Emerald

Shadow Work means 'the process of making the unconscious conscious.' And I don't see this as just being in the realm of psychology. Any time you're taking things out of the blindspot, you're engaging in Shadow Work. So, I see all those things as falling under the umbrella term of Shadow Work.

The main thing is that these Red Pill influencer guys are grifters. The vast majority of them are playing the role of misogynist alpha chad because it's lucrative. They are actually fine with dating single mothers. And they're not going to pass up on the ability to love and be loved by an attractive woman if the opportunity arises to have real intimacy. But they know their audience. And their audience will eat up anything that tells them "Don't worry. You're more desirable than single mothers, promiscuous women, etc. because you're a man and your value only ever goes up while their value only ever goes down." And then the guys who watch it throw their money and views at them as they revel is schadenfreude that the girl in their poly sci class in undergrad is going to be sorry that she didn't pick him when she's a discarded valueless single mom with a body count over 1. All it is is just profiting off of the shame, bitterness, and grievances of lonely men and showing them an fake but aspirational character of the strong alpha male that takes no shit from women and feels totally secure... and is in the role of selector and rejector of women, instead of women being in the role of selector and rejector of him.

It's not about hating Trump. I hope he lives lives his long and merrily... just away from the levers of power. He's a very immature and dangerous person to entrust with this responsibility. In his last term, there were more checks and balances on his power. But in this term, there aren't that many checks and balances. And it's possible that he could erode the checks and balances of the system away so entirely that America devolves into Fascism or simply into pure chaos with the aftertaste of Fascism. Anyone who's talking about Trump in a serious way is really just concerned about the consequences.

It's more about emotions than about intellect. Someone with a strong intellect can use that intellect to trick themselves into ignoring issues with Trump... simply because Trump hits some emotional button for them. My guess is that he's in this community of men, who are largely right-leaning. And that's who respects him and where he has status. And he's gotten influenced by his environment that's very pro-Trump. He also could just be kind of anti-Feminine in general. Anyone who hates the Feminine, will want to vote Trump because Trump and the right wing movement is about controlling and eradicating the Feminine from society in any and all ways.

There isn't much that's Feminine about this culture at all. We have integrated some Feminine values over the past 100 years... but we've also polarized further into the Masculine principle further than we've ever been before in human history to the point where the Masculine development of our human society threatens the stability of Mother Nature herself. And as society develops more and more technologically (which is Masculine development), it behooves us to in equal measure integrate the Feminine principle (which means channeling and reintegrating nature) Just like if the Masculine branches of your tree expand to produce more fruit, so too do the Feminine roots need to expand. And that's been happening to some degree with all the focus towards equality and human rights and ecological issues. But it hasn't been happening nearly enough. So, it is very likely that our society will become hyper Masculine without the Feminine to balance it out. And our species will become so top-heavy and our societal tree will be uprooted because we kept trying to solve the Masculine excesses by adding more Masculinity to it... instead of truly integrating the Feminine. So, there's a pretty extreme Masculine Principled imbalance. And it is because of this Masculine principled imbalance that we get dynamics where men are killing themselves because they don't let themselves be emotional and vulnerable. And everyone's hyper individualistic. And it's profits over people. And all these other things like this. The issue is that most people think about Masculine and Feminine only as related to gender and gender roles and what men and women find sexy about the opposite gender or which gender gets rights and which don't... and things like that. But that's only has a little bit to do with the integration of the Feminine. If you really understood the archetypal Feminine and Masculine, you would understand that the Feminine is quite uncommon to be found in our society. That's why we're all so obsessed with Femininity... especially men... and especially men who try to rid themselves of all Femininity. Here are some Masculine and Feminine Principled phenomenon written with Masculine first and Feminine second, and you will see which archetypal values that society values more. You'll find that society values the Masculine over the Feminine the majority of the time Extraordinary vs Ordinary Hierarchical vs Lateral Technology vs Nature Strength vs Flexibility Economy vs Ecology Clarity vs Mystery Doing vs Being Branches/Fruit vs Soil/Roots Higher vs Lower Unlimitedness vs Limitation Impermeability vs Permeability Utility vs Beauty Mind vs Body Forward Movement vs Cycles Thought vs Emotions Loftiness vs Groundedness Individualism vs Collectivism Expansion vs Contraction Evergreen vs Deciduous Detachment vs Immersion Purity vs Integration Stoicism vs Vulnerability

100%

To be honest, I think it would be a bit dangerous for the receiving man to wear a condom during oral sex. It seems like a choking hazard. But you wouldn't be able to catch genital herpes from someone with mouth herpes unless they have an active infection. And you can usually see it when a person has a cold sore. But you can also ask the person if they have a cold sore if you're concerned.

When I think about human nature, I see it as an unfurling of new archetypes, inventions, and paradigms that already lay in wait in the recesses of the human psyche. So, I view all things that we invent, create, think, do, and subject ourselves to as part of that natural unfurling. And that will naturally take us into a state of opposition to our nomadic wiring as those are the stress tests necessary to bringing about greater changes as a collective. For example, we have evolved to be deeply immersed in community. And we have a profound need for connection. And yet, we have developed a society that takes us away from connection. And one might think. This is unnatural for us. And it's unhealthy. And on one level, that's true. It's very stressful to the mind and body of a human being to be alone. But on a deeper level, this age of Hermicism is also part of the unfurling of new potentials where we are driven apart for a time to help us come more into our authenticity and to experience freedom... only to coalesce again from a higher ordering principle that allows both social connection and authenticity/will/autonomy at once. And certainly, there is the possibility that we can be a stillbirth species, where we don't make it past the tipping point and we self-destruct before reaching the new birth. But in the grand scheme of things, I have a lot of faith in humanity to make it through these stress tests. We're adapting so quickly and so well to so many things. We're just way up close to the phenomenon, and so we can't see that we're actually sticking the landing. 97.5% of humanity's past is nomadic. And 2.5% of humanity's past is agrarian (which is where all the conservative values were technological adaptations to survival). And just a sliver of a percentage has been industrial and post-industrial living. So, the past 10,000 years is like a sudden peak of change and growth and evolution. And we're still in that 10,000 year growth spurt. And growth spurts are always chaotic with all sorts of stresses to the human system. So, it's quite natural that we be stress tested by collective dynamics that run in opposition to our nomadic wiring.

What are you defining as unnatural? Human beings aren't capable of doing things outside of our nature. It's just that our nature looks different than other creatures on this planet. One of the major issues as human beings is that we see ourselves as existing as something outside of nature and interacting with it as an outsider, as opposed to recognizing that we are just as natural as any other living organism on this planet. Can you see that cars, computers, and all the tools that we have created are just as natural as when a beaver builds a dam, or a wasp builds a nest? And when we are subjected to any conditions, we will have contrasts that arise... both positive and negative. And this creates both growth and decay. Regeneration and degeneration. Birth and death. That is the way of nature. And it is the weakness of the cell that is the vigor of the organism. Degeneration is what helps us slough off the dead skin and move forward. We're always moving 10 steps forward and 9 steps back as a species. So, usually when people start labeling out "degeneration" they are just pointing out the things that are naturally decaying that they wanted to hold onto. And then they start believing that the entire world is degenerating and going to hell in a hand basket because their personal squishy bears are dying. But in reality, there's stability, regeneration, and degeneration all around us. But this is just spoiled modern thinking. We take for granted how awesome things are. And we only see a fallen world. Also, I'm going to need a CREDIBLE source to show that boys who don't play sports when they're little have smaller brains and are less Masculine.

I never believed in the idea that strong men - good times - weak men - hard times cycle. That always just seemed to me that this idea comes about from a type of modern spoiledness and seeing the contemporary way of life only through a negative lens. It's clear to me that good times (where people have their emotional and physical needs met) produces less trauma. And that subsequently produces psychologically healthier people who are able to adapt better to the world, and who are less prone to self-destruction. It's evident to me that human evolution is both cyclical and progressive with a trajectory towards love, unity, and expansion... and an awakening of global consciousness. It's similar to giving birth... with its cyclical patterns of painful contraction of the pelvic muscles enabling the cervix to expand wider and wider and wider... until something brand new can come about. And I believe that we've collectively been in this process of labor and giving birth for the past 10,000 years as there have been many contractions and expansions over the course of written history compared to our nomadic past. Right now, we're about to go into a contraction for a minute. But if the pain is sharp enough and the contraction is deep enough, we will come back from that contraction more dilated and wiser and more able to step into deeper levels of consciousness and a more world-centric paradigm.

It's not a false equivalency because I'm not equivocating Harris and Trump at all, and my post had nothing to do with Harris or comparing anyone to anyone else. In fact, I don't think I was even talking specifically about Trump at first when I was making the point I was making. You brought Trump up. To make it clear where I stand, it's pretty evident that Trump is more harmful than Harris. But I can explain why he's more harmful in a much more accurate way, without using the moralistic lens of good and evil. Regardless of who we're talking about (Trump or anyone else), I was talking about the problems that arise when people start getting moralistic and labeling people as evil and as monsters... simply because of what that does to the human psyche when it latches onto the narrative of good and evil. And even if you call a serial killer evil, we invite shame into ourselves... and we become possessed by the archetype of good and evil. And it creates a split within the human psyche... and shame and ignorance arises within one's self as a result. And we start hyper-identifying with goodness and labeling out evil-doers... which is how most 'evil' acts are committed. And that's just the outcome of dualistic moralistic thinking... regardless of how objectively harmful the person is that you're labeling out as evil.

Very well said. I bolded everything that especially resonated. I see conservatism and its concerns about "degeneracy" and "sexual aberration" as operating off of the agrarian coping strategies for living in a mono-cultural village. I think this is why people in rural places tend to skew a bit more conservative as well, because it's closer to that agrarian village living lifestyle. And in an agrarian village, you need to control people's sexuality to maximize the society for growing as many children as possible to work the field and protect the village. But the issue with this, is that these are maladaptive coping strategies for living in a post-industrial society. It's like trying to stick a cassette tape in a cd player and then believing the cd player is fundamentally broken because it won't play cassettes "like it's supposed to". So, those in this conservative agrarian mindset always feel like everything is broken and working improperly because they haven't acclimated to the new societal technology. And it also leads these conservative agrarian-minded types to be very susceptible to demagogues who claim they will bring back the glory days of the past where we were just one people and one race and one religion... and people were all upstanding people who aren't sexual deviants... the man was the head of the household... and every woman was having 10 children to help the family tend the farm. But it's also difficult for someone with the paradigm of an agrarian peasant from 300+ years ago to adapt to post-industrial society. So, I have some sympathy for that feeling of disjointedness. But there's often this top-down kind of authoritarian control that they value in a leader because they want to believe that the leader will bring about an agrarian peasant paradise where women and women and men are men... and only the good race belongs... and only the good religion is practiced... and only the good kinds of sex are permitted... etc.

Thank you! I'm glad you like my channel! And yes, I totally agree.

I suppose with "harmful" lacking description, I would say to add more words for greater accuracy and thoroughness (like ignorance, causing suffering, intention to harm someone, etc.) instead of trying to boil them down into a catch-all word like evil.... precisely because of what human beings tend to naturally do with the belief in the good and evil paradigm. One thing that's important to note is that, when people consciously or unconsciously believe in the good and evil paradigm, people will develop a fundamental identification with goodness that runs very deep within themselves. And they will fragment themselves and repress anything in them that they would label as evil... and then project that onto other people that then become the targets of anything from hidden judgments that one keeps to one's self to outright violence and eradication. And if we look at things through that good and evil lens, and use these words which have such archetypal resonance... it causes a person to consciously or unconsciously paper over the reality of deeper root causes with an over-simplified "good vs evil" narrative which leads to all the evils in the world. So, I have a practice of unconditional compassion and not using words like evil to describe the harm that people cause. I'm not perfect at this. When I get mad at people causing harm to myself and others, I can get into "Fuck these evil bastards" mode. But I try to stay conscious of the deeper forces at play underneath the "symptoms of evil" which are inherently related to human vulnerability and ignorance... to which the only cure is unconditional love and truth, which are one and the same thing.

No. Because then you can't see the root cause of those behaviors that Trump and other like him engage in. And that means that we can't address the real human problems that causes people to become that way. And we start trying to fight the symptoms instead of curing the disease on the level of the germ. Anytime you call ANYONE evil (or synonymous words like "monsters"), it always leads us into judgment and ignorance and fragmentation of ourselves... and away from truth, understanding, love, compassion, and integration. And it becomes a cycle that perpetuates itself because we get caught up in patterns of judgment, ignorance, demonization, hatred, scapegoating, etc. instead of addressing the problems in an effective way. The fact of the matter is that, at our core, ever single thing in the universe is whole, innocent, and loving. And it is only ignorance and suffering that lead to a fragmentation and mangling of what is purely benevolent and loving. And if we label someone as monstrous "to their core", it is ignorant because it is totally antithetical to the truth of unconditional love that undergirds all things. And it causes us to go into a state of ignorance, judgment, fragmentation, and shame as we judge the other person as evil. And we become "evil" in our ignorance.