ValiantSalvatore

This gets me going I like it when music makes me feel energized and unstoppable.

As far as I know Angela Merkel grew up in the DDR and she worked as a physecist or quantum physecist, so she has a background in science and is most likely heavy orange, while transcending the blue values the DDR installed in her ? She had russian classes and was genius at school I don't know if she is green when I see her on TV I can think that she is slightly, as well as Emanuel Marcon who was a a banker or worked as an investmentbanker. He seems more green then Angela / Angie I've read some of the policies that he wanted to change in France before he was elected, for instant changing the cafeteria menu, so it is 50% vegeterian and vegan mandatorily in all schools/uni. Also creating more space for childrens in day care centers. I don't know what he does now since people are protesting again. I have the feeling that inside of Germany the loose of traditional values is causing the right-wing or rather traditionally minded people to cling more and more to their old values and enforce them upon other people subtely. Mutliculturism failed that is one thing Merkel once said, yet I did not follow politics during that time. I just feel as a mixed and colored person that, people have no clue anymore who is german and who is not german. And that modernism or stage orange is going to become stronger or a collapse will happen and the AFD will reign in the Bundestag. I am scared nowadays in my region since it is a bit more traditional (even) with the u.s military here. That someone will just stab me since he dislikes refugees and can't distinguish for example an indian looking person from a person from syra or even africa / afro-american ( incase this word is not political correct in the u.s sorry !). People take so much pride in their ability to speak german nowadays, I would love to tear them apart verbally, for making fun of people who do not speak german very well. Germany just feels more like America (the middle class), people are starting to take more and more pride in their nationality again because of soccer, which people have been ashamed before because of WW2, yet it feels more like an modern expression, the expression to be the best you can see that if you watch german soccer it's about efficiency and being the best aka the ultimate individual. Going back to refugees I don't think it is bad that they are living here, yet people do not like it when they do not conform to german values and standards. While they are coming from blue countries. Well, I don't know I never talked to a refugee but I have been confused for one which was an odd experience. I grew up with italiens, russians, ukranien people, croatian people, americans and people laos and vietnam. My hometown is a melting pot since we do not have many citizens there overall. Most of them just identify themselves as european or german/their home country, while going to back their own group when they are more modern things are quite coo and people mingle lol l. So, the new ethnocentric thing is calling yourself european ? It is relative since it does help bonding with people from other countires who otherwise would regard themselves as swedish let's just say for example. Most green people that I know come financially strong/er households and go to uni and then abroad, so most younger green people will just pop up all over the world and do not want to live in Germany anymore. It does feel like green as regressed or maybe transcended green, who knows. Most young people want to go to australia, new zealand and start living and working there. Or they work in socical institutions hospitals, schools , or some therapy oriented occupations like physiotherapy. @Ferdi Le Do you think that the refugess will enrich the german culture in terms of it's plurality or do you think it will collapse and break down the system ( socially, politcally, or even economically) ?

@SaaraSabina The question was if there is a good test for spiral dynamics somewhere on the net. All of them seem rubbish till now.

@lmfao When I understand correctly. In order to explain any sort of truth about reality, we have to make an assumption and form a concept about it and that it is impossible to do this without making any assumptions paradoxically. I can see what you mean with, that every truth that a person experiences is wovern into the fabric of someones speech, in terms of how one experiences reality, or explains /discusses smth. I agree with you that I also "believe" that truth is beyond concepts and that we have to use concepts in order to understand what is happening or to point to something, even if that includes pointing to a truth that is beyond concepts. I do understand that "conceptionally", yet I do lack the meditative experience to be in such a state for longer periods of time. I see glimpses of it weekly and ocassionaly daily, where everything just is an interwoven mesh. Sights, sounds and your conceptualizing perception of things stop. Silence drops in and tranquility emerges. That state can't be described with words ? , yet possibly the emotional feeling of it, by using the concepts of language ? Everything turns into a simple happening since you are the witness and see the interplay and beauty of reality, without having a tarnished point of view. Your field of being able to witness sensory experience expands and what is there is irreducible. I don't know. That is how it feels like for me when everything turns into a single happening or chaos beautifully untangles itself, till it is reverting back to it's status quo. There is peace regardles if there is order or chaos or both. It is not a knowing even though I know what you mean by knowing imo. But, it just there. I disagree with you that the most important thing is personal development in terms of becoming enlightend, yet I also agree to the point that it is one of the most fundamentally intriguing things there is and that it is somehow above personal development. Just being (at best without concepts). Although I watched some videos about how enlightenment is not what people usually expect I can't talk from experience since I never had one really. Besides some weird meditation things, where I asked the teacher aftwards what happend, and he just said you dropped very deep and was silent and that I lost consciousness because of going so deep. But, I know my ego could not take the depth of consciousness and I lost consciousness of myself, till my apprehensive ego just came back within seconds. I did not ask him what that was, since he was so silent I just did not want to say anything. And one psychedelic experience/trip. I can understand that learning about integral theory takes time and I never really read the literatue(till now), just a couple of audiobooks about the practices and contemplated the overall map of development ( for a bit over 2 years) . Another member which is gone now ? Send me .. the superhuman course from ken wilber where he explains everything about the integral theory. But, I will just make this point and stop writing. Imo, this is important since you can develop yourself, your values, identity and consciousness and even your sex life. And become a honorabel human being by your own standards without needing to boast about it, or that you become enlightend and do not care morally about your actions. I sometimes dislike the model, since it is sadly only a model / concept and not reailty and I just would like to meditate and become free. Also, I like it extremely and think it's cool that there is research behind some of the stuff, also that you have a map where you can see your value structure and therefore enables you to see what is possible, when you grow yourself further and what to expect when you reach a certain altitude, also it feels quite cool to reach new stages in terms of how you reality and perception of reality changes. I love green german people, the most big hearted fun crowd I meet so far. And trust me xenophobic blue looks different /feels different / acts different. Also, the way how enlightenment is experienced is the same at any stage, yet the way you interpret it and most likely what you can make out of it changes, this is what I know from listening to Ken Wilber. You can just become enlightend at orange and simply do what ever the ultimate individual can do ( not a joke) and have fun and make money. Live a hedonistic lifestyle and enjoy the pleasures the world has to over to you, tons of food, girls / boys / trees/ cats exotic places and still not have the capacity ( according to this model) to be at green and enjoy the beauty of human relationships in terms of the compassion level. I can't tell what happens when you are enlightend and at blue with regards to how one would experience compassion, in comparisson to an green/orange world centric enlightenment. I never meet enlightend blue people or an enlightend person in my life. So, this is a long written form of explaining reasons why integral theory is worth it, I'd like to add one thing that when you are at turquoise / yellow / blue / orange / green and you are enlightend these stages woud fluctuate and are never truly static, through out your day, would you be enlightend through and at all stages ?

Seems promising:

@ChimpBrain Yeah, I had the same thought when I took the test that I WANT to think these are my honest answers somehow they are , but I do not live that way not at all. Even, though I try to think of how I could embody this, it is there and not. Although I would highly value people who act like this or if I can work with them yellow sounds awesome, since competency and knowledge are valued over status, rank and power and integrated into a hierachy, not like green where group sensitivity is valued and nobody wants to make a choice, till someone makes it and everyone finds something better later and implements it, then only to complain about how this and that is wrong now and how we can fix it. At least that was what I thought while working with green people. Blue is horrible, they wait for a command and do not think about the other person till they open their mouth although they do care, green thinks about other people automatically regardless if the people who are present created a group first it just flows into a group or rather community when you work together and I feel you can be very creative at this stage more methaporical thinking and also political, I can express my feelings as a "man"/cisgender masculin w/e and not be laughed about instead I am respected or it is appreciated and you can have fun expressing a part of yourself, that is vulnerable, and not this orange kind of ohhh are you hurt? Then someone laughs at the expens of your feelings or your persona and makes fun of you, or just say it since it was the appropriate response to that situation, but internally they do not care. Imagine the passive-aggresive modern person working in the corporate world talking to you that makes fun of other people only to maintain their sense of self-esteem or status. Or a very secular person not seeing his own bias towards things, yet having a world centric perspective, seeing the injustices of religion, being xenophile and curious about other peoples cultures, yet mostly out of personal interest to learn something or to equip oneself with the status of being a culturally ( and I mean status -> I am better since I have been to xxx countries) educated. Although you can work on your ego this is what the typical modern person looks like without mentioning materalism. Still this is imo. @Elisabeth Orange and green are both world-centric perspectives / viewpoints / lenses they differ in the sense I think the best example ( I will get to global) I can give which I read in some article some time ago, since I am assuming you are interested in feminism etc. after talking about open relationships here. ( I take the blame for this assumption). Is that an orange viewpoint would regard feminism as the capacity to be as successful and have the same rights / opportunites as men while green is more aware of the social construct of gender roles, so they concept of how a certain gender is supposed to behave, can shape their identity based on the capacity of the individual to be aware of their own subjectivity and re-create the concept of gender or rather choose their way "gender" is defined. Yeah, it is a social construct / gender identity politics. ( I am being careful , of course men and women pls spare me for using these words are biologically different and most green people do not want to integrate that idea / perspective imo.. so the social interplay is different and people still complain about the differences at green between men and women..) Global perspective / view (turquoise) is mostly meant in the way that you can see the interconnectedness of everything I would like to talk about a personal example and I will do that here (beaware) . Yet, it is biased since I took psycedelics and I thought about this whole integral theory and perspectives and everything just sort of makes sense at that stage, it is more of an awarness than a value structue for this example and my experience of what could be turquoise. It is global in the sense that you are and cherish every little tiny piece of existence that is there, animals, plants, insects, cells the ground it is valued in the sense that you are not it but feel it's existence. So, it would differ from enlightenment in the sense that you are not it refering to god, consciouness, universe, buddah w/e. But value existence and see it's magnificence. I wanted to highlight that global focuses on every aspect and experience within existence there is. While yellow would be aware of networks, systems and how the enviroment is destroyed / how goverments are managed / built and the interplay of it's single units which make up the system of goverment, and has a strong motiviation to self-actualize. I still do not understand both of these stages fully or at all. Yellow can called an advanced stage of orange since it focuses again on the individual instead of the group like blue and green(imo). You basically break out of the desire to feel accepted and valiated by a group or the "habit" of group sensitivty although you still can use it. But, it feels more autonomous and to a degree more like an autodidact. It feels like it is possible to exercise self-expression without exploiting others, so for example an orange win-win would exploit ressources in order to further develop or be valueable to the car-indusrty / nation. While yellow would figure out a system and express their non-exploitative way of thinking in it and orchestrate it in a way that nobody is going to get hurt. This is just my personal opinion after hearing audiobooks and reading some random stuff online + booptube. This is quite interesting incase you want to know how self-idendity is built. The german article does not need revision from a psychologist, germans are weird. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loevinger's_stages_of_ego_development

@lmfao This is quite complicated, so I do not understand everything about integral theory not even remotely. The pdf is about self-identity and values mainly and they are described as an overview of development with the term consciousness which is used as loose term imo, to describe or categorize the stages there. You can read it in the second paragraph. Yes, it is related to spiral dynamics in the sense the wilber incoperated it into his theory, spiral dynamics focuses on values, wilber on everything . I can speak from my personal perspective how integral theory helped me to develop, yet I will describe it or paraphrase wilber. It helps you in the sense that it move up stages since you have a map which gives you an overview of a territory. Without the map you would not be able to have an overview over the territory and find your destination let's say. So, it is like language when you are a native speaker you can speak your native language, yet you do not see the structure of the language or in this case the map, adverbs, grammatical tenses, nouns, verbs etc. You just know how to use it since you are a native speaker, yet you are not aware of the structure behind it, first when you learn about it you can think about it's structure. In the same sense spiral dynamics or any model from this theory let's you introspect and see the structure which makes up different compartments of whatever reality is aka what you think about.., let's say. So, having a map, theory or model let's you see the system / development or structure behind the thing which you can not see through contemplating it. When I spin this analogy further even when you can find your way through the territory without a map, you still do not know how the big picture or the overview of the territory looks like. You can't get a total birds eye perspective. Even with a map, a map would simply be a tool to show you the birds eye perspective / the big picture of the territory or enviroment, that has been made. Learning about the map let's you see what you otherwise would only experience and there would not be the neccesary knowledge, literature, structure some shit written down that explains things in order to understand what is happening. Let's say you are highly developed in self-identity (Jane Loveinger) you know it since you can introspect , think or/and contemplate about your identity. Therefore, you are able to distinguish that you are somehow different than others, think differently, act differently etc. When you have a map, like typology or even some research at best behind it, you now have an overview. It is possible to read about different ways for example how humans interpret their reality, self, values, world . By reading about it you now have a map and now have a tool which can help you navigate through the jungle of human madness and relate to people better, find people who are thinking differently or to look out for contrarian viewpoints. You are able to develop since you have the know how and the knowledge of where to go or what to potentially expect or where you are at fictitiously speaking. A map is not the territory in the sense that when you walk through the woods the map does not walk through woods and is only an abstraction/generalization of how the territory looks like and you can use it as a tool while walking through the woods. In that sense it is never the territory. The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon is also a cool example for the same concept. Hope this useful in terms of why one could learn about a map or integral theory. Imo this has potential for growth, espcially when there is some research behind it, yet I can't prove it for it's validity although I would like to.

@lmfao I listened to an audiobook yesterday to just think about and refresh the knowledge that I have about integral theory. Meditation and learning about the theory can move you up two stages in 10 years on average if you are age range is between 25 and 50 on average, also development stops when you are 25 years old or somewhere around 26 or 27 and after that start peeking again around the ages 50 - 60. So, you can move up two stages in four years under the age of 25 or till 27 and he also mentioned someother things that move you through the stages like journaling, psychotherapy, and potentially psychedelics, although Wilber did not try them some of his friends tried it, some of them can move you up 0.5 stages, yet he mentioned nothing really about psychedelics, by his tone of voice though it sounded quite promising to him, since they let you access states of consciouness or some meditative states and these states help to develop through the stages and/or stabilize a stage. The audiobook is called cosmic consciouness from ken wilber, here is a pdf incase you are interested. This is pretty much a comprehensive overview of all the researches who make up the integral theory and it's subcomponents, like Don Beck' with Spiral Dynmaics and Jane lovingers ego development theory, I also found this which seems interesting and is also mentioned in the pdf. I did not read it yet. Still, psychdelics are no joke they can mess you up. https://integralwithoutborders.net/sites/default/files/resources/Overview of Developmental Levels.pdf http://www.cook-greuter.com/Cook-Greuter 9 levels paper new 1.1'14 97p[1].pdf

Maybe it is somehow valid https://www.sdtest.ru/en/result.php?res=8455 and that is why wilber says take a test online yet I sometimes doubt that everyone is so highly developed. And that people want to make money of it as long as there is not an institute behind it I can imagine that it is somehow valueable or useful to take an online test Here would be my results: Red %6 Blue 13% Orange 13% Green 20% Yellow 33% Turquoise 13% Although it feels that either green is sometimes very strong in me or yellow it is difficult for me to say that I am yellow since I do know many people who could be yellow besides 2-3 people that I know. One studies a.i the other one political sciencies/sociology and one is some random fker from my uni lol. So, I am looking forward to the mega threads of examples of the other stages.

@Zega I took this test I don't think it is valid I choose things that I do not fully embody. Some personal examples of green / yellow or turquoise value emobdiment would be cool. When I read about it I feel quite integral and since I tried psychedelics I feel that I sometimes access turquoise "consciousness" where everything just makes sense without me trying to think in a systematic way or seeing the interplay of interactions and needing to conceptualize them in order to understand that everything is a integrated network. It just automatically makes sense why certain things happen and it is a deep "intuitive" knowledge you just know without needing to think. Some one else on the forum posted this link and I found sometime ago research about this WUSCT since I was tired of hearing wilber talking about research and I did not find it . This test is scientifically valid ? As far from what I have read and I read through the papers, also that iq.. is correlated with higher levels of ego development and the WUSCT is based on Jane Loveingers Ego Development Theory. It was a 0.4 correlation with verbal intelligence and overall iq one of the two aspects had a higher correlation, I don't remember which one anyway. Here is most likely the best test for ego development for 1k . http://cook-greuter.com/SCTi-MAPForm.htm

As far as I know you grow through them you do not skip them but most likely your growth will be accelerated by yellow/turquoise parents yet your enviroment will most likely also have a huge impact. Also, you have a stage where your "development" gravitates towards meaning that you will act out this stage most of the time, yet you can also use other stages or fall back into that behaviour for sometime. Your center never changes apparently. You will certainly develop blue thinking otherwise it would be not possible to act efficiently in a group and see yourself as part of a group / identifiy with it. Yellow parents would be n1 since they can see that as a partial truth, yet green or orange parents will clash to some degree most likely. Since, they want their child to develop to their way of thinking and might not understand that the child is going through a blue/orange/red phase or developmental level. The best example is when you have blue parents and you are orange and you can see their perspective or view on reality in terms of family clashes with your drive of freedom, autonomey and sucess. To strive within the system and be sucessful scientist or have a successful career a great job which earns a lot of money or to be academically successful.

@SuperLuigi As far as I remember depending on how old you are you can move up stages quite fast with meditation, in case you are in university and are under 25 you have good chances to move up one stage every two years when people meditate for one hour a day otherwise it takes 5 years in case you are older then 25. Wilber said in one of his audiobooks, that people do not grow anymore in these stages after they turn 25 naturally. Yet, when they turn 50 or are somewhere around 50ish years old. Then they start growing again naturally. Also, shadow work can help when people move up stages and there can be parts that are not fully integrated from previous stages or are some sort of residuals from the old stage, which can be called shadow elements. So, integrating anything that triggers you with any sort of shadow work ( I only tired one technique, which works for me) can help you to include behaviours, perceptions and emotions quite well, in a healthy way. IMO Take this "advice" with a grain of salt, I am not sure how Ken Wilbers Map and Spiral Dynamics are related or if they are the same. He references it in his audiobooks, yet by reading their descriptions they seem similar. Also, weightlifting is good for growing in these stages, so you could be growing quite fast. Still, meditation is most likely the pivotal point for growth. I can recommend the audiobooks Cosmic Consciousness for a big picture of Ken Wilbers work or for a more pratical approach ( still I do not like this audiobook ) Integral Meditation. I also enjoyed Integral Transformation, yet he mostly talks about shadow there. (All audiobooks are from Ken Wilber Also, people are not on one stage solely, they move through all the stages where they are at. Yet, people have a center of development where they gravitate towards, so you could be tapping into red on a few occasions. I notice it when I do sports or when people use their power or authority over others. Note: I am biased by only consuming things from one author, I did some free only test (which where only available in german for what ever reason) about spirial dynamics. By reading the descriptions on their site by hearing youtube video and audiobooks from Wilber the descriptions about the stages seem to be the same.

Hello, I wanted to share and talk about psychedelic experiences. I tested a couple of psychedelics now Al-LAD, ETH-LAD, 1P-LSD, and ALD-52. So, last week Thursday I tried 200mcg of 1P-LSD and topped it up with 100mcg later during the trip. So, I what I did before with the other substances before taking them is that I meditate 1h like I do regularly, and then after I do a 20min intentional meditation sit, about what the psychedelics experience should be about, or what the content of the psychedelic experience revolves around. Ideally, also 20min of journaling after the meditation sessions (almost like in Leo's video about ALD-52). What I did with each separate trip, is to compare if whether or not, it makes a difference if I take them normally without any meditation (just the regular one or even without meditation), or if the content of the psychedelic experience changes, when I meditate and send/make intentions. In general what I feel and think about the setup/preparation is that the setup does matter, yet more on physical health, mental and one's emotional state. At the same time( meditation boosts that quite good and substances do not matter as much as I thought), I feel that even a horrible setup which can cause a bad trip feels so cleansing in the end. Even when I can't recap what I processed at the end, or why I feel that something inside of me is now free or sort of has been set free and I can now let go and embrace in a sense. Yet, also that there is a lot of pain and hate, also vanity inside me. I can see that I am lacking self-reflection at the moment, otherwise I would be able to process more of the "shadow components" about myself, that have been revealed through psychedelics and shadow work. Now back to Thursday, where I tried 300mcg of 1P-LSD. I took them this time without meditating or doing anything related to a preparation beforehand. What I did is basically just the regular stuff that I do, when I am being me. So, I just play video games listen to some nice music, turn on a video on youtube that I like and relax. I did not have obviously any mind breaking insights or changes in awareness, yet at the end, I did have some insights. Which was quite surprising more or less. When I had the insights, I was lying in the bedroom of my mom petting my cat...(all jokes aside) and started to think about going to bed and to meditate before. As I was stroking my cat I was startled, that he was purring to the rhythm of my breathing. Now, when I think back I always adjusted my breathing to my cat to build some sort of intimacy or connection or just to show the cat that I am not harmful lol. What happened next is, that I decided to meditate for 15 min and go to bed since it was quite late. I started the timer and sat down near on the brink of my bed and started to meditate. As I was meditating I sort of felt and noticed that my cat was purring sort of distorted and not rhythmically. Then as my thoughts became more quite my cat also was quieter. It felt like he is some sort of consciousness vibrator purring to the rhythm of its environment or to brain waves, or any sort of frequency that is humming through an area. Then suddenly, I just became quite, of course there where thoughts but my whole environment went quite I could feel nothingness or consciousness being there in the whole environment, my outer body ( not inner maybe slightly) went quiet, and my cat also suddenly in that (ffing) moment quite. I was shocked and the experience lasted maybe 5 - 30 seconds or 1 or 2 minutes. I can't really tell I find it difficult to track time when I am meditating, especially noticing short periods of time. After meditating I immediately cuddled into my bed with my cat cuddling up right towards my chest. I was irritated and just could not sleep, not because of the "silence experience", I just could not feel asleep. So, my mind was radiating and talking and thinking and talking. I noticed that the more I became uneasy my cat also became uneasy, and I was just wondering in general what a cat can sense with her body. Yet, it was so depending on what I thought. That I started to think about why did Egyptians worship cats did they do anything related to consciousness "work" or meditation or something that has to do with increasing awareness and noticed that a cat can be a useful tool to increase awareness? Then I thought what did all of our ancestors do that were sort of spiritually inclined with animals? Do animals have consciousness, when they have it can they use it? Are they just it? And are "trapped" inside a body that leaves them with limited choices? Would animals or certain animals notice and adjust to you when you have the goal to increase your consciousness and be a sort of guide or would I just project that on to them and I would perceive it that way? Since they are consciousness they are in some ways always a guide? Then I thought about a quote from Eckhart Tolle "I have lived with several Zen masters" - All of them are cats. And how my cat often deceives me just to get what he wants in the end, some food or attention or whatever he sometimes "thinks" and how a Zen master can trick you into growth ( did not meet one yet in person). Also, before I meditated I had to cry I just felt so bad and connected to my cat as stupid as it may sound it felt like he wants to live a human life what do I know? When consciousness perceives well, than can he see what we are doing and get insights even if he can't comprehend things like a human? I dont know it just hit me. In general with all the substances I tried, I feel that I WANT and also DESIRE to read more books. It feels very good to think about content that you have acquired ( not sure how to phrase it yet thats how it feels like.. yes yes feel feel ) and to just expand with it and connect ideas and concepts with each other or see where they are similar to gain new "insights". Also, since I consumed a couple of audiobooks and talks of Ken Wilber that I can see the stages of "moral" development or overall development in myself and other people. I pretty much got all of the ethnocentrism out of me and materialism is still less decently prevalent and that I am more integral to a degree then I thought I am. Yet, I am still very much green although integral is making its progress faster and faster. Especially, when I work out and I am at the university I feel integral is quite strong, since there is no other way, I can get along with peers who act on different stages and funnily more or less they also gather around their stage ( Yes, this sounds slightly condescending to some, yet this is NOT MY INTENTION!!! even if it feels sometimes like this I just get annoyed with people..). Also, I noticed more how people project their own insecurities upon me since I am quite sensitive and listen to people a lot and they just let loose and tell me all of their personal stuff. I enjoy it, yet it is difficult to not be a target of projection or that you target other people with your own projection since this is so subtle it is insane, anger, drama, hate, blame. Can all fire back on to you even if you did not really participate. Yet, it is just difficult to handle other peoples emotions when they project things on to you, since one can't tell if it is one's own emotion or the emotions of the other person, which is being projected upon you. Besides the projection and stages part, I noticed more shadow material in me. Also, that green people tend to be quite narcissistic in a subtle and vain manner and that orange people care so much about accomplishment, intelligence, money, status even in video games instead of raw skill for instance and that anything that has not been accomplished through some sort of efficiency and individual accomplishment. Is not worth the discussion. So, they feel better than others based on external factors . That is what I observed as a shadow part of these two stages and these parts are not incorporated correctly. IMO. Could also be just lack of awareness? (The shadow self and awareness are completely different, they are not correlated that's what I know from books though). Also, I feel more sensitive to my environment, open and do have more satisfaction with my life overall. So, I am very glad I tried and will continue to do so for some time, ideally with more focus on just experiencing the psychedelic experience, so I will walk around more or not be engaged in any sort of activity that distracts me too much. I am sometimes unsure if I am growing or not because first of all, you can't talk with everybody about this and even then it is difficult to get a feedback on what you perceive in terms of its accuracy. Since most people do not share the same framework to work with. And sometimes I am not sure if I am just deluding myself or that I am not making progress in someway since I don't reap any extrinsic rewards. Feel free to share thanks for reading!

What do you think about open relationships? Or has someone experience with them? I just can compare and contrast, with bonobo "societies" and chimp "societies" since I have not been in one or know people who have been in an open relationship. Where the former is dominated by females and the latter by males. In the society where females dominate, the male bonobos have more sex and women too, they are also homosexual, so both females and males mate with each other ( although males not till the ejaculation ). Whereby the chimpanzees have less sex, yet they are dominated by males and there are a lot of schemes and intrigues against the current alpha male in the group, so chimpanzees team up together to take down the alpha male, if they do not get enough resources like sex and food or are sort of oppressed when one male is to dominate and just does what he wants. How do you think these societies compare to open relationships, open relationships seem to be neither dominated by both sexes, so I am quite curious how an open relationship plays out since they seem kind of bonobo-like lol. Also, how are open relationships in general and what do you think about them? .

@HII Looking forward! @Serotoninluv I can see the point of putting people into compartments and to be aware of that, and that the threat of taking something away from another person is reduced or completely eliminated depending on the person. Also, it is quite interesting to hear that the fantasizing about intimacy with someone else can create a barrier, between the people involved in the relationship. @Shin I agree that it depends a lot on a persons psyche and energy management I went out with two friends (both female) of mine and we went touring through the city (Paris) starting early in the morning and we had plans to go out late in the evening to a restaurant, I can't remember if we had a break between and went back to the apartment or we just stayed in the city the whole day and went out in the evening to the restaurant. We are all introverted, so I told them at the beginning the we are not likely going to have the energy to do this. They also wanted to do something afterwards and I was leaving the city. We went to the restaurant during evening time and surprisingly, since I never went out with two girls alone, the waiters where very happy to serve us in the end, since I made my two friends laugh the whole time or a good amount of the time when we went out to eat, although the waiters where skeptical of me since I was quite drained and tired after that long day, so I was quiet at the beginning. Also, the city was quite progressive so there was not a lot of judgement " in the air", and everyone of us was just nice to the waiters and considerate, that was also the first time I considered an open relationship. Not to sound like a prick because I was out with two girls, the setup can variate! ( I am thinking about how an open relationship plays out) So, we had a good time although it was odd sometimes and I felt challenged "entertaining" two young women, but I enjoyed the challenge lol. (Trying not to apply to concept of gender seems impossible for me atm) Also, I think introverts would have the advantage of not being as jealous of each other as long as everyone is introverted or has a tendency to act introverted, because alone time would be respected also hobbies and interests would have to be not as similar, also deep conversations would be more valued, so the negotiating part of the relationship would be good. Difficulties could be that they would look awkward in social gatherings at least at the beginning and that one person could isolate him/herself/other pronoun (dunno which one to use) and that the different kind of depth of connections could vary, so jealousy or envy could become a problem again. Extroverted people could do a lot together so, their lifestyles or activities dictate the relationship a lot depending on how outgoing they are. I guess the relationship could end out to just be a group which does a lot of activities together and enjoy having a good time and also sex. I could imagine the depth of the relationship could fall flat and that they become to used to each other or that they have more fun with another person and kick someone out like in the video of@Martin123 lol and to not give another person the chance to go deeper and share. Also, getting to used to each other could become a problem for introverts they could be annoyed of each other with a lot of passive-aggressiveness, yet these are all just considerations for how an "open relationship" would look like without the focus to a "spiritual beneficial open relationship" where the focus would not be to fulfill sexual desires / emotional needs and the relationship would be used to increase ones level of consciousness or let's say since I never had an experience of what "pure consciousness" is like, to aid each others spiritual practice and to burn through emotional dependencies/ needs/ with ones spiritual practice and to learn from different traditions. It would be like having a team that is specializing in different fields using their knowledge to build something great, or a team of researches sampling different traditions/ways to find out which one works for them or could work for someone else and to find that "niche" of the most beneficial practice a person could have and then use it to learn from each other and implement parts from different traditions the other person specializes in, so you would have "several masters" from different traditions working together to find flaws in each others practice and have deep discussions about this stuff on an intimate level, since they would spend a lot of time together, dunno if this is good or progressive in any sense. It does sound to me IMO! Most people say that spending time alone in a cave is the most beneficial thing to do ( over generalizing here) to further aid ones practice/ reach new stages/depth. Yet, at the same time masters say that the communication between masters from different traditions is not happening or just sparingly. So, an open relationship with all people having a spiritually centered lifestyle could be a new thing, when the participants are also taking this seriously, the relationship and the spiritual practice. Maybe it would also help with the problem that in some monasteries where there is sexual misconduct. Yet, it could also turn out bad into a spiritual harem where people are just easily abused. I am stopping here I was just thinking about an ideal. Conceptualizing to much most likely, although I like the idea, still a monogamous or even no relationship at all is fine. @aurum Guess that is what it comes down to. I never talked about open relationships with other people besides here now, I will talk about it with my friends though to see their reaction. @Martin123 Very funny xD. Yet, this is where I think development comes into play they seem very modernistic of course this is just an over dramatization, yet it would not be over dramatized if there was not a seed of truth in it. The people look very modernistic and superficial also their behavior, yes obviously it is a joke. I still perceive a seed of truth in their satirical display. So, I am wondering how people on a post-modern or integral etc level would handle such a relationship or even engage in one, most likely there won't be the necessity, to do it or the tendency to want to do it as I can imagine it on a post modern level. Dunno if comes down to that most likely to ones level of consciousness. So I just leave it there.

@Elisabeth Thx a lot ! I will look into that

@Elisabeth I read through the Wikipedia article about Polyamory and saw that there are different terms on how one defines an open relationships, and the concepts are quite interwoven so, it can be difficult to separate them. So, I did not want to go into details, since I do not know about them (yet) and also, I can see that these details are important when you are in such a type of relationship or want to discuss it... Same goes for monogamy and sexual preferences. The map you sent is great lol and quite sarcastic. (Btw, I just wanted to share my idea and see what other people think.) Would love to combine both since one approach seems to be dogmatic and I am reading that it is quite common for people in the monastery to break the rules, they have about sex. Yet, this is very nuanced since people have different opinions on what actually happened, for instance a teacher groping a student as some sort of abuse of the status as teacher or because of the actual attraction the event occurred. I also find the "scientific" approach interesting where certain cultures lived in polyamory or let's just say they lived and exchanged partners, sex and cared for each other ( hunter and gatherer cultures), So, it did work in the past and it already has been questioned that there are certain aspects where one derives his sexual attraction/identity from, so biology, culture/ society have a giant impact. On what one finds attractive. As far as I remember variety and novelty is what "biologically" interests women the most besides from culture and societal impacts, I don't remember men. Also, I can imagine since I did not read about it that certain traditions turn into "harems", although I remember Sam Harris talking about the guru cult in his book "waking up" that some gurus claim enlightenment of some sort and abuse it for pleasure, money etc. The ordinary bullshit ? Also, I can imagine combining both aspects can also be dogmatic the ascetic and the tantric approach, I would like to try it and see for myself what happens. It will just get very confusing since many people do not combine these two ways (tantric and astetic) , so you could not compare and contrast, where one went off course inside ones own "tradition" or ideal. Still, it seems less dogmatic IMO or the complete opposite totally dogmatic, yet it is quite difficult to share with other people that lifestyle. Sometimes I also think personality and genetics play a role where people are attracted to certain ways of living based on their personality and biology. So.. different things work for different people and everyone thinks somewhere they are right. I am curious if someone has been in an "open relationship" or polyamory here in this forum and has combined his spiritual practices from different traditions, so one could learn from each other or implement a small part of a tradition or exercise to benefit the relationship/community/behavior of one self. Also with the bonobo and chimpanzee information I wrote at the beginning of the post, I was curious how "dominance" plays out in an open relationship or polyamory etc. Where it is not as clear as in the typical monogamous relationship, where the male tends to be dominant and women more submissive, in the "typical conservative" relationships. They other way can also be possible and you do see that nowadays. I am curious about when one integrates both female and male aspects of oneself, how equal a relationship can be especially with biological components having an impact. Dunno if this is relate able, since I can't explain yet, in detail what female and male aspects are. Only vaguely and -> male (freedom,independence,autonomy?) female (compassion,love,sharing and caring) yes also a men or women have all these qualities and they occur on different stages of development referring to Ken Wilber here (pdf attached). Overview of Developmental Levels.pdf

@ajasatyaTo share intimacy, love and a deep connection and broadening that with a few chosen people intensely, so these qualities could be transferred to other people, like a skill that you develop, that how I imagine an ideal " open relationships" does look like. It should not make the people in the relationship special and of course, love, intimacy, and affectionateness is shared with other people. So, that all of your relationships are open, yet that you have a few training partners for developing qualities like affectionateness, learning to have a deep connection with people or with multiple people, sharing, and understanding perspectives and "love" and trust. It is similar to a monogamous relationship, where you would want to share and cultivate those qualities, yet you just choose it to do it with more people that you enjoy being with. And of course, you would also burn through a lot of pain and emotional upheavals/stress in the process. Also, if you are all these qualities already. Then one could simply choose to share or not share them making the question of open relationships unnecessary and also of monogamous relationships. I do understand that the notion of love that society has, has been imprinted by society. So, I do not know what real love is yet, yet cultivating mindfulness and doing meditation and listening to different teachers gives me some insights on how it could look like and it has occurred in most peoples lives as a child or adult etc, even if only sporadically. Even if they did not notice that, because they have nothing to compare this experience too and recognize this is true love and not the attachment and making someone special society/parents/peers have told them.

So, I was just curious also for this for a more or less long time, since I started "self-actualizing" 2-3 years ago. How is it possible to stop being influenced by authorities, rank or hierachies? I always felt since I am a "miniority" in a sense because I am half afro-american and half white ( however political correct these words are in the eng language ) and even though there are a lot of people in my region that have a similar background, I always felt different or people treated me slightly different based, on the concept that they had about me. The concept already was different simply because I look different and I bet a lot of people can relate even when it is just that their nose is bigger or just some other physical alteration. Even though I am half american I did not grew up learning the eng language I have two very very good friends who are also half ( phlilipinese and croatian ) they both also did not learn their other "native" language. It is kind of funny to see or to observe how ethnocentcrism kicks in when people try to claim you as on of them, oh you are black, you are asian, you are german , you are croatian and impose their concept of how one should behave onto you. Of course culutural differences are fun , yet not when they are regarded as truth, which can be difficult to distinguish what is wrong and right when two cultures are quite similar, yet different in small aspects. Anyway the point that I am trying to make besides noting that race or identity is a social construct. Is how can one be free of the influences of being put into a certain box, rank or hierachie ? I tried psychedelics (AL-Lad and 1P-LSD) and could see how on different levels of consciousness, I just functioned and thought completely differently, I could see how other people define their concept of themselves and have enough empathy to intuitiveley go through their thought process in that moment, to realize or rather recognize how they create a concept of themselves and I could even see that my friend also tried to figure out what I was thinking ( he is into mindgames...), yet he could not grasp what I am thinking, so how ever odd or condescending this may sound, I felt like I need to lower my "stage" refering to Ken wilber here.. to let him have insight into my thought process so he could trust me, so we are not playing mind games and just enjoy the moment. I also remember a story from an audiobook from Alan Watts which explained that, when you are tired of competing in the "game of life" ( keeping up with the jonses, materialism, social reputations, maybe dominance hierachy ?? ) you become interested in Zen, and if I remember correctly he pointed out that this game never ends, yet that you learn to go with the flow of being involved in a game that you can't quit and can't win. You would be part of the game simply because you enjoy it or simply to be part of it ? So... noting that you would be part of the game simply to enjoy it. I watched an interview of Shinzen Young with some guy who I thought was awesome, yet I can't remember the name.. called buddah at the gas pump, there are two episodes you can watch them on youtube. I watch this after taking psychedelics (1P-LSD) so I was in the "afterglow" or "offset" stage, I perceived let's say for convenience sake a natural flow of hierachy based on actual manifastations of certain aspects of ones physicality/personaility/mentaility? ( I can't take me serious writing this xDD )So, let's say a person is more empathic, has better people skills, is cognitvely better equipped, or has some other skill, trait, quality, aspect that makes him different from another person and therefore lies in the possibility to be better in that aspect or even domain of life and that is what I observed pretty much imo when I watched the video and the two of them talking, yet it is and was very different from normal conversations or normal occurences of differences in skill in a "mundane" situation. It somehow shocked me that both of them seemed not to be free of rank, hierachie, status etc. yet Shinzen seemed free of status and the general topics in these conversations where fking mind blowing and very very deep. It was scary and very uplifting at the same time. I definitely can't tell if a meditation master is free of something that I am entagled in and this statement already implies rank. (IDK if the strange loop topic covers this completely topic already completely, yet be Leo removing rank for instance from this forum it is insane how much we are influenced by rank , status etc. yes it has use, but can you be free and have it 's use ?) So, I was just wondering if it is possible to be completely free of hierachy, rank, status in a pretty quick way. Since it does bother me a lot. The other guy in the conversation was a TM teacher for 25 years and he seemed very very free of rank, status etc, yet you could see for instance that he felt bad when he could not express something or understand something, that he either knew he could understand if he had the ability or felt inferior ( observing body language), btw I also felt disgusted by myself to cold heartedly analyse people as they where some sort of animal or insect . That hit me quite hard.. I could try to get more out of my memory, yet it would take to long. I had many insights watching this video one thing that "bothered" me was that somehow it seemed that Shinzen was pissed because he knew somehow, somewhere that his techniques work or rather that some techniques are not that efficent and they should follow his or some others that are "legit". The other person was in TM movement for a very long time and said that 95% of the people he knows quitted TM. I am not sure if I am making this topic to deep or if that even makes sense to some people. I am reading more about the "rational" or scientifically more or less valid statments of how dominance hierachies and hierachies in general occur, yet I would just dabble around in this subjects, since I feel I do not know enough yet. So, here are just my observations and contemplations of the topic rank in a nutshell over the course of my live.

@Joseph Maynor I like the explanation although I "believe" that most of that I noticed somehow subconsciously even if that is even possible I don't know. I tried this technique It is similar to what she explains at the end. Where she says that sound appears in the back of one's head, this goes a little further. I am still new to the technique so, I can't notice the field where thoughts and vision do arise that good yet, but it does seem to occur in these areas. IMO @SOUL Thanks, I see this now more clearly!

@ajasatya I read your 21 days before enlightenment journal and I am quite curious now. Why do you think open relationships are for lazy and undisciplined people would it not be possible to master or to get a hold of one's sexual energy or unstable sexual urges, so that you could live in an open relationship that is stable. So, there are clear rules and boundaries that all participants accept and follow? Or they all have some sort of training or are training together? @Shin I am always wondering why monks decide to stay in a monastery or live in celibacy, sometimes I can comprehend that there is nothing special about sex and that it is just done mostly for pleasure in our society, then I wonder why people do tantra yoga ( just googled a bit about it ) or perhaps some other disciplines. I did not try it yet. So, I don't know. Would it not be possible to share that with multiple people or is there a holding capacity for sexual energy? I can certainly understand the no control and let's just f* around part lol.

@Joseph Maynor Okay, thanks for the feedback, this sounds very good. I can see in a sense how culture intervenes with rank, hierachies, authorities. I can see the culture, but I have no clue what reality is lol. I will keep out an eye for that and learn more from books in time. Alright, I am just wondering now, even if the need disapears do these primal instinctual patterns still happen ? Even when you realize that you are not different from everybody else etc(are enlightend), are parts of your brain still active and regulating these primal instincutal patterns or do you just function on a different "level", meaning that different brain regions are interacting more marginalizing/ostracizing the more instinctual parts or older more primal parts of ones brain ? I don't know how legit this question is since there are studies that show brain changes through meditation, yet I don't know what parts of the brain and how it changes and how far one could go even if science can't prove / detect some potential changes ?

@DocHoliday I wanted to mention many aspects that include hierachies,rank, status etc. Like Ken Wilbers' Integral Map, Spiral Dynamics and psychedelics, dominance hierachies and or simply everyday life with my example of race, which also could include as you said economy, education, politics etc. I was hoping that any of these observations or insights have some truths or could trigger some insights for others. I was not sure where I was going with this. Yet, I wanted to question if there is a way to become completely free of rank, status etc. Or if even someone is free here on this forum or interacts with people who are free, so they could see the potential of becoming free of rank, status etc and eloborate on that. I don't know if it is possible but when I look at people who are enlightend it is so different from the usual state of consciousness, especially after taking psychedelics. Yes, I noticed that one could become more free of the status game by stoping judgement inwhich meditation has helped me a lot. Yet, to which degree can you be free ? Are you still influenced by some aspects when you are enlightend ? I am still new to most of these subjects I have a good to decent overview - by listening to Shizen Youngs the Science of Enlightenment (1998 Edition), Ken Wilbers Kosmic Consciousness and a couple of books from Alan Watts and Eckhart Tolle. To how day to day life can look like when you keep working on let's say consciousness. Now I am reading about and hearing about the dominance hierachie, some part of our brain keeping track of where we are on the social ladder, how we compete for rank etc. And I can see clearly how we tend to behave like animals sometimes when we compete for rank(like bonobos and chimpanzes do), so is a meditation master an enlightend person or a certain stage of consciousness free of that?

@Soulbass Thx for the reply, I will keep that in mind. The idea with an excel file and delegating tasks is important. I can't tell how it is in the "real world", yet, it is difficult to meet up with students besides in the acutal class, since everyone has different priorities on what to do with their free time. Sparse meetings are a good thing, it was difficult though for this project. I think I learned a lot in the end, especially the pratical implications, yet what is more difficult imo is dealing with people with different aspects or just different personality traits and levels of "development" refering to either spiral dynamics or the integral map, in case you are familiar and could elaborate on the difference that can occur that would be awesome!. I still do not understand these maps 100%, yet they help to navigate and understand problems between individuals and groups (also in groups), value conflicts for instance or just differences in perspective. Our professor even talked about the critical path line .. in marketing management, I messed up as a "leader" in this group project now matriarchy went loose lol. That was definitely an eye opener and I want to learn and read more about these subjects. I will definitely try out the cpm/cpl and see , delegate tasks and setting deadlines was important we did not that and went way to "laissez faire" into the project.

Hello, I am currently working with two people from my university for a group project. Which involves creating and editing a video project to a certain topic, which in this case colors. I rarely have problems working in groups and getting a long with people especially almost never, also I never thought about that group dynamics exist. Which one of our professor who likes to talk more about things that seem quite abstract to everyday life, yet are quite important rather than talking about the topic of the lesson lol. Explained, for instance, that you are only a group when you are more than 2 people otherwise it is a "dyad" and first, when you are three people, the group is considered a group. So, there are different roles, the only ones I remember and try to keep in mind while interacting beside being mindful and non-judging -> listening and observing without interpreting and seeking first to understand than to be understood. Let's say there is the leader, follower and the deputy head / second representative ( basically second leader) and the second leader has the task to play the devil's advocate. To challenge group consensus and to bring forth arguments that counteract/refute the ideas of other with reasonable/sensible arguments. That's what I remember from the professor he just mentioned it on the side. I never really had trouble in group projects or doing activities in a group, since I am always looking how to contribute and I played a lot of team sports when younger, so you are used when someone is not as good or just does mistakes and learns or is simply better or has higher expectations of his teammates and you have to tell him, to calm down and not to take things as seriously ( for instance in practice) . The same counts for video games when you play a video game which involves an assessable and manageable amount of people, you can see how easily people get "tilted" or start denying frustration or just do not care anymore and start "trolling" and giving up or are overcompetitive and start flaming and calling names, putting fault upon other peoples mistakes for losing a game, instead of oneself. I read the book "How to make friends and influence people" and try to abide by the principles listed there, for instance when you criticize someone else first name a mistake of your own or first call out something positive that you like about a specific thing let's say the color of a picture and then what you do not like about it, for instance, the way the picture was drawn or smth. like that. When I try to bring forth an argument or an idea which I think is good and I receive critique, I see how it fits into the bigger picture and if the critique does not add something valuable to the idea then it is perfectly fine to not implement it, yet to integrate both idea and critique would be ideal as long as it works out and adds value to the project (In the book it is explained how to do that, fundamentally you say yes and incorporate the critique into the idea). So, if been working now with people from different cultures in different cultures, which is maybe not as common, yet more common compared with earlier times. And yes people where frustrated with me at one point, since they compared me to people who where working there for some time and they had time to get used to the work and I felt bad when I did a mistake I ( quite naive lol ) reported it to the supervisor and asked for feedback if it was possible in that case. In case there is feedback to report back to me, people appreciated the effort, if not it was just annoying and you should just not do it again. There is also not much more a person can say in that situation or not ? Besides that, I never had trouble with people sometimes people set themselves up for instance when I worked in China my supervisor (a very nice girl/women / enter political correct stuff) was supposed to do something, which if I remember correctly I should do, yet could not do because I was the only one who had not such a harsh accent when talking eng and so I received a new task and had to call customers in the U.S, besides some stuff that I needed to do on a daily basis. Well, she wanted to blame me ( at least that's how it sounded since I did not speak Chinese only rudimentary and they tend to avoid confrontations since, the culture likes to be not as direct as Europeans or westerners, which is shocking for them sometimes, how direct we can be and how indirect and passive-aggressive people from the east can behave (notice can) ) and the boss was quite upset with her she cried at the end, yet came back with a smile a very genuine smile which was surprising to me. Admitting through her facial gesture that she made the mistake. IDK Why I am telling this now, lol, or remember this, yet it illustrates the point of how difficult communication etc. or working as a group can be. People have been quite passive-aggressive with me not calling me out on mistakes or just ignoring when there is something wrong and I do not even realize it, I just tend to live in my head a lot and I finish work quite quickly, so they want to put more work upon me. So, what do you do? You slow down to not work as crazy ( the office in China was just ridiculous they voluntarily stayed longer 1 - 2 h a couple of times a week and one guy had a 2-3h subway/bus ride homework started from 09:00 to 18:30 with 1h and 30min break) as some of them did, it was just to exhausting and people will pill up work upon you. The French intern did the same, so I did not feel that bad and we chatted a lot which a lot of people in the office did. (Average life in an office I guess) So, now in this group in the university people started to ignore ideas or suggestions from me (we are in total 3) and I did not leave a good impression since I felt quite down because of family-related manners and they kinda accepted it, since I explained to them what happened in my family what I did not intend to do as long as things where working out. Since I was postponing a deadline, overestimating how much effort it will take, since I was doing the raw fundament of the editing/script and when something is already done, the creative process is facilitated and you can just work with a good to decent template and make it better, yet creating the template etc. in the first place is also quite difficult. Why I am saying it like this is because I did an internship in a postproduction company and the "head of sound" had all the creative freedom and the other sound engineers had to the technical work mostly. So, people do not really value "the work in the background" and only highlight and praise the "creative part" which is mostly a bit easier and not as tedious. (They also organized the people we need to record the project with, yet I was not able to have an impact there since, nobody talked to me what they were going to do, and they live together so they can talk and organize things quite effectively, even when I live 2 min away.) Now it is similar and I am in quite a new situation since I was always the youngest, so I always did the work and followed and look to contribute and now I am the oldest in the group and just by observing the "group dynamic" it is difficult to tell who leads, and I am not used to it , yet I felt at one moment I was the leader because, they where scared of making decisions, I am working together with two girls, which is quite pleasent, yet at the same time difficult. They are quite young and you can just tell by communicating, they do not want to take blame and want to be right and project that onto me ( did a lot of shadow work on that and I just argue about the basic truth I perceive, so people interpret that as maybe arrogant or self-opinionated and maybe bossy), so when I make a suggestion which I always start as a "can you/we do this task etc or who wants to do this and this" (open questions and suggestions no commandos), they say "Yes, but" that is basically like a fuck you, since you do not consider the other's viewpoint, which I try to include of course not always 100% successfully. Also, they get worked up really fast and I have no clue what to do about that, if the situation is right I try to de-escalate it with humor. Yet, this group or one person in the group feels very toxic, and I had to contemplate if I am not the toxic one, now I am just confused. Since they both seem not to react to any suggestions and they do not really incorporate me and do not notice that the group dynamic has shifted from me being "the supervisor" to me being just another follower now and it feels like the other girls just does not want to do the work / wanting to be the supervisor, even though she could because she is quite competent, because she feels stupid that she does all the work. Yet, everyone feels the same in the group and nobody wanted to meet up before when I suggested it or someone else. To talk about the project which helps a lot to clarify ideas etc, we did it at the beginning now, everyone takes his time as "sooo important" even though they should have enough time I am also able to to take out time out of my schedule to meet up. Yet, at the end, it is regarded to meet up as somehow unnecessary since we can chat and type. Sure this is an experience and teaches me a lot, especially since I've been reading about the difference between man and women (biologically, culturally and also the conditioning culture has done to women, how these differences occurred and how the two different sexes operate and how they develop differently morally, so both have a different focus on emphasises in group work and in general relationships and values) Where can I find some good ressources online explaining stuff like this ?( watched Leo's video how to deal with toxic people and I also have the booklist, so I bought a book from there and read a bit not to much till now..) I only worked with 2 level-headed people and it was, so nice everyone had the freedom to pursue what someone wants in their free time, yet at the same time everyone was reliable and when a mistake was done, it was just corrected in the group and when someone was missing that was also okay, but I won't go into detail because we where 4 people during that semester and the dynamic was different and is different with 4 ppl especially meeting up. And me and the other level headed person did most of the correction. What are some good ways to learn how to deal with group projects? Which criteria are important for dealing with people in a group or to keep up a good atmosphere? How can I deal with people who are younger than me and tend to be quite emotional or disagreeing and argumentative? I surely stand my ground, yet at one point it is difficult to make people realize that they are stuck in their way of thinking and you have to make sure you are also not stuck. So, what are some good ways to gain perspective and to make sure you are not stuck in your way of thinking?