faith

Ontario >.< I wish I could meet you

Dear Actualized.org Community, Today is Saturday May 6th 3:30 am (2 weeks and 26 hours since start) This is what I noticed since I quit porn. I see 2 big differences: 1. I am not judging women based on appearance as I used to. Watching porn has its cons. Mainly, I think men watching porn project that into real life, and then expect women to act and look the way pornstars do. You become very judgmental and evaluative of everyone you meet. I think I've become more open-minded. 2. I am not getting erections like I used to. I don't know if this point is good, but I used to get erections almost everywhere and any time. And as soon as I had a sexual urge, I would watch some porn, no questions asked. These last two weeks, my sexual urges have gone down, and during the time that I did have a couple of sexual urges, they passed pretty quickly. I didn't even get an erection. You be the judge if that is good or not. Overall, I can live with porn, I can live without porn. But to a certain extent, I think quitting porn is very beneficial. I'll see how it goes..... The next report will be a 1 month report which I will post in 2 weeks. Thank you

By far the strongest song I have ever heard. It made me cry my eyes out. I discovered it thanks to @WaveInTheOcean I think we have similar tastes in music because we both lean towards the ambient. I would recommend listening to it towards the end of your meditation (put it somewhere down the playlist). Again, I think many people are predisposed to sounds that activate their meditative states, and so each and everyone of us is different in terms of music that will work for us. But still, give this song a shot, it's beautiful!!!

Looks a lot like the Deathly Hallows

@Loreena That looks like the third eye!

It's so hard to decide on a picture. I am not a decision maker

This gentleman shares some of the benefits of sun gazing including depression and illness relief.

@Loreena I am a guy though, I can never be cute like a girl can be, but I like anime ^.^

Yes, I never kill them. Always make sure to take them outside. People don't understand. I think most people just kill them if they see them. But I reckon they want to live too. Why destroy? I wouldn't mind to have that purple one in my room somewhere. Preferably in a terrarium. Don't want him crawling up my leg at night.

@Annetta Jeezaloo, that's a beauty. Are they poisonous?

Oh I could talk about this till midnight. People are so protective, competitive, selfish, and are unwilling to talk about real things. Imagine a world where everyone is as they actually are. What they say is what they feel and think. How much open-mindedness, flexibility, and non-judgment does that require!! That's why I was lucky because my girlfriend is as she is.....no strings attached. And the more I live on this planet, the more I realize how rare that is. P.S. My spider doesn't bite.

@sweatergoat Hee hee hee

Don't listen to the pessimists. There is a "one" out there. All though, I will agree, I don't think there is just one for everyone. Many people can be a "one" for you. You just need the right kind of person that satisfies that connection. @Salaam What Salaam is saying is the kind of person that will be your ideal relationship. Nice going, my friend! As for me, when I met my girlfriend (going on 3 years now), I felt extremely horny and needy. I was a stupid kid who didn't know what they valued, believed, and cared about. But I still had the foundational value in me at that time, and that value is to be loved. I don't think you ever NOT have that value. You always have it somewhere deep inside. And I'll tell you something else. It won't always be perfect, it won't always be magical, there won't be electricity every time. However, we both improved and grown as people so much, and we accept each other for who we are so much, that I wouldn't ever go back in time, nor would I look for someone else. I see people that are single, and I remember I had those searching eyes like them. But now that I am on this side, I wouldn't trade my connection for anything in the world.

Good information guys!! I have been putting on weight lately, and I don't like threadmill. I think I'll try some rowing instead.

I wish I could get one where an actual spider jumps at you like a virtual reality type of thing You like bugs? You strong! Awesome. Please let us know how it goes.

Upon watching one of the best films I have watched recently, Dead Poets Society, I have this to say to the unfortunate bunch who feel like the world is on their shoulders: Carpe Diem!! This means that if you have an opportunity to do something, however instead you choose to contemplate, and seek advice, and prolong decision-making, you are not living anymore, neither are you contributing a verse to the poem. In one of the scenes, Robin Williams (God rest his beautiful soul), shows his English class portraits of students who have attended the same school many, many years before. All of them now - dust! Robin Williams says these people had the same thoughts, ideas, visions, passions, that are now your properties. They are long dead. Have their verses been accounted for in the great poem of life? "We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." Carpe Diem, he says, in other words, seize the day!!! If you are thinking too much about something. Here is all you need to hear: DO IT!!!! Just do it, my friend. Do this noble pursuit not because it will help you, but because you are a member of the human race, and the human race does things in face of fear, and it laughs, and it moves, and it dances, and it shares. Do it.

@Annetta I am enlightened so it doesn't bother me

On February 14, 1990, Voyager 1, a space probe that's been travelling away from Earth since 1977, took a photograph that you can see below. At that point, the probe travelled for 13 years at a distance of 6 billion kilometres away from Earth. “Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." - Carl Sagan

Don't be sad Evil, It's just that everything is so far apart from each other, but space is not all empty. However, space is pretty big. Look at the image below: This is the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in our Solar System. In reality, those rocks aren't that close to each other. On average, they are 1 million km apart. That distance is equivalent to 25 times around the Earth. And this image: We're all so used to seeing this image. It's engrained in our heads since childhood. And nobody ever tells us how WRONG the picture above is. In reality, the moon is actually there: So things are just REALLY, REALLY far apart. All though I don't think that really makes you feel any better. It just shows how lonely the universe is.

Dear Actualized.org Community, Our society (or at least, the Western society in which I live) is very big on appearances. Attractive people get special attention. Attractive people are also judged. The media makes us think that you must keep trying to be beautiful (and you know the kind of specific beauty I am talking about). As a result, there is a lot of judgment going on. Everyone judges everyone else, and it's a twisted game that has no escape, really. This is why I don't like to go outside, because I know I will be going through this horse shit of comparing, judging, and evaluating appearance of people, and they will be doing the same to me. Spirituality has helped me a lot to strip down these beliefs, but it's still there. And even if I learn to stop judging and rating altogether, anytime I am going outside someone will judge me or compare themselves to me or their level of life happiness. It's such a headache. What can I do about it? Please let me know if you've had similar experience, and any word of kindness or hope will be a ton of help. Thank you.

Dear Actualized.org Community, Today is Saturday April 29th 3:00 pm (1 week and 36.5 hours since start) I will say this, I haven't noticed anything big of a change. I had a couple of sexual urges. But with or without porn, my life is pretty much still the same. All though I think I finally have concluded that porn makes you judge people based on appearance, a very superficial, and immature way to live life, that's for sure. I've also witnessed a decrease in my libido, BUT I would say it's still there, and is very subtle. I think it's very important to have sexual energy in your life. And I think that watching porn over the years has disturbed my image of how beautiful sexual activity truly is. The next report will be a 2 weeks report, which I will post sometime next week. Thank you for reading this

@Dingus You're right

Thank you very much for your input Dingus. I especially find the above statement very interesting. Could you elaborate?

Easier said than done, mon petit lapin.

Dear Actualized.org community, Was hoping this will shed light on why young people have so many insecurities and aren't able to fully take advantage of self development. There is a simple reason for that. The brain hasn't developed yet. The part the younger ones use the most is the amygdala - the emotion and fear centre. Adults use the prefrontal cortex. This makes a lot of sense because adults respond differently to fear. They may feel the same feelings, but the reaction will be different. More composed. Another good point is that younger people don't know who they are because they haven't got a good understanding of what really matters in life, in other words, values. What's really troubling are those cases that haven't figured out their values, and only prolonged it into adulthood, becoming man children. This point is relatable to my own self development. Before 24-25, I just couldn't feel like things were happening, or moving, or I was improving as a human being, and believe me, I have been reading material, self-inquiry, and practicing since I was 16, coming from a super low self-esteem, self-conscious, shy personality. However, since last year I have felt real tangible results. Things are not upsetting me. People are not upsetting me. I feel modesty and tranquility. And I have a better grip on what really matters. Best of all, most of the time I feel free, and free to express who I am. The old me was suffocating in pain. I found the article very insightful, here is the source: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051