outlandish

@StarStruck it's recursive and algorithmic

@StarStruck yes but be very careful with this mentality of earning enough money that it's not a first priority. There's no end to the feeling that you don't have enough money if you don't watch out. I highly recommend reading "Your Money or Your Life" by Vicki Robin. Please check this book out! It really helps put your life, work and money into correct position. I would say by your avatar that you have the potential to be a good programmer lol. It doesn't matter that you're 30 and not 20. You'll probably live to 90 anyways if trends continue, which they should.

Well, to be biological and reductive about it, 5-MeO-DMT hits a specific set of receptor sites on your neurons, especially 5ht2a if I recall. Weed is working on a completely different set of receptor sites, which are used by your system for completely different purpose. Weed isn't really a "true" psychedelic. Even LSD hits different sites than 5-Meo, although it's much more closely related, and there is a lot more overlap with the sites that 5-MeO-DMT affects. LSD, DMT and magic mushrooms are good examples of true psychedelics. A lobster couldn't experience the same thing because they are a completely different animal, but they might experience something analogous. It's pretty hard to imagine what it would be like to be a lobster, let alone a lobster on 5-MeO-DMT! I believe they do have 5ht2a receptor sites, but I could be mistaken. They at least have serotonin (5ht family) receptor sites, I think these are some of the most ancient neurotransmitters in our evolutionary tree. There was a very interesting study where octopuses were given MDMA. The molluscs demonstrated pro-social behaviour on MDMA, so there might be a lot of overlap in the way these drugs affect animals. Molluscs are very distant to humans, so it's pretty remarkable that it had this effect.

@Moreira The capitalist system could still be way better we need to keep tuning it and fixing it, but its overwhelmingly been a success for humanity, despite all of its flaws. We don't really have an alternative system to turn to at this point. The only way is forward, building on top of the foundation that's there. Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate a far-right free-market capitalism, libertarianism or anything extreme. The most advanced economies in the world demonstrate that the happiest, healthiest, most thriving humans are living in countries with the right balance of socialism, free-markets, taxation, regulation and democracy. Anyways, as a programmer you can easily skip being a wage slave. It's a path that's extremely conducive to freelance, entrepreneurship, working remote and so on. It's extremely creative.

Your life purpose doesn't have to be to save the world. If you are passionate about programming, go for it. The world needs more passionate people doing the things they love. Extra bonus is that it compensates well and is in high demand. The world wants people like you to contribute to it in this way. Leo had his reason to quit programming, but as you know, that has nothing to do with it being the right/wrong pursuit for you.

Wow cool good on you for offering it! Too bad he didn't take you up on it.

I think the important thing here is the wisdom and insight you interpret from the teachings. It's not Mooji, it's not Sadguru, it's not Leo, it's you enlightening yourself. I don't even mean that in the sense of "you are me, and I am you, and we are everything, and god".. (although I'm not not saying that either..) I literally mean that the important thing is the subjective observer drawing wisdom out of the message being transmitted by the teacher. There's no point in spending too much energy trying to figure out who's enlightened, who is a the real deal, who's the best guru and so on, because it all comes down to what you interpret out of your surroundings, be it a guru, your grandma or some tarot cards.

Having children is absolutely an opening for the opportunity to experience unconditional love. It's not guaranteed, just like 5-MeO-DMT doesn't guarantee you will experience enlightenment, but the opportunity is there. When you're a parent it blows your mind to realize how prevalent this is. It's really difficult to see from the other side. A moment that hit me like a lightning bolt in my life was driving home from the hospital with my brand new baby and seeing all these people walking down the street, and realizing that every single one of them had a fucking mom or dad who loved them unconditionally, and for those who were never lucky enough to have that, that god loved them unconditionally anyways. As cheesy as that sounds. You could nitpick that it's not true unconditional love - it is directed at your child/children specifically for example, so it's conditional on them being them. If your children were someone else's children you might not feel it. Perhaps true unconditional love has no boundaries - no conditions - including eliminating the category of "my child" and "not my child". Have you ever talked to refugee families or immigrants who went through great strife, or war, or risked death, imprisonment, abandoning property, qualifications, privilege to move to a better land? Most of them will tell you they did it to give their children a better life. Have you heard interviews with parents of convicted murderers? Usually, they still love their child, despite this ultimate fuckup. I know a woman who's daughter is now a heroin junky and prostitute, she's been living like that for 10 years. Missing teeth, homeless, probably has all kinds of disease, won't come home, won't be helped. I don't doubt that she loves her daughter any less than I love my son, I can see that when I talk to her, and it's so painful for her to see her daughter live like that. As a parent, you want the best for your children, your priorities become aligned towards their growth, thriving, right the way up the maslow's pyramid. There's no promise that the parent is skillful in this goal, or that they know when to step back to allow the growth to unfold naturally, but the alignment is 100%, and it's not conditional on their behaviour, their looks, abilities or disabilities, talents or defects etc. If there was a choice to drink poison or give it to your kid, there would be no question. It's not a logical choice like "I'm a parent now, I better start thinking about my kids", it's like a deep rewrite to your OS. Watch or read The Road. Before you're a parent that story looks like a post-apocalypse story. After, it's a love story.

I think you're doing good, trust your feelings on this. There's no point in being needy and chasing women like it's a game you have to impress everyone with. You're being authentic and it might end up a bit slower to find your mate, but when you do there won't be any doubts about it.

Good find @nowimhere looking forward to digesting this.

I don't mind when topics get closed on here, there are enough rubbish bins on the internet already. When topics turn into dumping grounds for people's agendas, flame wars, bickering, disrespect, they end up bumping to the top of the list and consuming eyeballs and attention that could be focused on more productive and meaningful matters. I'd rather see these shut down so we focus on more interesting stuff here. It's kind of like making a no-junk-food rule in your house. If you don't have it around, you won't eat it. It's never going to be 100% perfect justice. Some threads will be closed that could have been given more breathing room, others will fester way past their due date, but I feel it's a worthwhile tradeoff.

I hope so too. I've never learned to ID psilocybe mushrooms, should really get on that. There doesn't seem to be a huge push for mushroom legalization like there has been with weed, but who knows it might be around the corner. In any case they're not really prosecuted these days. By the way, peyote is 100% legal in Canada, it's explicitly allowed in the law. By extension, San Pedro seems legal (and tends to be treated as legal), but AFAIK this has never been tested in court.

Mooji schmooji. My favourite part of that article was learning that his name is Tony. Can we just call him Tony?

@Shiva I liked those videos!

lol this cracks me up. How often do people meet online and realize they already know each other IRL?

@Hellspeed yes, the count of bacterial cells in our body is very high (although not necessarily higher than the count of human cells). How do you propose that balancing gut bacteria would remove heavy metals from our body? That doesn't make any sense. Microbiota make up only 1-3% of our body mass: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-human-microbiome-project-defines-normal-bacterial-makeup-body This is because bacterial cells are so much smaller than human cells. I think you have the wrong idea that bad bacteria somehow hold heavy metals and good bacteria don't. This is not the case.

Yeah chlorella might have some beneficial effects on the body, but there's no reason to think it would help remove heavy metals from your body. @Moreira you should be wearing a mask so you aren't breathing the dust in! It's avoidable!

No, heavy metals have nothing to do with gut bacteria. Of course it's a good idea to heal your gut with balanced colonies of bacteria, but it won't help with removing heavy metals from your body Your body has the capacity to excrete most toxic heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium etc), but it can take a very long time. The best strategy is to avoid ingesting them in the first place, so look at your consumption of apex predators like tuna where these metals bio-amplify, and look out for contaminated water, food, and exposure to things like toxic paints that contain these metals. Like DrewNows says, exercise should help a bit as you do excrete toxins through sweat to some extent (as well as urine, hair, feces).

Do you like having roads? Do you like having a civil society where you rarely have to worry about being murdered? Do you enjoy having a long lifespan, free of diseases like malnutrition, cholera, malaria? Do you believe that all children in a society should have a right to receive an education? Do you enjoy being free of the tyranny of warlords? Do you prefer having a sewage system, rather than pouring your feces onto the street? If the answer to those questions is no, then you should move to Somalia, and see how nice it is to not pay taxes. Shit ain't free.

@LittleMaslow This is my understanding, this is not legal advice, merely sharing my impression of the situation. If you want an actual word on the legal situation you'd have to talk to a lawyer: Like @FredFred said, it's an unregulated substance in Canada, meaning that it's not banned. My understanding is that it's not even in a state between illegal and legal, it's just not controlled or banned in any way. It's simply not illegal. It is not approved for human consumption in Canada, because that would probably require it to be approved as a food or drug or herbal remedy. Therefore the distributors of 5-MeO-DMT sell it as a pure research chemical that is strictly not for human (or other animal) consumption, just for scientific research purposes. Retreats that offer 5-MeO-DMT (I've not heard of any specifically, but I definitely believe that they exist in Canada) would be doing so slightly more into the grey area of the law, because it's pretty obvious that it's going into humans. They're probably slightly breaking the law, but no one cares. I believe this discussion does not break the forum rules, but it's getting pretty close to them, so let's stay away from any specifics regarding source. @Javfly33 I agree that synthetic 5-MeO-DMT is safer than toad venom, for exactly that reason. It's also kinder to the poor toads who get stressed out by being captured and milked of their venom. I wholeheartedly urge seekers to abandon the "natural" fallacy/bias and opt for synthetic 5-MeO-DMT.

It would be fine. I'm not a big fan of 2C-B personally, I find it to be very empty. It's safe (when pure and properly measured) and easy for a beginner to handle, and many people think it's great, so if someone had access to it and felt good about it, I'd say go for it. What do you think @Shadowraix?

A microdose by definition is a dose that you can't really perceive, so that won't give you a psychedelic experience. I'd recommend starting with a typical dose of magic mushrooms or LSD. 1.5-3g of mushrooms or 70-150µg of LSD. Read up about set and setting. It's really good to trip your first time with someone who's done it before, unless you're very confident. Having a trip sober sitter is a good idea if you're really unsure, personally I don't find it necessary. Ideal setting is a clean and tidy safe shelter (probably your home) with access to open natural space like a forest, park, field, etc. Being with good friends who are also tripping can be a very good part of a positive setting. Music too.

This is a really interesting documentary about a mathematician turned modern ascetic, living a life of freedom in Maui: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/theartoflife/312182213 I feel it will be of interest to actualized.org people edit: Or should I say actualized.organisms

Same here, I've always felt this way about him too. A bit like he's acting. No offence to his followers. We all see from a different angle, and no one is perfect.

@integral Solid info in there!