Carl-Richard

A religious social club. It's intelligent to not dismiss fundamental aspects of life as trivial

He is a "practising Anglican", meaning he goes to church and that's probably about it. He emphasizes the communal aspect of religious practice.

Rupert Sheldrake, although he is also "more" than that.

One underrated advice for productivity is to know the signs of fatigue and do strategic breaks when feeling fatigued. Your body naturally works in cycles, and you obviously become progressively more tired the more you work. It's easy to be extremely stubborn and work all the time uninterrupted until you can't think a straight thought, but that might actually hinder productivity in the long run, just like doing too many half-assed reps after failure at the gym gives you exactly that: half-assed reps. Of course, this has to come after seeing how much you could possibly ever work and then work yourself backwards from there (all according to your goals, of course). And if you're feeling a burning sense of passion and you don't feel like you need a break, then don't let a rigid routine stop you either; again, it has to be strategic.

By the way, you should also do it with your values, although I see that done more frequently (and they're generally more easily to pin down as they are hyper-generalized concepts). Just writing them down in a place where you know where they are is good and consult them if you're ever unsure about something.

I used to think I was very driven by a rather specific purpose, but I didn't have it written down in solid and explicit terms. It existed mostly as an idea in my mind and as a feeling. But then, I ran into some difficulties which tested my commitment to my purpose, and because I hadn't made it completely explicit, I noticed my mind having difficulties tracking whether I was heading in the right direction. Then, I started trying to figure out why I was feeling so confused, thinking a lot about what my purpose really is, writing a lot about it and explicating clearly what it is and how I will pursue it. And now, I landed on something which I believe is more meaningful and more in line with my values than I had initially conceived and felt. Even more importantly, by having explicated it in this way and having created conditions for how parts of it will change depending circumstances and how it will certainly not change, I have solidified it so much more, to the extent where my resolve and my drive is seemingly stronger than ever before. Explicating and solidifying your purpose in this way I think is one of the most important things you can do for maintaining a strong sense of meaning and purpose, which will feed and nourish your mind as it traverses the rocky path of self-discovery.

I've observed in somebody I know who lost somebody close to them when they were little that they're extremely "death-like" in their behavior, in the sense that they're hyper-masculine, judging, reducing, conclusion-oriented (Shiva the destroyer). For example, they're really quick at throwing things away, like fresh leftover food. They're blunt and often rude, especially to service workers who are slow and generally not up to their standards. They're constantly in a rush, rash in their movements, often hurt themselves from not being careful. They're unable to sit still and relax without doing anything, and they're not very interested in abstract things. Maybe facing death in this way can make you hyper-masculine. You can see this more generally when growing up and starting to interact with the world, where time and resources are limited and you have to choose which actions to take. For example, I started writing this in-between my sets at the gym, which is very challenging because I'm timing my breaks and they're very short. I used to not time my breaks, but I started to do it to save time and focus more on my studies. I feel I write the best immediately after getting an idea, and I get a lot of joy out if it, and I used to do it all the time at the gym, but now it's often too exhausting, so I tend to sacrifice it for my other goals. Is it worth it? Life fundamentally requires death to some extent, but you must not forget to actually live. It's hard to hold on to authentic self-expression when faced with the world, but it's absolutely crucial that you do so. It's the very life force, the Shakti, that brings you forward, that gives you inspiration, intelligence and joy. It's at the core of who you truly are and your evolutionary imperative. I personally see that I have some areas where I could bring back some life. Generally, we need less dead people in the world, more people who are driven by the energy from the bottom of their being, by divine inspiration. Your biggest gift to the world is yourself, and only you know who you are.

Could you not lose weight and maintain a healthy microbiome by eating a lot of whole foods and veggies without cutting out meat?

"It's thick".

I think you should consider doing it. This is a really good oppurtunity for you. Don't worry about "filling your mind with dogma". You're already doing that with university (and everything else). You'll run into dogma anywhere you go.

Yes, partially, but mainly because I simply didn't want it. I tried very hard to make it go away; constantly, every moment of my life, until it became habitual and subconscious. If I had wanted it (or rather accepted it), it would probably have been a very different story. Also, to say I "stopped meditating" is funny, because when I "stopped meditating", I couldn't stop meditating. The moment I let go of feeling the need to meditate, it became my default state. I had to actively fight it to stop meditating. It's radical in its own radical way. I've been in states of supreme ego dissolution with psychedelics, like to the point where my memory blacks out, and they're absolutely amazing. But there is something completely unique about when it happens completely by itself, seemingly without any external trigger or intention, and it just sucks you in and you can't escape without begging for your life.

Not as a life form on Earth that breathes.

It gradually stopped over the years, although it still happens from time to time. It's an interesting parallell with this topic though, because after running into "psychological death", I became extremely driven to do things in the world, to choose some things over others. You become the environment. There is no distinction.

I think thinking you're God could apply here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandiose_delusions But I think if you explained to the psychologist that you subscribe to notions like pantheism or panentheism (which means that the psychologist is also God and that everybody is God), then you probably won't get a diagnosis. If you on the other hand tell them that you're God and they have a hard time understanding how that is possible, then you're more likely to be labeled with a delusional disorder.

There are many ways to react to trauma, but becoming aware of morality in this way is known to make you "grow up" quite quickly. Bernardo Kastrup experienced the same thing (his dad died when he was 12) and describes this. Maybe it's more the case when you're already quite masculine, but I think there is a general effect as well. When you're young, you're naive about the world, and you're more fine with how things are. You're less discerning, and you sort of let things happen. When somebody dies, you're not fine with how things are. You start to discern good things from bad things, and you feel compelled to make good things happen. In other words, you choose the good things over the bad things, and you let the bad things die. The feminine is about letting all things grow, giving things their space to exist, to be all-inclusive and welcoming. The masculine says "no, you're not welcome here; only this is allowed to exist". Physical death is one big "no" (and the masculine says "no" to it, wanting to kill it 😆).

While I say that, I think JP is mostly the shit. There is a lot of depth to his personal development stuff (and psychological and religious stuff). Just because something seems simple on the surface, doesn't mean it's not deep. Just because something is foundational, doesn't mean it's not important. A huge trap is to neglect the foundational by mistaking it as not important. That is why sayings like "make your bed" or "walk with your shoulders upright" can be worth hammering in, certainly in a culture that regularly trivializes the foundational.

The West is spiritually dead and any glimmer of meaning in the darkness is celebrated as the new God.

How would you describe how you play the game?

Do you feel that you have developed an in-game strategy over time, and do you think it played into breaking through that initial tough spot?

Do Langan's CTMU.

Cool. What a coincidence that you commented here just now. I was just planning to post something in this topic about a new insight on strategy or more generally how working memory works. Working memory is often conceived through a quantitative lens in the sense that a better working memory means you can process more things and faster. But I've noticed there is also qualitative aspect that impacts your performance drastically, which I will call "subtlety of processing". It has to do with using the right amount of energy and attention in each action; essentially, elegance (which correlates a lot with mindfulness, which is another way that mindfulness could increase IQ, outside mere DMN de-activation). You can see this subtlety principle in other activities, like carrying heavy groceries, or sprint training or playing an instrument. If you hold your groceries just right, or if you have just the right sprint form, or if you hold your fingers just loose enough to move effortlessly but firm enough to hit the right notes, then your endurance and general performance will increase. What this looks like specifically in N-Back training is hard to explain, but it's something like the speed and softness with which you look at each block or rehearse each letter. Nevertheless, I think it's something that can be grasped intuitively, and just becoming aware of it can probably help increase your gains further. In a nutshell: there are different ways to encode and manipulate information that are more subtle or less subtle (and more or less conducive to optimal performance).

Only this forum or also other forums like it?

If it's a speech or presentation, practice like you have never practiced before; get it down to every word, every move, like you're an actor in a movie. That is what I did for my first presentation in many years back when I used to really fear presentations, and because I had practiced it so much, it went so much better than I had expected that it radically changed how I view presentations. I was actually excited to do more presentations after that. How is that possible? One explanation is that dopamine largely works like a prediction error (actual reward minus expected reward). For example, if you expect something to go really bad but it actually goes really well, you'll get a massive spike of dopamine. In other words, if the expected reward is much smaller or generally worse than the actual reward, you'll get a big dopamine release. So I expected my presentation to go really bad, but it actually went really good, so I got a massive dopamine spike, and dopamine reinforces behavior, which explains why I was suddenly excited to do more presentations.

*When you find a metaphor that sounds cool but really isn't that accurate, but you've spent so much time thinking about it that you're engaging in the sunk cost fallacy and cannot accept where you're wrong*