Shadowraix

And wouldn't running a business just reassign the people responsible for your wages as the general public? Except with this your wage is never guaranteed.

Correct. 'better' depends what you want out of it. I actually sometimes miss the social nature of my old retail job so im not cooped up in the house so often. But at the same time the leisure of working from home is pretty great. I was mostly speaking in the severity of being a 'wage slave' that self employment can be a step above but doesn't inherently imply elimination of being one.

Yes, I am currently self-employed. Of course thats a sort of vague term. I do contracted work as of right now, but im working on some independent projects so I can stray away from contracted work. I would say there are severities of being a wage slave. Self-employment can definitely be way more ideal than working for some big (or small) corporation. More so if you can avoid contracted work. But all it really does is reassign who is "responsible" for your wages. You are still dependent on them. But as I said the amount of control and freedom you get can be much greater than being some employee. Not to mention a whole lotta diversity! Keeps the game interesting!

Using the topics listed as a guide, i'd peg myself at somewhere between 3-5

Self employment does not imply being free from being a wage slave.

You can postpone when senility occurs through much better ways of living, but it does not stop it from happening. You will eventually find the body no longer as capable as it was until the brain completely shuts down. Unless you've found the solution to living forever? I for one am for euthanasia for when senility happens.

You could try to ask her to sit down and work it out before making a decision. She feels some way, and is acting based on that without actually knowing how you actually feel? It really sounds like she is projecting how she feels onto who you actually are. Body language in how you express affection is important to learn and it seems like she hasn't learned yours. Are you aware of your body language and how it may be interpreted in usual social norms? That aside, its greatly concerning how one would just leave a relationship like that. "Oh a problem arised, lets just move on" her reasoning could be some excuse to hide an actual reason. Some people just genuinely lose feelings or want to move on to other people but they try to sugarcoat it with other bs reasonings than being honest. That aside, my relationship just turned 1 year myself a week ago, but I don't hold any expectations towards the longevity towards my relationship. People tend to toss the experience of a relationship as wasted or useless if they end up breaking up even though their time with the person could be enjoyable or truly growth inducing. If she wanted to leave me to move on then I would have no quarrels. There is always plenty of people to meet and grow from. Yeah you'll find a lot of people hanging around at orange/blue, still quite a few green though. Its a gamble game. There's no rush. Maybe think about how you on whereever you are on the spiral can work with an orange and vice versa

Work a job to support yourself or starve to death. Hmm... Just because working is optional doesn't really mean you aren't a slave. Its just not physically forced but its set up in a way to where you are dependent on it for survival. Any alternative means of survival will require $$$ at least initially. The 'being a slave' role is to help you see past an illusion. To understand the economic structure. Once you have a grasp on the economic structure you can strategize to overcome it. If your survival is dependent on someone else paying you for work, you are a wage-slave. As Leo said though true independence financially from other people is extremely rare and even then you are usually piggybacking off other wage slaves. You know the word slave used in Leo's videos were not used in the way like white on black slavery was done in the past.

Reminds me of this: Moving without thought but with instinct. Does sound like this scene sort of takes after such teachings of meditation.

When it comes to things like feminism and a lot of agendas, you have many layers. Maybe this person has true green-like intentions but express actions more associated with blue? Maybe they are using a green stage idea to push orange stage motives. People REALLY like to play fair when it benefits them, so many may try to push the play fair agenda to raise their status and even topple the seesaw the other way showcasing their orange intentions. Super interesting stuff. Strawmans are very common through blue stage manipulation. "If you don't support feminism then you must be anti feminist and therefore hate women!" ignoring the incredibly complex dynamic of language definitions vs political climate. This kind of vs mentality is extremely common I find when I discuss an extremely sensitive and taboo topic. If im not on the 'kill them all' bandwagon then you are sympathizing with them and must be one yourself! They make you an enemy where no enemy exists.

I don't think understanding once pursuing nonduality is ever lost - but I do think one can not think about that understanding and focus solely on more materialistic dualistic perceptions of life. Going towards this path means a lot of alienation from a major portion of unconscious society, and well, im sure there are plenty of people who went back to fit in before finally being able to break the shell.

Its one thing to side with a perspective. Its another to cling to it as if you are its parent. Clinging causes all sorts of issues like denial of evidence and even backlash on those opposing your perspective. Not clinging to a perspective is not being so grounded in it that you feel like you must defend it. Clinging is very halting to growth.

I feel like I have a reply to this, but its solely a feeling and can't really express it in language. I'll contemplate on this a bit.

@Mikael89 Enlightenment process is often a part of self-actualization. I wouldn't call striving towards enlightenment to be necessary up to a certain point in self actualization. So self-actualization has very useful "down-to-earth" material for those in the materialist paradigm.

He sounds like me when I went from Christian to Atheist. He seems to have brought spirituality to a more traditional materialist atheist-like mentality.

@Flow With Life From my view, to eliminate suffering means to eliminate happiness. They are 2 sides of the same coin. Suffering can often be seen as a learning mechanism.

We don't agree. I said you can change, but you're creating an obstacle to prevent that. Good and bad don't even have any solid definition (That goes for all of language) so it only exists in the relative view. But those are really illusory. Im beginning to think its you don't want to change. You don't want to be better.

Don't expect the forums to bring you all the answers. Sit down and do the contemplation. The solutions are already in you. The most we can do is share experiences that disproves your generalizations and one sided outlook on who you are and how you appear to others. But that doesn't get rid of the reoccurring thoughts and fears.

Alcohol is a tool. As all drugs are. Tool is useful for some, not so much for others. I'm not so much a beer person as I prefer liquor. I drink for the psychoactive effects. Sure being more open on it is a sign of needed development work, but that doesn't mean its useless.

Natural fallacy. GMOs aren't inherently bad. Depends on the modification made. Us modifying nature is a part of nature in of itself.

I love when the media has no idea what a drug is.

You can't and won't change as long as you hold such a self limiting belief. Break that and you can change. Notice you are holding yourself to either your own standards or the standards of someone else. All of which vary among the entire population. Your self destructive thought process is all flawed in how it justifies itself.

You don't remove the ego. You become aware of it to acknowledge and intervene when you see it start to grab influence.

Whats positive for one is negative to another. Real tricky thing.

Beat me to it. I find people prioritize the sober mindstate by default and have much harsher criticisms to altered ones. On OP question, generally any insights you get on a psychedelic makes sense sober. You have to be able to integrate it in order for it to be useful. Such insights don't require drugs though. Think of packing 30 years of meditation into a 6-12 hour trip. Gets results much more quickly than self inquiry and meditation by itself.