Nilsi

That's what your boss wants you to believe. His enterprise succeeding long-term mustn't be coupled to your personal success at all. Most every new sales person is cold calling their customers anyways - the job doesn't magically come pre packaged with a loyal customer base. That means there is a virtually infinite pool of new prospects. Whether they stick around and are ultimately satisfied with the deal or not doesn't mean jack shit once the contract is signed and the commission is payed out. You're guaranteed to be better off talking 10 people into a deal they don't really want to make than getting 1 loyal customer to stick around - unless you're really invested in the enterprise long term (which is why businesses like to shove stock options down their employees throats).

I call bs. Do you seriously believe there will come a point in your life at which you are "fully integrated?" When you're fully awake, there will only be light - but once that experience fades, there will be shadow again -- obviously. That's the mistake.

What makes you say that?

It's not really supposed to be about that though. This forum is clearly positioned as a place to talk with like minded people about your spiritual journey and things related to that. Of course making money is part of that, but so is everything else about human existence. There are innumerable "mastermind groups" for productivity, business, finance and such things out there. If you want to develop business skills together with your friends from this forum, you will have to persuade them into it somehow - dry reason won't get you all that far. Make a few millies and post some pictures of your hot girlfriend and your Bugatti and maybe people will be motivated to take that aspect of life serious themselves.

That's unfortunately not true. As a sales guy you have the same perverse incentives as the politician serving a limited term. It's way more advantageous for you to make as much money in as little time as possible, burn all bridges and move on to the next job, than it is for you to build long term relationships for an enterprise that isn't directly coupled to your self-interest.

It's not about being an asshole and treating others poorly - it's about seeing through these relative notions. I'm not telling you anything new, when I say that the integration of shadow material is an important part of becoming more conscious - and the negligence of this will certainly bottleneck your development at some point. Regardless of what this person's behavior says about their level of consciousness -- what does your combative and morally righteous stance towards such behavior say about your level of consciousness?

Or you're too biased and self-deceived to see through the facade. That attitude certainly skyrockets your odds of further deceiving yourself. I obviously don't want to white wash harassment and abuse, but your proposal is dangerous in it's own way.

Sales is always manipulative and so is every form of communication. Unless you want to postulate that communication can be an end in itself (which I don't buy - and certainly not in a business context), it is always geared toward some end - and thus effective communication means achieving that end. There are levels to manipulation of course - something as banal as speaking loud and clear enough to be understood is certainly not the same level of manipulation as some sophisticated Machiavellian trickery. The problem is that the whole incentive structure in sales is so brutally geared toward Machiavellianism. Sooner or later you will inevitably drop your "ethical standards" and just go full Wolf of Wall Street. As long as you sell something that's genuinely beneficial for your customer and you're just "helping him make a choice," you shouldn't be too worried about being immoral. There are certainly much "worse" things one could do.

I don't know how people call this guy "intellectually bankrupt" with a straight face. This presentation on Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky and the "Death of God" is absolutely pristine and elegantly lays out one of the hardest problems in contemporary thought.

If they gonna let him die in jail he will be mythologized like crazy - let's hope he makes it through though.

Aurelius' Meditations is all the Stoicism you could ever need - he and Epictetus were the only real Stoics that ever existed (maybe throw Schmachtenberger in there, if you want - but he's much more than a Stoic and barely mentions that aspect). Don't listen to some spineless modernist nerds talk about the philosophy - what could they possibly know about being a Stoic? -- it's an insult really.

Jordan Peterson should have already proven you otherwise years ago.

Those are just fantasies. The coin hasn't dropped yet, but I don't blame you - took me quite some time to start fathoming how twisted moral conventions really are; a rather uncanny Realisation, I can tell you.

Exactly! so what makes you so sure then, that what they are saying is valid, given that there is no rational argument for it whatsoever? Now we're back to religion and appeals to some supposed transcendent values...

You don't even have the balls to go out there and really put your hypothesis to test - you're just repeating some nonsense that society has indoctrinated you with.

Leo is the only spiritual "teacher" I'm aware of that has some serious brains, is open-minded and is willing to question his conclusions relentlessly. That's why he has such a holistic and deep understanding of reality, whereas people like Frank Yang are like the college professor types that spend all their careers investigating one petty corner of reality that they end up knowing extremely well - while completely missing the forest for the trees. If you investigate that same corner of reality, of course your experience will match his. Stop embarassing yourself.

Not congruent with my experience. It's as easy to justify my self-interest as noble and good, as it is to justify subordinating my interest to some collective ideal. And life gets way better the more you can just look the other way when you externalize harm. Never did I ever feel my connection to reality and my awareness of myself suffer from doing something society calls "immoral." How's that for a red pill?

Did you even listen to the damn talk? I've actually studied Krishnamurti quite extensively - I even had a picture of him on my wall at one point-, but that's hardly a viable philosophy to build your life on. If I have an overabundance of anything, it certainly is consciousness and connectedness to reality, so I'm good on that front.

That's fair and I'll take it, but I'm absolutely serious here. I'm not trying to silence him or anything - quite the contrary: I would be super interested to hear him talk about what's going on in India, but I don't care for his analysis of Western society at all. If I saw an ISTP suffering away in a library, I'd tell him that it's ok to suck at reading, instead of asking him to join my book club.

I'm not desputing that. One more reason to encourage diverse perspectives and not have this become some homogenous soup.

I'm far more interested in having him study his own tradition and culture and tell us about it, instead of trying to be something he will never be - a Westerner.

Don't be so difficult. If I'm a psychologist and exclusively concern myself with physics, because my roommates are physicists, I'm clearly lost and need someone to point me to what's actually relevant. That's like the old story of the fox trying to be like the lion.

You're a westerner talking about western society. It would be inappropriate for us to discuss Indian or Chinese or Russian politics, given the stark cultural differences and our lack of historic context and lived experience - don't you think?

As far as age goes: obviously if you want something long-term, you will have to accept the fact that she's getting older lol. As far as domination goes: you're just strawmanning me at this point - you can be generally dominant and assertive without being some oppressive chauvinist pig.

I can live with the idea that it's preference, but 18-20 is how I like mine and that's perfectly legal, so deal with it. I don't want her to be experienced and I don't need her to make sex more fun - I'd rather have a sweet youthful girl that looks up to me and is still genuinely excited and curious about dating and sex.