Raphael

https://www.thenextevolution.com Spiral Dynamics Assessment: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ESn4OqltaEG7uMbplrs8UUkVnFT-fbTD6P06PBPn8tw/edit#gid=143712625

Exploring Racial Biases: Are Some Biases Unavoidable? I wonder a bit if someone can ever be completely clean or if we all have a small kernel of it. Having a small kernel of it doesn't necessarily mean that we hate someone, but just that we have some preferences and can be uncomfortable with the unknown. Being uncomfortable isn't something only related to how we deal with other people, but just an aspect of life. Being uncomfortable with the unknown applies to any new thing that we try to do or that we try to open to. One day I told my mom that I would like to visit countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and she told me that she was a bit afraid of all these countries. I don't consider my mom racist, it's just that we hear so much catastrophic news from some areas of the world that it gets internalized, and that we develop a bit of fear. I remember speaking to a guy one day, then he told me that he was from Syria, I didn't have any thoughts at the moment but noticed a tiny fearful reaction in my body and suddenly became a bit uncomfortable. How would you deal if you meet someone that comes from an area where we hear a lot of catastrophic news from? Would you be normal? Experience some micro fears? A lot of fear? How would be if you ever visit one of those places that are at risk? Would you be a hippie spreading love to everyone or be realistic? Sometimes, depending on the situation there is a need to discriminate. It doesn't mean hating people, it just means taking the necessary precautions because an environment has some features that make it dangerous. However, this can be twisted and people that are racists can justify some behavior where there is no real danger and project their hate. Balance here is obtained through high awareness. I want to finish this post on the following statement: cultural preferences are unavoidable, it doesn't mean being racist, but everyone has cultural biases no matter how enlightened they are. Just look at yourself: What language do you speak? English? It is a cultural bias and you discriminate against other languages. What food do you eat? The food that you eat is a cultural bias. What music do you listen too? What is your cultural preference regarding music? What movies, TV shows, YouTube videos do you watch? This is highly dependent on the environment that you developed in. You have a bias and discriminate against other movies, TV shows, and videos just because some resources looks more familiar. What kind of clothes do you wear? Why don't you wear clothes that people wear from the other side of the planet? Why do you prefer some clothes rather than other clothes? You have a cultural bias regarding clothing. How is your body language? Your body language is shaped a certain way and this is caused by the culture that you live in. Different cultures have different body languages. You have body language biases. How do you breathe? Yes, how do you breathe? Your culture even has an impact on how you breathe, how you inhale and exhale oxygen. You have a breathing bias. These examples are here to put awareness that some cultural biases are impossible to transcend. Even an enlightened Yogi that deconstructed the entire universe has some cultural biases, for example, he needs to use language to communicate and cannot learn all languages. Some biases are here for survival purposes and to properly function in life. It's possible to be aware of healthy biases and unhealthy biases. If a language is widely used and provides all the tools to properly express emotions in life, then having a preference for this language is fine. Healthy biases are backed up by positive emotions and integration of aspects of life while reducing human suffering, unhealthy biases (such as racism) are backup by fears and inappropriate judgments.

Exploring Racial Biases: Racism as an Evolutionary Feature Racism is an evolutionary feature. The most powerful societies have always been the one who were the most exploitative and for a collective ego it's always better to exploit another one than itself. Does it have to be forever that way? I personally think that there will always be discrimination and a social hierarchy, however, this social hierarchy will be less and less important in the future. In a utopian future where machines will do the most painful tasks, the need for human exploitation will be less important. Nevertheless, societies will still have to work and some people will have to maintain the infrastructure not maintainable by the machines and some people will have to maintain the machines. Some people have to do the dirty work and these people will be at the bottom of the hierarchy. In an utopian future, I don't consider that it would mean brute racism, but just some discrimination. People like this would just have fewer opportunities for self-actualization work, philosophy, spirituality, etc. Or maybe if it happens people will rotate: some people will do the dirty work while others self-actualize, then the groups will switch in order to maintain society and allow everyone time for self-actualization. Who knows exactly how the future will be made?

28/04/2021 (Week 14) Self-assertiveness to me means... saying what I say no matter what people thinks asserting my decisions in life having boundaries doing what I say not letting others demotivating me being disciplined to assert to purpose in life working hard to achieve long term goals taking responsibility to achieve my goals not caring about what others says If I lived 5 percent more assertively today... I'll be a bit more disciplined I'll push through difficulties I'll stay focus on the task that I'm doing without letting my mind discourage me I'll achieve more I'll let others know when I don't agree with them I'll communicate clearly and directly If I treat my thoughts and feelings with respect today... I'll use better use my thoughts and feelings my thoughts and feelings would better serve my purpose I'll accept my thoughts and feelings I'll love my mind I'll love my feelings I'll be happier with my thoughts and feelings If I treat my wants with respect today... I'll accept having wants I'll be disciplined to work for my long term wants I'll cut distractions I'll keep a proactive positive attitude that is connected with reality to achieve my wants I'll be more motivated to work I'll be more open to change I'll be more comfortable being myself I'll do what I want and I'll do what is necessary to achieve my wants

28 April 2021 Wake Up Time: 06:46 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 11:10 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ✅ Stretching after waking up ✅ Cold shower after waking up ❌ No social media until 7 PM ❌ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: 09:24 AM - 10:19 AM I contacted one person and also did some administrative tasks: accounting and dealing with some bank issues Focus: 4/5 Duration: 55 minutes 01:12 PM - 01:54 PM I responded to a few persons, check my mails, and distracted myself a bit Focus: 3/5 Duration: 42 minutes Deep Work Sessions: 10:52 AM - 12:03 AM I tried to fix an issue on a small web app, but failed. I also distracted myself a bit sometimes Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 1 hour 11 minutes 02:00 PM - 02:55 PM I worked on some improvements for a small web app Focus: 3/5 Duration: 55 minutes 04:46 PM - 06:08 PM I continued the work on the small web app Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 1 hour 22 minutes Today was more difficult. I had trouble to work and to concentrate properly. Average Focus: 3.4 / 5 (objective at least 3.5 / 5) Total Work Duration: 5 hours 5 minutes, including 3 hours 27 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes)

One day I had a threesome with a giraffe and an elephant, it was amazing.

27/04/2021 (Week 14) Self-assertiveness to me means... having boundaries letting know my limits doing what I want to do doing what I say saying what I want to say creating what I want to create asserting my decisions in life not caring about what people says If I lived 5 percent more assertively today... I'll respect more my decisions I'll assert more my decisions I'll be more ruthless I'll work with more intention I'll work with more intensity I'll have more discipline If I treat my thoughts and feelings with respect today... I'll experience my thoughts and feelings I'll accept my thoughts and feelings I'll use my thoughts my diligently my thoughts would better serve me my emotions would better serve me I'll feel better I'll be more authentic I'll be more efficient If I treat my wants with respect today... I'll do what I want I'll be disciplined to do what's needed in the present moment to achieve my long term wants I'll be more able to achieve what I want to do I'll feel better with what I want I'll feel more authentic I'll have more compassion I'll have more compassion for my wants

27 April 2021 Wake Up Time: 06:40 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 10:25 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ✅ Stretching after waking up ✅ Cold shower after waking up ❌ No social media until 7 PM ❌ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Deep Work Sessions: 08:31 AM - 09:10 AM I started some improvements on an interface Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 39 minutes 10:10 AM - 11:28 AM I continued the previous improvements Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 1 hour 18 minutes 11:33 AM - 12:03 AM I continued the previous work. I had a lot of unrelated thoughts Focus: 3/5 Duration: 30 minutes 01:25 PM - 02:44 PM I continued the same work. I'm a bit stuck on some issues Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 1 hour 19 minutes 04:16 PM - 05:10 PM I continued the improvements on the small web app Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 54 minutes 05:16 PM - 06:47 PM I went back working on my web app and continued the progress on Instagram scheduling Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes Average Focus: 3.41 / 5 (objective at least 3.5 / 5) Total Work Duration: 6 hours 11 minutes, including 6 hours 11 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective at least 45 minutes)

I feel like when I'm eating a big meal, the digestive process causes some brain fog. I chose to replace white rice by brown rice. I'll try to add some green tea, but I think that it caused me some issues in the past, but I don't remember what.

26/04/2021 (Week 14) Self-assertiveness to me means... doing what I say saying what I want to say having boundaries with people asserting my decisions in life being in control of my life making life work If I lived 5 percent more assertively today... I'll respect more my decisions I'll work with more intention I'll let go of distractions I'll cut unnecessary people I'll be discipline to make things happen it will be easier to get things done If I treat my thoughts and feelings with respect today... I'll accept all my thoughts and feelings I'll be gentle with myself I'll concentrate more my thoughts I'll concentrate more my thoughts on what I need to do to make my business evolve I'll feel more in integration with myself I'll use my thoughts and feelings properly to achieve my long term goals If I treat my wants with respect today... I'll accept having wants I'll be discipline to work for my long term wants I'll feel more authentic I'll do things that I want I'll achieve my wants I'll do what is necessary to achieve my goals

26 April 2021 Wake Up Time: 07:54 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 10:05 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ✅ Stretching after waking up ✅ Cold shower after waking up ✅ No social media until 7 PM ✅ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Deep Work Sessions: 09:34 AM - 10:33 AM I fixed some issues on a web app and checked a job opportunity Focus: 3.75/5 Duration: 59 minutes 10:52 AM - 12:08 AM I worked on my app backend Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 1 hour 16 minutes 01:07 PM - 02:40 PM I continued working on Instagram scheduling Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 1 hour 33 minutes 03:29 PM - 04:14 PM I started to do some corrections on a small web app Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 45 minutes 04:33 PM - 06:08 PM I continued the previous improvements Focus: 3.5/5 Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes @Raphael Good job, you're doing great. Average Focus: 3.55 / 5 (objective at least 3.5 / 5) Total Work Duration: 6 hours 8 minutes, including 6 hours 8 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours) Total Reading Time: 47 minutes (objective at least 45 minutes)

How to Increase Brain Power? Hey there, I'm trying to improve my brain power. I recently started to eat a bit less, I notably reduced my quantity of rice and I noticed that it cleared my mind a lot. I also did some work to release past traumas and it reduced many of my negative thoughts. I would just like to know if you guys have advices to improve my mind and my ability to focus and have clear thoughts. I'm not only looking for healthy food but anything that has an impact on the mind: food, traumas, kind of physical activity, the external environment, etc. I personally currently eat mostly healthy, exercise a bit every day, and try to sleep well (when my mind isn't too crazy). By the way here is how I'm planning to eat for the next month: Breakfast: a smoothie consisting of half an avocado, blueberries, and a date. I will also add some oats 10:00 AM Break: a small mix of fruits (apple and oranges) with some almonds and cashew nuts Lunch: average portion of rice + Eggs or Fish + 2 vegetables + Kiwi 04:00 PM Break: : a small mix of fruits (apple and oranges) with some almonds and cashew nuts Dinner: a small portion of rice + Some Grains (peas, chickpeas, lentils) + 2 vegetables + black chocolate Cheers.

Damn... I've always been blown away by how many similarities I have with Leo. Sometimes I feel like I'm the one speaking at the camera. I especially resonated with him when he mentioned his difficulties to fit in because of his different cultural baggage and the difficulties that his family had with money.

The example that I had in my family was so bad that it motivated me to do the complete opposite.

Independence I lived alone by myself from the end of 2015 to the end of 2019. At the end of 2019, I started freelancing to get financially independent. I decided to move back to my parent's house because having a full-time job and doing more web development aside was too much for me. However, the previous work experiences that I had crushed down my self-esteem very badly to the point where it lead to panic attacks and me feeling like a slave to people's desire because otherwise I would get highly being diminished. Because of these self-esteem issues freelancing has been hell and I got exploited and abused by clients. My situation started to get better during the end of 2020 at the same time where my self-esteem started to go up again. However, even if my situation is better and I made good money recently, I'm still living with my parents and I'm really started to get sick of it. I don't like being treated like a 10 years kid who doesn't know anything in life. I want my independence back. My mental health is getting better and better and I think that I will be able to clear all the work-related traumas soon so that work doesn't feel painful anymore, but blissful as it was for me some years ago. Nevertheless, freelancing as I do is uncertain in the long term, I work on small projects and clients come and go randomly. This is what happened this month. What I need is to find a stable client with which I can work for at least the next 6 months for max 10 hours/week and who pays well. Therefore I will feel more secure and will not have to worry about clients disappearing, nor will I have to spend time searching for clients each month. It will allow me to rent a small isolated office in my area where I would be able to work without having to deal with the toxicity at the house and all the noises all day, however, I will still sleep here and give a bit of help because my parents are old and need a bit of help notably with the animals. The time that I will get will also allow me to work on my main project. I have been procrastinating too much, it's time to launch this business. The purpose of this business will be my own survival, it will not be the most conscious business, nor the lowest conscious, but will be an important piece of my financial infrastructure and a stepping stone towards advanced self-actualization. I don't want to be like my dad and have a random job where clients come and disappear randomly and I certainly don't want to constantly live in the fear of not having money. I often hear people saying that I'm young and that I have time... this advice doesn't work well for me and the opposite doesn't work well too because it stresses me out. My time as a human being is limited and needs to be used wisely, I don't want to live most of my life with the fear of not having money. I want to build my financial infrastructure as fast as possible. But, I need to build a proper system, I need to care about myself, I need to be kind with myself, I need to love myself, I need to be healthy, and when doing the things that I need to do, I need to go at my own pace and take time to do things properly in order to avoid making mistakes that would backfire. Time is a duality, it doesn't exist and it exists and the same time. Taking time to do things properly and having a limited lifetime are two sides to the same coin. It just needs to be balanced. I will be a millionaire within the next 5 years.

Holistic Work Ethic Work ethic is holistic. I have been dealing with a lot of difficult thoughts in the past that affected my ability to focus until things started to get better recently. I did some forgiveness to release past traumas and started to have less and less difficult thoughts. A few days ago I started to eat less, I notably reduced my quantity of rice and I noticed that it reduced the monkey mind a lot. I intuitively felt that there was a connection between digestion and thoughts. When I eat a lot my intestines works a lot and it results in thoughts storms, when I eat less my intestines works less, I feel lighter, my mind feels much more clearer and my ability to focus is better. I also feel less and less the need to cope by using social media, reading the news, or watching porn, and it feels great. The attitude of pushing through it even if it's difficult is unhealthy stage orange. It works when someone is healthy: eat healthy, exercise properly, don't have any huge traumatic baggage. The people who aren't highly healthy and who are able to do that have incredible willpower and even if they have incredible willpower, their work is most of the time not the best quality work. Being healthy and having a powerful system is simpler and more rewarding than pushing through it like an animal.

I think I lost hope with people, I don't expect that much from them anymore. Most people only have short term vision and always try to drag the few conscious ones into stupidity. Of course, none of us are perfect... but what always baffles me is that very few people actually try to improve and just stay stuck projecting beliefs and biases. And even if they try to improve, I never met anyone who was willing to question its entire existence and tackle down all its biases and beliefs. I can't really expect this as most people don't even have developed an healthy ego... including me... but of course they are degrees to this. I noticed that I lack some elements at all survival oriented stages: beige, purple, red, blue, orange, and green, but at the same time I consider that I do better than average. So... I'm better than average, but not the best and i still have many things to improve... and this fine I'm where I am, and the healthy attitude is to embrace it and continue the work.

25/04/2021 (Week 13) If any of what I wrote this week is true, it might be helpful if I... find a small isolated office to work respect the rules that I set for my life work without noises cut toxic people cut my dad maintain a proactive positive attitude in life have a problem-solving mindset decide to enjoy the now work with intense focus take full responsibility to improve my self-esteem accept my current self-esteem push through difficulties

Weekly Statistics (19 April 2021 - 25 April 2021) Total Working Time 22 hours 34 minutes Average Focus 3.41 / 5

25 April 2021 Wake Up Time: 07:24 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 10:50 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ✅ Stretching after waking up ✅ Cold shower after waking up ~ No social media until 7 PM (Doesn't apply on Sunday) ❌ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: No work for today Average Focus: ~ / 5 (objective at least 3.5 / 5) Total Work Duration: 0 minutes, including 0 minutes of Deep Work (objective 0 minutes) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes)

I agree. I agree again. I don't aspire to be working 60h+ / week, I'm astonished by people who do that even when they are no physical survival necessities. Yeah, I think I probably lack a bit of stamina. How much do you work by the way?

Exploring Racial Biases: Understanding Differences of Development Sometimes I think about why are some areas of the world more developed than others and try to understand the causes. Here is the ultimate answer: They are no ultimate answer to these questions. This is how it is. Trying to understand that keeps us stuck in the mind and entertain difficult emotions. And this answer is the ultimate answer. Here's how an argumentation would go: Why is this place so under developed? Because people don't have that many resources. Why people don't have that many resources? Because they have been exploited by other people in the past and these people looted all the resources. How is it that these people looted all the resources? Because they were evil and violent, and because the people here didn't have any possibility to fight back. Why they didn't have any possibility to fight back? Because they didn't have the same technology. Why they didn't have the same technology? Because the natural environment was already less favorable and they have to deal with common natural disasters. Why do they have to deal with common natural disasters? Because this is an area where the winds can be very strong multiple times per year. Why the winds can be very strong? Why the earth do that at this specific place? Why the earth is formed as it is? What is the impact of the sun on this area? Why is the solar system that way? Why is our galaxy that way? Why is the universe that way? ...and it goes on and on for infinity. See? At a moment it becomes useless to try to understand and it only keeps us stuck in the mind. Being in this circle continues to entertain difficult thoughts and emotions. To start to fix these issues, understanding needs to be scaled down to not get lost in the mind and enough scaled up to have a proper meta-perspective. Reality is how it is, it doesn't mean that it always has to be the same way. With efforts, system thinking, and holistic thinking it's possible to improve the global situation, but people need to let go of their biases, develop compassion, and acknowledge that these issues aren't personal. This is just life being itself, playing with itself, suffering by itself, and trying to make itself better through trial and error.

Exploring Racial Biases: Collective White Shadow & Collective POC Trauma There is a global collective shadow within white people and many of them aren't aware of it. This shadow shows as sarcasm, jokes, and subtle assumptions. It is more difficult to see than direct insults or criticism. Of course, being too serious in life isn't healthy and it's important to have fun and some of these jokes aren't always serious and don't necessarily mean something implicit. However, it becomes a problem if it's a common behavior as it creates internalized racists shadows without people being conscious of it. It's basically a self-fulfilling circle, but they don't think of it as racism because it doesn't hurt anybody (from their perspective) and it's fun. I noticed that many white people who have friends from other backgrounds do this without being aware of the traumatic baggage behind it. My sister told me a story, she was with a white friend and it was time to move, her friend told her: "Come on slave!". She was shocked by this and I was also astonished when she told me this story. Her friend wasn't aware of the global trauma within people of color and she just thought she was making a joke. After that, her friend felt really bad for saying such a thing and then apologized. I think that this kind of situation can often happen with young white people, they just don't understand what they are doing and don't understand that they absorbed some racism from previous generations. There is a global collective trauma within people of color. Even if slavery has been abolished (but other forms of racism continue), the trauma of being oppressed is still there with many people of color. I noticed that sometimes, I saw moments where a white person would start to speak to a person of color and this person of color would start to get nervous even if the white person wasn't doing anything nor say anything offensive. I also think that many people of color have an internalized sense of inferiority because we hear so much about the west and how developed it is. I saw people of color being kinder and treating white people better than people of their own background. I have a sense that some of them feel the sense to submit, or obey, especially when I was working in an offshore company. The communications were very simple, they were afraid of speaking and often times just responding affirmatively "Ok. Ok...". I mentioned in the previous paragraph that many white people aren't conscious of the racist connotation of some of their jokes. However, I saw cases where a white person would say a joke that I didn't consider racist at all that would petrify a person of color. A case happened in my country where a white person was doing a humourous speech and made fun of the Indian accent, most people didn't saw anything racist in that (white, Indians, and others included), however, some were scandalized. After that, the guy had to explain himself to the authorities and he even made a video saying that he was sorry and that he didn't know that some jokes could hurt that much. I personally didn't saw this as racist, but I also never thought in my entire life of making fun of someone's accent and have difficulties understanding why someone would do that. My perspective is probably a bit messed up here, I think I lack understanding on collective shadows, traumas, and lack understanding on how humor works. In the end, I see multiple perspectives: A behavior will be considered as racist for the person who feels that its racist A behavior will be considered as non racist for the person who feels that its not racist On the evolutionary scale, some behaviors are just better than others for the global happiness of the specie. Implicit jokes don't help evolution towards a greater good but maintain homeostasis and shadows. Discussions need to happen within people to tackle racism and create peace The human specie is a meta organism, and this meta organism isn't aware yet and doesn't always know what is racist or not and what to do so that it can feel better and be healthier. It still doesn't know how to regulate itself in a healthy way

24/04/2021 (Week 13) If any of what I wrote this week is true, it might be helpful if I... search for a small office isolated from noises cut toxic people cut my dad from my life search for authentic open-minded friends entertain a healthy, proactive, positive attitude towards life cover my needs accept my current self-esteem take responsibility to improve my self-esteem

24 April 2021 Wake Up Time: 08:40 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 10:05 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ❌ Stretching after waking up ❌ Cold shower after waking up ✅ No social media until 7 PM (Doesn't apply on Saturday) ✅ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: No work for today Average Focus: ~ / 5 (objective at least 3.5 / 5) Total Work Duration: 0 minutes, including 0 minutes of Deep Work (objective 0 minutes) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective at least 45 minutes)