EternalForest

@Arthur How did that experience affect any fear of death that you had? It would seem like discovering there is literally nothing after death would be fairly frightening, especially if you saw it firsthand.

@Leo Gura All possible possibilities = reality, a hallucination hallucinated by a hallucination...hm, that's some stuff I'm definitely going to mull over. I appreciate your thoughtful responses, as well as everyone elses in the thread. Quality community. I watch your videos because I believe there's some deep truth there, but feel it's just out of my grasp. I'm going to start doing the practices seriously this year, from my previous posts I've shared that I try starting spiritual practices (meditation, lucid dreaming, contemplation, etc.), get some minor progress but then at some point fall away and get disillusioned, frustrated, disinterested, inconsistent, etc.) This year I'd really like to try and make a meditation habit stick, trying to build from 20min to an hour daily and maybe do a retreat this summer and get to the bottom of this stuff, not through this sort of intellectual discussion but more direct experience/meditation. Hopefully this will click for me, only time will tell (I'm in no rush )

@lmfao What you're saying sounds straightforward and makes sense on an intuitive level but it's hard for me to real feel the "realness" of what you're saying, because I've honestly never felt one with everything in that sort of way. At certain moments of creativity I have felt one with what I was creating, and I've felt one with family and friends, and occasionally nature, but not everything all at once in the sense you're talking about. So it's just not true for me on baseline level, but I've had experiences that hint at what you're talking about.

@Leo Gura Okay, I'll take you up on that, all realities are equal. Let's say I have a village in my mind that requires watering the plants, working the power plants, and regulating the weather and sunlight, among other things. I am basically the God of this village. Now let's say I die. What happens to that village? Does the village in my mind suddenly go into chaos? Who would know but me? Where is that "occuring"?

That's just the way it is Oh, but don't you believe them Epic, sounds of inspiration, Han's Zimmer's Time We Come Running! One man can change the world.... 'fore the day I die, Imma touch the sky Viva La Vida, beautiful nostalgia and flowing of spirit and inspiration <3 Finally, xxxtentacion's Schizophrenia and Hope

@Commodent Yes I have noticed that people 65 and older seem to regain the spark again, it comes full circle.

Children have a quite shallow emotional intelligence, it's either the best day ever or the worst day ever, usually for shallow reasons. Adults are pretty emotionally stoic, yeah they occasionally cry or get upset, but they usually don't experience the types of deep joy that they did in their teens. After thinking it through, I tend to believe that teenagers experience the deepest emotions and their lives are driven by emotion the most. Their emotional intelligence seems to be more authentic, and they seem to have a better sense of what they're really passionate about and take life by ear and live much more in the moment. They seem to not only experience the greatest joys but also have much more sophisticated understanding of suffering and pain than I think most give them credit for. What are your thoughts on this, and why do you think it is I have this sense that teens are the most emotionally developed?

@Knock It comes in phases. For a while, you become hopeless and helpless about the state of things, and you feel as if the more you know the more unhappy you are. Then, it comes full circle and you learn so much more that you begin to become enamored by the abundance of it all and actually become inspired by what the whole world has to offer, and you begin to realize that the positive far outweighs the negative. So the solution is actually not to learn less, but rather, more

@Leo Gura Exactly. So in that sense, would the teen years be a sort of "peak" of open mindedness for people within culture, where they're just old enough to know a lot about the world but not too old to have fully conformed? I think that's what I'm getting at here. I'd like to add though that I think that a superbly well-developed adult easily has more emotional development than the average teen. I'm just saying that the average to above-average teen probably has more natural expression and open mindedness than the average adult, simply because the average adult has had their muse silenced for so long.

@Bluebird Sure, but what I'm saying is that not only are they most emotionally volatile, I also think they're most in tune with their emotions, specifically because they haven't yet learned to repress them, and that allows them to more freely feel and express them. There's merit in being emotionally stoic and balanced, but it shouldn't come at the cost of losing the spark I'm referring to. In a sense, one way to put it is that teenagers strike the perfect balance between the childlike sensibilities and adult-like ones.

@Wyze Yeah I think it has a lot to do with identity. That's when our identity was the purest so the speak. I feel like as we get older and are forced to conform to society all of our identities become "ADULT *TM"... That's why I try my hardest to keep an open mind.

@nahtanoj I know what my life purpose is (becoming an impactful musician), but I'll try doing that, jumping out of my comfort zone. Thanks

In a way, the Hacker may be worse than the Dabbler At least the Dabbler is trying a lot of new things along the way and getting experience, learning lessons and may eventually find his one thing. The Obsessive has the work ethic and can eventually settle down and become a master. The Hacker, though, has arrogance from already knowing quite a bit and doesn't have the work ethic or desire to keep improving, yet he also doesn't have the flexibility of the Dabbler, so he remains stuck going nowhere in circles, deluding himself that he's doing alright yet decaying faster than any of the other groups. I've had the epiphany recently that I've become a Hacker in my profession. For the first 5 years I was constantly improving and became great in my eyes and the eyes of others, but for the past 5 years I've stopped trying to improve and although it didn't feel bad at first, over the years I've noticed that I've lost the attention to detail I once had and I've lost that rookie drive to challenge myself, since everyone still looks up to me and I'm better than 80% of people, so what's the point right? Big mistake. There is one person who no longer looks up to me. And that's myself, my highest self. What is the best thing for a Hacker to do to snap out of it and get back on the Mastery path. Is it too late for the Hacker?

I was born into it. I've tried to stop eating it a few times to no avail, it's just too ingrained into my diet. Further, I've seen evidence that a plant only diet is unbalanced for humans and am undecided on really taking the leap to cut it out completely

@Shakazulu Great, then focus on that for now and worry about relationships later

@Shakazulu I mean focusing on your life purpose. Do you know what your life purpose is? Your calling in life?

Try creative writing clubs, book clubs, music festivals and high quality niche dating sites.

Learn to enjoy being alone, enjoying your own company and loving yourself. Develop your passion and a sense of drive. Once you do this you won't feel dependent on a relationship, and it will actually make all your new and existing relationships stronger in the process. Good luck.

@solr You helped 100s of people, why let 2 people stop you? Completely ignore the trolls and move forward. Leo has a video about this too!

Go with her to the mall one day, walk around and talk to her about her life and what she wants to do in it. Don't judge, just ask curiously. She may have more things planned out than you realize and be better off than she appears. But at the end of the day, it is her life and she can choose what to do with it and you must accept that.

Instead of typical self help or "how to start a business" books, I'd focus on reading business books written by legendary businesspeople, or autobiographies of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Mark Zuckerburg, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, etc.

A video about the long term positive effects of keeping a daily, productive schedule would be awesome! (how to make a schedule, how to keep a schedule, benefits, traps, etc.)

Ask them if they watch Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, a few episodes of those is about the length of an Actualized.org episode. Or if they're an anime fan it's about 4 to 6 episodes. Or about the length of an Avengers movie. If you re-contextualize it that way it's not very much time at all.