Extreme Z7

<08-07-16> Escapism Today I wanted to spend the Sunday telling myself that I'm going to pursue activities that have nothing to do with work or anything uncomfortable and instead aim for stuff that relaxes me and makes me feel more prepared for the next week. Instead, I spent my time engaging in escapism and subconsciously trying to escape my boring everyday life. Funny thing is, though, that I used to do this EVERYDAY. This was kind of my normal regular day even before I discovered personal development is that I just spent the entire day entertaining myself with internet, games, etc. Nowadays, I've gotten enough progress in that my regular day is mostly personal development work (i.e. meditation, mindfulness, massive action, etc.) and the days where I engage in escapism are pretty much scheduled and planned. I still have a lot of room to improve though, and in fact I see that even just spending one day trying to escape my everyday emotional problems is already a big hurdle in my personal development journey. I want to not squander as much free time as possible in order to reach higher stages of self-actualization as quickly as possible and I find that even one day of escapism a week can already be a limiter to my self-actualization journey. I'll see how I can deal with this problem in the coming days. That's all for today's report, see you tomorrow!

<08-06-16> Falling Back To Old (Positive) Habits Just as I have the tendency to fall into distractions, I find myself trying to go back to old habits that are giving positive results in my life. Last week, for example, I fell off my sketching habit and made a lot of excuses why I can delay a certain drawing idea I have on my head so I can do something else "important" like you know, play at the mall arcade instead. Now, I'm going back to having my productive habits again only now I'm trying to approach them from a different angle. There's a really nice post @Leo Gura made that I read a week ago that has helped me over the past days. Here it is: This advice has helped me over the past week and I have a feeling that it will continue to help me not only for the next months but probably even the next years. First of all, it would mean that I wouldn't need to be whipping myself into a frenzy to get any results in life, I think this is one of the things that let me fall off track in the first place because I get so exhausted and that makes me more attracted to low consciousness distractions. Secondly, it also means that I really shouldn't expect having the big results I want very early and instead expect the really good stuff many years down the line. This would require intense patience which I certainly have, or at least more than the average person. Big thanks to Leo for this wonderful insight. That's all for today and. . . oh wait I almost forgot. . . I finished a new pixel art animation today. I started it yesterday but I didn't have the time to finish animating it then so here it is now. . . I'd love to hear some feedback. Feel free to let me know what you think.

The universe does not exist and neither does death, you are not even a human being. If you can really grasp these things then human extinction will become a complete non-issue.

Arguments don't mean anything at all when it comes to understanding consciousness. Really take consciousness work very seriously and do that for several months and you really understand just how meaningless it is to try to explain something as deep as consciousness and existence with words/models. What you really need is deep understanding. And you can't have deep understanding of truth without doing the raw practical work required. Even an enlightenment newbie will know that one. Uploading our consciousness into a system that would make us immortal is a complete joke! Complete delusion. It only takes a few months of exploring your own consciousness to know that it's complete bunk. As if consciousness is an actual physical phenomenon that is present in some sort of physical material world. As if consciousness is somehow located inside the skull of a human being that can be transferred into a different vessel. That's not the case at all. The only real problem here is that we're living in an age where the majority does not understand existence, consciousness, nothingness, truth etc. If you think that this A.I. utopia crap actually matters, you're way off.

<08-04-16> Noticing My Distractions I find that I've actually been coming out of a transition over the past month. A transition from a majority of my time in distraction to a majority of my time noticing how distracted I am. I'm just astounded by how simple things like playing with my pet cats everyday has become a huge distraction in my life. I've noticed how drastic the changes in my life have been and just how deep my lack of conscious awareness really was. It goes so deep that even 5 paragraphs of explaining isn't going to convey just how deeply I've been a slave to all these distractions and how I'm still struggling from removing them almost completely from my life. I'm not going to write too much today because I want to continue trying to lessen the amount of distraction I have today. See you tomorrow.

<08-02-16> I Found My True Self I'll just outright say it, I found my true existential self during my meditation session today! I couldn't believe after all this time trying to "search" for the existential self, I actually grasped what it is. Pretty much what I learned from watching Leo's videos basically got confirmed. The existential self is NOT and experience at all. It is NOT a thing! It is completely empty and I was also able to see that it was inherently self-aware! How did I "find" it? Well, I simply had to grasp was that whatever I am, it had to be something that was constant. And so during the session, my mind basically wandered into doing a sort of spontaneous "Neti Neti method" where I noticed just how different kinds of experience came and went, and because of the constant flux, I couldn't possibly be any of my direct experience. It didn't take me long to realize and find that what was constant was pure awareness that experience was happening. And there I finally grasped that what I am is not only the "thing" that is aware of experience, but that it was also the fact that experience is even happening, if that makes any sense at all. Maybe you might be reading this and getting skeptical with my claims, maybe you might think that I have not actually found my true self and am just talking shit but I can assure you, what I discovered was very profound and very true. The real problem is is that I can't communicate my direct experience. I mean, how am I supposed to describe empty self-aware nothing to you if you haven't "experienced" it for yourself. I'm using a lot of quotation marks in my writing because the words can't really accurately describe what I actually found. Also, I realize that today was only a step forwards in my consciousness journey. Today I only "found" my true self. I only managed to genuinely grasp what the self exists as but I have not gotten close to being it yet as a human individual. I still recognize that merging with the true self will require significantly more work and years in order to truly live without ego or lower self. That's all for today, see you again tomorrow.

@DrMatthewsausage Discover your true self first. And then ask that same question again.

<08-01-16> Money Spent, Time Wasted So many things I regret about today. I didn't spend my money and especially my time wisely. I couldn't help myself but try to enjoy myself with petty activities like going to the mall to play at the arcade or stressing out over work that I chose to do. Now I kinda want to go back again to the highly disciplined and relatively higher consciousness lifestyle again. I notice that my habits are basically like a Sine wave where I alternate between trying to do what my ego does not want to do but ultimately feeling satisfied and doing close to everything that my ego wants ending up with guilt and disappointment. I have a feeling that today was a me being in the lowest point in the sine wave and that tomorrow will begin my climb back to doing self-improvement and doing it well. This time, it's going to be different though, this time I'll try to stay up in that conscious state as long as I can and hopefully break the cycle of me constantly backsliding and only kicking myself in the ass when things are at their (relative) worst. In unrelated news, here are a couple of new pixel art pieces I drew during the last couple of days. I hope you like them. That's it, just a pixel robot lion cub and a pixel humanoid atom-head thing (I named her Atoma). That's all for today. See you tomorrow (hopefully).

@Davie Marathon monks can meditate while walking. I heard it in a documentary.

<07-30-16> Sometimes I Just Forget I forgot to write yesterday's entry again. That's okay. I decided I was going to enjoy myself last Friday night. And because I have both the tendency to overwork myself and also overstimulate myself at the same time, I thought it's be wise if I plan to spend tomorrow mostly doing calm observation and relaxing activities that don't require much effort. Something to clear my mind with and also an opportunity for me to think about my future and really strategize. Ask myself questions about what I really want out of my life and what I must do to achieve it and what not. Because of tomorrow's plans, I decided to make an update for my game project one day early. You check it out now in my blog (extremegamedev.blogspot.com). I also finished drawing a new pixel art piece today that I plan to polish and then upload tomorrow. I'm excited to share this one.

@Cuzzo Personally, my advice is to study Islam or other religions but only out of curiosity. Don't do it out of pure ego fear/worry. Your main focus should just be to develop conscious awareness. Period. That is, if you already are interested in developing consciousness, if not then get start now. It will probably give you a deeper understanding of what goes on in religion than any information you read in a book or anywhere else. Woah, that's quite something.

<07-28-16> A Step In The Positive Direction I forgot to write yesterday's journal entry again, didn't I? Oh well, I was busy enjoying myself at the arcade again. Still worth it, though. Speaking of which, I drew a new pixel art drawing that i would like to share with you today. To be honest, I didn't think I'd make something this good until maybe after several more months of practice. But it turns out, all I needed was to look up some pixel shading tutorials, and look for more tutorials on how to draw pixel eyes, clouds, etc. Then use what I've learned from my sketching practice to draw the line art. Choose the right colors and you've got a pixel art piece that's bright and colorful. It's still kind of simplistic though, and the shading could be better, but why should I even expect it to be perfect? It would just ruin the satisfaction from creating art. I would definitely call it a step in the positive direction. It seems I've kind of transformed myself to be more interested in art than before. Even when I first started this journal, I wouldn't think I would change in such a way that drawing would be something that would even be remotely close to the forefront of my mind. Of course, I would think about it and value it a little bit, but I just wouldn't believe that it would become one of my higher creative values like it is now. If you're wondering, it took me close to a couple hours to draw. I drew it while bored, sitting at an office, supposed to be doing a web development internship job. Nobody around me seemed to care that I was just fucking about drawing so I just continued on my merry way until I was done. I expect to make more pixel art in the future and also experiment with other digital and traditional art as well so I can see which art mediums do I like the most or rather which ones are the most appropriate for my tastes in art. I find that the more creative projects I take on, be it music, drawing, video editing, or game development, that I slowly step away from some forms of creative work and get attracted to other forms. I think its important that I find all that I would really enjoy creating and avoid ones that I don't really have a passion for. The problem is that I still don't have the big picture of what that's going to be. So I need to keep experimenting, trying new things, failing and failing until success is the only option that remains. . .

<07-27-16> OMAGHERD! THE DISTRACTIONS ARE WONDERFUL I've been playing this game called The Improbable Island. Basically, it's a text-based browser based game set in a fantasy world where a reality-altering machine has gone haywire creating all sorts of anomalies and you have to fight (I stopped writing by this point because I switched back to the tab where I was playing the game. I can't say I feel really focused today, I think I'll sleep earlier than normal so I can stop playing this game earlier and get a clearer headed.)

@Ryan_047 Right, you really shouldn't be focusing on grades as it will completely distract you from the true learning that's possible when you choose to learn what you want to learn. However, I will say that you should study subjects that the school forces you study anyway even if you don't like them and study them well. The reason for this because it helps you practice open-mindedness and will help you broaden your perspective on life and not get too dragged into your own ego bubble. Leo has other videos on open-mindedness, just search for them on his channel. Don't underestimate the difficulty of trying to cultivate open-mindedness, though, it's actually more difficult than you might think. There are many people out there that think they're already open-minded but the moment you bring up topics that they barely think about or already have preconceived ideas about, (e.g. meditation, spirituality, non-duality, personal development etc.) they'll just dismiss it out right or claim they "already know" what's being talked about. Don't be those people. They live miserable lives. You don't want that.

<07-26-16> A Review On The Five Ways I forgot to write yesterday's entry again. I decided not to ignore it anyway because I didn't find yesterday too interesting. But anyway, let's get to today. Today I finished reading Shinzen Young's free e-book, Five Ways To Know Yourself. It's a 183 page e-book detailing five modes in which one can practice basic mindfulness plus more content and models on how one can view their perspective on mindfulness and its significance in the world. The first half was what I would call the "practical" part of the book where Young outlines basic instructions to achieve different kinds of basic mindfulness. The five main ways of practicing mindfulness as listed in the book are: The Way of Thoughts and Emotions The Way of Physicality The Way of Tranquility The Way of Flow The Way of Human Goodness You're supposed to be able to do each of these 5 practices in order to get the benefits out of doing mindfulness but I found myself being geared towards doing the Way of Tranquility most of the time, it is the easiest to do of the five because it includes the "Do Nothing Technique". The second half talks more on abstract models but I actually thought it was more interesting. I enjoyed reading all the different goals and benefits that one should strive for when doing this kind of work and also brief advice on how to advance one's mindfulness/meditation habit. I'd definitely recommend this e-book for anyone who's interested in doing mindfulness work especially if you're a beginner or rookie. Don't worry about having to pay anything, like I said, it's free.

@Leo Gura Psychedelics is one of my least favorite topics but I'm excited to hear what you have to say anyway.

@Hardik jain Meditation + Removal of as many distractions as possible

<07-24-16> Just Keep Growing Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing. . . Growing. . . Growing. . . Finding the truth about my life. . Hmm . . . hm hmm. .hmm Hmm. . .Hmmm. . . Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing. . . Growing. . . Growing. . .Hmm . . . hm hmm. . The words above are just a tune that popped into my head when I tried to think about something to write today. It's a simple tune inspired by Dory from Finding Nemo's "Just Keep Swimming" song and Leo's new video about the 3 Levels of Personal Development which I absolutely recommend you check it out. I can talk about what I thought about the video but I really don't want to. What I want to do right is to just post this entry. Turn off my laptop and lie in bed, relax, and enjoy the night. P.S. Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing. . . Growing. . . Growing. . . Finding the truth about my life. . Hmm . . . hm hmm. .hmm Hmm. . .Hmmm. . . Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing, Just Keep Growing. . . Growing. . . Growing. . .Hmm . . . hm hmm. .

<07-23-16> Experiencing Some Backsliding This Weekend I've been backsliding back to my soft addictions again today, and something tells me tomorrow isn't going to be any different because I p;an to visit the mall again to play around in the arcade. I remember Leo making a video on this once. It would be best to watch it again to keep myself on track. Oh yes and tomorrow is Sunday again which means an exciting new episode of Actualized.org is coming! Also, I'm making a new blog post detailing progress I've made on my game again. I have nothing else to say. As I said, I backslided in some of my old habits today. Not completely, I did spend most of the afternoon walking outside so I could relax, but tonight I'm kind of falling back to my YouTube pleasures again.

I've been meditating consistently for 1 hour everyday for almost an entire year. The more I do it, the deeper I feel I go into exploring the nature of my human experience. Today I want to share just another epiphany I had while I was having an unpleasant experience. Just a few hours ago, I washed my clothes by hand which is a chore I always found to be very unpleasant. I hate how tedious it feels, I hate the feeling of having water splash on my arms and my feet. As I finished and started to pick up the clothes to hang outside the house, I started to notice very subtly how my body tries to avoid these certain feelings, I noticed that when I walk barefoot on the wet ground, that the soles of my feet where slightly lifted up to prevent my feet from feeling the water around the dirty ground. My body was trying to avoid a pleasant experience. I decided to instead release my feet to feel the wetness of the ground. I suddenly felt a release from suffering. I could actually see that the entire time, the experience was not the thing causing my suffering at all, I was creating it out of my own resistance! The suffering was artificially created, all I had to do was to let go and accept and. . . . there was no more suffering. It made me think about all the other times I've "suffered" in life. Of course, the story above involved a very small and petty kind of suffering but what if the more significant problems we see in our lives are actually just combinations of numerous small, petty, self-created problems combined into huge messes of complicated suffering? Furthermore, if it is the case that it's always been created by the self, then that kind of means we don't really have to expend any effort to get rid of suffering (besides the consciousness work required to see this, of course). All we need to do is recognize that we are creating our own suffering and . . . that's about it, actually. The question that comes to my mind now is, "Where does it come from?". Do we, as human beings, have good reasons to create suffering in our lives. Our do we really just create it out of freaking nowhere?!! I'd love to know what you think about this.

I honestly wish 99.99% of people I meet would read that.

Easy there buddy . . . that's great and all but I'm sure you know that you can't control your level of suffering even after you realize this because there isn't anyone there to control your body and mind. If there was, then both of us would be perfectly capable of stopping suffering completely, no exceptions! But we're still not perfect at it, all there is now is a small step towards letting go of resistance and big bags of thought.

What? What's going on? What is this?

<07-22-16> Do We Create Suffering Out Of Nowhere? (Link Below) One weird thing about me is that I'm a lazy yet hardworking kid. (I prefer not to call myself a "man" because I don't feel like one). I can spend hours a day working towards a huge project by myself while at the same time, I'm always looking for ways to cut the amount of effort I have to put into something but still maintaining the quality I want out of it. One thing that non-programmers don't know about programmers is that all we really do when we try to invent new programming technologies (e.g. a new programming language or a new API system) is to find ways to make things more convenient and require less effort. Why do I mention this? Well, I'm too lazy to actually write a journal entry today. So instead I'm going to link to a thread I recently made on the 'Self Actualization' sub-forum. Hey! I made some effort to make content, that new thread is basically my excuse not to expend more effort in today's entry.

<07-21-16> Still A Slave To Foolish Human Desires I was a Windows 8.1 user last night and after reading that the Windows 10 upgrade offer would cease to be free by July 29, 2016, I decided to get my ass excited and start downloading it. The download and install process took so long, I literally stayed up until 1:00 am, even though I knew that I would have internship duty today and I need to get up early. All that hassle just so I could monitor the installation process and be there the moment my new OS was ready. Also, isn't it interesting that I didn't give a shit about Windows 10 for months but the moment it was announced that it was going to be gone in a couple of weeks, I suddenly want it very badly, human psychology is a bitch. I know deep down that this wasn't a very wise choice to do. Giving away hours of sleep time just so I could see my shinier new OS quicker. Now I believe that I may have to suffer the whole day at internship duty with sleep deprivation. Fortunately, I don't really have much work to do at that job but sleep deprivation still feels awful. It's quite important that I stop writing this now and get to meditation. Every time I fall off track, I think it's pretty wise not to stay off-track for way too long before something I might really regret happens. See ya and have a nice, hopefully sleep-deprivation-free, day.