Extreme Z7

@DizIzMikey Dude, I'm still really into games and cartoons, although I don't play video games that much anymore. But what you enjoy can be a means to further your purpose by reminding you of what made you feel alive in the first place before personal development. I probably wouldn't give a shit about drawing if I didn't love animation that much. And I wouldn't be spending hours of my time everyday working on an indie game as a hobbyist game developer if I didn't love video games. Ultimately, its just about keeping awareness and mindfulness and a strategic mindset both in the short-term and the long-term to really know how to use entertainment properly. Most people simply stay stuck and get addicted to entertainment or stimulation not because of the stimulation itself but out of lack of conscious awareness. Sure, you have to make a lot of sacrifices on stimulation to cultivate conscious awareness but that doesn't mean spending some time with stimulation will always lower your personal growth.

<06-11-16> Had A Lot of Free Time Today I had a lot of free time today, I don't think I spent it in a great way but I still spent it well. Maybe I should just lower my standards? Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness Did some boring but required paperwork. Yeah, I didn't have that much entertainment but it was slightly more than usual. What more do I have to say? This is where I'm spending the majority of my time right now. I keep thinking about how it will be like after I actually finish it and I have to adapt to a new time management strategy. Because right now, I'm basically managing my time to get the most out of working on this while at the same time, not getting too neurotic about it. Almost done with "The Road Less Traveled". Who knows? I could finish it by tonight. I drew something! Two things! A skull and tombstone. The skull was, well . . . a skull, it was okay. I learned from drawing it. I'm really starting to get the point of my drawing practice. It's less about drawing things to achieve greatness, it's more about simply learning and enjoying it. And I'm really glad I'm finally getting to that point. Anyway, I draw the tombstone with the text "Here Lies YOU, you are going to die at some point. you do realize that right?". Just my attempt at drawing a death reminder to keep myself motivated in life and bla bla bla ramble ramble ramble, good night and much love!

<06-10-16> I Was Gone For A Day. Miss me? I deliberately skipped writing yesterday's journal entry because I was experiencing too much stress and frustration from things that were actually pretty petty in retrospect. Long story short, I thought I could try something with my game (try to draw background art), realized that I couldn't draw something that I could approve and I wasted a lot of hours just worrying about how to draw the best looking tileset to make a background for. So anyway, I decided to spend the afternoon with a no-laptop time out. So I decided to spend most of the afternoon just reading books and I felt so much better than I expected. So anyway, that was yesterday, now for today. . . Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness God, my college has this required internship program and they keep clawing on my back for all these requirements. I guess I spent a lot of time today trying to comply but sheesh! I still have to submit them as soon as possible. Living in modern society makes it really difficult to do self-actualization work. Watched a couple episodes of Gravity Falls. It's my new favorite show, why didn't I watch it when it came out? Pretty bland day for my game work today. Nothing special, just level design work. But hey, it was so much smoother than yesterday. Yesterday was awful. Almost done reading "The Road Less Traveled". I plan to draw after I write this. I plan to do another "No Laptop" time-out again to see if I could get the same sweet and peaceful connection to reality I did like I got yesterday. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. I decided to try starting and getting foundation of the music I'm going to put into the game. I really wish I had more time to focus on my own personal external goals. But you know what? It's better than living in North Korea. I had a Do Nothing session today. It was easy. It's supposed to be, it's freakin' 'do nothing'. On an unrelated note, I can't help but think about what Leo's next episode is going to be about. It comes the day after tomorrow. It could be anything! The mystery. . .

<06-08-16> Got Back On Track Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness Wow, I'm really holding off college work a lot longer than I thought I would. It's not too bad though because I've gotten to have lots of progress in other areas of my life that I'm genuinely happier about. I've had urges to play Minecraft that I haven't had in months. I realized yesterday that I probably loved Minecraft more than I originally thought. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), playing it is not an option. My laptop is no longer in any condition to play it since its cooling system got significantly less efficient. Probably won't get to play pretty much most games until I get a new computer. 2D games mostly still play fine on my laptop, though. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to work on my 2D Platformer indie game, speaking of which. . . . Anyone want a sneak peak of my game? I talk about it a lot but I've never actually showed any game content on this journal or to anyone. I'm planning to upload early builds of the game that people can try out so at least the game does not remain completely invisible. Not today though BUT it's possible I'll show you guys something within this week. I really want to impress you guys. "The Road Less Traveled" is really getting good at Chapter 3 and I also decided to read the introduction to the "Analects of Confucius" I DID IT! I've gotten back to drawing and letting my mind flow when it happens again. All I needed was a clear organized scheduled to time my drawing practice. The reason why I wasn't able to draw for the past few days was because I mostly got off track from trying to get things done by organizing myself with a schedule. I kind of experimented with denouncing it since I watched Leo's "Lifestyle Minimalism" but I found moderation is in order because it just made me get less done and only slightly more mindful. Nothing to do here. Pretty regular meditation session. And by that I mean, noisy, chaotic monkey mind. You know, the usual.

<06-07-16> Trying to Get Back To The Disciplined Mindset <I'm not going to do a list entry like I have been for the past weeks for today because I don't feel like it> So lately, mainly because of Leo's "Lifestyle Minimalism" and "Rant on Morality" videos, I've been subtly trying to ease myself and become less neurotic towards traditional values like discipline and let life flow more freely. The "Lifestyle Minimalism" video taught me that I really must not be pushing myself all the time to get things done. Aside from spending more time, trying to be aware of reality and existence, I also tried easing myself a bit more and actually getting back to some ego desires that I would normally try to avoid because I kept telling myself to keep working on this or that and only take a break when you've finished everything. Which brings me to the "Morality Rant" video. A video that let me decide to try to just lay back and let anything that happens happen. If I wanted to work, I will work. If there was work I didn't like to do but is not very urgent, I take up a lazy activity. If I feel bad, I should feel bad. etc. etc. It helped me in some ways but ultimately, I actually find that I've been getting less things done in a day because of this attitude and I've been getting really sleep deprived because this practice has me ignoring my "sleep at 9:30pm" rule that I tried to ignore for the sake of getting rid of my "should" statements. And I HATE feeling sleep-deprived. I think a commitment to balance is in order. A moderation of my pleasures with a strong but not neurotic discipline. I really want to get back to my mindset of feeling excited with getting things done while at the same time mixing that with slow deliberate mindful awareness. It's going to be a really big challenge but I'm up for it.

@AceTrainerGreen Moderation is good, do that. A shame-induced denouncement of certain pleasures you have can become neurotic as I've experienced in myself. But perhaps exercise or at least consider some really hardcore self-improvement practices when you're ready. A few examples: - Strong Determination Sitting (See Leo's video on Strong Determination Sitting) - Isolating yourself from society for an entire month (See Leo's "30 Ways Society Fucks You In The Ass" video) - Joining a Chinese Monastery - Vipassana Retreat (See Leo's "Lifestyle Minimalism" video) - etc. Only consider doing these when you actually understand what taking on these decisions will actually imply and when you think you're ready, though. I myself have done none of the activities on the list, I'm still pretty early in my self-development journey, but I'm very interested in taking on all these activities because I really believe in life-altering power they may have. But again, only when I feel like I'm ready. Personally, I like to get my information from my daily ordinary experience. Never really gotten interested in news media. Feels too much like distraction from reality. But that's just me. You don't need to ask such a question. Just be commit to personal development as a lifetime habit and that would be enough. As long as you WANT to learn, you will slowly learn. Manifest that natural curiosity for humans to explore what's behind the bushes. But if you really want some direction, then here are some personal recommendations. . . The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution by P.D. Ouspensky (Book) The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck (Book) Live and Dare (liveanddare.com). A website containing profound articles on how to use meditation to master your life! Pretty much any book by Robert Greene Fight Mediocrity (YouTube Channel) The School of Life (YouTube Channel) Infinite Waters Diving Deep with Ralph Smart (YouTube Channel) and many others I know which I have not listed because I don't want to spend too much time here. But ultimately, just remember that you don't need to rush things. This is a very slow process, it takes a lot of patience and persistence but you do eventually reach a 'point-of-no-return' when you start really seeing the true depth of it all.

My own personal quote: "Functioning in society is not the same thing as functioning in reality."

<06-06-16> My First Enlightenment Experience? Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness My college is requiring me to take an internship at a recommended company. I'm sort of excited for it. It beats working on my boring college requirements that I haven't passed yet. Had very moderate entertainment today so that's good. Little by little, I inch my way towards success. Little by little. . . Already at Chapter 3 of "The Road Less Traveled" Didn't feel like drawing anything today. Neither did I feel the need to really to do anything musical. I think I just had my first enlightenment experience. Damn. . . it was so weird. It felt like I finally saw reality for what it actually is. I really really really don't want to describe it because I feel it will be a distortion of what it actually was like. But I'll give the basic gist of it: I saw the 3-dimensional external world as an illusion inside this 2D screen we label as "vision". I also felt a presence that was not anything but was there and was aware. I also felt like this "presence", was not located anywhere, it just. . . "exists" I guess. I'll stop here because I don't want to keep describing it. The more complex the description, the more it strays away from the shear simplicity of how the experience was actually like. Damn it. . . that's another description.

@AceTrainerGreen If you're obsessed with politics because you think it gives you an accurate view of reality. Guess again, you can't even comprehend what true reality is actually like. Here's a little quote I like to say to myself to describe people who have your kind of mindset. "Living in society is not the same thing as living in reality" If you do enough self-improvement work, you might reach a point where you can actually see the truth in this. Most people mistake "living in reality" and "living in society" as the same thing. But I find that most people who are really in touch and ingrained in society are really fucking awful at functioning in reality. Hope this helps! P.S. I'm not telling you to give up your interest in politics completely. If you really love it, go for it. But I really urge you to commit yourself to value truth as a main goal in life. Politics and all those other stuff you mentioned are potential distractions from it. Leo talks a lot about truth so if you just keep consuming his content, you're bound to get a deeper understanding of truth. Truth about reality so deep that it literally trumps anything you've ever assumed about reality!

<06-05-16> Lazy Work Day Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness I really don't want to do college work. I am really not interested, it serves me no purpose. I watched entertainment when I felt like it. Didn't make much progress but I still got things done. Almost finished with Chapter 2 of "The Road Less Traveled" Didn't have the motivation to really draw anything. I actually did practice a bit of Techno music because I felt like I wanted to. My mind was pretty noise for the first half but I felt pretty good at the second half of my meditation. Leo's newest video recently got released, if you're reading this and therefore visit this forum, you probably already know about it.

@Soulbass I don't try to do all of them in one day. The plan is to have significant progress in all the areas within the 2 months free time I have without having to worry too much about college work. So some days I might focus on one thing but others I may focus on something else. As for music, I told myself that I probably spent way too much time on it during the previous months so I decided I wanted to spend more time on other things instead. Besides, I have my interests focused more on trying to learn a musical instrument rather than music production at the moment, although I still don't know when that's going to happen. I would really like to get myself to learn the piano but I'll cross that bridge when I'm ready.

<06-03-16> Tick Tock Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness I'm required to write a resume to send to this company so I can apply for an internship there. Did pretty good for a first resume if I may say so myself. I tried to stay focused mainly on work and told myself I would only really take a break when I'm done/ Still working like crazy on this game, I can't stop thinking about it. I read a bit less than I should have but I still read something. I recently uploaded the comic I drew a few days ago and also drew a new pencil sketch of Dr. Neo Cortex's head. Nothing to do here Meditation finished a lot earlier than I thought it would. I guess my mind really drifted off into space where time flew by quickly.

The problem with true wisdom is that it's very difficult to communicate accurately. Most people can't help but get stuck in the words being used and create their own projection of the message. I find this especially true with "rationally-minded" people. Our minds will come up with different perspectives but ultimately, I believe the results that Leo and other people like him want to get to are ultimately going to be the same. There are many different ways you can do personal development but there is still just going to be one "moon".

<06-03-16> *yawn* Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness Actually had to do a bit of academic work here and there because of stuff I don't want to spend the energy to talk about. Watched a few episodes of [adult swim]'s "Off The Air" I'm still obsessed and I love it. Oh damn, I didn't do a lot of reading today. Aaand, I still forgot to upload my comic. If you're wondering why I can't do it at night, it's because taking a picture of it inside a fluorescent lit room gives it some glow that don't like in the image. It always works best taking a picture of it with daylight. Tum tee tum . . . . Tried doing a guided meditation today with help of an online video. Better substitute for the real thing than no teacher to help at all.

<06-02-16> :-) Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness I'll be honest, I hate college. I really do. I was put into by neurotic parents who aren't aware of what they're doing and I'm still being nagged to do stuff by parents who have no awareness of what is going on in reality. Bottom line is I'm my own person and I get to exercise delaying some schoolwork where I find it strategically viable. I'm actually a bit nostalgic for the old days when I used to spend time with entertainment for almost all of my waking hours. That's over now, I've moved on. But I can't deny I still love my cartoons and video games. I'm still obsessed with finishing this game. I'm putting so much time, blood, and love into it. Especially love! <3 Yep, still reading the same book from the previous entries. I didn't do any drawing today and I also forgot to upload yesterday's comic like I said I would do. Oh well! That's something for tomorrow. @Soulbass sent me some wonderful free VST's that will probably help me a lot in the future. It's so cool of him, I can't thank him enough. If only I had something to give in return, though. MEDITATION! FUCK YEAH! AWARENESS IS THE ONLY WAY, YEAH!

<06-01-16> May Is Over! Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness Didn't work at all on any college project again. I'm being strategic here, it's not actually that important. Still watching Gravity Falls I started work on my game slightly earlier than I normally did today and also ended earlier. I kind of like being my own boss in this project. I can choose how much time I want to spend on it for the day depending on what I feel is best. Almost finished with Chapter 2 of "The Road Less Traveled". Finally! I managed to muster up the motivation to draw a new comic strip. I plan to upload it to my deviantArt account tomorrow. Nothing to do here. Tum Tee Tummm. . . I really exerted a lot of effort into today's meditation session and as a consequence, went through quite a bit of pain.

<05-31-16> Boop boop da Doop Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness I actually dealt with a lot of anxiety today from thinking too much about college work. So much so that I decided to do a very counter-intuitive thing and decided not to do anything about it. That's right, do nothing technique. Well, it was hardly do nothing because I just spent hours reading a book instead. And you know what, it helped me a lot! I came to a deep realization that my worry is largely unnecessary because the work isn't even that urgent. The mind is a very tricky thing to tame and I'm thankful for stumbling upon Leo's advice to help me fight my inner demons. Binged watched "Gravity Falls" Season 1, yep. I really enjoyed the progress I made on my game today even though it wasn't that much, I'm proud of what I accomplished today. Like I said, I've been reading "The Road Less Traveled" Damn, I forgot to do any drawing today. Too much distraction that there wasn't any space for it. Tum tee tum . . . nothing to say here Meditation was still difficult for me today but . . . meh, it was not bad. MYSTERY VIDEO!! It's a review a gamer youtuber made of the jam game I made a few months ago.

@Anna Konstantaki Best journal entry I've read from you so far.

<05-30-16> Felt A Bit Down Today But I'm Fine Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness Decided to ignore it again but I might start working on it tomorrow. Pretty low amount of entertainment today Still feel addicted and neurotically attached to working on the indie game but that's okay because I'm going to try to moderate and stay aware and mindful. Finished reading the first chapter of "The Road Less Traveled" Didn't feel like drawing today. It's not that I wanted to but couldn't find the motivation, I just didn't feel like I really wanted to draw anything so that's okay. Actually spent a few minutes messing with a distorted kick drum in FL Studio. heh. . . Because of my general bad mood today, I had to meditate multiple times to clear my mind. It helped me a lot.

@Leo Gura Funny, the way you describe it almost sounds like you're saying there is an anthropomorphic (perhaps a bearded man in the sky) that creates reality. But I see what you mean, the self or ego is an illusory image in experience that is being created. By what or whom? Is the question we're trying to ask ourselves.

@David1 That image reminds me of the cover of this book.

@charlie2dogs Thanks, that's very profound. ------ I just got back from meditating a few minutes ago. I came to a realization that happiness can also be seen as complete independence from external needs and circumstances. I pretty much realized that I'm probably going to have to spend years of work trying to connect to my inner being because right now, a lot of my thoughts and habits are still founded upon external desires.

Becoming unified with pure and true reality. A permanent escape from the fake world of the ego.

<05-29-16> Now I Need To Recharge Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness Didn't work on any college projects today. Didn't feel like I wanted to, didn't feel like I needed to. Actually took a quite moderate amount of entertainment content today. Probably only spent an hour and a half total and I don't feel like I need that much. Still feel like I'm addicted to working but on the bright side, I find that I've been very focused and quick in my indie game progress which is a big plus for me personally. I still have the memory in my head of how fast I saw a level I was working on grow as I kept building and designing the various aspects of the level design. <3 A little bit of continuation of "The Road Less Traveled" Oh man, I still have a lot of free time before bed as I write this. (About less than 4 hours total). I'm going to take a break for a while but I plan to do some doodling when my mind feels clear and creative. Nothing to do here Actually fell asleep at one point during the meditation. It was still pretty okay overall though. Leo's new video is amazingly profound and I can't wait for next week's follow up episode. Watch it now if you haven't already.

<05-28-16> Work or Want? I decided to rethink my mindset towards my free time this semester break. It turns out I can't really keep on track on my 7 goals I wrote as a plan because of limited time but I can try to simply chase what is going to make me feel happy the most. And it turns out I'm going to have to do a bit of trial-and-error to really so what makes me feel happy for the day while still adequately finishing a good part of my agenda. Ultimately, it's going to be just the right balance of work and play (or want?) to make me feel good, it's not necessarily going to be 50:50 and I'm probably going to feel like I want something different each day. I'm going to list what I decided to do for each of the 7 goals I did each day so I easily assess how I spent each days time. It makes it easier to do this trial-and-error thing. Just in case you don't know, Here's the list of goals I want to accomplish for my 2-month semester break followed by what I managed to do for it. Finish College Requirements Moderate Entertainment Make Progress On My Personal Indie Game Project Do A Lot Of Reading Books Practice Drawing Skills Take A Break From Making Music Meditate and Cultivate Awareness Barely worked on college requirements but I did have a small funny idea I decided to put into one of them. I sometimes try to make things fun when I work on these projects both to make other people laugh and also so it doesn't feel 100% boring. Currently binge watching on Season 1 of "The Amazing World of Gumball". I feel no shame because it's a good show and I love cartoons. Man, I'm worry that I'm addicted to working on my indie game. I'm not kidding, I can actually feel craving whenever I feel like I haven't done a satisfactory amount of progress on it each day. It doesn't feel too bad though and it's good that I'm spending a lot of my time on it because it's a big ambitious project of mine. Right now, the majority if my time is actually being spent here but I've been meaning to lessen that a bit so I can also live a little outside of this project. I started reading "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck. Unfortunately, I was so caught up on working on my indie game that I couldn't focus on reading it and I ended up reading only a little from the beginning of the book. Arrrgh. . . I just can't seem to find any motivation to draw and feel creative. I really want to be sort of guy who is able to layout ideas in a beautiful 2D fashion and show it to people regardless of what they think. Right now, I think my indie game workaholism is my biggest hindrance to being able to commit to a good drawing practice and I realize that if I'm going to draw, It's going to have to be on a day where I don't work on my indie game at all or at least very little. And I'm going to have to allocate some of my days for that. I still don't know when those days are going to be but I'm going to think about them. Nothing to do here My meditation session today was weird. It started awful and I couldn't feel like I was focused and present and I felt half-asleep. However, I did manage to get myself back and aware near the end and I actually felt a slight sense of happiness after it that I haven't felt in a while. It's the kind of happiness I feel whenever I feel in tune and flowing with reality. Then of course, I went back to working on my game because you know, I want to and I have to. So maybe an increase in focus in meditation and decrease in focus on my indie game may be beneficial for me. That's all for today but I also want to share this creepy yet profound animation I found on YouTube. I highly recommend you watch it, it might make you question your identity and the current state of psychotherapy (or rather how it was in 1998, maybe?).