Natasha Tori Maru

@AtmanIsBrahman no one said there ain't truth in it. One can twist anything to sound more profound than it really is.

Good catch. This can lead to emotional suppression, bypassing and all sorts of bad juju.

Exactly. You just get over the time and money investment in appearance. Obviously we still do care and attend to appearance. But the vapid and hollow nature of it all becomes so apparent when real meaning takes over in life. And that is at the crux of it - we create meaning in our lives. When you are young and dumb you invest in that shit because you haven't formed fully as a person. Or are still discovering who we are. Real meaning comes later. In my experience. No judgement on the youth of today either - I was once in the same boat. I find it amusing my half brothers generation really think they have touched on something completely 'new'. Billy even said to me 'every generation was lied to, they lied to us that looks don't matter'. My eyes seriously - popped out of my head. NO idea. All generations have known looks matter. It is just with the proliferation of social media the younger ones place more emphasis on it. I do not think all youth think this way - but many are getting tied up in this shit.

Accurate

I will join you. Not direct. Presupposes thought and concept. There has to be a concept of 'inside and outside' prior to it. Concept dependant. Presupposes a self, a mind, inside/outside, concept of existence, concept of other. All interpretive overlays. Solipsism requires a conceptual boundary not present in immediate experience. It also requires us to 'identify' with a certain locus of experience (egoic attachment). Egoic ownership 'MY experience'. Equanimity dissolves this immediately. This is all within the 'relative' space and time domain. Not speaking of absolute. Just had to sperg that out for some reason. Lol

High standards are usually about work, values and outcomes. Ego is normally about identity protection. Sort of how I loosely approach it with interpersonal relationships. People confuse the two all the time as you can ovarlap them and justify egoic attachments.

rofl wait let me get the hammer, working in construction has benefits

@Miguel1 I have a half brother who is 17 - I hear all that toxic shit / heavy social media gen stuff and language from him. Bone smashing is from Clavicular 'Braden Peters' - really toxic kid who is hardmaxing, been on test since 14, does peptides and uses a hammer to smash his bones in his face because 'Wolff's Law' says the bones with grow back tougher and thicker. So he uses the hammer to reshape his face. I think he is getting jaw surgery also. But there is something wrong with the kid for sure. He also takes methamphetamine to stay shredded / stimmax. He also ran over a dude because people in his car egged him on. He is the kid who has been huge on PSL and rating based on looks - mogging, htn, ltn, htb, chad etc is spun by him. All this looksmaxing stuff came from male incel message boards around 2010. It has just become mainstream recently.

Does the role of language enhance suffering? It seems to me, if we were to somehow remove language, or just our instant habit of making distinctions with it, the lines between emotion and cognition would be more blurred. I have noticed language can act to enhance my suffering (rumination). But in some contexts it can also reduce suffering. Sometimes I feel as if language removes me from experiencing a more honest state of 'being.' Conversely I can also use it to guide myself closer to direct experience. Do you consider language something that separates us from reality? Or an abstraction? I've been stuck on the above for a bit in my contemplations. Might be too elementary for Ralston

To be really clear - it is actually called 'Bone Smashing' ...I know

💀💀💀🤣 The hardmaxx route

From everything I read from you regarding women, he appears to understand women to a greater extent than you. The difference is you appear to be unaware of the bias and misunderstanding in your own thoughts. Experience and age will help you.

There's a Ralston exercise in one of his books - I fucking forget which one. His body of work is all one thing to me. But it is called 'inside out thoughts' or something. You pretent like all your inner thoughts and states can be received and understood by others. Strangely - when I do this - I engage in my own bullshit much less. I reduce my own drama and story. It also helps me be more loving in my actions.

I see lots of lack of objective thought, critical thinking + extreme bias. I don't have the time or energy to police it all. Plus, I pick my battles. Some users have proven they just want to present their thoughts and not engage in a good faith discussion. Sad but... 'Tis what it is. I really appreciate those who bring some reality to the situation though !

I cannot stop laughing. Don't even know what to address here. Jesus lord I pray to thee ROFL

I don't think it is either (matriarchy or patriarchy) - something new is forming imo

This. As far as I am concerned the premise was debunked by countering the claim we live in matriarchy. Everything else is just slippery sidestepping ego stuffs

Language tends to compress experience when we have not directly realized or experienced a domain. Without direct experience second hand labels are borrowed and used to try to map something out. This can be where we use synonymous language that flattens fine distinctions. For example: prior to direct experience - fear is one thing. But on deeper contact fear can be broken down and split into anxiety, dread, shame, anticipatory stress, existential terror, threat response etc.

@Shermaningeorgia This is bigotry and discrimination. Very corrosive to your wellbeing.

Actualized Quotes #388 Music is the ontology of the universe!!

@theleelajoker do you think people are mostly unable to recognise peace? Let alone happiness. Just about everyone close to me conflates pleasure and happiness. And equates peace to boredom. And I admit, it has been only through spiritual process that I, myself, been able to identify peace and crave it deeply. Prior to taking this work seriously I was not even able to sustain a stable, honest relationship with someone without forfeiting my own sovereignty (and therefore, peace). I think we come onto this world never knowing seperation. Conditioning through experience teaches us to perceive we are seperate to survive. As we move up Maslow's hierarchy the 'false self' becomes like a vestigial limb to be discarded. With all of its fears and falsehoods. But these are just my thoughts triggered by your insight 🙏

@zazen I tend to agree with this. I do not know your understanding of 4th wave feminism, but to my understanding, much of it has the propensity and hazard of crossing over into misandry. I do not even consider 4th wave feminism to be really acheiving anything as positive as 1/2/3rd. I feel like the first 3 waves focused on women defining themselves and their sovereignty. And 4th turned outward to trying to dismantle and confront power structures/hierarchy. Equality of outcome is questionable to me, obviously it depends on what we mean. But I see it suppressing incentive structures, requiring force and ignoring natural variance. The real tension comes from the fact that we are simply not all the same. I can see why people argue for it - it can reduce extreme inequality, can prevent inherent advantage compounding forever and can help stabilise societies. It is usually the costs that come into question. I do not consider myself a feminist because I do not agree with all of the sentiments of 4th wave. And I openly admit my understanding of it is limited.

@LastThursday this is a good point. It can be another thing for the ego to cling to if we aren't careful. Another ground or conditioning to work on.

Skip to 44:02 - what? Obama says aliens are real

I know the feeling. I don't have the answer. This sentiment you speak of - I feel swamped by it when I am around people who take themselves SO SERIOUSLY. We create these personas to slap over our eyes - we create little egos to survive - all because of fear. Fear is the ultimate deception. All division comes from it - it is the opposite of loving unity behind it all. But that fear is more real to people than love. That's where I see most getting caught. Acceptance and judgement. Most bullshit comes from this axis. They cannot even see their 'self' is different from one year to the next. That it is not fixed. But they act like it is... Hell. I am not even vaguely the same self I was 6 months ago! We fail from the start because we believe in separation.