LastThursday

Your post made me think of something. A tiger is just a tiger, it doesn’t second-guess itself or worry about whether showing its teeth and claws makes it a bad tiger. Its ability to be dangerous is part of what makes it impressive, and we respect the whole animal, not just the soft bits. But people aren’t like that. We’re more like a Swiss-Army-knife animal. We’ve got all these different “traits,” all these ways of behaving, and we're constantly worry about which ones we’re supposed to use. That makes it really hard to feel like we know who we actually are, so we end up searching for "ourselves" all the time. A lot of us on the forum are here for that. But underneath all that, there is actually a core to being a person that everyone shares. And we get to choose how much of that we express. Sometimes it’s useful to expose the more animal side of ourselves: the part that doesn’t apologise for existing and for having sharp claws and scary teeth, the part that doesn't apologise to being impressive. And to be honest, part of being a whole human is showing your teeth now and then. Not to hurt or manipulate people, but to allow yourself to have power and to be true to your nature.

My theory is that most people associate thinking with the voice "in their heads". Why's the voice in their heads? Because when we speak out loud our vocal chords make our head and neck resonate - and to a degree our chest. To show that just hold your hands to your head and hum. So the "location" of our voice is mostly in our heads. Also, when we speak to ourselves we partially engage the vocal chords and even lips sometimes, so there's that association too - subvocalising. It'd be interesting to know if pure sign language speakers see themselves located more in their hands?

@Thought Art woah, that's some next level break out shizzle. Or is that break through? Or break in? Hmm... @jimwell excuse the trolling it's all meant lightheartedly.

@Thought Art dafuq? 🤣

These are my half-chewed thoughts about non-conformism. I'm part way through Leo's Conformity video, so he may cover what I'm going to say, let's see. My thinking around it is that non-conformist is a negative. A non-conformist does not conform to the usual rules. There is a subtle distinction here that seems obvious to me, either you "non-conform" consiously or you do it unconsciously. To elaborate a bit, consciously non-conforming is a continual process of rejection. This can be for any number of reasons, such as wanting to separate and stand out from the crowd (to get attention), or, maybe it's because you know better that everyone else (to puff up your own self-importance or out of ignorance), or, wanting to break away from circumstances (to improve your life), or, that's just your prefered style of dealing with reality (genetics). In all those cases there is an active sense of rejecting the status quo. To be unconsciously non-conforming is just to do your own thing despite what everyone else is doing. It's less a rejection and more of a focused state of individualism. For example you wouldn't consciously think "I don't want to marry", it just never occurs to you that that is something you should do: the "stuff" of conformity doesn't stick so easily to you. Or more accurately, you wouldn't reject marriage, you just don't care for it, a subtle difference. Naturally, you cannot be totally non-conformist, either consciously or unconsciously. If you rejected absolutely everything other people produced, you would soon die. Those who label themselves "non-conformists" are no such thing in general, they are non-conformist in very restricted and narrow ways. True non-conformity is not rejection of the norm, it is the creation of new norms, which themselves become new conformity. True non-conformity then has to be endlessly creative in order not to get caught up in itself - most people neither have the energy or imagination for that way of being.

Language is a mixture of both. You have dialects which break off and languages change over time, so things are fluid. Language is a completely relative construct. But I agree, the main point of language is to be understood, so you need a large amount of conformity for that. @jimwell I don't see a problem with conciously redefining English for yourself, I can see that its inconsistencies seem illogical and overly complicated - we all have our own particular voice and way of speaking. You're still speaking a form English however, so in that sense you're still conforming.

Emotional pain is a message. Therefore emotional pain is triggered BY something. To work with the pain you must either look into the cause (i.e. answer the message), or change the trigger itself (i.e. reframing, therapy, NLP, Stoicism, distraction, drugs etc.). Those that are good at managing emotional pain, are either efficient at fixing the problems that cause them pain, or are good at reframing their pain. You're spot on that most suffering is mental. This is the trigger part I talked about above. Emotional pain can be triggered by thought alone long after the original cause has ceased to exist. You can stop repetitive negative thought patterns, but it's a counterintuitive process.

Yo diary! I thought I'd go through my thought processes on two different subjects in this entry of October 24th 2025. First things first. I gave up work. As I have probably gone on at length on here my boss and the whole work thing was giving me gyp. The idea of giving up and not working at all for a while was very attractive on the one hand, but super stressful on the other. My biggest concerns were that I may find it hard to get another job and if I were to take any extended time off I would have to explain myself in interviews. It would go something like this: "Wow you had six months off after you last job. What did you do with your time?", "Absolutely nothing". Doesn't look great does it? In retrospect most of the stress was in actually just making a decision and going for it. The stars aligned one morning and I just thought fuck it, it's going to be today. Despite them agreeing to keep things open for me should I change my mind - which was kind of them - they didn't offer me another other carrot to stay. I did my three months of notice, in which there was no slacking in my work pace at all. And then... peace. I don't miss working whatsover, I don't miss the people either. In some work places I've made life-long friends, in others meh, whatever. There's no clear plan on my part, other than when I start panicking about money, I'll start thinking about how to get an income again. I have plenty of options as I don't have any dependants, or ties as to where I live. I should move out of this flat, because it's expensive and the landlady is crap. But everywhere in this country is expensive, especially the South of England here. I should go live somewhere with a warm climate, but every country has its pros and cons, one of the biggest being language. I'm also acutely aware that I'm going freefall into my savings and it's a finite resource. Other than those stresses, I feel a lot calmer and a lot less stressed than I did. I while away the days in a Zen-like trance, just doing whatever arises (Actualized has a lot to answer for). No alarm in the morning. No boss breathing down my neck. No super-abstract thinking for eight hours every day. - Second is more philosophical speculation on the nature of reality; as is my wont. Is reality emotional or not? One of the quirks of suffering in general is that a large part of that suffering is dependent on viewpoint. Or to put it a different way it's a matter of interpretation. If there is a separate being called "me" that experiences reality then it's me that experiences the emotions of suffering (amongst other emotions). You could argue that it's all interpretation in which case there is the implication that we're not reacting to reality itself but we're just emotional about our interpretation of reality: change the viewpoint and our emotions change with it. The further implication is that reality itself has no inherent emotion within it. All those appearances or atoms (however you want to interpret it) are neutral, there is no good, no bad and no suffering inherently within them. The pro of this way of seeing reality is that we're completely free to change our interpretations and hence react to reality in any way we see fit. Note that this contradicts most people's lived in experience that it is a place full of emotions. But just because we are free, it doesn't necesserarily follow that we know how to be free or that indeed we'll take up that freedom even if we did know. What if there is no "me"? If it's reality and me as a unit, then emotions are very much in the fabric of reality. But cause and effect in the scenario are a bit more subtle. It's not "me" that suffers or experiences happiness or anger or horniness (e.g.), but the whole complex of reality itself. It's more like appearances happen in synchrony with each other. The fact that the synchrony can be repetive is beside the point - I hit my finger with a hammer and every time it hurts - reality is insensitive to repetition. The repetitive nature of synchrony could actually be considered as "one event" albeit one spread staccato fashion over time. There is only one hammer-hitting-my-finger event, but it happens randomly spread over time. Peering deeper into it, it's that there is a category of thing called "hitting my finger with a hammer" and reality snaps-to-fit into that category when it happens. But, that snapping-to-fit process is still happening as a part of reality. That's ok, because experience really does have the quality of being able to be split into parts even if those parts are members of a cohesive whole. With that in mind, when we feel sad because we miss our friend (e.g.), it's not a unique event or cause-and-effect situation, the absence of the friend does not cause the sadness. Instead it's the entire complex of absence + sadness that is the event as one synchronous whole. Maybe we feel sad whenever it arises in our thoughts that we miss the friend, but it is just one synchronous notion spread staccato fashion over time: one category. Reality is emotional. For an analogy: are the leaves of a tree individual things, or are they actually one thing making up the tree?

Maybe the quality of a thought is related to how it is physically manifested or expressed? For example if the thought brings into the world some suffering, then it is low quality. If a thought stays as a thought and is never enacted, then its quality is only relative to other thoughts (which themselves might be enacted in the end). If I'm trying to solve a problem, then a high quality thought is one that helps solve the problem, even if it is indirect. Or a high quality thought is one that gives insight when expressed to other people. I can see that some thoughts could both be high and low quality at the same time, depending on which angle you take.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to study. With study there is always a breadth versus depth tradeoff with regards to time. In college the emphasis is on breadth, because it's designed to give you a good overall (but shallow) grounding in a subject. If you continue to a Masters or PhD then you will narrow down and get more depth, or you'll get a deeper understanding if you continue your learning in the work place. Breadth and depth learning require different strategies. The low-hanging fruit for breadth learning are: Consistency. Have a daily set routine for study, which is for a certain number of hours with short breaks and distraction free (no phones, no friends). Even two or three hours a day can make a huge difference for retention. Alertness. Get enough sleep ideally with consistent hours. Reduce consumption of alcohol and other substances that affect your body. Eat well. You will also find that certain times of the day are better for concentration, find your personal preference. Drilling. Use a system like Anki flashcards or working through exercises or past exam papers to consolidate your learning. Revise the material at set intervals of days and weeks and months (spaced repetition). Go meta. Concentrate on learning the concepts rather than getting bogged down in detail: why does a three-phase-induction motor exist, what problem does it solve? rather than: it's constructed in this way and obeys these physical laws. Often the detail follows as a consequence of the guiding concept, not the other way round. Look for relationships between all the concepts in your area of study, what is the chronological history of those concepts? Have fun. Have time off from study. But keep a good balance between study and relaxation.

This guy's self-development videos are well researched and this video in particular explains the mechanics of my previous post:

In amongst the detritus of death there is new life.

Hey. You. Yes. You. Ever broken the fourth wall on your own character? Ever tried to expand out of the confines of your own imposed novel and escape the narrative you're entrenched in? Yeah. Me neither. What are you afraid of exactly? Is it too chaotic and unpredictable to break out? Is constant questioning just too much to bear? Is insanity too scary to touch? Is it "too much" in every sense? Are you being scripted by influencers outside of your control? Are you in their thrall? Is the character you play controlling your destiny, and what you feel and think moment to moment? Do you have any choice whatsoever? Maybe it's happier to just be, let all that define you, and let it wash over you. Nah. Of course you know it's bullshit. But you're confined to a world of "maybes". Tomorrow. And, if this, and, if that. I have to be in the mood - for the stars to align. To talk through that issue, to learn to bear that pain - then maybe I can be "me". Whatever that "me" is. You look for guidance elsewhere. You look to the past for inspiration, and investigate your previous characters. You're so evolved now of course and you've come so far. But you're not yet the character you want to be. You dig and dig and realise that once everything is accounted for, there's nothing else there. You're all those things. To break free you have to be none of those things.

Environmentalists are not wrong though even if you think their vision is weak sauce. We can change our lifestyles as humans and it not be a bad thing: most of us recycle now and we probably don't think much about it. If public transport we're cheap, reliable and affordable we'd all use it more. It doesn't make us hippies, it makes us more self aware collectively. Maybe engineering a grand vision for the human species instead of geoengineering one is more important? We as apes do like a good story.

I agree the equilibrium isn't harmonic but more so chaotic, from a systemic view everything is constantly on the "edge of chaos", so in many instances it only takes a small nudge for the systems to flip into a different equilibrium, think snowball Earth and climate change. But because it's an "open" system everything affects everything else, and many of Earth's systems have settled into a static or cyclic state over eons. Earth is one huge open system where all its constituent parts are in equilibrium with each other, even if its chaotic at times. I'd say its extremely difficult to work out if Earth has intention, and if it does what that intention is. There have always been outlier organisms that disrupt the systems of Earth more than others. Take cyanobacteria pumping into and poisoning the atmosphere with Oxygen. That was probably catastrophic for a lot of life on the Earth at the time. But it happened slowly enough for Earth's systems to keep up the overall balance. Humans are another outlier, and similar to cyanobacteria we're pumping huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But we're also disrupting nearly everything on Earth or if you prefer geoengineering the Earth. Indeed. However, they are small scale (in effect) to what the video you posted describes. I don't know, if we have to geoengineer for our own future survival then at least do it with foreknowledge (modelling) and systemic thinking. These projects should be agreed on by everyone in the world, and not left to the hands of a few private companies or individuals.