Gesundheit

And what about the distinction between enlightenment and unenlightenment?

Where to?

Good question.

lol that is more or less how my life is right now.

Yeah I know that and I agree, but only when we are talking in abstract terms where there's no one context but infinite number of different contexts. Here we are talking about reality, and reality is not context-less. Reality has a certain unique context. This one context is what we can derive conceptual truths from. So how can they be false, even relatively?

You're wrong so who cares.

What you exactly mean by "the one that is able to do it" is actually desire not a thought. In this particular case, the person is not a thought. It is a desire, which may or may not be based on thoughts.

I see. But also don't you think that maybe that's what spirituality teaches? That it's just one perspective? And that it's not whole? Let's break it down a little bit. Here, we're initially assuming that labelling/thoughts are of no value. And yet, we're still labelling thoughts as thoughts. In other words, they're groundless. Doesn't say anything about trueness or falsehood though. Sure. But here I was specifically implying the content of the thoughts. Are thoughts completely useless in deriving truths? That is the question.

Translation: Evil is not a material thing that you can see, smell, hear, touch, or taste. It is something you can think about.

I also think one important question here is that can thought constructs be true? Or are all thoughts false?

Leo on 5-Meo.

I personally have never heard anyone saying that. But if anyone says that, I will tell them directly that they're full of shit. Whatever they mean with that phrase, is problematic. If they mean that they want to feel depressed, they certainly can. In fact, they probably are but just repressing it. If they're mocking depressed people, the mockery itself is its own punishment. It will keep them rotting in their pit of ignorance.

Meditation all the way, for hours and hours. At the very least, 2-3 hours a day, preferably while walking, with/without music.

LMAO The mere fact that you think you are better is itself delusion because better or worse is delusion made-up by the mind for survival purposes.

Eye don't know.

Love is a misperception that occurs when you lose sight of your value. If you are of high value, you will never love, because what will there be to love? To love someone or something, it only takes you denying your own worth and then projecting it outwards. You must feel less/vulnerable/imperfect/incomplete first before you can love anything outside of yourself. Because that's the only way you will be able to see value in something other than yourself.

Money does not make any difference at all. Zero. Blank. Nothing. As long as you're alive, you're going to have to submit to a higher power, regardless of what it is. Even if you are president of the United States, you're still going to have to deal with China and Russia and Kim Jong, and most likely, your wife ? You are never going to be free. Freedom is an illusion. And there are no degrees of freedom. Even if you think you are relatively freer than someone who is in prison, you'd still be wrong. You will face challenges all the time. That means you're not free, because if you fail you will lose, and if you lose you will lose the "freedoms" you have. So basically you're stuck in a battle trying to keep your freedom from evaporating, while in fact your freedom has become your own prison.

Working online is harder than I thought it would be. I will re-evaluate this thing before going any further. Most of the jobs consume a lot of mental energy. They require a high mental capacity, which I don't have. I prefer physical activities, or some mind-numbing/repetitive kinds of jobs. I don't have a brilliant mind. Not even an average one. My mind is extremely lazy and slow. That may be the biggest downside to awakening. My mind is not my enemy anymore. It's my best friend. I have unimaginable clarity, thanks to the many hours of meditation. In the end, turns out I would choose poverty over mind-demanding jobs. Yeah, that's who I am. I prefer dying in peace than living in hell.

Yesterday was different. The emotional state flattened so to speak. I could barely feel sad. However, there seemed to be a blockage in the heart area, like a stuck energy, that is preventing sadness from manifesting. I was not trying to repress the sadness, but that's what was happening. I think I could have popped up that bubble if I listened to some feminine song, but I didn't feel like it so I didn't do it. For the majority of the time, I was feeling neutral, but then as I started my 2 hours meditation session, a lot of negative thoughts started arising, not sure why. I started remembering all the times I fucked up and how I could have been/done better. At the same time, I realized many of mistakes and shortcomings and where they came from. I didn't grow up properly, and that messed up my identity. I didn't learn how to belong. But that's not important for the journal. And by the end of my meditation session, I got separated from my thoughts. I was able to detach and observe them. They had no power over me anymore. They got neutralized. That's my baseline state. That's home. Now I'm home.

When I am deeply traumatized? This might sound weird but it feels like I've lost all feelings of love and appreciation after everything I ever loved always betrayed me and in best case scenarios, didn't come through. This didn't happen all at once, but gradually and over time. Right now I'm too cynical of life and of others. I can't trust even my best friend. To love, feels like unnecessary attachment. Teal Swan says that cynicism is a coping mechanism after the failure of expectations as to make us lower our expectations in the future so that we don't feel betrayed once again. And I agree with her. And I don't want to sound like a victim, but I actually am to a certain extent. The things that happened and are still happening to me are very limiting and against human growth. I feel like with all the knowledge and experience I currently have that I can make something out of it. The only problem is that there's no soil to nurture the seeds I have. I'm all by myself and no one can help me. P.S. in practice, it's not as bad as it might sound. I don't feel any negative feelings so don't start weeping for me just yet.

I am sick of not being understood. I feel very sad. It was a mistake to open that floodgate of love. I have been intermittently crying over the past couple of days. Feeling deep sadness, like heart break sadness. The feeling is in the heart area. More like fragmented pieces of a broken heart trying to reunite. I wouldn't say it's a feeling of depression though. My energy levels are still normal. And I can focus on activities if I forget the stories attached to the feeling. My libido decreased quite a bit though. On the other hand, it feels like something else was unlocked. Something that has a feminine core, like I've got in touch with a deep feminine side of myself, and like an intuitive guidance system or something like that got activated. I can't yet pinpoint it and I may be deluding myself. I don't feel comfortable with this relatively new mode of being. It's made me abandon many of the rational decisions that I made throughout the past decade. Or maybe it's just a coincidental synchronicity that in reality has nothing to do with love. I would like to return back to my neutral state but it's not a matter of choice. I can't control my emotions. It all started when I listened to this song: This singer is one of the most famous ones locally in the Arabic world, very feminine. You can rarely find any girl that doesn't like her. She's like the Goddess of Arab music. The funny thing is that I've never listened to any of her songs before. I don't listen to anything Arabic for that matter. From an early age I liked western music. I don't like R&B and generic pop. I'm more of a Reggae/Dancehall, Rap/Hip Hop, and Rock/Alternative kind of guy. So anyway, right now I totally resonate with the song. It describes my situation perfectly. Here's a translation of the lyrics: "Send my greetings to him Go and send my greetings to him Tell him I yearn for him He is the one with no one alike My darling, all along the way Go and send my greetings to him .. I long so much for the day we could meet again And forget all the admonition and the blame And chat together and laugh together And stroll on the ways of love And sleep and wake up in your arms .. Go and tell him, I'll talk to nobody else Oh dear God, bless that smile, how much do I love it And ask him how's he doing Is he still on a break-up? And still dreaming, like me, about reunion? Or do I even ever cross his mind? Like he does .. Send my greetings to him Go, this is the address Check upon him and see if he's sad Or if someone else has found their way to his heart Protect my sweetheart from water droplets And from the easy breeze around him .. Go and tell him, I want no one else No one would love him like I do And add to his life from mine, within my greetings And tell him, life is short Come back to me, and let's be happy together with the struggle Oh how sweet, the rest of my life would be [repeat chorus] [ending]

Okay so here's my plan for online working, I have found someone abroad who is willing to help store and transfer the money. I don't know if I can trust him, but currently I don't have any other choice. Now, I will start an account on Fiverr.com and basically start by observing successful people on there and reading articles about how to stand out etc... And I will focus initially on business card design. That will be my main field of interest. From what I have read, Fiverr allows you to offer services for at least 5$. This is a good number for me. If I could manage to make 5$ a day, it would be a huge upgrade. But that's not the only plan. Actually, Fiverr will be plan B so to speak. My main money making will probably be from transcription services. It does not pay much, but like I said above, even 5$ a day is a great deal for me at this point. Although I think I can make it up to 50$ a day depending on the electricity situation cuz I need my PC running. I certainly will try to make as much as I can, but I am a little bit hesitant about the credibility of the sites I'm going to apply for. I don't want to be working for several days and then gain nothing in return. My plan is more sophisticated than this though. I don't plan on making Fiverr the only place to offer my services. There are other sites that are similar and I plan on using as many as I can find. And as for transcription, I will probably use other sites that don't require commitment or experience. I still have to look into these. I don't know how to market my services online. And P.S. my research is nowhere near done yet.

The main reason for all the shortcomings that I have in my life is the scarcity I'm in right now. Poverty is a serious problem. Not only it limits the amount of things you can do. It also limits how you think about everything. It creates a scarcity mindset in your mind, necessarily so. Because otherwise, you're going to spend your precious money on things that are secondary and when you need something primary or face an emergency, you'll find yourself empty-handed. Right now I need a dental treatment but I can't afford it so I keep postponing it. There are many things that I need to do but can't because of poverty. I need a complete dental check and care. I need at least a medium range laptop for online work. I need to upgrade the quality of my food. I need to upgrade/fix my phone. In short, I need the financial freedom that money offers. I'm severely limited to my money situation and there doesn't seem to be an easy way around it. When the economy was good and I wasn't in poverty, I was doing great overall. Everything was going great and as planned. I was doing better than most of my peers. I was top class. Until the economy started deteriorating, and everything began to drop down. At that time I didn't realize it. But poverty held me back in many different ways. I'd lost all my self worth and self-esteem. I wanted to not be a burden on my family so I started ignoring my needs. I started eating less and demanding less, until I reached a point where I stopped desiring anything. I died for the good of my family. But my parents are very poor managers of finance. My father is addicted to smoking and doesn't know how to spend money well. He always does the wrong things and doesn't read well into the future. And my mother always cares about what others think and not on our actual needs, even though she's more aware of our needs than my father. They fight all the time and that's the norm. But back to myself, I unconsciously and out of love, sacrificed myself for them and they weren't worth it. Not that they're evil, but that they're ignorant, too rigid, too logical, too limited, and too short-sighted. In some way, I regret the sacrifices I have made. Yet, in another, I'm grateful. I couldn't have possibly been where I'm at today if it wasn't for what I did. So, right now a new possible path is starting to take shape in front of me. It wasn't possible before for me to work online because of the limited internet access that I used to have. Now it's still limited, but much better than before. At least it's 20 GB per month instead of 2 GB. Although the speed is now much slower, but it compensates for the data size. At least now I can find some courses that teach different design apps, which I'm interested in and have a basic experience with. I can then start expanding and learning some programming languages and Android development. I can take my life into a whole new level. I only recently realized that anything related to computer can be my passion. The reason I was so ignorant of that is because I didn't have access to computers for most of the past decade. The electricity situation was very unstable and the computer was broken most of the time, and fixing it was expensive. I used to love everything about computers when I was a kid, but I was separated from it due to the civil war. I will try to reconnect with my passion and leave the college path that my parents had chosen for me. It's just not going to work. I hate everything about medicine. I don't want to be a doctor. It's just not who I am. To be continued... (I think)

Fear comes from thinking. Imagine stepping into a very dangerous jungle without prior knowledge that it's dangerous, you wouldn't fear anything. Likewise, imagine something very safe, like stepping into a bathtub, just an ordinary one, but instead of going in directly without thinking about it, you freeze in your place and start having a stream of paranoid thoughts, like what if I fell asleep and drowned? What if someone was hiding behind the curtains to murder me? What if I slipped and broke my leg? What if this? What if that? What if? What if? What if? While a little bit of caution is always recommended, but if it grows beyond a certain threshold, it will usually become a limitation. That being said, what's the best course of action in your case? I don't know. But if I were you, I would try to be more impulsive and embrace not-knowing. Because even when you have everything planned out, reality will never be as identical.