Zane

I can strongly agree with this statement! I'm used to the frustration of my passions being misunderstood or judged as having limited interests. The truth is I have broad passions that intersect together and I want to discover more passions and explore passions more deeply. Instead of connecting with everyone and being a people pleaser, I focus on expressing my authenticity unapologetically by creating my own social circle by meeting people who love my passions as much as I do. I'm also having an upcoming Capstone presentation and a paper for my Monsters class where I'm focusing on expressing my passions for monsters.

Thank you so much for these summaries! I love how you distill Leo's videos to a simple and easy to read format! After observing the video, I notice how my awareness of my own culture and other cultures is raising and I realize how as a child I didn't fully conform to cultural norms because of my Aspergers and feeling detached from my own culture. I focus heavily on learning heavily about cultures and how they're created. I notice how I've been embracing and learning about subcultures and countercultures and piecing together my inner puzzle and expanding my mind. At my college, I love spending time on my own and I spend time alone at the lake to detach and simply enjoy the moment by focusing just on swinging on the swings and feeling the summer or fall breeze. I've been dedicating time to volunteer as a Conversational English teacher to master cultural competency and to become multicultural. One of my highest aspirations is to dedicate my life to travel so I can embrace new experiences and free myself from cultural dogmatism. I'm observing and becoming more aware of cultural dogmatism. Some examples of cultural dogmatism 1. People get easily defensive of their political views and rejecting socialism blindly without looking at how broad of an ideology it is. Socialism is just one example! 2. People getting obsessed with a sport like soccer and just talking about soccer without broadening the conversation about other sports. 3. People having strong "patriotism" that is really unconscious jingoism. Great example: Make America Great Again! 4. American Exceptionalism without looking at America's deep rooted flaws 5. Rejecting and denouncing outsiders as "weirdos" "wannabes" "infidels" and "heathens" "savages" or "barbarians" I love making abstract concept of culture more practical by looking at culture on a microcosm through the lens of a family, a gang, a counterculture, or a subculture or a clique and drawing comparisons to countercultures and their ethos!

I'm not a frequent coffee drinker but I like to drink coffee in the morning to wake me up and decaf herbal tea at night so I can sleep well! I also drink coffee for the taste and for how great it awakens the mind and body. Here are some articles on drinking coffee strategically 1. http://lifehacker.com/5831104/how-to-break-your-daily-caffeine-habit-and-use-coffee-strategically 2. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/how-athletes-strategically-use-caffeine/283758/ 3. http://rebootedbody.com/coffee-trigger-new-habit/

I feel like for dating, there needs to be a strong balance between being strategic and intuition! Dating can be whatever you make it and it can be a trial and error process where you meet guys you connect to or guys where you feel no spark with! I'm in my early twenties and I'm looking at the present and also the future! Instead of seeking out relationships, I'm experimenting with creating a social circle of true friends. I realize that it's perfectly fine to be single whether you're a male or female because it frees up a lot more time, it gives you plenty of time for contemplation, and it allows you to balance both intuition and strategic thinking. It's fine if the man doesn't want to settle down and it's fine for you to discover your authentic goals and go against society. Dating can be very confusing and counterintuitive! I'm focusing on detaching from the need to dating and marriage and focusing more on cultivating close friendships. I honestly don't really care if I'm a bachelor for life! What matters is that I focus on creating my own unique social circle rather than looking for the One! I realize that there are many best friends out there rather than one ideal person! Maybe you can read more about the issue you're dealing with and be both strategic and intuitive about solutions!

Thoughts on Leo's Culture Video My favorite Leo videos are his rants on mainstream society, his rant on the Pickup Community, and his most recent rant on culture because these rants are grounded in insight, research, entertaining his audience, and education and realizations. When Leo explained struggling to fit into cultures as a child at the start of the video, I instantly shouted "LEO, YOU THE MAN!!" I flashed back to my childhood and I remember struggling to fit in because of my Autism, lack of social skills, and feeling weird. I feel like I'm somewhat of an outsider in my own family because I'm not the most achievement driven and I have zero interest in pursuing Corporate America. I don't focus on multitasking at many achievements and I like to limit my focus and spend time relaxing and valuing a lot of time by myself rather than over-commit myself to everything! I don't want to burn myself out and I focus on my own happiness! Some perceive me as antisocial but the truth is I'm very selective of my social circle and I commit myself to creating my own social circle. I notice how I can easily vibe with people who share my passions but I feel detached in group conversations and from strangers I could be. I know that I want friends but not just any friends! I notice how I don't particularly follow the latest trends and I'm not caught up on fashion trends and don't obsessively cling to the "coolest" fad because I'm aware that it will thrive and fade away. I notice how subcultures and fashion trends start obscure, become mainstream, fade into obscurity, and are revived. I have a deep fascination for cultures, particularly subcultures and countercultures and fandoms because it shows how powerful and magnetic ideas can be. The strongest example of this is the fiery rhetoric of Donald Trump and how it has created a revival of bigotry in America. One of the reasons people could be so captivated towards Trump is because of outrage towards the current political scene and economy and fear of change particularly immigrants. Trump knows how to exploit people's fear and paranoia and he is the master of exploiting the chimp brain! I've always seen myself as the scapegoat who Trump and his followers would detest and brand as "freak" "crazy" or "weird" because I'm fascinated and curious by creativity and ideas and I like to think and educate myself. Trump's followers is why blind social conformity terrifies me! What makes culture so fascinating are the links and strong parallels between cliques and subcultures! For example, I'll give a case study and cross-comparison between two subcultures that outwardly seem completely different but are more similar to each other if you look more closely. For example, Hip Hop, Jazz and Slavery Storytelling and Music are much more closely associated with each other! 1. The purpose of slave storytelling and music, jazz, and hip hop were an outlet of creative expression and rebellion from the oppressor. The slaves would tell stories about the "small and weak" tricksters who would outwit the bigger and dumber animals much like the slaves outwitting their master through rebellion and proving their master wrong. Black music during slavery evolved from African tribal chants and oral storytelling in African tribes! Jazz's purpose was to focus on the skill of the musician, the music's energy, and the loose and spontaneous structure of the music as opposed to how tightly controlled classical music and big band was. Jazz would become even more avant-garde and would reject music structure and be completely improvised! Hip hop started as block party music that merged spoken word poetry with the spontaneity of jazz and the art of collage by sampling music and re-creating it in the context of the hip hop/rap song. What slave storytelling/music, jazz and hip hop all have in common is that it shows how the most effective and revolutionary rebellion is creativity and self-expression and using a variety of outlets to cope with oppression! Creativity is freedom from oppression and it keeps people's hopes up! Creativity is what creates ideas and makes the mind and imagination concrete! What I want to take from Leo's Culture video is that I want Leo to explore creativity and how it's a central ethos to countercultures. I feel like Creativity is my central ethos for my life!

Thank you so much for the comment and your support!!!

Before i die, I don't want to avoid death nor fear it but use it as an opportunity for gratitude, contemplating, reminiscing, and focusing on dying happy and at peace rather than deeply regretful and miserable! I want to die knowing that I lived life on my own terms, I loved, and I mattered. I want to die having achieved self-actualized and truly re-capturing authenticity, life's richness and all the amazing experiences life has offered me. I'm creating a Twenties Journal as though I'm preparing for an early death so I can make my life great while I still have the time!

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.-Dylan Thomas

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time-Jack London

DON'T BE YOURSELF!!! DISCOVER YOURSELF OR CREATE YOURSELF!!! One of the most cliched pieces of "wisdom" is "be yourself!" It's been deeply drilled into our minds through pop culture! But I always saw it as a shallow and vague aphorism! I see SO MANY inspirational quotes from great thinkers and philosophers overlaid with a PhotoShopped nature pictures all over the Internet. I used to share them! I'm starting to realize how meaningfully meaningless these quotes are. The claim behind these quotes is that they will "change your life" but there's no concrete strategy behind these quotes. Whenever I hear "be yourself," I mimic the quote in a voice overlaid with schmaltz to highlight the sappiness of the quote. Instead of following these aphorisms blindly, re-consider them!! Ask "why be yourself?" "Who are you?" Or ask more deeply "who do you want to become?" After coming to your own answers, write down your answers and start creating a vision from these answers. For example "I envision myself as an effortlessly creative and authentic man who is grounded in his own freedom, who is detached from neediness, and who is motivated intrinsically and creatively rather than blindly seeking money, power, and sex. He still makes money, has power, and has sex but it's not his highest priorities! My highest priorities are my creativity and expressing my gift and discovering my gift!" I observe comedians and actors and my favorite characters and ask "what makes them irresistible and how can I make myself irresistible?" I don't focus on wanting to be liked or needing approval! I focus on being funny and mastering my repertoire and delivery and hyping myself up and cheering myself up by being other characters! I spent my whole life asking "who am I?" I realized that I'm unsure of my identity and I feel like my soul is possessed by Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr because I keep slipping into my own characters. I realize that I'm so deeply fascinated and attached to characters that I think more like an actor! I'm looking for an ideal character who captures my deepest passions and that fits me like a relaxed and classy jacket. Perhaps, to discover my identity, I should consider some high-yield strategies to discover my identity. For my discovery, I dedicated my time to discovering my niche particularly creative writing and I was involved in clubs affiliated with my passions. I'm focusing on creating a social circle based around mutual passions like I'm creating my own subculture. However, I went through years of feeling rejected and out of place in cultures! I feel like I'm discovering my own culture or creating my own culture! I don't just want any friend! I want a variety of friends affiliated with my deepest passions that feels like true companions NOT just roommates. However, a even higher priority than community WOULD BE my life purpose and values and how to act on the purpose and values. I feel like my purpose is to create stories and poetry and to share it before I die so I can be proud of my life and have no regrets. I feel like I'm getting closer to the meat and to the core of my authentic self but I can always go deeper! How can I master my authenticity? What possibilities are open to me? How can I create new possibilities?

I also highly recommend Breaking Bad!! That show is about the dark side of the authentic self and the authentic self being fully realized. Walter White starts out in a midlife crisis and when he becomes Heisenberg, he becomes uninhibited and consumed by megalomania and pride! The show is about the dark side of the authentic self and how the higher self can be corrupted and it's also about the dark side of the authentic self. Walter White is one of the most fascinating characters EVER and you can relate deeply to him! Like Walter, i was in that quarter life/midlife crisis and i had that wake up call and that deep desire to change. I feel like the authentic Zane is like a massive and glowing sun that is cutting through the bullshit of the thick fog and clouds. I love pondering the question "how is a quarter life/midlife crisis/identity crisis created? What are the signs and emotions of the crisis? How can you break out of a crisis?"

Can you tell us about the new course? What will it be focused on? What is the purpose of the course? When do you plan to launch the course? How can the course be practically applied to our lives? I'm excited for it!!!

WOW THIS THREAD SPEAKS TO ME DEEPLY!!!!!!!!!!!! I've been focusing heavily on reclaiming the inner child and I've had experiences where I felt completely immersed in the beauty of the moment, where the illusion of fiction completely invested me, where I focus on just having fun and where I stop over-thinking everything. I feel like it's been my purpose to return to that childlike state and during October, I spent the whole month watching Halloween classics and I truly felt like I've returned to the wonder, whimsy, and nightmares of my childhood imagination. I'm only 22 years old and I've been consistently happy. I returned to the childhood paradise of California and re-captured appreciating everything! I've recaptured my deep passion for stories and movies and I have that unapologetic childlike authenticity where I make people laugh easily.

I've been doing creative writing for years as my medium and I'm focusing on creating flow states that feel better than orgasms! I've had moments where I've produced a large quantity of stories! When I start drafting my ideas, it can feel chaotic and disorganized! I've been a creative writer off and on for about a decade and I feel like my purpose originated in childhood. My deepest desire is to go back to the time where creating stories was fun and to create that inner creative feeling where creativity just flows effortlessly! I'm learning how to work through the blocks and a great strategy is going back to basics to discover the genesis of creativity. I like to observe plays, and movies and stories to re-capture that inspiration! Creativity and freedom are my two highest values and I feel like i'm getting deeper to my purpose. I want to focus on creating flow states where creativity feels better than sex! I was asking about your own creative experiences and how they feel from your perspective because I love learning from fellow creatives!

Leo, I'm striving for that amazing creativity better than an orgasm! Can you describe how a creative episode feels? Why is it better than an orgasm? Recently, i wrote a couple of Modernist style poems and I read one of the poems to an audience and it was great making my whole poetry class laugh uproariously.

I see enjoyment is letting go of mental filters and simply focus on enjoying the moment! It's living in a flow state and being deeply immersed in flow! It means to immerse yourself in authenticity and to give yourself to pleasure!

Creativity and imagination have been responsible for my greatest breakthroughs! By creating a mental vision, I transitioned into creating a strategy and to taking action. I focus on appealing to people's authenticity and creating flow states for them! It angers me when people shoot down creativity because creativity is CRUCIAL for self-actualization. I refuse to give up creativity and imagination because I see freedom as my top value and I refuse to have my spirit crushed. Intuition is creativity and if your intuition rots away when unused, you die earlier! I've been focusing on making intuition, creativity, and imagination, my life purpose and my values as my drive rather than another person or a clique or a cause or being loyal to a country or a leader! I've been focusing heavily on expressing myself authentically and unapologetically and it has high and amazing yields. It's resulted in me getting cast for a dream part in Rocky Horror, making new friends who share my passions, getting attention from actors as their favorite audience member, initiating physical intimacy, and personal intimacy and cheering people up. I'm focusing on cutting through bullshit and being unapologetically authentic BUT NOT blatantly offensive!! I can get overly-consumed by characters that I do so many imitations at once and it can be very awkward but i think it's a sign of my identity crisis and focusing on freeing myself from a quarter life crisis!

You're not alone because I dread the rat race myself! I observed how miserable it can transform people and I focus on preserving my authenticity but I still want to focus on financial independence!

My friends from college have graduated and it's my final semester in college. My goal is to create a new social circle aligned with my life purpose, my personal values, and who share my passions. My vision for a social circle are genuine friends who are authentic and highly creative and who I can effortlessly interact with no limitations like social awkwardness. I'm mastering the art of conversation and I'm realizing one of my best abilities is to share my passion with people and get people's contact info easily by showing my passion in conversation. My passion has resulted in actors recognizing me from the audience and noticing how passionate I get and they embrace my passion and love my passion. I used to see my eccentricity as an impediment because I felt "creepy" and I would be unrestrained. Instead of denying my eccentricity or stomping it out to be more normal. I used to be more creepy by being much more clingy and needy and not understanding people particularly girls. I used to send people too many texts without taking the hint and I struggled with impatience. I would also monopolize conversations and I would blurt out my thoughts. I revised my eccentricity from creepiness into charm by thinking like a comedian and an actor who is embodying a character. I'm tapping into my inner charisma and I realize that there is charisma within me. I want to be selective with my social circle and have a small but intimate social circle and not a clique. I'm writing in the forum to begin to process of creating a new social circle. I value genuine and intimate friendships based around sharing mutual passions! By revising creepiness into eccentric and passionate charisma, it has resulted excellently in getting new friends and even getting to know girls much more deeply and even getting a prom date and attention, respect and even admiration from actors and actresses.

Here are some resources for lucid dreaming! This is a growing passion I want to pursue! I love the idea of controlling my own dreams in the same way i'm the creator in control of my own freedom and the storyteller in control of my stories 1. http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com 2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201212/lucid-dreaming-and-self-realization 3. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/04/the-ways-to-control-dreaming/360032/ 4. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/02/what-its-like-to-be-a-lucid-dreamer.html

I'm discovering my creative culture and I realize that open mics, poetry slams, comedy clubs, the theater, and the coffeeshop, book fairs, listening to music, writing alone, watching movies and socializing with passionate friends and to metaphorically kill toxic people from my life.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! Why October 2016 Was The Best Month This Year 2016 has been a turbulent year in pop culture and political history! So many celebrities, starting with David Bowie and Alan Rickman, and other great musicians and actors have died especially Prince which feels like the end of an era. Politically, the 2016 election between Clinton and Trump has dominated the media and TV news, and Brexit has been turbulent for the UK and the EU. For my life, I used 2016 as an opportunity to be even better than last year 2015 which I considered a consistently great year and a huge leap forward from the doldrums and hell of 2013 and the progress of 2014. What made 2016 so great so far and yet so stressful was that I averted a major crisis. I accomplished a 50 hour internship for my Education 302 class and it was the most-time consuming and time crunch project of the year and it could've been a huge failure but with personal autonomy, professional academic help, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, hard work, and perseverance I accomplished it on top of a big final term paper for the class. It seems like 2016 would be a peak, plateau, and a plummet but it was a cycle of peak, plateau, and peak because of being strategic and flexible and learning from mistakes and failures. The worst point in 2016 was realizing in early March that I only completed 7 hours of my internship, so I buckled down and had to think strategically and be flexible and work hard and by early May, I won. Summer 2016 was honestly a better summer than 2015 and Summer 2015 was one of the best summers in my life! What made 2016 such a great summer were all the opportunities I've seized were aligned with my passions. I saw so many theater productions like two Synetic Theater productions, Phantom of the Opera at the Kennedy Center, Paul Simon in concert, and a free production of The Tempest in the front row and a few other shows and I have zero regrets for supporting theater. I also expanded my involvement in open mic poetry where I found an outlet for my manic energy. During Fall 2016, I channeled that manic energy into acting by auditioning for Dr. Frank N Furter in "Rocky Horror" and I got the lead role ! I also focused on being completely open to expressing myself in conversations and stop faking politeness just to get accepted. A few of my top values are freedom and authenticity, intuition (creativity, and flow), humor, and passion and ESPECIALLY self-actualization which is my Gold Standard. The values I reject are conformity, loyalty, and ESPECIALLY blind obedience and being spineless and weak willed and being easily offended and neurotic and being miserable and clinging to traditions and being dogmatic and being petty and bitter. I realize how empowering and magical unapologetic authenticity works because it truly makes you the life of the party, it easily starts conversations, it makes people laugh easily and opens people up and it doesn't just tap into the inner child and comedian but it fully embraces it, declares the inner comedian their soul mate, and makes love to the inner comedian with zero regrets. However I also focus on being genuine and open about my strengths and October 2016 has been a GREAT month if not the best month of a great year!!! What made the month so great was my whole Fall Break which involved seeing a great play on a bargain Orchestra ticket and "Dante's Inferno" on a student discount ticket in the front row. I also finally got to meet a person i've been talking to online since August and we cuddled and had a great time together. I spent the whole month watching Halloween classics and I realized that I returned to my childhood. Watching "Over the Garden Wall" "Coraline" "ParaNorman" and "Corpse Bride" and "Rocky Horror Live" felt like I returned to the paradise lost of my childhood where I re-discovered that childlike joy I got from all the movies I watched. Returning to childhood feels like all the stress has dissolved away and has never existed. It feels like being overjoyed and ecstatically drunk where you're so immersed in flow that you stop thinking and over-analyzing the experience and want the moment last. When it passes you are completely immersed in the moment that you're laughing ecstatically and you don't give a damn. I realize that I'm achieving Leo's list wants of Being Authentic, Time Flowing By, and Reality Being Magical again! I'm realizing that I'm fulfilling my deepest inner desires and I realize that my deepest desire is to be free and to be ecstatically in love and feel rapturous bliss. The great news is that I'm only 22 and I'm realizing these deepest goals and I'm not mis-identfying goals like wanting love, sex, money, fame, and power which are unfulfilling. I'm realizing how unfulfilled mainstream society is! I'm realizing that I'm blazing the trail for self-actualization but I can go deeper. I realize that self-actualization is a core desire! Returning to childhood is NOT a weekend trip, it's the new path to something grander!! It feels like I'm sipping from the Holy Grail and dabbling my feet into the Fountain of Youth to test the waters! I'm on a great start but the peak experiences are building more and more and will escalate into something

Excellent!! Thanks for taking my suggestions! I would love to see Leo focus on creativity and imagination and how it can apply to self-actualization or all areas of life! I realized that people are growing increasing detached from their creativity and cling rigidly to logic! Creativity amazingly links to both intuition and logic and it is the greatest mental toolkit with our intuition, our imagination, our inner movies and our dreams and our thoughts, our ingenuity, and our visionary of the possibilities. Creativity helps us become mentally fluid and can dissolve or destroy barriers! To simplify creativity to it's bare basics, creativity is our authenticity! It's truly amazing and fascinating! My highest priority is to be a creator and to master creativity to become self-actualized.

This book is a personal favorite of mine!!! It's simple and direct and the advice is practical and it all boils down to "nothing is original but you need to have ingenuity as an artist! You have infinite ideas and tools so what will you create?" I love this book and I also highly recommend "Show Your Work" by the same writer and "The Artist's Way" by Julie Cameron and "The Creative Habit" by Twlya Tharp

You can re-discover a sense of direction in life! For your vision, I suggest writing it down and planting the vision in your mind and to truly visualize it. After visualizing it, start creating an action strategy to create your results and set goals and a deadline for yourself. For relationships, set high standards for yourself and choose a girl who embodies your passions! Date a variety of girls and create authenticity inner game, and seduction. For your addictions, check out Leo's videos on addiction and don't apply harsh self-discipline to break the cycle. For addictions, consider healthier replacements and creative outlets! For toxic people in your life, eliminate toxicity from your life and refuse to be controlled by people! There are an infinite variety of strategies and solutions to these problems! I think your biggest limit could be your mindset which could be keeping you stuck! For self-esteem, imagine yourself as your authentic self if he was effortlessly confident and internally grounded in his authenticity, who has a sense of purpose and values that he fully embraces. Music is a GREAT passion with amazing possibilities for a life purpose!! You can learn how to discover a unique singing voice, and an authentic style!! A passion for music has amazing potential so that's the seeds of your passion but just plant and water the seeds and give it sunlight and it will grow into an amazing garden.