YIDIRYIDIR

great analogy.

For those who want to escape reality through drugs or other mind numbing things or distractions. that always fails to work. and the way to actually "escape reality" is by being present. because you don't actually want to escape reality, you want to escape how your brain is constructing your suffering. once you train presence and master your mind and thoughts, that's the real escape.

Yeah, external things are necessary, but being present is what gets you to see them as they are, without the extra layer of stories and constructions your mind is making about them, which produces a lot of suffering.

Meaning is such an important and core concept, i'm surprised there isn't a thread about it. Use this thread to share your insights around meaning. what is meaning? how meaning works.... Here is an important insight and lesson about meaning i learned: Meaning is best realized through action and and direct experience. By thinking about stuff, you can make anything meaningful or meaningless depending on how conscious you are, and how aware of the gap between the map and territory. Many people fall into the intellectualizing trap, where they think about everything, philosophize about everything, live in their head and end up being nihilistic. Master switching from thinking to doing and you'll have a meaningful life.

Also, the story is a construction, it's unnecessary. that doesn't mean it can't be used with awareness for more meaning. because we all grow in stages and we can't just throw away stories.

@shenanigans That's quite romantic actually, writing a whole Novel about me...dm me if you wanna hit lol (don't)

Holly fucking christ lol

More like a Mosquito repellent system. idk how would that work, but it would repel mosquitos from a zone by using smell or light or whatever idk.

ow, sorry i thought the comment was addressed to me.

Ok now that's an answer.

Looking forward to knowing where you live so i can rob you of all your material stuff, because I'm stronger than you. and i gotta survive.

A common myth about meaning is that it has to be dramatic. A why. A mission you'd die for. A story with stakes "this is my whole life." "this is what i live for" That version of meaning is really just ego doing what it does best: building narrative, because narrative is how the ego survives across time. But meaning isn't a story. It's not something you have, it's something that happens, in the present moment, in the act itself. You can do something for years, love it completely, and then circumstances shift and you simply stop, no grief, no crisis, because nothing was ever lost. The doing was the meaning. When it ends, you find the next present-moment engagement. The suffering from losing that only shows up when identity gets involved, when the ego has fused "this activity" with "who I am," so that stopping feels like a small death. Then you fight to resurrect something that's already run its course. Or that thing might stop being meaningful because you grew or changed, and you read that as a verdict on existence itself, nihilism, depression, when really it's just: the ego lost its story, and it's mistaking that for losing meaning. Meaning was never in the story. It was in the moment you were actually in it.

Don't catch it then. approach it systematically. see the source of the mosquitos, see if you can remove that source.

Same thing is literally happening in my city, dogs are a problem so the government started killing them. the people didn't like that, because it's just a lazy inconsiderate solution. they pressured them, and a uwar later, there's a law that punishes who kills dogs and the government is looking for better solutions. the government didn't say "invent a better solution and we'll finance you"

black and white. it isn't just either kill them or live with them like a beast.

my idea isn't "don't kill them", just find the least harmful intervention. if there isn't any, then kill them. If you find a wasp nest in front of your door, you don't just burn all that shit. you find a way to transport the nest away. your last solution should be killing them.

i didn't say live with them. just find a better solution of getting rid of them. not attracting them in the first place is one example.

it's actually a serious question lol. if you could've found a better solution like altering the environment to not attract more of them mosquitos, then my question is valid. but if the only solution is trapping them and they might transfer desease or smth, then it's okay. mosquitos, despite not having a very rich consciousness like dogs for example, deserve to live as well. (don't ask me where to draw the line lol)

https://www.actualized.org/insights/bug-problems Isn't it more conscious to put some effort to finding a better solution for those mosquitos that doesn't involve trapping and killing them?

Leo, when you're tackling a new topic, or writing in an essay like manner, do you follow a deliberate process, or is it more intuitive and spontaneous? I'm curious whether it's something structured, like jotting raw ideas first, then developing those into longer and fuller thoughts, then finally writing it out in a linear, disciplined pass, or whether your actual process looks nothing like that. What does your workflow look like, from first spark to finished piece?

@Olaf just go for it. you got an almost perfect recipe for a fulfilling business. i recommend to take action on it asap, that inspiration and motivation may fade over time.

I might seem like a dickrider at the this point, but i haven't yet found anyone who created a body of work this unique, it is actually one of my frustrations. (might take matters to my own hands and dedicate my whole life to creating one lol) Leo's work is like that because he's a generalist that came in an age where specialization is a trend and is required to fit in and survive. everyone becomes a deep expert in one little niche and stays there. Ken Wilber is the closest match, but he's more academically oriented which limits his work. I might be wrong, but what's different about Leo's work and key to why it's so unique is that he embraces the paradox that the path to objective truth is necessarily subjective: you can only investigate reality from the standpoint of your own consciousness. Most specialists, especially scientists make the mistake of trying to find a "universally" valid, applicable and agreed on truth. And that's why his work doesn't resonate with everyone, because it is an expression of the person who developed it. It has a style to it. And i'm lucky enough to share some psychological similarities and cognitive wiring with Leo which is why his work resonates with me on such a deep level. I think the best thing i learned from Leo isn't even one of his insights or teachings, but his attitude towards truth and understanding.

https://www.actualized.org/insights/things-ive-been-wrong-about I found this blog post from 2017 where Leo lists the things he was wrong about before that, and one of them was: "I was wrong about the metaphysics of the law of attraction. I no longer believe the law of attraction merely works through brute mechanical means." He made a video in 2014 talking about law of attraction being just about shifting focus and attention, changing your thoughts and reprogramming your subconscious. which are practical psychological stuff. which is probably what he was wrong about. Do you think law of attraction works in ways more than just psychological and mechanical? for example: Your thoughts/emotional state literally interact with reality in some way and cause corresponding external events to come toward you. @Leo Gura I would really appreciate your take on this.

Pattern recognition without a propre epistemic foundation, leads to false interpretation of the observed patterns, which happens unconsciously, which then results in all sorts of stuff like spiritual woo and "vibration" bs, personalized and self centered universe, most conspiracy theories, meaning inflation from randomness like numerology, "Everything happens for a reason" and "signs from the universe" thinking, Synchronicity.... Basically when you see a smart person engaging in those things, and you feel surprised, it's probably because of how they interpret some patterns, and they mistake that for intuition.

also, you gotta find ways to get small frequent positive feedback that what you're doing is working. it acts like a getaway drug. it reinforced your behaviour which then updates your self image. get small wins frequently. even if you gotta take micro steps towards your goals so that winning becomes easy. good feedback architecture is how you'll "lock in" without needing too much willpower, be consistent and avoid burnout.