Huginn

I won't argue with the benefit of the general attitude of outgoingness, openness and authenticity. We want to present our core being to the world without constraint and with love. I really wish things were that simple, but I can't turn away from the reality of the situation. A goal of mine is to put myself out there and express myself as honestly as I can. It's what I really want. It's my choice. My choice is not to have my communications with my friends intercepted by a third party and be vulnerable to modification. That's a power imbalance I can't abide, unless the interceptor gave me a good enough reason to trust him (which most have not).

@-T8 It'll not be a lost cause on my watch. It's closely related to what I want to raise awareness of. It's a tricky topic though. It's not well understood enough or misunderstood by most people. It also takes some deliberate contemplation of what loss of privacy really entails, which most people are unwilling to do. They would rather stick their heads in the sand. The problem is similar that way to the resistance of looking within and questioning your beliefs. It can be scary. It will transform the way you look at the world. The payoff for looking out for privacy is also super non-obvious, especially when you're just considering yourself. The problem is exacerbated by mass surveillance and AI in non-obvious ways. I recommend Bruce Schneier's book Data and Goliath for a more in depth look on that. My ideas for talking about this issue is to drop the term Privacy. Most people don't understand it as "degree of control over the dissemination of your information". The common understanding is more in the direction of "hiding your (dirty) secrets" which is not really addressing the issue. The issue is also not being connected to a broad enough context either. This connects to consciousness, (social) epistemology, sociology, information technology and security, artificial intelligence and more. To put down the issue simply as I understand it: All of humanity is a group of consciousnesses. I'm consciousness, you're consciousness. Our conscious experience is affected by other's conscious or unconscious actions in reality. In this way, reality is the mechanism by which information passes between consciousnesses. Each of us is seeking experience (information) according to what we think we want. This experiencing thus depends upon yours and others' actions. Now, people want to (or think they want to) experience different things. They also differ in their level of consciousness. If everyone were completely conscious and moved in unison with the best of intentions and love towards each other, we wouldn't be talking about this. So, that is not the case. Instead, we need to play a power game. The ones who are winning get to experience the most of what they think they want. The game is to control the information that each consciousness receives and thereby controlling what they think and do. The amount of this control distributed over some number of consciousnesses is your level of power. The more power you have, the more you're winning because you have the ability to mold reality/experience more to your liking. You also have to protect your own consciousness from being controlled by consciousnesses that don't have your best interest in mind and be as connected as possible to those consciousnesses that do have your best interest in mind. You inevitably have to receive information from other consciousnesses, so it is best to get it from those that are most likely to uphold your interests. To take an example. Facebook serves as a middleman for communication between consciousnesses. Facebook sees every single bit of information that passes between these consciousnesses. It also controls what information is presented to those consciousnesses. It can see your text messages and even substitute a text in transit for another. Most people use Facebook. Its power is thus enormous. It can control minds. But then you might say: "surely they won't abuse it, I mean, look at the privacy policies and all". This is where trust comes in. Do you trust that Facebook upholds your interests? I don't, because I know humanity as a whole is not conscious enough for that yet, if ever. If any of you are interested in addressing this issue in some way, I'd like to keep in touch. There'll be no change without a tribe. Btw. I'm writing this as anonymously as I can. Actualized.org doesn't know my traffic as anything else than TOR traffic. My email that I used to sign up with doesn't know my traffic as anything else either. To pinpoint me, you'd have to do a lot of work analyzing and correlating what I write here. But, once my level of trust is high enough, I can reveal myself through a secure channel to the right person. This is not paranoia, but just another habit I believe will serve me far into the future. I see how it affects the bigger picture in comparison to the alternative.

@saint_charming7 I understand you mightn't want to restrict yourself to friends connected to LP. The way I see it, LP is just a part of your whole vision for your life, with other parts of it fulfilling you and giving you more energy to purse LP. So you can connect with people through various parts of your vision. For example, the area of health is a big part of my vision and I'm leaning towards some Yoga classes. Those have people I can interact with and connect with through a common interest.

Good idea, removing reputation and rank. They irked me right from the beginning. Although conscious of it, I know they warp my perspective and nudge one's focus towards chasing points, similar to money. I remember when I got my first rep point from Leo. My ego went nuts. ^^ It was funny. Let's just express our appreciation for each other's input instead.

I can sort of relate. Does your LP not involve other people? What I envision for myself is that new friendships will just be a byproduct of following my purpose and upholding of my values/vision in my life. The idea of pursuing friendship to have friendship, or socialize just to socialize has become kind of absurd to me. I view it as something that will happen naturally, like when I was a kid.

One other thought. Just imagine yourself as a young kid. Do you remember worrying about not having friends? I don't. Friendships just spontaneously happened, because I was doing some fun activity that others wanted to do too. "I'm gonna play with some Lego", "Me too", "I'd rather draw a picture". There's no "Let's be friends", "Ok!", "Yey, fun being friends huh", "sure is", "doomdeedum....yup, so what now?".

I've had a similar thing going on, except I don't feel so bad about it anymore. Just now, I've been with my family on new years eve and each of my brothers went out partying just afterwards. I can feel the social approval from my parents, my "lonerness" and see thoughts about how bad I must have it. But I'm much quicker than before to see those for what they are, constructs of the mind, myths, utter bullshit. I'm quick to remember my connectedness to my core and see the superficiality of all this cultural stuff. I stop envying everyone because I know I'm true to myself and moving in accordance with my core (values, vision etc.). Now, a part of my values/vision does have connection to people at its core. But I know this connection is not that which is typically promoted at parties with heavy drinking etc. So I'm in a similar situation. I don't really have any meaningful relationships aside from my family. I'm okay with that and so can you. Your pain is caused by wanting reality and yourself to be something it's not. So I think the key is connecting to what you really want and dismiss all the cultural programming. You may know that, but you're not "in it" day to day, living it. I see couples quite often, I see comparisons to myself rise up, I'm not like them in a relationship, and instead of envy, I see and accept the reality and myself for what it is, because I'm living my vision and nothing is more valuable and important than that to me. So, these are not really tips for how to meet new friends, but rather how one can cope with loneliness. Really, I've tried in the past to cope with this the same way you do, meet new people, but I just meet heavy resistance in myself when I do that with the focus on just releaving my loneliness. So, in the end, I just gave up on that, because clearly I don't want that, even if I thought I did (but really was just being puppeteered by an illusion of the mind). It has been a while since I gave that up, some 7 months now or more. I feel it released some energy to better connect with myself and reach a deeper level of self-acceptance. Being better connected with my values, I've become very unwilling to connect with anyone on any terms other than that align with my values and vision. For example, when I talk to people, I've noticed how I've become incredibly intolerant of bullshit that just doesn't align with what I'm going for, in myself and my connections. I've become more honest, speaking exactly about what's on my mind about things I care about without caring what others might think. I think this is the result of detaching from the desperate and illusory need to connect and be accepted and liked. When you think about it, this is exactly the attitude you need to get the connections you ultimately want. With this attitude, you will repel those that are not a good fit with you and attract those that are. I've not made new relationships yet, so can't give anything concrete on that, but I just felt I needed to address your thinking process here. I think your focus would be better spent on what you really want to be doing aside from engaging in relationships. Then you're able to more truly express yourself without really giving a crap whether a relationship will form or not. Once you naturally start to spend more time with others, because it has to do with what you really want to be doing, relationships with them will start to form. They'll be high quality because it's based upon genuine connection through a shared activity, not neediness. Ok, I hope this is somewhat organized. It's just a flow of thought. Admittedly, I've little experience in relationship building, but I just know in my heart that I'm telling the truth. I'm confident the right relationships for me will form through this process.

I've a similar thing going on concerning seemingly blowing things out of proportions with my vision. I think that's actually natural though as one contemplates deeper and deeper about what one really wants, values, vision etc. We have all those narrow conceptions of fields one can master in our culture. When I get to the root of my values and don't think about those conceptions, I can see that the ways I can uphold and promote those values aren't easily defined and can stretch across multiple fields. So, all those different ways may seem too many to focus on at once. I think we want to keep all of them in view and practice them in our own lives as appropriate. But we need to narrow down to find the most important ways that one can realistically master. I think it's important to not get stuck in concepts when in the process of this search. Merging multiple parts of multiple fields may be necessary. "One thing" doesn't mean "one preexisting concept". It can be whatever, as long as it can realistically be mastered. Some things I use to guide me in this search is what I feel is most important/effective in upholding my values, as well as what I feel will give others the most value (rarity of skill for example) and simply what I'm pretty sure I would enjoy doing most of the time. Also, I'd want to ask myself if it is reasonable that I could master this given skill. Not confident in giving concrete advice in your case, but maybe this thinking process might help.

@Lynnel Yes, Purasana. Look forward to the report.

I was just watching https://www.ted.com/talks/atul_gawande_want_to_get_great_at_something_get_a_coach So yes, my conclusion is that having a coach is really such a nobrainer. All we really need to do is get over our egos and take the hit. Personally, I'd have a coach right now, but I don't feel it's worth it at the moment, although I'd probably benefit. But wait a minute, why do I need to hire a coach? Can't I just find someone I can get to know enough and they can get to know me enough to coach each other? Instead of focusing on guiding myself with the same old eyes, I could spend the same time focusing on guiding someone else and vice versa. The value seems to come mostly from having another human perspective. If two people are doing self-improvement, are reading books etc., I'd think they also have quite enough expertise to be able to guide each other. Any thoughts/experience with this? I just wonder why aren't we all pairing up.

@Lynnel I didn't do any research on the brands before buying, but decided to trust the store and packaging info: Chlorella: Organic Raw Powder from Purisana Spirulina: from Supernature Also can't really tell how good they've worked on me yet. I started a fast shortly after trying them, and still fasting. If anyone is familiar with their quality, do tell.

@Michael569 Aw... should've maybe done research on digestability first. No idea whether I'm excreting it all, but definitely some is getting through.

Or just buy the book list and read what you need to read first, note and take action on them? But I guess that's a bit more time investment. I've read through a sizable amount of books there now and I'm not quite the same as before. I know what I want now. My guess is that the LP course contains a lot of motivational content and enables getting to the heart of the matter quickly, but I can't imagine that it provides what you're looking for which you can't get through study of the books. But it's funny, and a good business strategy to dangle that LP course over our heads. "What IF ... it's a total mindfuck and you've been on the wrong path all this time?"

Well. I tried chlorella and spirulina for the first time yesterday and today. I took a very generous teaspoon of each each day. No negative effects so far. I don't think I had ever felt the way that I felt after the first time. I felt all tingly, from the upper part of my back and arms, up my spine and in the back of my brain. It felt kind of good and uplifting, but I felt a bit too giddy to be able to focus on what I was doing. I imagined and hoped that it was a toxins cleanup routine, but I don't really know. Think I'll know for sure if my dermatitis clears up.

This is something I think about seriously, not exactly in those words though. If you have some kind of way to be certain that another person can be trusted and actually wants to do you good, it could go a long way in enabling peace on this planet.

@WaveInTheOcean Yea. I think the point is, the original poster wasn't focused on the positive aspect, which is much more useful. If you tend to focus on this awful thing you don't want and not what you want instead, well, you'll tend to just keep getting that awful thing. The subconscious mind just works on what you give it, including awful things.

Man, I had a kind of an epiphany now thinking about this topic and my own vision. It seems to be a rule that whatever negative motivation and things I come up with that I want to avoid and get away from, there is always a positive counter motivation to be found on the other side of the coin. This realization makes focusing on what you want rather than what you don't want much easier to apply. You can charge your values and vision with boundless positivity this way.

One line of self-inquiry that I believe has given me some progress of figuring out this "inner purpose" is to regularly think of myself at the end of my life, dying slowly until I'm nothing. I see the life I have lived, and am simply aware of where my human nature wants to go, be and do, especially when I'm nothing.

Currently, I'm in the process of eliminating some autoimmune issues (dermatitis symptom). So far, I've gone from a primal/paleo (~ 7 months) to paleo AIP diet (~2 months and counting) and recently I ditched all animal products except fish/seafood because I can't find other quality animal sources around here. I'm waiting to add in more things like quality bone broth powder and more. I'm at a point where I can keep my dermatitis stable and if it's receding, it's super slow. I haven't really checked my overall health status though or done any tests, and I recently got concerned about whether I might have heavy metal toxicity or some other things I need to detox from from years of "average" diet. I'm not super knowledgeable about kind of the essential tests and health checkups I might want to do to get my overall health status, a starting point from where I can start to troubleshoot. I recently found out about hair analysis for example for heavy metal toxicity check, but I've no idea if it has good enough coverage of other things I might want to check. Does anyone have suggestions for a good set of essential tests to start troubleshooting from?

InfoSec/Digital forensics master's student feeling pressure towards PhD from environment. But really want to start my own business and deliver my LP related message to the world. Trying to work on myself enough to be able to step up. PhD may offer what I need though, will see.

I'm seriously falling in love with eating raw (organic) cabbage as a snack. It's so juicy, crispy and it has this lovely tang to it. Recommend! Share your healthy snacks here.

Haha, I don't think anyone agrees with me on cabbage, but it was something creative being in the process of elimination for my autoimmune symptoms. Was also trying to watch my glycemic load so didn't eat much fruit, but do so on occasion now.

@pluto I would really like to go on some sort of retreat for this. 2-3 months, waking up, being outside until it's dark without glasses or lenses possibly with some exercises. I'd like to measure my eyesight and various other factors before and after and see if anything changed. Isn't this a perfect combination with a long meditation retreat as well? I haven't tried one, but it sounds like it would. We could all go on a retreat together, not seeing a thing, and play some games that exercise our vision. I imagine it would look ridiculous to an outsider.

Thanks. Will check it out in case I've a blindspot from my own perspective.

@Dan Arnautu Good point. How would you take psychological tests? I've recently been "testing" myself psychologically, on my own and getting my meditation straight. Turns out I was not doing it quite right. I mostly forgot to bring it into daily life, letting a huge amount of self-criticism, others criticism and self-centeredness among other things reign as regular thought patterns. Thankfully, I at least acquired the mental strength in my meditation to quickly turn this around. I feel much better than when I started this topic and I keep improving. I've a feeling this is going to help with my dermatitis problem, we'll see about that.