Carl-Richard

I've really only noticed it happening with visual scenes, but it could probably also happen with other sensory modalities.

No. It's not sudden and it's not in the forefront of my attention. It's quite persistent and it's more like a scene in the background that I don't usually notice. It's as if I'm painting the conceptual thinking on top of an episodic canvas. For some reason, it's the same canvas for similar concepts, and it's not obviously relevant to the concepts in question (for example, what does being outside that specific store have to do with being smart?). It seems more like a thought than a hallucination.

You might also think that if you're less smart than most people, then you'll be constantly reminded about it when you're around most people. But on the other hand, the person who is smarter than most people might think "ugh, why am I here among all these stupid people? I'm wasting my time". So the mind can always find a way to criticize itself despite the circumstances. The mind can't help itself but want to expand, often in less fortunate ways. You can help that desire to expand through things like meditation. Then your mind will be so expanded that it can't help but to shut up. But of course, you shouldn't neglect the impulse to expand in the realm of wordly self esteem either. Do improve on yourself in ways you find conducive to building a healthy self in the world. It's not an either/or game.

I made a thought experiment in another thread that can give insight into this: There is also the phenomena of always comparing yourself to somebody who you perceive as being superior to yourself. Even Einstein could possibly have compared himself to some other great physicist which he admired and which he perceived as superior to himself. Even if Einstein is considered by most people as the "best" physicist, he might not perceive it that way (besides, most people are less intelligent than Einstein, so why should he care about their opinion? They're most likely wrong anyway). Likewise, even if you have a higher IQ than most people, and these people think you're a "smart person", you might aspire to be like somebody greater than yourself, and by comparison, you would not consider yourself a smart person. Then you might ask "but if you compare yourself to those who are less smart than you, then you're actually smart". Yes, but nobody does that. Nobody bases their self esteem on that (except people who get high on their own farts). You don't compare yourself to a 5th grader to make yourself feel better about your intelligence. Try it. So yeah, there are many ways to have low self esteem even if you're smarter than most people.

Having a high IQ doesn't necessarily stop you from having low self esteem, even specifically about your IQ.

Ah, Alden, right?

Nope. Great minds think alike though

Like talking to a Force ghost Tell him I'm proud of him that he didn't turn into the next Actualized off-shot Discord cult (I'm assuming that didn't happen, because the last cult ended up fragmenting and dissolving by this time because of the cultish behavior running down a slippery slope. If not, blink twice ). Also tell him that it was my duty to scare him about the potential risks and to instill a sense of responsibility in him, even though I always knew there was little actual data for estimating the probability of him starting a cult. I believe the risks are lower now, which is probably why I say this now (also probably because I care less). I actually deliberately held back from overtly acknowledging that the probabilities were largely unknown, because it would've signaled that the situation was less serious, which means I deliberately made myself come off as more emotional than logical, all because I saw it as a necessary move to potentially stop a cult from forming. I know he loves to think I'm emotional, but who would've thought I'm actually a bit of a Chess player (and a martyr) . Ah, that used to be one of my favorite hobbies back when I smoked weed. Anyways, let's not derail this thread with niche forum history.

He used to chill on this forum and talk with me and particularly some other guy a lot (AtheistNonduality), then he turned to the dark side (jk). He was dissatisfied with the forum format and wanted to talk to people in a live chat format, so he created a Discord and started to subtly recruit people from the forum, even though he knew it was against the rules. Then he became more overt about it, which eventually got him banned, and then he got a bit sad when I didn't join his Discord. I figure he is still a bit sad?

*sips coke*

What do you mean what happened?

I think when I see a fat person, the only thing my mind reliably goes to is "this person probably doesn't eat too little food"

I should probably just take something for the placebo anyway. SSRIs are only 2% more effective than placebo pills.

We don't allow links to chat rooms outside the forum (the link didn't work anyway). That said, let me guess, it's that guy who tried to recruit forum members to his Discord some months ago? (I honestly can't remember his name atm lol, that's how strong this covid virus is).

But then, if the outside is truly a reflection of the inside, what does that look like on the outside? 🤔

You shouldn't be. You were inaccurate in your language, people responded, and then you clarified your statement. It's quite understandable.

What does that mean?

A.k.a. "non-dual episodic amnesia" 😂

Or just say "it might mean" instead of "it means". There are many reasons for being fat. One possibility could be that they're just not concerned about health and have unhealthy habits. I'm someone who is concerned about health and have healthy habits, but I don't have to exert much self-control to maintain my habits. They're habits — they're generally the default response. Of course, a donut is at some level inherently tempting, and even I might sometimes feel an impulse to eat one if I see one, but people underestimate how much your impulses are dictated by habits. In the last few years, I haven't eaten anything sweet despite seeing it front of me so many times (except when I was essentially forced by my grandmother 😂), so I haven't reinforced that type of stimulus-response. For me, the stimulus-response of seeing something sweet and eating it is just not there to the same extent. On the other hand, what requires a lot of self-control is to break your habits and establish new ones, but once they're established, sticking to them becomes easy.

What if they're fat but also a straight A student?

UnbornTao could be talking to Buddha himself and still ask "is it direct though?" 😂 I'm curious though: how many of these "cool, interesting, but not quite it" experiences (the kinds that you like to criticize) have you had yourself, and how many so-called "direct" experiences have you had? My guess is if you've had very few of either, you would think that awakening is something extremely special that is very black and white (either you have it or you don't), while instead if you've had many of these experiences, you would see that they're not all that special and exist on a spectrum. Just a theory. It's a natural impulse when you have few data points to treat each data point as special. Or you could have many data points and it could just be a temperamental difference.

😂

How long did you take them for?

There is a song called "Karma" by Swedish progressive Death Metal band "Opeth"