emind

Hi guys. I hope you're doing great. I'm in a bit of a dilemma right now, and would really appreciate your input. Background I was fortunate enough to have grown up in really affluent circles. The people I went to school with were pretty much the richest people of my country (think politicians, large business owners, etc). With the passing of time, I outgrew many of the beliefs and people I was raised with and have been paving my way for a few years now. Recently, however, I ran into some of those people again, and experienced some cognitive dissonance. A bit more Background As I said, the environment/culture I grew up in was one where people cared about practicality, money, and profit. There was very little talk of what you were aiming to do in life, higher purpose,mastery, etc. I recognize these things are not inherently bad. In fact, I have been going through a massive immersion into stage orange myself for the past year or so. I've been increasing my income, been competitive in what I do, been strategizing for business etc. However, everything I've done has always been in the spirit of mastering my craft (technology industry). Money is crucial, but secondary to higher purpose. The Cognitive Dissonance So here I run into these people, and there they are, discussing business, talking about ways to make money, wanting to do business with me, etc. This is great (I do it myself all the time), but what really turned me off was the angle with which they approached it. Everything they said had an exploitative intention behind it, and there was no talk about mastery, or appreciation of people as such, but rather what they could do for you. It was shameless networking and self promotion, coupled with a lot of bragging and status games. These people seem to appreciate me (or so I think), and are eager to hang out again, include me into their world, etc. But frankly, the mere thought of doing so makes me sick. One part of me says that not getting together with them is a lost opportunity to make money and could be the source of a limiting belief. But another tells me it goes against my principles. I feel disgusted and feel like I'm being looked at as a mere tool, and am really turned off by their obsessive materialism (money-wise, not ontological). Am I limiting myself? Or should I follow my intuition? Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone. I have a trip to the US coming up soon, and was wondering if there are any places in Florida which are ideal for daytime and nighttime pickup and are not excessively expensive (i.e. Miami). Do you have any recommendations? I work remotely so it'd be cool if I could also do some daygame wherever I happen to be working for the day (e.g coffeeshop, co-working space, etc). Any advice is appreciated!

The pleasure was mine! I likewise love your content and the valuable insights and guidance you offer to the community. Would love to collaborate again sometime in the not-too-distant future. Thanks again for coming on !

Hi everyone! I hope you're all doing great. I frankly don't know if I'm violating any guidelines by doing shameless self-promotion, but I genuinely think this content is something many of you will enjoy. It's a podcast interview I did on my YouTube channel about Enlightement, Consciousness, and Idealism vs. Materialism with Ethan Schaltegger. Feel free to check it out!

Hi guys, just wanted to share a recent personal experience that made me reflect on the nature of trauma release. After going through some amount of stress (financial/work-related) for the past few months, and not having dedicated any time to meditation or spirituality, I experienced a sudden cathartic trauma release. It was completely out of the blue (well, kind of, really). I'd been diligently focused on the mundane matters of my daily material existence, devoting my whole-hearted attention to DOING, instead of BEING. I was in a sort of productivity streak fueled by trauma. Though the experience was indeed unexpected, I had noticed signs that I was holding on to something along the way. As I forcefully ignored the cries of my inner child, and powered through another work session, I could physically feel my shoulders tensing up, my chest closing. It was only until a couple of days ago, that my rigid dam of emotional inhibition broke. I suddenly started getting vivid flashbacks of multiple traumatic episodes that I thought I had resolved. Feelings of guilt, sadness, and regret started flooding every inch of my psyche. After finding myself so overwhelmed, I intuited that it was best to take some time to explore these feelings in depth, and cancelled all my plans that afternoon. As I plunged into the profundity of my sadness, I cried and cried and cried, uncontrollably, for more than an hour. I found out I felt guilty for things I hadn't admitted to myself before, and noticed that the small sore spots of anger that drove me crazy so often, were just superficial layers of defensiveness covering pain, hurt, and vulnerability. But here's the thing that amazed me the most: the level of vividness with which I relived those painful episodes was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was so raw and real, that it seemed like a trip back in time. It was incredibly rejuvenating and refreshing. Suffice to say, I have slept incredibly well since, and feel light like a feather. I'm still keeping the same levels of productivity, but have chosen to do so more consciously.

@Leo Gura Even granting the ultimate truth about "isms" and moral ideologies like you said, shouldn't there be (if not for the enlightened, at least for people who are less cognitively and spiritually evolved) a code of principles by which societal goals are established and norms are determined?

@FlowerNote I have the exact same question.

Brief Background To be honest I don't even know if I can objectively determine in which stage of spiral dynamics I am, given the bias inherent in such self-assesment. I have a healthy meditation practice, I love exploring all religions, the parallelisms between their scriptures and so on. I also deeply appreciate cross disciplinary assessments of complex phenomena, and have always struggled with specialization;my mind has always tended towards the general, as opposed to the microscopic. My Confusion Most of my friends are a mix of blue and orange, some more blue than orange, and vice versa. I have noticed that when certain friends who are avidly religious make their opinions known to me, I really have to hold my tongue back to not overreact. I get significantly triggered when I hear viewpoints that are typically characteristic of stage blue. At the same time, I have a knee jerk reaction of disdain(although to a lesser degree) towards the glorification of science, especially certain individuals like Elon Musk, Neil Tyson, and so on, as well as the apathetic "every man for himself" mentality so idiosyncratic of stage orange. Start up culture, "hustle culture", and social media marketing...they all rub me the wrong way. What I struggle to understand is why my emotional reactions towards these attitudes are so markedly strong. Is it possible that I have shadows of these stages which I haven't integrated?

Hi guys. I hope you're all doing great. I thought it would be apt to share a video I made here concerning Ambiguities in Language and their abuses in politics. While I do understand that poltics is as much a matter of the spiritual development of citizens and their governors as it is about logical analysis, a definitional clarity akin to that used in scientific reasoning could very well aid us in avoiding these abuses. Don't you think?

Man I wish I could understand it. My mind was absolutely blown when I watched this. Eric had me way out of my depths. He is one of my favorite thinkers though. Having a remarkable ability to see the big picture, and to transition from one discipline to another with considerable ease, he leaves other more narrow minded scientists and thinkers paling in comparison. Although I do admire him tremendously from an intellectual standpoint, he does seem to be severely lacking in spiritual awareness. But again, he doesn't have to have everything bogged down to be recognized as excellent in some domains. I would recommend listening to one of his recent podcast episodes with Daniel Schmachtenberger. They present a truly inspiring example of systemic macro level reasoning.

By far one of my favorites

Im going to go off on a limb here and explore an avenue that most of you will probably not like. But bear with me. First off, let me just say that I completely despise his derogatory attitude and language towards women and sex. I do not approve of that in the least. But with that said, there is something that initially made me think that this was an evolution into yellow as opposed to a regression towards blue; as well as an organic reaction against the admittedly toxic manifestations of green (which even Leo has talked about) so widely prevalent nowadays. He reminds me a lot of Jordan Peterson and his guidance of young men from the deep mists of nihilism (despite being a nihilist myself, it can be quite harmful if gone unintegrated) to the safe haven of traditional moral principles. So here's my main take on it: 1. Despite all the Christian talk, if you look at how he approaches religion, you will notice a mystical, non dual angle. He emphasizes spiritual experience over hyper-rationalizing, frequently issues relativistic caveats (greenish) like "call it God, the Universe, or whatever you like", and practices and advocates long forms of spiritual fasting with an emphasis on its ability to cleanse your demons and trauma, aka shadow work. 2. Something gives me the impression that what's motivating him to encourage men to "roughen up", disregard emotions, and ride this wave of masculine revisionism is actually a yellowish systemic awareness. For all its crassness, all that talk about men "being sissies and "not being strong enough" is in fact a way of describing a very real, widespread problem in current generations, who experience meaninglessness and lack of direction in life. There is a reason why folks like Hulse and Peterson resonate so much, because at some level of the spiral, this advice is in fact useful. 3. Regarding #2, this is not to say that the kind of advice they give is the ideal one. It just happens to be the most readily accessible to them.

I feel so trapped in this sticky web of thoughts, doubts, and uncertainties that a little outside perspective would be of great help. So I´ll try to make it as brief and concise as possible. Background I am just now graduating college with a business degree. Never had a job (except working for my parents) and have been raised in an overprotective, overly comfortable environment. This is something I´m thankful for but that I feel is significantly hindering my growth as an independent human being. For reasons that would be too lengthy to explain in this post, I didn´t end up studying what I´m actually passionate about, namely, philosophy. I have pursued this passion as a hobby for many years, to the point which I´d say I have significant value and knowledge to offer to the world in this domain, potentially making it my life purpose. I´ve tried doing this (with some small amount of success) through Youtube, but there are many skills I still need to master (video and audio editing, animation, presentation, storytelling, etc.) and the road to success is long and tortuous. It´ll be a long time till I make a living out of it (if I ever do). I intend to master these skills regardless of whether or not I end up becoming succesful, because I believe they are intrinsically valuable, they truly fire my soul up. The Problem The only obstacle to this is that coupled with this dream, I have a pressing personal concern to become financially independent. I feel my life is going by and I want to live it to its fullest. Being raised in a somewhat controlling environment, I feel like the next step for growth for me is moving out (either merely out of my parents´ or also to a different country). In the Spiral Dynamics lingo, I would say that I want to fully live out stage orange and everything in it. Although I love meditation, spirituality, and non-duality, I still feel I have a lingering shadow of materialism, money, monetary ambition, etc. Part of me wishes to live out the "RSD PUA lifestyle" and corroborate first person that its not going to make me happy, before proceeding to aggressively achieve enlightenment. So in an effort to acquire this financial freedom, I struck out to learn a few skills (mostly front end programming and copywriting) and over the past few months have attempted to "make it" as a freelancer. I partrially branched off from my philosophical pursuits because I believed that taking this path (freelancing) would lead me to independence way faster. To my disappointment, I´ve only landed a few gigs here and there, and have had limited success at best. I´ve been really disciplined in developing the skills I need but they have thus far not borne much fruit. When I finally receive my B.A. diploma in few weeks, the pressure to cave in to the horrible 9-5 job life will be ever so greater, and I have on idea how to avoid it. In summary I am trying to reconcile the following facts about my life: On the one hand I have: - A deep desire to pursue a life purpose in philosophy - Another deep longing for financial and mental freedom (get some breath outside of my environment) And on the other hand I have: -An immense pressure to hop into the 9-5 rat race -Uncertainty about a potentially succesful path to freedom through freelancing Any insight would be of great help. I am being consumed by desperation.

I've been trying to set out a career as a freelance copywriter for the past few months (with some limited success), and had been incredibly hyped about it over the past few weeks. But then something happened... and I want to know what you think about it. I started noticing how copywriting and sales in general made feel, and it was nothing but (I legitimately can't describe it differently) disgust. The idea of superficially pitching to clients, getting to know some random, potentially useless product they sell, and then trying to coax people into buying it through the power of the written word. I mean seriously... how hypocritical of me! I was feeling really excited about it a few weeks ago and thought I might just go all the way with it but I hadn't stopped to realize how disingenuous it is! Pretending to like and care about some crappy vacuum cleaner I'm helping sell, or the package options for some greedy insurance company, I mean this is fundamentally against my values. To be fair, there are actual useful products and services out there which merit being marketed and sold because they are really going to help people. But copywriting in general has an air of duplicity. I'm considering shifting my work focus towards something that has more tangible and verifiable value (don't know what yet). Copywriting seems like a fancy word for the art of bullshitting. - Yes I know that statement is unfair and overgeneralizing, but you get where I'm coming from. Am I wrong? Am I trying to rationalize away my failures? I mean I hope not...

@Consilience Hey! I checked out the book on Amazon and it looks really good! I'm going to buy it and stick with it. Thanks for the advice!