ParanoidAndroid

Ever been to a drag night?

Read Mastery by George Leonard. It's a short book (ironically). He talks about how the process of mastery, in whatever field, requires a love of regular and sustained practice. I know its cliché but it really is about the journey, the path. You need to rid yourself of the idea that quick results are the only thing that matters. Modern western society engrains in us the idea that we can achieve success without walking the path of mastery, but you can't. Leonard talks about the 'Mastery curve' in which there are spurts of progress followed by a slight decline to a plateau eventually followed by a another spurt of progress and so on. he then talks about how therefore to master any skill one must accept the plateau when it comes and continue on the path rather than giving up. He also describes the three different personality types that fail at mastery - the dabbler, the hacker and the obsessive. Leo talks about some of this in one of his videos but I can't remember which one. I'll post it here if I remember. you can do it,

How long should I allow for a new habit to form? I recently installed a daily meditation habit. How long should I wait before starting a new one? I'm aware that going too fast and trying to install 5 new habits at once is probably not the best strategy. I think Leo talked about this in the video about backsliding but I don't think he mentioned particular time frames so some knowledge gained from experience form people on here would be useful. Thanks

Yeah I think that's true!

I don't think you look nervous at all. You look very relaxed in fact I wish I could understand what your saying though haha

So, my life purpose, or one of my main life purpose's, is to be an artist and make my living from making art. However, sometimes I wonder what the point of art is and how much value it really provides to society. We live in a society that doesn't give art a lot of value. When I think about it I know that it does create a lot of value but I would love to hear what other people on here think about art? How important to society is it? What is it's purpose? Is there any art that inspires you? What's your perspective on art? You don't have to be artist at all to answer this (though you can be of course), in fact I really want to hear a not artist perspective. By the way, I'm talking specifically about fine at, i.e painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, video art, performance art etc - basically anything you might find in an art gallery. Thanks

Those communities sound amazing! I'd love to go there someday and I'd love to go to places like California and San Fransisco in general. I'm from Scotland so America, and certain places in particular (San Fransisco, Los Angles, New York) have a certain magical sort of appeal. They have a certain laid back, innovative, free spirited aura. I don't think I could live somewhere very rural though. At least not for a significant amount of time. I love the buzz of the city and I find inspiration in the city for my art. I totally agree about the need to be in the right community and have like minded people around you for doing anything creative. Fortunately I'm studying at Glasgow School of Art in Scotland (I'm in 2nd year) so I'm surrounded by artists.

Nice! Lovely loose line in the drawing with the many heads.

Definitely sounds like the "A rant against naive realism" video.

Head Stills PDF-min.pdf

A1 size drawings. First is charcoal, second is chalk pastel.

It's true it's a very hard industry to make a living in and it's true that starting young makes a big difference but how old are you?

Are you sure you couldn't still do it? How old are?

I HIGHLY recommend watching Leo's video on self-acceptance. Make sure to watch the whole thing and do all the exercises

Are you saying that consciousness/awareness/nothingness/ is just imagining/thinking of stuff and the stuff it thinks about is reality? As if nothingness is sort of dreaming all this stuff up and that includes us and therefore we are part of the dream. This also means that we in the dream don't realise we're in a dream. This would explain why stuff feels solid because just like in a sleeping dream where we think that the objects we touch are solid, so too do the objects in this dream feel solid. I think the problem in this discussion is the lack of a definition of the word real. When you say that reality isn't real do you really mean that it isn't physical? Even if it's not physical it can still be real.

Thanks

Maybe there are limits in this particular universe (e.g. you can't go past the speed of light (as far as we know)) but ultimately there are no limits because there are probably an infinite amount of universes. Therefore, in some other universe you can go past the speed of light and in another universe there isn't even such as thing as the speed of light.

How do you quote a particular part of somebody's comment?

The pixels exist in some sense because I can see them. This discussion really begs the question of what do you mean by real or to exist? If they didn't exist I wouldn't be able to see them. I've admitted that we put arbitrary labels on things but that doesn't mean that stuff isn't real. You still see the stuff in front of your eyes regardless of whether you label it or not. The labelling is just a dissection or categorising of reality but it doesn't mean that the stuff we dissect doesn't exist at all. If it didn't exist then we couldn't dissect it. You say that reality doesn't exist without thought, but what about someone who is enlightened or has had some kind of enlightenment experience where they are experiencing no thought whatsoever but only awareness. Reality still exists for them does it not? We could also use the example of a newly born baby. The baby has no ideas or thought about the world but yet it still experiences the world. It's possible to experience reality in the absence of thinking and reality is still there. This shows that it's not just an idea, surely. Or are you arguing that reality is simply not physical? Even if it is not physical it still exists, simply by virtue of you experiencing it.

This should maybe be moved to the enlightenment/spirituality section