ZenBlue

It gives you an altered state of consciousness. In moderation, alcohol isn't harmful. It's just that you have to be careful not to make it a habit and start to over consume. A part of it is a gnawing feeling of emptiness and pain inside. That is what all of society is distracting themselves from. It just manifests in different ways for everybody. For some people, they turn to gambling, porn, sex, various drugs, shopping, adrenaline junkies, mindless entertainment, etc... Ever wonder why can't we just sit still and be? It's extremely difficult to not want to distract yourself with your phone, or get caught up in your thoughts, or some other type of distraction. It's extremely uncomfortable and painful to just sit there and not have anything to distract and stimulate yourself. That is where the challenge and hard work lies.

Move beyond the need to categorize and put guys into neat little boxes. No one's going to fit neatly into your little boxes. You will delude yourself into packaging guys as if they are all manufactured at factories. So it seems like guys aren't the only ones to objectify women. Women objectify men as well by trying to put them into boxes. Yes, you were probably hurt by many guys, but that's part of the dating game. We have all been hurt by others. Trying to gain a sense of superiority by labeling and categorizing people will end badly.

The fact that you say you feel like doing life purpose work is a waste of time. You come across as only having a myopic focus on reaching enlightenment. If you want to reach enlightenment, you can't rush the process and you can't skip levels. Just like you can't force a tree to grow faster, you can't force enlightenment.

@karltiboleng Yes absolutely! This is quite a beautiful model when you really look at it. Each stage adds a layered foundation to build upon. If you were to take orange, then green lays the foundation so that orange can elevate to yellow and so on.

@LeoX8 Glad I could help

Last night I had some interesting thoughts about the spiral dynamics model. This is my attempt to understanding the bigger picture of this model. I'm still learning so bare with me. Leo talked about how each stage stacks on top of the other. Then something about the model hit me, and it helped me to gain a deeper understanding of it. Every stage is an elevation of the previous two stages. It's hard for me to articulate it clearly so it might not make sense. For instance: Beige - The foundation of human survival Purple - Tribal. Awareness increases and people start to become aware of their thoughts and surroundings. Everything is magical. Red - An elevation of Beige. People become very egocentric and barbaric. Survival isn't about the elements of nature anymore. Survival is about conquering and dominating other tribes and communities. Blue - An elevation of Purple. There is structure, authority, and rigid hierarchies. Magical thinking has been tempered down with logic and rationality, but there is still an element of faith, magic and belief in higher powers. Orange - An elevation of Red. People are still driven by ego, but now it is about separation from rigid hierarchies. It's more about learning to become independent and self-reliant. It is like a tempered down version of red, because orange isn't as physically violent. The violence and aggression becomes more about psychological and emotional abuse. Green - An elevation of Blue. It's less rigid, but still community based. People start to explore their inner selves and focus less on the external. Spirituality, and harmony. Compassion and empathy for others start to develop. Caring about the environment and our impact on it. There is still moralizing and demonizing of those who are not like them. Yellow - An elevation of Orange. Still a sense of independence and personal responsibility. But there is an element of compassion and understanding how everything fits into a larger system. Appreciation for natural hierarchies and seeing how everything is interconnected. A system is an emergence of all the elements in it. Not a sum total of each part. Turquoise - An elevation of Green. True compassion and love starts to develop. Where Green was limited to moralizing and demonizing, Turquoise embraces holistic thinking. Realizes everything is all interconnected and forms all of existence. Reality is an emergence of everything in it. There is no difference between self and other. Non-dualism. Starting from Yellow, and downwards. Each stage looks down on the two stages below it. It is like the relationship between adults and children. Most adults look down on children. Children react negatively to this and then look down on most adults. For example: Green looks down on blue, not realizing it is like the adult version of blue. Blue is like an immature version of Green. Orange is like an immature version of Yellow, and so on. What I really find interesting is how each color seems to represent each stage so well.

@mandyjw You're welcome. I just wanted to bring this to people's awareness because I believe it's a great opportunity. Definitely recommend taking the time to do some research and learn what it's all about.

Ah I see. I think there are some shop platforms that allow for that type of mature content. Maybe look into Shopify. No I'm not. I used to be into graphic design many years ago. I have spent the past 10 years studying business, and digital marketing. I've had a few small successes, but many failures. Even after 10 years I still haven't given up though. I scrap projects or move onto new ones. Pivot and shift. Try different approaches. Never give up.

Yes this is why this space is very empowering for creators. It's new so I expect a lot of things will change over the next 5 - 10 years, but at some point the rest of the world will catch on and embrace this technology.

Yes, but artists can create terms where someone might want to have exclusive rights the artwork with the NFT acting as a type of digital contract. For example: Music producers can sell their beats, and samples and use an NFT to allow the holder to have commercial rights. I'm new to NFTs myself and still learning. What kind of business have you done with cryptos?

Yes I can see how it might seem like a fad. The current space is very new and is still developing. I'm just saying the community is currently very generous to creators and if someone is struggling to sell their artwork, they might do well in this space. I would say speculators and collectors would have to be more wary than creators because there is a bit of a bubble forming around it. My personal perspective is that this isn't a fad because I have watched the crypto space grow for a while now. Of course I recommend everyone to do their own research as well. Sure anybody can save the image, or music piece or whatever to their computers. But having ownership of the token does have value depending on the community. This space is new so yes there will be a lot of things that will end up being trashed. There is also a lot of real world applications and use cases around this technology. For example: Someone can sell a NFT music that gives the owner exclusive commercial rights. Also for live events, there are tokens that act as tickets to the event. In real estate, there are tokens that act as legally binding deeds to the property. NFT goes beyond artwork. There are many applicable real world cases for this technology. I'm saying don't just take my word for it. Spend the time to do some deep research. It's no skin off my back if you decide to dismiss this altogether. I just wanted to bring this to people's awareness because this is such an amazing opportunity. I am very much ahead of the curve when it comes to technology. I have been since a young age and I have entrenched myself into the Internet world for the past 17 years, which is why I have a deep understanding of where this is heading. Yes, I totally understand because this is so new. I highly recommend just doing some deep research for yourself to get a better understanding. This isn't just for art. There are real world use cases for this technology as well. Also creators can add a setting where they get paid royalties for any secondary sales. So if someone buys your work, then sells it to someone else, you can get a percentage of that sale for example say 10%. And that will happen for the lifetime of that artwork whenever it is re-sold.

For all you artists and creators who want to escape the wage slavery. The biggest opportunity in the world is happening now. I'm sure most of you are aware of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology by now. If you really took the time to research, and understand the technology, you would see how incredible this opportunity is. I've known about Bitcoin for over 8 years now. Since then, I have watched the space grow and flourish rapidly. Blockchain technology is where the big revolution is happening. As a result of the growth and development in the crypto community, there has been an emergence of something called NFT (Non-fungible Tokens). This is basically a way to create unique digital goods that people can exclusively own. The art space is especially thriving with NFT. It really takes some big picture thinking and a deep understanding of technology and human behavior to really see how valuable this is. Let me put it this way, the kids that are growing up today mostly live in a digital world called the Metaverse. Imagine how they would spend most of their time 10 years from now. This is an upgrade and paradigm shift to the Internet as we know it. Here is some introductory information about NFT: https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/what-is-nft-non-fungible-token-guide/ NFT News: https://www.reuters.com/technology/nft-sales-volume-surges-25-bln-2021-first-half-2021-07-05/ https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/09/millennial-artist-made-over-130000-selling-nfts-in-about-5-months.html https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/11/22325054/beeple-christies-nft-sale-cost-everydays-69-million

Did you get shut down because you were selling copyrighted designs? Take that as a lesson learned to not sell designs you do not have the right to. Rather than quitting, spend more time with self-actualization work to learn more about yourself. Create a business that provides value to a small and specific group of people. What problems have you solved in your life? Can you provide a solution to specific problems people are dealing with? Depends how bad you want it. If you really want to run your own business, never quit.

Beautifully, and eloquently written. Seems like you are exactly where you need to be. There is a liberation in having faith in the Universe because infinite intelligence governs and watches over all aspects of our lives.

Actually you are coming in at time when interest in entrepreneurship is at an all time high. Much easier to start now than ever before. Go consume some Gary Vee videos to get into the mindset of an entrepreneur.