Ben Landrail

Jacob Collier is an absolute genius, a once-in-a-lifetime musical prodigy. He's good-looking, highly intelligent, creative, well-spoken. His knowledge of harmony is out of this world. He has perfect pitch and a great voice. He has won several Grammies for his ridiculous arrangements. He has collaborated with the best of the greatest living musicians and received tremendous praise from many of them. If you understand music even a little bit, you will be in awe of this guy's otherworldly level of talent. No amount of practice can get you to that level. Not even ten lifetimes of it. He is just built differently.

As Camus wrote in the Myth of Sisyphus, committing suicide because you can't see a meaning in life is absurd since that claim implies that some absolute truth about the nature of existence is available to you. Which is false, because you are merely a human being, with all the accompanying cognitive limitations. I would comment that you're operating based on logical assumptions. But why does existence has to be logical? Human capacity for reasoning seems to be a by-product of evolution, which we use today for the oddest purposes like justifying one's existence - or suicide. If you want to alleviate suffering, you can devote your life to hardcore spiritual practice, become enlightened and live in a constant state of bliss away from society. Why not get the best of both worlds? I am not particularly interested in entering this deep and murky discourse of meaning and purpose. It would probably take years to master, and what for - to satisfy my need for logic? So that my life would be logically impeccable? I couldn't give less shit about it. I should admit, however, that looking into these things helped me clarify my position towards life. Knowing that I will die and that I want neither to kill myself nor to become a mystic/hardcore philosopher/scientist (who might believe that science will find meaning in the future, when humanity as we know it ceases to exist), I'm choosing to play the game, even though I didn't ask for it. And to get as much happiness and fulfillment as is available to me. Luckily, the problem of happiness is much more down-to-earth and can actually be solved.

@Thanatos13 I like your line of thinking, at least you have a coherent way of presenting arguments that actually make sense. I'd be interested to hear your opinion about the alternatives to spirituality that actually help us live a life in a meaningless universe. Since science is concerned with creating models and analysing phenomenons, what do you turn to when you have to make existential decisions? What's your approach?

Maybe enable post reputation, sort of like on Quora. If that's possible. They don't allow you to sort answers by their popularity, but show the amount of views and likes.

@Faceless Yeah, completely forgot about images. I believe there are non-linguistic thoughts, i.e. simply mental images. But for an image to exist it has to originate from somewhere. At the very least, there has to be a basic foundation, a collection of forms and lines. Unless, of course, we're talking about drug-induced hallucinations of which I've little understanding. Here's another good one for you: if one is born blind, deaf, mute and insensitive to any other outside stimuli, will one be capable of thinking? Language is out of the question, visuals and sound too. What would the content of one's mind be? If all contents of the mind ceased to be, that would mean that the neural connections would also disappear and we would have a brain with billions of isolated neurons. I'm not in a position to make even an educated guess about what this kind of brain would be capable of. But my uneducated guess is that it'd be totally screwed.

The first question would be what we understand by thinking. If we're talking about the process of operating mental concepts through the use of language, then here's how I see it. Language was invented by humans, using the brain, and is learned by humans, using the brain. If you don't learn a human language early on (cf feral child), your high-level abstract thinking capacity is severely limited. I'm not sure we can call what this creatures do thinking as we know it. Without language-bound thinking you still have intuition and awareness, but I think everyone would agree that both these wonderful things can get you only so far. @Faceless arguably, if we wipe out all the memories - and the knowledge of language with it - a person would still be able to think, but in a very limited way. He/she would have to build all the mental concepts anew, and I'm not sure if it's even possible. So we're back to the definition of thinking. EDIT: another interesting question would be how did pre-language humans think? Or have we always had some sort of language, even though utterly rudimentary, like a combination of gestures and growls?

@Sigma External activity doesn't necessarily bring suffering, it just gives us experiences that are considered somehow inferior. In a sense, after reaching total enlightenment (if it's possible), we stop being human and become something else. Since for most of us,reaching higher levels of spirituality is impossible, undesirable or problematic, I would say that, in general, the goal of inner work has to be eliminating neurosis and needless suffering, increasing awareness and attaining certain other things, while still living fully and contributing to the world as a human being.

@Sigma excellent question. What Leo "teaches" can be confusing and highly problematic at times, especially when you try to implement it. And I'm absolutely sure 99% of people do not understand the concepts he shares correctly. Hell, I'm perplexed at times myself, and not too infrequently. But back to the topic. There are several things that I can point out. First of all, the conceptual part. If complete self-transcendence and enlightenment are our true/highest states, then why indeed bother getting involved in anything else? It would be informative to look at a number of advanced meditation/enlightenment students and see what they have done in their lives. I read an article about the scientific research on meditation, and the most advanced guys that took part in the research looked like bums and worked some part-time jobs like bike messengers etc. That is, no external impact on the world. Here one can recall the suffering argument. On the one hand, suffering is real and natural, so we have to accept it. But on the other hand, if suffering can be avoided, eliminated or reduced, what reasons do we have to not do this? And it's absolutely obvious that we can do something about it. Just think about small pox and vaccination. If everybody sat meditating in their huts, people'd keep on dying in hundreds of thousands. There's also the issue of making a living. How on earth will you make a living when all you do is reflect and meditate? Where will you get the motivation and inspiration to do anything except self-work? In the end, I think the duality Sigma is talking about is inevitable if you want to be a part of the society, and also if you wnat to enjoy other facets of life except spirituality and being an observer. If you stop doing inner work, you're surely become neurotic very soon and fill your head with tons of rubbish. If you stop caring about the external results, you'll stop producing good results, because why would you? I'm afraid I've got more questions than answers, though. But maybe even that helps

Sex Money Success Fame Booze Games Manipulation Looks Gadgets Sports

@Achilles-A He'll be still too young. If he's 30 now, he'll be 34 then, while only people aged 35+ are allowed to run for presidency.

Decide what you consider worthy of your time and do it.

Full-time content manager at an internet company, part-time videogame composer and rock guitarist/songwriter, working hard to make things to be the other way around.

Upon waking up, if I don't feel like getting out of bed at 6 am, I ask myself: "Do you want to be a mediocre loser or an outstanding human being?". Usually, it does the job. If not, I just force myself. Lack of discipline is often caused by three things: poor habits, lack of clarity and fear. By poor habits I mean that the more you act in an undisciplined way, doing stupid shit, the harder it is to become disciplined. The cure is simple - you must start doing the right thing regardless of your emotional state. By lack of clarity I mean not having an overarching goal, a sense of direction and a well thought-out concrete plan. The solution is simple but not easy, you have to think about your priorities and commit to something. By fear I mean the fear that your plan might be flawed, that you're just wasting time etc. The only way to deal with it, I believe, is to stop the inner dialogue. Just do what you set out to do. With regard to practical tools, I highly recommend the book, "Hell Week" by Bertrand Larsson (spelling may be different). I just went throught the 'hell week', and it changed me completely. It's like I grew a spine and a couple of extra balls. Try it, it's incredible.

I see no point in studying self- help. You have to do it. If it doesn't change your everyday thinking and behavior, it has no value.

First, clarify the definition of the ego, then learn about its function and structure, then ask your question again. What the guy in the video is saying makes sense. Some of the responses here don't.

I don't. But it depends on your lifestyle. For some people reading quality news is important for their job, for some, like me, it's not. I will hear all I need to know from my family or co-workers, so there's no need to waste time every day sifting through the propaganda or useless junk.

Unless your parents are artists themselves or extremely open-minded about career choice, don't expect any help or understanding. It's hard to not share with your closest people, but it's necessary. Being creative is a good start, but until you begin really studying the craft, you won't know it it's your passion. Choose any topic you're interested in and get serious instruction. Spend a year or so doing this, then decide.

It's difficult. I believe you have to first consciously assess the people you're dealing with, their potential for improvement, the path they're on, the things you have in common. If there's a way to avoid talking about or participating in low-consciousness activities with them, you can try that. Overall, it's an intuitive decision. With my family, I can usually direct conversations in a way that brings satisfactions to all of us. Since these are people are love, I have to be really patient and creative and find ways to maintain healthy relationships with them. But when it comes to my friends, man, that's when it's most painful to admit that they are not who I really want to hang around. Criticism towards others, gossip, laziness, comfort, settling for mediocrity, neurotic preoccupation with menial things and appearance - all that elicits an almost physical aversion in me. Most of all, meeting with them starts to feel like a waste of time. So my strategy is to look for quality, not quantity. And to do that you have to be proactive.

When you let the emotions take control, you can't think or act productively, and you also can't fully enjoy life. For me, the solution was to analyze the feelings of loneliness and lack of human connection that I was experiencing lately. As a rational introvert, I knew that superficial relationships will not make me fulfilled. I also knew that desperately wanting and seeking company was a bad idea. It makes you dependent on whether someone's around you, which is not a great way to live. I realized that the best way to cope with loneliness is to figure out your life purpose and passion, then pursue it with all your might, and meet people who share your vision, values and passion along the way. The people you respect and want to be around. Someone you're looking up to. The final revelation came a couple days ago. I was alone in bed, thinking about Leo's last two videos. And then it struck me: Fuck it, I thought. If I have no one, this is awesome. Nothing is holding me anywhere. I am free and I am in control. And if I can't have the relationships I want to being who I am right now, I will not tolerate mediocrity. I can work on myself and on my success, and as I create the things I want to create, generate value and share it with the world, I will inevitably find great people. You just need to see the bigger picture and concentrate on the right things.

Get a part-time job and do music. How on earth can you even compare it to accounting?! Music is a lifestyle, accounting is a job.

What a ridicuoulus idea that music flows from nowhere. It doesn't. It flows from your training and all the music you've listened to. To compose means literally to combine a number musical ideas in a certain way, according to the rules of the genre/tradition. For instance, the composition posted here sounds very old school, like 17th-18th century music and is, to my ear, influenced by the Baroque and the Spanish classical guitar traditions. Doesn't sound like nowhere to me. As for the topic question, absolute creativity equals chaos, absolute discipline - rigidity. It's a tricky situation, but also very easy to understand using common sense. If you made your every day different from the others, that is, not repeating anything you did the day before, you would not be able to master any craft, and thus reach a good level in anything, let alone art. You need discipline to learn the tools and the rules of the game, to ensure that you progress, to actually sit down and finish your work and polish it. You also need discipline to make time for your creative endeavors. I think this is a false contraposition. We can theorize all we want, but to get practical results you must be both creative and disciplined.

What do you think about coaching for creative professionals or being a sort of a creativity consultant? As a musician and an intellectual person, I just find the idea of becoming a creativity consultant/expert/coach fascinating both in terms of intellectual, personal, artistic and career development. Any advice on how to pursue it?

Samuel Beckett: Aristotle: And Da Vinci:

You have to make a distinction between different kinds of academic disciplines. In humanities (like literary theory, comparative and cultural studies, art history, all sorts of criticisms), it's mostly about interpretation. Someone wrote a book 200 years ago. Then a critic wrote a book about this book. Then an academic wrote a book about the critics. Then another academic wrote a book about all three books, comparing them to Taylor Swift's lyrics. The problem is, this kind of discourse, as they call it in academia, is absolutely speculative and relative. You learn theories about theories, split hairs, wade through shit only to find more shit. It's all mental masturbation. Natural and applied sciences are quite different. They tell you how something works, how it should work optimally and so on. But science doesn't answer metaphysical and ethical questions. So you have to decide for yourself how are you going to apply what you learn. Same thing with social sciences. I see the theory/practice problem this way. You follow your inclinations, dreams, whatever, gather practical knowledge and experience, spot problem areas and something you'd like to improve and understand. Then you go study what the science has to tell you about that, and then make an informed decision, followed by an action.

@Seven So very true. It's not only the practice, it's the kind of mindeset you have and the persperctive through which you see life. You can't be spending 10 hours a day on work, including commute, and hope to be a pro musician. You have to think, experiment in your head, be immersed in music. That is, if you want to be a really good creative musician and do something meaningful with your talent.