Ryan_047

That's a naïve position. If that was the case, why does living in Ukraine sucks? His purpose is not annexing Ukraine, his purpose is to permanently keep Ukraine out of integrating with the EU and NATO. If he hadn't intervened militarily now, Ukraine would have been harder and harder to conquer due to its increased military spending and would have continued the integration process with the EU. Once Ukraine would have joined EU (mind you, not necessarily NATO) it would have been over for Russia. There would have been nothing Putin could have done anymore, or at the very least, his economic blackmail would have little effect. One of his biggest fears is a democratic well functioning and prosperous Ukraine. Why? Since Russia and Ukraine are so culturally close, Russians would start questions why the fascist oligarchy that they're living in can't produce the same result that Ukraine in the EU can. That would be the beginning of the end not only for Putin, but for his entire club of fascist friends. God is on the side with the best artillery. That's the case unfortunately.

Wrong. Check out Alexandr Dughin, Putin's personal ideolog. They want to re-establish old soviet borders and have their neighbors as buffers against NATO and China. Yes, a neighbor that violated Ukraine's wishes continuously. Do you even know what was happening in Ukraine post Crimea? Do you even know what happened in Ukraine ever since Putin became dictator up until Crimea? Are you even aware of the soft power Russia is exerting on the ex Warsaw Pact member states through mindwashing, conspiracy, propaganda and funding of pro Russian far right extremist political parties? If you did, you wouldn't say stuff like that. Unfortunately, a neutral attitude that you fancy cannot be adopted when you're stuck between NATO and Russia. In fact, there is no neutral country when conflict is raging near them. If you'll say as counter arguments Sweden or Switzerland in WW2, I can comfortably demolish that through historical facts. You either have a leader that is pro Russian, or anti Russian. And unlike Putin, Zelinsky was democratically elected and thus he represents the wants of the average Ukrainian. I like #2, but not this. That means that Ukraine will continue to be at the mercy of Russia, and won't be able to integrate with the West and thus develop the country. In other words, the average Ukrainian will continue to have a shitty life. The fact is that Russia was being a dick to Eastern Europe and Central Asia ever since the Tsarist Empire, and it continues to do so. I guess countries in these areas are justified to not want to be in their sphere of influence anymore, right? There are no easy answers, but surrendering in the face of evil is not one of them.

@Breakingthewall Why had the Allies fought against Nazi Germany? Because they wanted to stop evil and promote liberal ideas and move the world forward into stage blue-orange. Yes, they were forced into it, but there is an ideological aspect to the whole affair. Why are the Ukrainians fighting Putin's Russia? For survival and for a better life, and to stop dictatorial rule. You have to understand that if the Ukrainians will just do nothing, a worse life is awaiting them, not a better one. And no, you can't expect them to just leave the country and move to Western Europe or North America. That just postpones the real problem and promotes cowardness against injustice. If you don't stand up to evil, both personally and collectively, you'll suffer long term. Unfortunately, the Ukrainians are forced to stand up to evil through violence. They can't expect help from the outside without fighting themselves. What do you suggest Ukraine do? Succumb to a dictatorship and become a puppet buffer state for Putin's Russia? Because this is what's gonna happen if they don't physically resist and bite, considering all external circumstances. I'm really curios about what you suggest they do instead of fighting.

This is yet another argument that you don't know what you're talking about and have a hippy "spiritual" dogmatic bias. The Ukrainian on the street wants a better life, because life in Ukraine sucks. In order to achieve that, they want to join NATO and EU. Why EU? Because EU would help them develop their country, in all economical aspects you can think of. Why NATO? Because Russia has exerted soft power in Ukraine through propaganda, economic blackmail that affects the life of the average Ukrainian, and by forcefully and artificially stealing and creating 3 pro Russian republics, in which many Ukrainians found themselves in against their will. Putin deliberately is trying to stop the integration with the West. What you don't understand is that the Ukrainians are fighting for a better life and true democracy, not for the glory of Ukraine or Zelinsky. Zelinksy is not considered a demigod among humans who has been crowned by God himself in order to rule the country. This ain't 18th century red-blue Europe anymore. Many people in the Russian army are brainwashed indeed, but there is a majority who just found themselves forced into this conflict because mind you, conscription in Russia is mandatory. The average Russian is not fighting for Putin's glory, but because of inertia, group thinking and dire consequences if they refuse to obey orders.

@Breakingthewall Suuuuuuuure. If someone broke into your house and started beating your wife and kids in front of you, stole things from your house on a regular basis, you'd just stay there in zen-like state and accept reality and be above the "ego stuff". This is exactly what Putin's Russia has done to Ukraine for a long time now, and you're just asking them to let themselves be violated. If they'd do that, the West wouldn't bother helping Ukraine at all, since that would mean that they agree with what is happening to them.

No offence man, but you don't understand shit. When a foreign force raped you in any way possible since you willingly left the relationship (a relationship in which you were forced into), you made concessions for your bully (aka Ukraine dropping nuclear weapons), you just don't let them do whatever they want and use you as a puppet. Imagine the Allies letting Nazi Germany do whatever they wanted just because killing is bad. Imagine letting me broke into your house, rob you, and physically abuse your family just because conflict is bad and it creates suffering. Conflict sometimes is necessary, that's the harsh reality.

Yes and no. The main reason to join NATO was an EXTREMELY strong anti Russian sentiment present in each of the current NATO's border countries. You can't make that up or bribe your way into it. Their desire to join NATO and EU in order to get rid of Russia was and still remains genuine. The political games that you are talking about were only about speeding the process of integrating with the West, not the decisive factor. Also a genuine question that might clear up some stuff thrown at you in this forum... Do you believe that the actions Putin's Russia is taking geopolitically coincide with the needs and wants of the average Russian people? I'm not talking specifically about its aggression towards Ukraine, but about everything Russia has done since the fall of the Soviet Union. From my point of view the Russian people don't want to be ruled by a fascist oligarchy and don't care about bullying other countries. Yeah, I get that Russia is very very corrupt, and that it takes brutality to rule over such an environment, but can we really say that Putin's (or anyone who might have been in his place) actions are justified and needed when considering that most likely the average folk doesn't wish for such things?

This is exactly what I've always wanted from Russia... Integration with the rest of Europe. And someone strong enough to kick USA's butt (diplomatically) when needed, in a strong cooperative relationship. How you do that? Get rid of Putin, his gang of fascist oligarchs, and the oligarchic groups that are waiting for Putin to fall. In other words, introduce real democracy. Though these are all dreams.

To add to my previous comment, yes Putin is doing what he thinks it's right. I think it's a combination of pure hatred for the West, the desire to hold on to power and restore Soviet borders. Again, it's all for the survival of the idea of a Greater Russia and Putin's identity.

The entire Russian state is not retarded. Putin and his fascist oligarchy are retarded. This is the line that you need to draw. Not everything a fascist oligarchy is doing is justified geopolitically. You can't find good reasons for Russia to invade Ukraine because there aren't. What Putin is doing is not the will of the Russian people. The Russian people are emigrating to EU and the US. This is a good analysis. Observe that the basis for Russia's aggression is its unwillingness to integrate with the West, rejection of democracy (which contrary to the Russian propaganda, the common folk desires) and the clinging of power by the oligarchy around Putin. This is why.

You might find people on Reddit who would donate. Check out r/Ukraine and r/Ukrainianconflict. Please flee the country at once. You can always return afterwards.

I'm sorry, I don't follow. Do you agree that you can eat as many fruits as you want or not?

I agree with everything said here, except the fruit part. You can eat as many fruits as you want. In fact, it's impossible to overeat fruits. The sugar in fruits is not the same as processed sugar, by any stretch of the imagination. Not to mention the fibers and the vitamins that come with fruits.

Hi! I'm depressed for 7 years now (this feels horrible to acknowledge) . In this time interval I've had ups, but mostly downs. My life went ahead somehow, but I have always felt that something is wrong. I don't remember much of my childhood, especially times in which my parents say that I was happy and outgoing. My memories consist of random (happy/interesting) moments, some dreams (mostly nightmares) and some traumatic events. I have always suffered from "shyness" and anxiety growing up. I was considered a gifted kid and did very well in middle school and early high school, went to different kind of competitions and whatnot. I started being bullied in 8th grade, and it pretty much went downhill from there. High school was traumatic for me... not because I suffered from various impactful traumas such as accidents, but because I suffered from long term stress and anxiety, which I didn't know how to handle. I did not even consciously acknowledged that I had these problems for a long time. Those repressed emotions slowly built up into emotional numbness -> feelings of apathy and generalized anxiety -> chronic depression, generalized anxiety, chronic stress and suicidal thoughts/ideation. I came to the realization that the general cause (or at least the partial cause) of all of these feelings is a lack of feeling seen, valued, understood and loved for who I really am. I never felt important or felt like I should exist. When I was a kid, I remember thinking and saying things to my mother along the lines of "if I wasn't around, you wouldn't have to sacrifice for me". I especially want my depressed, angry, suicidal, miserable side to be seen and loved unconditionally. I have no idea if this is a proper expectation to have of another person. I hate that I'm dependent on other people for my emotional needs. I feel like I'm too fucked up at this point for anyone to love me in any way. People "love" and "like" my façade, which is harder and harder to maintain. Over the years, I couldn't really afford to go to therapy because of financial reasons and the fact that I didn't want to let my family know that I'm struggling. I always felt that I would break them beyond the point of repair. Some attempts were made, but they ended up backfiring. My parents always fought. There was always a silent (or not so silent lol) tension, and I think this is where my anxiety comes from. They hate each other, don't communicate properly and I generally don't trust them to be intimate with me. They are also both depressed or fed up with life at the very least. My father threatened to commit suicide multiple times. My mother suffers in silence but I can see that she also has suicidal thoughts and depression. Won't go further deep into that rabbit hole, but you can see why I didn't talk to them about how I'm feeling. I fear that they might have manic attacks and kill themselves, or physically fight each other or something. Now I'm in college but due to my state of mind and constant thoughts of suicide, manic attacks, chronic sense of loneliness, mental fog I just cracked. I can't go on. I passed the majority of my subjects, but I'll have to repeat a year. I'd like to get a job (I know I could if I really put my mind to it) and save some money, but can't. The only thing that is on my mind is being hugged and appreciated, things which I cannot get. I had some girls show interest in me over the years, but I unconsciously pushed them all away. I'm glad I did that, because it's not fair for them to have to deal with someone so mentally destroyed as me. It's just not fair for the other party involved and I don't want to pull up a bait a switch tactic or be manipulative. I'd love to have a romantic partner, but my unconscious expectation is that they would be my therapist. I don't know what expectations are healthy to have for a partner, but that certainly doesn't make it on the list. Yet, I'm so desperate for any kind of intimate (intimate as in sharing feelings, not sexual) relationship. I'm spending most of days zombifying myself through distractions because I get overwhelmed with negative emotions. No, I just can't sit and be present with them because when I do, I end up daydreaming about suicide or actually researching ways to kill myself. Teal Swan's video on suicide helped me because it felt so validating and made me feel seen. I've grown in some areas over the years, but if I was forced to look at my situation blindly optimistically, I'd say that I've actualized 15% of my real potential that I could have actualized in these years. I've done shadow work, meditation and all sorts of other stuff, but I can't form a habit out of anything positive... The resistance always has a flavor of "I have to change myself so that others will love and accept me". I can't fight through that, I can't work through it, and I can't resolve it due to my fear of irreversibly breaking anyone who comes too close. I'm waiting for therapy right now, thanks to a forum's user. Though I cannot help but feel like it's futile. The wait for getting paired with a therapist is killing me and I don't even have the guarantee that it's going to help me, or that it's going to be a good therapist who can handle me and who know what he/she's doing. I have written all of this because I needed to vent. Also because I want pity, because it feels like love. Yes, a part of me expects pity from anyone reading this. I'm frustrated and ashamed of that part. It feels like that last sentence is a manipulation for pity as well (as well as this one). Oh yeah, for anyone commenting something along the lines of "toughen up" or "gO tRaVeL aNd SeE hOw BaDLy oTHerS hAvE iT", please go find the nearest sharp metallic corner, and smack your head into it as hard as you can.

@Breakingthewall I hear you, but I feel that if I do that I'll be completely abandoned and irreversibly damage the people I love.

@Karla Presumably, the whole reason Leo took down the video is because of low developed people whose psyche would get damaged from watching it. Actualized.org's audience is niche, whether the percentage of highly developed members of this community is higher or lower. It doesn't matter what the reasons are for following Leo's work for both low developed or high developed individuals (and also random people that stumble across his work). What matters is the impact, and Leo came to the conclusion that the Solipsism video will do more harm than good. Correct, it would drastically cut down the bs around advanced stuff. However, do you genuinely believe that normies and Randoms won't pay for advanced stuff if they get hooked up on Leo's work? Presumably, Leo took down the video because of the impact it would have on such people, right? And also, do you genuinely believe that nobody from that "advanced" restricted circle would share Leo's advanced gated content with others who are not part of that circle? I don't believe that such acts of corruption wouldn't take place. Gating advanced content will only do damage control, not solve the problem, that's my point. I don't know if Leo will settle for damage control.

It's naïve to think that because of a paywall, there won't be a certain someone who would secretly register his advanced videos and put them out for the greater public. It's inevitable. Also "normies" have money too, lol. Just because he'll transform some topics into DLCs that doesn't mean that newbies who mostly watch him for entertainment and curiosity won't pay money. The only pragmatic solution is him cherry picking individuals, which is very time consuming and I doubt he'd want to have Apostles. He'll either change his mind, or never publish the video. Or maybe there will a sudden mass awakening on the planet, and the publishing of the video won't dramatically backfire.

@Yarco That felt comforting to read, but at the same time hollow. I expect a sliver of empathy to fix me. I generally expect to be fixed if a need of mine is met 1% of the way. I wonder where that comes from.

Exactly. Why? All love is conditional, and people "love" me only if some of their needs are directly or indirectly met through me. All I did my life boils down to prostituting and changing myself so that others would love me. Nobody likes and wants to be around a wrecked ship. Unless I provide some sort of emotional or physical value to someone, I'm invisible or even hated. What happened now is that a part of me got fed up with trying to please everyone so that I'd be loved and seen, said "I'm having no more of this bullshit, this ends now. You'll either be loved as the miserable wreck that you are, or I don't fucking move." I still want my family to love me unconditionally, but I intellectually know that ain't gonna happen. Best case scenario they'll just misunderstand me and become very worried or creeped out. The same goes for anyone in my life. Constant stress and anxiety took their toll on me and I got more and more sick, and this is why this part of me stepped up (I think). Though now, even though I feel better, I'm at its mercy. I cannot move forward because of it, yet it wants something futile and out of reach.

@catcat69123 I did, I hope I'll be accepted. Thanks for sharing!

@catcat69123 Have you really not paid anything? I can't afford to pay pretty much anything and I'm a bit anxious.

I noticed that I've got problems with self esteem and therefore,with self esteem.I am anxious when I have to break out of my comfort zone..More anxious than I should be.I highly believe that if I'll raise my self esteem I will eliminate my anxiety, which would mean a really huge step for me.I compare myself with others when I'm feeling down, remember akward times and just think about what others think of me..And that really sucks..I guess that I have to say that I'm also dealing with depression,but it got a lot better since I have been meditating. So..My question is how can I increase my self esteem/self confidence in other ways than meditation and affirmations,so I can speed up the process?

You've already received great advice. Let me share what is helping me overcome this addiction as well. Look into the porn industry, read and watch videos about ex porn stars that reveal what's actually happening off screen.. You'll discover just how much the porn actresses suffer. They are often emotionally and physically abused, manipulated since an early age to use prostitution as a means of making a living, drugged and many other things. After spending like a week looking into such stories you'll realize that the modern porn industry has little to none positive effects on the world. Almost everyone involved in this endeavor is miserable.. consumers, actors, actresses(especially), young poor girls.. you name it. It will literally be harder for you to watch porn. You'll start a video, get horny and all, and then you'll spot a slight expression of sadness and disappointment on the actress's face, and you will start to wonder how much she might be hating her life. You might bury this feeling and do your thing, but this thing will happen over and over again every time you open an incognito tab and it'll become increasingly harder to watch porn, realizing not only intellectually the impact of the porn industry individually and socially, but also emotionally. Your compassion will grow for the actors involved, and it will be harder to objectify them. You will find it disgusting eventually and you will move to softer and more intimate porn.. which is hard to find, lol. Best of luck.

@Zanoni Thank you very much.

@Jacobsrw Hey, I know it's a bit random, but could you please tell how that doctor's name from 1:55:05 Teal talks about in the video, is written?