LastThursday

You're right in that it's definitely a good rule of thumb that a person is "congruent" when dishing out advice. How can an unhappy person truly give good advice on being happy? On the other hand. Even hypocrites can give good advice. I'd say it's incumbent on you to have good filters when being given advice and you can only do that by experience and prior knowledge. It's often better to listen to the message than the messenger. After all, maybe an unhappy person has worked on and studied happiness more deeply than a happy person. From what I can tell Eckhart Tolle was a deeply unhappy person before his enlightenment and teaching.

Criticism is a two-way communication, like all human interactions. Depending on the level awareness of each person, the communication can be positive or negative. If the criticism is meant as guidance, then it could be seen as a gift if the receiver is ready to act on it. Mostly, criticism is done out of frustration or an inflexible need for things to be a certain way. And most criticism is taken as some form of rejection; that the recipient's behaviour is wrong in some way. The criticiser ultimately wants to see a change in behaviour, and the criticised, wants to carry on being the same. If the criticiser is aware enough that their criticism is meant as guidance, then they are aware enough to not ram home their point. If the criticised is aware enough not to get riled by the criticism then they are aware enough to realise it is being done out of some form of love. Ambit is a good word I like it.

I'm going to go meta by saying that anything you do will disturb the "natural" balance of things - no action can sometimes be the best action. However, homeless people require help and compassion and wildlife may also need to be helped at times. I would say that birds need to be fed something close to what they would eat in the wild. They are less flexible in what they can feed on, and giving bread to birds could make them unhealthy or ill. Seeds and maybe even insects would be a better source of food (but probably more expensive for you). If giving a Snickers bar is going to save a homeless person's life, then it is ethical to give it them. But since you have the option of giving a homeless person something more nutritious and less harmful you should take the option (even if it's a bit more expensive). In both cases, with your awareness that you're disturbing the natural balance of things, you should take the course of action that is the least harmful. That means being aware of what birds and people actually need, and not blindly doing things out of a sense of compassion.

To a degree there will always be a disconnect between employers and employees, because they have opposing needs. An employer wants "resources" that it can use to get things done. The employer naturally wants to get things done in the most time and cost efficient way. On the other side the employee wants to get well recompensed for both their time and their skills, but also to be treated well. The tendency of employers is then to over work and under pay their employees (a.k.a. gaming their employees). The employees' tendency is to under work, constantly ask for more salary, and/or to game the system (steal, smoke breaks etc.) or to simply switch jobs (taking their knowledge with them). Employers have several tricks up their sleeve to improve things for employees. These could be: Improve facilities, such as having kitchens, cafes, good parking, good meeting spaces. Improve perks, such as company cars, bonuses, commission payments, pensions contributions. HR departments that deal with people-centric non-resource related matters. Group activities, such as away days, company parties, team building exercises. Only employing people who fit the company "ethos" (e.g. work hard play hard) Managers meeting regularly with individuals for that "personal touch" 360 reviews and appraisals A way for employees to make suggestions on improvements to processes One powerful way to improve relations with employees is to let them have a say in major decisions and/or to consult them on potential decisions - but this is seldom done, because it means ceding control away from managers.

@LastThursday bot says: You can identify someone by their writing style and words they use. It's very hard to bluff this. You could automate it in software and generate a unique "fingerprint" for each account (with enough data). The fingerprint is just a big number. You can then very easily look for accounts with the same fingerprint. Who needs IP bans?

Yeah no pressure. Sometimes to get an answer to a question, nobody can give it to you, you just need to experiment and try something different out; that is the meta-strategy. If you want to change then you need to... change, something.

Yes, you're having it now. You could say experience is in spacetime. But you could equally say that spacetime is in experience. Or both at the same time (or is that space?).

I think the "word" in the bible is a mistranslation of the word "logos" in Greek, which has a much broader scope that just "word". It could mean: reason, discourse, cause, law. Cause looks quite good here: I am the cause. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos

I wouldn't worry. If that happens we're all gonners. I'd prefer to see the flash than not, quicker that way.

Marriage is about showing commitment to your spouse. It also gets "buy in" from both families and shows you're serious about each other - and you're not just going to run at the first sign of trouble. A good marriage requires maturity. And in most countries there are legal, religious and financial implications (e.g. tax breaks). So there's lots of considerations to take into account. It's neither good nor bad. Neither high consciousness or low consciousness. It's like the difference between renting and buying a house (how unromantic I am!).

To oppose something you have to acknowledge it first. Although, I do think you're conflating atheist with scientist/materialist, they're two separate things. Scientists can and do believe in God. Scientists in the Vatican do astronomy for example:

My take, is that you transition over time to what you love and what excites you. Changing direction takes effort though. In the short term you're going to have to work more and concentrate on two different things at the same time. However, you're already an expert at being a teacher, so there's no extra effort required there, just maintain that status quo. Once you get some traction with your crazy dream vision, it will be self-sustaining. If it's exciting enough you'll find the energy. If it's not exciting enough, then drop it, try something else. You can then start tapering down the hours of teaching (I'm sure you can go part-time). You may even have to take some sort of financial hit in the short term. In summary, there's no magic bullet.

@Aaron p just work on constantly reducing your own self deception. Keep speaking your truth (but don't preach). There's nothing better than doubt to bust self deception.

Probably better spent pumping iron, building that next business, contemplating the meaning of the universe, mastering your own psychology, building foundational habits, plugging 5meo and I can't bring myself to say it... but it begins with P and ends with P, two words, two syllables, it's not a film, and it involves real life women, and a lot of rejection and cringe... (Sorry I forgot, health problems. Porn is just fine.)

@Jannes how would you feel about gamifying your experience? Here's my game strategy for you: one week of socialising non-stop (have a schedule and contact a different friend each day - make lots of plans to meet up), one week of complete isolation (be an introvert, recharge, play games etc.). Keep alternating for two months. Review on here at the end.

Contemplate if consciousness belongs to you.

Definitely the emphasis in education is a bad fit for most people. It's all about educating the masses for the workforce. Since employers are about optimising for profits and efficiency, they naturally want the most bang for their buck and so want to hire the "brightest" candidates. To know who's brightest you have to measure it somehow, and hence the heavy emphasis on exams and grades. Since most exams are fixed to a curriculum, there's a natural presssure to want to just "pass the exams" to get on in life. I don't know what the answer is here. Should young kids even go to school? Finland starts at age six or seven I think. Schools should definitely be teaching meta skills. Like, life skills and how to accelerate your own learning, how to collaborate and how to be creative, how to meditate and introspect etc. Also the breadth of subjects needs to expand hugely and to have a lot more overlap between them. And, if Johnny likes making pottery, and Jane likes coding, they should be able to explore that fully and with professional guidance. I've known teacher friends teaching subjects they know hardly anything about (e.g. languages). There's also no reason directed learning should stop at 18 or adulthood. Perhaps, the school system should taper off rather than stop dead at a certain age.

Some classical. Good old Grieg:

There's no definite answer. You're not losing social skills just because of a break of a few weeks, so it's not that. If you're anything like me, sometimes you're just not in the mood to be social. In other words you have to be mentally prepared to be social and it takes effort. Such is the life of an introvert. As for feeling awkward and boring, just let it happen and don't fight it, even if it's uncomfortable feeling. Socialising is not about performing well, it's about communication and connection and having a shared experience and expressing yourself. From experience, socialising is about directing all your attention to the other person and being delighted with them. The flow (of love) should be from you to the other person, not the other way around. You feel awkward and boring because the flow is the wrong way, you're basing your experience on your performance and your expectation, instead of just directing your attention outwards away from yourself.

How would you go about distinguishing a 2nd-order truth from a 1st-order truth? Is that a worthwhile activity?

Agreed, that's a very good description. It's a grieving process and it takes it's own path and time to resolve. You can't switch your feelings off like a switch and to be honest you shouldn't even try.

I'm sorry you're feeling pain. Be easy on yourself, there's no pressure to pretend he never existed. And there's no shame in heartbreak, just allow yourself to feel into it for a while. Some relationships just take a lot longer to get over than others. Unless you're very lucky, there's always some unresolved emotions around a breakup and that's why it's difficult to let go. Give it time don't rush.

The meaning of life is to discover it has no meaning, and you are as free as a bird.

One cure for anxiety is to have confidence and trust in your own abilities. You have anxiety because you're constantly looking for problems that may or may not happen - and this triggers a fear response in your body. The fear response is because you don't think you'll be able to deal with a bad situation when it arises. You need to look back at all the times you were in a difficult situation. Ask yourself these questions: 1. Did I survive the situation? 2. Did I manage to deal ok with the situation? 3. if I didn't manage to deal with the situation right away, was it resolved eventually? The other thing to realise is that you will still encounter problems in the future, whether you think about them or not. It's much less emotionally draining not to think about them beforehand - trust the future version of yourself. Stopping the rumination can be done, but it takes lots of practice. Start now.