quantumspiral

How do you stay motivated and excited about life when the world contains so much suffering? 1000s of murders per day globally, countless animals in awful factory farms, more than 100 ongoing armed conflicts, human slavery etc

@Hardkill If that was enough to discourage you, it wasn't for you in the first place. Nothing less than complete and utter resolve is sufficient.

There seems to be an obsession with respect, domination and violence in Latin America that is rooted in the ancient cultures of the Americas, Spanish colonization and military dictatorships that goes beyond spiral dynamics. The highest homicide rate cities are always in Latin America (Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, Ciudad Obregón, Acapulco). On a country wide level, the highest homicide rates have been found in Central America and the Carribean (Jamaica, El Salvador, Honduras). Is Latin America the most red region in the world?

@Evelyna It's a very interesting question- you may very well be right. One thing to note is that awareness applied to physical pain can often dissolve the pain, which may suggest there is some physiological change being brought about by the awareness. Open Focus Brain by Les Fehmi addresses this in detail

@Butters I'd say probably both. When you're meditating, you increasing your awareness of bodily sensations so you'll almost certainly discover new sensations when you reach enough awareness. However, awareness directed in specific areas of the body has it's own fuzzy, vibratory quality- I believe this is generating during meditation

@El Zapato I thought the Spanish killed all the Aztecs

@Not me I would say Curitiba is- although admittedly I've not spent more than a couple months there.

@Basman That's why Africans always thrive as soon as they leave their challenging geography, right?

@Leo Gura You should go to the south of Brazil. Many parts on a par with Western Europe

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

@Buck Edwards Spiral Dynamics

@Basman They have a significant amount of purple I believe

@Leo Gura So you think they are more red than Latin America?

@PenguinPablo Yes. Of course, drugs and cartels play a (huge) role there- and there's geographic (being directly below the largest drug market in the world) and economic (poor kids from villages in the country see the only people who have money are the cartels who come through in their trucks and even tactical gear sometimes) In fact, I think the vast majority of homicides in Mexico are linked with organized crime. I have to ask myself, if in 1900 the entire population of Mexico was replaced with Finnish, Swiss, Singaporeans or Japanese, would we see as much brutality in narco trafficking as we do today?

I think you're straw manning the argument. If you're not a puer aeturnus, that does not mean you automatically have the spirit of an overly pragmatic, bitter old man. The point is that the puer hides from the harshness of reality by clinging to their dreams as a sort of ideal future reality where there will be no suffering and everything will be perfect. They cannot actualize their dreams because they cannot even touch reality, since it's difficulties and discomforts are too much to bear. So instead, the puer hides in fantasy.

How about you take the best parts of each book and create your own success principles? The idea of seeking out a single 'bible' of success is very problematic. Books are bodies of text. The truth about human performance, motivation and achievement is something entirely different. You can only glimpse this truth through testing the ideas for yourself and observing their internal effects. Your thinking feels very muddled, rigid and confused. I think others may have pointed this out previously. I do not think finding the right success bible will help you. You need to transform your thinking from the ground up which is way beyond the scope of a single book.

@Ramanujan keep grindin keep hustlin

Started taking meditation for seriously around a month ago, although I've been doing it on / off for around a decade. Suddenly, it feels like I can see through the mask / fakery / schtick that many people put on. It's something about stepping outside of the ego let's you be more perceptive as you're detached from the whole rivalry that happens whenever two egos collide which distorts reality. It feels like everyone is fake. Anybody else experienced this?

@Husseinisdoingfine Well spotted. Pepe memes aren't allowed so I'm in a mortal dilemma

@An young being surely you're being ironic?

Demanding to live for free with your friend for free for 3 years after you help them recover from a bike accident is absolutely insane. As soon as I read your post, I knew this would be a non-western country.

@Hardkill The answer is to engage as fully you can with the process (for any kind of result) while relinquishing your need for the result. The need for a result causes resistance and makes the process more difficult and less effective

@Lyubov She believes herself to be one of the best break dancers in the world

When corruption meets avoidance of reality, you can end up dancing like this at the Olympics:

21st century schizoid man...