SQAAD

@Vision To me, pain and pleasure are not merely relative terms and also they have a serious basis in reality.. It is an absolute since the relative is the absolute. 99.9%-100% of people won't enjoy getting tortured. That makes it pretty absolute also.

@Leo Gura I don't really know. I prefer truth from fantasies, that's my bias. But i can enjoy fantasies as well. Also i think we can only relate to things that exist. Even things that do not exist, exist in our heads, thats the paradox.

@Vision Maybe pain and pelasure is not inherent to reality but it is inherent to my every day experience of life. Some things feel good and some things feel bad, there is not changing that. It's hard to love eating a turd. There is no way i can start enjoying beheadings and tortures. Yes its a preference , a bias. But still the not enjoying of the experience is not a mere bias. I can start enjoying raw fish and other stuff but i'll never enjoy getting my finger cut by a knife slowly. Unless maybe i am Ramana Maharshi but even then i highly doubt it is possible.

@Leo Gura They exist though, so they are truthful.

@Leo Gura Pain inherently doesn't feel good and there is not much i can do to change that. This is not a bias i think. Maybe Ramana Maharshi himself would not enjoy getting tortured by some Mexican drug cartel animals. I don't know for sure though. He was one of a kind. Maybe 1 in a 8 billion people. Also having sex with a goat doesn't release the same dopamine as having sex with a striper. Eating brocolli won't release the same dopamine as eating an ice-cream. I think all these things are not just simply biases. They are biases but these biases are somewhat justified we might say.

@Jodistrict This is so unfortunately true. In my country, i know for sure that IF you go to a psychiatrist all they will do is prescribe you some drugs that will mess up your neurochemicals. They will NOT do anything else. This is their only tool. Kinda sad. Also for example, if you ask professionals doctors nowadays about OCD , most of them will tell you that its a chronic disorder when in fact this has never been proven and many people who have overcome OCD (including myself) know that i'ts not chronic if you stop the compulsions. The disease model which is applied to addiction is very helpful for business. There is a neuroscientist who believes that addiction is not a disease, but a learned behavior and i tend to agree with him. We are in the dark ages psychologically. We have built computers and sent men to the moon, yet we cannot help people who are addicted and miserable lol. As i study more psychology and other sciences i realise more and more that these scientists don't know very much about what's going on, especially in psychology. We are still in the dark ages as Leo has stated.

This is a great documentary i've stumbled up which interviews a male who was executed 8 years ago by lethal injection. It details his life and how the murders occured. Basically he shot two truck drivers for no good reason. The 1st truck driver almost hit him while he was on his motorcycle. He got angry bc his life was threatened and decided to execute the truck driver. The next truck driver he shot because he was still angry at the 1st truck driver lol. This is insane. The senselessness of it all is mind-boggling and disturbing,

@Carl-Richard @Carl-Richard Good point.

@Javfly33 Generally i am flowing with not much resistance. What i suffer from mostly is a feeling of overwhelming uncertainty and the difficult part is not reacting to it. But i am doing ok. I am almost always constantly aware of the breath and other sensations without getting lost in my head like i used to few years ago. 4 years of meditation has definitely helped and is paying dividends. I suffer too from lack of self-love and tons of self-hatred for my past mistakes. What do you mean by 'apply Desire first rule'?

@Leo Gura

@Someone here This is God. And this is a dream/maya. That is the actuality right there.

@Javfly33 Yes!! My favourite drug ever. Life-changer. It is the best tool i have . But you always need to use many different tools to get the job done lol. One tool is never enough.

@Someone here Always we assume some stuff. I assume that nothing is apparent and that probably there is a reason behind stuff.

@Javfly33 I am convinced that after 1-3 trips someone can quit their drug of choice. The increased level of awareness will make you sick to your stomach when you realize the damage you're doing to yourself. For me, when i was smoking weed, it was impossible to continue doing it under the influence of magic mushrooms. Because i was fully aware of all the BS my mind constructed to keep me locked in into that addiction. Yes the relapse is possible. But still psychedelics are the faster way i know someone can get shook to their core and end their drug use. It is obviously that this psychiatrist no matter how intelligent appears to be has 0 experience with psychedelics, therefore she cannot appreciate the power of these substances. I am convinced that in the next 50 years psychedelics will render psychiatrists useless. They are already useless for the most part. This is why they end up commiting suicide.

@Someone here Apparently not.. I think there is some logic behind all this stuff. God is not an idiot.

There is nothing to do (this can be interpreted wrongly though). Everything has already happenened. This is the most liberating aspect of awakening. You realise that all your worries were delusions.

@flowboy This video is great and makes so much sense!! Finally a video saying what i've been thinking all along.

Basically i want to be using coffee strategically because it helps me to do my job easier but the half-life of caffeine has concerned me a lot. The half-life of caffeine is 6 hours. In this video they discuss about caffeine claiming that if you drink 200mg of caffeine after midday then 50mg of caffeine will be still in your system by the time you go to sleep. And this will result in 20% less deep sleep. Basically they suggest to stop drinking coffee after midday. But still the explanations in this video are not sufficient. They don't suggest optimal caffeine dosages and they leave many questions unanswered. Also i don't see how drinking your coffee 1 hour earlier can do that much of a difference as far as eliminating it from your system. If i take 400mg of caffeine first thing in the morning then after 18 hours i will still have 50mg of caffeine in my system when i am in my bed. So whether i drink it after midday or before it doesn't really matter if my dose is big. How much caffeine should i take for optimal sleep and at what times?

@Michael569 How much caffeine/coffee do you drink if you drink any? I would like to know.

@flowboy I can relate also with what you're saying. This is why the last couple of months i have cut caffeine significantly out of my life and done experiments for weeks with no caffeine. I also think that the best solution would be to quit caffeine alltogether. This is the emotional difficult solution. I enjoy drinking coffee while working. It makes my time more enjoyable. But the poor sleep is not enjoyable at all. I've tried drinking only 2 cups of tea and it did not noticeably affect my sleep. Maybe i will stick to that. I am not dependent on coffee. Today i didn't drink any. But when i do work, it is like an emotional crutch for me.

Firstly let me tell that i am a fan of fasting. I've done couple of water fasts so far. Jason Fung is one of the people who inspired me to start fasting for weight loss. Now i consider fasting as a weight-loss tool and a health-longevity tool... BUT i am afraid of the trade-offs... I don't want to risk losing muscle because i know that muscle is very important for longevity especially as you age because of sarcopenia. You can basically predict how much someone is gonna live over age 65 based on his grip strength. Recently i have been watching Layne Norton. He has a PhD in Nutrional Sciences and heavily criticizes Jason Fung's work. Some of Layne's video made me re-think if i wanna fast again or not. Personally i want to fast but at the same i am afraid of muscle loss. I don't know what to do besides more research. There are some studies that show fasting burns more muscle compared to typical calorie-restriction while others don't. I think this is a tricky subject. One one hand i am afraid of getting some cancer because of not fasting once in a while and on the other hand i don't wanna lose a bunch of muscle which is gonna force me to eat less calories and be significantly weaker. He also downplays the benefits of fasting... Maybe this is a good example of scientism.

@undeather Do you drink coffee and caffeine in general? If yes then how much.

@hamedsf I think this is not the case when considering the half-life of caffeine.

@Seed The fact that you are questioning your drug-use is making me believe that you have a problem with it. Someone who doesn't have an issue with alchohol never questions or worries about his drug use. Drugs trick your brain into releasing more dopamine and other neurochemicals. This is why they feel so good. In theory you could drink 1-2 glasses of wine every day and never face major health issues even though it is a poison. But more than that it is not recommended.

@Buba Take more responsibility for your life and stop putting the blame on others. You are responsible for stopping the meditation. Nobody is coming to help you. You have to do it by yourself. That's the harsh reality. Nobody cares about my problems, nobody cares about your problems (generally speaking). Maybe the psychoanalysis was helping you but it was too painful for you. When something is painful and difficult that is usually a good sign. I don't know what your issues but it seems your issues are steming from bad mental health. And i can relate with poor mental health because i've suffered enormously because of OCD. But the last couple of years i made some really good progress and i feel better than ever. The best reliable solution is improving your mental healh and changing your mindset. Just practice good mental health habits every day and things will eventually improve. Meditation is great and i do it also but it won't change your mindset. Maybe start journaling if you don't want to talk to a psychotherapist.