HMD

I mean you can just shutdown your mind and then you would be left with the direct experience of what is. I think the need to have opinions about something, or the urge to know something or have any meta-physical view about it is a function of the ego mind. Because the ego wants to know what it is. Understanding is something deeper than knowing. When you switch off the mind, then you start developing understanding. As long as the ego is up and running, you will have an urge to know, which will cause you to develop an interpretation of whatever you see, hear, or feel. But If you turn off the mind completely with meditation or psychedelics, you no longer have that subconscious urge. So it looks to me like knowing is not fundamental.

@Jowblob I have had a similar experience. For me, the most striking thing was how unloving I was (Even though I believed I was a nice guy). But it became painfully obvious to me how unloving I have been toward Myself (including all others). After that experience I was kinda forced to be more loving, compassionate, and inclusive. And I also wanted to lower my state of consiousness by doing ego-things. However, I refused to do most of them and stayed in that state for around two months straight (to varying degrees). But eventually, I decided that it was too much and came back down to my normal state by indulging in various ego stuff and socializing a lot, or in simpler terms, by distracting myself. Best of luck with whatever comes next, stay strong!

Superb insight! But what lead you to conclude that virtue is the right term to use for this distinction?

Enhancing your proficiency in contemplation can significantly elevate your effectiveness and success across various endeavors. Developing the skill to engage in deep contemplation is undeniably among the most crucial abilities to cultivate. Allow me to delve further into this concept. Visualize dedicating two hours daily to sit down with a screen or writing utensils, earnestly contemplating a thought-provoking question. Through this practice, you generate real-world instances that grant you direct experience with the subject under scrutiny, thereby enhancing your proficiency in generating examples. You foster the capacity to delve deeply into multiple trains of thought without becoming lost, as the written format assists in maintaining a coherent track of all cognitive avenues explored. Furthermore, you build the mental endurance to engage in abstract reasoning, augment your imaginative faculties, and acquire the knack for detaching from your notions to make room for superior alternatives. Furthermore, this exercise hones your aptitude for thorough research, while simultaneously yielding a wealth of knowledge and insights. This multifaceted development ultimately equips you to comprehend matters at their foundational essence. Confronted by challenges in your life, you can now grasp these predicaments at a profound level, recognizing that a comprehensive understanding often charts the swiftest course towards resolution. In contrast, envision neglecting these exercises in favor of pursuing random insight. This approach might yield a bunch of profound insights, some of which could offer sporadic assistance. However, fundamentally, it robs you of the capability to transform your life circumstances. Even amid relational strife or financial hardship, your focus remains fixated on speculative pursuits that you hope will improve your situation. Furthermore, directing your attention solely towards cultivating insights and accumulating them can lead to dogmatic tendencies and diminished present-mindedness, as your preoccupation restricts you within your own mental confines (having your head up ypur own ass, in simpler terms). This inclination might give rise to a belief that your understanding is exhaustive. And certainly, you might stumble upon timeless principles, yet the lack of presence hinders your ability to judiciously apply these principles to the right degree, at the right time, and in a manner that aligns with the context in a nuanced way.

@Kksd74628 Would love to see your perspective on this:

@Swarnim Perfect takeaway bro! @Epikur Yeah, I mean looking for outside validation and attention is not a bad thing in the case you outlined unless it is done compulsively and at an expense of other's well-being.

One thing I have heard for a long time is how everyone is after attention. But I couldn't understand the underlying reason behind that. I mean, of course attention gets them money, but is it really just about money? What about narcissists and people who can't seem to survive without constant attention? Upon deeper contemplation it hit me that it's about survival of the system. Every system requires input in the form of attention to survive. And there are million of systems around us that want our attention. Because a system fundamentally is a set of distinctions that you create in your mind. Ultimately, all systems are part of one supra-system. So, to hold those distinction and consider it real requires attention. For instance, think about instagram. If you spend 10 people spend their whole day of instagram, it won't survive. the only reason instagram is not only surviving, but thriving, is because millions give hours of their attention to the platform. Similarly, narcissists have no deep sense of self. So, they don't have a fully functioning system inside which we all need to have a normal life; This means that they require more attention relative to others. Now, the key thing to notice is that there are other systems that require attention. These may include things like your mind, body, room, relationships, finances, etc. Feel free to share your thoughts on this.

Is this paradigm that most stage orange type people operate in healthy or Toxic? The paradigm of making money only at all cost in any way possible. It seems to me that this paradigm works great in helping people make money in the short term without worrying too much about life purpose and pursuing your passions. People operating in this paradigm focus solely on making money from wherever possible without much concern about spirituality. I ask this question because I have been working on my life purpose and focus on that most of the time. But a friend (who's mostly stage orange) has been on my back pushing me to change my paradigm. Now, I understand where he is coming from. He wants me to have good of money and be super successful. But can there be more to this than that ? Is this paradigm essential to adopt to bootstrap your career or business ?

I have a tendency to try and help others by sharing my insights in a way that they can apply in their lives. There are several reasons why I do this. One reason is that I believe it splits my consciousness, allowing me to improve the practicality of my insight by writing for the other part of my split consciousness. However, I am not writing for myself in this case, but rather for the persona I have assigned to the other half of my consciousness. This makes the insight more general and not specific to my needs. Another reason is that sharing my insights with others and receiving validation makes me feel good about myself. It also confirms that my insight is useful and relevant, and can be applied to my own life if enough people find it valuable. However, once I receive validation, I tend to feel that I have achieved my purpose, and I never use the insight again in practice. I simply forget about it after a few days. This turns the insight into a theory, concept, or belief, which can make me close-minded. Despite this, sharing my insights with others also ensures that they are grounded and practical. If you were in my position, would you continue to use this system, stop sharing your insights completely, or find a middle ground?

@meta_male If I learn to value the pearls, and share them with others nonetheless, I reckon that'll increase their value. @Jacob Morres For sure, I try my best to attack my insight from many angles before sharing. Even then I warn others to not believe me and use their own judgement, but if the shoes fits, wear it.

@QQQ That's one reason. I mentioned this (NOT EXPLICITLY) in the post. @Moksha I like this perspective. I noticed that most people are uncomfortable with silence. Maybe that's the most important lesson for them, then. To be comfortable with silence.

What are the most fundamental marketing principles according to you, any rules of thumb, and mental models to understand marketing as a whole?

@rd5555 This may help you ^

@integral By any means possible? Even at the expense of not focusing on your life purpose?

@HMD Update on this. It is highly toxic. Needed a rude awakening and disillusionment to figure this out. Don't let anyone mess with your worldview, especially if the person is orange/blue/greenish.

It is really difficult to choose one video out of all the classics. But I think, for me, This one stands out as the most transformative: The way Leo elaborated each of the principles resonates with me deeply. It's like I already intuitively knew what he was saying. But the way he was able to articulate them helped me make everything I had in my mind explicit. So, whenever I start losing track of what truly matters to me I come back to this video and realign myself. Also, all of the The laws of human nature Oh yes. I thought I was the only one hahah. But then I went through some of the comment sections and explored the internet and found there were plenty of these types lmao. But yeah, It lasted about two months or so.

@Lilia That's a great Idea ...

Fuck.

@CARDOZZO Very wise, sir. Very wise indeed.

I'll answer that with a beautiful quote I read recently, somewhere on this forum. "Nobody on this forum is AWAKE!" ~ Leo Gura

@Something Funny @Israfil I did't have any systematic approach to the process, it was more intuitive for me. with that being said here are a few things that will help: This is a good video to start and understand the gist. Additionally, you can read Jordan Peterson's book "12 Rules for Life," which will help you a lot. Robert Greene also has some great material on this topic, including Laws 9, 12, 14, 16, and 18 of his book "Laws of Human Nature." Additionally, his book "48 Laws of Power" is essentially an exploration of the shadow. The key thing here is that we have not fully integrated Stage Red (and Orange to a degree as well). Although integrating Stage Red may sound cute and simple as I write this, it is actually quite difficult and painful if you have not integrated it. According to Jordan, this is what shatters people who suffer from PTSD. They are living relatively peaceful lives in a Stage Orange-Green world, but when they go to war, they are confronted by someone barbaric, psychopathic, or malevolent who does something awful to them or to someone around them, and boom! Now they have to make sense of it and integrate it, which many of them fail (or refuse) to do, and they suffer for the rest of their lives. Therefore, you should not wait for something like that to happen, but rather become proactive about it and read the most cruel stuff across history. Read books like "Man's Search for Meaning" and "Gulag Archipelago," which discuss all the cruel things that people can do. Other things you can study are school shootings, Outrageous science experiments (Unit 731), and war crimes (invasion of China in 1937). Place yourself in the position of the perpetrator and recognize that you could be doing all of that, and that those people were also humans, just like you. Make this exercise as real and visceral as you can. These were the people who had resentment in their hearts. When you are not able to say no to someone or do something you want to do, you become resentful and vengeful (which you conveniently hide from yourself, developing a shadow out of it). So, another practice is to contemplate deeply about your resentments and vengeful fantasies. Face them and see the monster that you are with eyes wide open. Finally, the last thing is to contemplate your own mortality daily. Robert Greene talks about this in the last chapter of "Laws of Human Nature" (highly recommended), and Leo also recommended this in one of his videos. Think about how fragile you are and make it real and visceral. Historically, people had to confront death on a daily basis. As Robert Greene points out, death is now limited to hospitals, away from the hustle and bustle of life. So we have definitely created a shadow out of that and need to come face to face with it. When you see your own death and fragility, you develop the ability to see mortality in others, and that levels the playing field for you. I also went out of my way and socialized (also had relationships) with narcissists and sociopaths, or at least people who exhibited such traits. However, I do not recommend that you do this because it brought me a lot of pain, trauma, and hurt as well (which took me some time to heal). Nevertheless, I learned how to deal with such monsters by getting my hands dirty and forcing myself to develop the monster within and then learned how to control it. All of this is a lot to take in and do. You should go slow and not freak yourself out. I had many panic attacks and existential crises while going through all of this, but it was all worth it. I used to be very socially awkward and shy, now I am assertive and fearless (most of the times).

@whatishappeningtome I agree 100%. Moreover, as you start writing it become more elaborate. And after a few edits (separating the wheat from chaff) you have something robust and concrete.

Stop turning those insights into beliefs, theories, or models. Because that's the only way in which insights can make you less open-minded. Yes, you can have an insight that being less open-minded is good, but if you have that insight, then being less open minded might be better for you in that scenario. Also, You can't always be open-minded right? There are phases for everyone and a balance must be struck between open-mindedness and close mindedness.

@Something Funny From my personal experience of observing people and overcoming this problem myself, I'd recommend exploring your shadow deeply and then integrating it in your conscious life. Sounds simple, but it is among the bravest things you can do. After facing your internal demons, nothing external will phase you, because ultimately it's all just you. It seems you are simply afraid of yourself. And I mean that literally. Jordan peterson has a good take on this. He phrases it as "Become a monster, and then learn how to control it". The idea is that once you explore all the terrible aspects of yourself that you have been hiding because they don't fit your self-image, you develop self-respect. And once you have self-respect, you will become more decisive, assertive, and courageous. It's like having a loaded gun. When holding it comfortably, like you own it, you feel the power, confidence, and a sense of invincibility. But if you have never held a loaded gun, you might be scared to pick it up at first. Loading the gun is like becoming a monster, and then making it your own is like learning how to control the monster, which also involves developing a degree of respect for it because it can potentially kill others and yourself. The same is true for the shadow, there is potential in there to kill others and yourself. While exploring the shadow, remember the wise words of Carl Jung: "That which we need the most will be found where we least want to look.” and "No tree can grow to Heaven unless it's roots reach down to Hell."