Story Education:
Story by Robert McKee The Anatomy of Story by John Truby The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler Music Education:
Music Composition 1 & 2 by Jonathan Peters
Music Theory by Jonathan Peters
Art Education:
Art Fundamentals by 3dtotal Publishing The Illustrated Story of Art by DK

I want to create a thread with resources on how to become more cultured. Please share your ideas, insights, and resources on what it means to be cultured and how to become more cultured.
Here's my attempt (These lists merely serve as a starting point. Many works of art that you love might not show up on any of these lists):
Step One: Consume culture:
Movies/Shows to watch:
Top 250 Movies - IMDb 101 Greatest Screenplays 101 Best Written TV Series Books to read:
One Million Ratings! Goodreads.
100 must-read classics
The ten best Shakespeare plays of all time
Music to listen to:
The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time 100 Greatest Classical Music Works Games to play:
Best Video Games of All Time Paintings you should know:
Most Famous Paintings in Art History Of All Time Ranked Top 101 Greatest Paintings of All Time Sculptures you should know:
26 Top Famous Sculptures of All Time Buildings you should know:
50 Iconic Buildings Around the World You Need to See Before You Die Step Two: Create your own lists.
What do you like? Refine your taste. 
Step Three: Contribute.
A cultured person isn't just a consumer. He's also a creator.
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The goal is to become a Renaissance man, a polymath:
"Humans are limitless in their capacity for development. This is expressed in the term Renaissance man: people who seek to develop their abilities in all areas of accomplishment: intellectual, artistic, social, physical, and spiritual."
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A cultured person carries himself well:
Great at the art of conversation Great social skills Great communication skills High emotional intelligence -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Examples of cultured people: 
Leonardo da Vinci
George Lucas
J.K. Rowling
Joseph Campbell
Terence McKenna
Alan Watts
Carl Jung
Adyashanti
When you find a work of art that you love, find out more about how it was created. Study the creator and his body of work.
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"In 2011, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who has served as the Saudi intelligence chief and as ambassador to the United States has suggested that the kingdom might consider producing nuclear weapons if it found itself between the atomic arsenals of Iran and Israel. In 2012, it was confirmed that Saudi Arabia would launch its own nuclear weapons program immediately if Iran successfully developed nuclear weapons. In such an eventuality, Saudi Arabia would start work on a new ballistic missile platform, purchase nuclear warheads from overseas and aim to source uranium to develop weapons-grade material.
Officials in the U.S. alliance believe Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have an understanding in which Islamabad would supply the kingdom with warheads if security in the Persian Gulf was threatened. A U.S. official told The Times that Riyadh could have the nuclear warheads in a matter of days of approaching Islamabad. Pakistan's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Naeem Khan, was quoted as saying that "Pakistan considers the security of Saudi Arabia not just as a diplomatic or an internal matter but as a personal matter." Naeem also said that the Saudi leadership considered Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be one country. Any threat to Saudi Arabia is also a threat to Pakistan. Other vendors were also likely to enter into a bidding war if Riyadh indicated that it was seeking nuclear warheads. Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have denied the existence of any such agreement. Western intelligence sources have told The Guardian that the Saudi monarchy has paid for up to 60% of the Pakistan's atomic bomb projects and in return has the option to buy five to six nuclear warheads off the shelf.
In March 2018, the crown prince said if Iran decided to build a nuclear weapon, "we will follow suit as soon as possible". This prompted U.S. Senator Ed Markey to comment "nuclear energy in Saudi Arabia is about more than just electrical power", implying Saudi Arabia was interested in nuclear power to gain the skills to be able to develop weapons. This potentially reduces the probability of a nuclear deal with the U.S.
In May 2018, Al Jazeera media reported the statement from the former director of Al Arabiya TV, Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, who wrote in the Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper an article while accompanying Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his recent visit to Washington that no one can confirm if Saudi Arabia is capable of building a nuclear weapon yet. However, the news former director has pointed out that Riyadh owns uranium materials in its desert, and has adopted a plan to extract it within 2030.
In March 2019, Donald Trump's administration approved a deal allowing Saudi Arabia to access to nuclear secrets through the U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, with an approval known as Part 810 authorizations. Although it doesn't allow to access equipment required to process Uranium, it allows the 6 companies involved to keep their authorization be withheld from public release and evading the Congress about the information shared with the Kingdom.
It was also reported that Saudi Arabia did not sign up to halt the enrichment of uranium, reprocessing of spent fuel and neither signed the 123 Agreement with the United States.
Saudi Arabia constructed a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake from uranium ore with the help of China. According to a western official, the facility was built near the remote town of AlUla. Saudi Arabia has signed the most limited safeguard agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
On 17 September 2020, The Guardian reported Saudi Arabia of being in possession of enough uranium ore reserves to produce 90,000 tonnes worth of uranium. It stated the finding on the basis of the reports compiled by the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology (BRIUG) and the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), in association with Saudi Geological survey. As per the reports, three different deposits in the central and northwest region of the country were reported to be potential for the extraction. The disclosure reportedly increased concerns regarding Riyadh’s aggressive interest in developing atomic weapons program. In this report geologists identified some reserves near the controversial Neom megacity development are and estimated that Saudi could produce over 90,000 tonnes of uranium from three deposits."
And also one should keep in mind that:
The Trump admin almost immediately withdrew at the beginning of their term from the JCPOA agreement with Iran for monitoring, capping and containing their uranium enrichment processes at their nuclear research facilities for development of possible weapons grade uranium compatible for nuclear warheads and their payloads, upon assuming office. As if they knew how the Saudi officials and their regime said they would respond in that case if Irans nuclear development program resumes no longer bound by any international legal mechanism enforcement and oversight agreements with some tinge of shared authority, legitimacy and control and being effectively now mostly uninhibited henceforth and that they [the Saudis] would be searching rampantly for needed more advanced nuclear tech for swift development of their own nuclear weapons program to keep the pace or have the advantages over the Iranian one, triggering, finding an a excuse and precursor for another fueling of a new nuclear arms race in the Middle East - by doing this needless further antagonization move to create a rushed manufactured, artifical demand for such [weapons] in order to profit-off of personally by getting involved in it directly as a facilitator of such [backdoor deals] by possibly using shady, corrupt private backdoor insurance dealings, understandings and agreements routs. 
This is what I speculate with my limited available information and by connecting the dots using some common sense logic and my limited knowledge of the existence of potential prior vested interests and conflict-of-interests involved in this case and prior dealings that this current mainstream popular perception of a major US national scandal and controversy is all most likely maybe about. 

1) You need to have a solid library already built of great music. Create various playlists of your fave music for various moods. Dancing, high energy, low energy, erotic, jazzy, lyrics, no lyrics, ambient, etc.
2) When it comes to watching movies, just watch whatever YOU want to watch. Watch things you are genuinely interested in. You should have a collection of movies, shows, and documentaries already pre-loaded so you can quickly browse through to find whatever catches your fancy.
All of the above should be familiar to you like the back of your hand, so you don't have to think or decide about anything.

Deep Simplicity (chaos theory) and Infinity and the Mind (infinity in many varieties)
GEB is great for understanding fundamental pure math ideas about the limits of logic, and it's certainly a Yellow book, but it is rigidly materialistic and misses the very heart of nonduality despite bumping its head into over and over.  He even has chapters on Zen and just can't grasp consciousness to save his life and tirelessly confuses it with mind.  I wasn't as impressed by this book as Leo, it was mostly cute cleverness and a whole lot of work.

I read this book after becoming conscious of the fact that the root cause of most of my self-destructive behaviors was boredom. I might come back later to edit these notes or add more to it. I still haven't added into these notes the benefits of embracing boredom, which are wondefully described in the book. These notes are helpful to contemplate so you can become aware of the subtly different ways that boredom can arise. In the opening of each chapter in the book there are also many nice little quotes that are good for contemplation.
"The power of boredom - Why Boredom is Essential to Creating a Meaningful Life" by Mark A. Hawkins
What is boredom?
Boredom is the lack of any stimuli (internal or external) that is engaging Boredom is the space that allows us to see through all the distractions of our modern busy lives and into the true nature of our existence (an empty space full of potential) Boredom is life’s workspace. A place and time when we can examine our lives Boredom is a survival instinct that tells us to keep working towards improving ourselves, according to societal norms and expectations Boredom is a dark basement. It can be scary when you open the door and a bunch of creepy things can be in there, but deep down there’s a treasure Boredom is the fear of the self. The self that doesn’t live up to expectations Boredom is a spiritual practice Boredom is meditation Boredom is the absence of diversion Boredom is the discomfort of restlessness As soon as you feel a twinge of restlessness, stop and do nothing Boredom is the mother of the creative act Boredom is a never-ending spiral of personal and philosophical discoveries that can be used to create a great life Types of boredom
Situational boredom: mild form of boredom when we are doing an activity that we don’t really feel like doing (like sitting in a boring class or doing repetitive work) “Full” boredom: felt when we get tired of doing a particular activity. This type of boredom is eliminated by moving on to another activity that engages us. “Empty” boredom: felt when we’re doing nothing (waiting to go to a party, waiting for a game to start on TV, waiting at the dentist’s office) Intense “empty” boredom: when there’s nothing to do in a long period of time (like weekends when there’s nothing to do, lazy Sundays) Existential boredom: very common in our society. It is bubbling under the surface of all our activity “Full” existential boredom: when we are busy with our lives, but there is very little that interests us or engages us about it (aka. going through the motions of life, being on a hamster wheel, there being no point to any action, withdrawal of meaning from everything in our lives in a negative way) “Empty” existential boredom: the most painful kind. Linked to depression, anxiety and destructive behaviors. Felt a lot in retirement. Sunday neurosis: the free time that we have worked so hard all week for becomes too painful. Here, we actually want so badly to go back to work because it will distract us from the nagging feeling that something is missing. Society's view on boredom
“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop” Boredom can be associated with laziness, lack of direction and even criminality Socially acceptable addictions (escape from boredom)
Society can even reward you for these addictions, among others:
Shopping Workaholism Addiction to exercise Compulsively filling our time with people Compulsive travel (wanderlust) Engagement in risky behaviors (bungee jumping, cliff diving, sky diving) Creation of drama Going on ideological “crusades” – defending a cause Limiting belief boredom reveals to us
Happiness is controlled by external events (The discomfort reveals how much we’ve been relying on external events for our happiness) The world is a competitive place (It can also be a creative place) Every moment of life should be pleasurable Also some other personal limiting beliefs which are specific to what societal ideals (or personal ideals) affect us more strongly personally Filling space vs. necessary activities for survival
Filling space: Watching TV Shopping Surfing the net Playing video games Having a couple drinks Reading Cleaning the room when it doesn’t have to be cleaned, etc. Needed for survival in the modern world: Going to work School Making food Having shelter Pursuing a goal, etc. Boredom vs mindfulness
Mindfulness: increase awareness of our avoidance of the now, bringing mind back to present moment Boredom: complete lack of engagement, a complete lack of meaning. Nowadays we must make a conscious effort to allow moments of boredom in our lives

Does anyone know where I can obtain a copy of this translated into English, if an English translation even exists?
Thanks much, Acadia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5YBd8m9prQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs0vk092UN0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDg9ntSRGQw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC2ZiPfwf1M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu-wFuDqZws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ1q07WHuOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGYy_QKRS4c
 

There could be multiple factors at play.
Some people just have the wrong genetics Some people have naturally high tolerance Some people just took the wrong dose Some people need a different chemical than DMT Some people are very closedminded and not interested in deeply questioning reality Some people have a lot of repressed trauma Some people simply refuse the trip, instead creating a bad trip out of fear Some people only tried it once, which is not enough to get into proper tripping territory Various combinations of the above are possible.

Aftermatch , 3 days after ayahuasca or my first psychedelic. Channeled messages
Because every person lives from their own conscious reality and perspective every experience is gonna be subjective based on their consciousness and made up character from all the past experiences. It is highly likely that people are getting their own subjective illusionary experiences during ayahuasca and make a belief out of it for the positive or the negative, this way they're creating their own reality. Some belief examples: Mother ayahuasca, purging etc.  It seems that during ayahuasca the dream state which is another dimension by itself is coming up and can be experienced consciously while being aware. Ayahuasca/dmt also changes persons vibrations/signal and gets you closer to the consciousness itself or all that is atleast that's what it seemed to me. Now because everyone gets their subjective experience from ayahuasca it can work in a healing way in different ways, for example: Priest goes to your house and blesses
it from demons/ghosts because you fear them and they're in your belief system and in your actual reality because you are subject in creating your own reality but in another persons subjective reality or belief they don't exist. Which means reality is being created for each person differently and subjectively thanks to consciousness and this is why we can't declare people for crazy/sick if they have a dissociative reality that is out of the society norms, consciousness is into play here. Now for ayahuasca to be used as a healing medicine it simply has to affect their consciousness/perspective in a positive way. It's how you give a person a vitamine pill that you have blessed yourself and tell them it's a pill against headache that works 100% against headache effectively changing their belief and reality a bit for the betterment and healing.
 

? Leo's Blog: Table of Contents ? ▶️ Blog Videos, Summaries & Interviews ▶️ ? Actualized.org on Psychedelics ?  (has all resources on psychedelics)  
Leo’s “20 Dream Killers” article. There’s an Actualized.org Textbook.  It was assembled by @Cepzeu and others.  Summaries that are in the Textbook (v2) will say: (book pg XXX). You can also check out Leo’s Personal Development Blueprint.  It covers over 100 concepts in personal development.  
      Actualized.org Youtube Episodes:
The first 200 episodes have transcripts in the video section of Actualized.org If you want to contribute to this thread, select one of the episodes that still needs a summary and post it here       Episodes:      1 - 249
      Episodes:  250 - 514

@UnbornTao I suppose that depends on where you're at, since there's many different entry points depending on what your pre-existing Frame of Reference happens to be.
If you want to learn more about how paradigms work, Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a great starting point that will teach you some epistomology, and is a fairly accessible read.
For another fairly accessible book that deals with epistomology, Lakoff and Johnson wrote a book called Metaphors We Live By which deals with how our embodiment frames the ways in we learn about and interact with the world.
If you already have a basic understanding of how paradigms work and at least some familiarity with meditative practices, you may find The Embodied Mind to be highly helpful.
I found it useful primarily as a way to reframe how I would approach meta-theories. While the focus of the work is cognitive science, the basic idea is broad enough to apply to other meta-paradigms.
If you're curious enough to put in the work for a challenging but very rewarding read, Heidegger's Being and Time is probably the most useful book on epistomology I've come across. But it's also very, very challenging, and not the sort of thing one can jump into without a good grasp of philosophy.

Note: this is not a developmental model, nor is it about determining which framework is better or worse.

 
What does it do?
It shows how these different metaphysical frameworks differ in terms of the trade-off between comprehensiveness and specificity, which realms they're mainly operating under (hyper-dimensional vs. three-dimensional reality), and which explanatory constraints they're operating under (mysticism vs. naturalism vs. myth).
 
Explaining the different explanatory constraints
Mysticism
- deals with methods, metaphors, anecdotes and stories that aim to facilitate the direct phenomenological experience of God/reality, and these explanations of reality are seen as a means rather than an end. There are no general guidelines for these types of explanations, only that they aim to encapsulate the nature of God.
Naturalism
- deals with analytic philosophy, the scientific method and scientific theories. The goal is to explain a phenomena by reducing it to some other known phenomena that is compatible with the naturalistic paradigm, e.g. explaining rivers by referring to the structural-functional properties of water. The general guidelines for a naturalistic metaphysics is coherence, internal logical consistency, conceptual parsimony, empirical adequacy, and explanatory power.
Myth
- deals with metaphors, anecdotes and stories in order to explain the nature of reality. For example, God created Eve from one of Adam's ribs, which explains the origin of man vs. woman. The general guidelines are specific to each tradition.
 
General -> specific, and hyper-dimensional vs. 3D human realm
The first distinction is a hierarchical one: the closer something is to the top, the more general, comprehensive, holistic, all-encompassing, and big-picture it is, and conversely, the closer something is to the bottom, the more specific and concrete it is. There is an inherent trade-off between these levels, meaning you can only have so much of one or the other, but the different levels also don't have to necessarily contradict each other (although sometimes they do):

For instance, the statement or metaphor "you are imagining everything" of psychedelic mysticism is able to encompass the experiences you encounter in the hyper-dimensional realm ("my couch just talked to me") as well as those in the 3D human realm ("my friend just talked to me"), but it seems to lack more specific explanatory power for the 3D realm. The same applies to nondual mysticism: "there is no separation" doesn't really explain the apparent illusion of separation (or at least the particularities of it, e.g. "why am I able to pick up a cat and not a car?").

On the other hand, the naturalistic frameworks are tied to conventional scientific investigation and analytical standards of reasoning, and these are more able to account for specific things in the 3D realm, like the weight of cats vs. cars, technological innovation and subsequent questions like "is AI sentient?" But these again lose some comprehensiveness, in that some things are either hard or impossible to explain:

One such example is the "Hard problem of consciousness", which has remained unsolved under physicalism (but is solved in analytic idealism, but conversely, it faces the "Decombination problem" which is solved under physicalism). However, analytic idealism seems to have a plausible solution for the Decombination problem (i.e. "dissociation"), but the research around that is still in its infancy. Mysticism has none of these problems, because again, it simply relies on metaphors, anecdotes and fuzzy concepts, not analytic philosophy and science.
 
Specific -> Pseudo-specific
On a less important note, with respect to the two "Myth" frameworks on the bottom, I denoted the tendency towards "pseudo-specific" in the sense that they're both less specific and incredibly specific compared to the naturalistic frameworks. For example, while physicalism can point to things like particles, forces and phase states to explain things like rain and fire, an animist explanation would for example be a "rain spirit" or "fire spirit" for each phenomena. Merely denoting these phenomena as "spirit" doesn't tell you much about their specific properties compared to say their chemical structure, but each explanation is in another sense incredibly specific to the phenomena.
 
Why did I make this?
Because I often see what I consider a harmful tendency towards "naive skepticism", i.e. to dismiss or deny especially analytically rigorous styles of investigation (philosophy & science). I think carefully spelling out these different levels of investigation and seeing the pros and cons in a visual way can help with that. The most important point in this respect is the naturalism vs. mysticism distinction, and that in any sort of inquiry, be it spiritual, self-help or intellectual, one should acknowledge the constraints of each framework and avoid blindly choosing one over the other.

Epistemic — relating to knowledge or to the degree of its validation.
Naivety — innocence or unsophistication.
Pitfall — a hidden or unsuspected danger or difficulty.
Here is my rendition of the most common approaches to knowledge and their pitfalls. Usually, one leads to the next:

Naive realism
takes things at face value believes in one's conditioning lack of introspection It's the default mode for most people and is the most naive framework. It tries to label the world accurately, but it fails to become aware of its own constructions. These people think that their view of the world is like looking through a clear glass window, and that people who disagree with their view is either stupid or insane.
When you see through the naivety of naive realism, you will usually move on to skepticism, where some of the pitfalls can be described as naive skepticism:

Naive skepticism
skeptical of most claims to knowledge extremely self-critical hyper-exclusive relativism The naive skeptic is skeptical of all labelling of reality and is pulled down by cynicism and unconstructive behavior. They discard everything that isn't patently self-evident. An example is a person who goes into a philosophy seminar and asks "how do you know that?" until they get kicked out.
Seeing through naive skepticism will usually lead you to pragmatism, where some of the pitfalls can be described as naive pragmatism:

Naive pragmatism
"everything goes" lack of criticism hyper-inclusive relativism There is an openness to all views, but there is a lack of structure or hierarchy, and it therefore struggles to prioritize different claims to knowledge. For example, it will easily place an equal sign between pseudoscience and science (e.g. "astrology = physics").
Seeing through naive pragmatism will usually lead you to metatheorism, where some of the pitfalls can be described as naive metatheorism:

Naive metatheorism
takes a wide perspective has a systematic approach to knowledge becomes lost in its own grand theories subtle realism The naive metatheorist is open, critical and also realistic, and tries to synthesize a coherent system which integrates many types of knowledge.
The pitfall happens when one becomes a bit too optimistic about the universality of one's theories. You start believing that because a theory is "meta" and is able to zoom out across large perspectives (cross-paradigmatic, cross-cultural etc.), it somehow escapes or transcends the limitations of your own cultural and paradigmatic conditioning (i.e. the things that made you arrive at those conclusions in the first place). An example is believing Spiral Dynamics to be the infallible word of God.
That is of course a bit naive, and the way out is to counter that impulse with the earlier lessons of skepticism, and remind yourself that the better the model, the easier it is to get lost in one's own constructions.
 
Who is not naive in any way?
One who has experienced all of these pitfalls first-hand, but who doesn't let that fact curb their ever-expanding thirst for knowledge, and who doesn't pretend that naivety is something one can ever transcend.
 
Did anything I just wrote sound familiar to you? Be honest

Interesting seeing responses, shows how much it can very for different people. 
Big Picture, Psychedelic's have been a huge boost to, Vision, Clarity, articulation of Life purpose, and even work on my life-purpose (Music.) New ideas, ways of singing, or placing sound can come from tripping, Lyrics, melodies, and so on..
I would say, it depends on what your desire is, and what you are focusing on in life.
For example, if the social domain is one that is the focus for this chapter, Micro dosing  LSD, DMT can be very helpful in reading and feeling connection with people, flow of conversation. Deeper trips alone or with a trusted friend, can free up blockages, mental and physical, lead one to face trauma, limiting beliefs, the shadow, leading to more fluid social interactions in the months and years post trip. Another Example from my own life: Gaining clarity into Life-Purpose. I had my first real "OH MY FUCKING GOD, OF COURSE, THE SIGNS HAVE BEEN THEIR THE WHOLE TIME! MY LIFE PURPOSE IS MUSIC!!!" on 4-ACO-DMT, after taking the ULPC for the first time. Though there has been additional clarity over the years since then, that was a special time.  Continuing with the example of Life purpose, Psychedelics have an uncanny ability to allow the unconscious/subconscious bubble to the surface, leading to much more intuitive, authentic answers to questions such as "What would be the most meaningful impact I could have on people?"  Like Leo Mentioned, it would be a good idea to watch his video on the top dangers of psychedelics.
https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-top-dangers-of-using-psychedelics
 
Much Love  
 
 
 
 

Substituting the criterion of truth for some proxy criterion (e.g. practical, nice, "spiritual", popular, consensus, etc.)

Although I'm into spiritual work — countless hours of 'consciousness' work — I've never tried psychedelics.
All I did is to focus my mind in-depth on an object, on my breath, or on my awareness — you can be aware that you are aware.
And I pushed myself to get the practice — in a unique manner — to the next level. The quality of the practice matters more than the quantity of it — you can focus three hours straight or you can do it ten times a day but with less intensity.
1. Focusing on something for three hours without pause.
2. Focusing on something for ten minutes, ten times a day.
It is a huge difference.
The good news about consciousness work is that you can heal yourself mentally and physically. Your biology is not separate from your mind — your body is an organism; all of its functions are intertwined.
To truly experience well-being, you need the capacity to stay present effortlessly, for hours on end, just like a Zen monk does.
Being anchored in the present moment is a skill — it requires lots of practice and @Leo Gura knows that. Leo discovered so many things on his own because he succeded in biting the bullet — he took the practice seriously and applied it often, despite that pain that surfaced when he figured things out alone.
Without enlightenment work, is it very difficult to understand yourself, how your body functions, and how the mind operates.

For most forms of programming mathematics is not very important. What type of thing are you doing?
I suggested the following in another thread about this here a while back:
“I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, from whence derives the famous idea of the "strange loop". You might also like David Foster Wallace's book Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity, tracing the work of mathematicians like Georg Cantor.
It is claimed that Plato only ever gave one public lecture titled 'On The Good'. He spent the whole time talking about mathematics, leaving most of the attendees puzzled. Unfortunately, this lecture has not been passed down, but Pythagoras also used mathematics as the ideal vehicle for expressing metaphysics and philosophy. His surviving works have been compiled in the book Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie. You could also investigate practices such as Gematria and the use of numerology in the Kabbalah.
Mathematics today has almost entirely lost its essential nature and is largely the whore of the physical sciences and man's lust for technological power. At best, it is the more or less idle luxury of an elite class of ivory-tower academics who know nothing of true spirituality. On this note, the best book that I can recommend to you is The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus by René Guénon.”
The last book I mentioned is the best. Guénon would have crushed Spiral Dynamics like an insect but he was at least “Stage Yellow”.
Hope this is helpful to you!

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, from whence derives the famous idea of the "strange loop". You might also like David Foster Wallace's book Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity, tracing the work of mathematicians like Georg Cantor.
It is claimed that Plato only ever gave one public lecture titled 'On The Good'. He spent the whole time talking about mathematics, leaving most of the attendees puzzled. Unfortunately, this lecture has not been passed down, but Pythagoras also used mathematics as the ideal vehicle for expressing metaphysics and philosophy. His surviving works have been compiled in the book Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie. You could also investigate practices such as Gematria and the use of numerology in the Kabbalah.
Mathematics today has almost entirely lost its essential nature and is largely the whore of the physical sciences and man's lust for technological power. At best, it is the more or less idle luxury of an elite class of ivory-tower academics who no nothing of true spirituality. On this note, the best book that I can recommend to you is The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus by René Guénon.

Last night at 7:20pm I insufflated 5mg of 5-MeO-MALT. All of the electricity in my home was turned off, and the living room was bathed in the hushed tones and glow of dusk. Intended as a small handshake dose, I am thankful to say that this was a beautiful experience.
Here are my raw notes:
[7:20 PM]
5 mg 5-MeO-MALT intranasal 
[7:29 PM]
I can feel the weight and warmth of tryptamine, along with the slight bitterness of the chemical in my sinus. The room is very still and peaceful in the evening light
[7:37 PM]
Gentle but distinct tryptamine energy. Slight shivering, pupils dilated, feeling deeply at peace
I've moved from the couch to futons on the floor
[7:39 PM]
Just beautiful
[7:41 PM]
God is napping on the shore of its own infinite mind
Infinite creation
Pure infinite love, forever
[7:43 PM]
Zero visuals
Just shivering bliss
[7:46 PM]
Dozing and gazing
Stretching
[7:49 PM]
Some downloads about polarity
Seeking/entering
[7:50 PM]
Love is just welcoming the moment
[7:54 PM]
Creation asks that you trust it enough to trust yourself
To go all in
[8:04 PM]
Got up to pee with no trouble getting about
Light very pleasant body load
[8:05 PM]
I spent some time mirror gazing, which is the only place where visuals manifest.
[8:09 PM]
If I trusted my hand enough to weigh out the truly miniscule dose I would consider pushing it
But this is a beautiful, beautiful first meeting
It's so clean and pure
Dare I say innocent
"Nothing else to do." Vibes
[8:12 PM]
I've just been laying on the floor listening to the sounds of creation all around me and inside me
There's never been a hair out of place
 
I am so grateful to have been introduced to this substance. The body load was light and very pleasurable, and there were almost no visuals. The peak effects lasted for under an hour, and by 2 hours there was only a mild afterglow. This was a deeply rewarding and encouraging first encounter. I already look forward to the next, where I'll go up to 8 mg.

A Zen Master lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain.
One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him.
“You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” 
The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. He thought:
'What a buffoon. At least, I got away with these clothes.'
The Master sat naked, watching the moon.
“Poor fellow,” he mused, ” I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”
-----
A solid understanding of systems theory + a practical spiritual integration of its primary principles is essential for the investigation of truth. In fact, for a life dedicated to greater understanding, fulfillment and happiness at the deepest level.
As you view reality through the lens of systems theory, you'll see avenues you have yet to explore in your spiritual journey. It is a forever open feedback channel that is left within the system until your last breath.
Spoiler Alert: Your entire mind/body system and reality structure is expressed within the core principles of systems theory.
Here are some of my explorations and studies into systems theory.
The Essence of Systems Theory
1- Understand the Key Harmony of the System
Before you disturb the system in any way, watch how it behaves.
If it’s a piece of music or a whitewater rapid or a fluctuation in a commodity price, study its beat. If it’s a social system, watch it work. Learn its history. Ask people who’ve been around a long time to tell you what has happened. 
This guideline is deceptively simple. Until you make it a practice, you won’t believe how many wrong turns it helps you avoid. Starting with the behavior of the system forces you to focus on facts, not theories. It keeps you from falling too quickly into your own beliefs or misconceptions, or those of others.
It’s amazing how many misconceptions there can be. People will swear that rainfall is decreasing, say, but when you look at the data, you find that what is really happening is that variability is increasing—the droughts are deeper, but the floods are greater too.
It’s especially interesting to watch how the various elements in the system do or do not vary together. Watching what really happens, instead of listening to peoples’ theories of what happens, can explode many careless causal hypotheses.
Every selectman in the state of New Hampshire seems to be positive that growth in a town will lower taxes, but if you plot growth rates against tax rates, you find a scatter as random as the stars in a New Hampshire winter sky. There is no discernible relationship at all.
Starting with the behavior of the system directs one’s thoughts to dynamic, not static, analysis—not only to “What’s wrong?” but also to “How did we get there?” “What other behavior modes are possible?” “If we don’t change direction, where are we going to end up?”
And looking to the strengths of the system, one can ask “What’s working well here?”
Starting with the history of several variables plotted together begins to suggest not only what elements are in the system, but how they might be interconnected.
And finally, starting with history discourages the common and distracting tendency we all have to define a problem not by the system’s actual behavior, but by the lack of our favorite solution.  - The problem is, we need to find more oil. The problem is, we need to ban abortion. The problem is, we don’t have enough salesmen. The problem is, how can we attract more growth to this town?
Listen to any discussion, in your family or a committee meeting at work or among the pundits in the media, and watch people leap to solutions, usually solutions in “predict, control, or impose your will” mode, without having paid any attention to what the system is doing and why it’s doing it.
2- Explore Your Mental Models Clearly (After Direct Experience)
When we draw structural diagrams and then write equations, we are forced to make our assumptions visible and to express them with rigor. We have to put every one of our assumptions about the system out where others (and we ourselves) can see them.
Our models have to be complete, and they have to add up, and they have to be consistent. Our assumptions can no longer slide around (mental models are very slippery), assuming one thing for purposes of one discussion and something else contradictory for purposes of the next discussion.
You don’t have to put forth your mental model with diagrams and equations, although doing so is a good practice. The more you do that, in any form, the clearer your thinking will become, the faster you will admit your uncertainties and correct your mistakes, and the more flexible you will learn to be.
Mental flexibility—the willingness to redraw boundaries, to notice that a system has shifted into a new mode, to see how to redesign structure—is a necessity when you live in a world of flexible systems.
3- Respect Data & Information Channels
Information (both conceptual and non-conceptual) holds systems in harmony whereas delayed, biased, scattered, corrupted or missing data can make feedback loops malfunction.
For instance, decision makers can’t respond to information they don’t have, can’t respond accurately to information that is inaccurate, and can’t respond in a timely way to information that is late. I would guess that most of what goes wrong in systems goes wrong because of biased, late, or missing information.
If I could, I would add an eleventh commandment to the first ten: Thou shalt not distort, delay, or withhold information.
You can drive a system crazy by muddying its information streams. You can make a system work better with surprising ease if you can give it more timely, more accurate, more complete information.
4 - Attend to What is Important, Not What is Immediately Perceivable and Quantifiable
Our culture, obsessed with numbers, has given us the idea that what we can measure is more important than what we can’t measure. Think about that for a minute. It means that we make quantity more important than quality. 
If quantity forms the goals of our feedback loops, if quantity is the center of our attention and language and institutions, if we motivate ourselves, rate ourselves, and reward ourselves on our ability to produce quantity, then quantity will be the result.
You can look around and make up your own mind about whether quantity or quality is the outstanding characteristic of the world in which you live.
Pretending that something doesn’t exist if it’s hard to quantify leads to faulty models. You’ve already seen the system trap that comes from setting goals around what is easily measured, rather than around what is important.
So don’t fall into that trap. Human beings have been endowed not only with the ability to count, but also with the ability to assess quality.
Be a quality detector. Be a walking, noisy Geiger counter that registers the presence or absence of quality.
No one can quite define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any value.
But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren’t designed to produce them, if we don’t directly experience and radiate them, if we dont point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist within the social reality the system is based on.
5- Generate Feedback Policies Within Feedback Loops
President Jimmy Carter had an unusual ability to think in feedback terms and to make feedback policies. Unfortunately, he had a hard time explaining them to a press and public that didn’t understand feedback. Let me explain:
Carter was trying to deal with a flood of illegal immigrants from Mexico. He suggested that nothing could be done about that immigration as long as there was a great gap in opportunity and living standards between the United States and Mexico. Rather than spending money on border guards and barriers, he said, we should spend money helping to build the Mexican economy, and we should continue to do so until the immigration stopped.
That never happened. This is a failure of feedback policy.
You can imagine why a dynamic, self-adjusting feedback system cannot be governed by a static, unbending policy.
It’s easier, more effective, and usually much cheaper to design policies that change depending on the state of the system.
Especially where there are great uncertainties, the best policies not only contain feedback loops, but meta-feedback loops—loops that alter, correct, and expand loops. These are policies that design learning into the management process.
6- Value the Good of the Whole
Remember that hierarchies exist to serve the bottom layers, not the top.
Don’t maximize parts of systems or subsystems while ignoring the whole. Don’t, as Kenneth Boulding once said, go to great trouble to optimize something that never should be done at all.
Aim to enhance total systems properties, such as growth, stability, diversity, resilience, and sustainability—whether they are easily measured or not.
7- Listen to the Wisdom of the System
Aid and encourage the forces and structures that help the system run itself.
Notice how many of those forces and structures are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Don’t be an unthinking intervenor and destroy the system’s own self-maintenance capacities.
Before you charge in to make things better, pay attention to the value of what’s already there.
Get a feel for what to play with and what to allow its maturation process to unfold at its own pace.
8- Locate Responsibility Within the System & Open its Feedback Channels
That’s a guideline both for analysis and design. In analysis, it means looking for the ways the system creates its own behavior.
Do pay attention to the triggering events, the outside influences that bring forth one kind of behavior from the system rather than another. Sometimes those outside events can be controlled (as in reducing the pathogens in drinking water to keep down incidences of infectious disease). But sometimes they can’t.
You need to accept that.
And sometimes blaming or trying to control the outside influence blinds one to the easier task of increasing responsibility within the system.
“Intrinsic responsibility” means that the system is designed to send feedback about the consequences of decision making directly and quickly and compellingly to the decision makers.
In a sense, the pilot of a plane rides in the front of the plane, that pilot is intrinsically responsible. He or she will experience directly the consequences of his or her decisions.
Designing a system for intrinsic responsibility could mean, for example, requiring all towns or companies that emit wastewater into a stream to place their intake pipes downstream from their outflow pipe. It could mean that neither insurance companies nor public funds should pay for medical costs resulting from smoking or from accidents in which a motorcycle rider didn’t wear a helmet or a car rider didn’t fasten the seat belt
A great deal of responsibility was lost when rulers of a nation who declared war were no longer expected to lead the troops into battle. 
These few examples are enough to get you thinking about how little our current culture has come to look for responsibility within the system that generates an action, and how poorly we design systems to experience the consequences of their actions.
9- Always Stay a Student
Systems thinking has taught me to trust my intuition more and my figuring- out rationality less, to lean on both as much as I can, but still to be prepared for surprises.
Working with systems, on the computer, in nature, among people, in organizations, constantly reminds me of how incomplete my mental models are, how complex the world is, and how much I don’t know.
That’s hard. It means making mistakes and, worse, admitting them. It means what psychologist Don Michael calls “error-embracing.” It takes a lot of courage to embrace your errors
10- Embrace Complexity
Let’s face it, the universe is messy. It is nonlinear, turbulent, and dynamic. It spends its time in transient behavior on its way to somewhere else, not in mathematically neat equilibria. It self-organizes and evolves. It creates diversity and uniformity.
That’s what makes the world interesting, and that’s what makes it beautiful.
There’s something within the human mind that is attracted to straight lines and not curves, to whole numbers and not fractions, to uniformity and not diversity, and to certainties and not mystery.
But there is something else within us that has the opposite set of tendencies, since we ourselves evolved out of and are shaped by and structured as complex feedback systems.
Only a part of us, a part that has emerged recently, designs buildings as boxes with uncompromising straight lines and flat surfaces.
Another part of us recognizes instinctively that nature designs in fractals, with intriguing detail on every scale from the microscopic to the macroscopic. That part of us makes Gothic cathedrals and Persian carpets, symphonies and novels, Mardi Gras costumes and artificial intelligence programs, all with embellishments almost as complex as the ones we find in the world around us.
We can, and some of us do, celebrate and encourage self-organization, disorder, variety, and diversity. Some of us even make a conscious moral commitment of doing so.
11- Expand the Time Axiom
One of the worst ideas humanity ever had was the interest rate, which led to the further ideas of payback periods and discount rates, all of which provide a rational, quantitative excuse for ignoring the long term.
The official time horizon of industrial society doesn’t extend beyond what will happen after the next election or beyond the payback period of current investments.
Don't make the same mistake.
In a strict systems sense, there is no long term and short-term distinction.
Phenomena at different time-scales are nested within each other.
Actions taken now have some immediate effects and some that radiate out for decades to come. We experience now the consequences of actions set in motion yesterday and decades ago and centuries ago.
The couplings between very fast processes and very slow ones are sometimes strong, sometimes weak. When the slow ones dominate, nothing seems to be happening; when the fast ones take over, things happen with breathtaking speed.
Systems are always coupling and uncoupling the large and the small, the fast and the slow.
When you’re walking along a tricky, curving, unknown, surprising, obstacle-strewn path, you’d be a fool to keep your head down and look just at the next step in front of you. You’d be equally a fool just to peer far ahead and never notice what’s immediately under your feet.
You need to be watching both the short and the long term—the whole system.
12 - Defy the Disciplines
In spite of what you majored in, or what the textbooks say, or what you think you’re an expert at, follow a system wherever it leads. It will be sure to lead across traditional disciplinary lines.
To understand that system, you will have to be able to learn from—while not being limited by—economists and chemists and psychologists and theologians.
You will have to penetrate their jargons, integrate what they tell you, recognize what they can honestly see through their particular lenses, and discard the distortions that come from the narrowness and incompleteness of their lenses.
They won’t make it easy for you. But you can do it.
Seeing systems whole requires more than being “interdisciplinary,” if that word means, as it usually does, putting together people from different disciplines and letting them talk past each other.
Interdisciplinary communication works only if there is a real problem to be solved, and if the representatives from the various disciplines are more committed to solving the problem than to being academically correct.
They will have to go into learning mode. They will have to admit ignorance and be willing to be taught, by each other and by the system.
It can be done. But, ego gets in the way if not careful.
13- Expand the Boundary of Care - Empathy - Compassion - Love
Living successfully in a world of complex systems means expanding not only time horizons and thought horizons; above all, it means expanding the horizons of caring.
There are moral reasons for doing that, of course. And if moral arguments are not sufficient, then systems thinking provides the practical reasons to back up the moral ones.
The real system is interconnected. No part of the human race is separate either from other human beings or from the global ecosystem.
It will not be possible in this integrated world for your heart to succeed if your lungs fail, or for your company to succeed if your workers fail, or for the rich in Los Angeles to succeed if the poor in Los Angeles fail, or for Europe to succeed if Africa fails, or for the global economy to succeed if the global environment fails.
As with everything else about systems, most people already know about the interconnections that make moral and practical rules turn out to be the same rules. They just have to bring themselves to experience that which they know.
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Hope you get value from this post. 
Let me know your thoughts.
Much love,
Arda
 

I think being authentic just comes down to sharing what you really care about, which always comes across and is the only way to keep you going anyways. I can't imagine building a brand or videos I'm not super passionate about.
Also, definitely have a bias towards action. You don't know if people would care if you haven't tried it. I would care  And also, as long as you put yourself out there consistently, it will take off.
Just put something out there all the freaking time. Anything. And you'll find your way. There's no shortcut. I've experimented with online, offline, videos, blogs, magazines, pictures, products, etc. You'll naturally see what you're drawn to and motivated to keep doing. Again, anything that you can keep doing AND is a passion of yours will pay off eventually. I'm sure about that!
As Gary Vee said "Document, don't create"
Document your journey, document what's going through your mind, what you're reading and learning and you'll never run out of content and it will always be authentic. That's how you create a tribe.
Best of luck!

As a copywriter whose USP is ethical and sustainable marketing, I might be able to give you a few insights on this problem. 
The simple answer is don't lie, you don't need hype to run a successful business.
That includes FOMO or scarcity tactics if unjustified for example putting a timer on a product that isn't going to run out.
When marketing your products or services I would recommend that you focus on creating promotional content that aligns your product or service with your ideal customers that need what you have to offer the most.
The majority of marketers tend to focus on creating new customers with the promotional material they make. This is great in the short term because you'll make lots of sales however this approach dilutes the brand reputation/usefulness of your service or product because you will be including people who need your product less or not at all by hooking them on with imaginative sales techniques.
Taking the majority approach will wreck the long term success of your business because low-quality reviews and chargeback will slowly accumulate over time which will slowly destroy your reputation which will then decrease sales. By taking the aligning approach you'll create a loyal customer base of happy customers which will leave great reviews and promote your company via word of mouth (which is the best marketing approach).

(These are just my thoughts, not an official representation of any authority on the matter. Some of the terms presented here use my own idiosyncratic definitions and may have different meanings elsewhere. It's also not at all a comprehensive view on the topic but only a rough summary based on my limited understanding.)
 
I've spent the past year or so really trying to wrap my head around the essence of Tier 2 cognition (starting at Yellow), namely systems thinking. Just these past 6 months, after taking some courses in communication theory and community psychology, I've gotten some insights into the matter that really solidified my previous intuitions which I'd like to share here. I was truly surprised of how much these two fields were based on systems theory (mainly the theories of Gregory Bateson and Urie Bronfenbrenner respectively, although these two theorists only serve as lightning rods for the vast meta-theoretical space that is systems thinking).

I'll open up with a quote from each of the aforementioned theorists:

What these quotes have in common is that they emphasize relationships or interconnections. That is what a system is: a collection of relationships. But isn't it the case that anybody can understand concepts such as "relationships", "interconnections" and "systems"? What makes systems thinking so special? Now, you could actually argue that systems thinking itself isn't necessarily confined to Tier 2. However, I'll say that Tier 2 cognition consists of something called a "mature systems view." It's about a way to view the world; a worldview, and it's of a certain sophistication or maturity. To truly understand this worldview, we must first contrast it with a more common worldview, which I will call "analytical thinking."
 
Analytical thinking

Fritjof Capra, a pillar of the mature systems view, refers to this worldview and way of thinking as the "Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm." It's characterized by reductionism, mechanism, atomism and positivism. The Cartesian method approaches understanding the world by breaking it down into smaller components (reductionism). Newtonian mechanics describes the world as force interactions between physical objects that consist of atoms (mechanism, atomism). Positivism refers to the idea that we can formulate consistent laws based on this type of knowledge (e.g. "laws of physics").

Another way to think about it is that analytical thinking approaches the world "vertically":


This vertical approach isn't just confined to the hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biology). It's also central to fields like psychology. The analytical tradition of psychology reduces problems down to components within the individual: symptoms, diagnoses, traits, drives, genes, beliefs, values etc. It lays the basis for individual psychotherapy (psychoanalysis, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy etc.), psychiatric medical treatment (antidepressants, anxiolytics etc.), personality psychology (Big 5, MBTI etc.), cognitive psychology (e.g. Beck's schema theory) etc. Jordan Peterson is a big proponent of this view.

On the other hand, there is a systemic tradition within psychology called community psychology. It emphasizes relationships, connections and environmental factors when solving problems (social, economic, political, cultural etc.). Not coincidentally, Jordan Peterson is not a big fan of this approach. Without making this any more about our beloved JP, let's get straight to it: what is systems thinking?
 
Systems thinking

In contrast to reductionism, mechanism, atomism and positivism, systems thinking is relational, holistic, ecological and organic. 

A system is a collection of relationships between units, and holism is about focusing on the whole. Taking a systems view is about seeing the interplay as a whole, not just the individual units for themselves. The bigger the system view, the greater and more inclusive the whole becomes, and the more holistic it becomes. Ecology is about understanding the relationships between organisms and their environment, and an organism is an interplay of smaller living units ("organs" or organic units). Systems in nature and society are complex and can be described using different concepts from systems theory (e.g. "transaction", "self-organization", "adaptation", "feedback" etc.).

In contrast to the vertical nature of analytical thinking, systems thinking is "horizontal":

 
This picture represents a social system, however the horizontal principle applies to other systems as well: organ systems, cells, molecules, atoms etc.). These are «real systems» (natural/social systems). You also have abstract systems (e.g. scientific theories, ideologies, value systems, meta-systems, paradigms, meta-theories etc.), and that's where things like construct awareness come into play (more on that later).

Meta-theories are "theories about theories", which try to understand how abstract systems work through meta-systematic observations. Fields like philosophy of science and models like Spiral Dynamics and Integral theory are examples of such meta-theories. Model of hierarchical complexity (MHC) is a good model to understand the different levels of abstract systems (e.g. "how complex is a paradigm?").
 
Context awareness, Construct awareness and Theory pluralism.
I've already mentioned construct awareness, which is one of three main facets that I think are useful to further understand systems thinking:

 
Context awareness refers to the general ability to understand the pervasive nature of relationships in the world: the vast array of relationships across different domains (physical, biological, social etc.). Any individual unit exists within a larger context (their environment or the larger system), and being aware of context is synonymous with a general form of system awareness.

Bronfenbrenner's Ecological systems theory is a good illustration of context awareness:

 
Construct awareness is the ability to the understand the relationship between the human and the world with respect to making sense of the world (knowledge, sensemaking and epistemology) and how it's a process of constructing abstract systems. People may manipulate these abstract systems without understanding how they work, e.g. what kind of system it is, how it's made, and how it relates to other systems, which would be an exercise in construct blindness. For example, it's possible to operate a car without knowing how it was made or how the engine works. To not be aware of how abstract systems work to construct your reality is to have a lack of construct awareness.

Thomas Kuhn and his book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is a good example of construct awareness. After performing a meta-theoretical study on the historical development of science, he concluded that all scientific theories at all times are validated relative to a historically contingent framework of philosophical assumptions (a paradigm, a collection of constructs), and thus all scientific knowledge is fundamentally relational in nature. So not only are the external aspects of human behavior dependent on context (as in social interactions; Bronfenbrenner), but also the internal aspects (mind). If we go back to Gregory Bateson, in his systemic communication theory, he in fact defines "context" not as something external, but as an internal psychological framework. He does this because of the insight that the mind is constructing the external world. Alfred Korzybski's "the map is not the territory" is also a staple of construct awareness.
 
With enough context and construct awareness, you'll inevitably end up with theory pluralism: the ability to explore and understand a wide range of different abstract systems (theoretical frameworks). In a sense, theory pluralism is both a prerequisite and a consequence of construct awareness (they're co-created). However, to really develop a wide knowledge of theory, you must have a deep meta-theoretical understanding which is able to see the larger picture – the essence of construct awareness. Ken Wilber is a great ambassador for theory pluralism. His vision of integrating all domains of knowledge into a single, comprehensive framework is the pinnacle of systems thinking. Fritjof Capra should also be mentioned here with his book "the Tao of Physics", where he not only makes profound observations about context and construct in his writings about Quantum Mechanics, but he also makes theoretical comparisons to Taoism and non-duality.
 
I mentioned earlier regarding having a "mature systems view" that systems thinking is not necessarily confined to Tier 2 cognition. This is because Green is very open to context awareness and will easily appreciate models like Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. What Green struggles with the most is construct awareness. It might be able to deconstruct a lot of Orange systems, both from a rational place and an intuitive place, but it struggles to pick up the pieces, both theoretically and practically. Construct awareness also makes you more prone to grasping the concepts in systems theory, which unlocks key concepts like the meta-theoretical evolutionary lens (Beck & Cowan, Wilber, Kuhn), which Green crucially lacks.
 
So that is the gist of it, but there is so much more I could talk about, e.g. the history of systems theory (deep ecology, cybernetics, Gestalt psychology etc.) and different systems theory concepts like I've alluded to earlier. There are also other aspects of Tier 2 cognition that could be expanded upon, like the ability to hold paradox, understanding holarchies, or different real-life applications (that's a big one). I would anyways like to hear what you guys have discovered about systems thinking that I've left out. I would never turn down the opportunity to deepen my theory pluralism  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Additional notes and clarifications:
Expanding on this:
 
Analytical thinking and systems thinking must not be thought of as diametrical opposites, but as generally expressing different dimensions of movement through abstract systems (vertical vs. horizontal). Neither of them are pure expressions of either "vertical" or "horizontal" thinking, because technically all abstract thought utilizes both dimensions to navigate the cognitive landscape. An alternative description could be hierarchical movement vs. cross-hierarchical movement. The categories explored in hierarchical movement tend to have a corresponding familiarity or similarity of kind, while the ones in cross-hierarchical movement have corresponding distance or diversity of kind (in that it's possible to have many qualitatively very different things interacting with each other in a system).
 
One reason why horizontal movement tends to be more readily associated with complexity might be due to the relative simplicity of postulating it abstractly, because meanwhile it's possible to have interactions between many qualitatively different things, it doesn't actually necessitate or force a qualitative difference (e.g. you can simply have interactions between many molecules of the same kind), meanwhile a comparably complex vertical scenario is much harder to postulate, as the different levels of a hierarchy always forces a degree of difference (e.g. molecule > atom > sub-atomic), and thus most abstract hierarchies tend to be simpler (because models are supposed to simplify). In other words, the tendency towards horizontal complexity could simply be a bias of abstraction, and that in reality, systems are equally infinitely complex across all dimensions, both vertically and horizontally. Thinking is nevertheless about abstraction, and therefore horizontal thinking serves as a litmus test for complex thinking.
 
So from this alternative view, what is systems thinking? Well, the more you refine your general ability to abstract both vertically and horizontally across categories (symbols, concepts, classes and domains), the more expansive and complex your thinking becomes. Therefore, the proclivity towards the mature systems view simply depends on the size and complexity of one's perspective. Horizontal thinking is nevertheless generally an indicator of complex thinking.