state-map/ This site shows explicitly racist laws which are still on the books in 2019. This was not in Ohio, but prairie village, Kansas. These are about housing black people. https://www.npr.org/2021/11/17/1049052531/racial-covenants-housing-discrimination This site gives a lot of examples of racist policies in Arkansas. Although the civil rights act banned these laws, they continued all the way into the 90's. The reputation of a town as a sundown town still persists in the 2000's. It will also site examples of signs which forbade black people from being outside after dark. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/sundown-towns-3658/ This last site was written in 2009. It is about racial segregation laws that were still on the books up to that point. You will have to download the paper or read the abstract. not only does the term "negro" still appears in laws across America, but there are many laws pointed out in this paper that contradict the civil rights act still on the books. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1428586 I hope these sites give you what you were looking for.

This video was very educational and I want to share it with the forum. It corrected many of my misconceptions about slavery. Americans were taught that slavery ended after the civil war, but in fact the last slave was freed in September of 1942 for fear that enemy nations would use the treatment of the negro as propaganda against the U.S. The key in the 13th amendment is "except as punishment for a crime." Slavery continued because of debt peonage and the sunset laws. The sunset laws are a continued form of systemic racism which are still on the books in many cities across America to this day. I live in Cheviot near Cincinnati Ohio and we used to have a law that said black people were not allowed outside after midnight. Although these laws are not enforced, it is still technically a crime to be black in America. If you have this stereotype in your head that black people are criminals, it's because they are criminals by virtue of the fact that they are black. I knew the literacy tests were hard, by my God this was insane. One wrong answer and your disqualified from voting. The grandfather clause is a ridiculous form of systemic racism in that they don't stop you from voting because you're black, but because your grandfather was black. Voter suppression continues to this day by moving polling stations away from black communities to make it harder for them to vote. The attack on mail in voting does not help this situation.

@bloomer I am a former fan of Ben Shapiro. If you are a fan of him, stop watching him. He will mislead you on everything with his cherry picking and partisanship. You need time to deprogram everything he has taught you. Here are my suggestions. 1. Most importantly substitute these talking heads with spiritual teachings. You will gain a lot more from personal development than from listening to them. This is how I originally chose actualized over the daily wire. Granted Leo is another talking head if you don't use the book list. 2. Research a wide range of issues on your own. Question every single belief you picked up from people like him. Nowadays especially, conservatives are problematic in that they lack historic context on various issues, fear monger about "the left," and mislead their audience with cherry picked facts. They are zoomed in too closely to see the full picture. I am considering dropping the liberal media or watching it less than I do. It is building up a false image in my mind of who I think I am. I want to deprogram liberal beliefs not necessarily because they are wrong, but because they do not represent who I am. For instance, I don't have any real empathy for the victims of slavery. There are a lot of moral oughts in that I seem like an asshole for being as selfish as I truly am. As a white man, I don't feel real empathy for the victims of racial injustice, nor do I genuinely care for children who are sexually abused. I value my own significance and impact above other people even though I want my impact to help others even when it feels hollow to me. I would also like to deprogram my actualized beliefs and behaviors as well. I become like a self help junkie which is also not my most authentic self. My most authentic self cannot be found in any source with which I program my mind. I would prefer the absence of all other sources in silence rather than acting out any particular image based on how others behave.

Today's evaluation is that I ended up running around outside for several hours with no real goal. I walked back and forth happily laughing at the thoughts that came by as I often do. It could be that exercise is counter productive for me if I don't set a timer. I was Overall less productive because my lack of a daily plan. I also lack a five year plan and any real vision. Maybe personal development isn't for me because my abnormal psyche plays a lot into my behavior. So far the pills the doctor gave me are effective, so maybe I need to keep my focus on treating mental disorders. If I pursue what I actually want it would be truth and understanding reality. I have a lot of burning questions which I don't have answers to and I may be compensating for my not knowing by building an identity out of criticizing other world views. Maybe I should stop asking myself what I should do with my life and just do whatever. What if I tried not to think about my life or achieving any important, grand vision in the end. I will try that. It might be responsible for me analyzing everything to death with no clear goal.