Dabidoe

People have to realize it's a muddy line - but Israel goes off a good metric "would Nazis have killed you for associating you as a jew?" It's kind of pointless to argue ancestry of a 5,700 year old tribe (genetic drift much?) but if you adopt the culture, convert then you are technically a jew. You are also technically a jew if one of your grandparents were genetically Ashkenazi/Saphardic (or Ethiopian) even if your athiest/different religion. I wish people who knew jack shit on the subject would stop flying off at the mouth about it, but that's pretty hard to avoid on any topic on the internet.

The US defied international law and killed over half a million civilians in our war directly, and even more indirectly in our "wars" that went on for 20 years, and nobody made a fucking peep about it. We literally left 30,000 people who risked their lives for decades to help us in the middle of the night to be brutally raped and beheaded. The hypocrisy of the argument that Israel is uniquely bad in their methods of killing terrorists seem to be largely aligned with the general consensus that "evil jew do bad." That said they've gone way too far. I agree that they've definitely overstepped their bounds and are not "reading the room" that they need to slow the fuck down and form a new plan. Jocko Willink discussed it and said "even though it's gonna suck to sacrifice your own people to try and protect terrorists (like we did) you have to go out of your way to show you're trying to save lives to prove your side is worth fighting for." I have friends there on the ground and all of them are scared and angry, which is a horrible place to make tactical and strategic decisions. Netanyahu is a plague on that country...

Thanks for posting this. It's so disheartening reading all these comments that completely justify barbarism... barbarism that literally is counter productive to their stated goals. I wish people would realize that the solution to war is not more war, but alas. God bless this man for having the courage to speak out.

Is it safe for those with bipolar disorder to try psychedelics? I had a relatively small amount of mushrooms on an empty stomach and seemed to have a manic burst followed by a dark paranoid/depressive crash (that very quickly ended after a BM) a decade ago and haven't tried since. Anyone have any information on this subject?

Does embracing and appreciating negativity help or does my intuition that it simply "fades away" once I decide to commit to improving my mental and physical health?

There is a lot of turmoil, mental illness and general chaos breaking out throughout the world. What started off fairly optimistic this year took a turn for the worse. Issues in my personal life compounded by being affected emotionally by the external world (recession, ukraine, culture wars/political divide etc.) I have had a few manic/depressive swings and felt waves optimism and confidence come crashing down to depression and hopelessness in matter of days. How do you stand against the waves of internal and external chaos? What "in the moment" techniques (breathing, yoga etc) and more broadly perspective shift / change of routine/actions has helped you most?

That's awesome, good to hear! I'm in the middle of some pretty heavy stress so sleep has been bad, kinda overwhelmed. Mania is at bay which is nice.

Ideology is the new religion. People are dogmatic about their world views: a popular new one with young people is the planet is doomed, society is evil and we should all go to war with people we deem evil. Personally I think philosophy is more important than "religion", you can follow the lessons and teachings of any religion and gain more insight than tying yourself down to worshiping figures. A more universal concept of god allows you to dip and out of religions, see their value without judging them as "right or wrong."

I would love to go back read transcriptions of your episodes, Youtube lets you download caption files in a text document.

Failed is a stretch but homelessness is out of control in SF & LA. There is a lot of suffering and despair that make a lot of initiatives fall flat. The real problem is governance that refuses to address the problem for reasons of supposed "compassion" that conveniently take them off the hook from actually putting in the work. It's a disservice to the homeless and the depth of their problems to simply reduce the complex problem to "affordable housing" which is only one factor. There are plenty of people who've fallen on hard times and can bounce back with affordable housing and job opportunities but it's silly to think that will solve the problem when billions of dollars have been wasted on such programs. You can't afford affordable housing if you don't have a way to make money because you've been out of the work force too long, suffer from hopelessness, addiction and mental illness stuck living on the streets. Conservatives want to "sweep" them away, Liberals want to ignore the problem with bullshit half measures. Not enough people are trying to solve the root problem which is get these people some real help, and give them a path to a positive future.

Trying to piece together the whacky new world we're living in where both parties political values seem to have evolved and devolved. While we've reached stage Green in many respects, stage orange seems disregulated (chrony capitalism, corporatism), the resurgance of red (tea party, trumpism) and the counter of "liberal" blue orthodoxy downshifting to "stamp out hate." During Obama the explosion of the internet into mainstream society blue was kind of panned as old hatas the country more rapidly embraced green cultural norms. Orange was not properly incorporated and a lot of people downshifted to blue and red. The internet echo chambers allowed people to "find their crowd" and magnified their stage and exposed them to new ideas & echo chambers to either upshift or downshift. Conservatives forked grew towards orange or back to red. Red = tea party, orange = megachurches/slow abandoning of "christian values" in exchange for consumerism. Liberals grew further into green but also reverted to blue (censorship, repressive ideology) and in some cases red ("punch a Nazi".) Trump was able to harness the unaddressed bitter anti-establishment victim complex of "pesecuted white christians" red for his base and then broaden it with his "orange" mass appeal and faux pandering to conservative blue/blue-orange ("religious"). This accelerated the blue revival on the left as a response to the Trump red revival. Things like "wokeism" "metoo" are very green-blue in response to the country's orange red. So this new "revival of censorship" in many ways is the birth of a new ideology attempting to quell the red uprising that occurred during Trump, trying to use blue authoritarianism to instill green values (because they've skipped orange's lesson of mutual self interest & tolerance.) Many of the Bush era authoritarian policies such as the Patriot act are being embraced by the left and utilized by tech conglomerates (literally using anti-terrorism databases set up for combatting ISIS are now being repurposed for political agendas broadening definition of "domestic terrorism".) Perhaps the biggest problem is the simple agreement on facts & objective reality. We all have our own "spins" on the truth to bolster our ideology.

Reframe the monster as part of you that you have to accept, confront and move beyond. It's damn near impossible to get rid of bad thoughts but you can replace them with good thoughts. Maybe you need to visualize a guardian, something more powerful than the monster.

@mememe In many ways racism has gotten worse. We have shifted the conversation away from togetherness towards division on both sides of the political spectrum. The vast majority of people are opposed to racism while still endorsing racist beliefs also on both sides. When I say we need to steer away from the divisve conversation of race I'm not saying ignore it, but rather than just bitch bitch bitch about horrible the world is why not steer people towards the solution which is recognizing and respecting cultures as equals as well as treating people as individuals? Divisive issues are being used as political weapons by the right and the left. It's not solution oriented and in many ways is making the problem worse. I found what Whoopi said was deeply offensive to me and my dead ancestors but I completely forgive Whoopi for saying an ignorant comment because she's not purporting to be some fucking expert just sharing her opinion. We have to respect that she has had her own issues and said something that was ignorant because she was not well informed. We need to have the conversation about race without immediately jumping down eachothers throats taking things out of context to paint them as satan.

It's more empowering to think of your mental health as mental fitness, something that you have direct influence of as opposed to some terminal diagnosis. Now I'm not diminishing any major disorders (I have one myself after all) but just like someone bound to a wheelchair you can still exercise and make the best out of your situation as opposed to giving up, getting fat and feeling powerless to change or improve. The more I've delved into developmental psychology, philosophy, meditation (thanks leo!) the more I've come to the conclusion that mental health is kind of a misleading term. There are so many things you can do to change the state of your consciousness, memory, creativity, focus etc. that are action oriented - like exercising for the body. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had a traumatic childhood which left me fairly "unhealthy" mentally. Smoking a bunch of pot didn't help longterm (although it did push the pain away enough to avoid suicide which was a real concern for years.) These diagnosis or stories we tell ourselves "I have anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder" can turn into learned helplessness and limiting beliefs. Obviously depression and anxiety are different from conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar (which don't "go away" as easily) but kind of like type 1 vs. type 2 diabetic you will always have type 1. but you can manage your symptoms to the point where it's not a factor as opposed to type 2 which you can actually cure yourself of through diet and exercise (see Jason Fungs The Obesity Code.)

I hope I didn't come across as judgmental of mental illness or try to diminish the severity of the struggle. It absolutely needs to be treated like an illness to a certain degree but just wanted to share my reframe. Without medication, therapy, effort it's not something you can just snap yourself out of with a Tony Robbins book (the same way you can't just snap yourself back to walking if you've been paralyzed.) My main point was that for me at least reframing it as something I can put effort in to improve was more empowering than some dreadful fate I'm doomed to. When I heard about the statistics of bipolar people killing themselves (25%) I worried for almost a decade that I was going to kill myself. Thank god I eventually snapped out of that bullshit and realized that it was my choice to do so and I could simply "remove the option" as Leo said in one of his videos. It really bothers me today that so many people seem like they want to brag about their anxiety, OCD, ADD for some sort of weird cultural capital. On one hand it's healthy to be open about it and maybe it takes away some of it's power. It just rubs me the wrong way considering how judgmental people are of severe mental illness (ie: the guy on the corner babbling to himself is "Crazy") but everyday things people struggle with like bouts of anxiety and depression must be treated with the utmost sensitivity. Mental health is a huge problem spiraling out of control (doubt the internet, social media is helping) and I'm glad that people are treating it more seriously but alot of it is cloaked with doom, gloom and despair perpetuating learned helplesness and victim mentality.

"acting dumb" ≠ being dumb. Acting dumb shows that you have a sense of humor about yourself and are playful. It disarms the "this guy's an egotistical douche trying to impress me" defense. The wise man can play the fool but the fool cannot play the wise man

100% As a Russian Jew myself I get annoyed when people say things like it was "just the holocaust", you guys are doing fine. There have been centuries of oppression (see https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/pogroms, and more.) Whoopi getting 2 weeks off her daytime TV show for saying such offensive things is hardly being cancelled. I accept her apology (although still find her comments quite ignorant and have lost a great deal of respect for her) and don't think that people should be punished for saying stupid things - just disregarded and corrected. People really have to embody the ideals of tolerance and loving one another. Nobody should accept such ridiculous statements but that doesn't make Whoopi a bad person... after all Sister Act was hilarious! The real question we should be asking is "why the hell are they talking about the holocaust on the view?" seems ridiculous we have such an endless obsession on division and racial politics all day every day.

Trying to control what other people believe may be a waste of time. I write a satirical conspiracy blog called https://paranoidechochamber.com and my goal is to make fun of conspiracy theories (hence the name... paranoid echo chamber a joke on anyone who shares it without seeing obvious satire) while trying to steer people in the right direction (my "cure" for reptilian mind control is to love your neighbor.) Anytime you answer a flat earther you are giving them energy and attention. People who want to believe in the illuminati, flat earth, reptilians are all just misinformed people and you are definitely going to just convince them further. I think that all of this vaccine misinformation"pushback" is doing themselves a total disservice. If you want to persuade people to believe you you can't start off with demonizing them. That's going to have the opposite of the intended affect. If people calmly went through "the claims" and explained them better, without saying "This is the law! you are evil!" then you'd probably have a better chance of convincing them. This country is so fucked.

Well a bit of a delay but for the past 35 days have not smoked any marijuana, have been meditating, finished a book I'd been reading for 5 years (IBM & The holocaust, not an easy read but eye openning), been exercising, working on my relationship (addressing my neediness as opposed to blaming her for being busy or seeming "inattentive" - she has a stressful job that takes a lot of her time), made the decision to sell my house, am buying another one and more. After a couple of months of inactivity I decided to reconnecti with my therapist and when I told him all that he complimented me saying "it sounds like you've found some very healthy patterns" which made me feel good. Today I do not "feel" good, it's gloomy, I'm tired and so I decided to eat some mushrooms which got me kind of high (small amount.) Yesterday I bought a camera to replace an old one that got stolen in a burglarly, one that I had spent a lot of time & energy chasing after (a GH5S with a sigma 16-35 if anyone is a video nerd) and although the money is going to get a little tight it felt good just pulling the trigger and getting it. I felt inadequate and sad after having my gear stolen looking for jobs that asked for higher end cameras I USED to have So moving forward I think I'm going to be working a little harder on my dysfunctional thought journal, writing about my past traumas and then recontextualizing them as an adult (what my CBT therapist calls "talking to little david") and staying off the weed. I might try some CBD and mushrooms here and there but want to commit to at least 1 full year without the whacky tobacky to prove to myself that I can do it. Slowly working up my exercise routine but I get hungry as a motherfucker and then real sore so might have to slow down and ramp up a little slower.

ENTRY NO. 1 - Seeing the prison for what it is and hatching my escape plan After years of watching, listening and reading as much as I can (thanks Leo!) I'm only now starting to understand the true purpose of life and my reason for being alive. Leo's mandate of "you must focus your life on maximum engagement" has resonated with me and it's clear now that my mental prison can no longer be tolerated. Life is too short and I must break free of negativity and self hate in my life. This self actualization journal will serve as my public accountability for my escape. I am 34 years old and have been imprisoned by negativity for almost 3 decades. I'm a freelance videographer, editor and motion graphics artist (baerstudios.com should you be interested) and since a young age I've struggled with beating myself up. By ignoring the pain it simply burrowed deeper and has stayed with me. By choosing to focus on the negative I've robbed myself of the ability to be positive, keeping me locked in the prison of self defeat. Optimism and "maximum engagement" are slowly coming back to me and it's time I hatch my escape plan once and for all. Depression and self abuse reared their ugly head early in childhood when my homelife started to degenerate. I distinctly remember in fourth grade beating myself up assuming something was wrong with me in a struggle to explain why things were so bad, not being mistreated. In order to survive I had to blame myself, the alternative of realizing that my home life wasn't a safe or happy place. In my early adolescence things took a dramatic turn for the worse. After years of abuse and neglect I began cutting myself, punching walls, couldn't interact socially and in retrospect a ton of trauma based pain. Around my 20th birthday things took a dramatic shift for the worse when I experienced my first manic episode and severe depression. I barely could make it off the couch and all hope withered away, leading to years of suicdal thoughts. Slowly over time things improved, and I saw my problems for what they are and saw the prison I was trapped in. Cleaning up my diet, focusing on exercise and listening to a lot of self help the puzzle pieces slowly started falling in place. Even through the struggles I've managed to slowly progress in life. At 25 I quit my first "good job" at CBS News HQ to pursue running my own business and have been at it for 9 years. At age 31 I bought a house with money I saved up thorughout my 20s, fixed it up, rented in out, raised the value of the house to nearly double what I paid for it. I recently just got a second mortgage and just bought another house where I plan to do the same formula. Last year I met a wonderful partner and have had my longest relationship. My life has a lot of promise and potential and I can feel the optimism floating into my being as I write about how far I've come. Despite my "wins" I know the negativity, self hate are still buried within me holding me back, but it's time to let go and break free. I know I have a long way left to go but with consistent effort, bravery and determination I will break free and achieve the happiness and financial freedom I know is possible. By deploying empathy and kindness on myself I'm slowly chipping away the walls that have trapped my joy and optimism. I'm determined to change my life, find my joy and optimism and set myself up for a happy life. I hope one day to look back at this period and be glad to have made the effort. I'm thankful for this forum, Leo's content and everyone who has helped me along the way. I hope to one day return the favor and help as many people as I can the same way others have helped me. Thank you for anyone taking the time to read this, please comment any observations or advice you may have. I am willing to do whatever it takes.

05: Avoiding pain prolongs suffering. Reflections on the past, regrets and moving forward. It’s easy to get discouraged when you try and fail. If weed has been your crutch for years or decades it’s going to hurt trying to stand without it. Depending on how much of your baggage you’ve been sweeping under the weed carpet it can be overwhelming. It might be discouraging that the pain seems to get worse for months and years after you’ve quit. I first started smoking weed 20 years ago high school around junior year. I was a loner with a bad family situation and some serious emotional problems. I’d punch walls, slice my arm open with a knife, act out, isolate myself watching TV & fucking around on the internet. I was good at school but really didn’t give a fuck… I used to crawl around on the floor so smoking weed “loosened” me up to be around others and gave me an excuse to hang out with people. 10 years ago was my first real attempt at quitting and I made it a few days. I realized everything I realized now, that running from it only made it worse. I had a really rough night, went out to New York and was stood up by an old coworker I had a crush on. I was fresh out of college out on my own in a place I couldn’t afford, desperately searching for a job and failing miserably. I ended up selling weed just so I could afford to eat, which took the pressure off getting a job. I eventually settled for a crappy job working in Camden, NJ at an e-commerce store doing customer service for replacement hardware. It was as boring and mind numbing as you’d expect. When I found weed it was an emotional crutch that seemed like a godsend. The crutch made it easier to walk through life taking away these bad feelings I’d felt since childhood when my family life collapsed. When I fell in love with smoking weed was to try and run and hide from my pain. I had a rough childhood, spent too much time alone, undiagnosed bipolar and was cutting myself. After a particularly bad fight with my dad I sliced my arm open so bad I severed the muscles in my arm and had to go to the emergency room. All of these issue just rattled around my head and I made no effort to challenge them, put in the hours and effort to address my problems. Using weed seemed like just the thing I needed, not realizing avoiding the pain only made the pain worse. I could hangout with other people and have fun instead of being tense and on edge. It made it easier to talk to women. I would miss out on actually fixing the problem by being too scared to sit with my pain, feel it It prevented me from falling on my face and got me out in the world walking around.

ENTRY 04: Replacing the negative with positive. It's clear that it's not enough to simply remove the negative without introducing positivity. I don't need permission from anyone to be positive, have goals or ambitions. There are no rules and I have every reason in the world to believe I have what it takes to succeed. Focusing that things are going to pay off in the end is something I've dismissed to avoid pain, but avoiding pain causes it's own pain. Preoccupation with what's wrong and wanting things to change overnight is a great way to stay stuck. Looking back on old journals and notebooks I can see why certain changes I wanted never stuck - because I never actually believed that it were possible. I got frustrated and when the change didn't happen overnight I just reassumed a negative mindset of defeat and gave up. It's clear to me that effort failing is not a bad thing and effort is nothing to be afraid of. I couldn't bare to suffer through the effort required and searched for instant gratification over longterm commitment. Effort > Perfection. I don't have to be positive or negative I simply have to believe that with time and effort change will come. No matter what happens in my life I can always expend effort to improve my situation - no matter how dire. I've noticed that over the past year my mindset has greatly improved and I'm much happier. I have a loving relationship, good career prospects, am happier and calmer all because I simply believe that things will get better. If anyone else is struggling with believing in themselves and overcoming negativity no matter how long you've suffered there's always the ability to change. We all have the power to change - our attitudes, our environments, our behaviors and accept the things we can't change. I'm only know starting to understand what loving myself looks like, and I'm so happy I finally have!

Best bang for buck is pull ups, push ups, squats (w/ or w/o weights), planks, jump rope (or jumping jacks.) Recommend going slow at first, throwing in a lot of stretching and drinking a lot of water and eating enough fat & protein. Try a few different youtube workouts.

Lion's mane (and other medicinal mushrooms) might be a good option for you. Fixing your diet (avoid processed foods, seed oils, too many carbs), upping your exercise (cardio especially), drinking enough water, getting enough sun are all good things to help boost energy and lower anxiety.

There is a big difference between chasing someone, showing interest and scaring someone with mismatched levels of desire and affection. Being confident and pursuing a woman is a lot different than falling in love before you even know how she feels about you. In my experience even if a girl is interested in you it's very easy to shoot yourself in the foot by coming on too strong too soon. Having feelings for someone is not a bad thing. Don't judge yourself, view it as a learning experience. You need to develop some emotional mastery, put your strong feelings desire and affection on the appropriate backburner and accept that whatever happens happens, not run into the situation with hearts in your eyes. Try and view the situation from the girl's perspective. When she thought you weren't interested you came across as confident, IE: this guy isn't attracted to me because maybe he has too much going on already. Maybe she wasn't looking for a relationship, maybe she wanted to "test the waters" and just have a casual hookup. When she got a hint of your feelings for her it seems like she wanted to put up some barriers before they escalated (which is actually kind to you - sparing further attachment and subsequent pain). I agree with Leo if you had more experience then your levels of neediness would be reduced but don't judge yourself, you gotta start somewhere! You shot your shot, you may have stumbled but you at least had some degree of success which you can feel proud of. In my experience projecting confidence (even if it's 'put on') and trying to convince yourself that if things don't work out you will be fine either way is a good way to manage your emotions, minimize feelings of hurt and get laid. Play it cool hot shot! Give her some space, act like you've got other things going on (and you should be pursuing other things!), don't beat yourself up and just try to be present (not overthinking things) not detached. You can totally fake confidence at first, even if you have to "act" at first it will eventually percolate into genuine confidence. You're on the actualized.org forum already so chances are you're already ahead of the game learning about emotional mastery and self improvement, be confident that one day you will be the lady killer you know you can be.