Pernani

Not sure if you read what I wrote.

While going through the values assessment part 8 (where you're supposed to rank your values based on how much you desire them over the others) I found myself prioritising the different values i have on my list based on what I desire at this current stage in my life! I'm not sure if I'm doing right. I think this approach is appropriate since the things we value are expected to change and morph as we go through life? I can imagine that I would have different results if I tried to classify my values based on what find is timelessly meaningful to me, if there's such a thing. Like I strongly feel like I'm currently drawn to the value of Contribution over the value of Beauty, but I'm also half expecting that to change in the future, if that makes sense. How do u approach this? Also, ranking values according to what I need at the moment just feels easier a lot more intuitive.

thank uu for ur input

I'm giving the life purpose course another go (after failing to finish it), and I'm currently doing the values assessement. There's some values that really speak to me (like Passion) but when I think about what they mean to me concretely they remain vague and elusive. Like I can't pinpoint what following the value of passion looks like, because it's almost like it's synonymous with following your values in general (same as authenticity) and it's the whole point of taking the life purpose course. I hope I'm not overthinking this. Should you work with values that u feel are meaningful to you but aren't clear and precise in your mind? @Leo Gura

Epic fractals of immense beauty I can feel like I'm tripping balls just watching his videos Visually stunning and meaningful essays on movies High quality documentaries about interesting and often mysterious topics

No reason to do anything. Why not do things for the sake of doing them? Living life in beauty and happiness is meaningless, yet it's heck of a lot more enjoyable than the alternative (at least that's how I see it)

hehehehe so funnyy.. thanks for contributing nothing

It is stated in the course that talent doesn't exist, and that any seeming talent can be explained away by attributing it to practice. Does that mean that Strengths are also based on previous practice? It'd be great if @Leo Gura can answer this

Some excerpts from the article: On chess mastery: "There were large differences in mean amount of deliberate practice across the skill groups: master M = 10,530 h (SD = 7414), expert M = 5673 h (SD = 4654), and intermediate M = 3179 h (SD = 4615). However, as the SDs suggest, there were very large ranges of deliberate practice within skill groups. For example, the range for the masters was 832 to 24,284 h—a difference of nearly three orders of magnitude. Furthermore, there was overlap in distributions between skill groups. For example, of the 16 masters, 31.3% (n = 5) had less deliberate practice than the mean of the expert group..." "But the data indicate that there is an enormous amount of variability in deliberate practice—even in elite performers. One player in Gobet and Campitelli's (2007) chess sample took 26 years of serious involvement in chess to reach a master level, while another player took less than 2 years to reach this level." "In Gobet and Campitelli's (2007) chess sample, four participants estimated more than 10,000 h of deliberate practice, and yet remained intermediatelevel players. This conclusion runs counter to the egalitarian view that anyone can achieve most anything he or she wishes, with enough hard work. The silver lining, we believe, is that when people are given an accurate assessment of their abilities and of the likelihood of achieving certain goals given those abilities, they may gravitate towards domains in which they have a realistic chance of becoming an expert through deliberate practice" Though Anders Ericsson (very influential writer in the science of expertise, the main subject of criticism by the article) states that the researchers in that article didn't take into consideration the real definition and conditions of "deliberate practice", which according to him is the sole agent responsible for becoming a master at any given domain (except domains that require certain physiological traits).

I've read all of your replies. Contradictory and complementary perspectives. I agree that even if talents did exist, they wouldn't matter to shit without practice, and that the existence of talents is most obvious in physical traits (body stuff). But whether or not it exists with regards to less material attributes is still confusing for me. Leaving the "passion" and "love" factors out of the equation, I think the value of this question is that if it turns out that all strengths are based on previous practice, then that robs them of their otherwise fateful characteristic ; as in, "I was born to do this thing, because of my innate talent for it that is independent from anything else, it is my destiny". And that may also alleviate the anxiety and indecisiveness that may come from trying to locate these talents and trying to figure out how to locate them in the first place. This seems to me like it's a question of nature vs nurture, idk if anyone has ever came to a conclusion regarding this question. I don't even know how it's possible to figure it out. It'd be nice to see thoughts or resources regarding this. Anyhow, I found this interesting article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236884283_Deliberate_practice_Is_that_all_it_takes_to_become_an_expert

I notice that I do this a lot. For some reason I've always valued sharing things that are meaningful to me with others, seeing it as essential for building meaningful and authentic connections. But I never quite questioned where that desire was coming from till now. I recently had my first psychedelic trip and it was a very meaningful experience to me, so I found myself actively looking through the list of people that I know, to find those with whom I could share this experience with. Then I talked about it to one person, and the reaction I got from them was one of apathy and disinterest, and that felt a bit bad. The lack of approval, the fact that this person saw something that was very important to me as unimportant, mattered for some reason and came with an emotional reaction. That's what made me stop and question my tendency to openly share myself (sometimes overshare): goals, experiences, ideas, passions... If those matter to me, why should it matter if others share my sentiment or not ? It seems that there has always been an ulterior egoic motive under what I thought was a genuine attempt to nourish genuine connections. So I guess my question is: How does one distinguish if they're sharing themselves out of approval seeking (insecurity, ego...) or out of a genuine attempt to connect with others without any motives stemming from insecurity and seeking validation ? How does one increase their awareness of this distinction so to speak?

Okay, I thought that you were hinting at the possibility of connecting with another without having them relate to your meanings and the way you see the world. Turns out the only thing that should be dropped of the equation is expectation, and not accepting the fact that it's only natural for others to have their own meanings which may not relate to yours, and that's how you can share yourself without it stemming from insecurity and the need for approval. Sounds simple enough. Great wisdom lies in simplicity as always <3 Thank you for the share <3

What does it mean to connect with another, beyond the act of expecting them to relate to your own conceptual meaning/values matrix ? Sharing is about becoming more whole... hmmmmmmmmm...

I do share your perspective on how connecting through vulnerability isn't a bad thing. But don't you feel like there's some merit from being aware of how you seek approval from others, and thus dropping it? I would rather not be emotionally enslaved to how people think of me and whether or not they give a shit about me, so I envision that if one drops that tendency they would have a lot more peace of mind (and maybe derive more satisfaction from life?). In a sense, it kinda feels "absurd", "dirty" and "inauthentic" to do that. Sorry, I'm not getting your point @Brittany @Nahm Thank you for pointing out just how much I am identifying with my thoughts and my ego. There's a lot there to digest tho... I'd rather explore ways to raise my awareness of this issue without having to achieve the challenging feat of transcending my ego, but then again the answer might just be that I need to become more aware of my ego and my attachment to it

Thanks for sharing your experience. I can relate to some of that, although I relate to your partners who thought they were sexually "open" and "free" only to find out that their emotions say otherwise. Sometimes we can "know" something conceptually while we feel in an entirely different way.

Great response! Thank you <3

@universe Lovely post, thank you for taking the time to write this <3 You seem very knowledgeable about this topic, so I have some questions regarding the source of emotions and emotional triggers, if you can share some insights: I've read and heard from different sources that the reason that some situations (or thoughts) trigger negative emotions within us is not because of the situation itself (like getting cheated on or treated unfairly), but because the situation reminds us of a painful situation that happened to us in our childhood, in which the emotions were painfully overwhelming that we didn't know how to deal with them and ended up suppressing them. Therefore everytime we get triggered, it is an opportunity for us to release the suppressed emotion from the core traumatic experience that is linked to that situation. What do you think about this "model" ? Also if all emotional triggers are sourced in core emotional traumatic experiences in our childhood, then where did those painful childhood emotions that we suppressed come from in the first place?

Distinctions and experience matters here a lot. I also have lots of questions regarding polyamory and monogamy, and their potential for love, connection and fulfilling you emotionally. But to answer that I would need a lot of direct experience on both ends. To weigh the pros and cons of monogamy and polyamory one would have to go deep in both of them, and see which type is more conductive for pure healthy love. And then one would have to be careful not to pass the judgement based on their insecurities or their shadow, for example you could say polyamory is unrealistic and doesn't work because you couldn't handle the jealousy so you stuck to monogamy, whereas when you manage to heal the core of that jealousy and any of your other emotional issues that would cloud your judgement, you will see the real potential of polyamory and it may be even more fulfilling than monogamy. I only have experience with going deep in monogamy, which was pretty great, lots of potential for loving connection. Though trying to turn a deep loving monogamous relationship into an open relationship bubbled up all kinds of emotional turmoil within me. I would like to hear the opinion of someone who's gone deep on both ends.

It seems like the spiritual and self help community usually has this idea that to be happy you need nothing outside of what you can give yourself. I'm trying to challenge this idea but idk how im ever gonna reach a conclusion, experientially, without fooling myself. Basically what Im asking is: do we actually need to receive love from outside or is it possible for us to fulfill our desire for love independent of anyone outside of us? If anyone has struggled with this question b4 and has reached conclusion based on experience, please share with me your thoughts! Here's some of my thoughts to see where I'm coming from: Is receiving love from another a need? Is having a loving healthy connection a need? Meaning :It's indispensable for our well being, how? Allows us to love ourselves Heals past wounds that create unworthiness and therefore we become complete, self loving, feeling safe It can be indispensable or it can be healing but non indispensable (there's another way to heal that aspect of ourselves and complete ourselves: self love?) Is it possible to satisfy our need to feel loved through self love alone? Is it possible that the feelings we get from a loving healthy connection with a romantic partner, the feelings of love safety and warmth, is it possible for these feelings to actually STICK permanently within us if we get an X amount of them through the relationship. Or are they just momentary? What does my experience tell me? Only had one relationship where it felt like I received that, maybe not enough reference experience The feelings of love did not stick within me. Thinking that love was healing and that it was only supposed to be received from another, I became desperate, needy, hurt, and I suffered. It seemed like I wasn't supposed to need love from another. Because that opened the door for an unhealthy attachment.

Ey I think you did great, not everyone has the self honesty and the balls to expose their unfiltered vulnerable self to someone they just met. Maybe u didn't get sex but I think u did what u wanted, brutal honesty, which is great. At least now you have a reference experience of what it's like to open up and that may prove to be beneficial in the future. The fact she could open up to you too is awesome and shows that she felt safe enough to show her vulnerable side. Just that, if you really want to have sex (and get over being an incel) maybe try to switch up your strategy. People don't usually bring all their insecurities to the forefront on their first date. So hold on to that stuff until you both actually deepen the relationship, if you so choose to. Also don't put up a fake persona that you won't be able to sustain during the relationship, it will eventually crumble, so I'd say try to bring as much of an authentic positive vibe into your first encounters. Good luck.

Does this also apply to adult people? Maybe not physical death, but maybe death on the inside, psychologically speaking.

Yes I have experienced this a lot, even having an orgasm while meditating. Sexual arousal is just energy passing through your body so yes you could call it that.

I'm still trying to understand the meaning of that scene in Fight Club, anyone care to shed some light?

I'm interested in figuring out how one can fall in love in a romantic relationship, establish a deep intimate connection with all the vulnerability that's required from that, and not suffer from the neediness or emotional attachment that may result from that? I'm asking because I've recently been into a relationship that was very loving and nurturing for a few years, only for it to end with me getting very emotionally attached and the immense amount of pain that comes from that. I think it was a growing experience, but it also seemed like the more vulnerable you allow yourself to be with someone to create a genuine loving connection, the more you set yourself for actually sabotaging the relationship or just experiencing a terrible heatbreak because life had a different say in the matter. Any thoughts or videos are appreciates (:

@Vadiminator Hope you're doing well in there..