psychedelaholic

Looking forward to it! :' ) I can't emphasize enough how much I love the total expansion of the introductory topic in your multi-part series'. Listening to hours of deeply nuanced concepts being broadly extrapolated on from many different perspectives always feels like a brain massage, lol. Specifically spiral dynamics helped me a ton in dealing with Academia. Having a dynamic framework to better understand ego development made me much more clear in how to meet people where they're at, relative to my own mind. The other topic that surprised me was the video you did on assumption, the amount of things in life it's possible to just assume, without ever realizing an assumption was ever made, is frankly insane. A ton of suffering is caused by assuming a specific outcome, without communicating, or not being aware of internal assumptions being made and being let down when expectations are not met. This work is so sticky that I'll integrate it to the point of becoming so aware of something as benign as making an assumption, that I nearly never fail to observe and acknowledge when there's assumptions being made. This applies to any thought mechanism I contemplate thoroughly, if it becomes easy to see, and I can always catch it, it's not at all difficult to maintain the clarity to not get wrapped up, or pulled into things. I'm certainly not infallible, but I can't understate the amount of drama, stress I've been able to avoid simply by being aware of the larger picture, knowing where to place my energy. I feel post-modernism is pertinent towards breaking down preconceived notions that collectively perpetuate many dysfunctional systems within our society. It's enjoyable to contemplate as it can be essentially applied to any idea, any concept, any construction of belief and attempt to question or undermine it without taking away it's validity, being radically open to infinite possibility. Relative to using established beliefs and what one already knows to say what isn't possible, why it's the blame of x or y, and that it cannot change. I recently had a conversation with someone, the premise of it is I was providing hopeful perspectives in relation to people with mental illnesses deeply stigmatized by our society, they're marginalized as people, having a label planted on them that paints them as if they have less value than others. I'll quote what I wrote, I'm speaking loosely to the implication that the current system is inadequate in providing purpose & meaning. The person who decided to argue with me about this I would say had a Modernist perspective, that frankly made me sad. They pedantically debated my description of capitalism, saying it's not give and take it's "voluntary free exchange" as if that isn't simply a different way to describe the same thing; ie there's only one valid way to describe this system, and you're wrong if you take an alternative perspective. Furthermore they refused to view anything through open mindedness, placed blame onto the society and the marginalized group for being "free riders" and said that it's not realistic for everyone in society to have an equal standard of living. Which is a twist of my words, as I never said that. They then went on to paint economics as the limiting factor in why we cannot address the marginalization of a subset of people. The issue is that they are "free riders", demanding that I describe to them a system of economics in which we could deal with the issue of these people not contributing to society. Yet, does this type of response not perfectly illustrate a total unwillingness to take a perspective that challenges or goes outside of what you know? So instead of saying "you know what, these people are marginalized" and taking the perspective that the system that upholds the stigmatization narrative that leads to a group of people being marginalized, may be the actual problem; and not the god damn implications the marginalized group has on the system. The system can be changed, it's a bunch of constructed beliefs, so to sit there on your ass and demand answers to impossible problems within a confine of rules that you believe to be truth, instead of focusing on entertaining perspectives based outside of what you already know, it's unproductive, headass. People would rather say "this is the only way it can be" due to x or y, and when you float them a perspective outside their paradigm, they'd rather say you're talking nonsense, or attempt to invalidate it by forcing it to conform to the set of rules the perspective seeks to question.

@Leo Gura Hadn't been properly introduced to pre, current, post modernism prior to this video! Refreshing to learn a framework to place some of my behaviour and experiences into that makes sense. I have some anecdotes from my life that I think are relative to the subject. When I was younger and still pretty wet behind the ears in understanding/visualizing/conceptualizing any amount of metaphysics, I would have ideas about reality and would frequently have frustrating conversations with people about said ideas. I'm sure partly due to my inability to concisely explain insights that were only just dawning on me, and partly people being unwilling to entertain ideas that challenge their understanding. During college I would frequently limit test by seeing what the people around me were able to entertain; be that making radical or bold statements about reality or society, just to open up discourse wherein I'd get to find out what other people's perspectives were, get a glimpse of their psychology and use the interactions as critical thinking to challenge my own ideas. Seemingly unconsciously I've developed and applied this breakaway style of thinking to life since I was a teenager, it's humorous that you bring up the flat earth example. When I was 16-17 I actually contemplated whether the Earth was flat or not for a solid month or two. Looked at the people trying to claim evidence that it's flat, looked at the other side claiming evidence that it's round. Ultimately I sat myself on a hill at sunrise one morning and resolved the internal dilemma with this realization that came to me in that; regardless of whether I think the Earth is flat or round, it has basically no pronounced effect on my reality in the moment. That I walk away from that lengthy contemplation with my answer being "maybe it is, maybe it isn't, either perspective holds validity" and even if it could be deemed meaningless to actively carry around the notion that the earth is flat, the same can also be said for the notion that it's round. I think most people would say it's ridiculous to spend 1-2 months contemplating if the Earth is round or flat, because when asked they would make a firm definite statement about it relative to their beliefs, ie: "I already know the answer" Though I hadn't done a lot of digging into the specifics of modernism, post modernism etc.. I have however invested a lot of energy delving into spirituality, philosophy, taking psychedelics, self inquiry, contemplation and self reflection on information I come across relative to my own experience. I've also always questioned everything even as a child, since I could form coherent thoughts. So I seemingly bumbled my way into it, and I've learned through interacting with others that I have quite divergent or radical thoughts on the conventions of reality and or societal systems, relative to the general consensus. In one instance I argued with one of my college professors that time was merely an imagined construction of the mind, he scoffed and retorted "no it's not, time is real because I can walk outside, look at the position of the sun in the sky and tell what time it is" lol. Even people I know to be intelligent display great resistance entertaining the idea that their mind is not quietly observing an external objective reality, but constructing reality subjectively. What's funny about what my prof replied with is that he's unconsciously using his mind to reinforce his paradigm, in the same way one could consciously consider alternative perspectives outside of a given way of seeing reality. The statement also makes the assumption that time is real because a human can make that observation in the moment. If you take the perspective of a blank awareness that doesn't know anything, is it still real? Or an animal, does it know what time is 12:00 in the afternoon? If it only exists to the human mind, is it not then a construction of imagination? I've got one friend who's quite smart, yet he's overly rational and takes a stance based in objectivity relative to the foundation of reality. I'll argue with him for giggles sometimes, and eventually there is some kind of statement or hypothetical put forward by him to "prove" or solidify his perspective on reality. I'll reply with something like "two people can experience reality in two entirely different ways and still retain equal validity" he'll ask me a question that affirms his perspective, and I say that he's correct because if that's the way he sees his subjective reality, then it's as valid as any other perspective. Due to my friend believing that there's an objective reality external to his mind, that allows him to assume I must be simply wrong, or thick headed for saying that reality is subjective and relative to perspective. So he feels that I'm not understanding what is viewed as concrete in his mind, because in my mind reality is so fluid that relative to his paradigm I'm perceived as talking nonsense. It's entertaining because I do understand his reality relative to mine, and I don't disagree or oppose his perspective on reality, because it's his subjective reality so whatever it may be it's as valid as my own. The tricky bit is people seldom see reality in this manner, not only is it difficult to conceptualize reality as subjective, but doing so can also undermine entire paradigms if one opens their mind to it, which the ego is not a fan. So it's easier for the mind to defend it's bias' than to truly consider the implications of radical concepts and ideas. I can count on one hand the amount of people I've met in life that have gone through the toil to so heavily deconstruct their reality, luckily I don't often have to talk about metaphysics with strangers, if I did go out of my way they'd probably say I'm living in a different reality, lol. Over time I've come to realize just how arduous it is to have anyone become willing to seriously conceptualize reality in this way, I've been told by someone that they're uncomfortable with it because it seems like there's little to no ground to stand on if the mind is entirely responsible for subjective reality. While I get it, I think reality is a lot more interesting when things are as loosely defined as possible, it's freeing to view the experience as the primary driver for reality, because if consciousness is imagining it all, it's totally absurd, and anything goes, so why not change?