Max_V

there is much retardation in all the questioning of “does this lower consciousness”, “does that lower consciousness” a medium like anime or writing or music or whatever, can all have different levels of consciousness depending on the individual case. It is up to you to sense it and decide if you want to interface with it or not.

strongly agree with@OBEler For me not only the effect of increased self-esteem due to having an aesthetic physique, but also the --- i'd argue -- much more impactful concomitant benefits had a huge momentum-like effect on my life. It teaches you discipline and work-ethic, something many of us in our teens and twenties benefit from building; it gives you self-respect, you set a goal and work hard to achieve it; it has massive physiological benefits: increased mood, energy, cognitive clarity. There is more, but those are the most salient ones I can think of.

@UpperMaster Because like I said, there isn't any depth in that. It is something we as humans chase, a survival need to be liked by the tribe, but after 10+ years of doing that, you might realise it never ends and leaves you empty. It is unironically the rat on the wheel chasing the cheese in front meme. Intrinsic meaning is the most fulfillment you'll ever get out of your profession.

I think such reasons are not tenable to keep you working hard in the long run. Eventually the shallowness of it will dawn on you. Rather, ground your work-ethic in mastery; strive to be good at your purpose for it’s own sake and the good it will provide to yourself and the world.

@Leo Gura probably just a tricky thing to share 99% of people will misunderstand and instantly draw conclusions

I think the demonization of pure relaxation and play is a problem within self-development circles. Sure it comes from a deep place of not wanting to waste your potential, but I think these good intentions push to an extreme that counter-intuitively becomes unproductive and unhealthy. Pure relaxation should be the yin to the yang of hard work. They feed off each other. I do agree of course, that learning to enjoy something as relaxation like reading in place of other less conscious activities is mostly a good thing.

@LSD-Rumi jesus that is cursed

Of all the IQ tests and similar types of diagnostical tools I've used, what most often comes back for me as a bottleneck to other intellectual function, is my working memory. Due to this, my verbal IQ and performace IQ are quite far apart. Most psychologists I've spoken to have told me that the current data mostly holds that working memory is pretty static and there isn't much that suggests a possibility of improving it. Since this forum contains a lot of people that work in different sectors and expiriments a ton, I was wondering if any of you have suggestions as to what I could look at. Thanks

Awesome! I haven't read Kierkegaard yet, but have read people that were very influenced by him. My favourite is Albert Camus. His work helped me a lot through difficult times.

@Tyler Robinson Even if someone else behaves shitty, that doesn't mean you should let yourself fall to their level because they are doing it

@Carl-Richard mhh, I should give nofap a look. I've done it in the past, but perhaps limiting it a little more than I do now could be of some benefit But, I'm more so talking about medication. I might look into ADD medication, as I really relate to that video I posted on the first page. I was diagnosed with ADD as a kid, but never took it seriously. Curious how those tests would look on the right medication, but then also what would I trade for it? decreased creativity, etc?

I feel ya Already doing my best maximize these. I do think though, that there is some link I should explore with that whole dopamine deficiency idea. It's just a hunch, but I feel like it could be a good direction to look. Do you have any ideas about that?

@Carl-Richard This whole thread is now going into the direction of what is this what is that lol I just wanna know if anyone has data on working memory and potential things to increase its performance. At my latest IQ test I got 130 for verbal IQ and ~105 for performance IQ. The main consensus was that the huge discrepancy is caused by my slightly below average working memory. If I can fix this, my life will become 100 times easier

@AtheisticNonduality I see. Well the problem is, I cannot use any of my greater verbal skills well if I don't have the working memory to hold it

Sorry, but this makes no sense to me at all

@Carl-Richard I do both of these and they indeed have helped a lot. Both things I really notice increase the performance of my working memory @Michael569 ohh, will definitely give that a listen! ty

This video on the topic seems quite interesting. I do think my brain has issues with dopamine function. Why? Because every time I do or consume something that increases dopamine, my working memory problems eleviate somewhat. Now, I might be linking things together wrongfully, I'm a layman so that's certainly possible, but it's at least a hunch that deserves looking at. Are there any sustainable ways of increasing dopamine function?

It is prudent before tearing down a house, that you have a provisional house in the meantime. - Rene Descartes I've been with this community since I was about 16 (I'm 22 now). At that age I started getting very heavily involved with spiritual practice; I meditated every day for multiple hours, contemplated, read tons of books, etc. Parts of this journey was very helpful and got me a solid grasp for things I now want to spend the rest of my life trying to figure out. But, I was not ripe yet for spiritual awakening. I came into this work with a background of serious mental health issues and, of course, this really affected how spirituality unfolded for me. Multiple times when I was met with a slither of Truth, my mind went into uncontrolled hysteria and I had panic attacks for days. Unable to function and the most anxious I've ever been. Now, retrospectively, I can look back and see why all this happened the way it did. I did not have a solid foundation to fall back on, and I came at this all from a broken mind. Though I didn't take any psychedelics, I think calling it all a bad trip isn't that far off. Throughout my time, I've seen the same thing happen in this community and others. People getting seriously hurt, mental health problems, bypassing and avoiding important areas of their life in the name of spirituality. All this had led me to now wanting to make this post. I think I found something really important that most interested in spiritual and personal development work should do before they get really deep. Create a tenable philosophical position from the perspective you currently have. This, I think, is crucially important, especially for those that have mental health issues. If you don't have a set way of how to make decisions and make sense of the world from your current perspective, any spiritual work has a huge potential of throwing your entire being into uncontrollable disarray and will open you up to serious mental health issues and their consequences. Like Descartes beautifully put, you need a provisional house to reside in, while you are building a new one from the ground up. Unless you have thick coat and perhaps a campfire, those cold sharp winds of nights on the streets aren't exactly comfortable. For me personally, I had to come from a persective of nihilism and deep suffering. Existentialism and their solutions have given me that temporary house to stay in. I turned hopelessness and the harshness of the world into personal hope and kindness. Creating my own meaning in the face of meaninglessness has saved my life. I strongly advice those of you that can find yourselves in my message to create those conceptual framerworks and personal meaning that can you fall back on while you explore life. All the best, Max

@KH2 You're not a simpleton, you just haven't found why supression is bad in your own experience. Of course, you might always find the opposite to be true, for me though, I have found it to be bad. Why? because I find every emotion to have it's own beauty and experiencing them fully enriches my life, then next to that, even if you supress your emotions they will always come back later, they hide within your subconscious and then come out even more intensly. When you supress, those emotions go somewhere, but where? that's something you might wanna think about. All the best friend

@Tyler Robinson Attacking toxic masculinity is certainly deserved, but you are doing so in threads that are discussing cultivating healthy forms of masculinity and how to integrate them. Though of course, I have said so myself in this thread, Goggins does seem to encourage supression to some degree and that isn't good.

@Tyler Robinson I’m not talking about Goggins specifically, I mean the ‘alpha male’ movement type thing you’re referring to. No if course I’m not neglecting one over the other, I’m saying some need to lay their focus more on for now and than the other but of course find a healthy balance eventually

@Tyler Robinson While vulnerability is definitely important for men to learn, a big chunk of the new generation of men struggle with things like discipline, independent self-worth, work ethic, coming into healthy malehood/masculinity Perhaps you are not connected to that as much because you are a female (I presume), but it is important for a lot of this new generation to work on these things.

Though supposing it comes from good intentions, I don't think complimenting her is worth it. Why? because it will be misunderstood and cause discomfort 9 times out 10. Better to just keep it to yourself and if you do want to practice complimenting people, find situations that are less open to misinterpretation.

This guy recently popped up in my recommended feed on Youtube and I really enjoyed his videos. As someone that is working on getting their stage blue to a healthy and complete state, I’d say this is a good example of what that looks like: enjoy

I could be wrong, but the sense I get from David Goggins is that without all the hard work and extreme feats, he would be without self-worth. Sure he things he is able to accomplish are amazing, but I feel the extremeness about it all is neurotic and dismisses other important areas of life. If you temper his mindset somewhat before you take it on though, there is benefit to be gained in the area of discipline and work-ethic, etc.