Forestluv

@Dark_White I’ve had many breath sessions that were tripping. It’s sorta like a mixture of lucid dreaming and a moderate dose of 5-Meo-dmt. I could also describe it as the interface of subconscious, conscious and trans-conscious. Yet my mind may be able to flow into the states easier since I’ve done a lot of psychedelics and lucid dreaming work. 1.5 hr is long time for breath work. There are different types of relaxation. They way you use the term seems like parasympathetic relaxation, which would mean low ‘activation’. Since you felt body cooling, you had some activation. Yet this could have come from low intensity over a long time. Another method would be a 1hr session. Imagine you are climbing a mountain. The beginning is warm up and you gradually ramp up until you are sprinting to the top of the mountain to jump and fly like an eagle. You may want to try a facilitated breath work session. I have some recorded sessions I can share with you. If interested, DM me. Self inquiry is an advanced form of practice. It’s not contemplation and figuring shit out. Done right, self inquiry transcends the rational, intellectual mind. Yet most people have mind’s conditioned to think and intellectualize. It can take years of meditation to be able to enter post-intellectual realms. It also depends what resonates with the person. Someone like Maharishi went extremely deep into self inquiry. I haven’t resonated with self inquiry as a stand alone practice, yet it has been powerful when coupled to something else. For example, I was in a sensory deprivation tank and the question “what is genuine” arose. I didn’t have another thought for 40 min. as the essence of genuineness arose.

We can enjoy both ways. Simply walking through a forest and experiencing it's beauty can be enjoyable. And understanding aspects of forest dynamics is also enjoyable. How all organismal forms interact to create the larger organism. And the two are inter-related. For me, maximum enjoyment is a combination of relaxing and understanding. If I was with a group of Chinese people in a book club, I would have zero understanding (I don't know Chinese). It wouldn't be very enjoyable. Yet on the flip side, if I was with a group of English speaking people in a book club and wanted complete understanding of everything possible to be understood - it also wouldn't be enjoyable.

By that criteria, only beings that say "true nature (=Truth) is peace, joy, happiness" can be considered "enlightened". Humans want to feel good and have strong aversions to feeling bad. They are more interested in relative feel good truths than absolute truths that include both "good" and "bad". For example, One can say absolute Love is Everything - including peace, joy, happiness as well as hatred, murder, rape and torture. Such a person will not be considered an "enlightened being" by most people. No one will attend their "spiritual" retreats. Not only that, they will face immense backlash for saying murder, rape and torture is Love. They will be misunderstood, stigmatized and marginalized. They may get abused and locked up in a psychiatric ward. From a human perspective, there are incentives to keep certain aspects of Truth on the down-low and focus on the feel good aspects of Truth, such as relative feelings of peace, joy, happiness, inspiration etc. This will attract people and they can expand greatly pursuing feel good aspects of Truth. Imagine someone facing two doors: for Door #1, they know there is a truth that will feel blissful. For door #2, they don't know what the truth will reveal. It may feel blissful, yet it also may feel bad. It may be terrorizing and cause them pain for weeks. The vast majority of people would go for door #1. There is nothing wrong with this as there is infinite amount of exploration along the blissful dimension. Yet it is a subset of Truth. . . At the personal / human level, there is no problem if the person is naturally flowing with door #1s and naturally flowing away from door #2s. Just like a flowing river has no problem. They live a life that would be considered by humans to be a "good life". The problem occurs if one is attached to door #1's and avoiding door #2s because the attachment and avoidance doesn't feel good and they desire to feel good. It becomes a negative feedback loop. Another way we could frame it would be "why do enlightened beings only discuss a subset of Truth? Are they aware of this? Should we consider them 'enlightened'?". I'm not saying this is the objectively correct framing. Rather, it removes underlying assumptions from the initial framing and introduces a new set of underlying assumptions.

Different perspectives requires separation of form. We need to create a distinction of difference. Another way to imagine it is Everything includes all perspectives. It depends on how far you want to take "everything". If you really mean everything, there is no separation. There is no thing "above" everything, since that above thing would be included in everything. Look around the room you are in right now. Every single thing is within everything. If we add an observer, we can say "everything is out there. I am observing everything". Yet there is still separation (every thing out there (1) and my observations of those things (2). We can take it one step further and say all of your awareness, observations, thoughts etc are also in the room and is included within Everything. Once a mind starts expanding it will start to become aware of what seems to be paradoxes. At first they were maddening, yet then I began to love them. They are quite beautiful. Yet the downside is they can be really hard to communicate with others.

It depends on our creation of an "experience" and "infinite love". We could say that there is One experiencer that is experiencing Everything as infinite love. Here, dissolving separation reveals the infinite love "experienced" by One. Oneness = Everything = Experience = Love. We could also say that there are separate entities having relative experiences. Here, we would need to decide what counts as "experience". Does a rock experience? Does an amoeba? A tree? A dog? . . . Does a bird experience a subset of all experience possible? Does a human? . . What counts as "infinite love". We could also say that there is juxtaposition of both. That form is formless and can fluctuate as both. For example, One Love is revealed (Me) and then there is creation of a separate entity (me) that "experiences" "love" and reflects upon "love". "Wow, I just had an amazing experience of infinite love. I wonder if birds can experience that at well".

If saying a thing is me is a construct, saying a thing is not me is also a construct. This is accurate from one perspective and inaccurate from another perspective. There are two sides to all constructs and one does not exist without the other. There is no Yin without Yang and no Yang without Yin. Alan Watts explains this brilliantly. How can everything be below YOU? That would mean one thing (YOU) is separate from everything. How can a thing be separate from everything? It is no longer everything without that thing. everything minus one thing is not Everything. This seems like "the observer" perspective. Rupert Spira refers to this as "dualistic enlightenment". "ME" is both above anything and is anything. Identification to a thing is one side of a coin. Dis-identification as not being a thing is the other side of a coin.

@mandyjw If I was to create a conference on trauma, anxiety and PTSD I would definitely invite you to be a speaker about your insights into conscious creation of goodness. I would also invite Abraham Hicks for her wisdom of vibrations and resonance. I would invite Dean Radin for his insights into intentionality. And Gabor Mate for his empathic understanding of addiction, trauma and social systems of stigmatization. And Rupert Sheldrake for his model of family constellations and knowledge of social fields of consciousness. Daniel Amen for his expertise of SPECT scans and brain injuries. And a geneticist to integrate environmental inputs, epigenetics and internal physiology. A microbe physiologist to discuss the interplay between the gut microbiome, brain chemistry and emotions. And an EMDR specialist to integrate visualizations, emotions and release. And a Peruvian shaman to open doors into the use of plant medicines. And Dan Brule to show how we can use conscious breathing to modulate our parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems and clear clogged pipes. And a yogi to share insights into Chakra energetics. And a Reiki master. And representatives from Johns Hopkins to discuss their work with psychedelic PTSD therapy. And David Olsen for his groundbreaking work of psychoplastogens and neural plasticity. DJ Savarese, a non-speaking autistic, to share his experience with adapting to dualistic social realities that are foreign to him. Cecilia McGough to share her personal experience with schizophrenia, trauma and recovery through various modalities. I see it as an integrated whole, with insights coming from many different sources within One infinite Source.

It depends on the context of how you use the term "I". In my view, you seem to be using it at a personal / human level. There is immense potential in self healing, yet there are certain illnesses / injuries that would be extremely difficult to heal. I don't think it's fair to assume someone can simply heal certain illnesses and injuries by choosing to. One key aspect of severe trauma is that you don't have the power to believe your thoughts. You don't have the power to choose a thought that feels better or is more empowering. I'm talking about severe trauma in which that power is stripped away from you - that is one reason it is so hellish. What you are saying is great in some contexts, yet from my pov you do not understand what severe trauma is actually like. Keep in mind that PTSD is a difficult mind-body condition to treat. I think what you propose can be helpful in many cases and perhaps even cure some cases, yet I also think there are serious cases in which it's not so simple. As well, I'm not talking about mild traumas most of us face like a hyper-critical parent or dating a narcissist. I'm talking about intense trauma, severe anxiety, panic and psychosis. That is great and I totally agree. My father was an alcoholic and I experienced both verbal and physical abuse. Similar to how you describe, I introspected my thought stories and let them go. I've also had an amazing relationship with my father for over 20 yrs. I completely support this approach. Yet this isn't what I'm referring to. Here, what I'm trying to point to is that an aspect of severe trauma and PTSD is physical. It goes deeper than the illusion of controlling the narrative in one's mind. Ime, one of the most horrific components of severe panic is losing control of that illusory narrative. This mindset won't see a holistic view that includes what you are saying. My view is that what you are pointing at has value - yet there is a bigger picture. There is the value of the perspective you are offering AND value within scientific perspectives AND intellectual understanding AND direct experience perspectives AND empathic understanding. There is an expansive, inter-connected view that includes what you are saying. This is a construct you are creating. This is not at all what I'm saying. A creation of a thing called "wellness" is a relative construct. There are many forms of "well" and "not well" we can create. You seem to think that I see people with psychiatric issues as "not well". That would be partially inaccurate. I would say the experience of love and loving people as they are is enjoyable, yet my deeper desires are not to seek feelings of enjoyment. I would rather experience a wide range of human experience. This includes, yet is not limited to, feelings of enjoyment. This is one reason I have experiential understanding of a variety of places that most people would avoid. I'll go there and I'll go deep - sometimes into some extremely disturbing places. By saying "I choose good feelings", one is limiting themself. I have approached many doors and knew something deeply profound was on the other side. Yet I didn't know if it would involve "good" or "bad" feelings. You seem to be saying "don't go through the door if you can't choose for it to be a good feeling". That may be fine for others, yet I don't want to limit myself to a subset of experiences, insights and understanding. At the deeper experiential levels, I don't get to decide what's on the other side of the door. I've got to be willing to surrender that control. I've experienced bliss, love and beauty beyond description as well as tortuous realms of terror and agony. And I paid the price of entry. Thinking of myself as an empathic person is unappealing to me. I use the term "empathy" at times as a way to point and communicate to an immaterial essence. The term is used differently by different people. For me, empathy is not an intellectual or self identity thing. For me, empathy is a form of understanding and knowing that does not come from intellectual analysis and concept construction. It would be like sitting by a river with a friend and sharing a cool breeze together. Then the friend asks "Do you prefer to think of yourself as a 'breeze-full' person?". From the perspective of the breeze and the essence of sharing the breeze, it is a nonsensical question. That sounds like generic forms of identification. I'm referring to different phenomena. I see things as an integrated, holistic perspective that includes concepts, science, logic, spirituality, direct experience, empathic understanding, energetics and intuition. All of the boundaries between these categories are fuzzy to begin with and dissolve under observation and clarity. They are all inter-related in a whole. The only reason I use them is for convenience and communication. In the world I live, they are flowing together in a larger whole. In the context of enlightenment of a person / human, awakenings can certainly relieve a lot of mind-body distress - yet awakenings will not magically cure someone of all their neuroses, conditioning and ailments.

As do I. You are welcomed to press me. I like seeing things from different perspectives. Whoa. . . right out of the gate, you are giving A LOT of decisive power to an "I". Could this "I" also decide to decrease production of insulin in it's pancreas? I see thought stories as being on piece of the puzzle. Within this piece, I would agree that there is a story of trauma, which can intensify and perpetuate PTSD. Yet this is just one piece. The brain of those traumatized has undergone changes. In particular, gene expression patterns. These changes can help prepare the body to survive immediate threats, yet they can persist for years after an incident - even when the proximal cause has been removed. For example, trauma alters gene expression patterns of the stress hormone cortisol. At an epigenetic level, DNA is improperly methylated leading to chronically higher expression, even for years. This contributes to higher chronic anxiety and sensitivity in the neurological and endocrine systems. And it's not just a few genes - it's hundreds of genes that alter brain chemistry. It's extremely difficult to re-methylate and re-wire properly. The only research I'm aware of that has shown success epigenetically re-patterning is EMDR therapy. My suspicion is the psychedelics and breathwork may as well, yet there has been any research showing it yet. If we allow the neuroscience piece of the puzzle, it's not as simple as "just decide not to have PTSD". That would be like telling someone with schizophrenia "just decide not to hallucinate". Or me telling you to "Just decide not to see colors". It's not that simple. This is one of the most challenging aspects of PTSD, to treat and to live with. Not just internally, yet externally. Part of neurological disorders of external influences. For example, social systems that think people with PTSD "deciding" to have PTSD. That puts an enormous pressure on the person and it intensifies the PTSD. It is why people with PTSD are often isolated in their own hell, afraid that people will think them crazy or that they are "deciding" to have PTSD. I'm fine calling them both equivalent at the individual level. We can say that the woman and the police officer were exposed to an equivalent amount of trauma and have an equivalent amount of PTSD. This is a true equivalency at the individual level yet, a false equivalency at the population level. Individual equivalencies cannot always be extrapolated to the population level. There are distinctions between the two. In the context of racism, racism is asymmetric at the population level. At an individual level, a white person or black person being a target of racism is equivalent - yet not at the population level. Racism is asymmetric at the population level - black people are disproportionally affected. There are mountains of evidence that indicates racism is asymmetric. It is as clear as gravity. For example, black people are disproportionately targeted by police and the justice system. Of course, there are scattered instances of white people being targeted because they are white. For the relatively rare white individual that undergoes repeated targeting because he is white, yes it is fair to say that individual has a legitimate claim of racism, injustice and distress. Yet this cannot be extrapolated to the population level. At the population level, black people are disproportionately impacted by racism. It would be inaccurate and unfair to say "that white individual was exposed to egregious racism, therefore white people are exposed to egregious racism, just like black people. In my own direct experience, when I traveled through central and south America, there were parts in which the police were corrupt and targeted white tourists. Even if I didn't do anything wrong, the police could target me, abuse me, bring me into the police station, plant drugs on me, charge me fines etc. It was the first time in my life I didn't trust police and it was a very distressing experience. I had never experienced anything like it. There were times in which evading a police officer or resisting was on the table. It was part of the calculus. I had to be very strategic. . . In the U.S., I've never met a white person that *gets it*. They've never lived like that and don't have the experience. Yet when I speak with an inner-city black person, they immediately *get it*, because it is their lived experience. I told one black person my strategy for navigating around police officers to minimize the chance of getting targeted and the person responded "Yes!!! That's how you do it!! How did you know that?". I was the first white person they met that had lived this and got a taste of it. . . It would be absurd for me to say that since I got a taste of it that white people in general have to live it like black people. And part of the reason she is the only one suffering, internalizing it and isolating it because much of society tells her "you are deciding to have PTSD". . . I would agree with this. For example, most people are fine with prisoners that suffer under abusive conditions because they don't endanger anyone outside the prison. Yet many of these prisons have dubious "criminal offenses", such as drug possession or addiction. I would agree that this is one variable of "cause", yet to me it is too contracted and dismisses other variables. I see it as much more holistic. As I mentioned above, there are physical aspects in the neuro, endocrine systems. Imagine telling someone that was severely injured in a car accident to simply stop the identification of being a "car accident victim" and heal herself. This has value in certain contexts, yet in other contexts it's absurd. You are not going to completely repair physical damage by dropping identification. That will alleviate certainly help, yet it's not going to heal a paralyzed person. One must undergo various therapies needed for that. De-identification is necessary, yet insufficient for healing from certain injuries. I think there is value in this and it is a very important piece of the puzzle. Yet if one limits themself to this, it can be harmful in some situations. To me, there are multiple angles you are not including. Your ideas seem limited to mental, energetic dynamics - which are important. Yet dismiss other aspects such as physical, empathic and direct experience. Edit: I would also like to mention that in the context of brain function, traumatic experiencing are seared into the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. These are not like normal memories. Traumatic memories can go deep into hippocampus and re-activation can cause a neuro-endocrine response that is as intense as the initial trauma. Part of the difficulty of PTSD is not knowing if that will get suddenly re-activated and reliving the trauma again. That can be terrifying. And part of these experiences is the powerlessness of it. It's a hell one cannot stop and it will never end. It's not something one can decide "I'm just not going to identify as a victim". It goes much deeper and broader than that. Now that I think about it, I don't think someone can have a deep understanding - that includes conceptual, energetic, intuitive and empathic - without the direct experience.

I never claimed that was your bar. I asked you if it was.

A flow state is a balance. One is not over-interpreting and hesitating, yet one is also highly in tune with energetics and intuitive. I imagine a gal with an autistic guy thinking "I've given this guy such obvious signals, yet he doesn't get it. He is clueless. Hmmm, is it too late to back out of this and meet my girlfriends at the club?"

I've noticed that most women like it when I make certain decisions and action. For example, they like it when I decide on a restaurant, make the reservation and tell them "I have it all set up sweetie, don't you worry. I'll pick you up at 6pm". They like that decisive masculinity, yet they also like thoughtfulness. For example, I made a reservation at an Indian restaurant because a week ago she mentioned she likes Indian food, yet hasn't been to an Indian restaurant for months. I heard her and value her. . . That is very different than making a reservation at the sports bar so I can watch the game without paying attention to her.

That does nothing to address the issue of structural racism and making structural changes toward a society with more equity. How is actually giving people power disempowering? For example, inner city black people are unjustly profiled by police and in court systems. How does saying "choose a better feeling when you get screwed over by police and the justice system" going to correct those systemic problems? How is it disempowering to give poc the power to actually change the system so it stops screwing them over? I agree that the caricatures where distorted and included implicit shaming. I agree that changing hearts and minds is a key component. In my view, it is necessary yet is overly idealistic and would take an extremely long time to implement. Progress involves both bottom-up grassroots hearts and minds, as well as top-down policy changes. For example, those wanting equality for gay people spent decades trying to change hearts and minds. This was important, yet insufficient. Even though gay rights and same-sex marriage had minority support, courts started implementing laws to protect gay couples and states started enacting same-sex marriage, followed by the federal level. Creating these laws (against majority opinion) massively shifted public opinion in favor of same-sex marriage. A generation worth of progress was made in a few years. I agree that what you are pointing at is disempowering. An attitude of "this sucks, I feel awful, why bother" is a disempowering mindset. No one would want to take action to promote greater equality with such a mindset. I think it's great to focus on good feelings, positives and LOA type stuff. Yet there are also other dynamics. We can empower and condition ourselves to feel good. Yet with that comes responsibility (assuming the existence of a person that can take responsibility) . For example, one of my students come to class in person yet. She has been viewing online since the first day of class. She recently emailed me that she has PTSD of male authority figures and she is terrified of coming to class because she might spiral into a panic attack. There are many different ways I can relate to this situation. Some ways would yield bad feelings, some ways would yield good feelings and some ways yield a mixture of feelings. Assuming that I have "choice", I won't choose a relationship that would yield me good feelings at her expense. I'm not going to choose a path that I feel good exerting my authority over her. I'm not going to choose a path where I feel good by ignoring her situation and pretending she is happy. The highest (relative) path for me is to have empathy and love for her. I know what it's like to spiral into uncontrollable panic attacks. To feel good that she was able to be vulnerable with me and tell me that. To love her as she is right now, even if she is terrified of me and never comes to class or has a breakthrough. To be supportive of her however I can. Yet I also acknowledge that a man in authority did horrific things to her that caused damage and suffering. I don't feel so good about that, yet I won't dwell on it. I will focus on being loving and supportive. Yet my love and support for her will not address the man who abused her, a society that allows men in authority to abuse and a society that lacks resources to help men that abuse. There is a very high likelihood that the man (or men) that abuse her were themselves abused.

You wrote: I responded:

90% homophobic is your bar for accepting and seeing it as problematic? That sounds like it's coming from a straight person that doesn't have to deal with homophobic crap. . . So if only 60% of a community was solid homophobic and gay people experienced harassment, abuse and discrimination everyday, you wouldn't accept and see that as "problematic". I think if you were a gay man living in a rural area of the south, you would see things very differently. These are gaslighting myths to whitewash history. Confederate Generals, including Robert E. Lee, owned slaves and were involved with slave trade. The myth of Lee goes something like this: He was a brilliant strategist and devoted Christian man who abhorred slavery and labored tirelessly after the war to bring the country back together. . . Lee’s elevation is a key part of a 150-year-old propaganda campaign designed to erase slavery as the cause of the war and whitewash the Confederate cause as a noble one. It provided the foundation for South to build the Jim Crow system. White supremacy was one of Lee’s most fundamental convictions. Lee was a slave owner—his own views on slavery were explicated in an 1856 letter that is often misquoted to give the impression that Lee was some kind of abolitionist. "I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy." The argument here is that slavery is bad for white people, good for black people, and most important, better than abolitionism; emancipation must wait for divine intervention. That black people might not want to be slaves does not enter into the equation; their opinion on the subject of their own bondage is not even an afterthought to Lee. As well, Lee himself owned slaves and his cruelty to slaves was documented by Lee's own writing and others in books such as Reading the Man and The Battle Cry of Freedom. A few examples: -- Lee ruptured the Washington and Custis tradition of respecting slave families by hiring them off to other plantations, and by 1860 he had broken up every family but one on the estate. The separation of slave families was one of the most unfathomably devastating aspects of slavery, The trauma of rupturing families lasted lifetimes and generations for the enslaved. After emancipation, freed slaves desperately tried to find their family members, yet rarely succeeded. -- Lee's brutality on his Virginia plantation nearly led to a slave revolt, in part because the enslaved had been expected to be freed upon their previous master’s death, and Lee had engaged in a dubious legal interpretation of his will in order to keep them as his property, one that lasted until a Virginia court forced him to free them. -- When two of his slaves escaped and were recaptured, Lee either beat them himself or ordered the overseer to “lay it on well.” Wesley Norris, one of the slaves who was whipped, recalled that “not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.” -- During his invasion of Pennsylvania, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia enslaved free black Americans and brought them back to the South as property. -- Under Lee’s command, black Union soldiers that were captured were tortured and executed. -- Lee is primarily responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in defense of the South’s authority to own millions of human beings as property because they are black. -- After the war, Lee stated that the war arose out of Christian devotion that white southerners fought to keep black people enslaved. . . . Lee had beaten or ordered his own slaves to be beaten for the crime of wanting to be free; he fought for the preservation of slavery; his army kidnapped free black people at gunpoint and made them unfree—but all of this, he insisted, had occurred only because of the great Christian love the South held for black Americans. This provided foundation for the "Lost Cause" narrative and helped the south to build the Jim Crow. And on and on. . . Robert E. Lee was a white supremacist with a long history of brutality to black people. Whitewashing Lee and other confederate generals also whitewashes the civil war, slavery and Jim Crow. One reason the U.S. is still mired in lingering effects of slavery is because a lot of white people will not take an honest look at what happened and how that created systemic racism / white supremacy that still exists today. Direct lines can be drawn from slavery to current systemic racism. And whitewashing slavery, confederate generals and the civil war prevents us from seeing clearly and making progress.

It wasn't abundantly clear to me. My impression was that you took the position that the media exaggerates racist, homophobic, conspiracy views etc. and it's actually not that common in rural areas. My impression is that you asked me to prove you wrong. I stated that data and my direct experience indicates that these views are common in rural areas. If you lived in a rural southern town with your gay lover or a black girlfriend, I predict you would find such mindsets are common.

I didn't suggest "constantly dwelling". I don't consider it "constantly dwelling" and "living in constant guilt" to be honest about the past, acknowledging the impact it has in today's society, trying to heal and building a society that is more just and harmonious. That includes seeing things from multiple perpsectives. We can create a framework of constant dwelling and living in constant misery and guilt. That is a framework that many people use. Yet that is not the framework I am using. The brutality was not symmetric. The brutality was asymmetric on the side of white European colonizers. As well, the effects of that asymmetric brutality linger today. Native Americans are not on the same footing as descendants of white colonizers. Recognizing and acknowledging racism / injustice is distinct from experiencing shame and guilt. Shame and guilt is an add-on. I say we should choose multiple perspectives and see partial truths within each perspective. The problem with choosing the perspective that feels good is that the feeling good can come at the expense of another. If white people choose a perspective that slavery was good for black people and racism no longer exists - that may feel good to the white person, yet it comes at the expense of black people that have to carry the burden. White people have the privilege of choosing a perspective that feels good, yet minorities that carry the burden don't have that priviledge. Gaslighting and whitewashing the past so it feels good to white people does not empower minorities. It keeps the status quo of discrimination going. There is structural racism to be addressed. If we want to empower minorities, how about we actually give them some power? Rather than give them platitudes about how "all people are created equal", "you can be anything you want in life" and "let's all be colorblind" - how about we give them actual power? How about we give minorities real power to make decisions and create laws and policies? How about we create inheritance tax and redistribute wealth to minorities that have been structurally suppressed from accumulating generational wealth? How about we create minority equity in government, so that they get a real say and power in regards to systemic racism issues such as policing? How about white people that have indirectly benefitted from the oppression of black people, pay reparations and redistribute wealth such that black people have an equal share and can now benefit from inter-generational wealth inheritance like most white people do? Platitudes about equal opportunity and how we can all be anything we want if we work hard may give a sense of feeling good to the privileged, yet it does little good for those who carry the burden. I said nothing about using shame and guilt. You are adding that in. I've noticed some white people like to dictate that we should address racism in a way that doesn't make white people feel uncomfortable. I'm sorry to say that introspecting one's racism will likely be uncomfortable and white people shouldn't expect their hands to be held through the process. Introspecting my own subconscious biases that were conditioned into me was extremely uncomfortable at times. Yet I had to experience it and work through it to purify and unclog those pipes. Turning a blind eye so I can feel better would have prevented me from addressing issues and evolving. It's not about feeling shame and guilt. It's about looking honestly. I've lived with poc in poor areas in the U.S. and several foreign countries. I currently live in a poor town that is plurality black. At work, I'm on a committee to help bring greater equity in our community. Throughout my interactions with poc, the vast majority don't want white people to feel guilt and shame. They want the racism against them to stop. They want justice and to be treated fairly. The dynamic of shame and guilt is a creation of, and an issue for, white people. As an example, when I dated a black woman she would reveal some of my subconscious racial biases. When I went into shame and guilt mode, she would roll her eyes at my fragility. She didn't want me to feel shame and guilt. She wanted me to look at my subconscious biases and for me to stop acting that way to her and her friends. However, once I became aware of my subconsicous racial biases, they were no longer subconscious - they were conscious. I was now aware of the bias and the impact it had on others. If I continued my behavior, I was now expressing racial biases consciously and intentionally. This is a very different dynamic than expressing subconscious biases. However, I also understand that guilt and shame is a real issue for a lot of white people and needs to be taken into account. For example, I helped co-ordinate a diversity workshop to help educate my white co-workers. The #1 resistance was fear of feeling guilt and shame. That wasn't the purpose of the workshop. It had nothing to do with guilt and shame. The purpose was to educate white people so they would better understand their poc colleagues and poc students. That way, they could become a more effective teacher and we can increase mutual understanding in our community. Yet white people can be sooo fragile about this type of thing and they were giving all sorts of excuses to avoid feeling uncomfortable. Their attitude was "can't we all just get along together without adding in racism? Let's just feel good". This was a real issue we needed to address. I actually had to go through the workshop myself, come back and have an interview with the president of the institution that it's ok and the workshop leaders won't try to make him or white employees feel guilty or shameful. The president wouldn't believe the workshop leaders or any poc. It took me, as a white male, to approach him and say "It's ok, boss".

I have family in South Carolina and I've traveled through the south many times. There are some wonderful aspects of nature, culture and people in the south. Yet there are also ugly aspects, which you seem to be minimizing and apologizing for. "Progress" is relative and you seem to be setting a very low bar for progress. If Germany removed a swastika emblem from their flag, would that be "progress"? I would say it's progressive in the year 1946, yet not in the year 2020. Similarly, the confederate symbol is the #1 symbol of slavery, oppression and white supremacy in America. Removing the confederate emblem from a state flag was progressive in the year 1920, yet not in 2020. The fact that you consider it progressive highlights that there are high levels of racism and white supremacy in southern states like Mississippi. Removing the confederate emblem is progress for a state that has a lot of racism and white supremacy. We can romanticize if we like, yet let's be clear what we are romanticizing. This "character" and "poetry" not only includes Spanish Moss, yummy crab legs and charming accents - it also includes lynchings, glorifying slave masters and the oppression of black people. "Character" and "Poetry" is comforting from one perspective, yet horrific from another perspective. We could also say Nazi Germany had "character" and was "poetic".

If you like data, look at polls and voting patterns in rural areas of America. About 70-80% are Trumpers and half of them are hard-core Trumpers. The author of the above video makes lots of videos about the low conscious south. It's not just his district. You could also see for yourself. Travel through rural areas of the south, Appalachia and the mountain west. There is a lot of confederate nationalists, ethnocentrism, racism, homophobia and Stop-The-Steal. Rural areas is Trump country. Most of them believe the election was stolen.

Most rural southerners do engage in crazy conspiracies. Marjorie’s district was well aware of her crazy conspiracy beliefs. They voted for her because of her crazy conspiracy beliefs. 90% of Republican lawmakers voted against impeachment in part because their rural base believe in crazy conspiracy theories and they don’t want to get primaried and lose to a conspiracy kook. It’s much easier to create a conspiracy theory ecosystem in rural areas, since it is more homogeneous. Urbanites are exposed to a much more diverse set of information and experience.

Unfortunately, a much of society is guard against the unknown. The vast amount of people that approach me with small talk turn out to want something from me - like giving them money or buying something. It’s rare that a stranger approaches me with a genuine interest for some small talk and that’s it. Women have even more reason to guard as many men that approach have sexual intentions. As well, many people are living lives of quiet desperation and are immersed into their own world of worries. You mentioned that you are interested in a general context, not just dating. Do you try to initiate general small talk with men as well, or mostly women? If dating isn’t an intention, easy places to start small talk is with cashiers at cafes, markets, stores etc. They are often friendly and it’s part of their job. Also, with other people waiting in line. One good starter is if they are associated with something I’m familiar with - like wearing a shirt of a college I went to or a concert I went to or am interested in. For sample, if I saw someone wearing a burning man T-shirt, I would genuinely be curious what there experience was like since I’ve always wanted to experience it. The vibe would be genuine curiosity and excitement of meeting someone who has been there - not a vibe of me having an agenda.

According to Moderna’s report, adverse reactions to the second dose are more common. For the second dose, about 25% of people have mild (grade 1) or moderate (grade 2) reactions. 16% of people have a severe (grade 3) reaction. Most common symptom is fatigue and headache for 1-2 days. https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-announces-publication-results-pivotal-phase-3-trial Looks like there are pros and cons. The J&J vaccine is one shot and offers broader protection against two of the new new variants - yet it is less effective against two variants. They claim 85% efficiency against severe symptoms that would require hospitalization, yet only 66% efficiency against mild symptoms (the other vaccines claim 94%). I’m also interested in longer-term effects of covid. Do the vaccines also protect against long-term secondary covid effects, like effects on the heart?

It depends on the vision and resonance. If I envision being a Bollywood dancer and let go of any resistance - my mind-body will not align with that and take action to be a Bollywood dancer. It isn’t what resonates with me. Ime, I’ve never been naturally passionate about anything 100% of the time. The closest thing for me is running. I ran marathons for over 20 years. It was a natural fit. Yet at times it took a lot of effort and sometimes I dreaded having to do a long run, especially in harsh weather. Yet overall, it was never forced. I was never running for anything other than my passion to run. I didn’t run to loose weight, look fit, impress others or win races. It was all intrinsically motivated. To me, running was like breathing. I just did it. To me, it seems like you have some clogs blocking flow states that are slowing you down. Willpower is useful temporarily to get through rough patches, yet willpower is not sustainable and enough to get through the marathon. And using things like fear or willpower for motivation is not a quality life. It gets miserable. That is a difficult state to achieve with 100% purity, 100% of the time. Being ambitious is good, yet setting the bar that high is setting one’s self up for failure and self criticism. I would take a personal inventory and set goals of progress. For example, if I feel inspired 20% of the time. - I would set a goal of increasing that to feeling inspired 40% of the time in three months. (Not feeling inspired 100% of the time by tomorrow). Unclogging pipes helps one flow, yet if the pipes aren’t naturally flowing toward a destination there will be internal conflict. I would also try adding in intentions.

Now that you are ware of it, it is no longer you. You are observing it as an appearance. This awareness can help reduce the intensity. Each time you observe it, the frequency, duration and intensity may increase. I’ve had stuff that was conditioned into me that would arise every week - yet I observed it as “oh, that thing again”. At first, it took effort to let it go. Yet after a while, I stopped engaging with it and it lost it’s ‘umph’. It was like background traffic that would briefly arise and then fade away. . . . Yet other stuff was more deeply conditioned and needed some deeper awareness, release and rewiring. What you describe is super common between kids and their parents.