Monke

@Miguel1 Spot on. I call this "playing the character of yourself" rather than acting. But same thing basically.

@gettoefl I know you are right but I can't feel the truth of what you say. It was frustrating to develop my social skills to a high level only to still feel like a social outcast. In my experience the average person Is actually quite hostile towards anyone who seeks meaning, truth, purpose, etc in any way. Even (unintentionally) implying that you aspire to more than the status quo in casual conversation is often enough to trigger a snide remark. Even if these things are not explicitly discussed there is often a subtle contempt that is hard to just brush off. I never discuss any of this stuff with my friends and socially I'm always joking, laughing, and bringing good energy. I can tell that my friends deeply respect me and find me frustrating at the same time. Perhaps because I don't share their obvious coping mechanisms related to wage slavery, dating, spirituality and instead seek to actually improve these domains of life? I'm genuinely not sure. I have no idea. I think my problem isn't with mediocre people themselves, but with how they tend to beat you to death with their mediocrity without even realizing what they're doing. It's like throwing a drowning person a rope and instead of climbing out they try to pull you in with them. The hatefulness of mediocrity when it is threatened is what makes it hard for me to grow past this, although I know you are correct and I need to.

@Joshe Yeah this is basically the exact experience I'm going through right now. Thanks for the words of advice. "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted" Matthew 23:12

@Leo Gura Perhaps this is why most ambition is corrupted? The joy of being, fully experienced, is so profoundly beautiful that any ambition is icing on the cake. One could almost argue that a deep acceptance and deep love for mediocrity and mediocre people is almost a requirement for genuine, authentic ambition that serves to increase consciousness. I've been stuck at SD stage yellow-ish for years so it's a struggle for me to consistently think this way despite it being the obviously higher perspective. My frustration with others at different stages, especially if they hold some position of social authority over me, impedes my development significantly. I've been trying to let go of SD entirely for this reason. It creates a sense of "other" where there is none. It's all super ironic and counter-logical. This is probably why hustle bro online entrepreneur culture feels so hollow. It is completely devoid of love.

@Hojo I'm not hating on her or women in general. I obviously would not share these thoughts outside of this forum. The process of growth requires honestly without judgement. I am being honest about my observations because this a community where it is helpful to myself and others to do so. The judgement you are perceiving within my perspective is entirely projected upon me from your own experiences and belief systems. God is mediocrity

I recently went on a couple dates with a girl who lives at my apartment. She's sweet enough and a good, kind-hearted person, but I began to realize on the first date that she didn't really do much outside of her nine-to-five accounting job and getting drunk with her friends at bars and clubs on the weekend. No ambition, no striving, and no interest in anything of any importance whatsoever. By the second date I realized that she was actually not joking when she said all she does after work is scroll on TikTok, drink wine in her apartment, and gossip with her friends. The most shocking part of it was not the fact that she lived this way, but the fact that she was genuinely satisfied with this. She was not saving money for a big life move, planning to travel, painting or exploring art/music, etc. Nothing. Zero. We had a good time and some laughs but i can't take her seriously because she has zero interest in growth whatsoever. Which to me is utterly insane. I have made a lot of progress with my personal development but I often find myself utterly dumbfounded and then extremely frustrated with people like this. Why do they not care about important things? Why do they only care about trivial nonsense, petty drama, gossip, tiktok, etc.? To me this has been an obvious trap since I was like 10 years old. I remember feeling this exact way towards the vast majority of my peers in school as early as 5th grade. They would just stare at me when I started sharing what I was interested in (I was fascinated with history and music). I'm very good socially and can laugh and have a good time with almost anyone, but the overwhelming, horrifying levels of mediocrity that is acceptable to the average person just confuses the hell out of me. I understand that they are god and god loves mediocrity because god is infinite consciousness etc. But on a practical day to day level the total complacency that the average person has towards life is genuinely quite exhausting to deal with. Mainly because you cannot relate to them and they can pick up on it which creates a constant "social tension" that they almost always interpret as hostility. I just can't force myself to care about the things most people care about and it, I don't understand why they care so much about nonsensical gossip and tiktok drama, and it makes relating to them extremely difficult.

@Human Mint Wage slavery is a bit like quicksand. The harder you fight it with half baked business ideas the deeper you sink and the more money you blow in the process. I've lost 20k across various business and side hustles trying to break free so far. Came close last time but no dice. If I would have saved up and exercised patience It's possible I could have escaped by now. I could have started a simple service business like pool cleaning, epoxy flooring, etc. and hired over time. Could have also put money towards real estate or other investments. Ironically I think full acceptance that you are in the situation and 99% of people will never get out is required to even begin a viable escape plan. You cannot deny the truth of the situation or bend it to generate more hope. As Leo says, once you are already stuck in this situation it is absurdly difficult to change it. I think the key is aligning ones mindset with truth which requires a mature perspective on the uncomfortable reality of the situation itself. The movie Shawshank Redemption is a perfect metaphor for the mindset I believe is required to actually escape wage slavery.

You're correct but be careful this can lead to a lot of resentful energy. Most people are playing monkey games in life. They don't even realize they're doing it. The solution to this is to play status games consciously. Admit that you want status and seek it. Burn through that karma. And then when you have status and respect, you can demonstrate your higher values and become a powerful leader. You can show them the way.

I posted a few days ago about my first business failing and got some really insightful replies. Thanks to those who commented. I know a lot of you guys are like me and developing your life purpose and passion projects while having to work full time hours. I've been applying for jobs and should ideally have some interviews coming up soon. I'm grateful to have skills and work experience that can earn me a good living in this economy and allow me to save up money but the reality of having to "re-enter" the workforce is honestly feeling pretty goddamn bleak at the moment. I'm scared of the fact that I'll never be able to just "accept" being a wage slave. I just don't have it in me. I remember the concept of working a full time job seeming absolutely ridiculous to me even when I was like 8 years old. I understand the necessity of it of course but I never understood how people aren't driven completely insane by it. It just wears people down over time until they give up whatever hope they had. How do you guys cope with the ceaseless grind of being employed full time? Especially while getting your life purpose off the ground. The last thing I need is to fall into a pit of despair and self-pity. That would not be productive. But my personality lends itself to nihilism around these sorts of things. I want to develop an attitude that actually serves me long term rather than becoming bitter and resentful

Unfortunately my first attempt to break free of wage slavery failed. I was actually making decent money and was able to develop sufficient self-guidance and discipline to successfully operate the business (I was not nearly as disciplined before starting) but my complete disdain for the work itself caused me to burn out completely. The business was a solo operation providing remote AutoCAD services to land surveyors. The problem is that I absolutely hate CAD work. It is completely the wrong line of work for my personality and the last 3 years of my career I've spent doing it have led to severe depression. I find the work dull, meaningless, and repetitive. I was trying to use the skill I already knew to "brute force" my way out of wage slavery. Which was foolish in hindsight but I didn't know better at the time. I'm now faced with a crossroads in my life that I'm not sure how to navigate. The thought of going back to a corporate engineering firm/office environment like where I've spent the last few years toiling and miserable fills me with absolute dread. Not only does the work suck, but I find a lot of the people in those sorts of environments to be unrelatable and, with all due respect to them, quite dull. They are often people who have been beaten down by wage slavery themselves and have simply given up hope. I want my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th attempt at escaping wage slavery (or however many fucking times it takes) to be set up for a higher degree of success and alignment with my values. I've been smart with my money and was able to get college paid for with a high ACT score, I have a degree to fallback on and no debt currently. No expenses other than rent, utilities, car insurance, a few other minor things. Although I have a lot of interests, I have only 2 real passions in life: music and plant/psychedelic medicine, particularly mushrooms (I'm a bit of an amateur mycologist lol) I'm starting to build a vision for what I want my future to look like and it involves me continuing to be an active musician and building a business that provides me financial and location freedom but also has a strong positive impact on the world. But I feel like I need to place myself in VASTLY different environments than I have been in throughout my career thus far in order to clarify this vision enough and develop myself enough to take meaningful action towards it. So I basically have two options: 1. Work another engineering/AutoCAD related 9-5 for the security and "never having to worry about money" aspect while being forced to spend 40-50 hours a week in environments that will only offer me the same shit I've been exposed to for the last 3 years. Could potentially save startup capital for my next business doing this but I doubt that I would be able to develop a long term vision for an authentic and viable business model here. I worry this would lead to more misery, another desperate bid to "brute force" my way out of wage slavery, and ultimately ending up right back where I am now. It's worth emphasizing that my years spent in traditional jobs like this have had a significant negative impact on my mental health to the point of being on the verge of a complete breakdown multiple times. The repetitive, dull work is bad by itself but the worst part is the general disdain for ambition and "wanting more from life" that comes from the lifelong employee types in these environments. No disrespect to these people whatsoever but the forced mediocrity that comes from being trapped in these environments is even more depressing that the grinding, meaningless work itself. My family is very "art isn't a real job" and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" so I tried to do the right thing by being realistic about my passions, working hard on academics and getting university paid for, and getting a safe job where I could work hard and do okay for myself. Unfortunately I'm just not that type of person no matter how hard I try and the thought of passively accepting a life of wage slavery as though it's just "what you do" has always been just utter insanity to me. It's led to a lot of tension because my family does not understand why I can't simply be grateful to have a job. I feel like something has to change for me or I will go genuinely fucking insane being caged like an animal. Which brings me to.......... 2. Work a couple of part time jobs and a side hustle to continue developing business skills. For example I could work at a music store a few days a week and this gourmet mushroom company in my city a few days a week (or maybe a cannabis related job although the mycology thing is what i'm most excited about. It's possible cannabis is actually a better "way in". Idk.). I am building a side hustle teaching guitar privately online that supplements my income as well. The whole idea here is that for the first time in my 25 years I would actually be in an environment or two that suits my values and offers an arena for the personal growth and connection with other people who aren't already dead inside that I am desperately craving. I'm sure these jobs will suck in their own way, inevitable shitty pay aside, but my thinking is that it at least gives me the opportunity to connect with like minded people and clarify my long term vision for my life and business and not feel as much like a caged animal pushing a boulder up a hill every day doing meaningless technical work. The obvious trap here is getting stuck in low wage jobs long term which is mainly what i'm concerned about. The entire idea of this would be to clarify my vision and then take massive action to begin building my next business with all of the insight I would have gained here. The disadvantage here would be the lack of ability to save money consistently for startup capital. Although if you gave me 50k right now I would probably start some stupid fucking agency business that wouldn't work which is sort of the point of needing to make a counterintuitive move here to develop that "authenticity" muscle. It feels like I don't know who I am fully as a person let alone as a businessman. My intuition is basically screaming at me to do this and not even consider option 1. But everyone in my life considers option 2 to be "failure" and "what losers do" which doesn't make sense to me at all. In my opinion if anything the opposite is true. I'm probably somewhere on the spectrum as well which I feel might explain my complete lack of resonance with my family on this issue among many others lol. So wondering if anyone here has any thoughts on this? I want to make a mature decision here that will lay the best possible foundation for not just a successful future but a happy one. If anyone has any suggestions or things I may be overlooking I'm all ears.

@aurum Okay gotcha yeah this is super cool. I think I've neglected the importance of masculine leadership on the first few dates. In hindsight I've probably had more opportunities than I think to create the sort of dynamic I want but I've been a bit too passive and made assumptions about her instead of leading and seeing if she wants to follow. I've been missing the initiative component. this was definitely the blind spot here. thanks

@Schizophonia I mean yeah definitely possible. I suspect I'm late stage green/early yellowish but could always be wrong. A lot of women I've dated appear to be heavily orange.

@Natasha Tori Maru Thanks! Yeah it was a rough climb out of that hole. Lots of regret for opportunities missed. Dating is frustrating in general hence my post lol but yeah turns out women aren't super stoked to sleep with you if your entire self concept is so fragile it immediately crumbles if she doesn't want to. It's a shame because it really sets men up for failure with male friendships too. I'm so glad I didn't know many of my friends when I was indoctrinated because like how embarrassing lol. Just hoping my 15 year old cousin doesn't fall down the pipeline. Gonna lose my ever loving shit the second he mentions Tate and his bugatti.

@Hojo I mean not really? All levels of "consciousness" are valid and none are inherently any better than any others. It would be absurdly ignorant to think everyone should conform to my worldview or share my values just because I've done more spiritual/personal dev work than some of people. That basically defeats the entire point of doing this work to begin with. But yeah people are just at different places spiritually, etc. It's obvious than an Evangelical Christian from rural Alabama is almost certainly operating at a lower level of consciousness than Ram Dass. Extreme example but still. So my post was more about my frustration with finding women that see the importance of growing and challenging yourself in general regardless of where they are along their own path. The point is that I want to find a woman willing to walk that path with me.

@Natasha Tori Maru Men don't realize that their own broad generalizations about women pre-select for experiences that foster even more resentment and bitterness. It's easier to believe all women are a monolith that you can understand with 100% accuracy than to realize that the good ones just don't like you. Hence the entire redpill/manosphere. Grateful to have escaped that ideological trap in my early 20s.