Yarco

It sounds like you should probably talk to a therapist about it, especially if the fear of being tortured is always on your mind or starting to interfere with your life. You need a professional to get to the root of why these thoughts started to appear. Maybe it's as simple as a movie you watched as a kid. You can try to rationalize it to yourself. If you live in a first world country, what are the odds of being tortured? Do you know any family members or friends or coworkers who have ever been tortured? I don't have any statistics to back it up, but just intuitively I feel like outside of wartime or prison abuse, situations where people are tied up in basements and tortured for days seems extraordinarily rare. It's probably up there with the odds of getting murdered by a serial killer. Being male alone likely greatly reduces your odds of being abducted and tortured. You can further reduce the odds by learning some form of self-defense, carrying a weapon if it's legal where you are. Look up videos about how to escape if you're tied up with rope, zip ties, duct tape, handcuffs... hands in front, hands in back... there are Youtube videos for all of this. Just don't turn it into an obsession. Avoid traveling to areas like Mexico or Venezuela where kidnapping rates are higher, or where there are terrorist groups or general political instability. If you live in one of these places, move. In the past, spies carried cyanide pills in case they were captured. But I would very much not recommend this, unless there's a reasonable likelihood you might end up in a situation where death is preferable to torture (basically if you live in an area heavily occupied by a cartel or terrorist group and you're part of a targeted group is the only valid situation I can think of.) Even in that situation, you would need to be extremely careful to make sure no pets or children could ever get to it, or you could get accidentally exposed to it if it breaks open. This is certainly not an option if you suffer from any kind of mental illness, as you might have a delusion that you're in eminent fear of being captured and tortured that doesn't actually align with reality.

If you're reading 48 Laws of Power then you're already on the right track and ahead of most people. Just keep at it and don't get complacent. I honestly haven't read any books on discipline. But you might want to check out Atomic Habits by James Clear, Cant Hurt Me by David Goggins, 10x Rule by Grant Cardone as they're the ones I hear brought up the most. I don't know if there are any secrets or "life hacks" to suddenly make yourself disciplined long-term. It's just a choice and a commitment that you make to yourself. I guess I would break discipline down into 3 separate things: 1. Motivation. This is short-term and something you need to constantly be working on. It's like a fire that you have to keep adding logs to keep it stoked (at least for me.) Watch motivational videos on Youtube or music that gets you amped up, take a cold shower, have a morning routine that gets you hyped up and generates "state". Think about the great things other people have accomplished, how they've beaten the odds, and how you have that greatness inside of yourself too. On a regular basis and especially when you get off track, contemplate the risks and consequences of living a mediocre and undisciplined life, the regrets you'll have on your deathbed if you don't do this. *In my experience, books aren't very efficient at giving you this. You might get a one-time hit of motivation from a couple pages out of 5 - 10 hours of reading, and not on-command when you need it. 2. Habits / Routine. This engrains discipline in you. Give yourself a set routine that you always do X thing at X date and time, make it non-negotiable. This is why people in the military become so disciplined so quickly, they don't have a choice, they just follow instructions without thinking too hard about it. If you're constantly having to make decisions or leaving yourself outs, it eats up a ton of mental bandwidth and requires willpower. Burn the boats. It's better to start small and work up gradually but consistently though, rather than risk burning out. *This is what books are best for, practical techniques and systems for time management and stuff like that. 3. Vision. You need some greater purpose that makes your discipline worthwhile.

I don't know all of the MBTI's well enough to assign specific people to them, so I'll just generalize roles I'd want and then someone else can figure out what goes where: - A leader figure who takes things seriously and brings discipline to the group, makes sure people show up for practice, get to shows on time, keep people accountable if they start developing an ego or drug problem, etc. This could be a manager as opposed to an actual member of the band as it's a whole job unto itself (INTJ?) - A lyricist (introvert) - A music composer (feeling - maybe ISFP?) - Vocalist should be a front man for the band with great stage presence, unique look/voice, good at doing interviews and interacting with fans (extrovert) - ??? It might be as important to consider who you DON'T want in a band as much as who you do. Is the self-destructive "sex, drugs, and rock&roll" persona of so many famous musicians a personality type, or simply a byproduct of the lifestyle? Try to weed out types that are more vulnerable to substance abuse, egomania, etc if possible... aside from having a wild attitude on stage, I don't know if their benefits outweigh the risks. If you look at some groups like Billie Eilish + her brother, The White Stripes, it seems completely possible to be world class successful musicians without being drug or sex addicts. It also seems like the more people in your band, the more room for disagreements and drama. 2 - 3 seems ideal, very unlikely a 5 member band will stay together for a decade without replacing at least a few members.

I understand the sentiment of "I didn't consent to being born", it's just a bit too emo for me. Same as dudes whining about being circumcised for their entire life. Shit happens, the world sucks, your parents probably did the best they could but they're flawed beings like everyone. Personally I see having kids as kind of like a karmic price for being born myself. I'm grateful for being born, and I feel I owe it to the universe to at least replace myself and give someone else that experience and provide them with a good childhood. Especially being in a 1st world country during a period of technological advancement, peace, and prosperity. Even being a kid to a single mom on welfare in America in 2022 is better than most kids in history have had it. I also think about the movie Ideocracy where at some point only dumb people reproduce and will outbreed all the smart people. So a bit of it is ego, thinking my genetics and intelligence are above-average and worth passing on to out-compete someone else. In the future I could actually see something like in HG Well's The Time Machine where humanity splits off into the Eloi and Morlocks happening. Especially if all the intelligent people are putting off having kids into their late 30s and 40s, if they have them at all. That being said, having a kid is hard as fuck and I only have 10 months experience doing it so far haha. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to handle having a second one. If you feel indifferent, neutral, or are just gonna do it because your partner really wants a kid... I would advise not having a kid. It's like 10x harder than a puppy, puppies aren't constantly trying to kill themselves every second and don't take several years to become semi-autonomous.

A lot of what you need to become successful is perfectly laid out for you, especially now in the age of the internet. It's just that the vast majority are too lazy or undisciplined to follow it... even if it's a step-by-step recipe for success. If you give most people the choice to watch the latest Marvel movie or read a non-fiction book that will improve their life, they'll take the movie every time lol. The rich and powerful don't need to worry about competition because they know 95% of people will never pick up the book. 99% will never follow through after reading even if it's laid out for them. So rich and powerful people are free to write to an audience of other rich and powerful people in plain sight.

Brings to mind a bunch of Biblical metaphors about how God is the potter and we are the clay. And how at funerals they say ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We rise out of the ground for a brief time and then return to it. Even if you were an atheist you can just substitute the Earth for God and it still stands. I like an example Leo did on the blog a few years back as well, about how a blank piece of paper already containing every possible shape you could cut out of it. Then imagine that it's infinite, and constantly folding back on itself and recycling itself to make new shapes. It's easier to imagine in 2D than 3D. Maybe a better example would be like 3D origami rising up out of a 2D piece of paper without becoming disconnected, and then folding back in. I can't see the recycling happening in my direct experience from moment to moment. Is that what enlightenment is?

I don't think 3,000 hours will get you into the top 10 in the world. 10k gets you a shot if you also have natural musical talent. Whether the top 10 handpan players in the world are making $10k/month consistently is iffy. The biggest YouTube channel I can find has like 600k subscribers. The thing is that it doesn't seem consistent. Handpan is the sort of thing that most people listen to once in their life for an hour and that's it. So some videos get 20 million views and most get a couple thousand. Handpan videos probably aren't going to get a high CPM so I think you'd consistently need at least a million views a month, which is hard to do consistently. I know you aren't just going to do YouTube, but everything else has its own pros and cons and takes time too. I'd honestly aim more for like $100k/month because to get to that level of success, you basically have to make handpan music mainstream and get your songs on the radio. Getting to $10k/month with handpan music is going to be a huge struggle, but if you manage to get that far, it's not a big leap to start making a million dollars a year from it. You have to take handpan mainstream. Research a guy named Zamfir who took the pan flute mainstream in the... 70s? 80s? And figure out how it happened. Your best shot might be to have one "15 minutes of fame" viral album that sells millions of copies in a year and then you live off that money pursuing your passion for the rest of your life. Or you might make it into something more long term like Kenny G. Better to aim higher and not hit your goals

Doing covers of pop songs seems like probably your best shot at going viral and getting picked up by the YouTube algorithm. Eventually you want to get a list of the top 100 most popular songs of all time, and do a handpan cover of all of them. Only at that point expect to start getting some traction. Then start regular doing current songs that are at the top of the pop charts. Then once you're recognized and have an audience, you'll have a better chance at releasing original tracks.

This was a post about your thoughts on Leo's most recent video though. How is any of the stuff about datura relevant?

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." Don't sell yourself short. Maybe you're just a worker, but if you never strive to be the queen, then you'll never know if it was possible or not. If you are happy going to work doing the same thing for the next 40 years, with a mediocre life, mediocre relationships, and no ambition to try and improve... then by all means, keep doing what you're doing.

If your critique devolves into telling psychotic people to take datura at the end... you messed up somewhere along the way

Fate is God's will, and you don't have any free will to try and make your goals align more with it. But you have to act as if you have free will or you'll just lay down and die. So I guess just follow your heart and do what feels right.

If it works, does it matter how? You don't need to know what's going on inside your cell phone to use it.

- Project Life Mastery (Stefan James aka Stefan Pylarinos) - Dan Lok (copywriter) Both of these guys have a toxic side to them, definitely don't get scammed into buying their products or courses. But their free YouTube videos have a lot of motivation and business-oriented gold in them. - Dan Peña if you want a real hardass. Dude is too much of an asshole even for me though. Also a bit of a scammer. - Elliot Hulse (old stuff before he went off the deep end into Manosphere) - Jocko Willink and David Goggins (motivation / manliness) - Joe Rogan (as a general gateway to his guests. Skip episodes that are just comedians and sport people etc)

If that's what rings true to you and is meaningful, awesome. I don't think it's universal though. I'm personally not so focused on the collective and just want to pursue what's important to me. Serving doesn't appeal to me. Sure, my life purpose includes contribution/impact on a larger society. But I want to do it on my terms and in a way that's meaningful to me first and foremost. If my life purpose made me a slave to the collective, it'd go against some of my higher values like freedom and independence. Maybe my purpose just isn't profound enough though Or maybe I'm still too caught up with a toxic ego and toxic values. Me me me me me me me me me.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rogers-outage-cell-mobile-wifi-1.6514373 In US terms, this would be like AT&T and Comcast both going down simultaneously nationwide. Think about how much stuff you rely on the internet for... your job or business, your entertainment, your finances... - Any job in Canada that requires the internet and has Roger's as their ISP is offline right now... offices, working from home, all of it... a good chunk of our economy is shut down until this is fixed - Phones not working even for 911 - Bank transfers, debit and credit transactions not working in most locations (cash only) Cyberattack, or just someone in IT went on summer vacation? Only time will tell

The only way I could see the government helping is if they made internet and mobile phones public utilities, which isn't going to happen. Hopefully this will generate some outrage and make them break up the tech monopolies in Canada though. There are really only 2 big internet companies and then a bunch of smaller subcontractors that use their infrastructure. It has revealed a pretty big flaw that all of the debit card transactions in the country go through a single internet provider. Hopefully that gets fixed and the risk spread out a bit lol. 7 pm here and still no internet here. Luckily I'm with one of the smaller phone carriers but you can tell that all the networks that are still up are straining. Lessons: 1. Always keep at least a couple hundred dollars cash on you or at home. (A few times a year I get to the cashier after 30 minutes of grocery shopping to find out their debit is down, comes in handy more often then you'd think 2. Always keep your car's gas tank at least half full. Things like this can cause panic buying, long lines, or stations just deciding to close for the day. I just paid cash to fill up my car and grab some slurpees, drove 100 km to the beach and visited my parents. Paid for a slurpee for the girl behind me who had already started drinking before realizing they only took cash haha. Pretty chill day while society is falling apart around me ? I would much rather an internet outage than a power outage and losing AC in the middle of summer. Had that happen in 2003.

Is all of business in general also inherently devilry then? Then wouldn't any aspect of life where your survival gets involved be completely infected with devilry too? Growing (exploiting) crops or livestock for your own benefit and survival is devilry. Fishing is devilry. All of dating and relationships is devilry, all of politics is devilry... even if you think you're doing it in a concious way for good reasons? If not, then what separates them from marketing? Dating is just marketing yourself as a potential partner. Politics is just marketing ideas. Everything in the world is devilry, even a mother's love for her child because it releases endorphins and other chemicals for her in return, and she has some expectation that her child will provide her back with love and support in the future, on an instinctual level wanting your genetics to continue surviving? Just being human makes being a devil inescapable.

Your female friend is being possessive of you and could try to sabotage your attempts. Don't go through her. Just make up some BS excuse to approach the girl you like and get her number, the same way you did with your female friend. Or better yet, just be forward and tell you her interested and would like to go grab coffee sometime. That way you don't risk wasting weeks and then getting friendzoned. Rip the bandaid off and face the change that you might get bad news right away instead. As long as you aren't creepy about it, it'll be fine. (There's a minor chance your friend has some inside knowledge on why the other girl isn't interested, maybe she knows she has a bf or that she's gay. But still worth asking for yourself.)

I feel like this all seems to come back to a distorted sense of self-worth, combined with an avoidant personality. You'd rather just take the leftover scraps and avoid rocking the boat, because deep down that feels like all you're worthy of. Setting the bar too low because you feel like that's all you're worth You are getting paid exactly what you think you're worth . Notice how you're sabotaging yourself here and created an interesting paradox. You have this idea in your head of how much you "should be" worth vs what you "actually" think you're worth. If you truly thought you were worth $200k/year, it wouldn't take self esteem to ask for it. You'd be OFFENDED that you aren't getting paid it, and walk out confident that someone else in the world would see that much value in what you have to offer. If you had a friend exactly like you and you were a more impartial observer, how much do you think they'd be worth? Okay now we're getting to the root of something. Who are the people in your life that are telling you that you're being unrealistic for having standards? 2 options: - Genuinely learn to love and value yourself and believe you're above-average in those categories or - Work on improving your personality and looks until you're actually above-average If you wouldn't want an average guy but you're average yourself, why should an above-average guy settle for you? If it's just a vague idea in your head, it's a lot more overwhelming. Try nailing down exactly how much money you'd need to have a fulfilling life. A $600,000 house... then work backwards and see what the mortgage payments would be and what salary you'd need to afford it. With enough left over to buy the car and all the other stuff you want, send a kid to college, save for retirement, plus $10k for travel each year. To have everything you want and be happy is probably less than you'd think. If you find your above-average guy and you each make $60k/year so you have a household income of $120k/year you can buy pretty much whatever you want within reason. IMO this is just a symptom of being a sane person in an insane world, and any intelligent person will fall into it. It can help to realize how little the macro-political stuff actually affects your life. Example -- if you left the country for a year and came back, and you didn't follow any news or current events during that entire time... would it really have felt like you missed anything when you got back? Or is politics just needlessly making you angry without adding anything positive or useful to your life? In which case you can just stop reading the news and getting upset about it. If anything REALLY important happens I guarantee you'll hear about it second-hand through coworkers, pop culture, etc.

I'd say it's kind of the opposite. A kid gets good at drawing comics because he enjoys doing it so much. It's fun and effortless for him. He doesn't automatically enjoy doing it because he's naturally good at it. It certainly helps if you've got a natural talent for something. That way you don't have to suffer through being bad at it for years until you get to to the enjoyable part. But I don't know of anyone that just picked up a guitar and became a musical prodigy. Or was instantly a pro at computer programming. You pick up a skill because you have a vision for what it'll do for you in the future. Whether that's playing Wonderwall at the beach to pick up chicks, create a new piece of software, or whatever. The more you enjoy the activity itself, the more likely you are to grind through the difficult and boring parts as well.

Nah I am very much afraid of death itself. Suffering and pain is always temporary. The nothingness of death, returning to the state like before our birth where we will never be able to think or feel or have a memory again... that is forever. Death renders everything you've ever done useless, and ensures you'll be completely forgotten in a couple of generations at most. Yeah sometimes, when I start to worry about the possibility that I might never wake up again.

Something hormonally must be going on with guys continuing into their 20s. It might not be exact testosterone amount, but maybe how your body is able to use it or other factors. Beard growth is regulated by something called DHT, which is a byproduct of testosterone. If testosterone peaked at 18 or 19, then you expect a guy's beard would reach its maximum thickness at that age. But I've known plenty of 18 year olds with patchy facial hair that filled out by the time they were 25 or 30. All the guys I know continue to be able to grow thicker and thicker beards into their 20s. A 25 year old will also have a deeper voice, more muscle mass, etc than an 18 year old. Even if you take an 18 year old and 25 year old who never work out, the 25 year old will still usually have more bulk than the 18 year old. I believe your studies that show T starts to drop even in the 20s. But then there is some other mystery factor here that continues to make guys more manly, even after their T starts dropping.

Questions are too vague... it sounds like you're way too early in your journey to be asking for help here already. What topic are you making your course about, what format will the course take? (Written, audio, video, live weekly classes, etc.) Have you researched what online course platforms are available and the pros and cons of each? What kind of equipment are you going to need? How long is it going to take you produce the course? How much do you plan to sell it for? What are some ways you can market it? Research as much as you can to figure out the basics and then come back to fill in the missing details. Literally start by typing "how to find target audience for an online course" -- It's in all of the online course platform's best interest to help you succeed, and they've already written blog posts on this topic, and everything else you'll need to get started.

How so? You don't represent any kind of credible threat at the moment. Most of the self-help content feeds into the capitalistic system. And the spiritual content isn't a threat unless it created some kind of mass movement. People talking about all being one isn't a problem to the system as long as 99% of people see it as crazy talk. The government doesn't care about fringe outliers unless you started threatening their power or like 10% of the population started adopting it. It's like saying if censorship was real then vegans would be censored. The powers that be don't care about vegans. How can someone identify the difference between a person who is a radical vs just being an asshole? If someone is radical in a way you don't like, wouldn't you automatically label them an asshole? How can you be radical without being an asshole? For a position to be radical, it pretty much necessitates a call to limit someone else's rights, or some situation in which you'd always be labeled as being an asshole. It seems like the same kind of blanket statement such as leftists calling everyone nazis. You're just substituting the word asshole for nazi to discredit anyone you don't like or agree with.