PepperBlossoms

@Nobody_Here Evil can be a relative term. What is evil to one may not be evil to another. If it is evil by stage green/yellow standards, most of the people who work there are probably low consciousness or have to numb/blind themselves to what they are contributing. Yes I can see that money can be a survival need and some of the evil companies pay more than others - I can see that the higher conscious/aware someone is, the less likely they will be able to tolerate or agree to working for evil. There are civil/mechanical/electrical engineering firms that do work in green energy, sustainability, addressing climate change, water/wastewater/stormwater/roadway infrastructure. There are firms that work to promote learning (and infrastructure) in undeveloped countries or just learning in general - schools. Research groups - public or private - will try to explore reality. It can be hard to keep up working on something that is taking advantage of others. I can see that that can be painful to have to do if one cares about others and basically requires people to tell themselves a story that it is okay to do what they are doing. Could try to raise the consciousness of coworkers? Would be an interesting experience. Hmm - wonder how one would get their own international firm to stop the evil and try to do good instead - may require law changes at government level as well as publicly known about the evilness (to get the company to stop doing that that way) The company may be stage red/orange and needs to become green/yellow (from perspective of green/orange) - although technically no absolute "need" to change as reality is just reality - despite however painful things are/seem. That's nice that your ex liked the philosophical stuff. Those are really cool conversations. Philosophical buddies are the best. Not sure of the situation and if the entire company knows about the evil or just the IT since they tend to get to talk to everyone and may know more things - if the entire company knew, would they allow that to keep on happening? Yeah there can be lots of blue/orange engineering companies but there will also be those that are green/yellow too that pay just as much. I'd say progressive CEOs make better companies than conservative ones do - as the CEO will tend to set the company culture/goals (from viewpoint of a progressive). Yeah those power outages and deaths in Texas were pretty upsetting - so sad. Yeah the new clothes thing was kinda a dumb idea but is sometimes refreshing. I've been wearing the same clothes for days straight since I don't have to see people with covid. I guess one thing I would recommend before putting in all the effort to do software engineering would be to ask -why am I doing this? What are all my problems and what are my options/choices? Why software engineering? Although yes will tend to pay well and can make some pretty cool stuff doing that so sounds cool - will also tend to have pretty smart coworkers - may suggest to pick a company that isn't doing evil for the next job :). Sorry about the situation. Sounds like you are already trying to work on solutions! Would be curious to know how the prestigious international engineering firm is evil - but do to privacy - probably don't share. I can make guesses - oil/gas collection/pipelines; some sort of AI or drone; using underpaid labor; taking and underpaying for resources from poor countries; bombs/fighter jets/guns/missiles/war; surveillance that infringes on privacy; cutting down rainforest; producing unhealthy food/chemicals; slaughterhouses; lobbying for conservative ideals; building private prisons; building military structures; some sort of slavery involvement- - some companies have high ethics policies - this company may not care about ethics - - if the future is stage green/yellow - the company may not last or be sustainable in its present form Can look at the company and learn from it - was it created to do evil in the first place, is it not aware of its evil impacts, or did it have to resort to evil to survive, etc. That's cool that your counselor/therapist is "stage green".

Coworker perspective - Unfortunate that the company did not consider your concerns. It is optimal for both employees and bosses to have 2 way communication and address/respond to things like that. It sounds like they do not care about your needs but want you to care about theirs. Company's perspective - we want our employees to be social and kind to enhance customer experience - if we ask them to do something, we expect it to happen. We don't want our employees to turn the customers "off" Growth perspective - notice socialization with people as a weakness/fear - could try working on it and make it better - it will only get better with practice/reframing mind - At the end of the day - It is awkward and can feel fake or to say something like "thanks for coming in". Customers know it is fake too. Customers to the most part don't care if the person greets them - they just want quick, reliable service. They will remember when the service was bad more than they will if the person greeted them. Holistic perspective - everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and companies need to note that some people love being social and excel at it and others do not like it and would rather not If your manager is standing behind you like that - that is kinda awkward and unnecessary if you are performing everything fine aside from the socialization part - I'd say try a different company/career - or get a different shift with a different boss who does not care about greetings. Could bring it up to manager and ask what all their concerns are - "I have noticed you watching me and it makes me feel uncomfortable - is it really just the socialization thing, which I have already voiced that I am not comfortable doing, or is it something else that I am not aware of and if so, I'd like to know". (maybe worded differently ha) Could try for careers that don't require much socialization - engineering is an example - probably others too Note that there will tend to be various things that are hard to deal with - whether that is with a teacher, a job, a coworker, a family member, etc. - if one decided to leave every time one was disgusted with something, one would not last with anything and one may have no friends, no job, no education, etc. - even if you don't stay at this company, may want to try to work through the notion of having a struggle and how to deal with it/think about it. Work takes up most of our time - less optimal want to spend time at something/somewhere we do not feel comfortable at. I'm sorry you are having that experience. The harassment part is tough- if you bring it up, it may become awkward for the rest of the employment - but it sounds like it is already awkward. I can see that it may be easier to just leave. The company or boss needs to change the expectations and acknowledge that not everyone is suited to be social - if you are a great employee, the boss is wasting their time or has nothing better to do than get on you - could reach out to HR and talk to them about it. It does sound like workplace harassment though - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_harassment

@Nobody_Here Wow. Advice to potential future self from younger self- Younger self says to go to a different company that does not promote evil. You only live once. What is evil about it and why am I saying that it is evil? Is there anything my future self can do to turn that company from an evil company to a company of love or is that not going to happen? Am I contributing to this evil? My future self may want to consider ways to save up money faster or earn money faster; my young self will tend to wish that my future self will have wished that I wasn't still in debt at this age. My younger self wants my future self to remember that problems are everywhere if we want to see problems. The clock is ticking. Maybe start making radical life changes now?? Maybe think more deeply - what is my older self saying as the problem/issue? If none of my peers are improving themselves, where can I find the peers who are? If my older self wants to get married and have kids - will have to make that a priority over everything else - will have to give a little on the values. I will have to come up with why I want to get married and have kids. There's also adoption and no marriage - which in that case - longer time limit. Change in viewpoint - take psycadelics. Get new job. Get new city. Do new activities. Get new anything/everything. Younger self says to do something to find people who are working on themselves - need to go to a career with people who really care about learning/exploring reality - research, education, science, engineering, art, medicine, comedy My younger self says quit job immediately even if that means no pay and take the time off to work on things - then get self to a point that self is in better position and then self can better achieve what self wants. (would be optimal but not always an option) Younger self slightly wishes older self had accepted the engineering job if self wanted to just try it out even if self was not qualified- none of us are qualified absolutely - we are all faking it and learning everyday (unless that was evil too). Could drop values and just go for someone that is good enough even if not a fair match - could maybe help them get to yellow. Younger self will tell older self to ask to not be used as promotion material if it is for evil promotion. Yes could be more yellows in software engineering - especially if the software that is being worked on is for yellow purposes. Younger self says to get new wardrobe??.. younger self says to ask if any of the guys self has met with in the past self could try to make it work with.. Younger self says drop the idea of the company being prestigious if it is promoting evil and no good. Younger self says that friends have always been hard to make and hard to have close relationships with aside from the ones that self is able to explore reality with. Younger self says to look for dating apps? Younger self says that software engineering can be tough to get employment in and that the city makes a big difference on getting hired. Seattle is the best city in the USA (not sure where you are from) that has software engineering positions open - could look into those companies to see if self wants to work for any of those.. Self also says to be lazy and see if self can do a different job without having to go back to school - or go to a coding bootcamp that is only a few months. Younger self says oh man and good luck and that self hopes self finds people. Younger self says that conservatives and liberals can be funny to listen to. Younger self says she really only has 2 people to explore reality with at the fullest - self and bf - all it takes is 1 person to explore reality with - then the others who aren't interested just get put aside.

Do y'all ever get tired of being serious and just want to be silly? Silly news anchors, silly meetings with clients and coworkers, silly relationships? Maybe I've shelled myself from being silly by not considering it as an option and being too shy/focused on other things - to where the pendulum just swings from serious to silly- the tight shoe of being serious all the time sometimes gets too tight - maybe the people around us are also mostly serious so we don't expose ourselves to silly very often - or we haven't tried identifying all the ways silly exposes itself and opportunities to be silly. Was laughing in a training at work - we were doing a role play and I was the pretend employee talking to the pretend client saying we were a month and a half behind on schedule and going to be Xk over budget and I was just silly about it instead of serious -- and I thought - man why is everyone so serious? (Maybe that's just what I have been limiting myself to see). News anchors could be comedians. Politicians could use some silliness too. Teachers can be more silly. I guess if our egos keep on getting hurt/upset over things - we tend to be serious. Silliness is a funny, weird thing! Maybe we like silliness but can only take it so much.. not sure. If someone else is silly but we are upset, we may tend to reject silly. To be silly, we'd have to throw out the "wanting to be taken seriously" and have peers who don't care about that either.

@InterruptReQuest To stop fearing, could try to stop getting scared, nervous, or fearing stuff. In some cases, the fear could be a survival strategy such as fear of driving off a cliff when driving along a cliff. Could take a look at what fear is helpful and what fear is not helpful and then make it so that you can get rid of the non-helpful fear while keeping the helpful fear. What are the particular outcomes for the situation and is fear something that is going to help get me the outcome that I want?

If we take the perspective of birth and death not being a thing but rather startless and endless and the arrangement just transforming from one thing to another - there is nothing to survive in the sense that the arrangement is always rearranging itself with itself. If we say ego and the body are not separate but part of the same thing, then we could note that they transform (whether or not that is to keep a segment of the arrangement the same or to make a segment of the arrangement a specific way.)

wow. I love his eye for richness in design.

@erik8lrl This video is so awesome. Thanks.

@Megan Alecia Those videos were really good. Thanks for sharing!

@hyruga no worries!

@Jay Ray Thank you so much for sharing this.

@goodjob Nice post. Anything can be possible. Some stuff to think about: As for punishing those that did not obey and rewarding those who did - who are they obeying? Who is the authority here? If there is no authority, there are no rules, thus there is no one to say what the punishment and the reward is. There is no set rule on what is wicked and what is holy. If we are all God, we are the authority, we make the rules, we make the punishments and rewards - we make it however dream up. The rules that humans abide by are all made up. Could say Leo's soul would exist forever or that it never existed to begin with or ask what is the definition of Leo's soul and does it include all soul's or even what is a soul? Or what is the definition of exist and how can one verify that one is even existing? Why would god want to be worshipped? Regarding an apple being forbidden - brings up the interesting idea of whether or not something can actually be forbidden - I can see that if the natural laws of the world do not allow for it to happen then that is one thing, but of the stuff that the natural laws do allow for, if one can actually do it - then is it really forbidden? I guess if there was a hell - what would it look like and how would one draw the line for where on the spectrum "good" is and where on the spectrum "bad" is? I feel like shame is a step above the lowest level of consciousness because at least shame recognizes something - it is aware of its wrongdoing - there can be levels lower than that that are not even aware. Also, what is shameful to one person may not be shameful to another. We trick ourselves and others all the time. If there is a Devil, what would you say the devil is - low ego development? low consciousness? low knowledge? low skills? Why would god care what parts of itself did and why would god not be okay with parts of itself becoming more like itself? Why would god want to avoid stuff?

Creativity. What is creativity to you? What fertilizer do you use to foster and allow for more creativity? What systems, what rules, what lack of rules, what tools, what skills, what info, what images, organizations? What have you noticed that destroys/hampers creativity? What killers, what systems, rules, lack of rules, tools, mindsets, info, images, organizations? What food you select at the grocery store, what clothes you wear, what words you use, how you say your words, how you walk, how you react, what you focus on, what questions you ask, what you paint where, where you put yourself and when, what combinations you put together and move around, what tools you use, what organizational method your thoughts are put together with, what partner you select, what reason you give for doing/wanting anything, how you do a task, how you reframe a situation, how you teach someone something, how you interact with anything like a person/bug/air particle, identity and perspective.... all can be within the realm of creativity. Why even bother having creativity? Do you look for creativity and what exactly are you looking for? How does creativity or lack of it affect your mood, thoughts, drive? Thank you to everyone/everything for being creative (and destructive), whether aware of it or not.

It's the common question - Should I say something? Do I just forget about it? What do I do? Should I let them figure it out eventually? What do you do in those situations? You see someone cut in line in front of you.. someone tells you about how they are going around with all these people and not wearing a mask.. you have a different idea.. you see your boss blaming an external cause rather than it being the teams fault... you see someone getting bullied... you see what you think is incomplete logic. Then you ask yourself, do I let this go or do something about it? Why am I the only one saying something - Why is no one else engaging? Are they just not concerned or thinking about it or care? Or are they just choosing to say nothing? Or I am just telling myself that they aren't doing anything but they are? Did they not notice but I did? Will it be more painful to get involved or to not get involved? You have the info so you might as well share it? What situations trigger you to act and what situations trigger you to just watch it play out from the sidelines? What are the metrics that you set for when you will do what? What do you do when you try to make a change but the change does not accept?

@Yamak9889 Here is what I have experienced so far in the realm of what could be close to non-duality: I saw that we all seemingly came from the same origin - that humans/plants/insects/animals are all seemingly coming from the same source but are also the same being "I" and there were also visualizations that reminded me of infiniti. The idea of birth that there was no birth and that we were alive when our mom was alive and mom's mom and mom's mom and all the way back and that we are a part of our mom but also the mom's mom and mom's mom to the sense that our identity is everything - that ant's only look different from humans because the reproduction had a slight mutation over a very long period of time and that we are related to ants just like being related to humans but also the identity that we are the ants too. There was the idea that ourselves does not die as long as life is still alive when our individual being dies (basically extending the identity from human body to all of life in that sense - also like how a branch on a tree can die but as long as the rest of the tree is still alive, the tree lives on). (In that moment I was not freaking out - I was actually rather ready to stop breathing ha) - the idea that all the different individuals of "I" allow the "I" to have all these different perspectives and experiences and we can learn of of each other - the idea that all of life must continuously be alive to stay alive and have life today - the idea that we are our mom/boyfriend/boss/cockroach/dog/etc.- I don't think I went deep enough to get the full thing yet though - still more to go.. work in progress.. if that answers your question. I was having trouble with the notion of identifying with being the parent as the sperm and the egg had to combine to have the recipe for the offspring - and before that - the sperm and egg weren't combined yet (or that is how science had taught it) - still some stuff to explore. Yes I probably have lots of ego traps that I need to identify and get out of - thanks for the suggestions. @BigDogRaven I'm sorry that it has ruined many relationships. It can be tricky!! The ego is weird. Congrats on this personal development for a year. If my boyfriend hadn't gotten me into it, I don't know if I would have ever stumbled upon it myself. Maybe as you do more of it, you'll get a better eye for things and it'll make the relationship thing easier too. @AlwaysJoggin Good job on standing up for the bullied. It takes a level of awareness of being able to spot when something is wrong and is hurting the person next to you and how to react to it and what to do/not to do. @Origins Well said. The experiences can tend to be super helpful and yeah agreed - yes we can imagine lots of stuff sitting on the floor meditating but, the experience outside of meditation can tend to go in ways we would have maybe never "imagined" on "our own".

@Yamak9889 I can see that this can be where it gets tricky - to speak in the realm of the absolute or the relative. In the realm of the relative, asking questions can be helpful. In the realm of the absolute, one can say there is nothing to ask, nothing to know or not know, no distinctions to make, nothing to do, nothing to be, nothing to learn - I guess the problem (which itself tends to be a problem saying it is a problem) is that staying in the realm of the absolute closes the door in a way that there is nothing to happen. To me I get the sense that it kinda shuts out opportunity that duality tends to allow for. Why then have duality exist in the first place? Why then have me and you, two separate ideas, two separate perspectives, two separate experiences? (Yes or we could say we are part of the same one thing..) To not ask questions can be a way to stop making observations, to stop being curious - which there can tend to be nothing absolutely right or wrong about doing or not doing, from my perspective. I can see though that the foundation of a question - "Why did this cause this?" "What am I looking at" - can produce a false answer - the What will tend to be a distinction drawn, which may not represent the whole; the why be also lead to an incorrect answer as the why may never be fully known if nothing can be known; "How" - same thing; "Who" - same thing - so yeah good point in that the foundation of questions could lead to answers that are not the whole and thus incomplete. Even making an "is" statement may tend to lead to something incomplete from the full infinite. Yeah good point though that it basically can create a situation that makes things more deluded - it kinda puts a stopper on anything.. asking questions on the other-hand can be a tool for pointing out observations and getting the observation that another part of the whole has made. In a way, the idea of a false self cannot seem to fully exist either - maybe less authentic self as we cannot fully verify if something is false - maybe an incomplete missing some puzzle pieces self. A self that is seemingly putting oneself in the position to be more deluded than seeing clarity. For the studies that say that closed minded people should not get advice - if we go on the realm that there is no should or should not - then we could say that we could chose to or chose not to - in a way, one could argue that the closed minded people need more help than the non-closed minded people (or on the absolute there is no need so it doesn't matter and me saying that there is a need to be non-closed minded is also biased and that yes we can just learn to appreciate their closed mindedness or ignore it or forget it or whatever we chose) Yes I can see the perspective that nobody's lives matter and some of us may decide that they do even if they don't - but there's also the idea that stuff does matter - the cool thing about everything is that all of the perspectives allow for different views and some views would point to things mattering and others would point to things not mattering and it can be nice to appreciate the different things and see what all there is in it. I can also see that there is the dual perspective of us being separate individuals and the non-dual perspective of us being part of the same thing - so the idea that another person is closed minded and we are open minded then even is off ha as it would rather be that everything has its own level of closed to open minded or the idea of closed and open in a duality too and there where one choses to draw the line can be subjective so even that makes it to where there is not one or the other, just different arrangements of the whole....... It is a work in progress to sort through all the dualities and notice them as dualities...... I can see that there is the tetter totter of duality vs "everything just is" to one scale and then a larger scale of just everything and it can be nice to zoom in and out of that. Thanks for the inputs. I (we) appreciate the feedback.

What patterns and organizational structures do you use to think? Do you think in words, images, feelings, a combination, a lack of? Have you found some frameworks that work well for you and allow for more than others? Example - Language really helps a bunch by giving quick access to distinctions, meanings, identifications, and relationships.

Any advice on how to be more mature? How to notice when we are being immature or ways to work on it?

Thank you. Wow. How does identifying as the silence work? Is the voice still you or what is the voice? Do you want to keep the distance or make it larger or closer or merge with it? It may have felt like a path towards increased beauty and appreciation. (I don't know if we can ever know our truth or what is fully right or know anything fully). Have you considered doing things so that you don't have to repress or be a double person anymore? Is that really hard? Is the voice in your head perceived as a stranger talking to another stranger? Have you ever had it where you identified it as you talking to yourself? As we learn more and more, we may tend to be able to see more of the situation with how the various parts work together and may be able to think about it differently and the influence may be greatly different and of a different perspective and impact. With the re-conditioning of voices, do you have to lie to yourself about the other person and trick yourself or is it actually an honest thing? Just curious. Is there a way to get to the root of the issue or is that too hard? I can see that going around the root can be helpful for coping but is there a goal to eventually get to the root even if baby steps? (I can see that I tried to get to the root of the issue/relationship with my parent and it did not work well and kinda just gave up at this point for the time being.) Good job on thinking in two languages. Wow With the music being stuck on repeat - is it because there are just not enough things going on to keep you busy and shifting focus? Man that must be tough with the same song. Could you try increasing the amount of inputs or decreasing the amount of inputs? (If you wanted to get rid of the music.. if not, nevermind.) I had a realization that nothing can be fully known or unknown. But yet we still sometimes say that we forgot or that something is known or unknown anyway. It would be interesting to look into why we decide that one part of life is unknown - or that we have not experienced knowing or experiencing it - but even the experience or having experienced something cannot be certain either. Wow existential crisis's that last for weeks that are super deep. I can't tell if that is horrifying or amazing - maybe some of both? You are very strong. Do you find that when your identity has crumbled so much that there is no more identity left to crumble or does it not ever go that far and there is always some identity left afterwards? Or a new identity that replaced the old one so there is always a new one to crumble? Beautifully said. Thanks for the response.

@LastThursday Interesting point - I guess it would be where we "decide" to draw the line. I think I am angry. I feel angry. They are similar - they both seem to be a physical thing going on in the body - it is crazy how emotions or words in the head or images in the head even exist in the first place. But then calls the question, it is crazy that sounds images smells tastes touches even exist either.. weird stuff. Yeah I can see that - the different "thinking" modes for different activities. Calls into question how or why the heck all the thinking is going on in the first place or if that is basically the same thing as repulsion and attraction like a magnet.

@Yamak9889 I was watching a youtube video and the speaker was saying how one can be very much so developed spiritually but very much low developed in another area such as maturity - you'd get someone of high spiritual insights who still acts like a child - the low developed area will tend to impact the other areas - in that case - it can be beneficial to not only build up the strong areas, but to try to build up the weak areas too. The video was shared by @nistake from another post.

@Yamak9889 True. Then comes the question of - what is the key to unlock the door of the closed-minded person? What sentence do I need to tell them to pry open the door? What image do they need? What story should I tell? What documentary should I have them watch? I have tried with some people and have yet to make any dents.