Extreme Z7

@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?).

<05-27-16> Unexpected Damn, I should have known trying to implement what I wrote on yesterday's entry was going to be a lot harder than I thought. I knew that there was going to be difficulty, but I didn't know it was going to feel borderline impossible! Like I thought that even something like lessening the amount of entertainment for today would be easy as pie. But no, trying to do that turned out to bring up more resistance than expected. Hell, I even plan to just sit back and watch some more video content after I write this entry because I don't feel like doing anything else. Also, I thought I could do working on my indie game, and reading, and drawing really well during one day but I only ended up finishing two of those goals. As it turns out, I'm going to have to lessen the expectations I have each day for how productive I can be because right now they're a bit too high. On the bright side of today though, I still got a lot of reading done and I finally finished reading "Becoming Steve Jobs" so I can finally start reading a new book by tomorrow, Thank God. Also, I got a lot of focused work done on my indie game. It's not the fact that I got a lot of work done that I'm proud of, it's the fact that I remained mostly focused. Still, I wasn't perfect at it, I had a lot of room to improve but ultimately that's the kind of focus I want when I work so I don't waste hours procrastinating. That's it for today, Something tells me trying to spend my free time this break properly is going to be of critical significance to me so I better up my focus tomorrow. Can't get myself to lose some of the most valuable time I have. (Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch The Amazing World of Gumball or something)

<05-26-16> What's This? Do I See A Green Pasture In The Horizon? Okay guys, I can feel things are clearing up a little bit. I finally have slightly more free time and more importantly, more free space for my mind to breath (Thank God). I still have a load of requirements to complete but after a lot of work. I've chopped an entire third from it and the remaining 2/3 don't have to be completed so urgently so I can schedule them more freely. I can feel my mind going "Okay Okay, this is your chance to feel as calm and happy as you can in a long time, don't mess this up" which I honestly think is quite hilarious. Ultimately, it's going to matter based on how I properly schedule my daily routine without college being too much of a hindrance. Here's some basic things I want to remember for each day. (And I'm probably going to write this down to and stick it to a wall just like I did in entry <05-24-16>) If I work too much in a day on college projects, I'm going to be bored out of my mind not to mention I'm going to be too stressed to be happy and my mind is probably going to counter it with equally distracting entertainment. Speaking of which. . . I have to really watch how much time I spend on entertainment particularly video content which I've gotten addicted to over the past years because they're so easy to just click and watch and relax. That's not the only entertainment distraction though, I sometimes spend hours just browsing art on deviantArt because the variety and sometimes emotional triggers from the art attracts me to it. I don't really play video games as often anymore but I still have to watch it with that one, sometimes I waste several minutes playing a video game I don't enjoy and don't realize I don't enjoy until an hour and a half has passed by. I personally want to really focus on making a lot of progress on my indie game. I shouldn't overwork myself on it and there's a big possibility that that could happen each day because I really love working on it, unlike my college projects. Still, I think it's also equally dangerous that I neglect to spend enough time on it because it's a big project and if I don't put a lot of hard work on it, it will never be finished. Books! . . . . . . . books books books books books books books books books Books! . . . . . . I love them, I personally think that you can't ever spend too much time reading books. Oh shit, I just remembered. Drawing! I've had a surprising amount of fun drawing lately. I've had more fun drawing cartoon characters and funny comics in my sketchbook than I had working on making electronic music. Again, speaking of which. . . I really have to take a break from making electronic music. That's probably because I tried to neurotically work myself really hard when I had that electronic music habit which I'm probably going to take a break from. Besides, what I would really want right now for music is to take a break from music production (which is the computer and sound-design area of musical work) and to learn how to play a musical instrument, particularly the piano. But I'm not going to do that this semester break, I have no time for it. I'm going to have to say no to it entirely until further notice from Mr. Strategy Guy in my head. Awareness and Meditation, I still don't know how much time I need to allocate for awareness. It's a very tricky thing to work on because the rewards from it are not directly tangible which makes it even more difficult to convince the mind of its value. Also, contemplation is a subset of this. And I mean real quiet contemplation with as little distraction and desires for other activities as possible. Me just dumping my thoughts into this journal does not count as quiet contemplation. This is what I would call, the real "long term" part of this plan. So long term that it's probably going to bleed into life even after the semester break is over. That's all for now. I changed my mind, by the way. I'm not going to write this all down, it ended up way longer than I expected. I'll just to commit to re-reading what I wrote here in case I forget this plan. Okay, that's it. I'm going to give myself a signal to get started. Ready? Set. . . GO!

@zasa joey Guess what, the same thing happened to me when I first started meditating. I read about meditation online while I was suffering from an existential panic. I thought I'd give it a try to relieve the stress but it didn't do much so within a couple of weeks I forgot about it. At the time, I just didn't see the value in keeping a meditation habit for years and years and as a life long habit. I only came back into it about two months later after my initial attempt when I really started to get into personal development from watching Leo's videos and meditation just so happened to be one of the recommended habits I decided to gain from the videos. And man, just this one habit alone, if you keep a 1-hour daily habit. After several months (About 6 to 7 perhaps) it just freaking opens up a door a new reality that most people are completely ignorant to. A world where nothing can phase you and the illusions of the mind show themselves to be illusions. Now to be fair, I still haven't reached happiness, I still feel mostly stressed out and anxious and I worry about a lot of stuff, but ultimately this new perspective has made me feel like I have the power, the power and capability to keep pushing through life and all of its resistances and distractions instead of staying in a rut and feeling like little or nothing can be done. This can be your life too, BUT, it's going to take a lot of personal commitment and personal persistence. Nothing of what I say will actually mean anything unless you really want to personally partake in such a journey. P.S. I know I said "1-hour daily habit" but I actually started with 5-minutes and gradually increased the duration of how long I meditated each day whenever I felt like it until I capped it at 1 hour. You could try to do the same thing.

@zasa joey The moment will come when you realize that the opposite of your current social situation, which is a place where people keep assuming you're a really great person who has achieved a lot of things, is almost as meaningless and depressing as where you are right now in depression, as hard as it is to believe. If you really want, true relief and freedom, real psychological freedom, I really recommend you start cultivating a connection with reality. I'm talking about actual literal reality, not the mental prison you know you're trying hard to escape from. I'm only assuming you've never tried meditation or heard of mindfulness work before so if you've been trying to find a real escape from your current miserable way of living, you're going to really want to take this all in. First I want to list of a few things that you may or may not want to read but it's important to open your mind to them in order for you to really get out of your depression. Simply getting out of depression is not enough (Above depression is still the mediocre average lifestyle which is still pretty miserable) You currently don't have an accurate perception of reality (If you did, you wouldn't be depressed. If you even had a small minute glance at reality as it actually is, you would realize that there really is nothing to be depressed about) Ironically, the path from getting out of depression to happiness is extremely difficult and painful. (It's not about getting rid of the pain, it's about increasing your tolerance for pain to degrees you can't even imagine right now.) So, where do you start on the road to reality? I suggest you start with a meditation habit and do everyday without skipping any. There are plenty of good material online on how to meditate but I think Leo's is the best. But before you meditate, you're going to need an introduction to spiritual enlightenment. Leo has a great video on that as well. Keep in mind that I'm not selling you a quick fix-all-your-problems pill. Meditation and Spiritual Enlightenment are not solutions in themselves, they're more like keys to a whole new reality and trajectory for your life that will bring you to the realizations that will bring you beyond just fixing your depression to exciting knew perspectives of reality that make life feel effortless and gratifying.

@Anna Konstantaki Thank You. Now I better get off the internet, it only increases the chaos.

<05-25-16> WORK WRK WK Sad to say the next few days are going to be close to impossible for me to really stay aware, awake and satisfied. I have a lot of requirements I still need finish for this college and my mind won't make me rest until I've finished them all. If I'm lucky and I be properly strategic, I'll be done by next week. This semester break is close to 2 months. The moment I do get the free time and space to breath, I'm going to goddamn breath and exhale as slowly and mindfully as I can. (While still working on my indie game, of course.) Tomorrow is predicted to be another chaotic day for me, wish me luck.

<05-24-16> *snap* WAKE UP, SELF! NOTE TO SELF: I DO NOT WANT TO WASTE THE FREE TIME I GET FROM THE UPCOMING SEMESTER BREAK BEING OVERLY BUSY, SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME ON ENTERTAINMENT, OR BEING OFF TRACK FROM AWARENESS. I wanted to really make that reminder to myself clear today because I felt like today was wasted. A few minutes ago, I re-watched Leo's video "Lifestyle Minimalism: Renouncing Your Busy Schedule" ironically as background while I do more work on my indie game. And I really got a sense that what I did today was not the kind of day where I actually felt satisfied and happy with. Instead, my mind kind of ran around like a gerbil, I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos about games or cartoons that put me in comfortable unaware states for close to 20 minutes per video. Half of the day, my mind was stuck in monkey thoughts and imaginations. And I spent most of today, working on my indie game, which is really good but I couldn't help but do it while multitasking which really kills a lot of my focus and really slows down my level of productivity with it. I really don't like it when I feel I spent twice as long on something as it should have. I'm going to make a commitment to remember that note to self I wrote on the top. (In fact, I'm going to write it down somewhere so I can read it offline) I've never actually experienced a really fulfilling vacation in my life ever. Before self-actualization, I was extremely relaxed and comfortable, and that didn't work because it was mostly just being in distraction. During self-actualization, which is where I am now, I became erratic, extremely busy, and overstressed, which not only doesn't work but it actually feels way worse than when I was lazy. And of course, it's also being in distraction most of the time. So this basically means that in order to not feel like I wasted the next few months, I'm going to really have to do a lot of anti-distraction or awareness work. I maybe have to re-watch Leo's "Lifestyle Minimalism" video multiple times, to really sink this in and to really prevent squandering the wisdom I've gained from him over the past months. <-Anyway, with that out of the way, Let's REALLY talk about the new books I've bought-> The Road Less Traveled by M.Scott Peck M.D. This one was a real surprise for me to find. This is one of the books Leo mentions in one of his videos although I can't remember which. I pirated a pdf of this book a few months back to read but I never actually finished it. But imagine my surprise when I came across this book in my local bookstore. If you turn the book around to read the text on the back, the first sentence you'll likely see is "Life is difficult". I'm sure this is going to be a very profound and motivational book. Can't wait. Confucious: The Analects, Translated with an Introduction and Commentary by Annping Chin I'll be honest, I know little about Confucius. He's some chinese man some people know, and I'm an ignorant fuck. I bought this book out of high curiosity. I don't want to live the life of the 40-year old bloke with a stick up his ass because he thinks he's age excuses him from taking learning very seriously. I'm 19 and I kind of picture myself in my 40's as having the same curious and ignorance-conscious attitude towards the world and feeling excited to keep discovering things in the adventure that is life. The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton The title was originally what drew me to taking a look at the book while it was at the shelf but the reason I bought it was actually because of the author. I haven't read a book by Alain de Botton before but I have seen him around various YouTube content before. He runs a YouTube channel called "The School of Life" where you can see various short films and animations about. . . well. . . life. And I've watched some quite intriguing talks he's made about topics about life but mostly about happiness and the state of modern society. He's a really wonderful thinker who I admire. Can't wait to get to reading this book. But. . . there's a minor thing I have to deal with first before I can actually start getting to any of these books, and that's that I haven't finished reading "Becoming Steve Jobs" yet. Man, it's a really thick book (although, not as thick as Robert Greene's "30 Strategies of War"). Can't wait to finish it though because I feel like these are some of the best books I've bought so far.

<05-23-16> Gotta Take A Break Sometimes Today's just one of those days I just don't feel like writing about anything. I did get some decent work done and a meditation session that almost felt like I was close to getting an actual enlightenment experience (although, I can't be 100% sure). But ultimately, right now, I just feel very tired and I don't think I did anything today worthwhile to talk about. I guess I should mention that I've forgotten about drawing for the past few days. Maybe I should just keep that in mind for tomorrow so that I can get back on track with it. So that's it for today I guess, just a simple re-commitment to get back to mastering something relating to my life purpose. Oh whoops, yeah, I know last entry I said I was going to talk about the three new books I bought. I guess I'm delaying that for another day. Heh, petty procrastination. What can I do about it?

<05-21-16> Trying to Distinguish Between Real Distraction and Real Productivity This is something I've been trying to do for the past week, mostly because of the ending semester. This semester has just been complete noise and chaos that the clearing I'm now getting from the lessening amount of requirements are letting me see more of what actually matter and what doesn't. I've been trying to do a lot of spontaneous "Do Nothing" sessions recently to be able to think and contemplate what is it I actually have to do in life to really make some progress. What I found is that I have a few unquestioned mindsets and habits that I first thought was productivity but was actually distraction and also habits and mindsets that I didn't used to have which I thought would be a waste of time turn out to be actually pretty productive for me in various ways. Here's a brief rundown of the realizations I has with this: Focusing a lot on my computer science major and spending hours doing all the projects and requirements turns out to be nothing but distraction even though it might seem like actual productivity at first. I actually had this realization while walking on the sidewalk and I stopped and stood still for about 5 seconds because it really hit me. There's actually a lot of details I'm not going to get into here that make this realization very true for me. But in a nutshell, this college major that I'm trying to complete is actually barely even serving my life purpose at all. So even if I do actually pass all my courses and do really good, it ultimately means nothing for my progress in life. Why do I even bother to try to be really good at it? Actually forcing myself to lie down quietly on my bed for very long moments of time with no stimulation whatsoever turns out to be one of the most valuable and productive habits I've tried so far. Its so radically counter-intuitive and radically different to my strategy when I first started doing personal development of trying to spend all of my time doing something. Even when I wasn't working, I would be frantically searching for something to entertain me before I would get back to doing some random work. And you know what? That kind of strategy felt like hell. This new strategy, however, feels more on the line of "constantly trying to hold back and tame a wild dog". In other words, now it feels like I'm constantly struggling with something within me that refuses to change. Contemplation and mindfulness seem to be trick to trying to tame this wild dog. Okay, that's it for today. I would like to write more but I'm already to tired and sleepy to keep writing. I'll be back again tomorrow. <Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I spent money on three new books today. I'll talk about them tomorrow,>

<05-21-16> Man, I'm Glad My Life Is Difficult In a sense, I can kind of tell that I've gotten deep into personal development because all my imaginations about it being a fun and happy blast through moments of ecstasy have basically vanished. I say this because I remember reading something from Leo before about real personal development is not the happy sunshine and flowers most self-help books tout it to be. Instead, it's a very painful and sometimes actually depressing journey. And the more I work on myself, the more I find that my life actually becomes less exciting and actually a lot more painful. Although, weirdly enough, it feels like a non-issue, because I've worked on myself so much that I've basically gained a tolerance for all these negative side-effects although it's still not a perfect tolerance. Part of me still really wants the pain to end. Another weird thing is that this new life of living less stimulated and more depressed, in a sense, actually feels a lot more alive than it was before. It's like the intense strain I experience now on a day-to-day basis makes me a lot more alert and connected towards life. This journey also is starting to feel like just that, a journey. An adventure with the intent of pure discovery and authentic curiosity. Even though, I may not feel fully alive yet, I'm still at least making steps and just being continually amazed by all the profound truths about life I keep discovering. Although, I still haven't gotten any of the material or financial rewards that's also one of the goals of this journey, they ultimately just feel like lesser goals which is probably why I'm not really spending so much time thinking about it. Unlike say, passion, awareness, and a love for life. And oh man, I've been thinking about love for life quite a bit today. Imagining what it would be like to actually KNOW love and be in a place with love. I'm not talking about petty relationship with the opposite sex, obviously, I'm talking about the spiritual kind of love. I probably won't ever experience that for myself while I'm still not enlightened, so I have a lot of work to do. So those are my thoughts for today. It seems today I've rambled on about personal development and I feel really inspired to keep trying and to keep trying to do it better than the day before. On another note, I made a couple of comic strips in the past week and I thought I'd upload it to DeviantArt. It's based on a random doodle that I made of a ghost I drew a few days ago. Introducing Gaz the Ghastly Ghost Comic. I'd really appreciate it if you check them out. Links Below. http://extremez7.deviantart.com/art/Gaz-the-Ghastly-Ghost-001-A-Time-to-be-Alive-610301646 http://extremez7.deviantart.com/art/Gaz-the-Ghastly-Ghost-002-The-Sophisti-cat-610303217