eos_nyxia

I was 14 the last time I truly, wholeheartedly felt this way. I was really angry too. I saw very clearly, for the first time, without being able to excuse it by exercising plausible deniability, how full of shit adults were in so many ways. The ways in which people were lying to themselves, but then also imposing their worldview onto me as truth. Including many "smart", accomplished, respected adults. Unfortunately for us, the only person who dines on our own contempt is usually ourselves and sometimes those who were predisposed to think that way anyway. That is both a circle jerk and an echo chamber -- each thing reinforces the other. It's in the same category as anger which calcifies into bitterness; it poisons you first and foremost. Best not to make that into habit, and then to make that habit into a whole ass institution. This is how it gets even harder, more inconvenient, and maybe it feels even impossible to leave as a result. Like you are leaving everything, because you are losing an attached social identity -- a karma. Since then, I have held the attitude that a cynical attitude is a dime a dozen because so often it's just easy and convenient to be cynical. It requires no special effort or grace and it helps no one in the long run. So its not just that it is "wrong" or "lesser" to be angry (which is just more moralization), but rather that it serves no real constructive value unless you thing is that you also like to play in the pig pen of negative emotions (actually no personal judgement here, it is what it is). If part of you wants to be cynical as a predisposition, it is easy enough to measure the world by your own standards and values (which may in fact be something that is worth being a more universal human value, but that is besides the point here) and then create an inventory by which other people are failing to measure up. How could it be any other way when you're the person making the ruler and doing the measuring? Consider the ways in which this could be done to you (you measured by other people's standards and then failing to measure up) and the ways in the ways in which maybe, just maybe, there might also be some truth to this too. Sometimes people need to vent (which I get), but it's worth considering what made you feel like you needed to release steam in the first place. And by that, I don't mean consider what other people did wrong in order to deserve judgement, I mean ask what it is within yourself that causes you want to react in that way. What are you trying to protect yourself from or exorcise out of your system, for example, beyond the obvious? (E.g. I don't want to be like these people and I am not like these people.) What are you rejecting in them that may also exist in yourself in some form already that you might have missed? Or alternatively, what if your contempt is a barrier to really understanding people properly, if that is something that you're interested in? You don't have to endorse their behaviour, their intentions, and the way they live, and accept what they accept, but you also don't have to have contempt either. It's in your hands.

How are guys still using this phrase in this way, unironically, in 2026?

I mostly do just this, but I'm also a pretty fast read and treat it casually. If it's not interesting, instructive, purposeful, or at least amusing, you don't have to bother... you know? I myself have the habit of writing really long, thorough comments not knowing who is even bothering to read them at all, let alone knowing who has the attention span and/or inclination to understand whatever it is I'm putting into words. Posting on any kind of social media has always felt a bit like shooting a canon into a void and then seeing if anything happens. Also agree with everything @LastThursday said, especially about the topics I ignore too lol.

I've never had a dog before, just a cat and rabbits. Some cats are really clingy. This doesn't necessarily always mean cuddly, but rather than they don't like to be alone and won't leave you alone! Just something to keep in mind if you're getting a cat and expect a super low maintenance animal. I'm not sure how uncommon it is, but it's really not unheard of. I think it depends heavily on the breed as well. My cat was like this, but less cuddly: He absolutely hated being alone, and if my dad was out of the house, he would yowl by the door for hours until he came back. I don't think he could even sleep properly if my dad wasn't there lol. He hated being left alone overnight as well. (Rabbits aren't even low maintenance animals either, up until pretty recently people tended to neglect them physically and in other ways because they weren't that well understood. The "starter pet" phenomenon should really just go away already.)

You can have all the standards and expectations you want. But if you don't like it and they're not interested? Leave. Find someone else more compatible. This is perhaps a bit different if you are in a very long term relationship or a marriage though. But how many people here are? If someone wants to change and they truly agree with your standards and expectations, that's one thing. Coercing someone who actually isn't interested is a very different thing. Also, someone can technically agree your demands and still feel coerced. This is just asking for bad blood.

Me too. Though lately I've been watching more of his videos on Hermeticism which I view as occult-adjacent itself, but the subject is also important if you want to understand how modern science came about. I've also have been watching his videos on Gnosticism. Before that I was mostly watching his many videos on Jewish mysticism and occultism, though honestly I don't find it as interesting. (He has a ton of content about it though! I think it might be his main sub-specialization (or one of them).)

I interpreted your word choice quite literally. Perhaps phrase it differently if you meant something else and other people don't get your specific usage of it.

Boundaries are for your behaviour and how you will react to things (for example, if you find something intolerable, you leave), not for attempting to control others.

Nice! Any particular sub-topics of interest for you?

@Leo Gura Not sure if this is up your alley (or anyone else's), but Dr. Justin Sledge's channel covers Western mysticism/ occultism in a scholarly way. Some topics are more general and some are very niche with difficult to track down information (like even if you scoured a few decently-sized university libraries, you would still have your work cut out for you). I really wish that this type of information was more easily available when I was younger, esoteric circles tend to be like the New Age when it comes to interpreting history lol. https://www.youtube.com/@TheEsotericaChannel/

Nice! That's a very practical way to use your imagination. In spirit, it reminds me of that technique (I forgot what it's called) to overcome the fear of public speaking, where you imagine the audience members looking or acting really goofy, like wearing a clown suit or something.

Everything is more expensive here, especially in the last 5-10 years. Buying things bulk/ wholesale helps a lot; here in North America we have Costco:

Yea, those are usually expensive here too. Greenhouse produce is cheaper and usually available year round, but it tends to not be my favourite though. It's on the flavourless and watery side. Berries I usually buy frozen (cheaper and usually frozen at their peak ripeness and freshness) unless they're in season, and I try to pick it fresh here and there if I can.

I've worked a lot of my reactive anger as well, but the 14 year old in me wants to tell him that HE is not sentient and then to shove him in the dryer, see how he likes it, lol. A good example of why I prefer being around animals over a great many number of people. Funny how this often only goes one way, like they're not being judgemental.

Oof. I really feel for all of you who have to deal with family members like this; my immediate family are all too educated and urbane for this particular flavour of BS. The worst I've had to hear about in my family is my Catholic paternal grandfather ranting about homeless and gay people, but my dad suspects it was due to dementia in the last couple of years before his death. Risk-reward analysis -- is it really worth the time and energy spent? Do you have any realistic chance of shifting or at least softening their views? Do you want this, or do you simply want to be heard for once? I tend to be optimistic that in general this is technically possible. But in reality, I am a pessimist too when it comes to my own family (separate issues) and I prefer to conserve my time and energy for other purposes. My experience has often been that if you into a situation and approach it and other people with lack or wanting something specific from them, that lack tends to be reflected right back at you, and that retriggers the wound, whether it is still very much an active wound or even just the lingering muscle memory of how it made you feel to grow up and be around such people. It's important to go into these situations with your eyes open and your expectations and attachment to outcome tempered, I think.

Is produce very expensive in general where you live? It can be here too, especially if it is higher quality. My favourite thing about homegrown produce is how much fresher and more vivid the flavours are. Plus getting enough of certain herbs (like enough basil to make pesto) is ridiculously expensive.

How dogmatic and rigid most approaches to strength training are. One size fits all approaches when it comes to increasing strength and athleticism. The domination of the hyper-quantitative mode (spreadsheets, data, tracking, etc.) as the only legitimate means to increase strength. It's just one approach that works better for some personalities and some goals better than others. Lifting culture in general. I guess while we're at it, traditional martial arts is by definition as well, for better and for worse.

Recently, I've gotten a bunch of fresh tomatoes and herbs from my mom's garden, which I've been helping to care for. (Spearmint, basil, thyme, rosemary, sage, etc.) This year sucked for growing as is wasn't the sunniest year, so the tomatoes especially are coming in very late. I'm trying to figure out what to do with it all. I made pesto with the fresh basil and used hemp hearts/ walnuts instead of pine nuts, because pine nuts are over 10 CAD for 1/2 a cup, and they're good but not THAT good. Also made a giant batch of tomato sauce with the fresh tomatoes. Lately I've been eating a lot of lentil pasta with it.

I watched that whole video and all I could think about was that those boys deserved a better room, even if they were going to share because there was no more space. How sad.

@Emerald Tim Curry was so hot in drag lol. RIP. My personal soft spot is for the other father of glam rock, Marc Bolan. He had this wonderfully rare fae-like charm which is more magnetic in motion than in pictures (IMO). He was also very much considered a sex symbol in the early 70s. Plus I love this album to death, so that helps. He rocked the mod look before that:

I've never gotten a chance to develop a real relationship with alcohol one way or another because I'm alcohol intolerant. I turn red like a beet if I drink too much too quickly (which is very little) and get full body hives, and depending on what kind of alcohol it is, I'm likely to suddenly and violently throw up before I get to experience almost all of the "fun stuff". (Beer is a lot easier to tolerate than either wine or liquors.) My Chinese mom is the same; apparently 30-50% of East Asians have the same condition. I'm only half though, so I must have gotten it from her... On the plus side, it feels pretty much impossible to become alcoholic one way or another because the condition is like negative Pavlovian conditioning. Anyway, I guess I just have to use my imagination?

In any case, I tend to follow a general guideline: 9 parts working on refining myself as a personality (which is super boring and non-controversial), and 1 part working on anything that would be considered externalization. That includes "asking"/"demanding" anything at all.

If you're a materialist, why are you even here in this section? The sun doesn't require your belief, and neither do I. Nor does manifestation. But you'll stay wherever you are, being whatever you are though. No loss if it's not real, right? Like you said, your belief in the sun serves no specific practical function except as a thing that exists within your psyche. You just believe it because you believe and/or know it to be unfalsifiably true. A belief in manifestation, according to a more modern magick ethos (pre-Youtube and Tik Tok manifestation gurus, and also before "The Secret" ever got famous), potentially serves the function of getting things done. It's not even intended as a truth function necessarily. You believe just to believe, but that is technically optional too. People get very attached to these type of beliefs usually to make themselves feel more secure, to make the world feel more "solid", and to make themselves feel more grounded/ sane. If you do manifestation seriously, you don't get to indulge in this way of thinking and get anything done lol. Psychic openness brings fragility and openness to influence in a way that being closed off does not. If you don't get it, there's no point in arguing with me about it. I assume that I could give it -- I certainly would not. It's a weapon just as much as a tool, and also a curse as much as a gift potentially. People who taught this sort of thing typically vetted people heavily for a reason. A person with a lack of openness and a confrontational attitude surely would not make the cut. Also, assume that it is effective, would it be ethical to hand a person who just opened their eyes for the first time... a gun? Unless you are free of issues relating to belief and disbelief yourself (or doubt and self doubt), you are probably not in the position to judge meaningfully. Anyone can tell anyone else to do better, while doing and being what themselves, exactly? You missed the point of everything I said. I never asked you to believe me, and I do not care if you do. After all, I have absolutely nothing to lose. Whatever I shared was just for the openminded. You are not; you've made up your mind. Good day.

Two Points: 1) In this case, the burden is definitely on you to come to your own conclusions about what is true and what is not. A person who is capable of manifesting is putting their work at risk if they get sucked into a skeptical mindset and then self-sabotaging before their work is done, and at best they gain a skeptic's approval. Likewise, you have everything to gain (valid proof, assuming you actually want it) and nothing to lose if you decide that person is full of shit. 2) Very few mechanisms are strictly required, and they also serve different purposes and not just "manifesting". Sometimes it is placing appropriate boundaries around a thing (one of many possible uses, your imagination is the limit), like creating a container specifically for that purpose, if it's a thing that works well in conjunction with your INDIVIDUAL psyche. Sometimes it is because you do a certain type of task over and over and human beings like to create both physical and psychological mechanisms for the purpose of efficiency and ease of replication (which ironically, often ends up being the next thing which straitjackets us because we often get addicted to the comfort of our own systems). Direct manifestion? Take the "good" and the "bad" then, and also the personality that comes with such a thing. Pull off the guard rails around the expression of raw emotion and vital energy and then tell me if it's a good idea especially if you live around people and have any kind of unaccounted for things in your psyche, lol. By the way, very few mechanisms are strictly necessary in the psyche, period. But the kind of mind that can instantly manifest...sure. Why not? I wrote a couple of posts recently on the topic:

Approaching non-human consciousness in a non-hierarchical way is absolutely essential for understanding them wholly, because you must also understand them on their own terms in order to really understand them. As much as it is humanly possible. (Or alternatively, to temporarily strip one's humanity through various means, but then you still have to account for how you interpret raw data afterward.) This is true even more than for understanding why people do what they do, what it is like to be other people, etc. Judgement is a separate, optional feature, ideally it serves very specific, precise functions, like the one would use a specific tool for a specific purpose. (Personally I think of it metaphorically like a sharp, cutting edge, like a needle or sword, and not like a hammer where you go around bashing everything like it's a nail.) If anyone wants to be humbled, any kind of direct experience of what it's like to be another, non-human being ought to teach you. And if all you take away from a "lesser" being is that they are lower on the totem pole, that is.... not a very rich view of reality. And limits so much of what we can learn from other species and beings. And... the tool with what you use to measure others is most often what you cannot avoid measuring yourself by, and it easily becomes a weapon used against yourself. A species "higher" on the totem pole would do the same for us if it wished to understand us.