vizual

There is an art to conversation. Like playing improv in a jazz band, one member doesn't suddenly start playing a totally different tempo and key. Even if that member does, he simply can't expect the other band members to just follow along. There has to be a fluidity to tempo changes, some alluring to. The 'feel' of the music piece has to lead in that direction. It's not that you are oversharing, it is that you need to build more rapport with her. Get her interested in non-duality. Start simple. Find out here views on life, philosophy etc.

Lots of valid points in this thread regarding the concept of evil, and that what qualifies as evil and what doesn't qualify as evil is highly subjective. It's a social thing, things that were considered appropriate 200 years ago are considered evil today - slavery for instance. But I think it is also important to remark that one shouldn't create an identity out of the idea that evil is just a concept. Let me clarify: when one reads this thread one can assume that it is appropriate to not act when one sees someone get raped. Because all evil is just a concept, right? Yes evil is just a concept. But the Truth of being is a duality, you are limitless consciousness, but you are also a human being. And human beings act out what they think is right, that is what humans do. So there can actually be a deep realization that 'evil' is a subjective concept, while still acting out your innate humanity. The big trap in consciousness work is trying to totally distance oneself from being human, because when doing so there is just an ego that is trying to rebel against itself. And ego's love to rebel, because rebelling makes sure it's existence is extended even longer. Ego identification thrives on friction. So how does one act in the face of perceived 'evil'? Well, the same way one acts when the dishes have to be done, or the laundry, or the food has to be cooked. You are always acting, even in passivity, one is acting passive. No choice is also a choice. Beyond thought there is the innate wisdom how to act appropriately in any situation life might throw at you.

@Kazman Yes I am perfectly aware the perfect moment won't come. But I have experimented in the past of trying to get rid of striving for something, and it doesn't work. It just leads to nihilism, anxiety and depression, at least in my case. Getting rid of desire does not work. Rather I have found to enjoy the feeling of anticipation itself, even if the anticipated object never comes to actual fruition. I know that my expectation of the perfect future of my mind will not correlate with the actual reality, that's the power of the creative mind. In the creative mind everything is always way more "rosier" and romantic than actuality. But that does not mean that your inner romantic creativity is evil and useless. Rather, I appreciate it as a source of inspiration and beauty, not as an actual expectation of manifestation in which I link my self worth to. Romance is not dead. It just needs to be placed in the right perspective.

Of course, there is never going to come that perfect moment in which all your troubles will vanish like snow under the sun. That moment in which you will find happiness until you die. Everything comes and goes, just like the Taoists say. It's the flow of life. The happiness comes how you flow with life. And the flow is always here, and now. It's never in the future nor past, nor is it found in a certain relationship, job or object. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing anything in life though, it doesn't mean we should just meditate all day long and be content. Nah, that's a stone Buddha. A true Buddha contributes in some way, whatever that way may be.

The perfection of being lies in the diligence of the present moment to refuse to be bound to a finite definition.

@Fuse When you hit rock bottom, there is only one thing left. Rock climbing! I'm serious. You are looking for stimulation of the senses in a very unhealthy way. You need to find healthier ways to get in touch with your senses. You have them for a reason. If your body can't express the senses in a healthy way it's going to crave unhealthy and "easy" ways for them to express. Do you do any physical activities? Like, rock climbing, swimming, sports, travelling, exploring new environments etc.? The more you fear these things, the more reason for you to do it. It's going t seem very shallow and simple. But believe me, actually going outside and doing stuff can change your perspective in life. A lot of depression comes from people living in boxes(which we call rooms). People living in boxes adapt a box way of thinking, which is not healthy. You can break from this perspective by going into the physical world, and engage with it. It helps by tuning out of the "box" way of thinking, and tuning into actual reality way of thinking.

It totally depends. If you are a stage in your life in which you are working a shitty job, and you don't know where your passions lie nor what you truly want out of life. 80 Hour work weeks are going to mentally and physically kill you, probably. It's slowly going to suck the energy out of you. Leaving you devoid of spirit and health. Someone like Elon Musk, a person who has found his passion and joy in life, 80 hours of work is going to feel like having fun. 80 Hours of action is not going to negatively impact him much, both mentally and physically. But even when you found your passion, I feel you still need to balance work time with family/friends/leisure time to avoid becoming myopic and manic. There is the risk of becoming that "mad professor" kind of guy which is going to slyly hurt your quality of life.

@Hardkill You'll figure it out. Don't give up by making excuses. The mind is an incredible problem solving machine when you let it do its magic.

If you truly put in so much effort into it without, seemingly, much improvement. Maybe your intentions are a bit off. Maybe talking to a counselor about your social problems can help. Exploring your own intentions can be beneficial. I mean, why would anyone approach over a thousand women? Are you looking for validation? If you are a validation seeker, that is your problem right there. Because validation seeking is going to hang over you like a bad stench. Healthy social interaction should be a joyous and mutual beneficial co-creating action. It's not you getting something out of it. It's a 1+1=3 type of thing. But for this to happen you need to relax, let it flow. Anyone can "learn" this, but again, no expectations. The only reason I can imagine someone approaching over a thousand women if you are hoping that one day you are going to get all the credits, all the glory, all the validation. It's not going to happen that way.

The answer to your question is in your first paragraph. Any group that secludes itself from society because of some kind of "transcendental ideological philosophy" is just a cult. And every cult has the best of intentions initially and they all are going to exhibit unhealthy cultish behavior in the long run. It's just a matter of time. If you are truly interested in living truthfully, why would you feel the need to look away from the society that is responsible for you being here? The society that raised you, took care of you, educated you. The only reason is ego, ego, ego. You feel hurt by society and wish to rebel, like an angry teenager.

Immerse yourself in social situations. Regardless of your "genetic potential", anyone can become at least competent at anything they put their mind to. Even if I don't have the natural born ability to become a star athlete. I can still do sports and develop solid motor skills. And by conscious effort, no one would even notice that I have a below average ability to excel in sports. When you feel you have difficulty of getting your act together in a certain area of your life it's very tempting to run away from it. Saying to yourself; Oh what's the point, I just don't have the natural talent for it. Meanwhile you are still suffering because of it. But that's the wrong kind of way to go about it, when something is causing you to suffer you have to work for it. Yea, maybe socializing isn't going to come as easy for you as for other people, but so what? I'm sure you have talents that other people don't have.That doesn't excuse you from improving your own life. Well you can use it as an excuse just to justify your own suffering. But it's not going to bring you happiness and fulfillment. You say that you are scared that putting effort towards socializing is going to hurt your self-esteem. You couldn't be more wrong. Your self-esteem is already hurt. And you can only fix it by jumping into the water, not avoiding the water totally. Remember, you don't need to become an Olympian level swimmer. But just knowing how to not drown and enjoying yourself in the water can make a massive difference.

I think the best environment for kids to grow up is an environment which offers a balance between structured stability and creative freedom. When you look at families that are over structured and rigid. You know, those extreme religious families with very strict rules. That kind of extreme structure can make kids extremely rigid and closed-minded themselves. Or they sway to the other side of the pendulum and become these out of control drug addicts who party all the time because they are trying to break free from their suffocating past. On the other hand. A family with no boundaries at all also isn't a good environment imo. Imagine a typical hippy family where anything goes. The kids can do whatever they want etc. These kids might be happy on the surface. But there's a lot of shit going on internally because they long or some structure and meaning in their lives. Something to hold onto. (Check out the movie Tillsammans(2000)). But for this to work the parents have to be loving. You can't forve these concepts as a child-raising formula. I think it is the nature of the human being to find a balance between structure and creative expression. The one can't be without the other. Just like the conservatives need the liberals, and vice versa.

I think you are too focussed on comparing yourself to other people. Being a "loser" is very much a self fulfilling prophecy, if you think you are a loser you are going to compare yourself to other people who you think are more accomplished in some way or another. Notice that everyone can be a loser. There is always someone richer, more successful, smarter, more accomplished etc. And your mind is very powerful that it can always find faults in the self. So when you think of yourself as a winner; in a fraction of a moment due to some external event, you can become a loser. Just like that. So the key is to break free from the winner/loser mind set. I think it helps when you try to live your life by your own standards. Not standards that the external world puts on you. Find your own strengths and focus most of your efforts on that. And also focus on your own weaknesses. Don't judge yourself on your strengths and weaknesses by comparing them to other people. But judge yourself on the conscious attention you give yourself on being the best version you can be, regardless what other people think of that version of you. When you do that is when you truly win, not only you, but the world benefits from you being the best version of you.

"Pick up" seems like such a waste of time to me. I mean, if you are desperately looking for sex, you may as well dish out some cash and pay a professional(if you know what i mean ;)). At least you will be certain she will know what she is doing under the sheets. And there are a lot of "hot" sex workers, surely some that will be to your liking. But if you are looking for a deeper relationship. Why not go to places of your interest? Like going to places you enjoy, places where you enjoy talking to people regardless if you could potentially stick your sausage in them or not. And if you meet someone great, and if you don't meet someone, that's great also. Because you were there because you liked being there. And I am going to hint that maybe girls will actually find you more attractive if she sees you are having fun and not being so needy to get in their pants. Well, the quality women anyway.

Food is to nature what money is to an economy. For an economy to be healthy, money has to keep moving. There has to be production and consumption. People have to buy stuff, and people have to create stuff, they go hand in hand. If people stop buying stuff, people will also stop creating stuff, until eventually the economy dies. The same applies for nature. The drive to be fed keeps things moving in nature. It keeps it dynamic and moving, it drives evolution. When you stop looking for food, you go extinct. You could say food is energy, but so is money. What would happen to nature if all species all of a sudden stopped needing food? Evolution would still carry on, but it would be severely stunted in its growth. There is just way less incentive to evolve.

You are still young. Skepticism comes with age and experiences. Stay open to different perspectives. It's not bad to accept a certain perspective from someone, but be mindful that your perspective will most certainly change with age and experience. Don't try to stubbornly hold on to your own perspective, nor the perspective of others. At the end of the day, there is no perfect way of seeing something. The best you can do is to try to look at things from multiple angles and use your intuition which seems most true to you. The more viewpoints you have at your disposal, the more likely you will have pick the right one in a given time.

It's what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi hypothesized about in his book "Flow", that there has to be a couple of conditions in place for the "flow effect" to take place in most people. Like having a well defined goal to accomplish. And the challenge of the task should be challenging enough that it requires serious concentration, but the challenge should not be so hard that it becomes frustrating.

You have that belief because it is true. You are worthless, you are not good enough and never will be. You are a failure, and as a matter of fact, you have never done anything good in your life. I'm talking to the ego. That is always looking to compare, it's always looking down on people, and at the same time feeling inferior to others. It always wants more; more money, more status, tighter abs, more whatever. It always takes the credit for the good things that have happened in your life, and it talks degrading to you when something bad happens. If you are going to play the comparative ego game in this day and age you better be on top. Or else you're going to be in hell all the time. You have to learn to relax, meditate. Let go of your foolish comparisons, let go of your limiting beliefs. Stop seeing life as a game you have to win. Life is just life, and it's very enjoyable if you let it be what it is, and let it flow where it wants to go. Stop seeing yourself as a part in some kind of rat race, the rat race is all in your mind, and you are losing the race. But it's a stupid race anyway because - by definition - everyone loses in the end.

Can you elaborate what you mean by meaning? I mean, what is meaning and what is not meaning?

That's the thing; the ego was never created at all. It's all an illusion. Nothing ever really gets created. If this is true, what is the thing that is asking this question? There is no thing that is asking the question. Show me your ego and I will show you mine. The ego is an implication, you assume it to be there, somewhere. But where? You can never exactly pinpoint in time when your physical body was created, you can also not pinpoint when the ego was created. Because both the body and the ego were never really created since the act of creation implies a creator and a creation. A duality which can not be. Also, you can not observe anything without exerting (unconscious)influence over it. This is even proved by science. You simply cannot dissect the universe while you are in the universe. There is no way to look at the universe from a detached point of view because there is no such thing. It's like you are trying to study darkness while you got a permanent flashlight attached to your head. Every time you think you finally found the essence of darkness there your light is again...

A thought just came to me which I wanted to share: "God has your back so you can focus all your attention on the Love in your front." Don't know, maybe it sucks ^^

Blow it all on coke, hookers and booze and realize all pleasures of the senses were an elaborate illusion all along, leading finally to my spiritual enlightenment. Totally worth the cash

Well, mood can be one of the factors. Another factor can be that people tend to put on certain "masks", whether it be at work or social gatherings. Let's say you work as a scientist or as an accountant, jobs that require a lot of "rational" thinking. If you answer all the questions of the test from the mode you work by, the test will show you that you are a thinker. But all are scientists and accountants thinkers? Nope, a lot of feelers in these fields as well. And especially if the feeler has developed an ego around his successful career he can be very blind about the fact that his primary way of decision making is actually based on feeling, and not cold logic. And also vice versa, thinkers that think that they are are actually feelers, when they are not. A lot of people are blocking out their true way of operating due to ego. And they don't even know it, that's a tricky thing about the ego. It can blind you because your environment actually positively reinforces ego. Which means that you start seeing certain aspects of behavior as true to you, while they might not be really true to you at all. In conclusion; all I'm saying is is that those personality tests are heavily flawed. But even a broken clock is right twice a day so

The outcomes of those tests can change every time depending on your mood. When you are in love you will test as a feeler, when you are depressed and cynical you will test as a thinker etc. Also, the questions themselves in these tests are so simplistic that they can never accurately assess the cognitive processes that are happening within the test taker. Just because two people make the same decision in a certain situation, does not mean they came to that decision the same way, cognitively speaking. It's more reliable to study the cognitive functions of Carl Jung(on which MBTI is based) if you want a more accurate assessment of your personality. Because then you are more capable of explaining the cognition that goes behind the way you make decisions, in stead of just looking how you react to certain stimuli.

@Marinus It is because deep down you fear rejection. You experienced being rejected by people and as a defense mechanism you decided to put up a shield. If that "persona" gets rejected it doesn't hurt that much because what you perceive to be the real you is hiding safely behind that shield. The persona makes you feel safe, but it doesn't satisfy you spiritually. Keeping up that shield takes a lot of energy, so you resent people since they are the reason you are using excess energy. It is in our nature to preserve energy. Other people don't seem to have such a rigid shield as yours, and you do not like that instinctually. You are very picky about the people you let in, you are very judgmental about their "faults". Because when you do let someone in behind your shield, you want to make sure that person is "safe" to your true self.