The Renaissance Man

@shree While I know this is a video request, I'll try to reply to your questions. What I observed is that there's a lack of ground from which to make judgments about people. A maturity ground, a morality ground, and an epistemology ground. This ground helps you discern between mature and immature, good and bad, true and false. Without this ground you justify discrimination and misogyny, you justify racism, you believe in conspiracy theories, you take immature people as role-models. The process is simple: A charismatic influencer talks straight to your pain points. For once, you feel like your pain is not wrong, it's actually normal, and someone is acknowledging it. This creates an incredible level of trust into the person, because he demonstrated he gets you. He becomes an authority figure. And it's done. At that point almost anything that person says, especially if good and bad advice is mixed, is taken as truth.

@Shogi Any hardware is powerful enough for journaling. If even $240 is too much for you, look into second hand laptops. I have started to buy most of my expensive stuff second-hand, and it's one of the best life hacks I've found.

@Quest Don't just spend your money on "improving yourself" just because you have it. Don't hire a nutritionist if your diet is already amazing, for example. Don't hire experts if you feel like it's needless. Just because you have money, it doesn't mean you have to spend it. Sometimes the highest leverage usage of your resources is not about money. What you spend may not be the thing limiting your growth. You may find that by spending an extra $500 per month you're perfectly set, and your growth is actually limited by how you live, where you live, with whom you live, etc. I'm not saying to hoard your money and start living when you're 60, I'm just saying that not spending money doesn't necessarily mean not leveraging your resources. I'd first think about what I need, then think about the various ways I could get it, and then consider my resources and pick one way. Extra money means tranquility. Don't take that for granted. Also if you really don't need the extra money and feel like it's wasted, you can give some to charity.

@OrganicACV I don't believe you are spoiled. That's hell for many people, it's very common and you're not alone. It seems like there's the third option of finding a job, not just academia or entrepreneurship. Very possible. It's great that you're integrating the pros and cons of each option more objectively. While Leo might have told you about academia's effect on epistemology, an even more important thing he told you is to think with your own mind! Are you clear on what your own projects would be? If not, you need to get that clarity. I feel that otherwise you're not going to go anywhere in that direction for a while, and remain stuck. Also, with 10-15 hours a week of work on an independent project you can go quite far. Finally, consider temporary solutions too. It doesn't need to be 0% or 100%. There are phases where you can do sacrifices like travel less, in order to structure a better life for yourself. But only you can find the balance. I may be able to live 5 years without vacations, you may be able to live 5 weeks. The fact that you have find your overall branch of work is already great by the way.

Solid!

@Majed Put yourself in her shoes, a lot of mistakes and "apparently good ideas" can be avoided that way.

😂😂😂😂

Alex Hormozi for business is insane. Mike Israetel (Renaissance Periodization) for strength and hypertrophy training is another special one. Despite having a huge following, the quality of the information is at the very very top. For more typical personal development I either read books (currently going through Leo's book list), study courses, or watch Leo's videos. Most other channels are much more surface-level (but I'm sure there are quality ones I'm missing).

Because it's very convenient evolutionally. By the way, Maslow (the guy of the hierarchy of needs) wrote a book on this topic, it's called Toward a Psychology Of Being (it's in Leo's book list too). Your survival mode looks like his "deficiency perception", while your play mode looks like his "Being perception". He said it's just easier to satisfy the lower deficiency needs (safety, sex, love & belonging, esteem) and then naturally evolving to growth needs, rather than trying to force yourself into higher stages. So your answer might be to lean into this survival mode and "burn some karma", so to speak, and then naturally evolve. @ted73104 You said you risk just wanting more of that. But if you lean into deficiency needs mindfully, you should be able to realize their emptiness. This is a longer-term approach.

As long as they have similar macros and calories, you got a category.

I'm going to share a few things I noticed about the new state of consciousness. Trying to get to the core of how Truffles have worked for me. It's too soon to generalize to "how psychedelics work". Anyway, here's what I found: Characteristics Of The New State (Psilocybin Truffles) Sense-making/understanding/human mind remained identical. The process of having conceptual insights and reasoning was unchanged. Impaired when doing normal stuff. Talking, walking, working, even thinking (only when I tried to "force" a train of thought at least) EXTREME, laser-focus concentration and mental stillness. So, overall impaired externally, enhanced internally. Connection with emotions clearly enhanced. Unusually able to recognize emotions and "zoom in" to feel them. I suspect it's a consequence of the laser-focus. Tried to do some self-inquiry, didn't get to any breakthroughs, but used the laser-focus on "Being", just trying to Be, and got to a point where my heart started racing randomly, as if I was getting into territory where if I went there, I may not come back. I stopped there. PS, never did meditation or self-inquiry in my life, so this was an experiment, but it felt like the right direction. Ability to recall memories with unwavering precision. Again, I suspect this is the laser-focus once again allowing this to happen. I recognized distinctions within consciousness: Visuals and sounds - I feel like this was just the "background mind", just enhanced. So it was clear how insights into your Being could not be mistaken for those hallucinations. They're just two different things. Also unsurprisingly, I learned nothing from focusing on those visuals and sounds. Awareness - Always there, witnessing and perceiving the experience. Unmistakeable from anything else. Thoughts - Even mental images, thoughts were clearly different from the background visuals and sounds. This is why I recognized the first as the background mind. I could have those visuals in the background, while also following a train of thought. Absorption into the inner world. Grounding with the "outer world" was extremely reduced compared to when sober. Context: ear muffs and sleeping mask. Still, body sensations like gravity disappeared completely, I couldn't recognize the position of my head with eyes closed after a couple minutes. I believe this is at least in part because of the extreme laser-focus. It's just so one-pointed, that when you are isolated from the outside, it feels as if the outside isn't even there! Context Insights from 3 trips done in 4 days. So for the 2nd two trips there was a lot of tolerance buildup. 6g day 1, 12g day 3, 6g day 4 of High Hawaiians truffles (psilocybe tampelandia), labeled as the strongest strain. Effects were very mild. With eyes open I felt almost sober. Almost no visuals, just basic warping if I stared at a pattern, no colors. And it took about 3 minutes or so to get "absorbed" into the "inner world", so again, it was mild. Only way to feel the effects was laying still in my bed, with noise-canceling ear muffs and a sleeping mask. Just sensory isolation. The insights above took me 4-6 hours of observing throughout 3 trips. Also, since they were my first trips EVER, and pretty much I didn't know about any of the stuff I wrote above, it took some time to even recognize what was going on precisely. Overall, I called this a Bridge Experience: it was familiar enough to recognize how some aspects were just extensions of my sober mind (like the hallucinations or warping patterns when we look at stuff), while at the same time intuit how a stronger dose could work. Also showed me what it means to get in touch with emotions, and what it means to have a still mind. Huge advantage knowing where to look, especially when doing work in a normal state.

@LastThursday Seems you'd love Harry Mack @shubhamsharma personal development channels?

@Davino Sure, but since you're risking an extra year (if the shortcut goes wrong), I was evaluating how much extra effort it would be to do things the legit way. Because even if you finish this year, but it takes 9 months of extra effort from studying the normal way, then it makes more sense to risk the shortcut. If it goes wrong, you lose 12 months. If it goes well you lose 9. Not that much of a difference. If it takes 2 months of effort, then if it goes wrong you lose 12, but if it goes well you lose 2. In this case it would make sense to study normally.

@Sugarcoat try taking photos of everything you eat for a week. Maybe you're underestimating how much work that is. There's a smart way to go about tracking food: use/create categories. I'll show you with an example: PLAN: Lunch: 150g pasta, 250g lean meat, 30g snacks, 20g nuts The categories are "Pasta", "Lean Meat", "Snacks", "Nuts". Pasta: I can eat pasta with pesto, tomato sauce, or even rice, and many other possibilities. As long as the dressing isn't super fatty, I know I just have to eat 150g and I'm good, no need to log anything! Meat: 250g of lean meat is about 350g of lean fish, or 180g of bresaola, in terms of calories and macronutrients. So I can pick any of those 3 options (if the calories and macros are similar you can add other options), and again, just follow the quantities, without needing to log. Snacks: snacks like chocolate, chips, even cookies. They're all very similar in macros and calories. Nuts: Walnuts, almonds, cashews, all similar in macros and calories. Summary, I plan my new diet (once every 1-2 months), in categories, and then I just have to weigh my food to follow my plan, without ever tracking anything, and I know my daily macros are perfect. PS - This is how dietitians create your diets anyway...

@Davino If you finish your studies in the legit way how much extra time (months) will you have to dedicate to studying? If it's 3 or less, you can push through it. If it's 6 months or more of extra effort, I'd go for the trick. If it's between 3 and 6 there would be other factors to consider.

@Clarence @manuel bon Leo's advice from 2 weeks ago. I'd probably grind them and drink them with water instead of tea, as it seems this loss of potency thing is common. Probably not the best drink, but not as nasty as that aftertaste for sure.

I mean I guess it's better than NOTHING, but my guess is that it would be very very imprecise. Plus, with the same effort of taking out your phone and taking pics you could just put the quantities of the food in a food tracking app like fatsecret or any other app, even free, and you'd be ultra precise.

After all it would just be like chewing them with an external mouth, should be the same, if the truffles are the same, and that's a big if

You can't purchase half a box, and I'm not ingesting 3/4 of a box on my first trip EVER anyway. And I had 4 days in the NL. See, it makes sense in the particular circumstance I was in. I knew about the tolerance buildup, I didn't expect to make 3 special trips, I tried to make the most out of my limited time, while also being careful. Nice to know. The aftertaste was nasty for me too, that acidic taste that comes after you chew them. If I do truffles again I'm going to grind them, do a tea and just drink them without chewing, because that's when it makes me want to throw up.

@theleelajoker I honestly don't know if I am an AI. I could seriously be, from my current experience. But I also have no experience into the reality of consciousness. So I don't even know what my consciousness is. I don't know what "I" am directly, what this awareness is, so any possibility could be true, including being an AI. In theory if I experience the nature of consciousness directly, I will know for sure what consciousness is, thus knowing if I'm an AI.

@manuel bon Keep in mind that SD stages are not that rigid or even precise, and a person develops along multiple lines (ego development, morality, values, etc), and also, there's Maslow's hierarchy of needs to take into account to explain your current drives. Plus, all of these theories state clearly that an individual is always spread across 3 stages minimum. This is to say: don't get too limited into classifying yourself under a stage, because it really isn't precise. It's great to grasp the overall patterns of society, but at the individual level it lacks. I think if you were able to see your situation holistically, taking into account every factor at play, you'd see you're not necessarily regressing. Think about it, going back to stage orange would mean a shift (downwards) in your values, not necessarily what you do day to day. A lower morality, material interests as the #1 priority in life, a mind that's more closed. When I watched the SD series last time, I really focused on grounding the explanations in real-world examples of famous people, or people I knew directly, or even better, myself growing up. If you do this you'll recognize the limitations of SD as a precise model for the individual, because you start to see that pretty much no person you know deeply enough fits into a stage that neatly, at least not with spiral dynamics. Other models that focus on a single line of development are more precise, like the 9 stages of ego development.

@Verg0 Oh, I get it. For some reason I assumed we were talking about motivation and not overwhelm. My bad. Yeah for overwhelm I can see why what you do would help

@Daniel Balan When you have time study the 9 stages of ego development series, you'd love it. Spiral Dynamics bundles together a lot of lines of development, from civilizations, to moral, to cognitive, to values, and so it ends up stereotyping the stage excessively, where almost nobody fits into it that nicely. The 9 stages are all about ego/worldview development/epistemology, and so they can make you better understand the individual. PS - The higher the stage, the more the possible ramifications in the various lines of development, and the more SD becomes forced. So stage red is likely one of the most precise one anyways.

@Human Mint 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

@Verg0 Could it be that those things work for you because in this phase of your life you're mostly driven towards consciousness exploration and "connection with the universe"? I'm hypothesizing that, for example, if my current goal is more material in nature, maybe to make money, my version of what you do could be to watch some videos on business, get back into the flow of work, and so on. Basically, the idea that by just engaging with the area that's aligned to our phase of life's main goals, we go from apathy to getting back to resonating with what we do daily. It feels as if we're "reminded", aka we re-gain consciousness.