Asayake

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Posts posted by Asayake

  1. Posted

    The idea behind this thread is simple: You answer 7 questions, so that you stop for a moment of reflection. Then you can read others answers for input and perspective. Hopefully it sparks some discussion as well. If you don't want to bother answering all the questions, answer the ones you'd like, I won't bite!

    The Questions:

    1. What area of life are you focused on right now and why?

    2. What's a recent change you've made in your approach to personal development and/or spirituality?

    3. What's something you wish you knew earlier on in your journey?

    4. What's something you think other people should try and why?

    5. What practice or habit would you like to cultivate more of in the future and why?

    6. What's a book that had a noticeable impact on your personal or spiritual growth?

    7. What makes you sad, what brings you joy?

     

     

  2. Posted · Edited by Asayake

    On 01/11/2024 at 7:28 PM, Princess Arabia said:

    He doesn't see it fully as Leo does. He thinks there's a physical reality, while Leo says it's all mental. Other stuff too but I haven't finished watching, but there are lots of differences in the way they both see it as far as what I've understood from Leo so far. Didn't hear him say anything about imaginary and he speaks about God as it's separate.

    What's the difference between saying it's all mental or physical? Those two examples seems to me to be just a difference in bias and not much different. They both reduce reality down to the physical realm or the mental realm. Does Leo really frame it in that way? To me recognizing both the physical and mental realms seem more balanced 

  3. Posted

    5 minutes ago, integration journey said:

    Reading Leo’s booklist has been an amazing investment. The books synergize each other and they are life changing.

     

    It's interesting you say they synergize each other, do you mind explaining what you mean by that? I have the booklist and have read a few of the books on there but haven't dug deep into it yet, might give it another shot if more people vouch for seeing improvements from the books on that list.

  4. Posted

    As the title indicates, I'm curious about your experiences with reading books as I'm conflicted about whether the books I've read have paid off or not, I haven't read many books and considering whether I should. A few questions come to mind where I think it would be insightful to see others experiences on here, namely:

    Have/do you read many books, about what frequency per year?

    Have you noticed positive effects from reading, if so which, in which domains of your life?

    Do you find reading books to be a worthwhile endeavour, do you think reading more than you currently do would improve your life?

    Have you had letdowns or periods where you felt reading wasn't contributing much to your life, potentially leading to breaks from reading or a disillusionment with the value of books?

     

     

  5. Posted · Edited by Asayake

    Too many different goals, too divided focus as a result. In other words lack of commitment to any one path. Which is understandable because he seems to be moreso trying to figure out what he wants to do. He's picking up different skills along the way which is good but if you try a bunch of different things you cant expect to reach many of your goals short term. The real prize he can hope for if continuing on his current path is to eventually find something he wants to do, or to find himself in a position where he could combine the different skills he's picking up to create something unique to his skillset. 

    Another point is potentially lacking practicality which is something I can relate to personally. For example, if he wants to reach his goals such as becoming a movie director. He cant expect to get there fast if he spends most of his time reading comparative mythology and Jung. Knowledge about these topics could add to a filmmaker but it's not the foundation of his chosen craft. In order to become a filmmaker a more pragmatic path might be getting himself involved with indie movie scene, taking on different roles, getting some elbow grease into the film industry, creating contacts, learning different skills useful in movie making such as writing, filming, editing, dialogue editing. 

  6. Posted

    4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    Shooter voted for Trump in 2016. So he wasn't a far leftist, he was center-rightish/anti-mainstream.

    His political stance can't be pinpointed based on that. But sure it could be seen as an indication. But people change their political views and beliefs radically sometimes and given he just tried to kill Trump I don't think it's a far shot that his political views are quite different from when he voted for Trump in 2016.

  7. Posted

    On 09/09/2024 at 3:17 AM, Carl-Richard said:

    Haha, I've actually planned to create some YouTube videos going forward, spending parts of my sundays on that. It will involve probably some OSRS but mainly psychology, spirituality, science, philosophy, music covers and original music.

    When I was 10 or so, I asked my dad to buy me a license for an editing software that he used professionally to make videos, and he promised to give me it but never gave it (same for when I asked for double-bass pedals for my drum set, but that's a different story). Ever since that age, I wanted to make videos, and it has stuck with me as a shadow desire until this day. 

    A few days ago, I revisited a video I made when I was 11 (over 15 years ago):

     

    It's simple and to the point, as you would expect from a 11 year old, but the potential was definitely there. When I looked at the date and realized I was only 11 when I made it, I was stunned for a good 5 minutes. The "what if" questions that popped into my head about where I would be in an alternate timeline, boggle my mind.

    Same with my passion for music and 15 year long guitar habit; the uncountable number of small audio recordings and the desire to create my own songs; the "what ifs" have kept bothering me for years. Also, my more left-brain zany side needs an outlet for more creative writing that I don't fully get in academia (and I already have pages upon pages of such writing from bookmarked forum posts and threads ready to be packaged into video format). This part is not just about mere self-expression either: it's to share what has been most impactful in my life and what I believe is of value to other people and is most meaningful (and a different angle on the same project that I want my academic work to be).

    So I thought where can I give all of that an outlet? And the answer is obviously developing my YouTube channel on my free time. And I've finally become principled enough to allow myself one free day where I am completely free to pursue whatever I want, so even if it moves slower than the continents, I will put something out there on that channel. And what better time to get started with this than in the age of AI-powered content?

    I will also revamp the stylistic design along the lines of my profile design on this forum. 

     

    @integral

    It might be counting butterflies to explain the storm, but I think your albeit ironic but incessant suggestions over the times has helped steer me in this direction, and I thank you for that.

    I have had the same what if experience as I used to make videos on how to improve your computer when I was 12-13 and YouTube was new. Those videos had like 5k views and I thought wow.. imagine if I would have continued down that path.

    Btw, Runescape absolutely rules, the best game of all time. I enjoyed your moral reflections on it.

  8. Posted

    Saying meditation increases IQ is partly true, partly not. The long term effect, I think is likely to increase IQ. The short term effect could bring up different things one has to work through, this could be distracting as it would cause a temporary worsened focus. The mind is more tricky than linear progression sometimes, just pointing it out there. 

    Things that improve your IQ.. probably logical, problem solving kind of tasks and practicing them rigorously such as mathematics, physics & computer programming. These would train the mind to become faster att seeing logical pattern and solving problems. Other than that Im in agreement that diet plays a big role. For example there has been studies done that show better test performance for people if they ingest something light which gives them blood sugar spike when writing a test, such as orange juice. Deficiencys can also play a part. If you suffer from nutritional deficiencys that might affect brain performance especially B vitamins.

  9. Posted · Edited by Asayake

    7 hours ago, OBEler said:

    Yeah try not to try so to speak 

    So do not try to accept. Do not try to be the observer. Do not try to love

    So if I can't try what can I do if it hits really hard

    In my experience not really anything, sadly. It's an experience like any other. An anxious person learns to handle their anxiety through becoming familiar with it, it then becomes less threatening and they learn to accept it even if it's uncomfortable. The same needs to happen with overwhelming psychedelic experience. It's a novel experience that seems overwhelming and it's because of the novelty of it. You cant use a shortcut to tolerate intense novel states, it's a matter of experience and learning to trust yourself. There are distractions and techniques that will sometimes work. You can see people on youtube talking about it, like changing environment etc. These kind of things can work but ultimately the most Intense experiences will have you floored regardless of where you are and what you're trying to focus on.

    Distractions & shortcuts work until shit hits the fan, then only experience works, in my experience 

    Edit: sorry for double posting, I cant multiquote on my phone because it's an old Huawei 

  10. Posted

    10 hours ago, OBEler said:

    @Emotionalmosquito to answer this I think it's the intention behind.

    You switch to observer but in the background you try to escape the situation nevertheless.

    I think you can be the  observer and at the same time hold other coping mechanism in you to prevent the situation. So this would not work 

    I think only if you are the observer and nothing else in you fight against someonething this would work.

    But how to be only the observer? I think it's impossible to control. So saying to someone "just observe dude" will not help at all. Also not in a panic attack 

    Edit: I am still confused, because if 5 Meo destroys your coping mechanism whats left ? Why can't you then just be the observer 

     

    Yes, thats well put and what I was trying to get at! Being aware of your breath doesnt make the situation worse but being aware of your breath as an attempt to escape will. And if you're experiencing something intense & scary you'll use anything to try escape including observing your breath, which just makes it worse.

  11. Posted · Edited by Asayake

    On 05/08/2024 at 3:53 PM, OBEler said:

    I gave Shee the advice to switching to observer mode.He told this got infinitely worse.

    I gave my girlfriend advice to concentrate on breath. Didn't help at all. And got even worse.

    Why don't help common psychological cope mechanisms help in a bad trip?

     

    Because they're attempts of controlling the situation and you're trying to run away from the experience using a coping mechanism. That works with milder emotional challenges but with something as intense as this you can not try to run away, that ll just give you more anxiety. You need to face it head on. It's like a person with a panic attack disorder avoiding crowds to feel better, that just makes it worse. They have to face the crowd and learn to deal with their disorder heads on before they start getting panic attacks about getting panic attacks rather than by being in crowds 

  12. Posted

    On 2024-07-19 at 11:28 PM, Butters said:

    Exactly as the title says. Some examples might include:

    • You aren't that into her but you want sex so you sleep with her (this one happens the most often to me) 
    • You manipulate her into sex through one or multiple lies
    • You manipulate her into sex without lies
    • There's a power imbalance 

    Ok and where is the line? Is sleeping around almost always evil? Girls get more attached after sex you know this, while we just want lay. 

    Dinving deeper into power imbalance. Just because there's a power imbalance doesn't neccesarily make it evil. It's when there's a power imbalance that's being used in a malicious way where it becomes evil. For example you work in a high up position in a company and offer a better career path if she sleeps with you. You work as a Guru and have brainwashed girls to think you're a good person and they idealize you as a result, and you use that power position to get sex from them. There are many examples where a power imbalance can be used in an evil way.

    But power imbalance doesn't neccsarily mean it has to be evil, it could be as simple as the girl having a lower income/eduction/being less experienced/younger age than the guy. Those things are common and don't have to be evil.

  14. Posted · Edited by Asayake

    5 hours ago, integral said:

    Ive seen my sister reduce her body and health to zero on veganism and then after when she realized things weren't working out she scrambled to start taking supplements and get everything back in order and in the end what happened, is she had to go back to meat because of extreme low iron levels and a bunch of digestion problems. And I get it from your perspective she did it wrong she had to carefully take tests every 6 months to make sure everything was okay and then she had to follow a more holistic intelligent protocol. Maybe you're right. Or she could have continued eating meat like the rest of population maybe she could have continued the food she was eating her entire life? Leo didn't even go vegan he just had a bunch of guts and health problems that slowly crept up on him and then now he literally just eats meat. Because he can't fix his gut and it's the only thing that his body can process.

    If we were to scale this up the whole population what is it going to look like? 

    You clearly have personal negative experience with veganism, which makes you likely to be biased. I have a personal bias of the opposite kind since my dad used to eat a diet high in saturated fat( a keto style diet) and almost died of pulmonary embolism when I was 14. After that my parents started eating more beans & carbohydrates & fish and less meat and they're doing good on that kind of diet. So I think it can vary from individual to individual what works.

    But our cases are both anecdotal, you can never know what would have happened if your sister just kept eating meat, you cant even know for certain that veganism caused all her issues, and I can't know for sure that keto caused my dads issues or if my dad would have been better off without keto. Things could have gone both better or worse, life is complex. With that being said modern day science doesn't exactly seem to support veganism as the optimal diet but it does seem to support a diet closer to the vegan diet than most people eat, with less meat and saturated fats, less eggs, butter, bacon & red meat. More fish, legumes, grains, vegetables. Most vegans don't eat close to that but they tend to eat things like fake meats & a lot of processed junk and those diets are not healthy just because they're vegan.

    I think it's not entirely fair to call vegan an identity disorder. Veganism is an ideology and any ideology can be latched onto by people with identity crisis, such as I bet many on this forum have latched onto a spiritual identity in an attempt to forge a new indentity and start fresh. If you make the case that being vegan is an identity disorder, then to be coherent I think you have to claim that identification with any belief system whatsoever is an identity disorder. With that being said there are surely people with idenitity disorder who are vegans, but the same can be said for carnivore, keto, or even people who eat a normal diet but define their identiy in other ways, such as being anti-vegan for example.

  15. Posted

    On 26/06/2024 at 4:52 PM, Sincerity said:

    If I intentionally throw my phone out of a 4-floor balcony does that make me sort of crazy no matter what my reasoning is?

    You could do it due to being completely delusional, a mental breakdown or something like that. That’s obviously crazy behaviour. Though also you could do it entirely consciously for some kind of spiritual reason or whatnot. But isn’t that „crazy behaviour” too though? (Almost) no one is going to understand you. What’s the connection between „crazy behaviour” and awareness of it/intentionality? Also „crazy” is entirely social.

    I’m not sure if this is comprehensible. Yes I sometimes get the urge to do it lol.

    I thought about this today too. I think it is crazy behavior regardless of the reasoning. But that it's normal for people to have a decent amount of crazy behaviour(imagine a human being behaving entirely normal always, no quirks, now that's really crazy)!

    I think all people behave like crazy, sometimes. It's when a persons entire identity starts consisting of too much crazy things so that the person stands out from the crowd to an extreme degree that most people will perceive that person as crazy. I think being truly crazy is a statistical matter. If you do a lot of crazy things compared to most you'll be perceived as crazy because it stands out from the norm. But people can do pretty crazy things when they're alone because then there's no one there to judge or perceive them. And people need to let loose and do weird things sometimes as the norms and societal structures sometimes are too confining, since we all in reality are, a bit crazy.

  16. Posted

    40 minutes ago, koops said:

     1. Dont say you are a loser.

    2. Be careful about 'finding your passion'. Thats a trap.

    Read carefully 'So good they cant ignore you'.

    The author gives great practical advice on this topic.

     

    FALSE.

    Go talk to 100 random millionaires.

    Maybe just 1-2 out of those 100 read Think and grow rich.

    In fact most of them dindnt even read a self help book. Hard pill to swallow.

    They are TAKING ACTION.

     

     

    So true. It doesnt matter which philosophy you subscribe to, whether George Leonard or anything else. If your philosophy doesn't result in action it's useless.

  17. Posted

    5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    I have not read Art of Mastery. It's probably his easiest book. Or you just overlooked the nuance.

    Like I said, he is a freak of nature. Go look at our Freaks Of Nature Mega-Thread. That's why I made it.

    He didn't become the best martial artist in the world for no good reason.

    Is it really true that he was the best martial artist in the world? This part of Ralston's history confuses me in particular, there seems to be very little information on this online and was one of the things which made me doubt Peter Ralston as I suspected he's faking authority.

  18. Posted

    If you believe forming habits is very difficult and overhyped, that's how it will be initially, until you have changed that belief. That's why you should start with a small habit, pick one wisely that is relevant to your current goal in life. If you try integrating too many habits at once it will be an overwhelming task, you will slip up and it will fail, thereby reinforcing your belief regarding habits being a useless concept. Instead choose your battles wisely, start with something small but meaningful.

    Be specific about it, which time of the day you do it, optimize the step. For example if you want a habit of flossing every night, plan in when you're gonna do it and check it off everyday for a month. Look up flossing technique and refine the activity itself so that you're forced to focus more on that thing for the first month. This way you'll not only pick up a habit, but refine a skill in the process. You'll not only be a person who flosses their teeth every night, but you'll do it properly, creating a habit of attention to detail and doing things right. Small habits like this are way more powerful than they seem. How you do the small things in life will carry over to how you do everything in your life. The small things add up. You learn something from everything you do, it programs you. 

    Then when starting a habit like the gym, having a gym program that you stick to is a form of habit. Learning those particular excercises better by practicing them & your body getting used to doing them in a certain order allows you to make adaptations, alterations to the program that are specific to it remaining the same, refining it. You'll get better at those excercises and setting up the weights, the technique, a lot of things will get automatic and that's why habits are powerful you'll not have to think about it, you'll know "today is Monday, time to hit the gym whole body day A program, go there, barely need to look at your program and you'll remember your settings and do the setups faster because you're used to those excercises".

    It takes a long time to automate something completely, the more automated something becomes the more easily it will put you in a state of flow. Everything just runs smoothly because more and more steps become automatic, the process becomes faster as a whole and requires less effort. You're approaching mastery.

  20. Posted

    Loved this talk, I think both Dr Mike & Dr K are both very valuable voices in the health/medicine space on Youtube. I used to not be a fan of Dr Mike years ago but he has grown on me a lot lately, his content is becoming more and more meaningful, he's stepping up and taking responsibility over the influence he has gained. The discussion was mature & both raise valid points. Glad I watched it!

  21. Posted

    TheBynq are the best bugabusers of all time as far as Runescape goes. Disconnecting servers, Invisibility big, item dupes, dungeoneering item smuggling, duel arena wearing weapon despite no weapon rule bug, stealing jagex rotten potato jmod item from jagex mod. The list goes on and on, they did a lot of their bugs by finding "buffer overflows" in the game and using those to stall commands and smuggle area specific effects and other things.

    They were not ethical but they were really good bug abusers!

  24. Posted

    Stanley Kubrick

    Franz Schubert

    Ingemar Bergman

    John Coltrane

    Federico Fellini

    Björk

    As far as music & film goes, these are some of the greatest geniuses of all time in my book. Stanley Kubrick always blows my mind. Every movie he creates is entirely different and groundbreaking. 2001, Barry Lyndon, Eyes Wide Shut, The Shining, Paths of Glory, Dr Strangelove, they're all incredibly different movies, entirely different genres. One of the few things that ties them together is the absolute craftsmanship mastery of moviemaking that was Stanley Kubrick's fingerprint as far as I'm aware. Despite the movies being so different from eachother you could still tell they were all made by him, just by his attention to detail alone.