Asayake

I agree. Grounding yourself in the Here and Now(feel the negative feelings when they arise, be with them until they fade away) seems to be improving my mental health significantly(Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now helped me with this). It's easy to feel negative emotion and be tricked by thoughts that you will feel like shit for the rest of your life. Whatever you're feeling is temporary and the thought that one can't handle it anymore is an illusion that is easy to fall for, since you already handled the last moment you can handle suffering the next moment too. But of course, the suffering is not eternal, it's impossible. It's just that the thought that "what if this shit lasts for the next 25 years, I would rather die" that feeds the negative feelings with energy and sustains their visit.

Instead of doing things to reach some end goal you have in the future. Try to connect to the Now and enjoy life as it is in the moment even when you're doing pick up. Instead of viewing it as pickup with the goal to get a girl to sleep with you, view it as an opportunity to connect with another human you know nothing about, have fun and spread good energy. If it scares you, appreciate the fact that the fear makes you feel alive, it transforms you. Learn to appreciate the suffering. Be in the moment and don't overthink it, just let go of thoughts and connect to your feelings and your inner body, trust that you will know what to say even if you don't think about it. More important than what is said is your feelings, your vibe. A good pickup line is a bad pickup line if you really want to get away from the situation and do something else, be comfortable with where you are in the Now and try to take everything in. She will sense your calm control & positive energy and that is attractive. Sort of like how if you want to become really strong and build good muscle you can't be thinking about your gains in the future all the time when you're at the gym. You need to get to know the feeling of pushing yourself and how it feels in your body when you're doing the exercises. That needs to become something you love in itself for you to succeed in the gym. Otherwise working out will become dull real quick. You gotta fall in love with the process and not only with the thought of the result that will come from the process. Because otherwise you will not be able to enjoy sex either, if you're for example having sex only to last as long as possible and not for the sake of sex itself.

I saw some tweet from someone in azov troops with caption "flex one arm if you know where Gonzalo Lira is" with one of the azov troops flexing his right bicep and all the troops with big smiles on their faces. Don't know if that was fake or not but interesting nonetheless.

Because the beauty of it makes us let go of thoughts and reconnects us to our true self. The sound of the flowing river pulls your focus off thoughts and awareness of sound emerges. The wonderful smell of flowers connects us to our sense of smell and makes us remember to feel the breath as we breathe in to get to know the smell of that particular kind of flower. The light of the sun reveals the light within you. The colors of the sunset make us pause and observe in awe, the stillness, the peacefulness of it all makes us calm just like a distressed child seizes to cry in the hands of a calm mother. The brutality of nature when a predator chases down and kills its prey is brutal. But yet it is so shockingly pure and honest, REAL, that I can't do much but just observe and take it all in. It's just the fact that it is so real which is nothing short of a miracle and almost unbelievable. Nature reminds us of who we truly are, life itself and not some limiting identity created by thoughts.

I might just be confused but how can an individual exist if a group doesn't? An individual is just as much a social and mental construction as a group. So how can it be that an individual can awaken but not a group? I guess in that sense awakening does not really exist either since it is also a construction, a concept. Then there is just what is and it's not possible to capture it with words because it is infinite and that's what the words God/Consciousness/Universe are pointing to? And then in a relative sense an individual can awaken to this fact by realizing that individuals, groups, ego, basketball etc. don't actually exist because it's just constructions and that the "I" that the individual is referring to is actually God. Then I don't understand why a group can not awaken in a relative sense. If every individual in a group awakens, then relatively speaking should we not be able to say that is a group awakening? Even if in an absolute sense God is all there is for all eternity. Then there is the question of how likely it is that a large group of individuals will awaken. That's what I assume you and Leo mean is not going to happen. But I say how can you be so sure this is the case? When we were still monkeys and had not yet evolved into homo sapiens sapiens, being able to do many of the things we do today must have seemed impossible or like an unachievable utopia. Could it not be the case that the same is going on here? Sure, a collective awakening in the future seems like a fantasy today. But isn't anything possible in an infinite universe? This made me think of something I read by Eckhart Tolle, he says that a new heaven and a new earth are arising within you at this moment.

As in there is only the self awakening to itself? That makes sense. But how can democracy exist then? Because Leo posted in the same post that we're lucky to keep democracy alive. How can there be democracy if there are no groups?

For me both A New Earth and The Power of Now were very helpful books. Especially The power of Now. I feel like they're misrepresenting what Eckhart Tolle is trying to say to some extent. I don't know if calling his teachings "a lot of self avoidance masked as enlightenment" is fair. Tolle simply suggests that you let go of your beliefs(thoughts) about who you are by connecting to who you actually are in this moment(by connecting to your feelings and inner energy/body and experiencing it as it is without letting your thoughts warp what you experience into something it is actually not. Tolle encourages you to observe and accept negative feelings, to just feel them for what they are and be with them and let them express themselves to you. Isn't that literally what loving all parts of yourself is, just like what their advice is? Their advice makes sense to me on one hand but on the other hand it is confusing to me because it seems like they're confusing the ego with the self at times, atleast Jeff Brown. Richard Schwartz says Tolle does a good job at describing the self which is interesting because Tolles understanding of what the self is seems very different from Jeff Browns. Jeff Brown says that when he tried detaching from his story(his thoughts about his past and who he is) he felt uncomfortable and "like i was dishonoring this beautiful self that was carrying me through life". But that is confusing to me. Because the story of who he is is not his real self from my understanding of self, that is the ego. He is not what he thinks he is. To me it sounds like maybe he let go of the story which connected him to his feelings in the present and he was not used to letting his feelings be as they are without explaining them away. So instead of feeling uncomfortable feelings and not trying to explain them away his mind created a new story about how his negative feelings were there because he is dishonoring his beautiful self by letting go of his past. But he has no proof that is the case, it seems to me to be just another delusion of thought. That's just another story, a belief about why his feelings are in a certain way that he does not like that acts as a replacement for his past that he let go of. A new ego. I don't think Eckhart Tolle is particularly denigrating towards the ego either. I remember he says in A New Earth that you should not demonize the ego, just rise above it, become aware of it and realize it is not who you truly are but simply thoughts and then you're acting on those thoughts because you believe them to be true. I don't remember exactly how he phrased it but that was the gist I got from A New Earth.

Maybe there are other technologies you can develop to help paralyzed people. Or to help people suffering from some other illnesses at that. What is the reason that your life purpose is this specific? Why did you want to help paralyzed people walk specifically? Use that reason as a seed to find other things worth pursuing.

How do you know this is true? Let go of your past, you are reborn every single moment. You don't need spend your time now to think about the bad things that happened in the past. You are here and now, you're alive. Feel your inner body, feel your breath! Eckhart Tolle talks about for example how people who are depressed often have suffered in their childhood in various ways(bad parenting, emotional neglect, lack of friends, abusive boyfriends) and how they get stuck in that story. Yes, all of those things are unfortunate and I'm sorry you had to go through that. But isn't it that thinking about those things now simply justify how you're feeling and makes you believe that you're supposed to be unhappy, because you got a problematic past that has caused you emotional damage? But how do you actually know that is true, it is just a belief(thoughts), isn't it, hello ? If you spend the now thinking about the bad things in the past you miss the goodness you have NOW. The Now is what will free you from your past. "When you let go of who you are you become who you might be" - Rumi

How can you be so sure?

I think this is a good way of looking at it. You should not have to fight other males to keep them away from your girl. You should be able to trust your girl and if she does something that crosses the line that's a good indication you should try to just let her go and pursue a girl that actually wants you. As far as the video goes, her boyfriend comes off a bit pathetic by the way he acted. It's not a huge deal but the vibe was obviously fun and relaxed and he did not match the vibe of the party at all. It's pretty obvious his girlfriend is more comfortable in handling social situations than he is.

Mapo Tofu or Shui Zhu tofu are two dishes that I absolutely loved when I was vegan and ate a lot of tofu. If you like Szechuan pepper and spicy food you would likely love it. The tofu really absorbs the flavor well in those oily and spicy dishes. The only problem is that it's not the easiest food to cook yourself, takes some ingredients that you need to look for in Chinese stores or online to make the broth. But if you want to treat yourself to some good food sometime you should look up a recipe for one of those dishes online and go ahead and make it. Alternatively you can order it from a good Chinese restaurant but that won't really help you much if you're looing for a recipe lol.

Let me say this, I have not read Atomic Habbits. But I think what works well is going to differ from person to person. For example some books on Leos booklist that he rated as a must read didn't resonate with me all that much/help me much. While some books he rated as good but not a must read resonated with me a lot more and were must reads for myself. The only way you're truly going to know if Atomic Habits works for you is to read the book and test if it works for yourself.

As far as the meat thing goes it really is true from my own personal experience as well. I used to weigh 60 kilos at185 cm tall as a vegan(was vegan for 4.5 years, started eating animal products again last spring. I was somewhere between retired marathon runner and skinny fat nerd in terms of physique. I was lethargic, could not recover from workouts. Literally became sick the next day if I went for some reverse pullups. Training just made me very tired instead of giving me energy. Today I weigh 80 kilos, I mostly eat a lot of chicken, broccoli, salmon, eggs, bananas, oranges, potatoes, rice, beef, bell peppers. Occasionally I do Whey protein shakes as well. It really is night and day for me, I am strongest I've ever been and training now gives me more energy instead of making me feel energy deprived. I think protein quality & fats are the two most important things animal products have that vegan food lacks. 20 grams of protein is not the same from lentils as from chicken, that's for sure. You have to eat a lot more volume of food as a vegan also. Not only do you need to do that to get good amount of protein and all amino acids but also because most healthy vegan foods are not calorie dense. Unless you're eating tons of avocados and nuts I found it hard to maintain weight as a vegan. For me high carb diets(which my vegan eating style was) is great for short term energy but the body will decay in the long run because you get a lot of energy to do stuff but not enough material(quality protein, fats, vitamin A) to sustain the body properly. Also you get no creatine as a vegan since it is in animal products only which sucks because creatine improves cognitive function and the ability to do more reps in the gym.

Are you a vegan? This sounds very similar to me when I used to be a vegan, working out basically gave me the flu so I only got more broken down by working out. I think it was because of a mineral deficiency, vitamin a deficiency, and undereating calorie-wise are the things that come to mind. What's your bodyweight & height? Are you muscular/skinny/fat? Next time you try training, don't go as hard and try to eat something before and a lot afterwards. See if that makes any difference.

I've vaped in periods of my life for the past years, with that being said I always used a dry herb vaporizer since I'm more of a weed type of person than nicotine, so it's not exactly the same thing. But I think if you get the safest vape liquid you can find it's a lot less harmful than cigarettes. Possibly even less harmful than a dry herb vaporizer. But cheap vape liquids made in china and other places where they use cheap ingredients can potentially make it more harmful. So make sure you got your hands on good quality vape liquid if you can. For a period I used to smoke a lot of joints, now that actually seem to have a slight negative effect on my cardio training. With the dry herb vape it doesn't seem to cause the same issues. Although it can still make me cough and cause throat irritation sometimes so I assume even vaping is not completely safe. Make sure to clean your equipment occasionally so that it doesn't collect a lot of gunk over time, that would make the vapor more harsh and unhealthy I think. Edit: Forgot to say, don't expect the kick to be exactly the same in the beginning. Vaping definitely has a bit of a more heady and functional high and also taking hits from a vape has a different technique than smoking a cigarette. But you'll grow to enjoy it as much as smoking cigarettes over time.

Have you tried Lions Mane mushroom dual extract?

I don't think Putin invading is a good thing. But I think it's not always the attacker that's guaranteed to be sole at fault when the big countries are "playing". The attacker always looks worse, so why not provoke the enemy to attack if you're more powerful anyway I don't want to come off like an Alex Jones type of person. But think of this atleast a slightly possible narrative, I am just speculating not sure this is true: It seems to me that Russia is a great competitor to the US in many markets and a conflict whereby the US and Europe can sanction and destabilize Russia through an Ukraine proxy war seems like a power gain for the US and Europe as a whole, sacrificing Ukraine's citizens and soldiers to gain power over Russia. Also invading another country looks bad, so an invasion is not really good for Russia. It is plenty good for the US and NATO. This scares other countries into joining NATO. Parties in Sweden where I live are already talking about joining NATO because of this situation. Russia is killing civilians to try to force a surrender from the Ukrainian president. Just like the US did in Vietnam with napalm strikes Russia now does with more advanced technology. In the Vietnam war Russia and China were sending supplies and weaponry to North Vietnam to defend itself against an US invasion. The Americans thought it would be easy to invade(or so it is said, maybe they knew what would happen but were pressured/scared into doing it anyway perhaps to prevent another World War), but since the Vietnamese had China and Russia holding their back with supplies and weapons it made it impossible to take over quickly without destroying the entire country and so the war lasted much longer than expected. And in the end the US had to pull out and look like villains in the south/north Vietnam conflict. They were outplayed by Russia and China in that conflict. They probably had their reasons for starting it though. Russia was pushing their territory onto tactically strong grounds and that was a security risk for the US. This Ukraine situation could be similar. NATO pushing their territory onto the frontier of Russia pretty much. Russia pressured to invade and will be made to look evil. But because Ukraine has US and Europe support Russia will lose in Ukraine for sure. So why would they want to invade? That tells me they must have been pressured or scared into invading somehow or they are just downright stupid, making the same mistake as the US have done before for no reason. That's just a theory. I'm 99.99999% not spot on here. But maybe I hit some partial truth in there somewhere. That would be enough for this conflict to not be as one sided as people are making it seem in the western mass media and on forums. It's not as simple for me as is Putin killing civilians, it's would the alternative that plays out if he did not do it be worse? He certainly thinks so. A successful example of killing civilians was the atom bombs. They killed a lot of innocent people but they ended up forcing an end to a war that likely cost many more lives. If I was a leader I would not want to kill. But what do you do if your opponents are willing to kill you and you don't go to the same lengths? How do I know which of the leaders is acting out of self defense, how do I know it's as simple as Russia is simply invading Ukraine and not Russia is trying to defend themselves from NATO? To me it seems the Russians think they are defending themselves and the opposite side thinks they are attacking. Just like the US thought they were defending themselves in the Vietnam war but the Russians and Chinese thought they were the attackers in the conflict. We need to understand that Russia likely felt threatened here and it was probably not without any reason. Regarding the vegan questions. I'll just give you my vegan story. Before I went vegan I any a pretty standard western diet. A lot of pasta, meat, fish, eggs and so on. During my vegan years I was eating poorly for about 10% of the time(pasta & falafel and not much else) and proper whole foods plant based 90% of the time. A lot of legumes, indian food with spices and vegetables and chickpeas. And bean chillis with rice and lentil tacos with rice and salsa. Taste wise I really enjoyed my vegan years to be honest. I took D3 supplement based from algae, B12 supplament(50% methylcobalamine and 50% cyanocobalamine) and that was it as far as vitamins go. The first 2 years went fine. But I did drop a lot of weight every year throughout those years. Even months when I was eating A LOT of pasta and rice to get my calories up, it would just give me so much energy that I hard a hard time maintainig fats. I found getting healthy fats in on a vegan diet a challenge sometimes and as a result my testosterone levels likely suffered. I don't know if I will be able to eat another spoon of peanut butter in my life lol. The last year I ran a lot and trained a couple of times per week. I recovered so slowly that I thought I might have a muscle disease. I was turning as skinny as a marathon runner, weighing in at 60 kilos, 185 cm tall. A couple of times after trying to progress my workouts I would get flu symptoms and my system was protesting forcefully. I ended up bed ridden feeling like crap for a while. I was having less and less energy mentally and finally I had to stop working out and running because it just gave me anxiety, gave me illnesses and heartburn and I couldn't push through it. Also because so few healthy vegan foods contain a lot of calories I had to eat many times per day or else I would have to eat A LOT in one sitting, but that would give me terrible heart burn and I would be up all night not being able to sleep multiple times per week because I was trying to eat more calories from nut butters and pasta dishes. Also for a while I ate chickpeas as my main protein source, not realizing that chickpeas were not at all as high protein as I thought they were. Beans are far superior to chickpeas protein-wise even though chickpeas taste awesome. Also I started becoming more sensitive to tomatoes because I was eating tomato sauce based dishes so much. (Daal, Lentil bolognese, Lentil taco, Bean chilli, Tomato Chickpea Curry). Tomatoes ended up starting to give me heartburn so I had to cut out most of my favorite dishes which sucked pretty hard. Anyways the summer 2020 was when I started experiencing vision problems. My ability to see clearly at long distances got worse and worse. I got more sensitive to sunlight. At first I thought I had HPPD because I would be seeing bubble like patters in the air. I got a bit scared but it turned out that I just had floaters. I researched it a lot and realized the things causing floaters is likely to be high carb, which most vegan diets are, and vitamin A deficiency, which I likely had. Admittedly I did not often eat foods containing vitamin A. Things containing vitamin A are: Carrots, Sweet potatoes, Dried apricots, Kale, Cantaloupe, Butternut squash, Spinach, Red peppers. Not much other vegan foods contain vitamin A. Now I did not realize this. I occasionally ate carrots and spinach and red peppers. But that's about it from that list and not in great quantities. Nothing got better though even though I added more of these foods into my diet. I researched it a bit and it seems like some people are not as good at absorbing vitamin A from plant sources as from animal sources. What I also found was that there are actually quite a lot of nutrients that are tricky to get as a vegan that I wasn't aware of. Creatine for example is not contained in any vegan sources apart from supplement form and it helps cognitive function. I did not supplement that. B12 needs to be taken as a supplement, but it can be problematic because it needs to be taken in high doses to be effective. I did supplement B12 but it can also be a problem to supplement B12 because the vitamin can act as food for certain bacteria or fungi in the intestines which will as a result overgrow and cause gastrointestinal issues. This combined with my declining mental energy, weak workout recovery, low bodyweight, worsening intrusive thoughts and just life overall seeming very problematic made me decide to try break my 4.5 year vegan streak to see. I started taking Cod Liver Oil and eating vegetables, meat and some carbs. Chicken, Broccoli, Rice, Regular Tacos, Salmon pasta with spinach. Basically "normal food". And after a couple of months my vision improved, floaters gone, mental clarity improved, energy improved. Depression milder. Now it's been roughly 1 year and I weigh 80 kilos compared to my 60-65 kilos I weighed as a vegan. My recovery after working out is a lot better. It just feels right in my body, eating meat or fish along with my meals seem to make me more satiated than I got as a vegan and give me more energy throughout the day. I still eat vegan meals about once a week. Mostly because I miss some of the dishes I used to eat. That's pretty much my vegan story if you were interested.

I think it's no coincidence that most people who deem Russia & Putin to the the problem seem to be Westerners and most people who deem NATO & The US as the problem seem to be from Russia and eastern Europe. Hmm.. where have I seen this before? Seems to me both sides are being fed propaganda by their regimes. In my country(Sweden) sending weapons to an armed conflict is suddenly celebrated. Just a year ago any involvement in military conflict would be viewed upon as a huge no no. It is sad to see. I have sympathy for you people on here who are trying to defend the Russian side of the conflict because the US & NATO side sure seems to be convincing more people on here. I think politically correctness is one of the biggest weaknesses of this forum that I have witnessed from my time being here. I was very politically correct and naïve a few years ago. I went vegan for 4 and half years because only the pros were being shown to me through western anti global warming narrative. It almost ruined my health, had low energy, was depressed, poor workout recovery(working out basically made me sick), had blurry vision and floaters. I don't blindly trust what western science and media tells me anymore. If something sounds too good to be true it usually is.

I think according to people who have had God realization you're already manifesting everything you want but you just don't realize it yet. If you were aware that you're manifesting everything there would be little excitement to life, it would become boring quite quickly. The "problem" is that you're mistaking yourself to be something you're not.

I have a controversial view on this matter. I think a person can be an alcoholic and still live life to its full potential. It's just because science proves how bad alcoholism is for your body right now, the many cases in which it doesn't work out and the fact that's it's socially not acceptable to be an alcoholic that it is considered so bad. Imo it's fashionable right now to view drug addicts as people who failed at life. So that sober people can feel they're doing good just because they're being a "good boy". But I don't think that's true from the perspective of a drug addict(I've been addicted to weed periods of my life myself but the only time it actually became a problem was when I really really smoked A LOT 24/7 for months on end and even then it was not really that big of a problem for me personally, because I did not really treat it as a problem, I just treated it as a part of life that I choose. If anything it deepened my interest in spirituality, music, my will to better my relationships, and more positive effects. Sure, it also cause minor periods of depression. But arguably you could go through that even if you were 100% sober and meditated everyday. At the time I thought it was a bit problematic but in hindsight I can see that it was needed for my development. Now of course an addict that really wants to quit but can't quit is a different story, that person is beating himself up mentally and being hard on himself, and is not enjoying the drug they're doing anymore. Even though Alan Watts was an alcoholic it does not mean he was not aware of it and choose to do it anyways. I'm pretty sure he was self conscious enough to realize that he had an "alcohol problem" and just realized that for him personally quitting was not worth it because he enjoyed drinking too much. If he is happy and thriving and having great success, what's so bad about having what others would consider a problem. John Lennon had plenty "drug problems" both with lighter drugs and even heavier drugs like heroin but did more for music than most sober people that ever existed. And he also seemed to live a very rich life, enjoying himself and doing things his way, not caring if he's labeled a junkie or hippie.

Have you tried supplementing with Cod Liver Oil? Has a high vitamin A content. It helped me reduce the severity of an eczema on my forearm by a lot. After a few weeks it was reduced by like 80%. Also helped me get rid of floaters in my vision.

Sound design and Music production in the video game industry.

John Coltrane, Franz Schubert, Eckhart Tolle

I do agree with your point. Practically it doesn't really seem to matter that it's just a construct. I prefer watching biological women compete with eachother and biological men with eachother because the competition feels more real. Even if it all still comes down to being a genetic lottery in the end. As many other things it's an illusion but it's more enjoyable to not constantly point that out.