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Governments across the world Analysis of important current events Environmental concerns Culture Wars Collective issues which affect all of society Systemic social problems, inequality, injustice, oppression, wage slavery, etc. Ideas for how to improve society & government Discussing elections, candidates, political analysis Please keep in mind that this is a naturally controversial topic. Watch your self-bias, ideology, and devilry extra closely as you think about and talk about these issues. These issues are emotionally charged precisely because they go to the core of your identity & survival. Don't turn this sub-forum into a distraction from inner work.
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Be here with an open mind. Be here to learn. If you are just here spreading your pet ideology you will probably end up banned. Make your arguments without resorting to personal insults, name-calling, or strawmanning. Be nuanced and understanding of the complexities of social issues. Things are rarely black & white in this domain. Usually every POV has some degree of partial truth so it's a matter of carefully sorting through the nuances.
Remember, the issue isn't Left vs Right, the issue is low vs high consciousness, low vs high development, fear vs love, selfishness vs selflessness, dogma vs objectivity, ignorance vs education.

I have had concentration problems/ ADHD all my life. I think I got the concentration problem from my mom as she also couldn't concentrate well. And sometimes I have problems understanding very basic things like simple tasks. My dad is similar in that regard. He is good at math and logical tasks which are clear but in many basic life aspects which aren't presented to you in "clear circles" he often doesn't understand things. But it's not like he is hyper left brained, he can grab emotional/ psychological problems really well sometimes he is simply overwhelmed when things become "wishy washy".  
So I probably got a weird mix of that. Many people told me that they think I am really intelligent but then sometimes I have such embarrassing retard moments. So I am hopping between those two fronts often. This makes me think that there are just certain aspects of my brain that may be deficient and I would like to pin point those to work with that. 
So I thought about doing a brain scan. Is that worthed or are there better alternatives?
As for other possible causes: There are traumatic emotional problems of being an outsider in early childhood which could cause stress which could be partly the reason for some of my misunderstanding. And I will also give heavy metal chelation a shot but as I said I had these problems all my life.  

Excerpts from “Theory Z”
(from Abraham Maslow's : The Farther Reaches of Human Nature)
 
1. For transcenders, peak experiences and plateau experiences become the most important things in their lives….
2. They speak more easily, normally, naturally, and unconsciously the language of Being (B-language), the language of poets, of mystics, of seers, of profoundly religious men…
3. They perceive unitively or sacrally (i.e., the sacred within the secular), or they see the sacredness in all things at the same time that they also see them at the practical, everyday D-level …
4. They are much more consciously and deliberately metamotivated. That is, the values of Being…, e.g., perfection, truth, beauty, goodness, unity, dichotomy-transcendence … are their main or most important motivations.
5. They seem somehow to recognize each other, and to come to almost instant intimacy and mutual understanding even upon first meeting…
6. They are more responsive to beauty. This may turn out to be rather a tendency to beautify all things… or to have aesthetic responses more easily than other people do…
7. They are more holistic about the world than are the “healthy” or practical self-actualizers… and such concepts as the “national interest” or “the religion of my fathers” or “different grades of people or of IQ” either cease to exist or are easily transcended…
8. [There is] a strengthening of the self-actualizer’s natural tendency to synergy—intrapsychic, interpersonal, intraculturally and internationally…. It is a transcendence of competitiveness, of zero-sum of win-lose gamesmanship.
9. Of course there is more and easier transcendence of the ego, the Self, the identity.
10. Not only are such people lovable as are all of the most self-actualizing people, but they are also more awe-inspiring, more “unearthly,” more godlike, more “saintly”…, more easily revered…
11. … The transcenders are far more apt to be innovators, discoverers of the new, than are the healthy self-actualizers… Transcendent experiences and illuminations bring clearer vision … of the ideal …of what ought to be, what actually could be, … and therefore of what might be brought to pass.
12. I have a vague impression that the transcenders are less “happy” than the healthy ones. They can be more ecstatic, more rapturous, and experience greater heights of “happiness” (a too weak word) than the happy and healthy ones. But I sometimes get the impression that they are as prone and maybe more prone to a kind of cosmic sadness … over the stupidity of people, their self-defeat, their blindness, their cruelty to each other, their shortsightedness… Perhaps this is a price these people have to pay for their direct seeing of the beauty of the world, of the saintly possibilities in human nature, of the non-necessity of so much of human evil, of the seemingly obvious necessities for a good world…
13. The deep conflicts over the “elitism” that is inherent in any doctrine of self-actualization—they are after all superior people whenever comparisons are made—is more easily solved—or at least managed—by the transcenders than by the merely healthy self-actualizers. This is made possible because they … can sacralize everybody so much more easily. This sacredness of every person and even of every living thing, even of nonliving things … is so easily and directly perceived in its reality by every transcender …
14. My strong impression is that transcenders show more strongly a positive correlation—rather than the more usual inverse one—between increasing knowledge and increasing mystery and awe… For peak-experiencers and transcenders in particular, as well as for self-actualizers in general, mystery is attractive and challenging rather than frightening … I affirm … that at the highest levels of development of humanness, knowledge is positively, rather than negatively, correlated with a sense of mystery, awe, humility, ultimate ignorance, reverence …
15. Transcenders, I think, should be less afraid of “nuts” and “kooks” than are other self-actualizers, and thus are more likely to be good selectors of creators  … To value a William Blake type takes, in principle, a greater experience with transcendence and therefore a greater valuation of it…
16. …Transcenders should be more “reconciled with evil” in the sense of understanding its occasional inevitability and necessity in the larger holistic sense, i.e., “from above,” in a godlike or Olympian sense. Since this implies a better understanding of it, it should generate both a greater compassion with it and a less ambivalent and a more unyielding fight against it….
17. … Transcenders … are more apt to regard themselves as carriers of talent, instruments of the transpersonal, temporary custodians so to speak of a greater intelligence or skill or leadership or efficiency. This means a certain peculiar kind of objectivity or detachment toward themselves that to nontranscenders might sound like arrogance, grandiosity or even paranoia…. Transcendence brings with it the “transpersonal” loss of ego.
18. Transcenders are in principle (I have no data) more apt to be profoundly “religious” or “spiritual” in either the theistic or nontheistic sense. Peak experiences and other transcendent experiences are in effect also to be seen as “religious or spiritual” experiences….
19. … Transcenders, I suspect, find it easier to transcend the ego, the self, the identity, to go beyond self-actualization. … Perhaps we could say that the description of the healthy ones is more exhausted by describing them primarily as strong identities, people who know who they are, where they are going, what they want, what they are good for, in a word, as strong Selves… And this of course does not sufficiently describe the transcenders. They are certainly this; but they are also more than this.
20. I would suppose… that transcenders, because of their easier perception of the B-realm, would have more end experiences (of suchness) than their more practical brothers do, more of the fascinations that we see in children who get hypnotized by the colors in a puddle, or by the raindrops dripping down a windowpane, or by the smoothness of skin, or the movements of a caterpillar.
21. In theory, transcenders should be somewhat more Taoistic, and the merely healthy somewhat more pragmatic.
22. …Total wholehearted and unconflicted love, acceptance … rather than the more usual mixture of love and hate that passes for “love” or friendship or sexuality or authority or power, etc.
23. [Transcenders are interested in a “cause beyond their own skin,” and are better able to “fuse work and play,” “they love their work,” and are more interested in “kinds of pay other than money pay”; “higher forms of pay and metapay steadily increase in importance.”] Mystics and transcenders have throughout history seemed spontaneously to prefer simplicity and to avoid luxury, privilege, honors, and possessions. …
24. I cannot resist expressing what is only a vague hunch; namely, the possibility that my transcenders seem to me somewhat more apt to be Sheldonian ectomorphs [lean, nerve-tissue dominated body-types] while my less-often-transcending self-actualizers seem more often to be mesomorphic [muscular body-types] (… it is in principle easily testable).
 

 
 

Hey everyone,
About a year ago, I made a rather arcane video essay on the topic of “How David Bohm influenced Paul Feyerabend’s philosophy of science”.
It was a small project, the main purpose of which was to find out whether I would even find creating these kinds of videos enjoyable (in the spirit of the principle of “making small bets”), but also, to learn the basics of video editing, and to practice writing in English, which is my second language. I consider it a success insofar as I learned a lot during the process, and there seem to have been at least a few people who enjoyed what I made in spite of the extremely niche topic and my rudimentary video editing and English speaking skills.
I was apprehensive at first, but I thought it would be good idea to share it with you guys on the forum for a few reasons. Firstly, because I think there might be a few people here who would actually be interested in the topic, and could take something away from the video. Secondly, I am often quite fearful of sharing my creations with others for fear of being judged, so making it public in this way is a way seems like exactly the thing to do if I wanted to overcome this. Pretty sure I would have shared it way sooner if I wasn't such a chicken.
And thirdly, of course, I am quite happy to hear your feedback, as well as discuss in this thread any of the topics that I touched upon in the essay. If you are a fan of Leo’s work, I am sure you will find some of this stuff familiar.
I hope you find some value in the video and I am very much looking forward to your replies.
Thanks
Benjamin

The video about Maturity:
Why did you, Leo, in the past choose to become a game designer with nice salary as opposed to a toilet cleaner for pennies?
Nowadays, why are you selling your courses, or whatever you're making money as, as opposed to working in McDonalds or Starbucks?
A low paying job in McDonalds, Starbucks or as a toilet clearner would still allow you to work on Actualized, smoke 5meoDmt and contemplate. However, it would've made all this more difficult, hence, more worth it and a new win would've been more rewarding.
How dare are you Leo to have chosen an easier path? How dare?
Otherwise, your video lacks a nuance