IJB063

He never says "all", he literally says instead "often" often = all, I don't think that's a "straw man" but I agree with the video, many people have ego investment in their appearance and they don't like objectivity as it hurts their precious feelings, the game that is being played that there is no objectivity is a biased ego game

I think constant cultish holier than thou now references to a person values is nonsense

@BETGR164128 Good video by School of Life titled "Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder" Although the video is on architecture the exact logic does apply to people

See, now how are you supposed to argue against the that, nothings objective our words mean nothing and there is no reality, so lets not talk about it when a truths is inconvenient, I don't understand why you're even arguing a point about human nature if you don't believe there is such a thing as human nature in the first place The scientific process is about being objective, empiricist and self scrutinizing, as is humanly possible, through a skeptical lens facts can't just be interpreted as one wants, as there are objective standards by which we deduce the truth In a sense everything is seen through our own eyes, we have no other frame of reference (you can't see reality through someone elses eyes) yet in a sense, based upon our nature we piece together reality, and a good way to do is rational thought, not complete relativity, it seems like you're making a solipsistic argument, and one which anything is permissible and there is no truth. Why we've got here over me saying the are good looking people and bad looking people I don't know. ? For the most part that is what we see, beautiful people mating with beautiful people, relationships aren't just built around ones physical appearance, I don't know if you've ever been in one, and those that don't fit into this average there are mitigating circumstances in that individuals psyche for instance a good looking woman who stays with a wife beater because she has such a low self esteem. Why would we see a decline in the average because of less mating opportunities?

Well now we're getting existential, so you,ve taken the point to an extreme No its not a hypothesis its a theory, well supported by facts and rudimentary to evolution, no one said there was just surface level physical attraction but it is important for a relationship to actually be physically attracted to the person and this is objective What are these confounding variables that can't captured by the scientific process

Why would we be arbitrarily conditioned to see certain features as attractive and not others, and by who, biology, our own human nature is what conditions us to find some things attractive and other things not - as I linked to in the study above - here it is http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/haselton/papers/downloads/Frederick_Haselton_2007_Muscularity_sexy.pdf We look for fitness indicators, from a biological perspective the entire purpose of sex is to have children and to procreate, this widespread idea of recreational sex only follows really since the sexual revolution and the invention of the birth control pill, what we find attractive is traits that are indicators that we will have fit children who will survive, not what has been conditioned into us by some evil conspiracy of society for no apparent reason, a conspiracy which also happens for some arbitrary reason to share trends in every group of people and culture throughout all of human history, I just wrote a post on this topic "romance" if your interested Objective - "not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts." The fact that we agree on generalities means attraction or what is attractive is objective

@BETGR164128 Beauty is objective, we recognize patterns in what people do are don't perceive as attractive, what people general find attractive is objectively for example people find faces that are symmetrical more attractive than faces that aren't symmetrical generally, people find people who are fit more attractive generally than people who are morbidly obese, this is objectively true People have there own idiosyncrasies in what they find attractive, but this only proves the rule I get what you're saying, but your perception doesn't make them objectively more beautiful

@Marinus http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/haselton/papers/downloads/Frederick_Haselton_2007_Muscularity_sexy.pdf

Yep Unfortunately I disagree, I think its the ego defending is self by obfuscating our nature, human beings only care about survival, domination and procreation, in so far as we excel at those things we are doing well, in so far as we don't we are a failure, and as we fail we will be selected out of the gene pool therefore putting an end to whatever seemed on the surface to be done out of altruism and compassion This is my point, counter intuitive to our survival, meaning it isn't good for us if we want to live and pass on our genes or that behavior Agree 100%, spirituality is about transcending our nature in so far as we can do that, this is what separates us from the animals Not No that will be Universal love not romantic love, romantic love is predicated upon you as a being, universal love is love of all things, as mentioned in the Buddhist video, this is why there can't be such a thing as romantic love Godspeed @Derek White

@Identity Not so much as you think when it comes to women I know what they say "Looks aren't as important when it comes to women" They are just as important, its just women are generally so vain and superficial in other areas that they'll compromise on looks IF you meet other prerequisites We are superficial creatures, appearance is everything Good shit mate, losing 10kg and still be a savage is good stuff, keep up the good work Godspeed

I have so much love I don't know what to do with it Yep Yep, its the drug comedown Much love to you to @Vxvxen

@Identity Your bulletproof Game and charming personality wont make you look any better when your shirt comes off.

@Anubis "an expression of good wishes to a person starting a journey." Have you heard of google, its cool

@Keyhole Hope you find someone as well I agree but its worth a shot, but really all it ends up being is pissing in the wind

Thanks a lot @Keyhole I appreciate that, and I agree with everything you said As Voltaire said "Gods a comedian playing to an audience to afraid to laugh"

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think your asking me to inspect the metaphysical of reality, I am trying to do that in so far as I can, it is my belief that romantic love is a lie, I do see how I've wrote this off, why, because I can't explain our complete nature, its tough to do and I don't know anyone which has done it. I am aware that we have a biological imperative, you can call it what ever you want, you could even call it "awareness". I only used the lion to illustrate a point, I could of used the fact that a female praying mantis literally rips the fucking head of their mates when having sex. I actual believe though that the human is unique, uniquely shit, Schopenhauer talks in great depth about this, even in the video we're compared to moles, animals seem to be much more content with mere existence than we are, they have no concept of the future or the past therefore they have no concept of death, animals are in many way in an enviable condition. I know of no lions to create concentration camps and in mass genocide hippos, though I may be wrong, I haven't directly experienced it. Also I can talk about having children although myself have not having children, if not speaking from direct experience is delusion than we're all fucking delusion, the earths flat there is no such thing as science and no countries exist since I haven't been there. Also no offence taken Yeah I agree, what I'm talking about isn't unconditional love, but its what our culture venerates as unconditional love, that is what I'm attacking I was joking about the narcissistic fantasies, although they do say ignorance is bliss, but they also do say that the truth will set you free, I will keep inspecting, and I get that I'm the only person who can realize the truth, because I only have my frame of reference, remember that applies to you to

@Roy Ha, that was a preemptive first strike with That cracked me up, you did get me, in seriousness though I do love hippies Anyway I do understand the concept that as a society or the species advances so does our love and compassion for all peoples regardless of circumstance, as you listed neighbors, community, country, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc... Funny enough Schopenhauer does have a quote along the lines of "Compassion is the basis of morality" So in so far as a society is compassionate it is advanced and does not discriminate in that compassion But I do believe there is a difference between compassion and love Especially romantic love The love that you speak about is not romantic love, at least as how we define romantic love in contemporary society. I do think there a lot of truth to Love is experiential, but so is cocaine or heroin, the high is whats important, not the method And romanticism can be applied to both love as with drugs (Love practically being a drug) So again there is nothing inherently special to romantic love I find it very funny that you said Because that is the exact same thing that was said to me in a previous post I made a few days ago on boredom "Maps and readings/study are actually pretty important. Without teachings we are more lost that not. But, not completely because awakening is our birthright and intrinsic." At first I was like, why this guy talking about maps but know I get the analogy So I'm recognizing a pattern Anyway Cheers

@Pell Thanks buddy its appreciated, I've just been scrolling through that Reddit guide, I'll check the rest of those links out as well and get back to once I do, I'll reply to you in this thread cause I wanna keep this thread going in case anyone else is interested or wants to make some points

@Ingit Maybe they where just busy and didn't see your message or couldn't respond, don't jump to the idea there all out to tease you, no one cares as much about yourself as you do, they're all doing there own thing, whats neutral is not to care in the first place

@Pell Thanks to the link to the guide, I'll give it a read later. From the same book just a different essay "On thinking for yourself" "People who pass their lives in reading and acquire their wisdom from books are like those who learn about a country from travel descriptions: they can impart information about a great number of things, but at the bottom they possess no connected clear, thorough knowledge of what the country is like. On the other hand, people who pass their lives in thinking (thinking = experiencing) are like those who have visited the country themselves: they alone are really familiar with it, possess connected knowledge of it and are truly at home with it." I agree 100% its better to experience than to explicate, but was is that guide if not a travel description/explication

Anyway I'm going to bed it eleven and I got shit to do tomorrow, and I've spent the last hour and a half going over the "overcoming addiction" video and my book notes, so anyway goodnight & godspeed

Shouldn't we attempt to explicate this feeling, this is the entire point of actualised.org, to attempt to convey the physiology of ego dissolution.

@Natasha Thanks for the recommendation of "The Root Cause of Every Addiction and on Distraction." video, I've listened to it twice to day and I can see why you come back to it. It literally the perfect recommendation for what I wanted so cheers, its really appreciated. So above I linked the video to the timestamp where @Leo Gura diagnoses the root cause of addiction. I linked Leo if he sees this because I've just last Sunday finished Essays and Aphorisms by Arthur Schopenhauer and I found it eerie the parallels made by Leo and Schopenhauer in his essay "The Vanity of Existence" in this essay to the point it sent shivers down my spine, and gave me that light bulb moment I was looking for, so maybe Leos interested in the similarity's. I recommend reading the link of the essay below and watching the video and comparing the points made. I think its important to mention Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the first Western Philosophers who took seriously Eastern Philosophy and traditions and venerated them. The entire point of the video (I think Leo's making) is that the fear of boredom stems from an fundamental existential dread that we run away from in the form of distractions, this "emptiness of existence" which Schopenhauer instead uses the term "vanity of existence", the two mean similar things. Here's the essay link, its not the original, but I can't be bothered to transcribe from the book the exact quotations so I'm just gonna copy and paste here, its a simplified and shortened version of the essay. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Vanity_of_Existence "In the ever-passing present moment as the only mode of actual existence; in the interdependence and relativity of all things; in continual Becoming without ever Being; in constant wishing and never being satisfied; in the long battle which forms the history of life, where every effort is checked by difficulties, and stopped until they are overcome. Time is that in which all things pass away" The quote above is practically making the same point about the transient present that we empty to escape from, Leo makes this point at the 10 minute mark 10:00 "You can't really be satisfied in life without sitting in an empty room without cravings" - Leo "The whole foundation on which our existence rests is the present--the ever-fleeting present. It lies, then, in the very nature of our existence to take the form of constant motion, and to offer no possibility of our ever attaining the rest for which we are always striving. We are like a man running downhill, who cannot keep on his legs unless he runs on, and will inevitably fall if he stops" "The scenes of our life are like pictures done in rough mosaic. Looked at close, they produce no effect. There is nothing beautiful to be found in them, unless you stand some distance off. So, to gain anything we have longed for is only to discover how vain and empty it is; and even though we are always living in expectation of better things, at the same time we often repent and long to have the past back again. We look upon the present as something to be put up with while it lasts, and serving only as the way towards our goal. Hence most people, if they glance back when they come to the end of life, will find that all along they have been living ad interim: they will be surprised to find that the very thing they disregarded and let slip by unenjoyed, was just the life in the expectation of which they passed all their time. Of how many a man may it not be said that hope made a fool of him until he danced into the arms of death!" "Life presents itself chiefly as a task--the task, I mean, of subsisting at all, gagner sa vie. If this is accomplished, life is a burden, and then there comes the second task of doing something with that which has been won--of warding off boredom, which, like a bird of prey, hovers over us, ready to fall wherever it sees a life secure from need. The first task is to win something; the second, to banish the feeling that it has been won; otherwise it is a burden" 13:00 "You can't fill that emptiness of being with more doing or with material external passions or activity, no matter how much you try you can't do it" - Leo "The nature of being itself is emptiness" - Leo This is why at the deepest level I think boredom is uncomfortable because boredom is the realization of the emptiness of existence. 14:28 "Nature of being itself is emptiness but see most people don't like this idea at first it seems kind of negative and it seems depressing actually it's not it's a very beautiful and incredible experience to fully realize the emptiness of being and to be one with it this is a very profound experiences of what spirituality is based upon but most people aren't mature enough to grasp this" - Leo "And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The hankering after what is strange and uncommon--an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature--shows how glad we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious." 19:15 This is where Leo gives the solution to all addiction which is to sit with the emptiness of existence. 23:00 Amazing quote on the very basis of this addiction, is the avoidance of the realization of our ambiguous, fleeting and dream like existence, and instead we choose to distract ourselves with base hedonic pursuits. This is the fundamental root of addiction, and that this is why we can't cure our addictions by doing the very thing that caused them in the first thing. This bit of the video was an epiphany moment and ties in great with my book notes. I think tying in with my current reading of Mastery, the avoidance of boredom and the avoidance of the emptiness of existence is in it of its self the tool to reclaim that "first time childlike intense magic experience", as what sitting does chip away those layers of ego as @Gili Trawanganmentions but bring about that necessary silence as to hear the noise that is the primal core of your being that actually gives life meaning, if that makes any sense. Here some quotes on found in my googling “Boredom is the root of all evil. It is very curious that boredom, which itself has such a calm and sedate nature, can have such a capacity to initiate motion. The effect that boredom brings about is absolutely magical, but this effect is one not of attraction but of repulsion.” - Kierkegaard “Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom. This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life—the craving for which is the very essence of our being—were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.” - Schopenhauer “Boredom is certainly not an evil to be taken lightly: it will ultimately etch lines of true despair onto a face. It makes beings with as little love for each other as humans nonetheless seek each other with such intensity, and in this way becomes the source of sociability.” - Schopenhauer "Want and Boredom are the twin poles of human life" - Schopenhauer Thanks again for the responses

I've just started reading a book called "Mastery" by Robert Greene on my commute to and from college, found and highlighted bits in this passage that relates to this topic of how to have the that "childlike intense experience". Robert says that most people experience this intense experience and it takes the form of a idiosyncratic interest in our lives, which emerge particularly in our childhood. "For Einstein, it was not physics but a fascination with invisible forces that governed the universe; for Bergman, it was not film but the sensation of creating and animating life; for Coltrane, it was not music but giving voice to powerful emotions." We lose touch with this experience because of the conditions of our lives. Found a really good Charles Bukowski quote on this “Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?” So here are the quotes from the book. "Eventually, you will hit upon a particular field, niche, or opportunity that suits you perfectly. You will recognize it when you find it because it will spark that childlike sense of wonder (note this isn't in the quote, but this was what I was trying to get at when I started this thread) and excitement; it will feel right. Once found, everything will fall into place. You will learn more quickly and more deeply. Your skill level will reach a point where you will be able to claim your independence from within the group you work for and move out on your own. In a world in which there is so much we cannot control, this will bring you the ultimate form of power. You will determine your circumstances." "These childhood attractions are hard to put into words and are more like sensations—that of deep wonder, sensual pleasure, power, and heightened awareness. The importance of recognizing these preverbal inclinations is that they are clear indications of an attraction that is not infected by the desires of other people. They are not something embedded in you by your parents, which come with a more superficial connection, something more verbal and conscious. Coming instead from somewhere deeper, they can only be your own, reflections of your unique chemistry." "As you become more sophisticated, you often lose touch with these signals from your primal core. They can be buried beneath all of the other subjects you have studied. Your power and future can depend on reconnecting with this core and returning to your origins. You must dig for signs of such inclinations in your earliest years. Look for its traces in visceral reactions to something simple; a desire to repeat an activity that you never tired of; a subject that stimulated an unusual degree of curiosity; feelings of power attached to particular actions. It is already there within you. You have nothing to create; you merely need to dig and refind what has been buried inside of you all along. If you reconnect with this core at any age, some element of that primitive attraction will spark back to life, indicating a path that can ultimately become your Life’s Task." So I prefer the reframing of the childhood wonder to "primal core" as it comes across as less pathetic (not saying its pathetic just saying thats the way it comes across), its I feel esoteric to say I want to regain that "childhood wonder" and most people will see it as wanting to escape responsibilities of adulthood, which I obviously do not want to do, I instead just want to find something I'm genuinely interested in, the way Robert frames it in this book, as Leo puts it to have fresh new eyes on life. Though there's nothing necessarily wrong with those childlike desires and framing of the world like @Codrina mentions & and I feel you're dead right with people longing for what there missing, I was yesterday listening to this BBC 2 interview on youtube of Russel Brand interviewing Steve Morrissey and he makes the exact point you're making so I had to screenshot the time stamp for the video, if you're interested links below, starting where Morrissey makes the point.

@Mongu9719 Yeah, they probably really are the best ways to readjust, I'm gonna stay away from psychedelics for awhile though, they tend to cause more problems for me than they solve, I'm starting to do meditation more seriously and holotropic breathwork, Wim Hof....