Staples

@Leo Gura I'd recommend you actually listen to his case about when antidepressants are worthwhile. I concede that in his personal case it doesn't seem consistent, but anyways... For someone who made a video called "all criticism is untenable", you sure love to criticize. That being said I'm not trying to defend his intellectual war as you put it.

@PhilGR Man the situation in Greece is rough. You really need to assess whether the chaos in Greece is worth staying for. Because you're so young, you have time. You must think in the long-term about this. Do what would be best for you 10-20 years from now, not what would be good for today.

The other examples here are absolutely good priorities to have. I'd like to add life purpose work. I'd completely neglected what I would do with my life until I was a year out of high school. First, go out and take like 15 different personality tests, and try and find similarities between them. I was consistently high in academic interest and capability, that's a great sign you should go to university. If you're low in academic interest but find out you're quite hard working, a trade school would be an awesome choice. If you're highly extraverted, try doing something where you're interacting with people all day. Figure out what suits you, you'll most likely find that a few of the things you're interested in fall in line with what suits you. Do that. Then refine it, do the life purpose course here and selfauthoring.com. Those are 2 great resources. Start with self-authoring if you're tight on cash. If you do that, the rest I think you'll be able to piece together on your own. This is a must do for teenagers. No buts.

I've never really been comfortable having a partner and introducing them to my friends, let alone my family. I notice a deep subconscious need to not look too interested in women. I've turned away lots of opportunities because of this. I think there's some weird need for me to not allow myself to be intimate. Has anyone else dealt with this?

@Ether Aren't most people? I wouldn't say I am more afraid than the average person. @Shin yikes! Do you have any good resource recommendations for that? Or is good old contemplation the way to go? I appreciate the responses

@herghly I think it has been gone longer than that, probably since the middle ages.

@PsiloPutty during my 10-day retreat, only about 5% of people left over the 10 days. Very quietly, no one disturbed the peace. @molosku Part of the reason it is so purist is that they ask the students not to share the technique. That's because the person hearing it from a second source only gets the technique and misses out the experience of the retreat itself. You can legitimately practice it, but you'll not experience the silence and simplicity of life without at least a 7-day retreat. It's not all about the technique, the experience of solitude is very important.

Social science says opposites attract. It also says birds of a feather flock together. So don't overthink the personality matrix

Reverse engineer it. Wanna meditate with dictators? First you gotta learn to meditate, so schedule an hour a day for you to practice. Then you gotta learn to teach, find a way to schedule that. Then you gotta learn the psychology of dictators, they won't listen if they don't understand you, find a way to schedule that. Then you gotta befriend dictators, find a way to schedule that. And you're done! You keep asking "how" to do these things. Sometimes someone won't be around to tell you. Most of the time actually. Figure it out fr yourself. Learn to reverse engineer things.

How interesting, ever since his rock bottom video I feel like his quality has skyrocketed. I go back and watch old 2014 videos where he's making videos outside and he looks like an RSD parody of himself it's hilarious.

meditating is pretty cool

I have a hard time believing anyone has fully cracked enlightenment. If we were to say "Oh this was pretty good, yeah that looks like the highest enlightenment to me, that's all of it enough said" that would be foolish. You'd be cutting yourself off from any possibility of it going deeper. Reality is supposedly infinite, right? Therefore there would be no highest awareness, it can get endlessly "high".

Nietzsche's best concept was to overcome your problems and make yourself a better person. But that should be pretty obvious, right? He laid the foundation of personal development, which is worth praising. As far as nonduality? Doubt it.

I like the H3H3 podcast for just chilling, but if I want to learn something I listen to Joe Rogan.

@Jawor Maybe it's not real and we're all duped. You wont find out for sure unless you go after it. Of course an enlightened person feels pain, it might do you some good to do a little extra research.

@Marios Tsagoulis I don't think everyone shares this trait. 99% of people absolutely trust their beliefs, and simply suggesting that their beliefs are wrong will not cause the collapse of the belief structure. Not in the slightest. Try telling a stranger on the street that they are literally walking on themself because the footpath is them, because they are absolutely everything, including the footpath. See how that turns out.

Seems like the benefits you're experiencing are a side effect of becoming more aware. I don't think swapping brain hemispheres is the reason you're thinking clearer, it's because you're giving more attention to what you're doing.

God would stay silent in response to any question.

If you want to continue that line of work of being conscious of feelings and analyzing them, you'd like Vipassana.

That temperament is not unreasonable. It's okay to not be totally open to strangers you know. Find good advice that will help you not feel as uncomfortable as you feel now. Don't feel like you need to change your behaviour, but try and improve how you react emotionally to social situations.

Addictions to replace addictions, hmm?

The work is not different if you're a teenager. The only difference I can really think of is that you probably have more time to work on it.

@Slade Haha okay! Let me know next time you turn gravity upside down!

@Joseph Maynor MBTI is very limited by its own design. When that test presents results, it gives it to you on the basis of the character you get assigned. If you're an INTP, it will give you advice specifically tailored for INTPs, but it doesn't give you any extra nuanced information on each of those spectrums. There's a big difference in personality for the person who scores 1% compared to the person who scores 49% in introversion. But MBTI will give them the same advice regarding their introversion because they fall into the bottom 50%. Good Big 5 tests give you specific information based on each trait, based on how high you scored, which MBTI doesn't do, it lumps them all together as a whole. MBTI is a dumbed down big 5 score, and it incorrectly assume's that it can just create archetypes as a final result based on the pretty letters you're sorted into. No one is surprised when they're told they are an introvert or an extrovert or somewhere in the middle. You already know intuitively exactly where you fall there. I have a suspicion you'd be more accurate if you read the description of each trait, and rate yourself on a scale of 1-100, without going through all the fancy questions. Also, regarding OPs post, he mentions that MBTI varies too much in results, which is true. I have no data for this, but I also believe the big 5 varies a lot too, I've taken it 3 times and my conscientious levels have been estimated from 2% to 75%. Personality models do not work. No one (or no ego) is the same consistent entity and will have the same decision-making tendencies even on an hourly basis. They're regulated by food, exercise, energy, awareness, social status and many more factors that would be too many to list. If they get changed significantly enough, you're a different person on the spot.

Psych student here. Big 5 has more scientific reputability, MBTI is an easy sell because it's so simple. MBTI leaves no room for nuance because it is binary in nature. But they're both models for personality, one of the most complex things humans have attempted to study. No model is holistic enough yet, which is what I'm working on now.