Leo Gura

Owen has some great ideas, just don't get into the conspiracy stuff. Take his practical social and spiritual advice.

Distinctions are what constitute everything. It's not a bug that you can't tell what is real vs what is imaginary, it's a feature. Whichever distinctions your mind makes and holds become your new reality.

Well, yeah, truth wins out in the long-run. But it was close. The problem is that half the country does not watch legit media, they are stuck in a right-wing MAGA echo-chamber where truth cannot penetrate.

This would be my fundamental critique of the whole Ken Wilber Integral movement and what stuff like Conscilience project is doing. They are being super abstract to the point where it has no real-world impact. You can do all the meta-theorizing and integral-mapping you want, but at the end of the day in 2024 people just gotta go and vote against Trump. It's not that complicated. Even reading the above article it was so abstract and philosophical that I had a hard time seeing how it would apply to current politics and solve anything. It's like being a philosopher in the middle of a prison brawl. In the domain of politics you need to be very practical, otherwise it ends up just being empty talk. But at the same time you cannot be purely ends-justify-the-means oriented. You still gotta have principles and integrity and operate with consciousness. The biggest takeaway for me here is that going meta can be weaponized by the ego-mind. This is a very important point to never forget, and check yourself if your ego is using going meta in that way.

Media has been corrupted, bought off, and even does his bidding because it earns them money. And many citizens don't watch the good media they watch the stuff that tickles their reptilian brain -- which Trump is a master of exploiting.

Corporations are not some monolith. They have competing interests and agendas, and they don't control politicians like dogs on a chain. It's more loose than that. 1) I don't think it's true most corp Dems want to increases taxes much. 2) Politicians are influenced by money. Which means, they have some set of ideals and then money gets them to do otherwise or to "compromise".

@Virtually It's a good article. Thanks for sharing.

The bigger problem I see with going meta is that it can create a sort of relativism or false equivalency and also inaction. I noticed this happening in myself for example with the Russia/Ukraine war. When it first started I was focused a lot on seeing both sides and going meta. But then it became increasing clear that action was needed, not more meta. So it's important to go meta but then you also gotta balance it out with pragmatism otherwise some evil force will exploit your meta navel-gazing.

Because corporations fund most of the Dems and Republicans. Corporate influence goes way beyond just the right-wing.

Yes, that's the stage you want to aspire to. It's doable.

Of course no one is forcing them. They leave because they want a better life. But it's not good for the developing countries. Sure, of course. But also this makes improving those home countries nearly impossible because everyone who could improve it the best runs away. I'm not blaming anyone for this, it's just a sorry state of the world.

Your insights seem genuine. Of course not all your insights are the end-all-be-all, or fully complete, but that's too much to expect so early. It will take years for all your insights to clarify and gel. You have to get comfortable with not-knowing and being in confusion. You have to get comfortable with partial insights and ever evolving insights. And you have to get comfortable with making some mistakes, misunderstanding some stuff, and then later get the corrections. This field is just too deep and complex for get simple, clear-cut, one-shot answers. Your understanding will upgrade and evolve as you keep contemplating and having more experiences. You don't need to have it all figured out. I'm still confused about some existential stuff after like 10 years working on this. Be patient with it and also don't forget to enjoy life and this process. Be careful not to throw away your relationship. You should communicate to your gf that you are going through a phase of confusion, so you two are on the same page. I'm sure your gf would be interested in supporting you in this (assuming she loves you). You can even use her to bounce your doubts and confusions around with. The best solution to confusion is just to acknowledge it and stop trying to correct it immediately. Bask in it a bit and notice that it's okay to be confused. See my video: How To Deal With Confusion

Might help you even more to chat up every stranger you are in front of, regardless of beauty, age, or even sex. This exercise will make you much more extroverted and will help you a lot once you see the right girl. The problem with waiting for a hot girl is that you might be waiting a long time. Just get good at talking to people. Talk to people in the check out line at the grocery store. That skill will directly translate to hitting on girls. But it also has the extra benefit of making you better at socializing period, with anyone. Socializing is fun once you develop the skill and habit of it. It will make your life more enjoyable. It's also good to not be so focused on "the hot girl" like a robot and just be more chill and easygoing. When are overly focused on chatting up the hottest girl this comes off inauthentic and desperate. You want to be in a frame where if you're chatting up a hot girl it's just a consequence of you chatting up everyone, and then the girl will sense that you're just that type of chatty guy and not some creepy PUA laser targeting her.

@plaruno Try my Shamanic Breathing episode first.

There is a sort of ethical problem with this approach which I never hear anyone talk about. By leeching the most wealthy, ambitious, and educated people from 3rd world countries we are dooming those countries to remain mired in low development. It's very problematic for many countries when their best people fly off to the US or Europe.

I highly doubt he is bipolar. He's not that bad. He's just extremely egotistical and shallow.

Lol Weird. Not exactly a sustainable energy source

No it does not. That's what you're missing. It's an order of magnitude deeper. Most politicians lie a bit here and there -- this is part of the job. That's not the issue. We have always dealt with that and survived it. Trump's lies are on another level. It's the difference between getting bit by a house cat vs a lion. And Trump doesn't just lie, he creates a field of corruption that infects the government and half the country into being liars. It's so toxic. Trump is a radioactive liar.

I would pay a million dollars for the answer. I have not found any way to increase my energy level. I think most of it is just your genetics. Of course you can remove obstacles that sap your energy, like by not eating the wrong food, but your genetics come with a certain baseline of energy which I don't know can be changed. Increasing your energy is more like removing obstacles which sap whatever your baseline energy is. Remove as many obstacles as you can, and then accept yourself as you are.

Cool, thanks for sharing. It's always cool to hear permanent upgrades that resulted for psychedelics. Sounds to me like you just weren't very in touch with your breathing. Perhaps a long bad habit of breathing poorly and shallowly, perhaps from survival challenges you faced in the past. But then the ketamine allowed you to explore breathing deeply and change that bad habit. I wonder if something like shamanic breathing could have achieved the same result for you.

Eventually you realize the ultimate paradigm of just: ME!

Yes, of course, but that IS the core of game. Modern game theory was reverse-engineered from naturals. Your state and vibe are everything. If you are in the right state you can get girls so easily and if you're in the wrong state nothing you say will work. You must learn to enter into a fun, extroverted, carefree state. The kind of state you get while partying with friends on alcohol. This is the key. The rest is little ways of increasing your odds of closing. Nerds do not exude masculinity. Grounding and containment are the same in my lexicon. The feminine is contained by anchoring it. You can think of it as tethering an open fire-hose.

Or maybe Ramaji and Don Beck are not as great as you make them out to be Boomers gonna boom. Trump is the ultimate litmus test of one's character. If you can't see the profound flaws in Trump's character and that these character flaws are a complete deal-breaker in a President, you are seriously lost. You are deciding to place a literal con-artist, narcissist, sociopath into the most powerful position in the world, simply because he is on your side of the political spectrum and promises to own the libs. This is crazy and it will never align with spirituality, consciousness, truth, or love. The false equivalency created between Trump vs normal politicians is madness. There is no equivalence. Trump is an order of magnitude worse than any normal politician regardless of left or right. This is not a left or right issue, this is a matter of character and integrity. A human being of such low integrity is incapable of leading a country to anything healthy and conscious. What you will get from Trump is gross dysfunction and corruption. Nothing will change this. And if he gets powers again it will be way worse than the 1st time because he will be unleashed and out for revenge with nothing to lose.

It's no more insane than you driving in a car and content arising over the horizon as you drive. Consciousness is dreaming up endless content in every direction you look. Yes, it's insane when you realize how profound it is. Awakening shows you that even the existence of a fork is totally insane. The existence of a fork in your kitchen is literally a miracle.

I doubt that some pill would ever be enough. It's more complicated than that. What's realistic is to implant a tiny device which is able to generate and release a tiny trickle dose of DMT inside the brain similar to a pacemaker. The issue there would be, what would be the tradeoffs? The problem is that states of higher consciousness make survival tasks more challenging.