Extreme Z7

@Thesleeperhasawakened Ummmm. . . okay? That has absolutely nothing to do with what I said but good to know what you think, man. EDIT: Oh I see what your saying now. No no, I didn't exactly mean to say that we can tell if someone is enlightened or not. Those are just words I used. The point of what I said is that the concepts taught about enlightenment are very different from the experiences that occur from doing enlightenment work. I personally am still skeptical about whether we can really call somebody "enlightened". Maybe we really are already enlightened and just have a weird egotistical human being in our awareness who thinks he/she exists.

@Augustus Yes! Good question! I'm not enlightened but my intuition tells me that the concepts of enlightenment that are being spread around are nowhere near describing how it would be like to actually be enlightened.

@Falk Agreed, I would be lying if I said I no longer have addictions just because I've stopped watching TV. There are still a lot of habits in my life I'm not supposed to have. I still have a lot of work to do.

Confusion is a very common response to pondering about post-rational concepts. But what's really important is actually watching your emotions. Why is it a problem for you to think about valuing truth over getting results? Most of the time it's just emotional discomfort. Learn to get rid of that and the thoughts just feel like they have no power over reality.

<--[03-20-16]--> @&*&($#&$(&@#SKADNAKSNDKJHJNKASJNDKASNLABELSARENONSENSEASODJASDJ I just watched Leo's new video and did some meditation work shortly afterwards. This is a really really really good video. And I'm happy that I'm one of the rare people on Earth to have been lucky enough to have stumbled upon the schools of thought (which ironically are schools that teach stuff beyond thought) to actually understand what Leo is trying to communicate. I really hope he has struck something in the minds of even just at least 5 rationally minded people out there. I know most rational people are going to have really dogmatic reaction without realizing how petty and dimwitted they look to post-rationalists. I don't mean to be blunt and I know that it may seem like I'm trying to say I'm above rational thinking but really I'm not. Like Leo, I just wish more people were to experience real spiritual awakenings and realizations of the Matrix we're living in as a society. It's quite bad really what's going on around the world in people's minds, the chimpery, the lack of awareness, the lack of love for life, delusions of wisdom, delusions of intellectual superiority. All of that are stuff I personally like to blame on excessive worship of rationality. You may be wondering what's with the gibberish title for this entry. Well, I didn't think I wanted to come up with a rational title for today so I decided to arrationally let my hands go free to type what they want. Anyway, time to get down to what I did today. Finished some college work that needed to be finished. Listened to some good podcasts while I was doing it. Worked on some music production because I felt like it but ideas were slow and I completely forgot to let my emotions involved in the music creation process. Hmmm. . . I'm going to finish that new blog post I was working on. I just need to take some screenshots of the game I was reviewing, put it in the entry then publish it. After that, probably going to read a book or something. That's all for today and remember, pay no attention to Mr. or Mrs. chimp while your living your daily life, mm'kay.

@ZenBlue You haven't been without TV for any longer than a week? That's surprising even to me. Actually when I think about it, I'm going to make a confession that I have probably never spent a day of my life without TV. It's not that I still actively watch TV everyday, it's that I still live in a household where there are other people who spend hours watching TV everyday. My bedroom is next door to my brother's bedroom which has a TV but mine doesn't and I every night I can hear my brother watching TV 'til 11 o'clock. Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, my parents love to watch TV in the dining room so I have to actively will myself not to look at it. Even as I type this in my room, I can hear the dining room TV downstairs as my father washes the dishes. It's not a nightmare but it's so far away from living a life truly without TV having some sort of effect.

<--[03-19-16]--> More Actualized Life Prep Work As I said in yesterday's entry, I wanted to dedicate today to only doing academic programming work. I did just that only I shouldn't have been surprised at how inefficient I felt. The task was just so boring that I couldn't focus on it properly. I procrastinated for about 45 minutes total during the 4 hours I spent doing the work. On the other hand, I decided to bumble about with FL Studio and I had no complaints because thinking of different ways I can create and arrange sound was actually challenging to my mind. It should be really clear now why this mundane college work really gets on my nerves. I'm tired of having to spend hours of my time on boring tasks that I need to do to keep living in a house but don't fulfill me in any way. It's not the fact that the college work is programming that makes it boring, it's just the fact that I don't feel like I need to put any creativity and it's just not challenging enough. *sigh* oh well, few more months and then I'll graduate. I better have fucking clear plan of what I'm going to do by then. I know what I WANT to do but that's only half the solution of the problem. Good News though, I actually finished writing that new blog post but I haven't posted it yet because I have not yet re-read it for spelling and grammatical errors. Also, I have not yet added images to the post. This new post is a Retro Review for the PlayStation Title "M&M's Shell Shocked". I'm not really sure yet what type of content I want to put in the blog but for now I can only think of doing game reviews.

@ZenBlue Thanks. Despite trying to find the right paths in life, I still feel very lost. Still feel very naive about a lot of things. Leo talks about the first years of personal development being just prep work for the real thing so I might not have even truly begun my journey yet. Well, good luck with your TV habit changing challenge. Personally, I think TV is not inherently harmful. The chimpery of mainstream modern society is. TV is just like a funnel for the bullshit keeping society in groupthink. Cartoons are pretty okay though but still not perfectly devoid of chimpery. But I'm probably just saying that because I spent most of my TV time watching western cartoons even at my teens.

<--[03-18-16]--> Pondering the Future of this Journal I wonder how this journal would be like once I really start getting the results that I want. I can't help but notice I mostly post about mundane happenings in my life and my petty troubles with academics. What would be my attitude to it? How will I see my past self? How much personal growth am I going to notice? This is just some stuff I decided to think about just before I wrote this. Anyway, let's just get to what I did today. I decided to focus mainly on academic/college work today. I know I complain about it too much in this journal but I think it's about time I just deal with it and get what I need to do for it over with. It's only going to be for a few months anyway. I'm also going to focus tomorrow on more college work because I have quite a lot of programming to do as a computer science student. Decided to buy a new book today. It's called "The Magic Ladder to Success" by Napoleon Hill. Napoleon Hill seems to have built his career out of writing books about success-building. Quite interesting but what's really interesting is that the book warns you not to read the book without taking notes. I've never had a book tell me that before. Of course, I'm going to do it. I have a bunch of green index cards I can use to write with Didn't work much (at all) on creative work today. I want to focus for now on academic life. I'll get back to creating things when I can. Becoming Steve Jobs is still in my queue of books I want to finish reading. I may want to talk about it again when I'm done. Finally I ended today with something I'm not proud of. I spent 2 hours today just watching Let's Play content. It's been a while since I decided to let go and watch junk content for quite a while. I won't be doing it often obviously, definitely not going to waste hours of my time doing stupid shit everyday.

@ZenBlue You don't have to cringe about mechanical/automatic habits you've had in the past. If your conscious of it, you can work to make your future less mechanical and more intention-driven. I'm 19 years old, I've only been doing personal development for over a year. My biggest regret in my younger years is not that I spent most of it playing video games but that I spent almost all my free time being a daydreamer. I'd daydream about all sorts ideas for cartoon shows, video games, comics, but I was so completely unaware that I wasn't actually doing anything. My younger self was always focused on quick stimulation and the older I got the quicker and better stimulation I demanded until I suddenly had an existential panic attack at 18. It came out of nowhere. I think I mentioned this in my Actualization Journal, I was so confused and so lost that I searched "What is Happiness?" on YouTube. That's when I found Leo's work, that's when the trajectory of my life completely changed. I look back at those days and notice just how robotic and clueless I was. I assume you can relate to that very much. Everyday of my life now is trying to learn how to realize all the ideas I had in my daydreams. This is why I also commit myself to self-actualization.

@ZenBlue Thanks! You have no idea how obsessed I am with finishing this new game. I started work on it last year and after several months I've gotten good progress in it but I still think it will take more months until I get anywhere near finished. I'm a single developer but I recently asked one of my college-mates if he was interested in helping me with the background art. This game is a 2D platformer mainly inspired by the Crash Bandicoot series. I'll likely release it as a free product but I feel like I should get some payment for all the effort I'm putting into it so maybe I'll put up a donation campaign for it when I reveal it to the world.

<--[03-17-16]--> Becoming Steve Jobs I've been reading a book called "Becoming Steve Jobs" recently. Written by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli. I spent 2 hours of my time today reading it just after meditation because I had the free time. I've only read the first three chapters. I really want to say that I was amazed at just how much of a failure Jobs was at his early career. I don't mean that he struggled with success, he was just unrealistically ambitious and that backfired on him multiple times to the point where he quit the company that he started. Not to mention he was hard to work with and was insanely arrogant and couldn't stand not producing the best products he can think of. I've always had this idea that successful people earn small levels of success early on and that just grows and grows until they achieve big success but this book so far has shattered that idea of mine and I haven't even finished it yet. I'm already in the fourth chapter and I don't think I've gotten to the point where he managed to rise to be one of the world's greatest entrepreneur. I know have the idea that truly successful people experience massive disconnects with their ambition in life and only slowly bumble their way too it by numerous hurdles and delays. I think I made the right decision when I told myself that I would invest what little money I have right now on books. I don't know why I have not yet talked about a single book I've read in this journal until now. I only have handful and I think "Becoming Steve Jobs" could be one of my top ones so far. But who knows, I'm bound to find more high quality stuff in the future but for now, I want to focus on finishing what I have. Also spent a little time working on the game I'm developing. It's been a while since I've done that. Can't wait to finish it though, I am really ambitious about game development as well as music production. I feel to lazy and unmotivated to write even a single paragraph in the new post in my blog that I'm working on. Doesn't matter anyway, it's not that important, I guess. Also I watched this half-hour film on YouTube and it is fantastic. It's a claymation film about ghosts and burgers. Who wouldn't want to watch a film about ghosts and burgers? Kudos to Lee Hardcastle for this wonderful film! EDIT: I JUST NOTICED THAT THIS IS MY 100th POST ON THIS FORUM! I think this deserves a celebration gif!

<--[03-16-16]--> Getting Back On Track Okay, so today I had to work on college presentation. I spent a good part of my day practicing and rehearsing and it went out pretty well. The instructor had his criticisms and I paid attention but I listened. I actually do not consider myself a very good speaker or even writer but that's only because my ego is still an ignorant and neurotic entity that can't help but judge itself for no good reason. Meditation today was okay. Another one of those inconsistent ones though were I spend one part very unfocused and then have a high sense of awareness and then unconsciously fall into a daydream. I decided to start writing my 3rd blog entry but I don't want to spend the entire night writing it so I decided to write a short section. That's all for today. Thank you for reading.

@ZenBlue Nice to read those awesome things from you. I get how you feel about TV because I was like that as a child before with video games. I still play video games though but I almost never exceed more than half and hour of playtime per day, usually just 10 minutes. Problem with TV though is that it expects you to waste hours of your time to get any sense of satisfaction from it. Hope this is going to make some major life trajectory changes for you. There's so much more out there to discover for yourself. Currently I'm studying about stress and how stress works. Like actually deeply trying to get an understanding of it. I probably wouldn't even care about it if I spent hours of my time lazily sitting in front of a TV screen or playing video games.

Ooh. Glad to know other people here follow Mooji's lectures. I listen to them as mp3's whenever I need to go outside.

<--[03-15-16]--> Getting Worse Didn't feel very energetic today. A lot of my energy was basically drained by college work again. I did manage to work a bit on music. I wrote a memo in my phone to remind me to work on music as much as possible before I graduate and have no choice but to jump into the real world. Class ended 7pm today. I'm so exhausted. Another one of those days that I don't want to write about anything else because I'm so tired. I have to sleep early. Good Night.

Getting Really Good at Meditation Building Mindfulness or Pure Awareness of your Perceived Reality Strategizing What's It Going To Take To Make Big Life Changes Delaying Gratification Getting Rid of the Addiction of "Doing" Getting Rid of the Addiction of "Thinking" Getting Comfortable Doing Stuff That Is Radically Different From What Modern Society Does Getting Comfortable With Loneliness Getting Comfortable With Being In The Spotlight Losing Your Sense Of Self And those are just the first things that come to mind, there are so much more I can list. I myself still have not fully mastered the principles needed to even get close to solving any of these problems. But again, don't worry about this now. You'll cross these bridges when you get there. Personal Development takes a lifetime commitment. I've been without television for about a year and a half now and it feels like it wasn't even the beginning of the true difficulties of this commitment.

<--[03-14-16]--> Getting Better I want to start today's entry with the boring stuff first. NEW TRACK. I uploaded it last night after I wrote yesterday's entry. It's still hardcore techno and it's based on an obscure internet meme created by an obscure youtuber who goes by the name of "I Hate Everything". I'm getting really used to hardcore techno and I'm not really sure if I should focus on it a bit more or if it's time to leave my comfort zone to expand my horizons when it comes to musical skills. Currently, I think I need to focus a bit more still on hardcore techno but not for too long as that would be bad strategy. Speaking of strategy, I've been thinking a lot about the principles I learned in Leo's latest video. It seems like another one of those episodes where the topic is so incredibly deep that we may need to learn more about it ourselves very rigorously. Other examples of this I can recall was the "Understanding Awareness" and "Curing Perfectionism" videos. I decided to convert this episode to an mp3 so I can listen to it multiple times as I walk to college and back until I get sick of it or a new episode comes a long. This video felt like another game-changer for me. As I walked contemplating the routines and habits in place with my life and combined that with the results I want and the problems I still currently have. I was just amazed by how the majority of what I'm doing is just a huge waste of time. I can't help but notice the routines that are in place that my ego fools me into thinking needs to be done but can actually be minimized/cut entirely. Again, this new video introduced an incredibly deep topic that I feel I'm only beginning to scratch the surface of. Just like the "Understanding Awareness" video caused me to go through the next several months constantly noticing how clueless I am with perceiving reality, this new video has caused me to notice all the pointless (or should I say unstrategic) things I'm doing. Here are a few examples: Being stressed out about college work (This is a big one) Worrying about lack of finance Obsessing over quality of my creative work instead of learning to increase creative ability (this has wasted too much of my time) Forgetting the importance of allocating time to read books Almost letting video games back to my daily routine (Almost!) Forgetting to make plans to achieve goals before executing (this is pretty unspecific but you see what I mean)

You'll be fine. In my experience, getting rid of TV not just for 30 days but as a lifetime decision is actually one of the easiest personal development challenges. After that, there are so many more hurdles you have to jump through that are significantly more demanding of your willpower and discipline. Getting rid of TV seems like nothing after you've encountered these harder challenges that I'm talking about. But don't worry about that, focus on the present. Focus on the challenge now! So, you've decided to kick your TV habit that's wasting hours of your time. Be careful that your ego does not put you into an equally addictive and time-wasting activity. What matters here is not getting rid of TV but breaking bad routine so you can replace it with good habits.

Sometimes I wonder whether the external world of perceptions still exist when we're trapped in a thought. At least in my experience, whenever I find myself trapped in a daydream while walking or sitting down or meditating then go back to reality, it almost feels like the external perceptions have simply vanished during those moments. I am a frequent daydreamer so I experience this a lot. I've heard in enlightenment lectures before that awareness never actually goes away. Even when it feels like we lose consciousness for a few moments, that is only a thought. In reality, the awareness is always there and thoughts are like dirt on a window that you need to wipe every now and again. I also suspect that our awareness never actually experiences moments when we're sleeping (assuming one is not dreaming). And that in sleep there is an odd jump in time that we don't notice. It feels like we've slept for how many hours but what if we've actually time traveled from the point we went to sleep and the point we woke up (again assuming a dream did not occur). Kinda freaky. ------------------------------------ @Costa Who's saying that we need to abandon all advancements and knowledge of science? That's not what I said. Just like you should be detached from relationships, does not mean you should avoid relationships altogether. A lot of people are fully distracted by technology and advancements that they forget that they don't need it. They can use it to their advantage mind you, that's what everyone doing personal development should do is use scientific inventions to their full potential but also don't forget they they are just extensions. Ultimately, your core as a human being needs the most focus. ------------------------------------

@Leo Gura I remember reading somewhere in Robert Greene's "Mastery" that it is said that a feeling of lack of self-worth is usually experienced just before enlightenment. Is this the ego realizing that the world it created and its role in it does not exist?

@Costa I see no distinction between scientific advancements and material possessions especially when it comes to gadgets. I don't see your point when you say you were talking about humanity and not just personal life. I did not say that you were speaking of personal life. I recognized fully that you were speaking of humanity as a whole. And that's what I spoke of. I was just rebutting your claim that being less attached to inventions of humanity with scientific advancement will make us lesser human beings. If we take into account Claire Graves model, this isn't true, at least for people who are already educated. Be careful of the way you communicate to other people. You're coming across as a particularly egotistical man who thinks he's above everyone else. You're probably a decent human being but here on the internet it's pretty easy to act like an ass and get little consequence. I want to talk about the main topic but I have a college lecture to go to first. I'll try to join in the conversation when I get back.

<--[03-13-16]--> Got My Ass Inspired (again) Leo's video today really struck a chord with me today. For the past few weeks I've been having a bad time with negative stressful mindsets. I took notes, obviously. I feel like this one is going to help me back on track. For the past weeks I've been very worried about my academic standing and being constantly distracted by it, maybe now I can get the mindset shift to really focus on what I really need to be working on. I got so busy with creative work that I almost forgot to write this entry. It's pretty late at night so I don't want to talk about anything else but this. I'm going to end it here. Good Night or Day, depending on what time it is wherever you are on the world. I'm going to bed.

So I've been reading your recent entries and honestly, I think you're very weird. . . . . . . looks like I have a lot to learn from you.

Actually, that's a very backwards view of psychology. If you know anything about Claire Graves model of psychological development, the majority of people in society are in "orange stage" also known as "materialistic". What Purple Jay advocated in his reply was to stop caring about the external/material world. You say that that kind of thinking would put as back to worse times but actually it's the exact opposite! In order to advance to the next stage of psychological development, we need more people to recognize that external and material gains will never make one happy. Ultimately, science can create all the technology you want to improve your life but it will ultimately lead to an unfulfilled life. The next stage is "green stage" or "personalistic". At this stage people care about other people and how to improve everyone's lives particularly through the help of good understanding with psychology. Do you see the absolutely absurd way you aggrandize all those external and material objects in your possession? To somebody actually advanced in higher stages of psychological development than the "orange materialistic stage", this actually very ridiculous and quite ignorant. It's an ass-backwards way of valuing life. (I would actually be very interested if Leo made a video on "How to Properly Value Life") Here's an article summarizing Claire Grave's model of Psychological Development: http://vievolve.com/values-systems-4/ And here's a video made by Leo explaining it in detail: