The Mystical Man

This is so cool: Just in case you don't know who Michael Imperioli is, he played a mobster in HBO's The Sopranos.

Michael Imperioli is great: I'm happy that he found the way.

https://youtu.be/V-CgjoXtkwc "We don't want to be going around for the rest of our lives chasing after someone else's experience. It's a stupid way to spend one's life force." - Adyashanti "Just through the act of watching your breath, your nervous system starts to calm down." "There's nothing more divine than fat and sugar." "Am I functioning from that connected ground? When you're not connected, it's because you didn't want to be. That's why we meditate. I don't care if you get really good at meditation. But when you start to see in a way you can't deny that there becomes recognizable a gap between your deeper ground and whatever the next reactive moment can be, and in that gap, if you've never seen it before, you will see it someday, any day, and in that gap, what's going to be horrible and wonderful, equally so, is you're going to see that something in you chooses which way it's going." "What am I really valuing here? It's a horrible thing to realize, because it takes the victim mentality out of the equation." "Whether there is a chooser or not, there is choice." "What seems to make more difference than anything else, maybe more difference than anything else combined, is those people who love that true nature in everyone, and they love it, and they're devoted to it, and they're choosing it over and over and over. They're the most mature in spirit. Without that element of great valuing, a great love, a great devotion to our true nature, to reality, without that, nothing else can make up for it."

I think you're misinterpreting my response. I meant no harm by it. I'm just playing. I'll remove my response. Sorry.

*removed*

Adya is taking a break until next year. This is an excerpt from a letter that he wrote: "The immensity of life moves on and continues to reveal the endless opportunities, and the necessity of loving and caring for one another in the myriad ways that life presents. It’s as if, in every moment, life is asking us, 'are you willing to be awake and present for this moment? And what are you going to value and uphold here and now?' This is essentially our practice, to be conscious and awake moment to moment, and to embody the enlightened values of love, wisdom, and compassion to whatever degree we are capable and willing." "From this stillness arises the greatest activity, where body, mind and spirit express themselves not as fractured parts but as an embodied whole."

Pressfield on the importance of consumption: Study the Canon "There are books and movies and plays and songs that you simply have to know if you call yourself a writer or artist or aspire to one day become one."

It's okay. If you're looking for something that's easy to watch, you can binge-watch this. It's lightweight entertainment. It's not scary. The "dramatic moments" made me laugh; it's a funny show. It's a fun guessing game. What is the true story behind The Watcher on Netflix?

There's a place for those titles, but I don't enjoy those kinds of games, either. It's a different kind of entertainment. I prefer the kind of entertainment that has fascinating setups and payoffs. I want to have the sense that this movie, series, novel, or game is setting up a satisfying payoff, not just at the finale but throughout the work. However, the final payoff, the climax, has to be the best one. When I watch a movie or play a game, I can tell very, very quickly: "This is not going anywhere. The creator doesn't know what he's doing." I want meaningful emotional experiences, but those are hard to come by, which is why I cherish a masterpiece very much when I find one.

If you haven't played Uncharted yet, it's going to be released on Steam in two days. I just realized that the original trilogy is not included. Just the final installment and The Lost Legacy. Good enough for me

All of them.

I'm not a big fan of video essays, but this one is good:

Yeah, well, she's got a point, but I still don't think that this is a wise approach.

I'm happy to hear that. I'm slowly getting better, too. I hope the worst is over.

Scorn has a lot of potential. It could've been a much more profound experience.

No, they are disappointed because they expected something with more substance. It was already clear that this was not going to be an action-packed game, but people were hoping for more substance. They worked on this game for almost a decade, so obviously a lot of work went into it. But taste? No. A creator's taste gets expressed through the choices that he makes to fulfill the purpose of his vision. Unfortunately, the creators of Scorn didn't have a vision, for the desire to create an atmospheric experience inspired by Giger does not constitute a vision. That's like making a post-apocalyptic game just because you're inspired by cordyceps, and the only thing that the game has to offer is cool-looking cordyceptic environments. But that's not what The Last of Us is about.

The Sopranos is not a show that you can binge-watch. Ideally, you'd watch it over the course of a year or two. It's like slowly digesting a massive piece of literature like Moby-Dick. These masterworks aren't meant to be gobbled up.

I admire her integrity, intelligence, and wit. She never made inflammatory statements towards transgender people. Being integrous has to do with being truthful, and truth has nothing to do with one's opinions.

Many people have been waiting for this game for a long time, and it seems like many are disappointed. Unfortunately, an interesting art direction isn't enough to entertain an audience. What is entertainment? "Entertainment is the ritual of sitting in the dark, staring at a screen, investing tremendous concentration and energy into what one hopes will be a satisfying, meaningful emotional experience." - Robert McKee Atmosphere, art, and vibe aren't enough to create a meaningful emotional experience. And that's the reason why I can't play most games anymore, because most games focus solely on art direction. Great art direction is impressive only if it serves a larger vision. There is nothing visionary or unique about Scorn. They simply made a game based on Giger's art style.

I've never heard of that show before. Might watch. I watched a few episodes, and it hasn't hooked me yet.

A poem from Adyashanti's first book: You Are… beyond the body, mind and personality beyond all experience and the experiencer thereof— beyond the world and its perceiver beyond existence and its absence beyond all assertions and denials. Be still and awaken to the realization of who you Are. In this realization of no separate self the Supreme Reality which you Are shines unobscured in all things, as all things, and beyond all things. Having returned to the formless Source and transcended all separateness do not stop or cling even to this Source but go beyond to the Supreme Realization which transcends all dualities yet does not deny even a speck of dust. The enlightened sage abides as the eternal witness wholly unconcerned, yet intimately engaged. Resting beyond all definitions he neither clings to transcendent freedom nor is he entangled by the dualistic world; therefore, he is at one with all of life. Living in the perfect trust of Supreme Realization he has nothing to gain or lose and naturally manifests love, wisdom and compassion— without any personal sense of being the doer of deeds. Having abandoned all concepts and ideas the enlightened sage lives as ever-present consciousness manifested and manifesting in the world of time and space That which is eternal, ever new, and whole. In this unobscured realization Supreme Reality shines consciously in all things, as all things, and beyond all things. Shining unobscured, it penetrates the entire universe. Penetrating the entire universe it knows itself as Self.