UnbornTao

Now, bring up some positive examples of conformity that you engage in or benefit from, even if unknowingly: wearing clothes, using the metric system, updating your mobile apps, or checking expiry labels. Or, hey, using language and participating in cultural customs. It seems to me we are more comformists than we're willing to admit, both individually and collectively. And, again, that's not necessarily bad - or good, either. It's part of being a social animal, deeply embedded in our biology and psychology.

Eye see

Goool!

That may be.

Yeah. Like the kernel of an operating system.

You might want to look into Vipassana programs.

This would require a much more involved effort on our part. Some food for thought: Okay. And what's that? Notice it's mostly taken for granted. You seem to think that language is just a "commentary" or side note layered on top of your personal experience of reality - as if they were distinctly and unequivocally separate. Try to remove the invention of language from your experience. Imagine what life was like prior to its invention. This is a significant meditation. For example, would your experience of thinking and taking to yourself be the same? Could you even think without language? Then again, how could communication exist without having language as a possibility or context? What makes a symbol possible? How can something like a sound come to represent something that is not itself that sound? Can you unpack what you mean by energy and "language is energy"? If your claim is that language is universal and not invented, I'll have to disagree with that.

And yet, the profundity of this principle continues to elude us.

Based on that, your claim should be more like: life is occurring, rather than "existence is." We could say that existence comes prior to life, this being a process enabled by the former. You seem to want to claim that the canvas shares the quality of invention of the painting - as if the canvas were also a result of the painting or of the act of painting.

Sarcastic comment (just in case).

God bless America!

People love being told what to believe (despite vehemently denying it at the same time); that's partly why cults are so emotionally appealing. Add to this the fact that, collectively, we don't really know how to listen or what to pay attention to, and you have a recipe for these dynamics. It does make getting popular a lot easier, though.

@Judy2 Those are normal and can be thought of as human needs to some degree. Everyone values or desires a certain level of safety, validation, comfort. But yeah, you might be overthinking - let it unfold organically. Perhaps use feeling as your guide, with thinking as a complement. "What do I love? What do I find meaningful?" These are some of the core questions to focus on.

I don't think Leo has made it yet.

How dare you! Yeah. Also, culture as a whole, it seems - which has its positive aspects, too.