Elon Musk Life Style

[Edvard]

Would you say an Elon Musk life style goes against self-actualization? I mean, he is an important figure for humanity, and may end up being crucial to the existence of the human race, certainly if it turns out that going to Mars will become an urge. He has also sped up the usage of electric vehicles. Is it stupid trying to do that, you think? Leo mentioned him among others in his video called "Successful People Are Not Happy". Actually, Musk sort of confirms that himself, with this interesting conversation with him (at 32:30 in the video):

What do you people think about what he is doing, and about aiming to be like him?

Edited July 17, 2017 by Edvard

[alyra]

I think that when you're someone with Musk's level of vision and analytic thinking, it's depressing to try to connect with others because you're always thinking about stuff they aren't talking about. you always sorta have to "dumb down" what you're pondering when talking to people. Tho, it is arrogant to say it that way - and you know it - because they are worth their life just like you - but you just are thinking on a higher level from other people, and they don't follow you in conversation, and it can be frustrating. 

 

 

I can't really speak as to what Musk was referring to about why he doesn't think his life is as great as it sounds. But if I were in his shoes, that is the reason mainly which I'd be depressed. I already feel that way and it's confusing because I'm not at all successful... so really it is not that I am intelligent, but instead that I'm too neurotic. and maybe that would make such a position of not meeting people who think like you different than what I described, more ashamed. but idk. I just wish to be fulfilled with these thoughts, but the pacing of anything I interact with feels too slow. again, I dunno if this is what Musk might face nor do I even know if this concern is reality or just some strange belief I've fabricated. But it's one of the things that I struggle with myself, which would effect me more greatly if I were successful - I'd accomplish all these exciting things and the exact reason why they're so exciting for me isn't shared by the people who take advantage of the free lunch. If I'd have fame with people coming to talk to me like it happens with musk... the game I'd be playing is figuring out how to play the game of what the people are talking about, to both piggyback their questions and impress them. and that's kind of inauthentic, inherently. it's a compromise that feels immoral to do. I would try not to think of people as pawns but they'd essentially be that - because they are too busy caring about things that are superficial and shallow. While I'd be caring about complexities and future possibilities to a deep, intricate level. 

[alyra]

actually I am often drawn to people like musk and leo and - well not so much tyson 'cause he's pretty arogant and too focused on making fun of religious folk lol. But the level of thinking they have is astounding - I want to be there, talking to them, exploring their thought process, trying to keep up with it - maybe I can, I wouldn't be as knowledgeable tho. but in my ignorance I'd have exploration - and I'm a natural intuitive thinker, so I'd jump around on them and come up with thoughts they hadn't yet, some of which wouldn't matter and would seem kinda silly and that'd be embarrassing. but others of which would make them furrow their brow in consideration or even raise it in surprise - and then I'd know I was worth talking to. 

[Arkandeus]

enlightenment is never limitation, both successful and unsuccessful people can be enlightened. 

and I hereby use the term ''successful'' as it is used now in modern society.

in spiritual terms everyone is successful just for being here,being another flower of infinity
the ''average joe'' that shoots guns and likes to get drunk at bars is just as important as einstein or your favourite president. 

to see past the flashy parts of life, and see that everything is truely equal is a major lesson. 
but once you see it you feel it, the truth is there, and it feels good, these are things that cannot be explained, faith is needed, then the understanding lets itself be felt

Edited July 17, 2017 by Arkandeus

[Edvard]

@Arkandeus

Yeah, but Leo's making some videos about slowing down, and not being busy. Musk works extremely much, and is said to eat his dinners while solving problems. I read a book about him, and he is said to have wished he didn't need to eat food, and if he could inject energy into his body otherwise he would prefer that rather than wasting time eating. Of course, this is also a lot of the reason he became as successful.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Edvard

[Mondsee]

@Edvard I haven't watched Leo's video on successful unhappy people, but in Elon Musk's case I am guessing that he went all out for the material shiny success, and he is very smart and a real hard worker, so he attained it, but now that he has it, he realizes it isn't the treasure what will make him happy and satisfied.

Maybe that answer of not being sure if people should strive to be like himself is himself starting to notice that money and "success" as normally defined isn't really the treasure he is looking for. He has now two paths, to keep his work and his life as it is, not feeling quite realized, or giving up that kind of success and start looking for what will make him whole. That doesn't mean he will stop doing what he does, but that he will give up doing it for economic growth.

Also: his purpose deep down, maybe isn't so noble, and it should for him not to feel empty. If you consider his research on taking humans to Mars, it's like a desperate attempt to save humanity's ass even if we destroy planet Earth, so that actually encourages an unsustainable lifestyle here, and "it doesn't matter, 'cause we'll solve it with technology that'll take us away, at least to those of us who can pay for it" (this is not a quote from EM). It is even as if he was doing the Tesla cars just to give him some extra time to work on the Mars project, I mean, a lot of speculation here, but why care so much for green energy if you're working to leave the planet anyways?

[Edvard]

@Mondsee Elon Musk has said "he likes Earth", and has many times talked about the importance of taking care of our home planet. While studying at college, he was wondering about what would be the most important areas for humanity in the coming future, and figured it would be internet, sustainable energy, and space exploration. He just figured he wanted to make a big progress to the world. He probably does have a noble purpose, and I would say nothing else makes sense to believe if you have studied his life. I mean, in his early twenties he sold paypal to eBay for more than $300 million dollars. Most "egoic" internet millionaires would at that point pretty much retire. But with this amount of money, Elon saw the opportunity to make progress in space, eventually making humanity multiplanitary, after seeing that nobody else had any plans for this. NASA wasn't saying anything about it on their web sites, this was in the early 2000s. So he figured, if humanity doesn't make sure to at some point leave the planet, we will eventually go extinct, either from natural or climate disasters or eventually the sun will soak up the Earth, and he thought that would be "incredibly sad". He has also stated that he had "sort of an existential crisis in his childhood, and concluded that the only thing that makes sense is doing good, if not, everything is meaningless".

He has been reported to have a seemingly high ego at moments in his carreer, but in the end, Musk to me seems like a very humble person, just wanting the best for us all. 

He has several times said that he suspects the chance we not are in a simulation to be one in billions. What person with a big ego says that?? 

Edited July 17, 2017 by Edvard

[Mondsee]

3 minutes ago, Edvard said:

He has several times said the he suspects the chance we not are in a simulation is 1 in billions. What person with a big ego says that?? 

Nope, he wouldn't. Based on this, the problem isn't that he is lacking a noble purpose and has a big ego.

I believe he might be at the point where regardless of what he is doing, he found the treasure and realizes that "shit, my happiness won't come from the outside", and therefore he says that people shouldn't seek to be like him.

[Leo Gura]

Classic workaholic, addicted to success and progress, but lacking consciousness.

Addiction to success isn't about getting more money. It's about addiction to more, more, more...

He's a hamster in a wheel and doesn't even know it.

The proper move for him would be to quit all his businesses and go live in a Zen monastery for 10 years. Then he'd understand what's up. But that's almost impossible for him to do at this point. Because he's so invested in his work and the identity he's created for himself. The media's idolization of him isn't helping. It just feeds into his identity even more.

Can you imagine how psychologically difficult it is for him to abandon everything he's worked to hard to build?

The problem here is really simple: don't confuse success, progress, wealth, or contribution to mankind with happiness, consciousness, or growth. Sounds like this would be obvious enough that such a smart guy as Musk would get it. But it takes real self-honesty and awareness to grasp the significance of something so obvious and counter-intuitive.

[Edvard]

@Leo Gura What if he just accepts «sacrifying» his consciousness to help humanity, if that makes any sense? After all, if it turns out going to Mars is necessary to save humanity, how would that happen quickly enough if it wasn't for a person like Elon Musk? Of course, you could say it doesn't really matter, if you raise your consciousness enough to understand that the world is really an illusion (Musk seems to understand that we're pretty insignificant in terms of his simulation theory, though), but you're making a pretty big impact, if that matters at all. But, on the other hand, you can ask: what makes our species so important? Egoic consciousness, I may guess? 

The funny thing is, I share Musks purpose of helping making humanity multiplanitary, through knowledge in physics. Would you advice me to change my purpose, then?

Every day I'm saying this for 5 minutes straight: "I'm thinking abstractly, making humanity multiplanitary". Then I do 5 mins of visualization...

And what do you really mean when you're incouraging drudgery to reach one's goals (ref. Life Purpose Course)? When do you become a workaholic, and how do you even know that Musk is a workaholic just because he works so much? I guess I could sort of imagine it, when thinking about it though... It's probably not a self actualized life if it's all about work, but hey, here's an other quote I want to share from Musk: "Life has to be more than just solving problems".

Edited July 17, 2017 by Edvard

[Joel3102]

It's a shame so many of the smartest minds go to just more success, progress, technology, rationalism etc. Seems to be that way because they have a blind spot from realising the limits of thinking and concepts. Imagine a world where the default for the most brilliant was consciousness and not success, it would be such a better place. 

[art]

@Leo Gura (but Leooo) At least he is open to the idea that the world as we live in is a simulation  .

I'm thinking about other workaholics making a positive impact developing medicines, vaccines, helping children, saving the climate and fighting cancer etc. Good for us who sits on our ass meditating in a cave when we get diseases that our healer can't cure. Well, I hope some day that you get to line up all these "junkies" and give them some 30mg of 5-meo-dmt up their nose thrills,

 

[Dragallur]

@Edvard You have a good point I do not think that everybody needs to be happy. Maybe some people will sacrifice their happiness to do something else, like help to spread humans on other planets (if that is a good idea is not the point of course and who knows what will happen in the future).

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Edvard said:

What if he just accepts «sacrifying» his consciousness to help humanity, if that makes any sense?

A) You cannot accept something you're not conscious of. His "sacrifice" is out of ignorance.

B) He would be able to help humanity more if he first made himself consciousness of what consciousness is.

C) What humanity needs most is not more technology, but consciousness! We have enough technology to all live happily forever. What we lack is the consciousness necessary to do so. Technology without consciousness is the greatest existential threat to humanity. So he may very well end up killing us all. That's what happens when you put the cart before the horse.

I don't want to sound like I'm criticizing him or that he's a bad guy. He's not a bad guy. He's doing the best he knows. He's just not conscious of the bigger picture and how he's robbing himself of joy.

Jesus wasn't kidding when he said: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." That's the case here. When you have 15 billion dollars, it's extremely hard to give up that kind of power. You become its slave.

[Edvard]

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What humanity needs most is not more technology, but consciousness! We have enough technology to all live happily forever. What we lack is the consciousness necessary to do so. Technology without consciousness is the greatest existential threat to humanity. So he may very well end up killing us all. That's what happens when you put the cart before the horse.

Yes, but the Earth won't survive long with today's level of consciousness, will it? So by creating civilizations on other planets, at least we ensure humanity to survive, when saving this planet may (or may not) be too late. Someone else, like you, are suited for dealing with raising consciousness, and hopefully humanity gets a high enough consciousness in time, so going to Mars won't be necessary... Is this going well, looking at the world as a whole, would you say?

Edited July 17, 2017 by Edvard

[Leo Gura]

@Edvard You cannot escape the consciousness problem. Going to Mars will not solve anything. All your consciousness problems will come with you. If humanity cannot make on this planet, it certainly won't make it on Mars.

I'm not saying he has to become an enlightenment teacher. But he would benefit from becoming enlightened himself. That would give him a proper sense of priorities and recontextualize all his technological striving. It would also make him happy.

What is the point of changing the whole world if you cannot be happy? Sacrificing one's own happiness is NOT a solution. It's ignorance. If even a billionaire cannot be happy and pursue consciousness, what hope does that give the rest of the world? It says we're all screwed. Given his power, he could have a massive impact on the world's collective consciousness if he first became conscious himself.

All this just goes to show the depth of the consciousness problem. It's VERY deep.

[Edvard]

@Leo Gura If a high consciousness group of people go to Mars, I guess, and at least human consciousness will survive longer, giving it a chance to develop further. Anyway, the alternative is to stay here and die here, so why not try, if going to another planet is the only option? It's die or escape. Sure, there will be some problems, can't deny that. But what's the option if you can't do anything about the people who are destroying the planet you live on?

But I have to agree that it's definitely preferable to raise consciousness first, if possible.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Edvard

[Leo Gura]

@Edvard High consciousness people are not gonna go to Mars, because the people in charge of the mission are themselves not conscious enough to realize the importance of that.

[Edvard]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

High consciousness people are not gonna go to Mars, because the people in charge of the mission are themselves not conscious enough to realize the importance of that.

The importance of what? Consciousness? So Elon Musk definitely doesn't understand the importance of that? Well, there certainly are worse people than him. He seems like a decent starting point on a new planet.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Edvard

[Ananta]

@Edvard Of bringing high conscious people.