trenton

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.

June 11, 2020 I had a poor streak in chess today. I had some draws and rated losses. The positions were complicated and I did not play the precise moves when I needed to play them. My moves were mostly brilliant until I failed to find the follow to make a brilliant victory. This includes dynamic piece sacrifices that were actually good and a constant computer defense in the other game. I played one casual game and won that one against the man who wanted to play me. I worked from 3:30-8:15 today. My job makes it incredibly difficult to play in chess tournaments given the current crisis. I still want a better job and I don't want to settle for this at all. That would be a terrible thing to do. I feel like I did not accomplish much today. I can't tell why. I did not really do much YouTube outside of music. I feel tired and sad. I moved slower today and did not have the same energy as usual. I did not finish all the chess homework I wanted to. I don't want to make excuses. I have work to do with my coach tomorrow. I need to rest sorry for the undetailed day. I posted a little bit about truth vs right in the forum. I need to rest.

June 10, 2020 This day was emotionally difficult. First I got up at 5:10 am because my work schedule for Kroger makes absolutely no sense and my hours were cut in half for no clear reason. I got home exhausted and decided not to play chess. I laid down in bed and did not feel much more rested. I watched some videos which made me for more anxious. It is like videos hardly lift my mood at all and I do it just to do it. I was expecting to leave for my other grandma's house at 5. Just before we were about to leave, my mom snapped and threw a fit over property which she thinks belongs to her, but dad stole. My sister was worried that she would fight with Nanny over all of this. We had to cancel the trip, but mom insisted that we go anyway. She argued for over an hour. Nanny said she would call the police if mom tried to come in her house. My intuition told me that I should go with my mom to Nanny. I felt that law enforcement might be necessary to adjudicate this issue. It is a little hard to say what exactly my intuition was trying to say, but it is kind of close. Everyone else was against it so I still did not go. Maybe it was a bad idea and I can't tell when to trust my intuition. Maybe I failed to distinguish thoughts from intuition and it became dangerous. I was fine with the cops showing up. I waited for all of this to blow over. Finally mom tried to talk to me because she looked at my body language and I seemed upset. I looked like I was about to cry because I could not come up with many solutions outside of going to court. My sisters tried to talk to me and I slowly told them what they needed to know. I did not drop the issue and I tried to write down all possible solutions. Brie thought there was nothing I can do and so did mom. After writing 8 unpleasant solutions I was about to call Nanny. Brie did not let me. Nanny then called us. Brie told Nanny that I really want her to get along with mom. They both started being nicer after that. It looks like me being pushed to tears and stubborn somehow helped. My family is telling me that I am constantly trying to avoid conflict. I don't understand human relationships. It does not feel true when I say I love you. I don't know what to do about that.

June 9, 2020 I had a good day today. I just finished some contemplation which can be viewed in the above posts. I took out the part about psychedelics because I don't think my family would be happy to hear it. They might lump it together with mom, dad, and Jordan. They might not understand that I don't intend to be a drug addict and actually psychedelics are a tool for spirituality if used properly. I will need to try mushrooms in a small dose first to make sure, I don't get traumatized by 5 meodmt. They probably did not learn that these types of drugs are misunderstood in this culture and have anti addictive properties that could save people's lives. Today I had good events in chess. I had my highest rated victory against an opponent rated 2356. My current rating is 2252. He is currently the 56th highest rated classical player in lichess.org. I played the tal gambit against him. This is named after a former world champion Mikhail Tal. I did not study the theory in a long time, but my instincts were good enough for the most part. We both made one mistake, but his mistake was more serious and I won a piece. I analyzed the variation afterwards and found that I have a lot of attacking chances with black if this variation is played properly. I used mainly positional understanding and simple calculation. He did not capitalize on my mistake and he played fast. This is how I attribute my victory somewhat to luck because he made a pretty silly mistake for such a strong player. I need to remember to be careful as When strong players dont pay attention they still blunder badly. I found that this player like other players I went against, was part of the team called the Cheater Investigation Association (CIA). I remembered the man I was talking to who was worried about cheaters. In my paradigm I should be less worried about cheaters and more so on self improvement. I saw that this paradigm did not resonate with him, and I felt that he would be happier if he joined this team. I messaged him and sent him to this team. He was thankful because he thought he was the only one worried about cheaters. He saw that there were some paranoid people who report others for no reason. They might be sore losers. He decided to post his list of cheaters and the evidence to see how the team responds. He seems optimistic and I hope it goes well for him. He was really annoyed when his reports were not taken seriously until a fide master reported the guy he reported weeks ago. If he is accurate and all goes well, this will make lichess.org more fair for everyone. The lessons on improve my chess are still hard and I watched an awesome game between two chess computers. The precision was ridiculous and white allowed black a second queen for a checkmating attack. The other computer saw all of this in its calculation and made a perpetual check to force a draw and prevent checkmate. Outside of chess, I did a lot of walking and still had sugar. I ran some errands for my grandma and I watched some YouTube but not a lot. I spent a lot of time on this forum typing these messages as a form of clarification. This is helpful. I have a lot to do. I love you. Meet your challenges well and do your best.

I think the love I express to my family is often limited. I am using the words "I love you" more frequently which might slowly change their overall emotions and attitudes. By "I love you" I mean I accept everything about you unconditionally even if your behavior is bad for me such as stealing my money, making me cry, lying to me, ignoring me, or anything else. For my brother I am presenting him with options which will improve the long term trajectory of his life, or so I think from my vantage point. This includes explaining the value of self reflection as it leads to emotional control. He has a lot of anger issues and I think it could bite him years down the line and it already is biting him when he tries to use his anger to distract from the fact that he is lying and we can tell. My brother respects me more because he sees how I love him. Jordan does not come over very often. It can be hard for her to see how I love her. I might be more comfortable talking to her compared to other family members. This may be a similar form of love that Charlie has for me where I respect Jordan because I see how she loves me clearly enough. I want what is best for her by staying out of illegal drug activity and away from her boyfriend who is useless for her becoming a vet. He may become counterproductive. I see similarities between mom and Jordan in that they both express a softer form of love. I wish I could love her more. Brieanna is someone I love more easily by taking her criticisms more seriously. She points to faults and one of them is that I often get stuck in Trenton land not noticing that people are talking to me. This is why stepping outside of Trenton land and into careful listening is a little bit better. I use this for self improvement and for Brieanna's sake so she has less unpleasant long term emotions. One bad assumption she makes about me is why I don't like it when she yells. She thinks that I don't want her to nag at me, but this is only partially true. I mainly don't want her to get increasingly angry while there is nothing I can say or do to change the situation. This is unnecessary suffering which could be minimized and she is hurt the most. I have a compromise I can draw with her. She lets me interrupt her to correct a false premise when she is yelling at me and in exchange I continue to step outside of Trenton land where I dream about unicorns, creating an obstacle to realistic and concrete self actualization. With my grandma I want to make her life easier by becoming less of an economic burden on her. She does not mind, but I think she would be happier if I achieved independence. I may not like the idea because it sounds like a ton of work and it may distract me from becoming better at chess. In case I can't make enough money off of coaching or anything else chess related, I need a back up plan. I need a job or career that I can be passionate about. I need something more and it might be in business. This offers opportunities to become independent to the point that I don't need a job. If I want to travel, become a chess grandmaster and more, I need enough money. I can't get it from Kroger. The chess courses are expensive already with my current income. My grandma is an excellent source I can propel myself forward with as I run toward what I love. My form of love for my grandma is that I will have to work my ass for self actualization. This will give me the motivation to overcome my addictions and dreaming of unicorns as I don't get closer to what is needed. Thank you grandma. By the way I will need to travel around the world to play in tournaments against grandmasters. I need college. For my mom I have simple form of love. I want what is best for her, just like I do for any other human being. I want her to have a healthy relationship with her daughters while ensuring that there are no drug problems. I want her to become less spiteful toward her daughters while rising above the games she plays as she bickers with them. She may point to Jordan doing weed to distract from the crack pipe Jordan claimed to find on her bed. I don't know if mom will ever rise above this bickering with her daughters, but if she could she would be happier. I contemplated love in the past and I realize that there is nothing transcendent about similarities in my DNA that makes one human being objectively more important than another, that is simply from the point of view that my family is closer to me and has a bigger impact on my life. This is why I do my best to be kind to strangers as well. I may listen to a schizophrenic man for hours or I may help fix an old man's ceiling fan for no reward. I may help clean up a church, sometimes for a reward, but not always. The list goes on. Sometimes I could be mean realizing that it is not immoral. Contemplation can extend your expression of love. There is more I could write and I gained a lot through this writing. I may share it with my family. Good luck.

I forgot to mention that I have my list of grievances to my mother about things that could change in the family. The family thinks that I am asking questions on the level of counselling already and mom does not want to answer. I have difficulty trusting her because she lied about drug abuse before. Now it is her word against my sister's who said that she found a crack pipe. I don't feel like the family is taking this seriously. This was the first point of the other 9. Meanwhile mom said that she wanted me to pick one good quality from everyone that I am missing out on if I isolate myself from my family. I included my own self reflection and I said that I try to separate myself from the rest of the family because they are a negative influence on me and I notice that I can get sucked into arguing and making smart remarks if I am not careful. A similar pattern was used for people in school who humped people, yelled the n word, and physically fought each other. I realize that everyone in my family loves me in different ways. Jordan is understanding my point of view and recognizing my limitations. She did this a lot when we were children because I was diagnosed with autism and everyone thought I was weird. Jordan spent enough time with me to make sense of my behavior and how I think and she is non judgemental. Brieanna is a rougher form of love compared to Jordan. She emphasizes my faults which from one point of view seems endless. She is still helpful for improving myself in ways that I may ignore. She acts this way because she wants me to be better, thus she is not bad for acting this way and she is trying to be good even though I often see it as bad. When she is yelling at me in circles for 10 minutes I find it hard to not see this as a bad influence, but she means good. She is still helpful and I try to take her criticisms seriously for my own improvement. Charlie is a quieter form of love. I see that he tries to avoid arguing with me, but he does argue with Brieanna. He seems to have a preference for me because of how I never intend to hurt him. He struggles to point to something bad I did to him, but he can do this easily with my older sister. His form of love is a silent respect for me because he thinks I am easier to love after I shared life advice with him wanting him to live the best life possible. He also seems to have an easier time loving mom because she pampers him. My grandma is the only reason I can love a decent life. I can't afford my own house and I would never be in chess tournaments if not for her. Apart from being crucially linked to my survival she seems to be the kindest person in the immediate family. I might be second place. It would suck if she died which is why I need to self actualize and become independent before I am completely fucked. This is excellent motivation to propel me further. I don't have time for laziness, procrastination and any other form of bullshit because when my grandma died I better be ready. She emphasizes positive thinking which I may transcend and include as I am also integrating fear and love. My dad did a lot of terrible things. With my dad I was able to see intent behind all of his lies, criminal activity, and how he behaved around me. He wanted me to feel that he gave me helpful advice for my survival from the vantage point of what was necessary for his survival. His biggest fear is that I would think of him as a bad parent, therefore he wanted to hide from me that he pawned the Xbox because he could not pay the bills because he did not make enough off of drug dealing. Me thinking of him as a good parent was intended to make me feel better about myself as I pursue self actualization. His limitation is similar to mine in that he was unclear of what exactly I would accomplish, but he wanted this for me while he was unable to make it easier. My goal is to rise above our shared limitation by becoming a visionary which I am working on As I type this. My mom is a little hard to pin down. I see one form of love in concern. She sees me as the one who easily cried when yelled at. This is why she tends to be softer around me when compared to my sisters. I might be easier for her to love then my sisters. This concern comes from the simple form of love that I am her son.

June 8, 2020 I had some interesting experiences when I tried to give up some addictions. Instead of spending time on other forms of social media, I sat and did a lot of nothing. I did more meditation, and it became hard to focus when my arms and legs started moving a lot and I felt irritable. My thoughts felt more quiet. I felt numb in my head and body. I also struggled to find healthy foods that would fill me up sometimes. My stomach felt funny too. I am making more progress on social media than I am with sugar. I studied some instructive games in improve my chess. I learned about deep strategic points behind strange room moves that have a hidden strategy and force the opponent to make a commitment he does not want to make. It was a positional masterpiece and brilliantly played by these grandmasters. I finished my homework on back rank checkmates. I solved most of them easily, but there were two I struggled with. I needed to play a knight sacrifice followed by a queen sacrifice to win. In another one I needed to find a good defense for my exposed king yet I was still winning somehow. Overall I did great and I solved a ten minute puzzle instantly because I knew the pattern with a queen sacrifice from the previous brilliant puzzle I struggled with. I took a test called the elometer. It gives you 76 exercises to measure your strength. I saw some of the puzzles before and I performed reasonably well. My favorite puzzle was the Qg6!! Sacrifice from white. My final evaluation from the rest was an estimated so I strength of 2205. My online rating is about 2250. I have clearly improved and I know that I am decent player going into my tournaments. Good luck in your continued efforts.

I came to a video on which a UK protest toppled an old statue of a slave trader. I understand that in some world views we are glorifying slave owners and therefore allowing a racist world view to be less frowned upon. In my mind the problem is in his we perceive the statue and how we think about it. Maybe the statue is a work of art that reminds us of our history. They may no longer be viewed as heros, but given the culture at the time they were respected even though we disagree now. I don't see a problem in statues outside of which paradigm you decide to think about it with. I see that the influence of these protests might be that the statues are destroyed, but I think of them like art. I would look at a statue and admire how it is designed. What do you think about the statues? Which paradigm would you prefer? https://www.businessinsider.com/black-lives-matter-protesters-toppled-sunk-statue-of-slave-trader-2020-6 There are videos on this article in which protesters destroyed a statue.

June 7, 2020 Surprisingly I feel like I became less active after realizing how problematic my addictions are. Instead of spending time in YouTube I spent more time on other forms of social media like this forum. I asked about racially charged statues and engaged in discussions about black lives matter. Even my chess website supports black lives matter and there are protests all over the world. Lichess said that equality is a fundamental human right, not a political matter. I did make some progress with enlightenment in today's work. I meditated 20 minutes in the morning before headed to work and and a little more in the break room. I felt more in control of my thoughts and emotions. I think that meditation can ultimately help me overcome addictions like social media. Sugar is still hard for me to quit, but I am slowly reducing the intake. It annoys me that my family can't allow me to use the blender for fruit smoothies because it wakes them up in the morning before I go to work and it interrupts their phone calls for work from home. I also deconstructed my ideological positions on history as I engaged in social media with an open mind. If I did not witness the events, then to me it is all hearsay. I don't know how much of history is white washed and lies about. The people writing it could have all sorts of biases. One ideological position is that those who forget their history tend to repeat it. Maybe it is true, but this can turn into the insistence to preserve our history and "tell the truth!" As Dennis prager said. I actually only know what I was taught about human history, but not all the things we seemed unimportant. As for the statues I think a good compromise would be to move potentially offense works of art out of public and into a history museum where the statues will not be destroyed or viewed as glorified racism. I have an open mindedness exercise for anybody reading this. Imagine that Jesus Christ was white washed. Suppose that you were a historian recording the words of Jesus and he said "the kingdom of heaven is-". All of a sudden a woman runs into the room and yells that Jesus Christ tried to rape her. As the historian you tell her she is crazy because Jesus would never do such a thing. The woman is thrown out and ignored and then you continue writing down the words of Jesus while completely ignoring what just transpired. How much would this alter the course of history? How much would this mess up everything about our sense of reality, our cultures, and any religions if something like this was swept under the rug? What are all of the implications of the possibility that Jesus was white washed? How do you know this did not happen and nothing was ignored? How do we know what is true? I did not practice chess as much as I would like, but I learned about various forms of corruption during my research. This includes green washing, blue washing, and pink washing. The forum eventually devolves into people misunderstanding each other and they bicker back and forth with no progress. I find it fascinating to learn about all of this. I want to remember that I do have goals with self actualization and people can get very sucked into politics. If I don't do social media I could do more meditation, typing my book, chess homework, reading, maybe something else. I did a lot of running when these outlandish possibilities started being considered. If I improve upon my meditation habit, maybe I will do even better. This leads to emptiness.

@Leo Gura I would like to follow up on that to see if that is correct that history was written by devils. Are the statues the proof? Is there more proof?

@Serotoninluv i guess that makes sense. If a work of art could offend people, then maybe we should not keep them public. @SerpaeTetra. I agree that the protests are also beautiful.

@Preety_India I have a lot of doubts about history now. I don't know how often it is rewritten and by whom with what biases.

@Dutch guy why would we delete our history? there are many mistakes humans made throughout history including racism. It may be important to understand how hatred toward Jews could contribute to the holocaust. Philosophers and scientists made epistemic blunders because of their misguided reasoning, and we can learn from these mistakes.

I feel like the current protests are necessary to help resolve the underlying systemic problem of racism. I prefer not to participate in these protests because I don't want to get swept away in a mob and hurt somebody even though protests are intended to be peaceful. I think that if my property were damaged by this movement, then I would be mad at black lives matter. I see it can be complicated to take these different points of view into account. Notice how without the current protests we may not be talking about racism. Look at how much it affects out thoughts and perceptions. This is change happening.

June 6, 2020 I realize that my biggest problem is addiction. I can't meditate as well as I would like because I am addicted to sugar. I don't sit still because I am addicted to running. I don't type my book when I am addicted to YouTube. I don't focus when I am addicted to my thoughts. These addictions are putting a glass ceiling on how far I can go in self actualization. It interferes with my ability to understand reality. I am misaligned with what it means to be happy. Pleasure in this form creates anxiety when it is the primary form of happiness. This is inconsistent and weighs in the back of my mind constantly. If I could quit these addictions, it would be a major leap on all fronts. I have been working on my thoughts already with some success. Maybe I will try to improve upon my meditation habit because I feel more in control when I do. I think I should try the YouTube addiction. I tend to skip back into lower consciousness when I watch lower quality material. I could limit myself to two hours of YouTube. This gives me only enough time for audio books and possibly chess lessons. I also don't want to be too attached to chess. I did not follow my intuition to take a break and I lost two games. Maybe I need a limit for chess As well. I try to avoid setting a limit because I want to do well in my coaching. This could backfire if I burn myself out. I also have an idea for training. I could test my thinking system in computer games to see how well it does. This might make me blunder less, be more tactically aware, and consistently play stronger moves. This would take a long time, but I need to more effectively integrate this in my training. I seek a higher form of happiness than addiction. Overcome your greatest obstacle. I will do my best.