RendHeaven

Ah, that's absolutely splendid. Thank you so much for the clarification

@LouieShill You're overthinking. Start anyway and let the money happen naturally.

I thought Inferno was meh from a metaphysics perspective. The whole thing is basically mental masturbation - but I suppose that might be the point of it. Purgatorio was similarly meh from a metaphysics perspective, except for one passage that stuck out like a beacon: around halfway through the book, Virgil describes to Dante precisely how all things have their roots in Love. Even things that appear not to be Love are ultimately Love. The details are confusing and the passage is circular, but the message is clear. Paradiso is amazing. It's basically a psychedelic trip baked into text. The character Dante becomes One with Cosmic Love & God - what more could you ask for?

Self-Love bro. Get gay for yourself first

That definition sounds like something decided by a current state of mind >:D Actually I might've even been wondering, is there something effective about non-bodily survival? Might we do it unconsciously precisely because it is effective? Like, maybe self-sabotage is actually effective survival. Literally. I'm not too sure where I'm going with this, it's just a vague intuition... Yes, it is an idea. But that doesn't disqualify its relative truth. Ego, survival... all of this occurs within a relative framework. Looking at things Absolutely, you couldn't even say that there was ever an ego. So since we're presupposing an ego in this conversation, I'd like to imagine that we're then able to say intelligible things about its nature. Lmaoo I understand that you don't like Leo's absolutist terminology because the promise of an alternative grips your intuition. I don't necessarily agree with Leo's claim in its entirety, I'm just noticing that the answer is not a binary "he's right or he's wrong." As in - even if we conclude that Leo's absolutist terminology turns out to be unholistic, what relative truth can we glean nonetheless from his position? He's onto something when he tries to drag our attention towards conflict of survival.

The outer world reflects your inner world.

All the time. I genuinely find that women are more misunderstood and unheard by men rather than the other way around. The poor listening epidemic among men is widespread and cultural.

Refer back to my comment earlier: --- What I AM saying is that there is great practicality in studying selfishness/survival, for it will make you more compassionate. I have not said anything about how you ought to conduct yourself, nor have I said anything about relationships specifically.

How would you know that? Sincerely... Being enlightened doesn't stop you from playing ego-games I agree that, relatively speaking, 2 lovers can suspend ego momentarily. But then they will continue to do human things as though they are humans, don't you agree? And insofar as they maintain that humanness, I expect that there will be survival conflicts. Yes, ego is no mistake. I don't know what I'm asking. I just felt provocative lol. The way you interpret my question is interesting... we think alike, but also not! Yes, well "I" am also the one "assigning the concept" of "survival" onto "__." This shit appears HIGHLY layered. I call this observation "complexity." What would you like to call it? I think it's easy to think we've understood the entire structure of survival after hearing or talking about it for some time, as though we were pointing at a fruit and triumphantly declaring, "apple!" but it's dawning on me that you could spend a lifetime going deeper and deeper and deeper...

They aren't separate. I was playing along with the distinction made by Mr. 4201. Good! Now realize that "ego" is YOU and your whole life story

This is an excellent observation. "Love-dependence," as you've put it, certainly falls under the category of survival, but it's definitely not in the same kind of survival as biological self-preservation and reproduction. Rather, "Love-dependence" is more of a higher-order survival, a survival of the self-image/human ego-mind/character. One would think that the survival of biological self-preservation and reproduction would always triumph, because the self-image/ego-mind/character is sort of a luxury of humans that are not dead And yet, in the plot twist of eons, we can observe many instances of the latter ego-survival (which craves validation, etc.) supplanting the former biological survival. Fighting parents are a perfect example of this. Each side wants love and so lashes out selfishly in a bid to survive their current self-image, e.g. "I am a wife to this man, we took on wedding vows to stand by each other, but why the hell does he feel so distant now? This isn't who I am, this isn't who we are, I need to express this discontentment - it's just too much to keep repressed. But he's not listening, maybe I have to scream and yell. Fine, I will." And to an outsider it might be like "Yo wtf are these ego games? Don't you see you're hurting your biological survival?" But I'd like to pause us here and really reflect on why we seem to prioritize ego-survival over biological survival... there is of course no one right answer. I imagine there are a cluster of reasons that differ per person, but this inquiry is especially effective if we can find personal reasons from our own experiences. Do you recall ever prioritizing silly ego-games over what would've been the more "rational" action to maximize biological survival? It can be really subtle, such as being hung up over your ex and hugging your pillow in bed at night instead of falling asleep soundly and on time. What purpose does "higher order" self-image/ego-mind/character survival serve at the big picture level? What is it's relation to biological survival? Are they really so different? Is there anything about self-image survival that strikes you as especially meaningful or even beautiful? If, hypothetically, the Universe was a self-aware Intelligence, why would it assign so much layered complexity to survival?

It's not wrong! Whenever we bring up selfishness on this forum, we don't do it to moralize. If I say "hey, you're selfish." It's an observation akin to "hey, you're a human," or "hey, you have eyeballs." Being human is neither right nor wrong, having eyeballs is neither right nor wrong, and being selfish is neither right nor wrong. You might wonder then, why make such a big deal out of observing selfishness? Well, because it explains almost all of human behavior! Noticing selfishness will help explain why you think, feel, and act the way you do, and in turn you gain self-understanding; Noticing selfishness will help explain why others think, feel, and act the way they do, and in turn you gain understanding of others; And when the two conjoin, you finally have access to genuine compassion, for you see that you are connected to other people through mutual selfishness, and your heart is finally able to burn bright in spite of what the world throws at you. So observing and understanding selfishness (without moralistic judgements of "right" or "wrong") is very powerful and practical!

Your parents ever fight?

@Preety_India Leo said nothing about right or wrong, nor did he say anything about caring or not caring. Learn to look at things from "above!" You're fucking selfish, like other women, and so are men, as well as I and Leo. Just in different & interesting ways. When you "get it" you'll be celebrating because it's awesome to behold the human condition holistically. But it seems like you refusing to "get it" by being stuck in debate-mode. Understanding doesn't come from debate!

@Nahm Haha, that's so clever. Mental hygiene

Your categories are self-serving. No man actually sees himself as being contained in the boxes you've provided. Most of us are just regular-ass dudes who mistakenly believe that being the object of female sexual desire will heal our various shadows and traumas. This mistaken belief may manifest in what appears to you to be different categories of personalities, but fundamentally there's no difference.

How do you tell if you really love a guy?

Gotcha

Ew, that's so condescending.

Ok that's really just standard dating

@Thought Art Thanks man

It may work by coincidence, but no man deliberately adopts FRIENDSHIP as a dating strategy. That's uncharitable Awesome

Jesus Christ her articulation?