sholomar

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Everything posted by sholomar

  1. Just work on yourself and let them come around as they will.
  2. I personally think excessive alcohol consumption destroys a lot of lives but if you actually look at a county by county map at least in the United States of which counties drink and then look at another map of the lifespan of counties you'll notice that the counties that drink the most alcohol have the longest lifespans. It's a curious anomaly that I haven't fully explained yet as a guy who tries to figure out how everything works and enjoys these types of statistics. My theory would be that the alcohol might dilate the blood vessels lowering one's blood pressure or that the positive emotions generated from its consumption actually have some tangible health benefits. There are also antioxidants in certain alcohols such as wine and dark beers. I would say everything in moderation and be careful with this All or nothing mentality when it comes to any issue just use common sense. Life is not black and white it's literally an infinite number of shades of Gray. I grew up in eastern Wisconsin and now live in eastern South Dakota and both of these areas and all the land in between is full of drinkers.
  3. My score was 4, higher than 9.7% of people who took the test, lol. https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/NPI/results.php?r=4,0,1,1,0,0,0,2 In my opinion one could still be selfish even if they are not narcissistic, as I can still recognize my own selfish traits in myself. A low score like mine is probably indictive of a boring and/or passive person as well. I'd imagine most "narcissists" lead more exciting lives than mine, but my life suits me. Like most tests like this it's probably the most healthy to be somewhere in the middle, and not on one extreme end nor the other. I found my ego to be so mis programmed I decided transcending it via being was easier than reprogramming it. The peace of mind has gone up, while my interest in participating in the world has gone down. I prefer to be a passive observer of human nature, watching the game play out, with a curious fascination of the outcome.
  4. Buy the salt that contains 50% potassium chloride. Problem solved. You can then pretty much consume as much as you want within reason.
  5. Sounds like LPR or GERD to me, and yes coffee is known to promote acid reflux. It's not even the caffeine, but rather the acids in the coffee. Waking up in the morning with a stuffy nose = LPR/GERD. I get the same reactions from dark beers and chocolate. I have an overactive sympathetic nervous system that is improving as I practice being but stress is the main culprit behind many chronic illnesses which limit one's ability to enjoy certain foods, which put the body over the edge and cause it to manifest with things like GERD, gastroparesis, LPR, SIBO, ulcers, etc. Work on stress relief, proper amounts of sleep, addressing any thought stories that might create negative emotions, rumination, narratives, bad habits, addictions, too much screen time, etc. Read Tolle's book "A New Earth" or David Hawkin's books "Healing and Recovery" and/or "Letting Go"
  6. It's traditional when cooking a steak to sear the outside while having it pink on the inside. It's more carcinogenic but many enjoy that charred flavor in meat. I've been known to use a propane torch to add char to my steaks, something I learned from a chef in fact. The entire steak is not burnt to a crisp, just the outside. A meat thermometer is used to get the inside to the correct temperature for a medium rare to medium cooked steak. In fact, having outside char is pretty much the standard way to cook a steak in the United States at least. You wouldn't go and boil a steak, that wouldn't taste very good. The steak in the above video is what I would call "perfectly cooked" and is how mine look upon completion. Gotta live a little.
  7. Keep reading personal development materials. The most helpful books for me have actually been Eckhart Tolles books The power of now and a new earth. However I've read so many books including probably six or eight of them on Leo's book list that it's hard to say which book made it click in my brain but it's finally clicking to where I shut off the part of my brain that likes to create mental scenarios and fantasies and try to resist the world and live inside my head instead of just being and accepting what is in the present moment. I suffered from generalized anxiety disorder for more than a decade so I'm speaking from experience here. The racing heartbeat jitteriness and the like are gone though I still have some lingering bad habits I'm working on. There's no magic pill that's going to cure you I did it without any drugs the key is changing the way you think and then getting your limbic system or subconscious mind or what Sigmund Freud would call the ID to actually believe what you're doing is correct which will lead to these moments of clarity and peace which increase over time. Until then you're going to have to learn to embrace and accept your negative emotions without letting them control your thought processes but merely learning to observe them like a scientist would be watching a zoo experiment. Then you choose to react differently and not let the emotions hijack your perspective. If you can't do that then you just sit there and observe the emotions mindfully. I would say the book a New Earth describes the mechanisms of the ego better than any book I've come across. I've read these books in the past but it took years and years for them to finally click though. I had to be suffering badly enough to where I wanted the change badly enough to do personal development work instead of playing video games or engaging in some other activity as a distraction or simply wanting to hold on to a position because I am emotionally invested in it because I feel the cause is just or that the viewpoint is so correct. A lot of people on both the left and right engage in this activity. Most people into politics are varying degrees of neurotic. A lot of the men who are part of the manosphere who have this moral idea of how relationships are supposed to be and humans are supposed to behave also suffer from this neuroticism. Again, just more of what Leo would call "should statements." If you're a man I would also add that self-mastery is important that is creating good routines and habits for yourself. A dopamine detox can be quite handy. Beware that it will often make you feel worse before it makes you feel better as all that unconscious emotions come to the surface for release not to mention when you give up any addiction your body's going to generate withdraw symptoms... They might make you act and behave like a man child :-) Everything you need to fix the anxiety is also in Leo's free video content there's so many good videos where he talks about should statements and moralizing and 40 signs that you're neurotic it's all about releasing control especially over things outside your ability to control them. Sometimes it helps to listen to this content or read a book you find that clicks with you multiple times read it a half dozen times. I've listened to some of Leo's videos eight times. I'll turn them on while driving I mostly use the mp3s. Also, using the excuse that it simply your body's way of prejudging as a way to justify your emotional responses will not help you get rid of your anxiety. You choose if you want to break your chains and be free or not. Most people are very addicted to the content of their mind and their ego positionalities. Heck this post makes my spiritual ego look larger than Mount Everest :-). If you happen to have a sympathetic dominant nervous system over exercising can actually worsen the problem in the short term also. I found this article to be quite accurate. For me super low cholesterol was actually a symptom of the anxiety disorder I had cholesterols levels down around 110. I need to emphasize though that any fix you try to make that doesn't involve changing your thoughts and perspective is merely treating the symptoms and not the cause. https://www.holistichelp.net/blog/autonomic-nervous-system-dysfunction/
  8. It's really going to depend on your use case. Most people with municipal water supplies in the United States don't need any fancy filter a simple countertop filter that attaches to the faucet is sufficient to filter out the bad tastes. The simple answer is to get an under the sink reverse osmosis system but those do waste about 75% of the water to get you a gallon of good water takes about 4 gallons total water. Honestly I'm not picky as long as it's cold I'll drink it right out of the tap.
  9. Coffee is the single largest source of antioxidants in most people's diets I don't feel bad if you can't necessarily give it up. My mother has been a two pot of coffee per day drinker her entire life and she looks much younger than her age would suggest. The the antioxidants in coffee could be compared to the antioxidants in dark beers and dark chocolate. They're all quite bitter compounds in their natural state. There's no reason whatsoever to give up coffee if you happen to function fine drinking it without acid reflux. Rather, consider getting into fresh roasted coffees that are ground just before use and even roasting your own coffee with green coffee beans. You'll never be able to go back to most coffee ever again. Begin to figure out the difference between light and medium and dark roasts and study how different altitudes affect coffee beans differently.
  10. They are running off of ego programs that are like computer viruses infecting their well-being. You're not going to be able to save them unless they want to be saved. If it's their time it will come naturally to them. Otherwise have compassion for them and let them live their lives and make their mistakes. I believe in you, too :-)
  11. As a former conservative, I actually agree that conservatives are less developed on a spiral dynamic scale. However, given the nature of our species the leftist ideals don't work either. What works is checks and balances against our nature to keep power or wealth from concentrating into too few hands. Beyond that, let people live their lives and give them the freedom to explore themselves and things will turn out in the end. You might not be able to save everyone but you're never going to save everyone ... that's not the purpose of incarnating in this reality. I really like that recent quote from Jordan Peterson... "These monolithic centralists who believe central planning and efficiency will defeat distributed creativity, they're just wrong one after the other." - Peterson
  12. I found Eckhart tolls books have given me the biggest jump in my peace of mind. His book A New Earth accurately describes the Man child is just a really strong ego that has a negative story behind it. It accurately describes the ego in terms of role-playing versus being... How when we go through life we tend to play different roles in different situations instead of just being.... Hence we are really not being authentic when we do this. Yes, I was a man-child for a very long time. To be able to go through this pain and grow out of it I'm very grateful for having lived this life.
  13. This has always been kind of a thing. Our species is wired so that women are attracted to the dominant males, kind of like hens are attracted to Roosters. Before modern civilization and the advent of religion that gave humans an alpha male (God) and commandments, it was more of a tribal species. If you look at historical breeding ratios, only about 30% of men ever passed on their seed tops, and during some parts of history when the ruling class became particularly powerful, it was much less. Given we are no longer constrained by commandments and religion, and women are no longer basically owned and controlled by or "need" men, they are free to express our true selves more, which for women generally means they are friendly, playful, and promiscuous. They are attracted to novelty, new experiences, and having lots of guy friends, generally speaking. Not all women are like this, but the ones that make the most noise (extroverts) certainly are. https://psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success Men are more emasculated these days, and generally speaking, women are not turned on by that, at least subconsciously. Leo has gone over this before in numerous videos. https://www.girlschase.com/content/dont-tell-women-your-weaknesses "Women are not cruel by default. But they very often are cruel to men they view as weak. This is an important principle to understand: women are kind to strong men, and cruel to weak men. This is because women adore strong men, and women despise weak men. Even women with good hearts. Even women who do not want to hurt anyone. If you show weakness (not vulnerability, but weakness) to a woman, she is going to feel the emotion of disgust. She may be self-aware enough to resist this emotion, and recognize an injured soul and tell herself to feel compassion for you, but she is still going to be disgusted nevertheless. You must not go around showing or flaunting weaknesses to women." Dating is a numbers game, and some guys just give up too easily. They live in their heads, and expect this fantasy they got through Disney or their upbringing that may or may not exist. They aren't being in the moment, accepting things as they are. They are too needy. Plus, this culture is generally overstimulated, with people glued to screens around the clock... could a woman sit in a room for an hour and meditate? Could a man? Men are more simple creatures I find.. they don't require the same level of novelty generally speaking. Women will get bored with this over time of course, especially the younger they are.
  14. I don't believe it's possible, not for 50-100 years at least. Jordan Peterson kind of explains why at the end of this video... he mentions that evolution happens due to a large "diversity of approach" and the reason the west is so successful is we allow such diversity. Even if there is a 95% failure rate which is typical in evolution, those who succeed, can succeed spectacularly in ways that cause big leaps in our society and culture (or a species), and thus having a centrally planned dictatorship that lacks diversity of approach (he uses China as his example) and forces as one example "world peace" simply cannot compete. Also, I don't believe it's as easy as saying everyone has "choice" and that people should be able to override their animal impulses and behave properly. This is why you need to balance order vs chaos within a society. What about a person with down syndrome? What about a person with autism? What about a born psychopath? Where do you draw the line between someone who does and doesn't have a mental illness, and when does someone become responsible for their actions? Obviously, we need to keep dangerous people out of society, but it's very shortsighted to say everyone should be able to control their impulses and behave better. Quite frankly, that's ridiculous. We are animals, and we have a lot of primitive and strong biological urges within us that are genetic and cultural in nature. We control people through a system of law, rules, and cultural mores. A carrot and stick approach that causes the limbic system to react differently over time... personal development at it's core. How do you have world peace without competition at this point in our evolution? It's simply not possible. This video is not entire 100% on topic but it's so good, as someone into geopolitics and a person who often criticizes the western approach, the western approach is clearly defended in this short video... at least when it comes to "diversity of approach" ... we perhaps will one day achieve world peace, but we have a lot of spiral dynamics stage blue and red cultures to overcome before that day comes, not to mention orange and green. "These monolithic centralists who believe central planning and efficiency will defeat distributed creativity, they're just wrong one after the other." - Peterson
  15. Yes, progressives do sensor when they feel like the science is not compassionate enough for them. I'm surprised we're even seeing articles questioning covid policy in mainstream publications lately. I thought I'd never see that. This article is amazing. It points out so many things that so many of us were telling progressives would happen in the early parts of the pandemic while we got ignored. https://www.newsweek.com/its-time-scientific-community-admit-we-were-wrong-about-coivd-it-cost-lives-opinion-1776630 Bottom line, it's human nature and any group who gets large and influential enough will try to change the narrative to what they want. It's not exactly surprising or shocking that progressives alter the science when the science isn't compassionate enough for them. Conservatives will do that and worse if they get power.
  16. Say want you want about Musk he exposes human nature for all to see. Forget about left vs right vs this group or that group, the predominant group in power will use suppression and censorship to get the masses to try to do what they say, and it's obvious the democrats and the left also do it. It could be called the ends justifying the means, and NO, the ends doesn't justify the means. Just because you think conservatives are evil, doesn't give you the right to do whatever it takes to stop or silence them. If you think this, you are dangerous, period. You are no better than your opposition. Many here are just as brainwashed with leftist dogma as the right are with conservative dogma, and I acknowledge that. Any strong ego position for any position is in effect just programming. The ultimate reality just is, and requires no trying to bully and pressure others into compliance. What I dislike about leftists in the US in politics, they think the ends justify the means. Not all of them of course, these are generalizations... and human nature. If Musk can expose how people censor things to protect their herd, all the better. Yeah, he's a bit of an unusual character, but most social misfits are (aspies, autists, etc)
  17. I consider myself to be fairly moderate. There are plenty of conservative leaning people into personal development. I won't be bullied by the liberals who sometimes appear to have this superiority complex I've noticed. That's to be expected though because stage green is still going to be subject to collectivism. It takes tier 2 thinking to transcend that, and I'm not saying I'm tier 2.. I'd rather not give myself a label because I don't want to develop this inflated spiritual ego. It would be more accurate that I can see a blending of many stages in myself, including blue and some red. Do I see many highly developed conservative commentators? Not many, I'll be honest. There are more on the liberal side, but many (most) liberals still come off as having their own fundamentalist collectivist belief system from my perception... again, just part of being a green. I listen to Mark Belling out of Milwaukee for my conservative commentary, and don't agree with him but find him mostly a straight shooter. I come across more average everyday people in real life that are more developed, people who don't subscribe to politics or try to fit themselves into a box. Genetics, upbringing, luck, culture, so many factors to it. Being 2 hours into Leo's conservative video, he's a straight shooter on the subject. Respect.
  18. There are bad apples in every profession. Often bad cops can push out the good cops. Part of human nature. It's our job to find them, but sometimes we are complacent or the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Seems like this is universally true in every country... they are varying degrees of corrupt, of course the lower the spiral dynamics stage of a nation, the more concerned you usually have to be with their populace in general, with a few exceptions.
  19. To me traditional conservatism is about embracing the eudimonic aspect of life, if you watch Leo's older video on the happiness spectrum. When I think of "liberal" I think of rampant hedonism, people who like to experiment with drugs, have wild sex, party, and chase short term dopamine hits over long term goals. They want to be lazy, sit around, get paid to do nothing by the government. The reality is that these are black and white definitions and the truth is somewhere in the middle and more blurred. It takes self discipline to not chase hedonism. I know plenty of "conservatives" (or more accurately said "republicans") that chase hedonism, so my definitions are just a perception, and much like language, imprecise. My father and I are are both very environmentally conscious and go out of our way not to waste food and energy, and we both tend to be more frugal with our money. Most republicans I know are anything but.. they blow all their money, buy fancy carbon emitting toys, live paycheck to paycheck. How do you define a conservative? I know a lot of liberals who are picky eaters and will go to a buffet and throw away half the food on their plate, must have the temperature just so and will pay to keep it that way, among other things. What of the wealthy people flying private jets while they preach about climate change and carbon emissions? I always say talk is cheap. Look at what someone does, not what they say, and then forgive them, because they are only human. Should we be regulating what people can and can't do for their own good? Each "side" (two sides of the same coin) wants to tell people what to do, how to live their lives. Culture is a living, breathing, constantly changing entity. The base argument comes down to order versus chaos. What should people be allowed to do, what shouldn't they be allowed to do? How much power should one person be able to have over another? I'd say the terms "liberal" and "conservative" should not be linked with "democrat" or "republican" because there are plenty of each in both these parties. There are infinite perspectives. I hate being told I must pick only 2 options. I don't want to part of a herd, collectivist mindset. Maybe it's good to keep the sheep thinking they have a choice, but it doesn't work for me. I enjoy consuming Leo's content in Audio form during a relaxing, 45 minute drive each way to Sioux Falls on I-29, so I might just plan an impromptu Costco run just to enjoy his newest content.
  20. When spiritual teachers become too caught up in the trees over the forest is where they lose their way in my opinion. David Hawkins in many of his books such as "healing and recovery" will mention that once you advance enough in your calibrated level of consciousness things that used to affect you no longer will. If you are doing this work correctly, you are not worrying about what color shirt you are wearing, because it's trivial and doesn't matter. You become immune to things that used to affect you, because you see they no longer matter in the way you used to think.
  21. Trump may end up fracturing the republican party because some of his followers simply won't give up and move on. The amusing thing about his most hardline supporters to me is how they are all anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists despite the fact Trump has taken the vaccines and boosters and promoted them as safe. I'd say they need to push a Desantis/Noem ticket as their best chance of winning. I don't care if they win or not though. Like Leo said in part 2 of his video on the left, the republicans would at least present some value if they promoted fiscal conservatism, but most of their base are modern monetary theorists who want to use the central banks to do more QE and keep pumping asset bubbles and overspending. As it stands what do republicans actually bring to the table? They want to ban abortion and pot. Yawn. Trump killed his chances by saying he'd dig up things on Desantis. He's done now. It's time for his base to move on.
  22. Read this thread. It's not mine but good advice. https://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message5280710/pg1 It's perfectly possible to be totally content doing nothing in life with the right perspective and mindset. Jed McKenna mostly lives that type of lifestyle with his small group of followers. That guy strikes me as a guy who would have been an incel had he not reached the void state and come back to talk about it and write books about it. I don't think he actually reached true enlightenment as described by David Hawkins by the way... seems to me his books talk about the path of intellect, which David Hawkins calls "the void." It's also mentioned by Gary Renard.. the state of no mind versus the state of oneness. The line between someone who has "success" and someone who doesn't really isn't that obvious, and much of it is a mind game. A person can be quite rich and quite unhappy. Look at how many wealthy celebrities end up overdosing and dying. Mindset is the first big thing to work on. Habits are the next. Leo has so many videos on this subject... the happiness spectrum is one of the best... you can be happy with hedonism but as you get older will you be able to stay content that you spent your life chasing hedonism over eudimonia? That's the tricky question. Does it really matter what you do? Bottom line, it matters to you.
  23. I use credit cards because in theory debit cards it's easier for a thief to drain your account balances. Credit cards are unsecured debts. In practice you are mostly protected from all forms of fraud, but I have never had a problem of controlling my spending. I've never actually been in debt at the age of 40 besides mortgage debt. I've never had to check my bank account balance to make sure there's enough money in there. I use an ATM only card along with my credit cards. I can use it to draw cash to a daily limit without worrying about the account being emptied by someone. It IS good to build credit when young. Get a credit card, pay it off every month.
  24. I'd say condescending can be good in measured doses. I work with someone where we've both helped each other grow through blunt, honest observation of one another. I have an ego that can be whiny, entitled, and defensive, as does he, and we both poke at each other's egos as a way to try to break them down. People are going to say things you don't want to hear. Discomfort is a part of life. When typical men, the type of men women love to be with, are bullshitting with each other, it's really a form of therapy for the ego. It helps a person learn to not take things so seriously, get butt hurt over little things, lower their defenses, and be relaxed and playful, which is what life should be about... confident playfulness. Most personal development gurus can come off this way to one degree or another. Like Gary Renard's masters said in his original book... they're not there to coddle you... your approval of what they have to say is NOT required. If you are so upset, ask yourself why you are upset... is it your ego defenses? For me the best growth comes when I ditch all the defenses and psychological barriers and just dive head first into an activity and if I screw it up, fuck it... get up and try again.