Carl-Richard

Omg

This is the language of addiction. I'm fluent in it. The odds are that if life is bad now and you're introducing a new habit which involves addictive drugs, it's the warning signs of the beginning of a downward spiral. When you use more and more drugs, your life gets worse and worse, and then the drug use becomes worse and worse, etc. The only safe option is to replace the drug with a different coping mechanism which doesn't involve ever-escalating tolerance and ever-escalating dosages, preferably something physical like heavy exercise, saunas, cold showers, sports.

I frankly think that you would have to try very hard to misunderstand it if you actually take the time to read everything from start to finish. I almost decided not to write it because it felt almost too obvious to even mention.

Think of it this way: 3 times a week could be considered one of the last steps before daily use, and if you happen to experience some difficult time in your life, your first option of escape will be into that kind of habit.

The category of "focusing on states over growth" is distinct from "focusing on growth over states". In one sense, the categories describe a difference in degrees, so of course there is overlap, and of course both psychedelics and meditation impact both states and growth. What I'm saying is they're useful categories. Why are they useful? Because Leo says that ALL the people in the other category are "not awake", and it's because ALL the people have a different focus than him. If all people fit into one place because they're all doing the same thing, then that is a good justification for placing them in a category.

Then I don't see how you added anything new other than renaming each concept

Woops. Forgot "GHB receptor" is a thing. I was thinking about how both show activity at GABA-B.

I'm talking about a focus and approach, not about the potential benefits of either psychedelics or meditation. In psychonautics, the focus is on states > growth. In spirituality, the focus is on growth > states.

Their job is to represent my beliefs and desires.

It has the same pharmacological profile as GHB, which can thought of as a mix between MDMA and alcohol.

Yep, that's what I struggle with.

It ties into knowing how the world fits together. Focusing on metaphysics and epistemology is a bit myopic considering how politics might have a direct or indirect impact how you approach these things in a hundred different ways. Also, just curiosity. You want to know things like why the gas and electricity prices are skyrocketing.

Only to be a successful revolutionary scientist, not a successful normal scientist.

I dislike the spirit of it. It implicitly treats foolishness as something "out there", and it sort of breeds the very thing in question, as foolishness is really nothing but self-bias/self-deception. You can find more than enough foolishness by looking inside yourself, and if this practice is supposed to benefit you in some way, then that is where you want to find it anyway.

I don't want you to run my life.

What was the last straw? What was one of the last things to go before you took the plunge?

It's addictive.

??

If you surrender to the fear, the roller coaster only goes up, forever. Free ticket to Enlightenment.

LSD 4 times. Microdosed a dozen times. More weed than could fit in a school bus.

You can just say melatonin lol

Meditation is high effort, low reward.

I can't think up a brave thing I've done

I'm not making any prescriptions for Leo's spiritual pursuits, only for how he talks about them. I've tried to delineate out a few key ways in which his focus differs from those he considers "not awake", and why a clearer language is needed when referring to these people. Like I mentioned in an earlier comment, Leo hasn't had great success with increasing his baseline consciousness in any traditional sense (the focus of traditional spirituality), and he has instead opted for exploring deeper and deeper psychedelic states (psychonautics). He has stated that he has probably gone deeper on psychedelics than any other person before him, and that he is better wired for that than the alternative. He is playing to his strengths.

The content he has issues with has to do with the lack of psychedelics. You do it because of the love you feel and the compassion for other people's suffering.