aurum

@Gabith Personally the book was a miss for me. Just didn’t land. But if you’re getting value of it, that’s all that matters. Books can be absolutely life changing for some people and do absolutely nothing for others. It’s all about timing, upbringing, your specific stage of development and the lessons your soul is seeking to learn.

@Striving for more I would cut out whatever “black pill” sources of info you are consuming. Your perspective is not “lining up with the evidence” at all. It’s lining up with cherry picked evidence and confirmation bias, which you don’t see how you’re doing. I would challenge you to find as many examples as you can which refute the statements you just made.

@Consilience Good stuff man. You may have gotten a little nervous towards the end, but overall it sounds like your instincts are solid. I also like how natural this was. Just having fun with your friends, meeting strangers when the opportunity presented itself and engaging the whole group. If this girl was part of your regular social circle, I’d bet you’d be well on your way to something evolving between you two. One critique I’d make would be to work on setting up more definitive plans in the future. Something more concrete than “we should hangout again if you’re ever in my city”. And I wouldn’t necessarily wait until the last moment like that when she’s about to leave. That’s gonna put pressure on you. Also, it feels to me like your ideas about bro-code were really just excuses. It was all good when you were just chatting, but then you knew you had to “do” something and “get” something from her. And your mind likely started pulling excuses, like “bro-code”, in order to keep you safe. Nothing to do about it, just be aware.

@Anon212 Tough call. It doesn’t sound to me like you’re very enthusiastic about the PhD, sounds like it’s mostly just a job for you. And that’s okay, most of us have taken a job at some point we weren’t super passionate about because, hey, we got bills. And you never know where an opportunity like this might lead you in the future. You’re young enough that 5 years doing a PhD will still only put you at 26. And it doesn’t sound like you really have any other tangible plan. At the same time, I obviously hesitate to push you in a direction if you really don’t feel good about it. You’ve ultimately got to follow your intuition. You are the captain of your ship, and part of that power includes the responsibility of making tough choices like this. If you do intend to turn down the PhD, I’d start working out some sort of alternate plan as soon as possible.

@BartekD Lol this guy’s studio was right next to my apartment in Miami. Thought about becoming a member but tbh it seemed to me more like flash than functional training. Although I’m sure far better than being sedentary.

@Raptorsin7 If there is, I haven't found it. Each relationship style could be in alignment for that person or simply a result of following their conditioning. Usually it's a mix of both. There certainly is a bias for monogamy in mainstream culture. Monogamy brought social stability as humanity broke out of communal living and become more individualistic. But if you swim in circles outside the mainstream, like the new-age community, you can find people with a strong bias for polyamory and other "non-traditional" styles of relationships.

No-fap can help some guys but you'd be wise to not get stuck there. If you're avoiding dating / relationships and using PMO as a coping strategy, that's problematic. In that case, no-fap might do very well for you. Also, if you're someone who has been watching porn since you hit puberty and don't know anything else, that is also highly problematic. You need to experience real sexuality, not what has been concocted by the porn industry to make a profit off of you. But someone could also go down the path of using no-fap for sexual repression as Leo pointed out. So there's traps everywhere guys. The key is self-awareness and introspection to understand your situation and what will benefit you.

Not any more than the rest of animal. You might as well not eat meat at all. Considering the organs are the most nutrient dense part of the animal and I eat meat from sources that are relatively clean, I’ll take my chances.

@ivankiss As a musician I’m resonating a lot with what you wrote. We would all love to just make our music, but alas, those pesky bills remain. And it can be quite the journey to getting to a place where you’re making a full time income with music. To your point about finding your true “musical identity”, that is also something I’ve struggled with. Perhaps it’s because we have access to any genre or style of music at the click of a button that it seems more confusing than ever to figure out where you fit. For me, the answer comes back to looking at what music I truly love listening to. Because if I love listening to it, that means there’s likely something in my heart that resonates with that and wants to create something similar. That answer has changed after having done a lot of spiritual work. The music I like now tends to be lighter and more heart-felt. Music that just feels like peace and love. I suspect you’ll see the same process happen for you, if it hasn’t already. I wouldn’t try to figure out your musical identity with your mind. It’s not there. It will reveal itself as you write. So just make music that you love, damn worrying about fitting into any sort of musical box.

@Clarity808 You need a partner you are sexually attracted to. Otherwise ya’ll are just really good friends. If this guy isn’t doing it for you, I’d start by letting him know. I understand you may wish he would figure this out on his own, but there’s a good chance he never will unless you communicate. If the situation doesn’t improve after that you’ll have to look at other options.

@charlie cho Saw it when I was a teenager. It definitely brings home a nice message about hard work over genetics. Maybe a bit too simplistic, but still a good message for people looking for success motivation. I definitely remember it firing me up.

@TheDao I’m skeptical of vitamin d supplements in general. So yeah not surprising.

@Human Mint Processed garbage, toss it in the trash.

@sausagehead I’m not a fan simply because everyone I see who goes on coffee eventually needs it just to function. It becomes a crutch. Meanwhile I feel like I have energy all day, never crash and never drink coffee. If you’re having energy problems, I’d look more root level.

Unless you know that you’re insulin resistant / metobolically unhealthy, I wouldn’t worry about cholesterol. From the research I’ve done, LDP-P is correlated but not casual to atherosclerosis. It much more depends on the health of the individual. If I were you I’d add the animals back in. And make sure you’re getting the highest quality there is, none of that factory farmed stuff. Just my opinion.

I’ve written music for film and done a little bit of acting.

@ivankiss No one has mentioned animal organs like liver, heart etc so far. Organs are super cheap compared to muscle meat and way more nutrient dense. Ground beef is also cheap, good for getting in a lot of calories.

I’d say yes. Ethics are highly relative and nuanced. For example, I’d imagine maybe there was a time when humans weren’t the apex apex apex predator of earth. And maybe we were another species’ prey. Not saying I’d want to be eaten, but I wouldn’t call it unethical. The bacteria in my body are trying to eat me right now. But my immune system kills them first. Which is ethical? Let’s hypothetically say Leo couldn’t heal his SIBO without a carnivore diet. And that this SIBO negatively impacted his soul’s mission to awaken humanity by threatening his health. Should he not go carnivore? These are very slippery questions. And one of the points I’ve been making is that the vegan narrative drastically oversimplifies them. I think you know I can’t give you hard and fast rules for any of these questions. You have to use case by case discernment. I’d strongly disagree once again. I think it’s an absolute fallacy that regenerative farming / ranching cannot feed the planet. Regenerative farming, from what every farmer has explained to me, is actually more productive than traditional industrial agriculture. But it does require a shift in practices, beliefs and values. No, please show me where I said something to the contrary. I’ve been arguing that point since the first post I made in this thread. No worries, I enjoyed our little sparring

No. What’s dishonest is to lump these things into the same category and pretend there is no difference. Which of course serves the vegan argument that one should never consume animals.

I will give you that vegans skew demand for factory farmed meat and companies are acting accordingly. The success of businesses like Beyond Burger and the fact I can get vegan options at many restaurants point to that. And I will also give you that we should be boycotting factory farmed meat. The key word in the statement I made was “inherently” superior. As I’ve already said, you are conflating eating animals with eating factory farmed animals. These two things are not remotely the same and a distinction needs to be made. It is absolutely possible to consume animals in a way that is ethical. The fact that the majority of the population does not practice this does not take away that it can be done and IS done by many people. To your point about using farmland to feed livestock, this also misses the mark. You are talking about farms that grow monocultuess of corn / grain / soy for feed, but this is not how livestock should be fed in the first place. Not for our health and not for their health. The reasons this happens are numerous, from perverse government subsidies to perverse economic incentives. But none of that is inherent to raising livestock. Land is not the issue. And let’s not forget, it’s not like vegan food comes from thin air. Unless you are exclusively eating from local, regenerative, permaculture-esque farms, all those fruits and vegetables grown massively disrupt all the same ecosystems you are talking about. Tiling, which almost every industrial agriculture farm does, absolutely destroys the soil. We will not even have enough healthy farm land soil to support a vegan diet pretty soon thanks to tiling. And let’s not forget about irrigation, pesticides and numerous other environmentally destructive practices in agriculture. And then that food will usually need to be transported long distances, producing even more environmental pressures. Animals also play a crucial role in any ecosystem. You cannot just grow plants and expect that to be healthy. Plants need the animals, animals need the plants. In terms of meat alternatives, so far the only thing produced has been highly industrial, processed junk. I cannot say anyone is doing their health or the planet any favors by eating that. My point here is not to argue whether animal factory farming or monoculture, industrial farming is worse and try to make a “lesser of two evils” argument. My point is that our food system as a whole is massively out of alignment, no matter what you are consuming. But it does not have to be so, whether you are eating animals or vegan food.

I do choose a life that minimizes killing already. That’s another fallacy I think vegans often make, which is that their diet involves less killing and therefore is ethically superior. I don’t buy it. My point about not being above taking a life to sustain life is not something unique to me. I think it’s the same for every living creature, including vegans. In order for you to live, something has to die. Disagree strongly with this as well. Unless I can consume animal products on a vegan diet, you cannot say veganism doesn’t take positions, and that these positions are not based on ethics. Again, I do not buy that the “compassionate”, morally superior position is to not eat animals. That is YOUR belief. Not mine. So the answer is no, I have not tried it and will not try it, barring some sort of new revelation I was not aware of.

Being a non ideological vegan for me would look like eating animals. Somehow I don’t think that fits the criteria of “vegan” .

Wrong my salad-munching friend. I bring up these three points because, as I am now saying for the third time, I was vegan. And these were the points that sold me. They spoke to things I cared about. Vegans told them to me, and I believed them. I think vegans are generally amazing heart centered people who are certainly more conscious than your average person. I like being friends with vegans, we often have a lot in common. I just wish they questioned their ideology a little bit more than watching Seaspiracy and Earthlings.

What are you afraid of by not being vegan until the day you drop dead . I was vegan for ~two years. Not afraid of it. Its ideological claims simply don’t hold up to scrutiny. Veganism is not inherently an ethically superior position relative to animal rights. It’s not going to solve the environmental crisis and may not even move us in the right direction. And it’s not a healthy diet for many people, if not most of them. That’s 0-3 of the things I care strongly about. Veganism is out.

@Dlavjr I’ll echo what @Michael569 said. Best place for your vitamins is from your diet. I’d look there first. Sunshine too as others have said for vitamin D. Bloodwork is easy enough to get as well. That can give you a clue of what you may need.