Upgrading To The Maximum Level In Life

[Extreme Z7]

<07-02-16>
Oh Boy, I Need A Break
 

Work Work Work Work Work Hobbies Hobbies Hobbies Hobbies Hobbies. . . I've been planning to take a break this Sunday. The greater self-work is going to be in enjoying the present moment and I do not want to waste too much of my days unconsciously "doing". If you've read my post on June 28, you know that I'm currently staying at a different city than where I normally live and a new environment means new possibilities for observation.

I don't have a lot of money with me though and I'm only going to limit myself to going to a mall (which pretty much means that I'm not going to buy anything). This is a mall I've never been to yet though but basically, I just feel excited at feeling liberated in a new environment even for just one day. I'm going to be practicing mindfulness, this is a mall so inevitably, ego desires are going to arise. "Buy this thing, Buy that thing, Watch This Movie, etc." It's going to be tricky to remain completely present and non-judgmental about the experience.

Also, thanks to @Anna Konstantaki for linking to this article in her journal. It's quite the read.

P.S. I might fool around in the arcade though. But not too much.

[Extreme Z7]

<07-03-16>
Okay, Now Personal Development Is Getting Interesting
 

Leo's newest video was just so mind-blowing to me. I can't even begin to describe just how much I realized how naive I currently am at pursuing business (which, by the way, is for me directly connected to life purpose). Basically, the indie game that I'm working on counts as me taking my first steps into starting a business. But I've been going through it the wrong way, from the very beginning, I was already committing the first mistake that Leo mentioned which is focusing too much in the dream and not giving 2 shits on how I'm going to realistically get people to play my game let alone BUY it.

So anyway, I've decided to do some research on game development marketing and I've decided a good way to start is to start writing a game development blog. It's not supposed to attract anyone to get interested in my game but its a good start for creating marketing content.

I've changed my blog name to "Extreme Game Dev" though, now the new blog URL is extremegamedev.blogspot.com

In other news, I discovered this free 180+ paged e-book on basic mindfulness work and I just feel like this is going to be another one of those books that will change my life in a very practical way just like P.D. Ouspensky's "Psychology and the Study of Man's Possible Evolution" did. Credit to @Phrae for recommending this e-book. (Actually, he was recommending it to someone else and I just so happened to notice it)

[Extreme Z7]

<07-05-16>
Focusing On A Single Goal

Oh whoops! It looks like I missed yesterday's journal entry. Sorry, this time it was just pure forgetfulness on my part. Anyway, lately I've been getting close to finishing a huge part of my college work and I've been allocating a huge part of my free time to getting back to my indie game work. I didn't think I would get back to working on my indie game until August but I've changed my mind and here I am now!

I've been working a bit on making some art for the game rather than programming obstacles which I've been doing for a very long time.

Screenshot!


It's really really tough making this game as a single developer but thankfully, I've been learning so much that it's simply worth it.

Anyway, I've sacrificed quite a bit of mindful attention in order to spend more time working on the game which isn't good at all. I actually end up being less productive when I feel I lose awareness of what's going on. I end up testing the game too much, working too little.

Anyway, I've been wanting to continue reading Shinzen Young's free e-book "The Five Ways". I don't really have much else to talk about today. See ya'!

[dude]

I read your blog, its amazing that your doing this all by your self. I am studying programming and it is a lot of work making a game with audio and visuals, and lets not even begin about the amount of coding. Keep up the great work! If your done I will buy myself a copy.

PS. don't make it a 1000$ I don't have that much lol.

[Extreme Z7]

@dude Thanks, I'm also committed to updating the blog on new progress every Sunday or any day when I find it necessary. However, I may talk about the game on this journal on a daily basis.

Also don't worry about the price. I'm thinking it's going to be somewhere around 5$ if not cheaper.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Extreme Z7

[Extreme Z7]

<07-07-16>
I Am Aware That I'm Not Aware
 

Had a pretty hard trying to maintain awareness today. I didn't even meditate for the full hour that I usually do, just 10 minutes short of it but it's still a pretty good number. But again, I got reminded of just how important a mindfulness habit really is. Because I certainly didn't feel good after working a few hours on college work and neurotically trying to get as much progress on it as much as possible so I can work on other stuff.

Anyway, I mentioned before in some previous articles that I'm supposed to be taking an internship at an I.T. company this month. The internship starts tomorrow, which means I'm going to have less time again to work on personal projects. I still don't know what I'm actually going to be doing on this internship but I sure damn better not mess anything up. But how hard can it be anyway? I mean I spend a huge majority of my time already coding a big 2D Platformer game as a single developer. How hard can being in a corporate environment be where I may be outright taught how to do things.

Anyway, I could have much more to talk about today but I'm tired and can't just muster up the energy to write much today. Sorry, if there aren't any updates today on my personal game project.  I did make progress today but I just can't be bothered to talk about it. Again, you can follow my game dev blog at extremegamedev.blogspot.com for big weekly updates if you're interested.

[Extreme Z7]

<07-08-16>
Working Towards The Void
 

I forgot to write yesterday's journal entry again. I've been trying to catch up with a lot of college work now that my internship has started. I've been working my ass off trying to finish this one project and I've been pushing myself to neurotic overworking. Good news is I expect to be done by tomorrow. Now, I'm far too tired to really talk about much today. I am still working on my game though and expect a new game dev blog update on Sunday at extremegamedev.blogspot.com.

[Extreme Z7]

<07-09-16>
A Little Bit Of Free Space
 

Got a big break today because I just finished working on a college project. I still have others to work on at some point but I can worry about them in the future. For now, I better reflect on my self-actualization status so I can tell where I'm headed.

So I continued to read Shinzen Young's free e-book "The Five Ways", a serious of tutorials on ways to practice BASIC mindfulness. and I came across a section talking about the "Do Nothing" technique. I got gripped by this one quote which I'm going to paraphrase: "A perfect Do Nothing session is almost indistinguishable from prefect Monkey Mind". I decided to do 1 hour Do Nothing technique for the day and I took that quote, and the other information from the book of course, in mind while I did the sit. It actually worked, a bit. It's not supposed to revel instant results, the e-book says, but I simply have to find out for myself if it works for me or not. So far, I can say that it's not the best meditation session I've had, but I was definitely surprised at what I got.

Also today, relating to my indie game project, instead of working on producing more game assets. Instead, I decided to make some early marketing material to get the "eyeballs" for my game's benefit. I made 3 gif's featuring some of the different gameplay tones in the game.



I plan to write a new game dev blog post tomorrow talking, somewhat in depth, about what progress I've made and what else I'm aiming for in the future.

That's all for today. I'm tired and sleepy, I just got back from playing a video game to take a break. Good night, work hard.

[Extreme Z7]

<07-10-16>
Fighting Comfort
 

I'm going to be blunt here. All I want to talk about is Leo's new video. That's it. I have a new blog post but I'm going to say no more and just link to it.

Leo's new video both helped me to stay on track while at the same time made me question if I know if I'm on the right track. At first, I thought that it would be just another self-affirming video I could use to keep myself away from the falsehoods and distractions in modern society, and it definitely did that, but it also made me realize just how much stupidity is going on in aspects of my current life strategy.

Leo listed 10 things I really want and don't know I want and even though I fully believed him in everything he said, I still noticed just how ignorant I really am about how I should live my life. Right now, psychologically, I can see that I'm still attached to and am chasing: Stimulation, Achievement, Identity or Ego Aggrandizement, and above all, Comfort.

Oh man, I just can't live without my comfort. Even though I always tell myself that I love pain and that I'm really hardcore and I do all of this difficult things, I still really hate to lose my comfort. I can't imagine being like a bum on the street who would have to beg for money so I can eat, that would be a complete nightmare to me. I am not talking about physical comfort, by the way, I'm talking about lifestyle comfort. One of the biggest problems I have in my life right now which goes against the 10 things Leo listed, is that I don't want to give up my lifestyle comfort. This means that I subconsciously try to defend any lifestyle or routine change. Especially if it would mean that some of my other false goals (Stimulation, Achievement, Identity) would be compromised. In fact, that's the entire reason why I want to keep my current lifestyle, because my current lifestyle, I can see, is me just chasing these things like a monkey chasing bananas all day.

I want to be really strategic, and if I'm going to pull through with this goal, I really have to make sure that my current goals get shattered and exchanged with real goals. This, I find, is so important that I'm literally going to link to Leo's "10 Things You Want But Don't Know You Want" video 10 times to really get the point across that I really want to take this seriously.

 

 

[Extreme Z7]

<07-11-16>
Sacrificing a Lot Of "Fucking-About-Doing Stupid Stuff" Time
 

I'm pretty sure I just spent the entire day with basically zero entertainment time. It's very rare when I have a day like this. In fact, I don't even remember the last time I've ever spent a day without entertainment at all, it feels like my first time. The more my life gets closer and closer to the more boring but natural lifestyle Leo keeps talking about, the more I just keep noticing everyone else's deep distraction in modern society.

Don't take this the wrong way though. I still was very much distracted today. Entertainment is not the only source of distraction. I have an internship this week so working a lot to learn the necessary skills to accomplish the internship is putting my mind in distraction. Heck, I didn't even meditate properly today. One word: Mosquitos. They were everywhere and halfway through the meditation session I couldn't help but keep shooing them away by flailing my arms at them and at the 45 minute mark of my supposed-to-be one hour session, I gave up. I'm reminded of Leo's old "Lower Self vs. Higher Self" video where he talks about his experience dealing with insects during a meditation session.

Long story short, today was a small step towards a big goal. A goal to just stop "fucking about" in my life and start living! Even after today, I still feel like I'm not even close to the kind of life that feels truly alive.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some more work to do. REAL work. Mindfulness work. I'm going to sleep early too. Good night everyone.

[Extreme Z7]

<07-12-16>
To Tube Or Not To Tube?
 

I've been trying to pretend that YouTube doesn't exist lately. Basically, I've been trying reduce my habit of not only watching YouTube videos but even just checking the site which I normally would do regularly if I'm online. (I did check once today which, I'll be honest, I did feel a slight pang of guilt from) I didn't actively choose to do this, though. I just somehow feel like I'm naturally inclining to a life with less and less external distraction, although there are still a lot of it around me, cutting almost 90% of my YouTube habit is already a big plus to other aspects of my life that I've been wanting to distill.

That's all I want to talk about today actually. I plan to doodle a bit in my sketchpad then go to bed quietly. Nighty night. . .

[Extreme Z7]

<07-13-16>
Can't Afford To Fuck About Anymore
 

I can't afford to even spend an hour a day with entertainment anymore. Not with my current life mindset anyway. I've really been gaining awareness of my future for the past few days. Not in a neurotic way though but in a healthy way. I've been develop a higher tolerance for lack of titillation in favor of having a stronger work ethic and more importantly, having a much clearer head. I really wish I had this mindset years ago, I would have been exponentially more productive and a hell of a lot more happier for sure.

I find myself slowly gravitating to what Leo said his life was like: boring. Not only do I perceive the world as quieter but I also feel like my mind is a lot calmer, almost like in a Zen state. I have gained a higher tolerance for pretty much any emotion I can think of and experience on a daily basis. If I had spent my past months just fuckin' about. Downloading entertainment via torrents and spending hundreds of hours playing video games, I would be so far down the "rabbit hole of unawareness" that I wouldn't even know I was falling.

Again, a little reversal, I still am very much aware of how distracted I am on a minute-to-minute basis. I still very much have monkey mind which is constantly thinking about work and sometimes very petty stuff. And I do still very much enjoy a little entertainment every now again, except now it feels more like special occasions rather than daily habit.

That's all for today. Don't forget to read about my personal indie game project in my blog. That would be really sweet!

[Anna Konstantaki]

oh, I see you used the "chasing dreams" sound from your soundcloud or at least something that sounds very similar. Nice. Also love KZT´s facial expressions...  

[Extreme Z7]

<07-14-16>
Slowly Realizing What Is Real
 

My habit of having a minimalist entertainment routine seems to have opened up a pathway to a new perspective and a new way of living that is completely new to me. Even just 3 days of this has already given me more mental clarity to be more focused and achieve flow in whatever work I'm doing, it has helped me feel a lot more laid back although I still very much worry a lot, and most of all, I've begun to notice my monkey mind a bit more and not only mine but also other people's. Actually, especially other people's monkey mind, I can't help but notice everyone around me engaging in unconscious monkey mind behaviors. I'm glad that I only get to hear the monkey chatter that comes out of physical mouths because I world in which everyone's mental chatter was heard by other people as actual auditory sensation, then we would live in a significantly more chaotic planet.

Basically, I want to say that I had a pretty quiet monkey mind today. I can't help but compare how my mind was like just months ago. I thought months ago, I was already conscious but I can see just how much monkey chatter was driving my behaviors back then. And I can't help but think about my future self looking back at this moment and noticing how relatively more monkey chatter there was right now than there is in his point in time.

And ultimately, I've slowly been noticing what's actually real. I felt oddly absent in my meditation session today. It was like the person sitting there and experiencing the meditation was not there. But yet, it still felt like someone there exists and is aware of things happening in experience. I still can't seem to get to that fully aware point of becoming what is real. Right now, all I had was just a small realization. I want to keep going. I want to see what on earth is actually real and what is the truth.

[Extreme Z7]

<07-15-16>
Delayed Gratification
 

I've been getting quite a bit of those "This is taking a really long time" moments. My ego wants perfect meditation skill NOW! Expert drawing skills NOW! A decent and uncomplicated way of living NOW! And most of all, it want my fucking indie game project to be finished NOW!

To be really honest, I still find myself trying to accept just how slow the results I'm getting at personal development is. Don't get me wrong, I do love the stuff I've already got. Like, for example, an huge decrease for a need for entertainment of any kind which has given me more time to do more positive habits like creative work or reading books, and of course, mindfulness work. But my level of suffering and lack of happiness in life is still great. I still feel that I have a lot more years of pain and difficult growth to even feel anywhere near as good as I imagine is possible for a human being. And sometimes, thinking about how long it really is going to take can be emotionally painful to think about.

On the other side of the coin, though. The fact that I recognize that it will take many years before the amazing results really start coming' actually gives me a little more motivation. It basically means that I'm not necessarily doing anything wrong. I'm likely headed in the right path but it's just a really really really long path. I just have to keep on pushing and take things on little by little instead of thinking I can accomplish everything within a year. Heck, I don't think my game project will be anywhere near done until next year but it's still worth working on.

That's all for today. Until tomorrow. . .

[Extreme Z7]

<07-16-16>

 

I'm pretty much getting to a point now that everything I see in the world, my behaviors, and just pure experience in general is directly affected by monkey chatter. I guess my mindfulness practice has really gotten my "being" to be very disconnected from my ego self-agenda. I find myself craving stimulation a lot more than I used to simply because I've been decreasing the amount of entertaining content I consume very drastically. I don't see the point of engaging in hedonistic behaviors anymore. Even a few months ago, I told my self that there is still some good side to having a little fun every now and again, especially with someone like me who suffers a lot from stress and anxiety issues. I used to tell myself that entertainment was a very easy and effective way to ease stress so I can end up being more productive. I was right about the "easy" part, but I was dead wrong with everything else. All these stimulating activities we engage in, most of which are perpetuated by modern day technology, are actually making our monkey minds feel more alive and excited. Not only does the result make us less productive, but monkey chatter keeps us too distracted to feel any sense of satisfaction in life, which is ultimately the entire reason we want to keep being productive and creating value in the first place, isn't it? As for stress and anxiety, well they are only temporary distractions. They can numb as emotionally to make us stressed out less and worry less but no amount of watching your favorite shows will ever make you realize that they're actually making you more miserable in the long term.

You might be reading this right now and thinking "You don't need to tell me this. I already know how to properly moderate the stimulation I engage in to make sure I don't get distracted too much and still optimizing my level of happiness. Don't be such a smug arrogant smartass!" That is, assuming you are very unaware and probably have never tried doing mindfulness work in  your entire life. (If that was an accurate representation of your thoughts as you read this, I strongly urge that you stop reading and ask yourself what on earth you're doing with your time) . . . actually, you know what?, I completely forgot where I was going with this paragraph.

Nevermind. . .

Anyway, long story short, practice of mindfulness to combat monkey mind turned out to be lot deeper and more profound than I originally thought. I found that raising awareness on monkey chatter does not actually weaken monkey chatter, it just makes it more apparent and less likely to trick you like it does to billions of people around the planet. I still don't know where this practice will take me in the next few months, though, let alone the entire fucking journey.

But let's not think about the upcoming months, let's stay in the present. See you tomorrow, which does not exist because by the time tomorrow comes, it would have become the present.

[Extreme Z7]

<07-17-16>
Perseverance, Patience, Persistence

NEW INDIE GAME BLOG POST: LINK
 

Whoops, I forgot to write this entry last night. Now I'm writing this about a half day too late. There are still stuff I want to say about yesterday, though, so I decided not to skip this one. Yesterday was a "good day". Not good in a sense that I felt good, it's just the day pretty much went as I planned. It was a Sunday and I wanted to take a break from all the things I work on during the week. I spent the morning working on promotional content for my game, though, made a few screenshots and recorded gameplay footage. In the afternoon, I went to the mall and played in the arcade for a long time. Then I got back home, edited the final gameplay video (I actually had fun doing it).

I scheduled my day that way because at the time, that's what I felt I should do to make the day feel full of substance. But by the end of it all, especially after the mall time I spent, I still felt hollow inside. Then I watched Leo's newest video and I felt like I was blind-sided again by Leo's wisdom. This new video talked about something I have never heard before in my life. Why hasn't anyone else taught me this before?
 

<07-18-16>

Pain, Power, Pressure
 

Things are getting really difficult now. Most of the things I thought I knew about reality are crumbling down if not already completely obliterated. Now, I just kind of realize how lost I am, and just how much pain and pressure I'm going to have to endure to have any sense of real life again. I'm hopeful, very hopeful, obviously. I'm not the type of guy who easily gives up. But I'm also not the type of guy who's used to extreme emotional labor. But then again, I highly doubt anyone I've ever met in real life can even begin to handle the stuff I've been through already so I do have some form of competence.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is, I'm way too tired to really write about anything but my emotions and reflections today. I can't seem to focus on anything else but mindfulness work, too. Mindfulness or Consciousness work, in a kind of twisted way, is something I use to help me through the difficulty but at the same time, it is the reason why I'm even going through difficult challenges in the first place. Without it, I would still be a hedonistically-driven stimulation robot who really doesn't need any help with anything because I wouldn't be going through anything really demanding anyway.

I can't think of anything else to write anymore. I hope I feel better tomorrow, to be honest.

[Extreme Z7]

<07-19-16>
Close Encounters With Ego Kind
 

I forgot my smartphone on my way to internship duty today. When I realized, I felt my emotional self fire up with anxiety, my mind jumped up and down like a monkey, worrying that maybe I didn't leave my phone behind, it may have actually dropped off my pocket somehow. Good news was it did turn out I forgot it at home and my irrational chimp mind couldn't help but fire up my lower self.

Even after doing so much personal development work, I'm still amazed at how little psychological development I actually have. In fact, the more I grow with this journey with the help of Leo's content, the more I see how little growth I actually have. If I was more conscious, something as petty as losing my phone wouldn't bother me so much. I'm not even addicted to my phone, I don't even use the damn thing that much. It's just become so routine for me to bring it around whenever I go outside that the thought of doing something even slightly different from how I usually do things already feels threatening to me.

On the brighter side of things, though. I'm not actually that worked up about it. I actually sort of accept and am not too emotionally guilted that my mind is still basically a chimp mind. I owe it mostly to my consciousness work. When that experience about forgetting to bring my phone happened this morning, I actually was able to become conscious of all the different thoughts and emotions that went on in my experience as it happened to the point where half the time, I didn't feel like I was suffering. Of course, I was not perfect at it, I did suffer a lot and I did have all these different negative thoughts come up, yelling at me for being careless. But ultimately, in the end I actually just felt it as just another experience. Really just another experience that happened, it wasn't bad, it wasn't something that shouldn't have happened, I still learned from it though.

The aftermath of the experience, when I got back home and found my phone on my desk, was relief and for a while, I could actually feel emotional neutrality in my body and it was. .  well . . peaceful. I didn't feel good or happy, I just felt nothing. My awareness started focusing on my vision for a while and my emotional center simply remained still, almost non-existent.

So that ends my story of my close encounter with ego kind. I'm sure you can think of similar experiences in your life. I kind of like to know what your own experiences of your lower self do you remember vividly. If you're willing to share, go ahead and leave me a reply if you want.

[Extreme Z7]

<07-20-16>
I'm Scared Of Suffering
 

I don't have much mental energy to write about anything today. I usually just let my mind flow and words come out giving details on my reflection of today's experience. But today, I don't feel like anything's coming out. I didn't even have the motivation to draw anything today. Oh well, at least I meditated properly, today.

What's that about the title you ask? Well, I do remember thinking a lot about suffering and what it really is and how do I lessen it today and especially during the last few hours. But then again, everyone does not like to suffer so it's nothing special. But I do feel a lot more conscious with my suffering than with most people but that's a different topic.

[Anna Konstantaki]

here you got some chimp support: