Paradigm Lock - WATCH OUT!

[Roy]

I stumbled across this channel again after forgetting about it for 5 or 6 years; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwUizOU8pPWXdXNniXypQEQ

I recall back then laughing and enjoyed some funny harmless skits he made poking fun at vegans, hippies, etc, what have you. Not a big deal. Now it seems he's amassed quite a large following and the format has basically tripled down on that formula. Like many other online personas, it's all very conveniently predictable what they are going to say, who they are for/opposed to, and so on. You go to them to get a certain hit of whatever narrative you like, without any anticipation of meaningful challenge or reflection.

Just to sum it up - with this guy it's just everything anti-Liberal. If it goes against them explicitly or even mildly, he's supporting it. If it's something for them..... well take a wild guess. Essentially he's pinned himself completely in Stage Orange. I'm guessing because of a combination of him actually believing what he says, and the fact it's obviously lucrative for his survival to keep doing so. I would probably bet both my kidneys he'll die on this hill to, and won't be much different another 5 years from now. Regardless I'm not just pointing it out to make fun of him or shame it. That's not very interesting to me.

The point is it got me reflecting quite a bit. Who was I 5 years ago? Do I still value all the same things? How have I changed? And am I still the same person?

At the risk of not sounding humble, I'm glad the answer is NO I'm not the same. In a lot of ways I still feel the same, but my values and worldview have also gone through a metamorphosis of sorts. Different enough that I couldn't have even remotely predicted back then, who I would be now. It's either been for better or worse, by my intuition says it's been a good thing.

It makes me feel grateful I came across this work, and for my own muse pushing me towards the idea that it is really important to be constantly challenging and developing yourself. I remember being a lot like this guy back then, dabbling in a lot of the same ideas. Not that it's a bad thing to entertain certain ideas. My point here is more that I consider myself lucky I didn't settle in to those ideas and get stuck, locked in a paradigm. With no real sight of where to get out. Looking back there are times when I was quite close.

Ultimately with this thread I wanted to ask everyone;

How different are YOU from yourself 5 years ago? What fundamental change have you noticed? Are your values the same?

So yea, watch out for paradigm lock! Zoom out eagle eye on your life now and then and see where you're at. To actualize is to always be constantly evolving and shedding versions of yourself like reptile skin, even when it's uncomfortable.

[Preety_India]

Five years ago I was a white Supremacist. I thought white race was the best race on planet earth. This is because I was (against my will and knowledge) brainwashed by a white supremacist (not knowing that he was one) into believing that white race was an endangered race. I don't even know how that made sense to me back then but apparently it did somehow. The brainwashing worked quite well on me as I signed up to be a part of that guy's group. Long story short, I finally abandoned that White Supremacist group on the insistence of my then American boyfriend (now ex), who is white ... And finally got rid of that evil curse of a group. 

 

How am I different from who I was back then? 

Radically different. I developed sensitivity to other races that I lacked back then. I became more aware of issues within different racial minority groups. It's a 180° degree shift. 

Back then I would have described myself as a typical American conservative hillbilly kind of a person. Today I'm more of a leftist liberal. 

I was also a Trump supporter back then and I had even contributed to the Trump campaign. 

Today i have great disdain for Trump and trump supporters because my values have radically changed and so have my perception of Trump and GOP, I am grateful that I woke up to the cancerous ideologies of the right. 

 

Although both are ideologically stubborn, I find my leftist sentiments and opinions far better, grounded, holistic than right wing mentality. 

I try to achieve a middle ground between conservative and liberal opinions. 

Big change from who I was 5 years ago. 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by Preety_India

[aurum]

@Roy

Yeah JPs trajectory has been rough to watch. He went from making pretty funny and insightful satire on the spiritual community to full right-winger. Reminds me of Elliot Hulse. Not coincidentally, they’ve done some content together recently.

I think we like to think of people moving up in consciousness in a linear way, always becoming more aware / spiritual. But it seems that is not the case. People backslide hard and regress as well at times.

The scariest part of course is that these same people always believe they are right. And I also believe I am right, so what if I’m just as delusional? What if all the work I’ve put in has pulled me away from God/consciousness instead of towards it? I don’t think that’s the case, but I do feel it can be useful to consider as long as you don’t go into chronic, crippling self-doubt.

To answer your question, five years ago I was in many ways a completely different person. I was just getting my feet wet with spirituality and having some of my first mystical experiences. I spent a ton of my time doing pickup. In general I feel way happier with my life and feel like my understanding has grown by leaps and bounds in the those five years. Extremely excited to see how the next five will play out.

 

[Leo Gura]

His satire was always off because it came from below not above, and his audience is not wise enough to know the difference.

The rise of Trumpism and anti-wokism has simply made that difference very clear.

[4201]

3 hours ago, aurum said:

 

The scariest part of course is that these same people always believe they are right. And I also believe I am right, so what if I’m just as delusional? What if all the work I’ve put in has pulled me away from God/consciousness instead of towards it? I don’t think that’s the case, but I do feel it can be useful to consider as long as you don’t go into chronic, crippling self-doubt.

You can't pull yourself away from yourself my friend. This idea that there are layers of beliefs that "stack" onto one another and you have to remove them "one by one" and if you "do it wrong" you get "more stacks of ideas" stacking up which make you "more and more delusional" is a total delusion. =) There's just "thinking" there's no such thing as "distance" from yourself or God. You are it and you are free to believe anything you want about yourself. But this idea of distance or "amount of thoughts" is just one more thought about yourself.

Feeling will always let you know if you are delusional. There is no such thing as negative regression when it comes to life because everything is part of your path. The only way there could be regression is if you judge something as being "not useful" or "harmful" to your learning, but if that ever happens, a lesson will be learned and the lesson will make the experience useful. e.g. Even if you go into a path that seems like a dead-end, now you know it was a dead-end. Doing things that create pain or "waste time" is part of the learning process.

If JP believes right-wing ideologies for a while before getting a more nuanced systems-thinking understanding of our political system then it's part of his path. If he's prioritizing money over truth like OP said then living the experience of doing that and feeling the pain this dishonesty brings him is part of the path. IMO, JP seems to have a relatively deep emotional understanding by looking at his old non-satire videos. I just think this is him getting stuck at the entrance of stage yellow. He totally lack nuance and it seems to me his problem is rooted in the lack of understanding of the data he's presenting.

By saying "this is regression" or "that was a waste of time" or "this didn't contribute to my path" you are basically de-legitimizing part of your experience instead of learning from that part of your experience. This creates a notion of "what constitute progress" and what doesn't which might imply constant self-evaluation. Are you right now progressing on your path or regressing? Was it useful reading my message, what if you meditated instead? Are you training your mind to procrastinate and use social medias or are you training it to do the things you want? IMO, none of those self-evaluations will actually help doing the things you want, they are basically just fear of doing something detrimental. But the way we learn is literally by doing unwanted things, so absolutely nothing is detrimental. There's absolutely no fear to have as long as you feel.

 

Sorry for the long post, this was beneficial to me. I also tend to de-legitimize parts of my life and fear regression. Perhaps I am only projecting onto you, but at last, your comment sparked this insight in me and I might as well share it.

Edited January 11, 2022 by 4201

[Space Lizard]

Five years ago I was perfect. I haven't changed a thing.

[vizual]

You could say the same about woke fundamentalist leftists. It’s funny that people on this forum equate fundamentalism only to right wing people, because there’s as much idiocy going on the left. If you don’t recognize this you are probably in a ‘paradigm lock’ yourself.

[Apparition of Jack]

@vizual the difference is left-wing fundamentalism is still more conscious, loving, non-violent and adaptable than right-wing fundamentalism.

A few left-wing radicals might blow up an oil plant or cancel a celebrity for some remarks made 15 years ago - a few right-wing radicals will kill minorities and attempt a political coup to undermine democratic rights and implement a reactionary dictatorship.

They are not the same.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Apparition of Jack