Joseph Maynor

If that makes your mind feel better, run with it.

You don't want to repress your conclusions. Just watch them. Be aware of them. Don't deny your preferences -- just don't take them too seriously.

Hey -- we could be addicted to being and feeling right. That's a nasty addiction that may be worse and more fundamental than addition to technology.

Neither one of those options bodes well for us.

It's not just internet, it's internet + phone addiction now.

I might have to do this next week now. I have too much awareness now. I don't want any monkeys on my back.

A lot of us do not watch TV today. We sit around on the Internet instead. You think you're really smart eh? I can tell from your tone. It's an arrogant tone.

The generation before ours sat in front of the TV all the time. Before that people were glued to the radio.

I gotta try it myself for a week and see too now.

What is it specifically that you were craving?

Watch this one by Emerald too:

Dial it back before you quit. Keep every category of thing you are doing. If you gotta cut, cut how much you are doing things. You need to keep your commitment to your resolution. Quitting is the enemy of progress. You are probably over-extending yourself, so dial back the amounts that way but keep every task on the ledger, if that makes sense. You need to get over this hump. It takes 60 days to form a habit. You need to pay that price, and then it will be much easier because you'll have a wind at your back. You're gonna have to endure a little pain for a while. Watch this video:

Technical terms are completely arbitrary. I follow Emerald's terminology here. Existential truth vs Relative truth. One might label differently, however.

Add Joe Walsh to that list too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Walsh

Do not repress your emotions and preferences. Just watch them and act authentically. You will know what to do if you tap into YOUR wisdom.

Video on point to watch

In what ways are you ashamed about the way you are?

Here's a quote I got from one of Emerald's videos: "Mindfulness is the reality that gives rise to words. Words are only a pale shadow of this reality."

People don't really know how to separate existential truth and relative truth very well. Just because existential truth is not conceptual doesn't negate all relative truth. I think a lot of people get so bought into the theory that they lose common sense. Common sense, though not existentially true, is still a valid form of knowledge. One just needs to keep in mind the lack of certainty (often but not always) found in relative truth. Just because you doubt beliefs using enlightenment theory as a counter-weight theory doesn't mean that everything you believed before is not truth. It just means it's not existential truth. Existential truth is simply what is sensed by you in the present moment. It's amazing how confused people are by these Epistemological issues. You don't want to negate all relative truth using existential truth, and vice versa. They are two different things. Relative truth is conceptual truth whereas existential truth is awareness of reality in the present moment. People are no good at walking and chewing gum at the same time with truth. The Mind hates the fact that there are two kinds of truth and prefers to have only one. That's where you get the attempt to simply and purify truth and reduce it to an overly-restricted foundation. This has been happening in Philosophy for time immemorial. People have screwed up notions of Epistemology that they cling too tightly to.

Don't try to repress the Ego. Just observe your sensations with mindful awareness.

I’ve realized beliefs are a double-edged sword in this work. They are useful to get a person to doubt their beliefs, but then that person simply exchanges one set of beliefs for the Enlightenment beliefs. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. That’s a trap. How about suspending belief? Can you do that? The less strongly you cling to belief, the less judgments you will make. Now, don’t try to control anything, that’s not what I’m asking you to do. Just watch the thoughts, don’t get so caught up in their insides. It’s a change in perspective, but in a non-theoretical sense of perspective. Thoughts are just sensations. You don’t need to cling to the stories at all. It’s almost like asking someone who is so used to a horizontal perspective to learn to use a vertical one. It’s like huh! Yeah, that’s what you gotta do. Enlightenment is friggin’ counterintuitive to the Mind. You gotta change what you’re looking for and change what you’re looking at.

Yes. Scarily accurate.

What is the main thing that you are subconsciously trying to fix in your own life? What's the one thing that gives you the internal motivation to do all this personal development work? Is doing this personal development work helping you avoid thoughts, emotions, or realities that are painful? What are those thoughts, emotions, and realities?

"Psycho-Cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz "Mastery" by George Leonard