trenton

June 26, 2020 I am not gonna fall behind on my blog again. Today I had a chess lesson in decoy and deflection. These are advanced tactics that a lot of grandmasters miss sometimes and amateur players miss easily. I found another weapon against the morra gambit where I set up a mating trick against white. I might check it out, but I think it is about equal. It might give me a decent chance against the gambit. Otherwise Nf6 might be better, declining. The coach said he wants me to finish the homework soon so I can get sent more advanced topics. This encourages me to do a lot tomorrow. I will probably do most of the 62 exercises I can to do. I should finish by Sunday. In the correspondence game I am now crushing him. I am exposing the white king, taking all the pieces, and white is about to run out of moves. He will probably resign soon. I still messed up earlier, but I turned out fine. Strange how Rfd8, a natural move is a decisive mistake for black. I needed to sacrifice the pawn back for a better position. I continued with the book on disaster capitalism. I learned about the looting of Iraq. The U.S.did nothing to stop it and planned to impose extreme capitalism again. I would say it failed every time except for the few who actually benefited. The Baghdad museum was raised and the culture was stripped. This would be devastating to deeply religious countries and this careless destruction probably regressed the development of the middle East considerably. This was in 2006 when it all went down. If your school never explained why the world hates America, this might explain it. My country could be hurting a lot of innocent people, making it very selfish and exploitative. I benefit from this and it is not clear how it would be stopped. Naomi Clein thinks that the battle of ideology was a lie. Socialism did not lose because extreme capitalism was imposed. A mixed economy is still healthier and we don't have to assume that capitalism is the best because our culture forced on others around the world. Similar to religion, just because Christians killed all the Muslims does not mean the Christians were right. Maybe the Muslims were still right, but less powerful.I I did not encounter anything interesting on my walks. For the most part I was trying to figure out why my head kept getting sucked into the abortion debate. Actually it is not a bad and thing and it is actually helpful. The deeper implications of the unanswerable questions are what made me interested in truth and spirituality. All the policy debate is just the tip of the iceberg. Our positions are maintained through constantly lying to ourselves by pretending that we did not imagine the point at which not murder switched to murder. In a sense I can say thank you as this seems like an unexpected path to help understand God. I am not sure if I should write everything about it or not. Seek truth for Truth's sake and continue with your education. Personal development is self love. Let's find out what else you can learn. Good luck.

June 25, 2020 I got kicked off my schedule again with staying caught up in the blog. It would be easier if I could stay on the same day so I don't have to think too far back. Yesterday I spent 6 and half hours at work, so I lost a lot of the day that way. The most I did for personal development was before I went to work. I learned about shock therapy in the U.S. This happened after 9/11 when the executive branch was able to seize more power for starting wars. The war on terrorism was meant to profit from the beginning and it has backfired on us terribly. Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of defense made huge profits. In order to leave his post, he would have to sell of companies that had a lot of control over how the federal government would act in case of a virus breaking out. Disaster capitalism would sell medicine just in case you need it. He failed to sell of his shares and actually maintained power as secretary of defense even after his resignation. He made a ton of money from disaster capitalism and it seems way too tempting to resist for those in power and it can make them very corrupt. I did not yet finish all of the homework on the pin. I did the first 10 exercises, but there are 60. My opponent in correspondence chess lost his bishop. I feel like I am a little burned out with chess and I need a rest. I think I have one more session before I need to pay again. I might take a break to think about it if I am not sure if the benefits. As for my diet I am so sick of cereal and bagels. They often don't fill me up and I can't get enough to eat. I can't use the blender to make smoothies and the eggs would be loud if I tried to make them. My options are limited because of the quarantine and I am bored of eating the same garbage meals because the healthy options are too loud for the rest of my family. I can try making smoothies at night and putting them in the fridge. My grandma is working on getting through all the stuff I sent her. I hope she likes it. Rest of you need to. You can pick up chess in a healthier way later on if you want. Find what is best for you.

@Dodo I actually messed up earlier when I played Rfd8. I am looking for a better system because I seem to have inconsistent results against this gambit. I missed Be3 earlier.

June 24, 2020 Finally, I can get caught up on the blog. I went to work by 8 a.m. I did not accomplish anything interesting there, but my hours are still cut for pros and cons. I notice that I tend to focus on the cons, but I have a lot more spare time for reading and learning. Maybe I could dedicate more time to updating my resume for other jobs to see who pays more. I also spent more time self reflecting which lead me to more education. I feel like I can more easily let go of my opinions and positions which I feel my culture encourages me to create and cling to like others do. What is left behind is emptiness, love, and self acceptance. When I got back home I continued with my education. Today I learned about a convenient gap of knowledge in most capitalists. Everyone talks about evil evil communist Russia. Nobody talks about the aggressive extreme capitalism that followed the cold war. The Pinochet option was used with privatization. This put people in poverty and starvation just like with communism because of the economic disaster created. The U.S. intended to benefit from these private corporations which might be why Russia thinks we are an economic parasite. If this were a more common point over communist Russia, many extreme capitalist positions would fall apart when they want deregulation. I noticed that my culture encourages me to think communism is evil. This prevents me from opening my mind and learning about any kernel of truth that may be left behind. I would be shot down and laughed at if I actually told people that I was a communist. This is an unfavorable opinion which encourages group think. I want to rise above this and continue to educate myself as much as I can on politics, spirituality, and maybe other topics like science. I continued with a chess game against one of my strongest opponents. My anti benko system was very helpful and it took him by surprise. I had some inaccuracies in the opening, but I ultimately pulled ahead. I eventually had a decisive advantage with a knight sacrifice, but I needed the precise continuation to win. I failed to find it and I lost when I was so close to my highest rated victory yet. My calculations were wrong because I dismissed my intuition too soon and failed to find the one way to win. The queen could not defeat three pieces and I lost. I was disappointed, but I let go of the emotions that came as it makes chess less pleasant and could burn me out. It also can prevent me from being more productive. Recently, I have been playing chess less because I want to learn more about other fields as well. I feel that chess becomes limiting and I don't learn as much about life as I would like. It can be fun, but I feel less attached to it compared to how I used to be. I was afraid my productivity would drop, but rather than operating under this fear I seek self love. No matter what you ultimately choose to do, you are not less for it as a waste of talent for wasting your time practicing. I instead choose love and I give you much greater freedom.

@Dodo if you put it that way it makes more sense. It looks less like you are making fun of them and more like you are concerned for the people endangered because of their actions. I see that currently a favorable opinion is to agree with BLM. If we disagree then people are likely to see us as bad guys so I should be careful with group think still. The same happened to me when it came to Justin Bieber by the way. I had no problem with it until everyone around me made fun of him. I wonder how many people were actually just saying that because their friends told them to act this way.

@Dodo I understand what you mean. I prefer to avoid judging people of it does not affect the outcome. This way it could contribute to unnecessary tension should others view what is being done as good and important. One example is the destruction of racially charged statues. Probably those offended by them will continue destroying them whether I agree or not. My judgement helps me to fit in with the people around me and is therefore group think, not as genuine as I could be. I remember I thought of trump as stupid when everyone around me said so. Actually I was just putting on a mask to match what was popular. If you found yourself in front of people who were once victims of police brutality, they would not be happy if you said that. I don't think less of you for this, but be careful as it could backfire badly on you.

June 23, 2020 I continued with more chess homework and self education. The shock doctrine is getting closer to the modern day which I find disturbing because I was secretly hoping we were beyond disaster capitalism, but we are not. This is a little depressing, because it is unclear what we can do. In fact I would like to ask this forum how to create a successful political movement and to actualize any goal. I am always stuck at the how in spite of having many great ideas. I don't think I should exploit disasters to push through policies that would fail democratically. After I worked through half of my chess homework on the smothered mate, we needed to visit my grandma. When we got through all the traffic near the Ohio river we made it to her house. Shortly after our arrival my racist grandma brought up how stupid she thinks black lives matter is. I was previously contemplating how might I possibly get through to her. I watched my sister struggled to reason with her and I noticed that no matter what valid point my sister made my grandma's brain could not allow it to register. I realized that I could not reason with her because her mind is way too fixated on anything that confirms all of her previous beliefs that black people are stupid and they should get over slavery because there is no systemic racism today. She brought up the racially charged statues. I previously asked the forum about this. I thought that the statues could be seen as art, but I realized that they were offensive. One possible compromise we came to was that we could move the statues out of the public eye and into a museum for educational purposes while attempting to avoid the glorification of racism. This way we can learn about historical leaders while avoiding vandalism. The more I think about it, the less attached I become to our history. Most of the statues will probably be destroyed, and I realize that history is not sacred. I was unable to voice my thoughts to Brie and her grandma. Grandma emphasizes the history and Brie emphasizes how people are offended. Again nothing clicked with my grandma. She thinks that her racist paradigm is objective reality, not that I am using this as a means to get complacent because I still have much more self education to do. My sister later told me that she wanted me to play the Xbox before my grandma gives it away. Grandma is still paying for the gold membership because she can't cancel it. I played star wars battle front 2 and played galactic conquest. My most notable battle was the battle of naboo. I played as the rebels against the empire. I played very well in this battle killing many enemies and stealing a tank from the empire. The battle was hard because only the empire was supposed to have tanks and the rest was good soldiers and turrents. In spite of my best efforts my men were slaughtered. I captured one command post across narrow bridges where the tanks could not reach me. I was the last man standing against 15 storm troopers with tanks. They took over the rest of the map. I started by patrolling the bridges near the health droid to keep me from dying. Two troopers attempted to capture the last command post but I killed them. I looked across the river and saw a tank patrolling the city, it could not see me or reach me. We were stuck at a stalemate and I was forced to make a risky move. When the tank turned around the corner, I bolted across the bridge and ran toward an enemy command post. I captured it and stole a tank. The post across the bridge swiftly fell to the empire, but I started picking off troopers one by one. I sped my tank to the opposite side of the map and suddenly the empire capture all command posts and would claim victory in 20 seconds. I captured a different command post with 7 seconds left in the clock. I patrolled the city once more and blew up the last of the empire's tanks from behind with missiles. Suddenly I was ambushed by the rest of the empire. They were foot soldiers throwing grenades non-stop. The tank was taking a beating, so I fired missiles into the hallway and blew up the remaining forces. "The rebellion has received credit for our unexpected capture of naboo." The space battles were much more repetitive, but at least Hoth was fun. After the game I packed up some clothes and chess sets before leaving. My favorite set is the Lord of the rings. When we left we got in the car and my sisters talked about what the BLM incident. My grandma said that she wants us to stay open minded and see both sides. I told my sisters that she is the close minded one. I tried suggesting that my family consider reading a few books on politics, but they were not interested. They read zero books but assumed that the information was not valuable enough. I hope Americans become more humble when we realize that we are badly under educated on politics. They probably won't though, but I won't judge them. When I got home I had a feeling that there may be nothing I could do to re-educate my grandma. I made one last try through messenger. I told her that I did not get to talk much to her over my sisters. I explained that I was working on personal development and I was considering learning more about politics because I see it as a potential vehicle to do a lot of good for mankind. I am aware of the risks, and I understand that constant self reflection is necessary to prevent corruption. One of my goals is to read 100 books. I sent her the series on spiral dynamics. I told her that it can help liberals and conservatives to understand each other. I did not send her stage turquoise. I stopped at stage yellow. She probably won't go through all of what I wrote unless I tell her it is there on Sunday. If it all fails, I don't want people to take what my grandma says about them personally. I know you tried. I remember that my sense of awareness and self is something that may lead me to truth more effectively than changing other people. Your contemplation and reflection is a high form of self love.

June 22, 2020 Today I began taking my education more seriously. I spent about two hours learning about the shock doctrine, I read a little bit more about not knowing, I finished some chess homework, and I self reflected further like I always try to do. The shock doctrine blows a lot of simple minded libertarian arguments completely out of the water so far. Capitalism as a fundamentalist position is just as ideological as religion and can lead to intense cruelty. Socialism actually held the societies together as extreme capitalism tore countries apart through forced evolution. Just like in an individual level, forced evolution does not meet the needs of where we currently stand. This backfires and stunts out growth. By assassinating presidents and forcing a capitalist ideology on a country to exploit the disasters, they are torn down completely and actually regress in their evolution. I think the political book list is a great start before returning to college so far. At least I can soon say that I am not entirely clueless about what I am talking about and I actually have a better chance of creating good meaningful systemic change for mankind. They are low priority, but I am curious and learning a lot. I do a lot of side research at the same time looking at the riots and killings that sounded too unbelievable to be true, but they did all happen around the globe for the sake of profit. This is how dangerous capitalism as an ideology can be and we should not be too quick to jump together the healthy forms of socialism that hold us together with Soviet style communism. These people do not know what they are talking about and I now I know why people get so upset with This conflation. I am annoyed with the correspondence game I was playing. I missed a bishop retreat and suddenly I got a bad position after the natural Rfd8. My results against the Smith morra gambit seem risky and I think I need a better system that leaves more room for error or is easier to play. I also notice that I am a slow reader. I may want to learn speed reading because I could be so much better at self education than I currently am. If I am able to improve my speed, there is so much more I will be able to Integrate in this self education. I feel much more empowered than I did without education and much happier. Let's go.

June 21, 2020 I did a lot of contemplation on this day. I wondered "what does it mean to love myself?". Saying I love you without this clarity makes it feel empty. One way I can sum of up is by living the best life possible. This includes a life purpose and a vision which I need to learn how to create. A lack of a purposeful life leads to stagnation and a gradual increase in dread of ordinary life. I wrote about my life purpose on paper. I noticed that I quickly assumed that a life purpose should uplift mankind in some way on the largest scale possible. I questioned this and it seems that there is no other reasonable life purpose if it does not uplift mankind. A question of scale can be balanced by what is realistically within my power. This may change over time. I am consistently drawn to politics because I see it as the potential to do a lot of good for mankind, but it can also be extremely harmful. My limiting belief is that I don't have the means to do extreme good in politics. This prevents me from educating myself in his the government works and what concretely needs to be improved and how. This is why I lack a vision. To draw an analogy, I love to write and I made good poetry for a contest after several hours of writing drafts. I could not have made this poem without research about the big mac. I went into the history of McDonald's to find all the possible references that I could make. Education is the key to building a vision. This is why I must educate myself as much as possible about politics to see what I can possibly change to make the world better. I am now more curious about the political books on the list and I can start running through some of those for starters. There is a lot of ideology surrounding stage orange capitalism and stage green socialism. I want to see if I actually understand what it means to say "capitalism run amok.". The shock doctrine is the first book I can check out. I know these books are lower priority , but I am curious about politics and I want to make sure my education is less of a problem when building a life purpose. I will be taking my self education much more seriously because it is central to building a vision. Without it I will coast and be complacent. I realize that I still need to get enough money to actually accomplish good systemic change. This money can also go towards travelling in order to try psychedelics to see if a spiritual awakening can help me understand reality at a deeper level. I need to know where this money will come from because my current job at Kroger would never provide the time nor the money for these trips and retreats. Maybe it can help shoulder some of my college debt when I go back, but not much more beyond that. Although inspired by the greatest good for the greatest number, I switched my major and became undecided because of the fear of failure. This is why I never fully let go of this possibility. What if I continued and I found a way to make a career in politics work? What possible sources of income could I find in this field? How would this relate back to personal development? The key to politics is self reflection. Be the best human you can be and rise above your biases to detect the greatest good for everything. This way I ensure I don't become corrupt and do more harm than good. I am curious about where I can possibly go with all of this. Maybe a politician, maybe I could work in quiet areas away from the debate. Let's see what I uncover.

@Lenny ArchangelG summed it up pretty well. I see how humans operate under different belief systems and it can lead to killing each other because from our point of view our ideas are true. When talking about truth it means something outside of any particular belief system labeled true. In this sense the truth transcends the labels true and false which leads to not knowing. I have done more self reflection and contemplation, but I have a hard time telling when I actually understand truth. I also notice that it is easy to convert not knowing into being right where there are true beliefs about truth which isolates me from further understanding. The distinction is important because it is easy to fall back into the default way of thinking due to interpretation about what is experienced. I also need to watch carefully for my mind holding itself back in this way. In this way maybe truth is the experience of not knowing and right is everything else outside of experience and is completely conceptual. I don't know how to tell when I am being the truth because that would be my not knowing.

I am seeking clarity on this distinction. One source of fear is the discomfort created by the possibility that everything we think is true is wrong. Comfort is created when we think we are right. That is we think our beliefs correspond to truth. The problem is the nagging possibility that we are wrong which puts us in a hard spot when being right does not lead to knowing. Letting go of my idea that I am right leads to not knowing and a weird shift in awareness. My mind becomes quieter, but I don't see much Beyond that. I don't think my mind can understand truth if it is converted into a belief leading to the idea of an idea being right. Everything I type here feels right. This is hard. How would you distinguish right and truth? How do you seek truth instead of being right? What is the difference in method? I feel like thinking does not work if my thoughts feel right.

June 19-20 2020 I had some very complicated events happening for the past couple of days so I will need to simplify. Sorry I was unable to post. Starting in the 19th I had another session with my coach. We studied the pin and the exercises were getting hard. I solved most of them without a problem, but sometimes I saw the answer and I tried to compensate for this by using the normal thinking system which I can't do if I am purposefully avoiding the answer. I told my coach about the tournaments and he sent me drills to study. I did not do the drills, and instead I studied my openings. This was not helpful in this tournament because nobody played the main lines. They played bad side variations. I got good positions and good games until I blew it and lost. The lesson to be learned is that I often tried to compensate for my self bias by not allowing me to make excuses. I now acknowledge the circumstances and control them the best I can. By not acknowledging this, I beat myself up and I burn myself out when I am never happy with chess. My performance never satisfies me in that case. I also paid attention to how I process my emotions. I noticed a lot of tension that caused me to hold emotions in. I started changing how I process emotions so that it is not as painful. I also learned that most of my problems are created by me trying to compensate for another problem. By gently applying awareness, it becomes easier to find the balance without swinging the pendulum. In the tournament I won 3 games and lost 2. I did my best and focused intensely. It is possible that by being intense that I am actually backfiring on myself. If I can be calm during the games it may prevent me from growling when I make a bad move and I may be better at applying my thinking system if I am not forcing myself. I did not beat myself up and I was instead satisfied that I did my best. As I waited for each round I meditated. This was helpful for changing how I process my emotions while filtering this increased consciousness through the rest of the day. I found a convenient spot for this between rounds. I still can do more anyway I'm my bedroom. This way I am not distracted by needing to check if the game started. The tournament ended at 11 and I needed to be at work by 6 a.m. Today I worked from 6 till 10. I could not get a haircut because the barber has different opening times and different rules in place due to the virus. After getting back home I watched Dragon ball z and unfortunately it got boring because there was a ton of training. Finally I got back to work on chess. I prepared for another tournament today. I finished my drills and made a study for the other 5 games from yesterday. My coach said that I get good positions but I rush when I have an advantage. As for the drills I missed the last one because so did not notice the pin on the f2 pawn. Nf1 needed to be played. I think drills are much better than simple tactics because the answer could be anything. I made adjustments to my evaluation method by noting things like pins and other possible tactics I need to be aware of. In this tournament I won 3 games, tied one and lost one. I did better than my last tournament and had shorter time controls. Tomorrow I will need to add these games to my study and get to work on the homework. I have two more sets of 12 exercises plus a blitz tournament at 2 p.m. I am a little busy. I hope you understand I am doing my best and I want to see how far I can go with this. I also want some adjustments to my current life like my job. I may do that on one of my days off this week. I can also type in my book on days where there are not tournaments. This sounds like fun. I am still playing correspondence against my follower. His first inaccuracy with Bb5 was not that bad because he creates a pin. The problem is that I developed the rest of my pieces without a problem and he played passive moves. He played both h3 and a3. These are common moves by beginners and it is often unnecessary. In this case these pawn moves did not harm my development and now it will be even harder for white to prove compensation for the lost material. I still should be careful to make sure I do not drop the pawn back. So far I calculated his forcing ideas and I am safe with an extra pawn. I hope you reach self understanding. There are lingering emotions in the background that I can observe, experience , and release. I would like to see what is left behind after I let go of the clutter as I discover a new way of being. I might say this is a form of love.

June 18, 2020 I started practicing more blitz games and controlling my clock because of the shortened time controls in the online USCF tournaments. So far I have been getting good results. If you practice a lot of classical it is thought that it can filter into your blitz play as well. This is how we tell if somebody is a cheater because they don't have time to use an engine in blitz. I don't use an engine in either and my blitz rating is catching up to my rapid. It is going to bother me unless I tell you I used to cheat online a little under a decade ago when I was around the age of an early teen. I noticed that I was not really gaining anything, so I stopped doing that. I think someone else had a better chess engine anyway which is why I lost. I am still competing with one of my followers. It looks like I need to continue developing normally to make sure he does not find a way to hurt me with his extra development. His threats are Nd5 and Bg5. I did not see anything better than Nf6 and Be7 preparing to castle. Maybe I will play a6 in some lines to attack the misplaced bishop on b5. I think black is okay. I am not sure if there was something better than e5 or not. I worked a night shift this time. It was short and I spent most of the day collecting trash. When the manager seemed frustrated with me the word "bitch" popped into my head. I thought it would be terrible if I actually said something like that. I did not even need to think of her like that and it likely carried over from somebody else. I would like to resolve any emotional tension which may cause me to think this way as to avoid seriously getting myself in trouble. I need to be ready for the upcoming tournament. My objective is to play at my strongest as always. My focus will be shifted solely on these games to see how good I can be. I may integrate what I learned from my chess coach and avoid being sucked into one bad move. My intuition is reliable but not infallible. I need to proceed with caution in order to find the best way forward. Good luck and good skill.

June 17, 2020 Today I was off work. I spent more of the day reading and learning about identity and how it can create problems. Our identity can become a source of suicidal thoughts if we think of ourselves as living a meaningless life in a way that it disempowers us. Thinking of ourselves as smart people limit is to bring one particular way as we become fearful of being wrong and looking foolish. This identity can cause us to feel threatened even by music we don't like. I have a lot of different music I pick from, but I like silence more. I continued with chess homework and did damiono's mate and half of the double attack. I could have finished the rest, but my sister was coming home with cheese cake and I could not tell if it would be 5 minutes or an hour. I waited and it ended up being an hour, and I no longer has time to finish the homework. One of my followers is still playing correspondence chess against me on chess.com. I feel that he played the gambit incorrectly. Usually white plays Bc4 to threaten the f7 pawn. This forces black to play e6 instead of e5. My opponent played Bb5. He is trying to pin my knight on c6. I considered Bg4 and Bd7. I felt that e5 provides it works tactically is the most flexible move because I might play Be6. If white plays Qa4 then I will play Bd7. I don't think white can exploit the weakened d5 square well enough to justify Bb5 because of a6, Bxc6, bxc6 defending d5. White could try to sacrifice Nxe5, but this leads to an endgame with an extra piece for black. I think black is solid so far, and I need to play very carefully to refute this gambit line. I managed to win a game on lichess, putting me in a positive direction again. I will proceed with caution in every game and find the opportunities once they are presented. I am working on my process of thinking to see how I think about each candidate moves so I can use my time more effectively. This is crucial because of the online real tournaments have shorter time controls and I still need to play the best moves I can find given the shortened time controls. I also may need to practice blitz games. I tend to spend too much time on those positions and I need a mouse for my laptop to move the pieces faster. Chess.com also had real tournaments. I tried researching transpersonal psychology but did not find any colleges near Cincinnati. I would look into this because I wonder how truth would impact how I live my life. Life coaching and business are possible areas of this study which seems convenient. I still need to compare goodwill to Kroger for now though. I would like to spend more time typing my book because they makes me happier and accomplishes a little bit more than running. I still like running, but if I did just a little bit less it would make me even happier because of the self reflection I would have from the book. I also want to correct this habit of typing one day behind. Maybe I should look at how other people type and see if I get good ideas from them. Do well on your quest.

June 16, 2020 This was a long work day and I was exhausted. I worked 11-7. I don't want to be suffering to many work hours and at the same time suffering not enough work hours. I can't have it both ways and I want a better a job. Some jobs at goodwill opened near me. Maybe they are easier and will pay me more than Kroger. If I can negotiate 15$ an hour then I am better off working there. I set up my ICC account, but it is annoying to log in sometimes. I need to make sure it set up properly so I can participate in tournaments. I will need to be better at managing my time because these are real rated games which will affect the sections I can participate in. I need to be at my peak and saving time when I can. I finished some chess homework, but I need to get on with the double attack. I need to be ready by Friday for my coach. I finished another mating pattern, and I have already been using double attack in my games. I still lost a few games and I have lost some rating points. I often get a superior position, but I drop it when I fail to navigate the complications. I need to be ready for these cases to ensure I don't lose my won games. One of my followers challenged me to a correspondence game. He plays the Smith morra gambit which a lot of people have played against me. I am currently debating should I play e6 or d6. I think d6 because in some lines I can play Bg4 or e5. d6 seems to be more flexible with the light squared bishop. e6 might be the most solid way to hold the pawn. But maybe Nf6 is more principled than Ne7 which is played in the other line and it is more active. I also did some more reading in the book of not knowing. I want to make sure I do not slip into lower consciousness for several days at a time. I could end up on autopilot not accomplishing much with my actions. The most important thing is that I am capable of raising the consciousness of mankind which improves with more self reflection.

June 15, 2020 I feel like I am slipping into autopilot without the dedication necessary to self actualize. I wasted a lot of time today, but I did find a few important things. There are one day tournaments I can play in every week. I could create a better life than what I currently have by becoming a yoga instructor even though this is not a huge passion but there are a few motives for it. This expands the quality of my consciousness which I think I lack. Outside of time wasting, I thought a lot about what my life purpose should be. One important note I make to myself to help seek truth is that I care about my survival more than I do truth. This is a paradox that avoids ideological stances about truth. I also tried learning about transpersonal psychology, but I did not yet find what college I would go to. I don't want to be discouraged by the fact that many beliefs about nonduality are created along the way. I also realize that forceful methods are doomed to failed so long as my survival is what I value more than truth. I considered going into politics again. I see politics as the greatest potential for increasing the well-being of all of mankind. The greatest good for the greatest number is a principle that resonates with me. Politics is meant to teach me to set my biases aside and see things as they are. My highest priority is constant self reflection to ensure that I do not become corrupt. The next most important things are anti corruption and various social problems in which to detect the greatest good for the greatest number. I am not clear on what precisely the means are, but if I believe that I can't get the money I will lock myself out entirely. Ideology is a major source of corruption and I think a mystical experience is necessary for me to nonduality as more than a belief so that I can actually be more loving and not just preaching whatever people on the internet told me. I could consider business for financial independence. It may not seem like a passion now, but it is serious potential to create the means. Means is one problem with going into politics where me being corruptable is the other problem. Money is the source of many of my limiting beliefs about travel, psychedelics, contribution, and maybe something else. I think truth may be important to understanding a life purpose. Most people don't know what is true, and if I do know them that may provide me with a significant advantage. This is not to be better than others, but simply to make me more capable of making a meaningful contribution. Right now I am attached to my survival, my addictions, my limiting beliefs, and more. I did do a little chess today. I won one game in which my opponent blundered a knight and resigned immediately. He was otherwise better. I finished some homework on mating patterns and will soon move onto double attack. I feel like I am losing focus and am not As focused on chess As I would like to be when training. Maybe my mind is too numbed by all the social media. I should test this out for one week with only one blog post a day and no YouTube. Just meditation and diet. This will make me more effective at my training. I will find your purpose. I don't want suicidal thoughts coming up suddenly when I see my life as insignificant and pointless. I want more than just talk. You have done some work and I would like to stop giving you the stick to motivate you. I don't love you. It is possible to raise this capacity for love. This may be a counter intuitive solution like with truth vs survival. The truth is that I do not understand love and I am not less because of it. This is love.

June 14, 2020 My schedule for ridiculous again and I needed to wake up at 6. I am not happy with my current job and I tried researching chess jobs. There are no jobs near me and I need to be higher rates to get a job. I asked the chessable forum and they discouraged me and told me to get a back up plan. I think if I try to somehow get money off of chess I am looking the wrong way and it does not look like it will be enough. I found myself spending so much time online again where I often struggle to get paired with decent chess opponents because not that many people are rated 2100 or higher. I still can't practically organize any tournaments to raise my USCF rating because of my job. I had an intuition that I was trapping myself with a victim mentality. I researched online chess tournaments and I found some on ICC that are open every week and last one day. These are easy for me to attend. Actually I can do it. As for other possible careers I considered business because of the possibility of financial independence. I am not sure I would be passionate about this, but I could test the waters first and see what happens. I am wasting less time on YouTube again and working on building a bigger vision for myself. I have a desire for truth.

@Lenny this is a problem that comes up for me a lot on this site. It becomes hard not to create beliefs about what is true and I feel like it creates a delusional affect where really I don't know what is true. I think this can really interfere with my efforts to seeking truth. I don't want to create beliefs about nonduality that prevent me from knowing for sure if it is true or just a story the mind could spin. Maybe this is a cause for me to not spend too much time on this site. After my own contemplating I questioned how do I know inanimate objects don't have feelings. I can compare a curtain to cat and see a clear difference. The cat purrs and hisses while the curtain only changes shape when acted upon by a person folding it for example. It appears to have no judgement, but unless I am the curtain, I can't tell for sure if it has feelings or not. I assume it has no perspective because of the initial comparison between inanimate objects and animals. I want to be careful not to change my beliefs just because it seems wrong. As for thinking, an example of a body part being unable to think on its own would be a dead person. The body may still have living cells, but the body becomes like a curtain that just sits there until a creature moves it. I feel like there is a voice in my head, and I have a hard time hearing a voice in my feet or hands which suggests that thoughts come from my brain. My body is connected to my mind because I think of words to type and my fingers move accordingly. The movements of the body are learned because I practiced typing and I do not consciously think "I will move this finger to this letter then the space bar.". My mind might associate these words with letters which are associated with particular positions on the keyboard which then causes me to automatically move my fingers in this way. Maybe this is a simplified thinking process of my brain which I associate with these movements allowing my fingers to do this quickly just like tying my shoes. The voice in my head can be acted upon if I cause it to say "I am a rainbow butterfly with 17 wings who likes to tap dance on a pot of gold.". This suggests that the voice is the thoughts and beliefs but I am manipulating what they say. My thoughts are also habitual just like my finger movements. If I have the same thoughts all the time, then I am on auto pilot because my behavior never changes. In order to know what is doing the thinking, I would want to see what is prior to the thought. When I try my mind silences and I do nothing. I then find nothing prior to the thought. The thing which thinks my thoughts is that which causes this body and mind to do things when acted upon. I might be the brain doing all of this, but I would need to see my brain and perform surgery on myself while conscious in order to make sure I am the brain thinking. I did my best with my contemplation. I don't know how to define progress in the context of truth.

@Dodo when are available to play?

June 12-13 I had my session with the coach Friday morning. I reviewed some of my homework before starting the lesson. This was to help me go through them faster so I can spend more time on the new parts rather than struggling to solve the same problems again. As for the new lesson, I learned about the double attack. The exercises were challenging. In one I missed the quiet move Qe3 because I was too focused on the flashy Rxg6. Another game was by Kasparov. I could have easily missed Nc8! If I did not combine the threats to see that this sacrifice wins material by luring a room to an undefended square. The rest of these days were often lame again. I slipped back into watching a bunch of YouTube videos about video games. I remember how it took me time to better control sexual impulses where my embarrassments were a strong motivator. The same motivator does not seem present in this case which is why I need to be very conscious of how I live my life in order to spend time properly. The videos were often amusing, but I skipped the slow parts so that I would not spend too long on the entire play through. The quarantine may also encourage this behavior. I am telling myself this behavior is bad because I am trying to motivate myself somehow to better myself Beyond this social media addiction. There might be another way. I played some casual games on lichess.org. A player rated higher than me in real rating told me that his performance did not represent his real strength. I told him my theory that we chess players often conflate our few brilliant games with our general playing strength when really we fluctuate a lot. Our goal is to minimize fluctuations as there are many ups and downs. At the time I was on a down. He agreed to this theory even though he did not seem to like it. Our pride in chess makes us want to say we are better than we actually are and it makes us skip intermediate lessons and other lower level teachings that are necessary for our improvement. I am now searching for chess jobs again, but I still can't find any. My schedule is completely stupid and I am getting up at 5 am again. My emotions are intended to move me toward the objective of seeking a better job which is why I use this judgement. I asked the forum on chessable for some help. As for this forum I had help distinguishing right and truth while unravelling my cultural programming. I recognize that belief in the advice I was given is again intended to reach an end goal of silencing the monkey mind by focusing on everything my culture taught me to think which makes it in some way inauthentic. I feel detached from agreement, and I am entertaining the similarities I could imagine with this perspective while I also realize.that it is very partial and to call it the full truth would be to create a delusional effect. I did not do as much chess homework as I could have partially because my work messes up my sleep again and my 10 year old cousin is visiting my little brother. They are ridiculously loud. Financial independence would save me from many of these troubles. This is a big vision that is hard to realize, but if I can I would be so much happier with my life compared to where I am now. My emotions are motivating me. It feels painful to be conscious of this. Meditation is also good for keeping me calm and quieter. Consciousness feels like it is hard and sometimes painful to maximize. The benefits of emotional control would still be nice as I continue self reflection. I choose truth because lies will only make me conflate judgement for reality, leading to lower consciousness and a lower capacity for self acceptance. I would rather understand myself than sent myself. I see.The ideology actualized.org left behind, and I want to have what is beneath the lies, not the ideology. When I say "I love you" I have mixed feelings, it feels like a positive emotion held up by partiality ignoring the ways in which I do not love myself. I love you to my current understanding.

@Dodo do you have a rating or a lichess or chess.com account?

@DivineSoda that is a really good and thoughtful answer. I remember the same thing happened to me with presidential elections. I was taught to care about them and ridicule Donald Trump because the people are me talked about how Hitler wanted to make Germany great again. I otherwise never bothered laughing at Trump's idiocy which I was taught to associate him with. As for Floyd, I thought about the exact same thing. Claudette Colvin was a black woman who refused to give up her seat to a white man 9 months before Rosa parks did the same thing. Colvin was ignored as a trouble maker. Similarly, why not the instance of police brutality before Floyd? Why did we not riot on that one? The emotional reactions of other people taught me to be a people pleaser. I would be frowned upon when ever my behavior was socially abnormal. My reaction to their emotions was that I should care and make them happy. I realize that I can do my best to be "good" but it is never enough. My self image would be damaged by the fact that I was taught to care about the emotions of other people. I would seem very selfish in this case, and it is bad for my survival. We may need to continue the discussion on another place. There I could ask you or research more about how Google actually limits us even though it seems endless and diverse on the surface. Good answers.

@Lenny you have a lot of good pointers so far. One thing that baffles me is the perspective of an inanimate object. I tend to assume that they don't have emotions, thoughts, opinions or anything like what I would think makes a perspective. If it is not conceptual it seems that they have no perspective and just do what they do. I appear to be stuck in the human perspective of what a perspective is. You have given a pretty helpful response so far.

@DivineSoda "told to care" is a very interesting point and I hope you elaborate. Sometimes I get caught in a situation where "being nice" conflicts with my true impulses. For example, I may prefer to leave a man who needs someone to talk to because I want to practice social distancing. This mask is beneficial in many scenerios, but sometimes it simply does not work and I can't reason with people or win them over with kindness. This can be hard to let go of If this kindness has good results sometimes and is reinforced by a sense of morality that Can lead to people exploiting me. Can you explain more about how we are taught to care?

@Dodo do you mean the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge? This one has a lot of strong players including Dubov. I haven't learned much about this player, but I see that he defeated carlsen in some blitz games.