Raphael

I'm wondering a lot about creating a practical journal for action taking and keeping this one for global insights and random stuff.

@Leo Gura What do you think of Macron?

POPE FRANCIS VISITED MY COUNTRY Pope Francis visited my country on 9 September 2019 and he did a mass to which I assisted. I never thought someone like him would come here, in such a small country where Christians only represent 30-35 % of the population. I later learned that Jean-Paul II also came in 1989. It's extremely rare when I go to religious festivities as I don't follow anything, but this time was pretty exceptional. I was happy and interestingly a little anxious about his visit before he passes right in front of me in his popemobile. The crowd was very huge, I literally never saw that much people in the street before, apparently they were one hundred thousand people going to the mass which represents 1/13 of the total country population. I personally doubt about it because of the available space, but it was still a lot of people. The mass was awesome, they spoke in five different languages: French, Mauritian Creole, English, Italian, and even Hindi. Yes Hindi, in fact, a woman actually sung during the ceremony with Hindu music in the background. I was pretty impressed by the diversity in place, and, at one moment Muslims also started their prayer several hundred meters away and I was hearing very clearly 'Allahu akbar' during the mass. The pope also spoke about the country peaceful climate where very diverse people can successfully live together, it's fast economic development, new challenges, the dangers of capitalism and modern slavery and how young people are the first victims. I agreed on some points and I actually find remarkable that a fresh country like this who got its independence and was one of the poorest in the world in 1968 grow so fast that it's now considered one of the most developed countries of Africa. I'm so lucky that I was born here, it's not as developed as Europe and there are many rigid mindsets, but in some aspects, it feels better than Europe sometimes.

RESPECT FROM STAGE BLUE PERSPECTIVE Respect is so important for stage blue because it's full of anxieties, traumas, and insecurities. Being respectful and polite comes at the cost of being honest, what's involved at this stage is neuroticism, the inability to love and accept other opinions, and the incapacity to take any criticism. I've had many experiences of telling the truth directly and crudely to stage blue, but it always got back to my face. They don't even want to listen to what I say but are only pointing that I'm not respectful or polite. They are extremely reactive to bad words and things that are too direct. Now when I try to share some opinions with them I make an effort on the tone and on being polite, so that we can focus on the content and they don't get distracted too much.

Here's a forum mostly dedicated to entrepreneurship https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/ . It's possible to meet successful business owners, but also people who are getting started and documenting their journey, and some other stuff. It is also the forum associated with MJ DeMarco books The Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted, he is present on the forum and sometimes answers questions.

TOO MUCH TOLERANCE I'm too much tolerant of people and get fooled easily. I usually want to be a good person and help others, but I attract fools that take advantage of my empathy. I have been stolen multiple times in the past. The last time was with a guy in his 30/40 who is the son of the owners of my current apartment. He still lives with its parents (which is quite normal in my country), I don't know if he has a job, but I often see him hanging out in the neighborhood with some friends. The first time he asked me for money, he gave it back pretty quickly, the second time he didn't give anything and kept saying for months that he was going to pay me back. I'm sure he had the money and he only needs to walk five minutes to find an ATM, he probably just wanted to take advantage of me. He lives under my place, I don't talk to him anymore. I just say hello when I see him, then I ignore him, he's not going to give back anything and he probably already forgotten everything. There's no time to lose with this kind of people. I noticed that scammers create many stories and excuses to take advantages of others, where honest people who are really in distress just ask or sit without excuses. It's possible to feel their level of consciousness by paying attention to how they talk, how they move. I need to be more attentive to this when I get approached. The last thing I noted in these situations is that social anxiety is also involved as I'm a little afraid to impose myself and say no to people who create heart bleeding stories.

@Zigzag Idiot I didn't know that she was doing this. You're probably right, I also feel it will be better to work with a self-actualizing individual rather than a stage orange psychologist. I still need time to think about it. Thanks for your proposition!

@Marcell Kovacs It seems like you experienced similar emotional states that I did. I'm also 22 by the way and the last few years have been pretty rough, especially the last one. If you don't see external results it doesn't mean that you are not growing, for example, I feel much more mature, at peace, and satisfied with life compared to last year where I was highly depressed and experiencing panic attacks. However, even with that I still have many issues. I experienced something like this, I didn't break into tears but just lay down on the floor because I was unable to even move to go work on my computer as I was kicking myself too much, putting enormous negativity and pressure on me. I also think we should not be neurotic about having a life purpose. At one point I realized that my life purpose was all about ego, I wanted it to feel good, to feel like I was improving the world and doing better and being superior to other people. When I realized it my entire world collapsed and I fall into depression. Life purpose is not important in the end as we're all going to die. It feels very important when it's rooted in ego, where a high conscious life purpose naturally comes from selflessness and doesn't feel important, but more like life going smoothly even with it's unforeseen. I didn't even take the Life Purpose Course, yet I feel that I'm going into a certain direction. In my opinion, the most important thing at our age is financial independence and building a high-quality infrastructure on which to count until the end. A. If you feel like you cannot continue with your life purpose at the moment, it's probably better to take a break and come to it again after six months or one year. B. Yes, do this and continue to meditate, do yoga, and other spiritual practices. C. No, but maybe later. D and E. I don't know for the job. In my case, I quit college two years ago, on one hand, I have a less variety of experience, on the other hand I'm earning money, improving the skills I need in my job and being more independent. This is your choice. I also think a little retreat (even without psychedelics) will be pretty powerful, you probably need a lot of alone time. In my experience, this is what helped me the most getting out my depressive state with a meditation habit and psychotherapy. Good luck my friend

CONSCIOUS OF MY ISSUES I'm aware of my issues and this is good. This means I'm conscious enough to correct them, I'm still young and I see infinite growth possibilities. I see an incredible high-conscious self-actualized life for myself. The only thing to do now is to continue building my foundation by doing personal development work.

I'M ANXIOUS WHEN SPEAKING TO MY PSYCHOLOGIST I'm uncomfortable with my psychologist, I'm afraid to show all my dirty things. Many times I stutter when expressing myself, I tight my muscles and create resistance to protect myself. I also feel like we are not enough discussing my emotional issues, but spend too much time on other practical things. She takes initiative most of the time and I follow her, I feel like she doesn't listen enough, I think it will be better if I directly tell her what I want to speak about.

I'M MORE RESPECTFUL AND POLITE WITH ANONYMOUS PEOPLE THAN WITH MY FAMILY / CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS Relationships have always been hard, however, I made huge progress on my shyness and social anxiety in the last four years. I'm sometimes more able to share my thoughts with anonymous than my family. I don't have any expectations with strangers and I also look at them as replaceable listeners, I also don't feel any responsibility towards them. Some people in my family always want that I do things with them, I'm experiencing this as constraints, many times I feel like their unconsciously trying to take my freedom to be alone by myself.

I HAVE DOGMAS IN COMPUTER PROGRAMMING After working for more than a year in a big tech company I realized how far dogmatism can go. I was dogmatic on coding standards, indentation, and many things, and I criticized and was angry against other people for not respecting modern standards aka my way. I wanted them to code exactly like me, where coding is a highly personal thing, we actually can read into people minds by reading their code. However, I still have a counter-argument which is that we naturally recognize talent and quality. Things don't have to be exactly identical, but at the same time quality works share many characteristics. Nevertheless, no matter the quality, someone can be dogmatic. It's mostly about how we can see into other perspectives and the emotions we experience, dogmatic people who do high-quality work will feel negative emotions, non-dogmatic people who do high-quality work will feel positive emotions. They are many things to say about this and I feel like I didn't develop enough here, I will maybe write about it later in the future.

I DISTRACT MYSELF FROM CHALLENGES BY RELYING ON ADDICTIONS I noticed this many times in myself. When I'm working, and then a harder challenge arouse I try to avoid it by distracting me with internet, youtube, etc. I had a new client recently, convincing him to work with me was a challenge. Even though I succeeded, I quickly felt to urge to go masturbate after that. I'm still at the beginning of my freelancing business, I'm sure I will succeed, I feel competent and I have the needed skills. However, the beginning is always challenging and stressful. Main lesson: I need to be aware of my addictions, this is homeostasis in action, my mind and body want to stay in their original state. My evolution has to be managed as smoothly as possible.

THIS IS SO INSPIRING

I HAVE SOME ANGER DEEP INSIDE ME.

AFRAID TO SHARE I'm afraid to share some of my dirtiest stuff here. On one hand, I feel more motivated to do personal development as my ego wants to feel good and show people that I'm better than anybody, on the other hand, I'm avoiding things that are deep inside me that could help me grow a lot if I accept and share them here.

I have a bunch of books that I haven't read. I don't know if I should read them now or buy another book that would have a better impact on my life

I'M USING MASTURBATION AS A TOOL TO RELEASE STRESS, ANXIETY, ANGER, AND OTHER NEGATIVE EMOTIONS.

THE FRUSTRATION OF STAGE BLUE IS BACK My stage blue manager lack nuances and is not able to see how some things are not related to the same context. It's difficult to respond to this dude as he speaks fast and in an authoritative style, he's not even present on the project most of the time, but assume things without knowing the details involved. Sometimes I don't know how far I can push my explanations as I'm afraid of some people reactions. It will be maybe better if I communicate in more details my thoughts, try to push a little more and take responsibility for it. Anyway, the end is near, I will quit the company next month, I just need some courage until the end. And of course, in the end, it's really me being frustrated of myself because I'm unable to deal with stage blue. Main lesson: The frustration I feel is my own frustration that I project on some people because I'm unable to deal with, understand, and accept them.

Spend more time with people of different ethnicities. The lectures on this channel are also interesting: https://www.youtube.com/user/sociology119/videos There are many interesting videos (I didn't watch most of them) like: The Social Power of the African American & Black Communities The Average Person Can Become an Extremist How Much Racism is There? By the way, even if you fix it with yourself, the racism issue will still exist in the external environment. I'm mixed race and my mother had many troubles with this, and I also have difficulties sometimes.

"TRY TO CHANGE YOUR PERSONALITY" I was speaking with an old man at the gym last Friday. I told him I was going to quit my job and change city pretty soon, then he told me: "After moving, try to change your personality". I was speechless, I didn't understand what happened. I was feeling really great just before, almost in a flow state, I have always been polite and respectful to him and the coach, I also always put my weights back to their place, and I always say good morning and goodbye. So what's wrong with me? He told me: "You are too shy and shy people get dominated". Whaaaaaaaaaaat? We exchange ideas sometimes, not all the time, but it's still better than many guys who come, don't even say hello and train without saying anything. I also don't go to the gym to speak all the time, but to train, and my time is limited as I need to go to work after that. To get back on the shyness issue. I actually have been shy most of my life and after reflecting I'm probably shyer (and more kind) than two years ago as I got bullied in some environments and felt oppressed many times. So... yes, I'm shy, and my level of shyness vary depending on the environment and the people, but at the same time when I want to speak up, I speak up. I currently don't usually talk to gossip, but only talk for things I consider important. Which is dumb, because nothing is really important in the end, it all depends on a relative context. I sometimes also have this INTP blank stare and maybe some people can find me fragile with some meaninglessness in my eyes. - This is not me, but a picture I found on Google

I'M ADDICTED WHEN I'M NOT HAPPY, WHEN I'M HAPPY I'M MOTIVATED AND DO WHAT'S NEEDED TO SELF-ACTUALIZED.

AN ADDICTIVE EVENING When I went back from work yesterday, I told myself I was going to shower, meditate, eat, prepare food for tomorrow and get shit done. However, I started to have pornographic images in my mind, so I opened my computer and start watching porn. It lasts for about an hour. After ejaculating, I told myself that this is enough and decided to take my shower. I was then supposed to prepare some food and eat but went back to my computer and start watching video game-related stuff on youtube. I didn't play any video game seriously in the past 4-5 years, but I still do some research and watch videos sometimes. I was very impressed by the advanced graphics and physics available today but disgusted by the crunch culture and the fact that some employees are working 100h/week to deliver this kind of results. All of this last until almost 11 PM when I told myself that it was enough. I didn't even have the courage to prepare food and eat, nor to meditate. I just went to sleep feeling crappy and dirty. I had worst episodes then this one and things like this doesn't happen very often, but still happen sometimes. But at the same time, I usually watch porn after work and resisting it only makes things worst. I have to try to accept it and observe myself instead, I feel like it's going to help me more.

@Zigzag Idiot Thank you!

THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF LIFE - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey Life is interdependent, it's consciousness interacting with itself, being completely independent by itself, and being dependent on itself. This is the only thing and this quote is, in my opinion, a good way to grow. I have to properly interact with all the facets of life to successfully grow as a human being or as consciousness. P-S: The quote isn't probably what's actually written in the book, but the idea is here.