mandyjw

Do what makes you happy. The thing about addictions is that we keep on doing them even after they stop bringing us pleasure. If you can stay conscious you'll know when you've reached that point. This is good advice. I should take it.

That's something I think about a lot. One thing about rural America is that those community tribe values don't get let go of. This is because a smaller community, especially in a poor area just can't let go of the community thing. They get forgotten about in a city really quickly. I don't think a rural area ever truly can or would embrace orange. They are too tribe like, too close knit and too small to every deny that fact. I just went to the funeral today for someone who did odd jobs, he choked on his food while hauling scrap metal and crashed his truck and died. No life insurance, leaves behind a wife (my friend) and kid. The community will raise that child for him. He worked hard and was well loved. Yeah sure, he was an asshole Republican. Who cares? He was part of a community. When someone's house burns down and they don't have insurance they are flooded with gifts and donations. People in the community give from their hearts, to people they know and love in person. They don't like writing a check out to the IRS. That doesn't mean that they aren't giving. When you have support like that from a community, you don't need to embody stage orange as much.

Woooow. I love that quote. That stupid in love, can't eat can't sleep feeling is so short lived. That's why the butterflies are lucky. People think that they want the perfect partner. They don't, they want to be in love. You can't be in love more than a few weeks if you don't know that you are love itself. You'll always be blaming your partner or the lack of partner in your life until you realize that. The nature of romantic relationships is designed to make us insane, they are designed so that we will do stupid things out of love. That stupid in love is how you have to live everyday if you want to live for God. You have to let go of logic and your own understanding.

Yes, I live in redneck country so I understand that part of the US quite well. Rednecks, rural America is struggling because they badly want to move to stage orange but other people (like Trump) got here first and they can't skip ahead to green or see that voting green would help them out most. So many of the blue collar jobs are going, going, gone. I really believe that they thought Trump would give them what they wanted, from the spiral dynamics perspective, that he would help them get through stage orange. I think stage yellow and stage turquoise are responsible for figuring out how to reach blue and orange where they are. We have so much stress and limitations on "owning" things. The minimalist movement is huge. Owning things is not freedom. Where I live there is a lot of property that is privately owned that should be parks. It's ridiculous. People are liable for something bad happening to someone there, so they can't give people permission to use or enjoy the property. If you have money, if you have a business, you can be sued. That's not freedom at all. The native Americans thought owning land was absurd. It truly is absurd. In the end it doesn't matter at all what stage you're at or what political party you vote for. If we cannot love and meet people where they are we will only do harm and make things worse. There are highly conscious right wing people. Check out Charlie Munger. Would Warren Buffett be who he is without him?

@ValiantSalvatore Yes, I agree. I'm also aware that I'm making a lot of generalizations. The US made independence a huge value, people risked their lives and gave up everything for religious freedom to come here, and then we doubled down on freedom as a value after the Revolutionary war. World War II being so remote to the US meant that after the war our economy exploded and other powers had so much damage that we rose as a superpower. The American dream was born. Being naive is part of America's great success I believe. Our values line up with the Law of Attraction pretty well. Stay positive, have a big dream, don't take no for an answer. It's not a grind, good things come out of being passionate about them. We're creative, we innovate. We've been blessed, and then blessed and blessed again. And now we're starting to become stage green and we're feeling really guilty about it all. We've been given a gift and now we feel like it's too much and we don't want to accept it. It's too late to go back in history and right the wrongs of stage red and stage blue. People sense that America may lose it's unique beauty and those unique values if stage green takes over. The rigidity of the Democratic party is scary. It often doesn't honor America's roots, or that fiery naive passion that is unique to us. It tells us to stop flying the American flag. The flag is racist, the flag is ugly. We need to find some way to honor our character and integrate the past instead of trying to bury it and telling Veterans that they should be ashamed of their actions instead of honored. Stage green preaches love but isn't brave enough to extend it to everyone.

Romantic/sexual relationships are also secretly about enlightenment.

@Leo Gura I shall play my nonduality Trump card. I've never met anyone who was truly a fool and I've never met anyone who was truly wise. If a country had Russia's intelligence and work ethic and also America's fun, free spirit, my God, that would be a great place to live. Could you have both at the same time?

The problem with non-fiction is that we think it's reality and the problem with fiction is that we think it's fantasy. Almost all the very best fiction books are secretly about enlightenment.

You have to be crafty to survive in a cold climate. Trump is old, he's almost dead. He built his own tower in New York City, he's married to a supermodel and he has a mansion in Mar-a-Lago. That got boring, so now he is our President. Trump knows how to have a good time and he knows how to get the things he wants. American values like fun, big dreams and freedom... they aren't worthless. They are what we live for.

Focus on having more thoughts that you want to have. Rainbows. Unicorns. Cotton candy. Sunsets. Insights. Understanding. Intuition.

You don't need to understand doubt. You only need to know faith. This morning I went down to a stream in the woods and there was a rotten tree that had fallen over making a bridge. I walked across it, even though I didn't really trust it. If the tree wasn't high up over the stream I could have walked across it confidently. But I wasn't confident. So I grabbed at some little branches nearby. I knew if I really fell they would break right off. But they gave me balance and faith anyway. I thought about how hilarious it was conceptually. But faith is not conceptual. Throw your concepts in the wind. That's what we are for each other. Just some branches to grab onto, giving you the illusion that you have a lifeline. You don't need a lifeline, and they/we can't save you. But the illusion is everything. The illusion is what allows us to see love. Once we see it we have seen the face of God, the mirror in the sky. You are love.

That's been on the radio a lot lately, I didn't even realize it was by her. I came in like a wrecking balllllllllll....

@Truth Addict I'm eloquent as fuck. I could have said eloquent AF, but I spelled it out, because I'm so eloquent.

I could have written that. Well I couldn't have, but I feel the exact same way about almost everything I write in my journal.

@Truth Addict You can already read me like a book, might as well be literal too.

There was nothing noble about my path. Also why is everything talking about pissing in the wind? I mean, why not piss in the wind if that's what you want to do?

There are a lot of different reasons why people get tattoos. I never thought I'd be getting any but I'm working on designing two now.

@Nahm @Shadowraix

@Nahm I'm nearly incapable of work anymore anyway. It feels like the biggest personal development failing. I like being kicked.

A waste of a life. To truly be lost. That's my real fear. You got me. I hated visiting my Grandmother. She just sat there, doing nothing. I tried so hard to be entertaining, to not fall asleep when I visited her. Yesterday I went and got groceries. I hate having to do mundane things like that when I normally work. And the thing that kept happening to me before I had this break happened again. I felt overwhelmed, cold, everything was getting soaked in the rain. The feeling only lasted a second and then I just melted into it with no resistance. I only surrender when pain is present. When someone or something takes me down a notch.

@Nahm I don't want to be the only person in the universe. I don't want to be God. I want God to take care of me. I want to be a sheep, not a shepherd. I'm both, I'm all of it.

@Nahm I've never been open to the idea od past lives until recently. But there are three memories/visions, I've always known aren't mine. A meadow. An antique chair. I didn't know it until I saw one like it. An antique clock face. They trigger an indescribable unshakable feeling. It's a nice one but it is puzzling. Thank you, I can't thank you enough.

@LastThursday My path is more like forging through the wilderness. I'm out here, it's beautiful and I'm lost. I had a home at one time, but this place could be home too. My eyes see it for the first time, but I saw the same woods through different eyes before. Some of the memories are still there. What is a memory? A vision of the future? What is time? A vision of a clock?

I thought they were quite excellent, the best yet in the whole journal.

I almost always get a runner's high, especially anything above three miles. It usually lasts a while after the run. I've experienced the intense ones while running as you describe, but I almost always get some sort of mild high from running even short distances. I think it's different for everyone. I have a friend who runs and says he's never experienced it at all.