Carl-Richard

The psychic strikes again @Ramasta9 Sorry to hear about that. I hope things work out.

It's quite literally the impeding of movement. Notice if you ever walk on the street and somebody stops right in front of you abruptly, it's so ingrained and spontaneous to get angry. The energy essentially says "move, get out of the way", it's energy that comes when you need to push through some boundary. Even tiny single-celled organisms probably have some kind of anger response. It's so deeply primal. And it doesn't necessarily involve a feeling of hurt. It's much more surface level, like a form of physiological activation. Feeling of hurt usually comes from something else, like shame, guilt, physical hurt, where anger might be involved as a secondary response (some men especially are unable to identify deeper emotions like shame, guilt, but instead only identify it as anger, which again is a primal and kind of physiological arousal). It's a very rudimentary form of emotion, that's what's meant with "lower". Same arguably with pride (despite humans making it complicated with all the mentalistic echoing back and forth). Why place anything in a hierarchy? Why describe anything as any limited thing? Why say anything is a certain way? I don't see why you would limit the problem to emotions or just hierarchical organization. Any type of organization has problems, isn't it?

There is seeing clearly, then there is fear, paranoia, narrative, belief. When everything is seen as a threat, even normal occurrences on the forum, that actually lowers your consciousness, it makes you less able to see clearly. Just like food, drugs, environment, toxins affect your ability to see clearly, so does your sensitivity to threats (real or imagined), and that varies between people. Pointing out how other people are not afraid, might not be due to insensitivity to what is real and objective, but simply insensitivity to threat (real or imagined). 9 years ago, I was in a cult that believed harmful psychic energies existed in all normal people, and even objects they have interracted with, and I felt this strongly. Then as the cult dissolved, I started questioning whether the harmful energies thing was even real (I was always questioning it, but the other people in the cult talking about it as if it was real affected me). And over time, it faded. And that was despite me becoming more "spiritually locked in". The common denominator for people who entertain harmful psychic energies, harmful frequencies from technology, toxins in the environment, in the food, etc., is high threat sensitivity (combined with openness to experience, or else you would not seek out alternative views). That is not to say all of it is illusion. But it can still explain the difference in views and why not everybody might buy into it, despite perhaps being just as "sensitive" as you. Yes, it's definitely possible that you will experience positive changes (and possibly negative changes, which you can play down) from long fasts and juice cleanses and questioning your food intake and environmental exposure, but it's also possible that many of these effects are exaggerated in your own experience (and through amplification through others' experiences). There could be a kernel of truth to everything, literally everything could be technically true, but your gauge of the effect could be completely off and exacerbated by again threat sensitivity and fear-based narratives which core biological function is to amplify things in your mind.

The orienting framework for this is the concept of "control", which can be deduced from the concept of autonomy (feeling like being in control of your actions) and competence (feeling like you're able to exert control through your abilities). These are cornerstones of feeling like you are able to exert control and influence over your surroundings and in your life in general. What happens when you feel like you lack control? You develop various symptoms of negative emotion and cognition: Anxiety: a state of hypervigilance, which may involve a worry about what may happen in the future that will lead to a bad outcome (or not happen the way you want it to go, the way you are willing to it go if you could control it). With worry, it's the feeling of lack of control projected into the future. It might not necessarily involve a specific (lack of) competancy but maybe a general one like inability to predict the future (i.e. uncertainty), which is a potent cause of anxiety. Rumination: thinking about something that went bad in the past, a goal you didn't achieve, or some problem you seem to be unable to get over or solve. It's the feeling of lack of control projected into the past (or the immediate past if it's happening concurrently, a.k.a. "now" but still in the form of a thought so still technically the past). Getting stuck in endless "problemsolving" that goes nowhere is a typical sign of rumination. Depression: which might involve helplessness (not knowing what to do or how to do it, and therefore not doing anything) or hopelessness (not thinking this will ever change). These are less operational forms of feelings of lack of control as they don't entertain or mobilize for action (unlike in anxiety and rumination) but simply cease or accept that no action will work. This manifests physically as (or is associated with) psychomotor retardation, low mood, low energy, the typical "immobilizing" symptoms of depression. You could think of depression in the form of helplessless and hopelessness as the extreme endpoints of negative emotion and cognition, because they represent the extreme endpoints of feeling of lack of control ("nothing works, nothing will ever work"), and because while anxiety and rumination might not necessarily involve depression, depression often involves anxiety and rumination. And how does mindfulness, spirituality, cognitive flexibility, deal with these issues of lack of control (e.g. meditation, letting go of identification, etc.)? You might simply accept the lack of control and thus gain control in that (i.e. you identify with whatever is happening and it's you, so nothing bad can ever really happen, nothing really needs to be controlled, because it's fine anyway whatever happens). Acceptance is the very pure mirror image of helplessness and hopelessness, because you are always able to let go and opt out of the need to control and therefore opt into absolute control (as opposed to being perpetually stuck). But do you want to let go? That is always the issue. That's the crux of all the world's problems. But still, it's a good thing to have in the toolbox, a good thing to be aware of, and a good thing to know that you can orient yourself towards when you perhaps realize everything else is hopeless (be it due to depression or simply knowing nothing in life will every fulfill you at the deepest level, will never alleviate your suffering at the root, only temporarily soothe it). Because, the cognitive machinery associated with anxiety, worry, rumination, depression, is always active to some degree as long you are identified with that which needs to survive. The brain and the organism evolved these things because it was good for surviving (predicting things in the future, keeping account of things in the past, honestly judging your feeling of progress and performance). So as long you identify with survival, that is what you will experience to some degree or another (unless you are in complete control and acting perfectly in accordance with your autonomy and competence, which is possible to a huge extent that many might not appreciate but is still a relatively rare and even fragile state: this is where the emotions and cognitions take on a highly positive and excited and passionate form like the creative and productive states you can get in while working on something meaningful or doing something you love; the self-referential machinery flips over to the self-transcendent and self-actualizing machinery). But you will probably keep doing that for a while more so it's good to know these things until then.

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

Meh.

The more primal in a survival sense (and placement in the triune brain, e.g. reptile brain), and the more self-referential, the lower. Anger is when you run into an obstacle inhibiting your movement. Pride is when you overcome the obstacle or simply move very successfully. Thinking about yourself in the past overcoming obstacles or moving successfully is self-referential. Gratitude may involve thinking about yourself in the past or simply appreciating something in the present, e.g. the food you're eating. It's essentially reminding yourself of the love you have for a thing and cultivating that love. It's not about you, as much as the thing you're grateful for. Notice me saying essentially "fuck your achievements" and how if you feel pride, the pride turns to anger, as I've become yet another obstacle to maintain that pride. While if your "achievements" are just a continual expression of joy, it doesn't matter what you think of them.

Pride is a low emotion just above anger. It's mostly not worth focusing your time and attention on (unless you're working with the emotion). It's something you release when it happens (if appropriate) and get on with it. Try something like gratitude instead.

Why is everything a conspiracy theory 🫠

When I first watched Breaking Bad, I was around 18-19 years old, and I used to identify much more with Walt than I did when I re-watched the show at an older age. Then I noticed that Walt was kinda an asshole right from the start. And if you dig into the vague story around his time with Grey Matter and his relationship with Gretchen, it becomes a possibility that this was an ingrained thing. Whatever happened that made him break up with Gretchen and exit Grey Matter for 5k USD (the cause seems very vague but was at least somewhat interpersonal in nature), it could have been due to some dark traits in Walter already, but it definitely left him with great resentment and insecurity when the company later skyrocketed to billionaire status (allegedly mostly based on his work, his ideas). This darkness, irrespective of how ingrained it was, seemed to be the core fuel behind his increasingly outrageous decisions. But if you are willing to overlook those small details and identify with him as the seemingly good guy he appears to be at the start, you can identify with him all throughout the show, and that's a masterful display and lesson of how ego works. Whatever outrageous decision is made, seems understandable, because you identified with him from the start, and you are gradually taken through all the justifications, all the defenses Walter makes for why he does it. And it even makes you actively dislike the characters that are actually good: it's a huge phenomena that people hate Skyler or Marie in the show. They are seen as obstacles, they try to put a stop to Walt, and it causes anger and resentment when you identify with Walt. All in all, it's a genius display of how ego works, made possible by the formula of taking a seemingly good guy and turning him gradually bad, and you again have to work through all the same justifications and ego defense mechanisms as he does, as it's happening, and that's as exciting as it's disconcerting. It makes you question whether you could be bad (which you are of course, by virtue of identifying with yourself to begin with, but specifically in the criminal sense).

AI - disqualified

@enchanted Ah, just two gay guys talking about how porn turns you gay. You know what, Nick has a gift for orating and producing easy-to-follow thoughts (even if they're right-wing slop). He will go far if he doesn't get *political environment in US*-ed.

Have you tried meaning? It's my understanding that in nature, we didn't just walk around alone and doing nothing. We did useful stuff, with other people, for other people. Just like a monk can endure isolation in a grey prison cell or cave through meditation, a normal person can endure the grey life of the concrete jungle through meaning.

Eat tons of veggies and fibrous foods. Make at least 50% of your meal in weight be veggies or fruits. And that means every meal, no "snacks" allowed (unless it's veggies or fruits). If that alone doesn't work, up the percentage of fruits and veggies and/or protein intake. If that doesn't work (which if you do it right, should basically be impossible), eat the same amounts of food every day, and if you don't lose weight, reduce some amount of food.

Closing your eyes in silence for 50-60 minutes works too. But of course living in an environment for the next 23 hours of the day has an impact. I want to go out in nature more too a lot of the time. Sometimes I get stuck merely scrolling through Google Images of natural environments often near me.

You have natural on your mind a lot.

It's a CUP OF JOE (and testosterone). The guy has always been like that though, he's just an explosive individual, pro wrestler, powerlifter. Actually ADHD. Btw, this is the guy I recommend watching for lifting advice. Take advice from somebody who actually loves lifting and does it for fun and has an intuitive understanding for what works and doesn't fill his head with a bunch of crap (and he's not exactly a dumbass either, he has a degree in kinesiology, which is about as relevant of a degree you can have, unlike more physiology-focused exercise science degrees a la Mr. Mike Israetel and the loads upon loads of academic delusional rabbit holes those guys dig themselves down in). All the "science-based lifters" are the Looksmaxxing of lifting. Completely soulless, lifeless, body dysmorphia-driven and skewed priorities and probably even wrong most of the time. Any lifting "coach" that makes lifting into something depression-inducing and life-draining should be fired immediately.

I saw them live last year. I could not stop nodding my head to the music. I never thought I would end up enjoying that kind of music. My signature is like a Meshuggah lyric. It's un-non-noddable once you get the song. And of course that can be a challenge because the way they write the songs is more like deriving a mathematical formula than "playing from the soul" as they say (which has pros and cons, but damn, sometimes it's just beautiful). They essentially write their music as if it's electronic music and then they play it on their instruments (they use a drum machine and try to find an odd-time rhytmical pattern that they repeat in a certain way over a straight time signature, and that's their creative process most of the time; so much for "nobody buys a song for its rhythm" 🤪). And can I just say the massive cojones it takes to perform that particular song live with the whole band playing at the same time in the studio and that being used for the album (of course while splicing together the best parts from multiple performances, but still)? These guys are tighter than a box of sardines. Let me re-iterate: the sounds you are hearing in this particular YouTube video is the entire band playing live.

Holy BUCKETS!

10:54

I'm not so sure he is drawing the inference "the void is x therefore I must live better". It was rather a thought he had in the void. This is more of the issue of (Leo) declaring thoughts in the void and without as "Absolute x". It did not occur to me that Bryan was declaring he is now delivering the gospel of Truth as he experienced it in the void. He was sharing a thought from the void. When he said "it is impossible to explain with words. Whatever you imagine, multiply it by 1,000 and then add infinite width and depth and dimensions", that seemed more like he was trying to convey the actual experience of the void itself. You know, not everyone is a "epistemic pervert" as they say.

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.

It's exactly if you think "grasping the Absolute" implies it necessarily is not that way, you haven't actually grasped the message, only made faulty implications about it. It's to overstep and make it complicated (which has more or less become the entire shtick with this place), and then view those who don't do that with condescension, that's to not grasp the message.