I realized we are absolutely slaves to fear, too soft in the west

[Jayson G]

I completely accidentally came across the most mind-blowing podcast episode I ever listened to: 

For years, on and off I'd look into the history of North Korea, get some shocking insights, and go about my life. 

Of course, in the media these days we are forced to look into Israel, global politics, Gaza, Russia, China, etc. And of course, all these are absolutely critical things to look into. I'm not taking away from that. 

But this specific episode gives you a first hand account, where you're actually in her shoes as she goes from one "planet" to another "planet" to another "planet" (North Korea to China to South Korea to USA)

But I was really thinking about it. Very specifically, the psychology of North Koreans, and especially this girl who escaped North Korea to come to USA, just think about the psychology change. It is quite literally like going to a new planet. In fact, if us americans had to live on Mars, I believe that's still less of a shock to our system then this girl coming from North Korea to USA. Just to give you perspective, when she reached South Korea, her first taste of freedom, she was so terrified of the freedom. In North Korea, absolutely everything is controlled, except your breathing. So you literally don't think for yourself. She says there is no "I" vocabulary. It's only "we". She just followed orders. So to even just think for 5 minutes when she reached freedom in South Korea, learning to live in this world we all live in, she got very exhausted after just 5 minutes of thinking. That's how hard thinking was for her. 

And now she's very well-educated, well-spoken, intelligent, compassionate, and is a public speaker, even talked to the UN, etc. I mean I started reflecting on my life, and realized how soft I am, and most americans are. 

Just contrast that way of life I described to most americans lives: 

video games, devices all day, staying in your room all day, food just handed to you. 

She was describing how her friend in US would complain about some guy not calling her back, and it was shocking to her because that's such a small problem compared to what she went through. These are often our biggest problems in US, some stupid relationship issue, or whatever. 

I personally have OCD, so I noticed something strange, I get so perfectionist at times, that even when I open the bathroom door, I have to make sure I'm going about that right. It's hard to articulate. But my point is, we are not exposed to deep uncertainty. This girl was. She had no choice. If her mom left to get food, she had no clue when she'd be back or if she'd even come back. When she's going through the desert to get to South Korea from China, she had no clue if she'd get shot at the border or not. She was prepared to die (brought poison along with her). We in the west need so much certainty: We need to know what everything around us is, we look for the people around us to make sure we're in safe environments doing safe things, we outsource our critical thinking to AI and other human beings and authority. This is just one angle of a multi-faceted angle of how fearful we are, how soft we are. 

I really then took a hard look at how fearful I am, and here's what I came up with: 

We spend decades in fear of other humans, innocent, harmless humans, often caring humans, to talk to these humans. Why? It's honestly so shocking if you think about it, this idea of avoidance of other humans out of social anxiety. It's so petty, when looked at directly. If we weren't so soft, I don't think this would be an issue at all. And what about all the other petty sht we fantasize about for hours and hours a day, petty motivations we pursue for decades out of fear of not pursuing a much higher purpose, a higher purpose that makes these petty fantasies look like a dream you woke up from. 

Sorry to go on a rant, but I've been in this personal development game for many years now and I guess this was just a really big wake up call for me. I'm going to now make some important changes in how I live my life. I need to learn fearless living. I think its absolutely underrated just how fearful we are. It's masked, so utterly masked by modern living. I'm not saying I'm right about all this, Im sort of just thinking this through, but yeah changes need to be made. 

 

Edited September 20 by Jayson G

[Staples]

Being hardened is not necessarily better than being softened. They are appropriate in different contexts.

The point is not to be tough or weak, but appropriate to any context.

[Leo Gura]

16 minutes ago, Jayson G said:

I need to learn fearless living.

You can jumpstart your journey by moving to North Korea 

[Jayson G]

@Leo Gura .. yeah I would barely last 3 weeks if I did lol .. I need a more practical non-life-threatening plan of course

 

[Jayson G]

7 minutes ago, Staples said:

Being hardened is not necessarily better than being softened. They are appropriate in different contexts.

The point is not to be tough or weak, but appropriate to any context.

@Staples I see your point, and I agree, but from the lens that I'm currently looking at it, there is still deep fear inside that is not being conquered if you're just coasting through life handling things and adapting contextual to the circumstances. At the end of the day, you're still a deeply fearful person inside, but its masked. No deep work has been done to conquer those fears. I'm looking at it, in this case, from the angle that say this girl would look at a typical westerner given the fears she had to conquer in her life, which I don't think Ive seen many people do.

[Princess Arabia]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You can jumpstart your journey by moving to North Korea 

Lol

[Sandhu]

@Leo Gura 😁😁

[Epikur]

5 hours ago, Jayson G said:

I completely accidentally came across the most mind-blowing podcast episode I ever listened to: 

For years, on and off I'd look into the history of North Korea, get some shocking insights, and go about my life. 

Of course, in the media these days we are forced to look into Israel, global politics, Gaza, Russia, China, etc. And of course, all these are absolutely critical things to look into. I'm not taking away from that. 

But this specific episode gives you a first hand account, where you're actually in her shoes as she goes from one "planet" to another "planet" to another "planet" (North Korea to China to South Korea to USA)

But I was really thinking about it. Very specifically, the psychology of North Koreans, and especially this girl who escaped North Korea to come to USA, just think about the psychology change. It is quite literally like going to a new planet. In fact, if us americans had to live on Mars, I believe that's still less of a shock to our system then this girl coming from North Korea to USA. Just to give you perspective, when she reached South Korea, her first taste of freedom, she was so terrified of the freedom. In North Korea, absolutely everything is controlled, except your breathing. So you literally don't think for yourself. She says there is no "I" vocabulary. It's only "we". She just followed orders. So to even just think for 5 minutes when she reached freedom in South Korea, learning to live in this world we all live in, she got very exhausted after just 5 minutes of thinking. That's how hard thinking was for her. 

And now she's very well-educated, well-spoken, intelligent, compassionate, and is a public speaker, even talked to the UN, etc. I mean I started reflecting on my life, and realized how soft I am, and most americans are. 

Just contrast that way of life I described to most americans lives: 

video games, devices all day, staying in your room all day, food just handed to you. 

She was describing how her friend in US would complain about some guy not calling her back, and it was shocking to her because that's such a small problem compared to what she went through. These are often our biggest problems in US, some stupid relationship issue, or whatever. 

I personally have OCD, so I noticed something strange, I get so perfectionist at times, that even when I open the bathroom door, I have to make sure I'm going about that right. It's hard to articulate. But my point is, we are not exposed to deep uncertainty. This girl was. She had no choice. If her mom left to get food, she had no clue when she'd be back or if she'd even come back. When she's going through the desert to get to South Korea from China, she had no clue if she'd get shot at the border or not. She was prepared to die (brought poison along with her). We in the west need so much certainty: We need to know what everything around us is, we look for the people around us to make sure we're in safe environments doing safe things, we outsource our critical thinking to AI and other human beings and authority. This is just one angle of a multi-faceted angle of how fearful we are, how soft we are. 

I really then took a hard look at how fearful I am, and here's what I came up with: 

We spend decades in fear of other humans, innocent, harmless humans, often caring humans, to talk to these humans. Why? It's honestly so shocking if you think about it, this idea of avoidance of other humans out of social anxiety. It's so petty, when looked at directly. If we weren't so soft, I don't think this would be an issue at all. And what about all the other petty sht we fantasize about for hours and hours a day, petty motivations we pursue for decades out of fear of not pursuing a much higher purpose, a higher purpose that makes these petty fantasies look like a dream you woke up from. 

Sorry to go on a rant, but I've been in this personal development game for many years now and I guess this was just a really big wake up call for me. I'm going to now make some important changes in how I live my life. I need to learn fearless living. I think its absolutely underrated just how fearful we are. It's masked, so utterly masked by modern living. I'm not saying I'm right about all this, Im sort of just thinking this through, but yeah changes need to be made. 

 

Some say she is kind of a fraud but whatever. I saw a documentary where young people who came from NK to SK actually wanted to go back because SK was too competitive. They could not integrate.

[Lyubov]

Careful with these comparisons 

it’s one thing to have insight and see the many differences in the lives of people, communities and countries. It’s another to think one aspect or experience from one applies to or is appropriate for another. Nothing is by coincidence yet everything is unfolding. 

You could be born into NK and live some life with a severe lack of food and wellbeing. Yet be born into a great community in the USA and the. get shot in the back by some gunman or get cancer. 
 

 

[Fadl]

I wonder if her boobs were real 

[Nemra]

The grass is always greener on the other side, regardless of which grass is actually better.

[Jayson G]

There's a video leo made a while back, I saw it years ago, where he says if you want to get in touch with real survival, go to the canadian wild in the winter or something, and carry minimal stuff, and get in touch with real survival. Contrast that to modern day life, if we're not in touch with real survival, it feels like there's a lot of fantasy living going on. 

Idk about others but I often try to make life like a movie, compare my life to harry potter or something, and i even like doing that, but I realized it takes me away from true survival. Maybe that can be incorporated to some degree in life, romance, fantasy, art, philosophy, etc. But without a foundation of being in touch with true survival, idk something feels fake about that. 

Edited September 20 by Jayson G

[shenanigans]

9 hours ago, Epikur said:

Some say she is kind of a fraud but whatever. I saw a documentary where young people who came from NK to SK actually wanted to go back because SK was too competitive. They could not integrate.

@Epikur 

Im guessing some kind of stock-hold reaction from dramatic culture shock.

That, and learning to utilize one's personal thinking muscles for the first time.

14 hours ago, Jayson G said:

@Staples I see your point, and I agree, but from the lens that I'm currently looking at it, there is still deep fear inside that is not being conquered if you're just coasting through life handling things and adapting contextual to the circumstances. At the end of the day, you're still a deeply fearful person inside, but its masked. No deep work has been done to conquer those fears. I'm looking at it, in this case, from the angle that say this girl would look at a typical westerner given the fears she had to conquer in her life, which I don't think Ive seen many people do.

+1

4 hours ago, Fadl said:

I wonder if her boobs were real 

@Fadl

Considering that she was a sex slave and she basically had no fat (Prior to South Korea & America)

Yeah...

Weren't bad either 😏

Edited September 21 by shenanigans

[Nightwise]

You're not wrong Jayson. I think so much of the west is so deeply unaware of how awful things can get because our standards of living are so high these days, yet we aren't really conscious of how good things are and we complain about things that are really very petty in comparison (and I do that too, sometimes).

It's funny to read the newspaper and read about all of this terrible sh*t going on in the world, and then read the newspaper section about 'local' news and read about how meaningless in comparison the problems are for people that live in my city (which is a good city to live in with high living standards)

I've listened to parts of "The Gulag Archipelago" Audiobook by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn before the relentless darkness expressed in the book just became too overwhelming to keep exposing myself to it (I went through quite a good bit of it, though). The book is about the Gulag system in the Soviet era. 

You'll realize that your problems are absolutely pathetic compared to what the Soviet citizen had to go through. Not that your problems aren't relevant in their own respect (and they need to be addressed and taken seriously if it contributes to your development/healing), but the problems many of the Soviet citizens (and still many people today) are going through are many orders of magnitude worse than what most people in the West are dealing with, and I am painfully aware of that.

I have experienced my own version of deep suffering and despair in a mental health crisis back in 2020, though. So I've had some taste of what it means to suffer deeply.

Edited September 21 by Nightwise

[gettoefl]

Fear is fragility, flaws, finitude, failures, foibles

You are weak and sinking without trace

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer

[Leo Gura]

A vacation to Yemen is a good way to go about this.

[Jayson G]

@Leo Gura I guess thats where the rubber really meets the road in this personal development journey .. but I prefer to stay on safe land thank you very much

[Jayson G]

5 hours ago, Nightwise said:

You're not wrong Jayson. I think so much of the west is so deeply unaware of how awful things can get because our standards of living are so high these days, yet we aren't really conscious of how good things are and we complain about things that are really very petty in comparison (and I do that too, sometimes).

It's funny to read the newspaper and read about all of this terrible sh*t going on in the world, and then read the newspaper section about 'local' news and read about how meaningless in comparison the problems are for people that live in my city (which is a good city to live in with high living standards)

I've listened to parts of "The Gulag Archipelago" Audiobook by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn before the relentless darkness expressed in the book just became too overwhelming to keep exposing myself to it (I went through quite a good bit of it, though). The book is about the Gulag system in the Soviet era. 

You'll realize that your problems are absolutely pathetic compared to what the Soviet citizen had to go through. Not that your problems aren't relevant in their own respect (and they need to be addressed and taken seriously if it contributes to your development/healing), but the problems many of the Soviet citizens (and still many people today) are going through are many orders of magnitude worse than what most people in the West are dealing with, and I am painfully aware of that.

I have experienced my own version of deep suffering and despair in a mental health crisis back in 2020, though. So I've had some taste of what it means to suffer deeply.

@Nightwise Exactly the line of thinking, Im thinking these days .. 

Though there's a tendency in my my mind to make our problems seem petty compared to these other countries, but of course I realized its more nuanced than that. 

Like as a whole, on a general level, yeah our problems are a lot more petty, our standard of living is a lot higher, we complain over little things, on a higher level, national level.

But on the individual level, there are of course many people deeply suffering in the west as well, for their own unique reasons, or even collective reasons. So I don't want to take away from that as well. Like you even mention about your mental health history. 

But even so our overall environment in the west is built structurally to be too damn comfortable. Im starting to sense that tons of problems are arising out of this structure. Just the way society is set up, not having to hunt our own food, not having to protect ourselves much, easy solutions to our problems, the list goes on. 

I'll check out this audiobook. I honestly know very little about Russia and its history. I've been meaning to dive deeper into that. I know though that they too have gone through extraordinary amounts of suffering over the decades, and still to this day.