Natasha Tori Maru

This is sort of leading to a good question: what kind of social environments help a man recover agency?

Haha - I actually like Bryan! I find him fascinating. I can be critical though, and often I am way to loose explicating my criticism and not good at enough at highlighting the good. I see him leaning toward a bit more balance and away from the rigidity of Blueprint as it was in its first iteration. His 5 pillars are essential and fantastic - these are the parts of his advice that really move the needle. The rest of his protocol has much less of an effect. But it is VERY interesting. I suppose my main criticism is not with Bryan himself, but with his audience and how they will gloss over basics and jump straight into maxing the .1% with their supplement stack (meanwhile they are up all hours, don't get proper exercise etc). He is an influencer, so I cannot really make him personally responsible for the actions his followers take. The most I might advice is more emphasis on the basics. But that isn't going to sell him books, sell his supplements or generate social media traction to get his brand out there. Hate the game, not the player? But I get it, nailing the basics is harder than it seems. Many repetitions needed to grow the routine/reflex muscle.

I really enjoy analysing forum interactions also (I am sort of obliged to do this). Frequently forum interactions can be chalked down to "User failed to ask: what exactly do you mean?" prior to attacking the argument. Then when they later clarify, it can appear to be changing goalposts or points. It gets messy when someone anchors themselves to their original interpretation. Then there is endless snowball effect of talking past each other or arguments going all over the place. Frustration increases and then rhetoric degrades into crude terminology flung about. Regarding the topic: In terms of stage blue shadow - it makes me wonder as this is another way to frame a potential issue - but might not hit it head on: is more information to diagnose really the answer? If more information solved the inaction problem, all of us would be productivity machines (more information can resolve inaction when it really is the bottleneck, but I need to be careful to decipher that as true)! Information is so easy to access now that gatekeeping is less of a thing. I suppose I would look at myself here: I often like to reframe in similar way (in this case I do often look at things through spiral dynamics), but I don't often feel it gets me any closer to taking action with the information. I can feel like I am, because I am getting closer to (what I feel is) isolating the problem. But it could be a red herring if more information or another mental frame doesn't help - or if I haven't identified my issue as a legitimate information deficit. Usually this ends up with me looking at my own mental blocks, inner narratives and false beliefs that are preventing me from using the power at my disposal. The stage blue shadow is acting to cast light on the rigid structures in our beliefs that beg for inspection.

He got a dog! Good on him. One step closer to engaging and enjoying life, so he isn't stuck in his potentially rigid routine He often looks subtly warn down and strained - very subtle muscular tension in small parts of his expression. What is the bet, that he will come out with a blurb about: Guys, pets are the hidden biohack we all need!!!!! - More physical activity + cardiovascular benefits - Greater social interaction - Stress regulation - Daily structure - Hormone relational bonding: Oxytocin, Cortisol reduction, Endogenous opioids, Dopamine, Serotonergic systems

@Leo Gura Sweet, cheers - I appreciate the glimpse into your process Are the secondary insights that arrive while "logically laying it all" out a cross pollination across systems? Sort of intuitively detecting analogous structure in another domain that might form a link Like synthesising wholism across adjacent domains?

@shubhamsharma What do you experience when you resist the impulse to smoke? What feeling is the biggest? What thoughts come up?

Good morning Leo Time to slam you with a question out of pure curiosity around your process of understanding: When you arrive at an understanding that you cannot yet articulate, do you experience that understanding as primarily tacit (something you somehow "see" before you can explain why) and then afterwards develop the explicit/mechanistic model through contemplation and analysis (reverse engineering)? Or is the tacit understanding (or realization) largely coming from a product of accumulated knowledge and erudition? In your own experience, how much of genuine understanding arrives tacitly, and how much is constructed explicitly from first principles? Do you think there is a "break point" of knowledge where tacit understanding begins to manifest with more frequency? I suppose this is ultimately a series of questions about the relationship between intuition, tacit knowledge, accumulated wisdom, and epistemic rigor. You probably experience both tacit understanding and working up from first principles.

Okay clearly this isn't going anywhere.

This appears to me to be a non sequitur. My point isn't that you were required to stop because the other person asked you to. I am asking whether escalating an interaction remains justified once you've recognized that it has become adversarial and unproductive. Saying "he doubled down and I tripled down" explains the escalation, but doesn't answer that question. Are you evading?

You don't need to totally back down - just stop with inferences about people's psychological state when they tell you to stop. We shouldn't insult. We should try to engage in rhetoric free of condescension. You are explaining a possible mechanism. None of this justifies continually causing offense in an attempt to win an argument. Is continuing appropriate when the negative outcome is apparent and the continuation seems to be serving the participant rather than producing anything constructive? My interpretation is you are evading the wider ethical points I am raising.

The thing is, the trap more commonly fallen into on these forums tends to be explanation = understanding. Explanation is NOT understanding!!

@LordFall But the overall effect of dialogues like this can just be... offence - do you think it is the right thing to do when the effect is a negative outcome like this for the recipient? It isn't hard to detect this in debate, and then halt. It might be worth questioning why we continue - just to serve ourselves?

@LordFall reframe it like this; if we bring our own armchair-psychology character judgements into discussions, without relating to the person through questioning their meaning, experience, feelings and thoughts, we end up polarising them against us. They won't feel seen. They will feel mischaracterised and misunderstood. Most people will close themselves off to any further good faith discussion because you make judgements based on inference. This feels unjust and unfair to the recipient. What we should have done is just ask for further clarification. Sometimes it's as simple as that. No "shadow" stuff. No insecurity. No childhood trauma. Just inability to make the person feel understood. If someone doesn't feel seen, it's going to be very difficult to change their mind. We can't just sledgehammer everyone with logic (not saying you do, but if we really, earnestly want to engage with someone, pissing them off via the mechanism outlined above really isn't an effective mode of debate). People willfully ignore whatever truth we bring when they feel misunderstood / mischaracterised. And even if they do admit the truth, they certainly won't admit out loud to us.

@Yimpa thanks Yimpa - you're an inspiration to me as well. It takes a deep amount of personal integrity, courage and authenticity to stand up and say "this is who I am!" And risk rejection. Most people have shaky boundaries because you risk someone rejecting you. And they wont risk being alone. But the cost is having to live outside our truth So important to know what we will accept and what we won't ❤️

This thread is turning into a shit fight. Stop attaching each other's character and name-calling. Please don't make psychological assessments about each other. Debate the topic.