Upgrading To The Maximum Level In Life

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-18-16]-->
Ad, Not Bad

If you've hung around the internet for long enough, you've probably come across some information that advertising companies like to get your browsing history that then get processed with computing algorithms to then sell you ads dedicated to your tastes. As shady as it is, that's not why I bring it up. The reason why I mention it is because I came across an internet advertising banner ad about "Creative Visualization". I figured that sort of thing was recommended to me because of my browsing habits being biased towards personal development material. This is probably the only internet ad I've ever actually got genuinely interested in (and of course, the word "FREE" was definitely alluring despite me knowing that it's a common marketing term).

The ad was for a free Creative Visualization video course. The catch of course was that you get asked if you want to pay for the full course which includes going to a live seminar. I'm not interested in the full course because the free content they offer seems to have been enough to convince me that the skill of visualization is something more significant that I originally gave it credit for. Leo's videos on visualization didn't really convince me that I needed the habit. The video below is the first video they show you in the free course. It got me to decide to start this new habit.
 

I would never have thought I would discover new ways of doing personal development by means of internet advertising. We all know most of the internet ads out there pander crap. I used to think ALL of them pander garbage. I even decided to take a look outside to make sure the sky isn't falling or if everyone suddenly decided to drive their cars in reverse.

Edited February 19, 2016 by MaxWare1997
Wrong date

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-19-16]-->
Regular Story

You know, I spend about 15 minutes walking to my college and more time going back home. I'd either just try to observe my surroundings but that's usually boring so I put on my headphones and listen to music during my walk most of the time. I don't know why I haven't come up with the idea earlier that I could listen to educational content instead. First of all, it's not boring and I get to learn some new stuff. I usually want to listen to podcasts and other long audio content when I'm working on anything not related to music like game development, coding, or doodling around in Photoshop.

The first thing I decided to listen to was an audio version of this video:

Oh yeah, I've also just uploaded a new Speedcore track to SoundCloud today. (I also enjoyed making the logo for it.)

Today was not bad. I liked today. I even ended it playing the original Megaman on emulator before going to bed.

Edited February 20, 2016 by MaxWare1997
Wrong date

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-20-16]-->
The Sun? What's that?

I don't go out too often. I mostly stay with my laptop doing college work, creative hobbies, and various entertainment. During days I don't need to go to university lectures, I stay at home with my laptop. 66% of my time is spent on college work/hobbies, it depends on how urgent the college work is. 16% is spent either watching tutorials or reading something educational. The other 16% is on entertainment. The remaining 1% is spent here writing in this journal. Notice the 0% spent hanging out with friends. I actually rarely feel loneliness. I'm very comfortable being just by myself and even being actively different at social gatherings. I also honestly believe my meditation practice has been a big contribution to that. To be honest, I actually don't care who reads/follows my journal. I do this mainly for me, this journal is just another personal hobby. I don't do this journal because I feel like I want to share it with other people, I mostly do it because. . .I don't know. . .  I find a subtle joy in writing even though it's not my main passion.
 

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-21-16]-->
The Sun? What's That? Part 2

Same as yesterday, stayed at home all day on my laptop. Didn't even have the time to read anything because I spent half the day working on a college assignment. I spent the other half working on producing a new hardcore track. Which I'm liking a lot so far, by the way. Can't wait to finish so I can share it to the world. I feel like I'm getting better as a music producer. I still think a lot of what is possible for me as a producer in the future. This is why I called this journal "Upgrading to the Maximum Level in Life". I would be a hypocrite if I didn't spend hours everyday practicing the technical skills required to achieve all the ambitious accomplishments I keep visualizing everyday.

Oh yeah, I also have been spending some time before bedtime playing the original Megaman on emulator. There some games from the past which I've not played but I'd like to spend a little time on to take a look at. Aside from an aspiring video game composer, I consider myself kind of an apprentice video game nerd. Today, I beat Dr. Wily just before 9:30pm. I ended up really liking Megaman. Can't wait to play the next games on the series.

[Game Over, Dr. Wily]

Edited February 22, 2016 by MaxWare1997
Post-editing

[DizIzMikey]

@MaxWare1997 Your first journal entry was ENTIRELY impressive, I'm sure the others are as well. Will probably read, no pun intended.

I'm a gamer myself

[DizIzMikey]

@MaxWare1997 That track, where you said you were bored when you recorded it, in my opinion is already pretty damn awesome. I mean I wont listen to anything I don't like, and I listened to the whole thing. Dare I say even the potential to be legendary, if not already.

Edited February 21, 2016 by DizIzMikey

[Extreme Z7]

@DizIzMikey That track is finished now. I posted it at Entry 02-19-16 as Distortion Story. I'm also working on another hardcore track which I think is going to be even better.
 

8 hours ago, DizIzMikey said:

@MaxWare1997 Dare I say even the potential to be legendary, if not already.

Haha. . . I have ambitions about being really excellent not just as a music producer but on so many other fields like game development and drawing but I'm so far from that goal right now. Heck, I even think I could reach spiritual enlightenment earlier than I could become "legendary" at anything.

Thank you for listening to my track, I appreciate that a lot. But again, I'm working on a new track at the moment that I could likely finish within the week. I want to make it really wacky and fun to listen to. Just like 'Distortion Story', I'll just post the SoundCloud embed on one of my journal entries.

[DizIzMikey]

@MaxWare1997 Reaching spiritual enlightenment would be legendary in itself. I'll be on the lookout for your new track, I have a love of music myself, poet of some sort I guess you could say. ttyl me *grin* =)

[Extreme Z7]

@DizIzMikey Thanks a lot for your support.  I'll be sure to send you a message when I finish it so you won't miss it.

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-22-16]-->
Do you MIND?

I was walking from the college back home while listening to an mp3 lecture about enlightenment when the lecturer suddenly said to stop and take a look out my surroundings. Take an empty perspective to it. (I don't really remember the exact wording, I'm paraphrasing) Notice how everything that is going on is there. He started talking as if the people he were speaking to were all enlightened. After a while, I started to feel a subtle sense that I am not my mind. This is something I have not yet felt before during my spiritual journey. Pretty much everything I did with enlightenment before that involved the mind in some way. I used to try to notice my vision, for example, and have a thought, "I am what I see".  I am only now realizing that even that is a process of the mind, it is not spiritual experience. Now, it was definitely not an enlightenment experience but, it was oddly peaceful. It was not pure bliss, but it was more like seeing everything with a carpet of "neutral being" everywhere. My favorite part was when the lecturer said, "Notice the mind losing its power". I liked that line a lot because it pretty much described what "I" was thinking of at the moment.

It lasted like that for the entire time I walked home.

And if you're curious, this was the video I converted to an mp3:

 

Edited February 22, 2016 by MaxWare1997
TYPO

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-23-16]-->
Gabber Begginer
 

I finished the new hardcore track I've hinted in previous entries. I've labeled it with a 'Gabber' tag on SoundCloud. Gabber is a type of Hardcore Techno that focuses on distorting the kick drum and usually involves really fast tempos. It's my favorite track so far but I feel like I can still improve a lot more. Despite other people telling me I'm really good, I know that I'm still very much a beginner as a music producer. I'm not saying I have low self-esteem, I'm just saying that I recognize how much I still need to learn. I want to focus on making Gabber tracks at the moment. Why? Well I'll leave that as a surprise for 2 months in the future.

Anyway, Presenting. . . . . . .  F***, My latest hardcore production. Warning: This genre is not for the faint of heart.

I also made a new header image for my Synthdroid account in SoundCloud using Photoshop. I don't think it's great but what do you think?

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-24-16]-->
Friend? Dead End.
 

I actually just went through some moderate feelings of frustration today. Here's something I have not talked about yet. I'm usually upset that I spend hours working on music I want to make but don't have anybody I want to show it to. No I don't mean online, I mean to a friend or something. Here's the thing, I don't have any close friends, I don't resonate with most of the students I meet in college. My brother constantly distracts himself with his smartphone. Who's left, my parents, pfff? Fortunately, I have met someone here in the Actualized.org forums who comes from the same town I live. I want to be able to meet him sometime, not to just shameless show him my work obviously, I want to be able to talk with someone about different facets of life in general. My collegemates don't do that very often. Mostly talking to each other about academic life issues and some pretty pointless topics about the entertainment they watch. That's another thing, I wish they'd stop spending so much time just scrolling through Facebook and giggling at all the memes. 

Even when someone actually does notice me making music (I make all my music with just my laptop), I don't really care about what they have to say about how "cool" they think it is. I want to meet other people who actually have some taste in music and am able to talk to in various subtopics. Not just look at  someone doing something they've never seen before, react, then leave.

Reversal: Don't confuse my rant with me thinking I'm doing something wrong. I actually think that what I'm feeling is perfectly normal. The majority of people lives, especially in modern society, revolve around quick gratification and chimpery. Personal development involves getting away from all that. It's a sign that I'm slowly putting in the effort to improve my life. Kind of like what they say about old drawing you've made. The fact that you hate them just means you've improved.

Oh yes, some dickhead who's on my friend list (but shouldn't) just posted this video on Facebook. My attention got trapped for half the video then I forced myself to stop. I want you to try watching it too and see how quickly you can resist the temptation to watch the entire thing. Again I stopped watching halfway, so the highscore should be easy to beat. Good Luck

EDIT: I decided to write a witty comment to whoever posted it saying "The saddest part is, the people who watch the entire video are the true idiots" BOOSH! Nice to end the day giving these fools a virtual slap in the face. I'm going to bed now. Dreamland awaits.

Edited February 24, 2016 by MaxWare1997
minor EDIT

[Soulbass]

(Dynamic link of the track doesn't work in my browser, so I'm listenning on your soundcloud page).
I like sound design at beginning, the tune remind me some Mr.Oizo' soundtrack in movie "wrong cops" but with a touch of chiptune.

[Extreme Z7]

@Soulbass Thank you!!!!!

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-25-16]-->

I guess I'm not completely alone

First of all, I would like to thank all of you who have seen my journal and supported me so far. I didn't think people would get interested in it let alone keep following the daily entries I plan. I decided to start this journal just out of simple curiosity of how it would be like if I started writing my current situation now then compared it with what my future self will write maybe 10 years down the line.

This journal has helped me meet some new people who decided to leave replies to my entries. Not a lot of people, but enough to keep me motivated to keep self-actualizing and regularly updating it. For all those who follow my journal, I have big plans for being able to make a career out of making original content. I have amateur skills in music production, game development, and video editing. So far, I've focused only on my music passion in this journal.  I will be talking more on other skillsets I want to develop in future entries. I also want to start my own personal website sometime but again, that's for the future. For now, shout out to @pOnG who so happens to live in the same town as I do. @DizIzMikey for being a cool dude. And especially @Soulbass who has given music production tips that I've actually used in my recent tracks and also has given me some support that has helped me a lot.

The next step for me I think is to start actually meeting people in person. I have never had a close friend in my life before. My childhood as been predominated by technology and entertainment. Don't get me wrong, I love my video games. But I've missed a very significant part of life, that nothing in life is accomplished alone. But I still think that will also be for some weeks/months in the future. For now, I just want to focus on being productive.

And speaking about music production, I managed to get a another track finished today. How about that? I want to focus on hardcore music at the moment but sometime I'll be expanding my horizons but I think it's important that I focus on one style of music at a time.

My new track is titled "Tribal Tunnel". It's a track inspired by ethnic music. I sampled 2 acoustic ethnic loops I got from somewhere to make the song, everything else are either percussion elements or synth sounds.

 

 

 

 

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-26-16]-->
Ramble Ramble Anxiety Ramble
 

Still suffering from a lot of anxiety. Not extreme anxiety, it's just a bit more constant. It arises occasionally then goes away then comes back again. It's mostly from dissatisfaction from my current situation and also occasional doubts about pursuing my future dream life. One of the challenges I face everyday is trying to keep myself motivated despite whatever anyone else thinks and especially what the voice in my head tells me. This is a challenge that I don't always accomplish. I did very little creative work today. The voice in my head is comparing my work to other people's work again. For some reason, whenever I feel surrounded by my negative emotions, a fear of pursuing any kind of long-term activity arises. The voice is telling me "all that work, and for what?". Fortunately, I never listen to it yet I feel like I need to wait for it to go away before I get back. It takes extreme resilience on my part to still keep going despite all the shit I've experienced so far early in this journey.

That's one thing about me. I'm easily frustrated but at the same very persistent. But it's not enough, I find Mindfulness and Self-Motivation are the most helpful attributes that fight against doubt and anxiety. My meditation session today was great but not in a way you might think. I actually let my negative thoughts and emotions flow throughout the entire thing. I didn't like how I was feeling during the process but surprisingly, I actually came out feeling very calm afterwards. But here's something that I failed to notice until now as I write this, I was not exactly motivated to do anything. My head was up in the clouds in my peacefulness during the 3 or 4 hours after that the anxiety came back and now I realize just how little I stepped towards my goals today. I need to balance my work towards getting rid of my neurotic emotional troubles and learning to self-motivate. I'm pretty good at being mindful but self-motivation is something I'm only beginning to see the importance of. It also made me realize that my petty emotional troubles may not be the most significant problem in my life that I need to fix. So that's something.

To be fair, I did not spend the entire day doing nothing. Laziness is not something I suffer from. (Maybe procrastination but I can keep that in check). I started the day with a random thought of wanting to start learning the basics of web development. So I did that and it took the entire morning. Now I have Joomla (an online Content Management System. . . basically you can make websites with it) installed in a localhost service. (Putting it up online costs money.) Today was half day in college so a large portion of the afternoon was spent there. When I got back home, my college mate contacted me via FaceBook and I needed to go spend the evening doing college work. So aside from the meditation practice, I accomplished nothing that I would be proud of. (Well, I'm a little but proud of the web development thing but that was just installation.)

Do I think today was wasted? No, not really. This college work I don't like doing but need to anyway, I've been putting that off for a while so I guess it's like I'm stuck between two worlds and I got too immersed in one of them for quite a while. I'm going to try to balance the two in the future. Let's see where that takes me.

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-27-16]-->
E-go away
 

I don't think I've yet the mentioned the biggest problem I struggle with everyday, myself. I'm very neurotic. You might be sitting there reading this thinking "So what? Everyone is neurotic". But you see I find myself having to argue with my ego constantly. My ego is scared of uncertainty. It has a hard time trying to accept reality. Not uncertainty as in whether or not I'll be able to achieve my dreams but rather uncertainty as in whether or not what I'm chasing will ever make me happy.

Enlightened teachers talk a lot about "freedom". This is the happiness that I'm talking about. My ego absolutely despises where it currently is. It wants keep doing what it wants and what it wants ONLY. The reality is it keeps getting pulled by other responsibilities. On days when I have to go to college, I have spend several hours in the courses and I'm left with very very little time to do what it wants to do. Even when I get to do what I want to do, ego still suffers and worries and is constantly thinking that I eventually am going to go back to doing stuff that I don't like.

Why don't I like going to my college? It's boring. The course lectures are uninteresting to me. Here's the thing though, this is reality. My ego is very impatient. It does not want to accept this. Many times during the day, I find myself floating to fantasy land. (It has fantasies about so many things, by the way, but I want to keep them secret. They're going to disappear eventually anyway, I hope.)

I've been doing personal development for about a year now. So I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that I still have loads of work to do. But even that my ego refuses to accept. It wants to believe that it's at a pretty high state already. Or maybe it wants to fantasize about the higher states of the future just to completely escape the present, it's awful.

Getting rid of the ego entirely will require faith and patience from me but that is a process that I believe will take years. Fortunately, so far I've discovered ways to slowly lessen the negative impact my egoistic neurotic self has in my life.

Meditation - Good for the art of detachment. So far I haven't felt any significant effect it has had in weakening the ego but it has given me the power to at least detach from it at times. Also known as mindfulness.

Visualization/The Law of Attraction - Learning this practice is like hacking for the mind. This technique is very different from fantasizing though. A lot of people miss this important point. Visualization is a technique that is very powerful for letting your mind do what you want it to do. First you need to instill a belief that you can control your mind (even though you can't but this is just a paradox you can ignore) and also that your mind affects what happens in your reality which is the key to the entire process. Learn about it and you can use this technique to visualize acts that go 100% against what your ego wants. Very powerful not just for productivity but also for overall emotional stability throughout the day.

Journaling - I actually hesitated to write about my ego in this entry. I found that in my previous entries I focused mainly on the positive aspects of the day. Now, I've basically gained the courage to start filtering myself a little less. I'm a very secretive and dishonest person. I hide a lot of details about myself from other people. Don't worry, I'm working on opening myself out a bit more. I find that's necessary to rid the suffering.
 
Oooookaay. . . I'm sleepy. I'm signing off and going to bed.

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-28-16]-->
Meh. . .

Nothing of interest to write about today. Did some studying for college. Read some fiction a bit. Then watched some tutorials online and some entertaining videos too. Played a video game for half an hour. And now I'm reading a pdf of Ouspensky's "The Fourth Way". Pretty regular day.

What were you expecting more? Sorry. . . here's a picture of a. . . actually nevermind, I don't get what's so funny about posting a random image because you're not feeling motivated enough to write something creative.

Edited February 28, 2016 by MaxWare1997

[Extreme Z7]

<--[02-29-16]-->
EXP +100

Today was fairly smooth. I had a lot of college work to do today. I managed get myself to control my emotional self that hates everything to do with college and actually motivate myself to actually finishing the coding work required. The deadline for said work was today. Even though I still needed to spend some hours in lectures, I still had enough free time to code my way to finishing the requirement. So that made me feel a bit better for the day.

I spent a lot of time in my head thinking about the concept of 'existential nothingness'. Yes, I'm still listening to those online lectures about enlightenment. I focused a bit on mindfulness practice just trying to be experience. Of course, thoughts and imaginations keep arising. I'm still very early in this journey, can't expect anything big yet. Although, I find Moojiji's spiritual lectures very entertaining. I first talked about this same lecture in Entry #02-22-16 by the way if you're interested in watching it yourself, very profound.

King: "Nothing is higher than God!"
Yogi: "Ah yes, but I am that."

^ Just an obscure reference from the video

So that was my day, I liked this day. Not bad. Kinda felt good looking back. Nothing significant really happened but it was more positive than the average day I've ever had.

Oh yes, I've decided to also start learning Japanese as it's a little ambition of mine. I've actually already started learning Japanese Hiragana symbols last year but that was very early in my personal development journey (I started last year so it was very very early). But I still didn't have the emotional framework to be able to remain emotionally invested for a really long time and so many other things happened and I eventually forgot about it. I've decided to start again from Lesson 1. I want to see how far I can go this time.

[Extreme Z7]

<--[03-01-16]-->
March Already? Damn. . .
 

I did a little bit of everything today. Did some college work; practiced a bit of music production; spent a bit of time on the game I'm developing as if it was a novel; did a bit of learning Japanese; watched some Youtube Let's Plays; and then spiritual work.

Meditated by the ocean today. The meditation wasn't one of my best sessions but I felt today in general was one of my most mindful days. When not meditating I hope to be able to at least practice the art of mindfulness to its full potential. It's a simple thing that on the outside may seem like nonsense to focus on because of how stupidly simplistic it is but I can't help but keep noticing just how much it's improving how I feel about the day overall.

Anyway, I want to do a little February recap:
* A few people who noticed my Journal have decided to start fun discussions with me online. Really appreciate that.
* Was able to share some of my recent hardcore tracks. I want to learn as much about music as I can before I die so I'll be expanding my horizons with music in the future
* Still as lonely and isolated as ever, but you know what? It doesn't matter, I can't even begin to describe just how much mindfulness and spirituality have helped me to tolerate all sorts of negative situations. Besides, personal relationships are going to come up on their own in the future anyway.
* Doing pretty mediocre in college, don't give a shit.
*  Video games!. . . didn't play a lot. Didn't feel like I needed much external comfort.
* Still watching YouTube videos everyday, they're just so easy to do. I don't spend too much time on them though, I try to have clarity to what I want to get done everyday.
* Had decent work done on the indie game I'm developing as a single developer. Still not sure when I want to start talking about it though.

There's a lot more I want to talk about but these are the first things that come to mind. I'm sleepy. Off to Dreamland I go. . . again. Til' next time.

Edited March 1, 2016 by MaxWare1997