Carl-Richard

I have a theory (not a conspiracy theory): the people who get strongly drawn to conspiracy theories are the same people who get drawn to supernatural ideas, like God creating the universe from their own predetermined plan (not simply evolving spontaneously through "natural law"). They are fine with explaining reality top down through an elaborate narrative. There is a seeming plan behind everything, behind world politics, behind alien invasions, behind wars, behind ancient history, and they all connect to a grand meta-narrative of control, of manufacturing, of conscious creating, rather than natural systems acting spontaneously. Those who criticize conspiracy theories point out how that level of organization, of top-down control, is unlikely if not impossible, because of the natural tendency towards spontaneous order and the infeasibility of controlling complex systems. In the "naturalist critique", everybody is a victim of systems, even the supposed people in power, while in the conspiracist's mind, the people in power are the controllers of the systems and the powerless are the victims. Whether one is more correct than the other is actually hard to say, and a naturalist that claims otherwise would then become a conspiracy theorist in their own right, thinking they have the level of insight and knowledge to be able to predict complex systems. As for myself, as a general predisposition, I've noticed I'm fine with either (naturalism or supernaturalism). While for example Bernardo Kastrup says he is strongly opposed to supernaturalism simply as a personal predisposition (which is why he says he sees no point in doing philosophy if nature is not simply naturalistic; no "God" at the top planning it all, intervening into nature and changing the natural course of things). But I would also challenge this idea of naturalism, that you could still try to deduce the "laws" behind God's planning so to speak, and it won't be a completely pointless endeavour, simply a more interesting one. Like trying to understand the psychology of God rather than the "physics" of God.

Food tends to do that.

I might be old school, but a business starts with an idea. The methods come afterwards. The methods are usually not a problem. You know where to find them. They are ubiquitous, especially in the era of ChatGPT. It's the ideas that are more rare to come by (unless you are fine with essentially copying somebody else and creating your own market space for it and perhaps creating your own tiny little spin on it or outdoing them marketing-wise somehow, which is also possible in the era of Meta ads). And if you don't have an idea now, keep it in the back of your mind. It may come in a week, a month, a year, 5 years. This is what Jeff Bezos calls long-term thinking. It's one of the most powerful ways to achieve anything in life. Thinking about something for one moment, vs thinking about something for years, is about the same as one person vs 1000 people thinking about something.

Your takeaway was not that medication may stop working and may give serious and debilitating side effects and that there is a way to achieve essentially the same results by incorporating the correct habits and techniques? It's the last few minutes of the video that really count. I don't think you did watch the full video, or you weren't paying attention @Cred Everything you're talking about flies right in the face of Dr. Mike's entire lived experience and existence as showcased in the video I posted. ADHD people may care a lot about social status, about getting degrees, about doing structured learning. They might just have to use some techniques and habits to adapt to it. The techniques Mike showcases are essentially ways of hacking your brain and your work habits to simulate project-based learning. Learning how to live always contains an element of strategy and adaptation. Even if you're thinking you're taking the path of least resistance in everything you're doing, you're working on top of layers and layers of adaptation and strategy. They might just sometimes be less deliberate, less conscious. You can be highly deliberate, highly conscious in your strategy and adaptation, that's what self-development is about.

@integral Sounds like trying to say "epistemic" with a congested nose.

I think Breaking Bad is a quite stark showcase of a certain concept of what you could call the "Anti-hero's journey": the main character is called to adventure, facing challenges, overcoming fears, and returns to the society transformed, not to share the fruits of that journey with the society, but to destroy it.

Give me your best explanation. Best explanation gets a cookie (laced with meth).

Did you watch the video?

Why? Why?

I saw a comment that said ADHD meds helps them procrastinate. It's like if you have no strong goals, more dopamine just means any and all goals become stronger, so you will be just as bad off if your problem is sticking to a goal. Maybe your goals are just wrong. That's what life purpose is about: finding a strong goal that drives your action. It reminds me of when @Cred said "ADHD minds are insensitive to meaning". Well, maybe it's sometimes more they lack meaning so they become ADHD.

How is amphetamine a "non-stimulant"? I cba with you guys 💀💀💀💀

@integration journey This is truly the most insightful and revealing and inspiring video about ADHD you will ever watch. Mike went from being the worst in the class, to being the best in the class while medicated, to experiencing side effects from the medications and eventually losing the effect from the medications and then finding out a way to get off the medications and still function at a high level. It's truly a hero's journey:

Hopping on Ozempic without seriously trying anything else is like letting ChatGPT write your entire job application in one go. It's just laziness, and of course it produces side effects when you don't approach it intelligently.

In public.

Do you think if you fast for 18 hours and then eat a gummy candy and a chocolate Müsli bar that you will have trouble focusing or not? ADHD meds are dopaminergic (usually reuptake antagonists). Zinc is a dopamine reuptake antagonist. B-vitamins, vitamin D are involved in dopamine function and synthesis. Protein sources (L-tyrosine, L-phenylalanine) give you the precursors for synthesizing dopamine in your brain. Eating inflammatory foods (e.g. rich in glucose, low in fiber, low in anti-inflammatory compounds) inhibits dopamine synthesis and functioning. The thing about ADHD being a statistical thing and that we're all on the spectrum is that even if you think diet is a minor thing (which it generally isn't), unless you've already optimized for and tried different diets, you might not actually know whether all it takes is to change your diet to no longer qualify for a diagnosis. You could be looking at relatively minor symptoms and you could also be responding more to diet than somebody else (that's also a spectrum).

My friend who hopped on ADHD meds was into intermittent fasting. I watched him break fast with a fucking candy hamburger (a type of gummy candy) and a tiny chocolate Müsli bar. And then he asked me why he felt like shit 30 minutes later. Diet impacts everything, certainly psychological states.

I will bet I could score an ADHD diagnosis if I were to eat 90% of my calories in carbs (and not eating any fruit or greens), perhaps especially from wheat and refined sugars.

I've now seen schizophrenia being treated with diet, so it only doubles down on my notion that you should try to adapt your diet before doing any pharmacological interventions (unless you currently belong strapped to a bed in a hospital). I have a friend who is the most picky eater ever and he jumped on ADHD meds before I could tell him. Optimizing anti-inflammatories, fibers, macros, micros, maybe trying keto.

You weren't very specific about what kind of advice you wanted.

May I introduce you to Maya? 😁

Diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (and the ICD) are fundamentally statistical constructs. If you have five apples in the basket, you don't have it. If you have seven, you have it.

I disagree. Pure being doesn't care about bathrooms very much. But ego minds (and their perceptual engagement) might. You can talk about Leo or you can talk with me. If you want to talk about Leo, we can talk about Leo.

@JoshB You are now using equivocating language. It's unclear what you mean by "you" (or "your mind"). Start using for example "personal you" or "personal mind" for the illusory ego self and "transpersonal you" or "transpersonal Mind" (or Consciousness, the Self) for the ultimate reality.

Bathrooms don't exist. You are labelling an apparent perception (which is itself a label). An apparent perception part of an apparent field of perception (which is also a label). The Absolute is pure being at its root, and the relative seemingly springs out like flowers (which we conveniently label "perception"), and then you label the perceptions with concepts, words. Only then, a notion of a " bathroom" can exist. And the notion of a bathroom being "the only thing that exists, ever, at any place, any time" does not follow from it springing out from the Absolute. Any form imagineable can spring out of the Absolute, anywhere, at any time. It's like looking inside your bathroom and saying only your toilet brush can exist. Why are you drawing a boundary at the toilet brush? Likewise, why are you drawing a boundary at the bathroom?

You're talking about bathrooms and drawers.