Joseph Maynor

This video is tough to watch.

I would say the overarching I Am is not ego.

Yes. This is the most important thing. To keep playing. Practicing depresses me because even when I am practicing I like to be playing. I don't have a strict duality between practicing and playing. When I am practicing, I am still performing for myself. It is always about the sound and performing IMO.

Anyone running a business must elevate their brand and themselves, unless you want to rely completely on donations.

This is the elephant in the room. This is why arguing about spirituality never ends.

I think the I Am goes beyond ego. Ego is a very loaded term so I don't like to use it in this context. But there is an I that is not part of ego to use your word.

I agree with this with the exception that the center is not synonymous with the ego IMO.

I've had close friends that have schizophrenia, so I do know how they differ from me. I try not to be judgmental.

My experience suggests otherwise. I've seen situations where people behave in not very nice ways because they do not think morality exists.

Doesn't assuming everything is a hallucination seem like a schizophrenic take?

My question for you is how do you know this is right for others?

It seems like there is a waffling with trying to be serious and trying to be funny on here, and I can't tell when one is being emphasized or not.

What mistake am I making?

Right. So the next step is that there is no morality, except all these creators also presuppose it.

Jim Newman is entertaining but he is not really good.

I think we need to contemplate if we are communicating for real on here or not. That goes to truth too I hope!

This no separate self thing gets old just like the no self thing IMO.

Jim Newman wouldn't be able to fool me, but I would still do coffee or dinner with him.

Use your direct experience to find out.

Again, this dismissal of the self also dismisses actual relation. It is a way to neg someone or negate someone by claiming they have too much I -- but really the people doing this are hiding behind the scenes too. Hiding behind a fence.

Interacting with people you never met before in real life online.

@Human Mint I always hated learning patterns and avoided that. I was very steadfast that I wanted to completely improvise all the time. I never enjoyed doing exercises or playing them. I disliked playing with a metronome and still do. I read a lot of theory so I understand that well. Also I listened to a ton of Jazz albums and other music. I spent a lot of time learning scales by applying them. I hate practicing scales without playing a song. So for me, the way I learned Jazz is by playing actual songs and playing on the bandstand, which taught me more about Jazz protocol which is different than practicing playing better Jazz. For me it is all about sound. I need to play a 4 bar or 8 bar chord progression and hear how I am sounding. And it has to be completely improvised and original to me. I am very uncompromising in that way. I am jamming over the music to enjoy it myself first always. Then my own style emerges on its own. I try not to memorize any licks, even my own. If I do play the same sort of thing over a tune, it is because of finger memory not because I deliberately decided to play it there. It is all intuitive. When I improvise all I'm doing is listening and reacting.

You're right. I don't like to do it yet, but a great way to practice is to play with a metronome only after playing a lot with a playalong. I learned this from a teacher. I don't have the discipline to do this yet though.

@Uddi Great video. The problem with aggression is it comes back to bite you. It might be good for his social media channel, but if he wants to teach again, that is the problem. He is not using a fake identity like most people online.