UnbornTao

First we should define what being a man/masculine is like.

Intelligence can be developed.

Fair.

Keep it civil guys.

Moved to the Dating section.

Go find out directly. Debates can be fun but are always silly in the end. The explanations are nothing short of personal consciousness. Stay open!

A story by Gautama: "One afternoon a devoted monk walked along a bubbling brook deep in the forest. He gathered water there every day. When he knelt to dip his bucket in the water, he heard the bushes rustle behind him. He turned and saw a huge tiger staring at him and licking his hungry lips. The monk jumped up, dropped his bucket and fled. The tiger leapt after him. The monk ran deeper into the forest than he had ever gone before. He kept running. The tiger kept chasing. The thick foliage ended at a steep cliff. The monk stopped short and looked over the edge. He saw sharp rocks hundreds of feet below. If he jumped, he would die. The tiger began to pounce. The monk thought dying on the rocks below was better than being eaten alive. He jumped. He grabbed desperately at vines and roots on the cliff wall to slow his fall. He caught hold of a thick vine, gripped hard and stopped his fall. He looked up at the growling tiger above. He looked down at the rocks below. At that moment, the monk saw a plump red strawberry hanging on the vine. He forgot the tiger and the rocks. He plucked the strawberry and popped it into his mouth. He bit down slowly and savored the delicious sweetness. “This is the most delicious strawberry I have ever eaten,” the monk thought."

Survival demands turning everything into a positive and negative, pursuing what you want and avoiding what you don't. This shows up as a struggle. Also, the presence of death lingers in the background of our experience; this fact is actively pushed away and resisted which also comes up as a struggle no matter how much it is ignored, and being happy and joyful is possible amidts this struggle.

Opinion, either mine or another's, is irrelevant but you know that. In any case, no state can ever be permanent as that goes against its nature. A state comes and goes. Based on hearsay, a genuinely awake teacher like Ramana was said to be blissful even when the circumstances he was in were extremely barebones, such as insects biting his legs, when all he did was sitting in all day. What's up with that? We may not really know what happiness is. What if it is independent from self-survival? What if it is already the case and synonymous with being? I don't know. This hopefully opens some doors for us.

Consider struggle as a fundamental principle of life. Keep looking into this, you might discover something.

"Insert anything here"

It isn't about answers, agreement, conclusion, desire, conviction or belief, and nobody has.

Yeah, played the trilogy on PS3, good memories. Fair enough.

What I'm hearing is that anger is done by you for a purpose. You want to feel angry (or sad, bored, any other emotion), and so arguably you want them to happen -- feel attracted or drawn to doing them. The rest of what you say sounds like nice-sounding rhetoric.

Why the rhetoric and show? What is he trying to get across? Where is he coming from? What is the communication doing, whether it sounds good or not? Seems geared more to sales than to simple communication.

Am I truly Batman?

Missing out is a function of desiring what you don't have. In life you have to get clear on what you want and make decisions. You can't do nor have everything. If you go this way, you won't go that way. Pursuing a course of action means you won't be pursuing something else. For you to create anything at all requires commitment and discipline. This already means part of your attention and effort are invested in that. You could also not commit to anything and thus remain bound to your temporary impulses, but the direction of commitment is the enlivening one.

Reminder to be honest.

As long as it's taken as a tool, it's okay. Although it isn't about consciousness.

Hey, don't go so fast. First we need to directly know what reality is. By grasping its nature then the question of how it is created might be answered organically as a result of the direct consciousness.

Those are good questions to contemplate. Remember to leave the matter wide open: What is experienced/experience? What is concept? Consider the experience of a pencil: pick one up, then take away all concept you've got of it. What is that object for itself, with value, use, meaning, and function stripped away? This leaves us with a fundamental not-knowing about what anything is. Now, it might be possible to grasp what something is for itself, yet this possibility would go beyond intellect. I'm currently inquiring into these things, too.

Yeah that's what I've heard of the first one too. II is a pretty demanding game but may be playable depending on your PC if quality is set to Low/Medium and certain settings are turned off.

Let us know the challenges you encountered when this period is over.

If I slapped you in the face you'd immediately stop the intellectualising.