@What Am I Go create multiple accounts on X and don't follow anyone or tell it your interests, let us know what you see. You'll see Elon telling you democracy is at risk if you don't vote for Trump and you can earn $47 bucks if you go to his link and refer a friend to vote. I just signed up with X a few months back just to see what it was like, and Elon Musk was all over the feed. 
To be fair though, I saw much right wing propaganda and promotion when I created a new Google account and went to Youtube. The algorithms expect a male in my area to be interested in that stuff. But the difference between Youtube and X's algorithms is that Musk is tweaking his to serve him however he sees fit, whereas Google's is designed to get as much engagement as possible to increase ad revenue. They aren't intentionally trying to propagandize people like Musk is. 
It's public record that Thiel and Musk LOVE the idea of "memes" and "mimetic theory". Why? Why would the richest men in the world be interested in such things? 
Meme: units of cultural information—such as ideas, beliefs, practices, or symbols—that spread from person to person through imitation, similar to how genes propagate biological traits. 
Is it because they want to enrich humanity or enrich themselves?
Obviously, themselves, and this is why Musk bought Twitter.
If you have the resources (vehicles to distribute memes) and knowledge of memetic theory, you can apply it like this:
Influence Public Opinion: Shape societal beliefs by spreading desirable or strategic memes that drive public discourse. Amplify Divisions: Use memes to heighten tribalism and polarize groups, making them easier to control or manipulate. Create Social Movements: Spark or steer social movements by seeding viral ideas that align with specific political or economic agendas. Control Desires: Guide consumer behavior or political preferences by manipulating what people desire through imitative processes. Deflect Criticism: Distract from personal or business issues by flooding the discourse with memes that shift focus elsewhere. Rally Support: Build loyal followings by embedding identity-forming memes that create strong in-group cohesion. Scapegoating: Use memes to direct collective frustration or anger toward specific targets, reducing conflict toward powerholders. Manufacture Consent: Shape societal norms and legitimize authority by making certain ideas appear self-evident or widely accepted through imitation.  

Steps from most fundamental and metaphysical to concrete and practical:

 
Being (connect with reality):
Tell the truth Accept yourself Contemplate Meditate Meaning (what should be happening in reality?): pursue what is meaningful.
Abstract principles and virtues (what is meaningful?): goal-oriented movement functionality health balance holism integration
  Concrete domains (what is meaningful?): Systemic: commit to long-term goals and daily habits; write lists, plans, journals; do yearly, biyearly, monthly evaluations of progress. Bio - psycho - social (Engel); also, id - ego - superego (Freud); reptilian brain - neocortex - limbic system (MacLean); competence - autonomy - belonging (Deci & Ryan); monster - man - lion (Plato). Bio: diet, exercise, pleasures, hobbies. Psycho: knowledge, wisdom, self-insight, values, self-esteem. Social: friends, family, partner, community.  
Summarized, you should connect with reality and pursue what is meaningful in reality; in alignment with abstract principles and virtues; using systemic techniques, habits, goals and practices; while covering all of the three bio-psycho-social domains.
To illustrate with one example of each (not at all exhaustive): you should meditate, balance all aspects of your life, work for a set period every day, while going to the gym, expanding your knowledge base and hanging out with your friends.
Another version: you should tell the truth, pursue health, write down everything your mind tells you is important to do or remember, engage in some short-term pleasures if you so desire, act in accordance with your inner values and keep up with your family members.

As a side note, this map shows what happens when things work as they should. It's not a given that things will work as they should, and in those cases, you need to fix yourself. Often, fixing yourself is not a matter of knowledge or will, but of untangling unconscious mechanisms and trauma. For that, conventional therapy, energy work and even psychedelics might be useful. In other cases, it may boil down to medical problems, which require medical solutions. Even though the map will fall short of addressing certain pathology, it does lay the foundation of health (in my opinion), and it's therefore relevant to everybody.

(This is a really good video about using your life purpose to maximize goodness in the world.)
Summary of Blog Video: Extra Insights About Good Intentions
     -Some people have misunderstood the episode: “Everyone Acts From Good Intentions”
“But Leo, aren’t 'good' intentions pretty shallow compared to destructive consequences…?   Are you saying that destruction is actually ‘good’ as long as you have good intentions?  That evil people rationalizing their evil as good is the same as actually being good?”
     -What Leo says in this episode is pretty radical.  He’s not saying that evil people use 'goodness' to justify evil.  He’s saying that…
       Everything is an incarnation of Absolute Goodness.  It’s just an extremely biased, unholistic, twisted, finite, selfish form of goodness.  God acts through everyone and everything.  All people are literally good!!  Even when your mind is rationalizing destruction and murder, it’s actually good.  Actual Good, not just evil trying to rationalize evil as good.  Hate and evil are just twisted forms of love, because...
       Absolute Good is all encompassing.  It embraces everything.  Finite good is not like Absolute Good.  People define “good” based on their level of consciousness.  So, relative bad exists alongside Absolute Good, but relative bad (and relative good) are still finite, selfish points of view.
 
“But Leo, how can something like caring about the planet be selfish?”
     -Well, what about the trillions of other planets in the galaxy?  You don’t seem to care about them?  (You’re also probably overestimating how much you really care about the planet.)
      Notice that the good you do is always a finite good, not the Absolute Good (10:40).
eg: Let's say you donated to a charity for tigers.  That’s good and selfless, right?  Well, how much did you donate?  Why didn't you donate more?  Why not donate your whole life savings?  That’s finite good, not infinite good.  You don’t love tigers infinitely.  So, your love for tigers is finite, you monster .  
Survival and Goodness
     -Basically, you have survival needs that limit your capacity to be infinitely good.  Your capacity for goodness is limited by your empathy, your level of consciousness and especially your survival needs.
     -Notice that you can’t help others in an infinite way, unlike God.  Your physical form puts you in a survival bind.  After all, you can’t be loving and helpful if you’re dead.
     -This doesn’t mean you should stop doing good things because they're finite good.  You also shouldn't become a doormat.  This is just about understanding your limits as a human.
     -In enlightenment work, we experience peak states of love and still have to survive (16:40).  We realize that our day to day level of consciousness isn’t as high as it is in a peak mystical state.  That can make you feel less loving and worthy than someone who’s actually less conscious than you!
      You’re trying to live up to these impossible ideals of love.  Thing is you’re always going to fall short because of your survival needs.  Your love will always be finite and corrupted, but finite good is still a corrupted form of love and it's not "evil." (18:38)
     -The finite domain is the material domain.  It’s not fair to expect yourself to embody infinite love in the finite, material domain.
eg: For Leo to film videos for us 🥳, he can’t be infinitely loving.  He has to be loving in a finite, corrupted way and keep certain attachments.  Otherwise he’d neglect his survival needs, give all his money away to charity, end up homeless and die 😭.  Then there’d be no more Actualized.org.         -Notice that when you express love it’s still finite, conditional and corrupted by survival.  That’s okay because you’re stuck in a human state of consciousness.
     -The Godhead is infinite and formless, so it can love infinitely and without fear of “losing” its formless form.
     -However, none of this is an excuse to be hurtful and unloving, or to not try to love more.
     -You can increase your capacity to love by raising your consciousness and empathy and recognize the holism and unity of everything.  Psychedelics is the most direct way.  Raise your baseline level of consciousness through meditation, yoga, mystical experiences.
     -Also, removing obstacles to love will make you more loving.  You can do shadow work, release fear, trauma, anxiety, anger, releasing limiting beliefs and judgments about others (sexism, racism, ableism, etc.)
      Reading more books can open your mind and heart.  Same with educating and exposing yourself to more cultures, people and experiences, so you’re not afraid of “foreigners.”
 
Idiot Compassion (31:50)
     -Idiot compassion means being compassionate in impractical ways that diminish your ability to contribute to the world.  Idiot compassion distracts from your life purpose.  It drains your ability to be compassionate in an effective way.   
     -Compassion is a delicate balancing act to find the point where you are serving the highest good, given your finite form and your strengths, weaknesses, problems and finite state of consciousness.  (33:00)
     (Reminds me of the episode where Leo talked about Obama’s drone strikes, and why it’s facile and unproductive to demonize complicated situations as “evil war crimes.”)   
 
Realistic Practical Love  
There’s a realistic, grounded practical version of love.  There are also two extreme traps people fall into:
The love is some "silly hippie notion" group.  The atheistic rationalists fall into this trap.  They’re so disconnected from love they don’t understand that love is the metaphysical foundation of reality.   The ungrounded new age hippies who think you should always apply Absolute love without considering the implications of living in a relative, material world.  They talk about love and peace in an idiot compassion way.        The idiot compassion group assumes that you just need to be lovey-dovey towards everyone and that solves everything.  They’re confused about the difference between Absolute truth and Relative truth.
       Having an intention to be lovey-dovey and good isn’t good enough.  You’re a finite being with survival needs.  You don’t have infinite money, time or resources.  No one has that, not even Batman.
 
Be Honest About Your Limits
     -You need to be honest with yourself about your limits.  You have to be selective with how you invest your energy.  You’re not unlimited in the material domain.  You can’t drink a glass of poison and survive.  You can’t jump out of a plane without a parachute and drop kick a coven of warlocks. 
     -To do good in the material, relative domain requires that you allocate a significant portion of your time and energy to taking care of your body.  So, love cannot only flow outwards from you.
     -Women have this problem because they tend to be more compassionate and fill more of a caretaker role in society.  They can become too giving and self sacrificing.  Leo’s mom is like this!  This ends up backfiring and leads to a lack of capacity to do good in the world.
     -When you’re serving others too much, you don’t take care of your needs and your body deteriorates.  You compromise your mental health and get drained.  You have to be smart and practical about how you express your love in the world. (37:23)
 
Effective Goodness Requires Exquisite Balance
     -If you really care about maximizing your output of love into the world, it requires exquisite balance and intelligence, there’s no algorithm for it (37:50).  To be good and giving, you need to maintain your poise, groundedness and connection to spirit itself.
      If you’re showering others with love but you have no love for yourself, you will create problems for yourself.  You have to find your unique balancing point.
     -To do good in the world, you have to be selective with your time, money, energy and resources.  You can’t help all the children in the world equally, there’s too many of them.  You have to choose which children in the world to help.  You can’t give money to every charity.  You have to make a choice.   You have to be wise about how you give your time, money and resources.
“How would the world be best served by the time and money I’m going to give?”
     -These are difficult questions with no obvious answers.  The whole point of you being alive, conscious and intelligent is to make these decisions for yourself.  That’s the hell and joy of life!
     -Material life is a finite experience.  That means you have to make difficult decisions.  You can’t go to every university, or date every lovely, eligible person, or fulfill every interesting life purpose.  Even one is too much for a lot of people.
     -So which life purpose is the best for you?  Which on is going to maximize your output of love?  Leo’s Life Purpose course can help you with this, but you have to make those decisions yourself.
     -It’s important to see the profound tradeoffs and interconnections between the finite and the infinite.  It’s a dynamic dance between the two.  That’s what reality is.
     -Intelligence is your capacity to see and maximize goodness, love and how it's expressed (41:50).  That’s the true definition of intelligence, not IQ.  The ultimate puzzle that intelligence is trying to solve is how to maximize love and goodness.  That’s the puzzle of your life.
     -All the decisions you make in life can be framed with this question: “How do I maximize love and my expression of love?”  Find wise ways to maximize love in the finite domain.  It’s very different than how a fool expresses love.
 
Wise vs Foolish Love
     -A fool tries to maximize love in foolish ways, like injecting heroin, or eating greasy cheeseburgers, or robbing someone’s life savings to spend it on a Maserati, or promoting toxic forms of picking up women.
       A fool may discover, eventually, that none of those ways are very effective.  They come with side effects and terrible consequences.  They don’t produce love consistently, and they don’t produce the highest levels of love either.  There are also costs that you pay, for the rest of your life, that outweigh the little bit of love you get in the short term.
 
     -The wise person wises up to the foolish ways he’s been trying to maximize love.  The cheeseburger drains your health, so the wise person will sacrifice taste for energy so he can funnel that into his life purpose.  He trades the love he would have gotten from the cheeseburger for a higher quality of love from his life purpose and the meaningful impact he’ll have on others.
      You could trade drugs like heroin for psychedelics.   That could lead to Kriya yoga or meditation.  You can bootstrap your capacity to love this way, inching your way up bit by bit.  You’re solving the puzzle of love.
     It takes a high degree of intelligence not to eat that cheeseburger, or give into vices and instead work on your life purpose (45:23).
 
Solving the Puzzle of Love
     -As you solve the puzzle of love, you become more loving and happy.  Love is all you want.  It’s what really makes you happy.
     -There are also different gradations of love.  If you’re a low consciousness person, you’re satisfied with low forms of love.  If you’re a high consciousness person the low forms of love no longer satisfy you.
eg: If you’re a low consciousness person with no interest in growing, you might be happy with just going to bars and hooking up everyday for the rest of your life. If you’re mature, you’ll realize that’s not fulfilling anymore and you want a deeper form of love.  Maybe you’ll get married, and have children.  After a while you might take up psychedelics and yoga.  
Stuck at a Level of Consciousness
     -A lot of people are stuck at a certain level of consciousness and they don’t want to raise it.  If you give them a high level of love it will freak them out and plunge them into an existential crisis.
     -To experience the higher forms of love requires maturity, wisdom and intelligence and very little fear.  There’s a trade-off between love and fear.  You have to be willing to surrender a lot of attachments.
       To a dogmatic, close-minded religious person, the highest forms of love will feel like hell.  They’re super attached to love looking like their religion or to a finite form of God.
     -Bad psychedelic trips can happen if you’re scared, close-minded and resistant to love.  Hell is being disconnected from love.  That’s why you need to do prep work to make the best use of psychedelics.  The infinite love will still be shocking and scare your pants off, but it won’t be hellish.  (ep: Dangers of Psychedelics.  Summary is here.)
     -If you have twisted understandings of the world and of people, you won’t open yourself to love.  Dense minds with big egos, traumas, fears and toxic ideologies will need a gradual process of development.  However, if you’re really advanced you may not need a long, drawn out process and can get straight to the love.
     -Actualized.org is all about raising your consciousness, opening your mind, and growing your capacity for love.  It’s about experiencing infinite love without recoiling in horror.  Even the episodes that seem dry, philosophical or technical are about that. (50:18)
 
     -So, good intentions aren’t just rationalizations.  They come from Absolute Good and ARE good.  They're just finite, partial and biased.
     -If you want the unadulterated, impartial, unbiased, Absolute kind of Love, you must become formless.  If you realize that you are the Godhead, you’ll have the best of both worlds.  You can bring the Godhead back into the finite, material world.  It’s all about how much love you can handle, and how you want to manifest that love.
 
Finite Doesn’t Mean Inferior
     -Finite manifestations of love are not inferior (53:50).  They’re less total, but “inferior” is a judgement you’re putting on it from your finite human self.  One doesn’t have less value than another.  The finger isn’t less valuable than the hand.  It’s smaller, it’s different, but not inferior.
     -From the Relative perspective, certain forms of love are “inferior” because they interfere with a larger purpose, which is to create a peaceful society.  So terrorism is an inferior form of love compared to charity work.
       It’s inferior from the Relative perspective, from the goal of constructing a good, happy thriving society.  From the Absolute perspective, terrorism isn't inferior to charity work or anything else for that matter.
       To the Godhead, everything in the universe is of equal value, because all parts are necessary.  No one part is more important or above any other part.  
      You need to know the difference between Relative and Absolute Truth.  Know how to distinguish them properly, but also know how to collapse them when necessary. (ep: Relative vs Absolute Truth)
___________________________________________________
@asifarahim You're very welcome 
@somegirl  Glad you find this helpful  

Stainless steel.
Never buy non-stick or ceramic.
Ceramic pans are a gimmick. They are not truly ceramic, they have a cheap ceramic chemical coating which chips and puts toxins in your food, just like teflon.
Your pan must have no coatings. Any coating will chip.

My goal is to make a thread dedicated to understanding the conservative worldview.
The series on When The Left Goes Too Far really inspired me to try to understand the conservative worldview objectively without bias. 
What resources have helped you increase your understanding of politics? You cannot understand politics without understanding conservatism un-strawmanned. 
Here are some resources I have discovered so far!
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conservatism/
 
 

A brief intro:
23 years old. I have been following Leo for 18 months, which means I've been meditating for 18 months. As for now I do a lot of sittings of strong determination lasting between 90-120 minutes. I have completed one vipassana course and I'm currently working through his Life purpose course. 
Not until recently I've bothered checking out his videos on enlightenment. But ever since I read Peter Ralston's book "The book of not knowing" (And afterwards watched all Leos content) I have been convinced of the massive, massive importance of this pursuit. I realized that I share the same "Dramas of self-images" Leo talks about in a video of his - and how this has been a theme throughout all of my adolescence and still is to this day. It really makes a lot of sense to me that the only thing that will bring true fulfillment is the death of the ego. I have also found that peace of mind and Truth is in my top 3 values from Leo's Life purpose course.
However.. I wonder how I should balance the pursuit of enlightenment, meditation and my life purpose; I want to pursue enlightenment first and then focus on my life purpose. To be honest, as of now, I completely don't care about my life purpose if I can truly attain peace of mind and fulfillment through enlightenment. I have always, always thought that the obtaining of my life purpose would truly fulfill me but as Leo stresses, it never will - and I have quite strong faith in that claim.
Can you wise guys give me some tips on how I could spent my time in a strategic manner to combine these two pursuits? I know that a guy like Leo does tons of inquiry and enlightenment work besides Actualized.org - I just wonder how he strategizes and prioritizes his time.
Let me know if this is way too vague for you. I'm confused these days.
Daniel

Adventures Through The Mind (The host for sure would agree to have a conversation with Leo, the podcast is mostly centered around psychedelics)
Under the Tree with Amira Arora & Aryaan Arora (description speaks for itself - “Under The Tree” umbrellas conversations with monks, entrepreneurs, and leaders across the world about happiness, love, meditation, & success. The show is hosted by Amira Arora & Aryaan Arora, twins with a single vision - to spread spiritual knowledge in a pragmatic and applicable way. )
Beerbiceps (this dude hosts a lot of spiritual teachers, from Robert Svoboda to Rajarshi Nandy)
And these which were already mentioned I think to suit Leo perfectly:
BuddhaAtTheGasPump
Guru Viking
Simulation

Hey @Leo Gura
I've been contemplating topics related to structuring knowledge, and I think it would be amazing if you created a video explaining this! Given your understanding of such subjects, I believe you'd really nail it. This kind of content could resonate with a lot of people looking to enhance their creative processes and structure their thinking more effectively.
I've developed a framework for myself, which I plan to start using when studying. However, I feel like something is missing. I haven't yet put it into practice, so it might need refinement as I test it out. This is why I think a video on the topic would be incredibly valuable, and it could be a powerful tool for actualizing in general.
1. Cognition: The overall process of thinking, understanding, and processing information.
2. Ideas: The raw, flexible thoughts or insights—building blocks of higher-order structures.
3. Concepts: Structured frameworks that organize related ideas into coherent categories.
4. Frameworks: Broader structures that organize ideas and concepts into systems for understanding or decision-making.
5. Models: Detailed systems built from concepts, often with predictive power, explaining or simulating how something works.
And Tools for Refining and Connecting Ideas like:
- Association: Linking related or unrelated ideas to spark new insights.
- Integration and Connection:
- Mind Mapping: Visualizing ideas and their relationships in an organized way.
 

This is definitely a good start even for an experienced lifter. Deadlifts and dips are perfect but I'd push back on smith machine squats and still encourage you to do unsupported squats. If you are worried about balance, use the safety rails that catch the bar if you lose balance and make sure to start light. Don't add more weight unless you can confidently do 8-10 reps. It is important to master the form properly before loading weights, a knowledgeable PT or a lifting coach would help you. 
As for the rest of this split, they are all like Tier 3 exercises, very isolated, single joint and not anabolic stimulating enough.  You would probably see better improvement by adding a standing shoulder press instead of lateral raises and something like wide pull-ups instead of biceps curls. The standing triceps cable press is imo one of the most useless exercises for a non-steroid user.
Overall this is a solid training and likely to lead to some improvement but if you built it around unsupported full body compound training, you would make 30-60% more progress in the same time. Honestly, the more I do this, the more convinced I am that split body training is a giant pile of rubbish that has been sold by steroid users to the natural community for too long. It doesn't work for experienced lifters like you and I, it is a waste of time, leads to exhaustion, injuries and overtraining and guys then have to rely on 250g of protein per day to stimulate sufficient muscle synthesis. I am not convinced that eating that much protein is harmless despite lack of evidence. 
If you go full body, you become so anabolic that you can easily make gains on a vegan diet with a little bit of hemp protein. I weigh 91 kilos, eat about 140-160g of protein per day (90-95% of that from plants) and have been making consistent strength gains on this program, unlike anything I've ever done before. It blows my mind how effective this routine is. 
What you need is: 
squat or deadlift benchpress  wide pullup  standing shoulder press  pendlay row  dip  some form of abs where your legs aren't hooked to a bar, and you actually have to engage your core at 100% capacity.  all free weights, no machines , no cables.  48-hour break between training as the peak of protein muscle synthesis occurs between 24-36 hours post-training.  That's it. Try that and let the results speak for themselves. Ofcourse it is still a good idea to do some form of functional training like gymnastic rings, TRX, rope climbing and some occasional HIIT like boxing, Tabata etc so that you continue increasing your V02 Max because the heavier you lift the harder your cardiopulmonary system gets challenged. 
When it comes to weight training, for a natural lifter, this is as good as it gets. 
But if this feedback doesn't resonate just ignore it

Conflating gender identity with biological sex muddies the waters and the discussion unnecessarily. We can acknowledge the reality of biological sex while recognising the validity and complexity of gender identity. 
Nature loves exceptions. Acknowledging these exceptions doesn't negate the broader reality of biological sex dimorphism. The reason hominids or we even exist is thanks to dimorphism. 
 It's not an either/or situation. Just acknowledge that sex is typically binary while also accepting that there are individuals who don't fit neatly into those categories and are their own. Respecting these exceptions isn't about denying biology. 
Dimorphism runs deep. It's not just about genitals or secondary sex characteristics. It's in our bones, muscles and brains, right down to the cellular level. These differences aren't trivial - they've been crucial to our survival and evolution as a species.
Yes, psychology plays a significant role in our sense of identity, no argument there. But to dismiss the role of biology is to willfully ignore the very foundation of what makes us human. You can't reduce "being a woman" to just what's in your head any more than you can reduce it to just what's between your legs. Both matter, interact and are inseparable parts of the whole.
The extreme hypothetical of transplanting a female head on a male body isn’t currently even possible. Even then, that brain developed in a body, a body shaped by chromosomes, hormones, and even reproductive organs. To act like these biological realities are somehow secondary or optional is to engage in a kind of magical thinking that ignores how deeply interconnected our minds and bodies truly are.

Daniel Schmachtenberger is aware of actualized.org

 

Hi Nemra
I wonder if looking into the topic of "Autodidacticism" - which is Self-education as in education without the guidance of masters (Old days) and in our modern time it is without professors  and/or institutions - would help?
Here I can speak with experience as I have lived as an Autodidact and a Polymath. Polymaths are often autodidacts.
Here is a list of famous autodidacts:
Abraham Lincoln
Albert Einstein - taught himself algebra, Euclidean geometry, and calculus when he was 12. He also independently discovered his own original proof of the Pythagorean theorem, and he had worked through a geometry textbook he was given by his family tutor, Max Talmud.[64] When Einstein was 14 years old he says he had "mastered integral and differential calculus".
Allan Watts
Alfred Russel Wallace (Co-discoverer of Natural-Selection with Darwin)
Benjamin Franklin
Bill Gates
Bruce Springsteen
Buckminster Fuller
David Bowie
Edison
Elon Musk
Ernest Hemingway
Frank Loyd Wright
Frank Zappa
Galileo
Gustave Eiffel – The engineer who designed and built the Eiffel Tower
Henry Ford
Hermann Hesse
Jimi Hendrix
Johnny Depp
Julian Assange
Karl Marx
Le Corbusier
Leonardo DaVinci
Mark Twain
Malcolm X
Michael Faraday
Neil Peart
Nikola Tesla
Oprah Winfrey
Orson Welles
Russell Crowe
Sean Parker - Former President of Facebook,
Steve Jobs
Steven Spielberg
The Wright Brothers
Van Halen
Vincent Willem van Gogh
Walt Disney
William Blake
This list should tell you that Autodidactism is much more common than what one would assume. It often emerges from the lower and working class of society, where formal education is an unattainable luxury – although this is far from being a rule. An autodidacts will not let an obstacle such as a lack of financial resources stop him from learning. Until the advent of the Internet, Libraries were an important source of freely accessible knowledge. And the Internet is the new catalyst bringing to fruition the golden-age of autodidactism.
When one is young it is very difficult to know if Autodidactism is one's call. For me it was much later in life that I figured this out about my learning-style.
Here is a list of some of the personality characteristics that are more or less typical of autodidacts:
Self-motivated and NOT correlating learning to earning a degree: An autodidact is driven by passion, self-discipline, and internally-sourced interest to engage consistently in his studies. His motivation for the acquisition of knowledge is not for the pride of owning degrees or titles, or from pressures imposed by an external authority; but for the sake of knowledge itself.
Curious: Autodidacts have a strong desire to learn about the world and the various subjects they’re pursuing.
Disciplined: They hold themselves accountable to do the readings and work that they promise themselves they will do.
Systematic: Autodidacts study plans are internally formed and self-directed. Rarely they follow a rigid methodology of learning; but rather an elastic and malleable structure that is spontaneously and naturally formed, and which is adaptive to the continuously changing circumstances of life.
Goal-Oriented and Focused: Autodidact naturally set learning goals to guide their studies and their study plan. Being focused on something is not a part-time state of mind, but a continuous way of being.
Resourceful: They know how to find study materials, often free or affordable ones, that will help them reach their goals.
Natural Learner, fast and efficient who has a passion for diving deep into a subject with a great ability for absorption and and above average retention: Rarely an autodidact will be content with a ‘little’ knowledge, or a superficial degree of knowledge. Typically they strive for the core knowledge, and for the most advanced knowledge on a subject. Being on the cutting edge of a subject is natural for an autodidact.
Stands above & beyond the paradigm of ‘victimization’: Typically, an autodidact has no time, not even an instant, to feel sorry for himself. Being paralyzed by a sense of victimization is not a state on the palette of Autodidactism. Any and all obstacles that stands in the way of an autodidact is perceived as a welcomed challenge, and an opportunity to learn something new, or to learn something more deeply. An autodidact continuously shifts the obstacles that continuously emerges into a series of opportunities that shapes one’s life. Where most see complications, the mind of an autodidact sees avenues of potentials.
Life-long learner: An autodidact does stop being one. He or she does not retire at one point in her or his life from the pursuit of knowledge.
Polymath: Rare an autodidact limits himself to a single subject of knowledge
 
There are some advantages to being an autodidact - one being to choose the subject of study, their studying material, and the studying rhythm and time.
Autodidacts may or may not combine formal education, as a complement avenue of learning.
 
The horizon of Autodidacticism has been transformed by the advent of the Internet. As one of the effect of the Internet - A robust Fact-Checking ability has become an essential skill and a requisite for Autodidacticism. In our modern time an Autodidact must know how to detect and recognize misinformation and disinformation - which is prevalent in the medias BUT also exist in a very special form within some scientific fields - especially those of medicine; nutrition; climate-science; among others.
In fields like Art and Craftsmanship there are huge advantages to be an Autodidact.
...And Autodidactism is also a subject of Philosophy :-)!
 
... if you are an Autodidact type of learner you will not escape that destiny... 

I have been noticing for some time the role that metaphors play in shaping our thinking and language. It's quite revealing and more prevalent than we think.
I'm going to use AI in order to compile a list of metaphors that invent, define and/or shape the ways we experience, conceptualize, and communicate:
Jumping to conclusions Falling in love Splitting hairs Being blind to something: another's motives, etc Recovering time / Making up for lost time Seeing eye to eye Bridging the gap Turning over a new leaf Planting seeds of doubt Nurturing a relationship Weathering the storm Climbing the ladder of success Walking on eggshells Burying the hatchet Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel Dancing with the devil Playing devil's advocate Painting with broad strokes Swimming against the current Casting a wide net Walking a tightrope Sowing the seeds of discord Building castles in the air Climbing the walls Lifting the veil Time is money Food for thought Beating around the bush Letting the cat out of the bag Hitting a wall Keeping an eye on something Opening a can of worms Feeding an idea The weight of responsibility The flow of a conversation A window of opportunity The roots of a problem Climbing the corporate ladder The fabric of society A memory lapse The spark of an idea Bottleneck Cloud computing Emotional baggage Brainstorming Surfing the web Feeling drained Burning the midnight oil A heart of stone Breathing new life into something Spinning your wheels Biting off more than you can chew Going out on a limb Raining on someone's parade Having a chip on your shoulder Burying your head in the sand Letting someone off the hook Being a couch potato Having a green thumb Pulling someone's leg Cutting corners Hitting the nail on the head Passing the buck Biting the bullet Beating a dead horse Reinventing the wheel Going down the rabbit hole Putting your foot in your mouth Chewing someone out Giving someone the cold shoulder Hitting the sack Having a change of heart Making a mountain out of a molehill Breaking the ice Letting your hair down Having a blast Losing your marbles Spilling the beans Hitting the books Feeling under the weather Turning a blind eye Having blinders on Having rose-colored glasses on Being in the dark Wearing beer goggles Seeing what you want to see Having a blind spot Living in a bubble Having tunnel vision Connecting the dots Gut feeling Butterflies in your stomach Stomach dropping Gut-wrenching experience Standing on your own two feet Being grounded Being open Being bent out of shape To straighten you up Being fit, being out of shape Being off-balance (psychologically or emotionally)   ---
Time Metaphors:
1. Time is a moving object:
   - "The years are flying by."
   - "The holidays are approaching."
2. Time is a stationary landscape:
   - "We're looking ahead to a bright future."
   - "We're leaving the past behind."
3. Time is a resource:
   - "I don't have enough time to finish this project."
   - "We're running out of time."
4. Time is money:
   - "Don't waste your time." "Saving time." "Spending time."
   - "I invested a lot of time in that project." 
5. Time is a container:
   - "We're in a new era."
   - "The meeting fell within the scheduled timeframe."
Space Metaphors:
1. Up is good, down is bad:
   - "She's really down today."
   - "Her spirits were lifted by the good news."
2. Physical closeness represents emotional closeness:
   - "We've grown apart over the years."
   - "They're a close-knit family."
3. Physical force represents emotional force:
   - "She was deeply moved by the speech."
   - "His words struck a chord with the audience."
4. Physical balance represents mental balance:
   - "She's a well-balanced person."
   - "He lost his equilibrium after the incident."
5. Physical obstacles represent difficulties:
   - "We're facing many hurdles in this project."
   - "She overcame numerous obstacles to achieve her goals."
 
Might read Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff at some point.

Index of All Blog Posts & Videos

    ➼  Click here for a Search Bar to the blog.  
Also checkout Leo’s post on how to search this blog using google.
    ➼  50 BLOG VIDEOS that you’ve probably never seen before. 
    ➼  There’s a different version of this list in the High Consciousness Resources section.  It organizes the blog into categories like Essays, Quotes, Art, Strange Loops and more.
 
2025
 

My honest opinion is that starting from things like toxins and pollutants is sort of like buying a paint and window frames before digging the foundations when building a house. It is nice and useful but misses a context 
I've studied nutrition and human biology for 3 years academically and another 2 personally and I'd say the best approach to tackle this is the following: 
Get yourself an anatomy book and learn how the human body works , this is actually pretty important. This will also answer the question you had here: Actually understand, in depth, what those terms mean and how does it all work together then get yourself a generic nutrition book and learn category by category - macronutrients, micronutrients, phytochemicals, caloric values, nutrition requirements across lifetime, using nutrition to support individual systems in the body like circulation, immunity etc. 
and finally and this is a bonus, but a book on simple biochemistry and the cell function will help you underand nuances and a bit of the mechanistic structure like enzymes, various chemicals in the body, things like Kreb Cycle, different energetic pathways etc   If you can hammer through these 3 your map of knowledge will be better than 99% of the smartasses on the internet and you'll create a bulletproof framework of understanding otherwise the risk is just knowing random stuff that does not fall into any particular structure so that it is easy to sway you away with new arguments. 
You'll also be more resistant to quackery and nonsense which is hard to get when you are just taking in random content from random videos from Peter Attia or Andrew Hubberman, which are btw brilliant and deep but I think require some prior understanding to really embody. 
This is the longest and the most drudging path to get there but a one that will bring you a true understanding of the human physiology and how it is being impacted by nutrition and lifestyle. 
We also have a medical professional on the forum @undeather whose path was probably 4 times longer than mine and whose knowledge exceeds that of all of us here so he would probably be able to share even better advice. 
 

Hey, look into PARA, a digital system, you have 4 folders:
Projects: projects you are working towards with a deadline (ideally you should be creating small projects, like one week duration, so that each week you are finishing projects, like try generating 10 projects during your next week) Areas: stuff that are on going in your life and you have a responsibility for (health, finance, meditation, fitness, journal, etc.) Resources: notes on books, articles, videos, on anything, whether it is personal development, philosophy, hsitory, marketing, etc. you can make a section for each Archives: the inactive categories from previous folders, projects you finished, areas that aren't in your life anymore, resources you lost interest in, etc. Digital is better in my opinion because you can never lose it

For me, I have a digital system for information gathering, summaries, noting insights, etc.
And I track my life with a physical daily journal

I'm fairly new to personal development, and I've recently started to journal. I started a bullet journal/time block notebook, a catch all notebook, a reading log, and a personal dictionary. I also started reading "The 7 habits of highly effective people", and it made me want to make a notebook dedicated to note taking, internalization, and application. Have y'all done something similar to this? If so, I seek advice on how to make one.
I asked chat gpt to make a game-plan for this and here's what it generated:
### Notebook Structure
 
1. **Introduction and Overview**
   - **Purpose:** Summarize the main goal of the notebook.
   - **Contents:** A brief overview of what the 7 habits are and what you hope to achieve by following them.
 
2. **Habit Breakdown**
   - **Structure for Each Habit:**
     - **Habit Name and Description:** Detailed explanation of the habit.
     - **Key Principles:** The foundational principles behind the habit.
     - **Personal Reflections:** Your thoughts and current status related to this habit.
     - **Action Plan:** Steps you plan to take to incorporate this habit into your life.
     - **Daily/Weekly Check-ins:** Space to track your progress and reflect on your experiences.
 
3. **Weekly Reviews**
   - **Structure:**
     - **Achievements:** What went well this week?
     - **Challenges:** What were the obstacles?
     - **Adjustments:** What can you do differently next week?
 
4. **Monthly Summaries**
   - **Structure:**
     - **Overall Progress:** How have you improved?
     - **Habit Strengthening:** Which habits are becoming second nature?
     - **Areas for Growth:** Which habits need more focus?
 
5. **Reflection and Goal Setting**
   - **Structure:**
     - **Quarterly Reflections:** Deeper reflections every three months.
     - **Long-term Goals:** How are these habits aligning with your long-term aspirations?
 
### Detailed Breakdown
 
#### 1. Introduction and Overview
- **Purpose:**
  Write a brief introduction about why you are using this notebook and what you aim to achieve.
  
  **Example:**
  "This notebook is my personal guide to mastering the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. My goal is to integrate these principles into my daily life to improve my personal and professional effectiveness."
 
- **Contents:**
  - Quick summary of the 7 habits:
    1. Be Proactive
    2. Begin with the End in Mind
    3. Put First Things First
    4. Think Win-Win
    5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
    6. Synergize
    7. Sharpen the Saw
 
#### 2. Habit Breakdown
 
**Example for Habit 1: Be Proactive**
 
- **Habit Name and Description:**
  "Be Proactive" focuses on taking responsibility for your own actions and behaviors.
 
- **Key Principles:**
  - You are responsible for your own life.
  - Your decisions, not your conditions, determine your path.
 
- **Personal Reflections:**
  Reflect on how proactive you currently are. Do you take initiative or often react to events?
 
- **Action Plan:**
  - Identify areas in your life where you can be more proactive.
  - Set specific goals to take initiative in those areas.
 
- **Daily/Weekly Check-ins:**
  - Each day, jot down instances where you chose to be proactive.
  - Weekly, review these instances and note improvements or setbacks.
 
#### 3. Weekly Reviews
 
**Example:**
- **Achievements:**
  "This week, I successfully took charge of my morning routine and felt more productive."
 
- **Challenges:**
  "I struggled to stay proactive during unexpected work crises."
 
- **Adjustments:**
  "Next week, I'll set reminders to pause and plan before reacting to unforeseen issues."
 
#### 4. Monthly Summaries
 
**Example:**
- **Overall Progress:**
  "I've become more proactive in my personal life but need to work on it professionally."
 
- **Habit Strengthening:**
  "Morning routines are now proactive without needing reminders."
 
- **Areas for Growth:**
  "Focus on staying proactive during high-stress situations at work."
 
#### 5. Reflection and Goal Setting
 
**Quarterly Reflections:**
- **Example:**
  "Reflecting on the past three months, I've seen significant improvement in my ability to take initiative, but there's still room to grow in maintaining a proactive mindset under pressure."
 
**Long-term Goals:**
- "By the end of the year, I aim to be consistently proactive in both personal and professional settings, handling stress with a calm and proactive approach."
 
### Setting Up Your Notebook
 
1. **Choose Your Medium:**
   - Digital: Use apps like Notion, Evernote, or OneNote.
   - Physical: Get a dedicated journal or notebook.
 
2. **Customize Sections:**
   - Use tabs or sections to divide the notebook according to the structure outlined.
 
3. **Consistency:**
   - Set aside time each day/week for filling out your notebook.
   - Use prompts and templates to make it easier to reflect and plan.

As you already know on a more or less tacite way (even if you lie to yourself, and you will probably pretend that all of this is « « « projection » » », as usu…all the time), Actualized is essentially a way to lose time within feel smart while don’t really improve yourself in any way whatsoever yet.
You can't really progress in life by talking on a forum, or while wandering on the internet, or wandering in general. The biggest problem with forums is that they tend to behave like tools for instant gratification, except that this gratification concerns more fundamental, absolute and unconscious instances of the human psyche. It's not as palpable as sources of raw and atavistic desires that can be identified like hunger or sexual desire (well... but hey, that's another subject).
"But Valentin, we learn things on this forum! Like...humm..Solipsism? I've seen Leo's 2 hours video with his cute thumbnail?"
Yes of course you learn some notions, fortunately lmao, but it doesn’t meant you really progressed in spirituality whatsoever, if it was really your goal, you would have had concrete companies like doing lots of internships, training, lots of reading... And you wouldn't have time to hang around here anyway(obviously, and no Schizophonia is not hypocritical, but I am also a wanker).
This is why you insist on interacting with people here rather than addressing real professionals, real customers…or simply actual friends, and VIRTUALLY progress with spirituality, with women, with your self-confidence, in cooking or in any field whatsoever.
In other world it's basically a hobby of some kind. No matter the pompous decoration.
Let's be honest between us, as anyone here taken away something palpable from Léo Gura's latest video, a concrete primed change?
Did anyone just watch his video and then say "Oh my God, thank you Leo, I had no idea that *addxsentenceofLeo"
This doesn't mean that the forum is useless, but it does mean that this form of interaction with others and the world in general tends to be regressive if you want serious evolution.
 
 
And I like the truth and progression. The faster the better because you see I don't have unlimited time to make money, a pleasant place in society, to find love, to get rid of my neuroses, to become stronger and put myself in a position to enjoy life to the fullest.
I am not the least privileged, God gave me the chance to have the strength to progress here and there and now I am doing well, but I have been able to observe myself, in my family, close friends, random people, that you can spend your life in neurosis and failure because YOU HAVE NOT BEEN ACTIVE ENOUGH.
And the more disadvantaged you are, the more you NEED TO BE ACTIVE.
 
Now let's get to the point of this topic.
 
I challenge a certain number of volunteer Actualizer listed below to a duel, I offer 2 types of duel depending on the subject.
-For July/August 2024: Debates on Zoom, Skype, even discord, I don't care. (5 maximum)
-The funniest, July/August 2025: MMA, Bare-knuckle (bare-knuckle boxing), Thai boxing or, for the most vulnerable, English boxing.
For debates
@Princess Arabia
@Jason Actualization
@RendHeaven
@undeather
@Michael569
@Nemra
@Danioover9000
@Leo Gura
@Salvijus
@Jowblob
@Jannes
@Breakingthewall
I cited these people because I see them arguing regularly depending on the subject, but I dont target anybody in particular here. 
Everyone can join the party.
It's not even about standing up for something I believe, it's about seeing if you can:
1)To see if you have the courage to show yourself, to expose yourself.
Even beyond the notion of courage, it is quite clear that exposing yourself and abandoning anonymity as much as possible is the main way to move towards greater self-esteem, on many way.

2) To see if you are really capable of defending what you are saying.
Not in a twisted, intellectually dishonest way, playing with words, answering what you want to answer and the way you want to answer.
This time you will be up against the wall.
Or if you simply spit out what Léo, Martin ball or idk who knows else here and there ; Or you throw out your interpretation of your trip of 5 MeO DMT, MDMA or whatever.
A example that comes to mind: I don't know how many times I've seen topics where the subject (challenge) was statements from an orange skeptic/scientist, and the main reaction (including from Leo) was a quick swipe under the excuse that the person concerned seemed "arrogant" or something like that.
Behind that there is obviously the fear of being purely and simply incapable of defending the various antitheses concerned, in particular solipsism and the field of various typical anti-materialist ideas that we find here as a general rule.
 
For the subjects, you just have to PM the ones you want if it gives you confidence, I don't care, the only thing that interests me in history is to have fun working during a month to try to contradict you.  
Examples:
Politic :
-If you are liberal , I will try to show you why we must increase taxes, nationalize raw materials companies, nationalize the banks, I can even play the Marxist and explain why we must nationalize everything and switch to a totally centralized and planned.
-If you are a commie, I can show you why I am liberal, I can even play the strict libertarian like Rothbard.
My references :
Books : "Understand the empire" of Alain Soral, "The Capitalism of Seduction" and "Neo-fascism and the ideology of desire" of Michael Clouscard,  Most of books of Tocqueville.
-Nutrition :
-If you're a vegan, I can play a carnivore.
-If you're carnivore I can play the vegan.
-If you're pro-HFLC I can play the pro-HCLF
-If you're pro SFA I can play the pro PUFA
etctec
 
My references : 
"The biochemistry of Harper", Ray Peat's articles, RPF (including Haidut's and Hans's articles), Great Genereux's articles, Chris Masterjohn's videos and articles, Dr Rand McClains videos and articles, Meso Rx, Book "The Starch solution" of John McDougall, "How to not die" of Dr John McDougall, "We want to live" Of Aaujus Vonderplanits.
Spirituality/philosophy :
-Solipsisme / "Objective" world (?)
-You're god / You're not god.
-God exist / Dont
-Manifestations
I can play the solipsism, I can play the muslim, I can play the ultra materialist atheist skeptic...
 
My references : 
Martin Ball Leo Gura and Adeptes Psychonotica's vidéos
Books : "Your other life" of Franck Lopvet, "A Brief History of Everything" and "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality" of Ken Wilber, most of books of Nietzsche, "Confessions" of Saint Augustin, "Become Super Human" of Joe Dispenza, "Conversations with gods" (all the tomes) of Neale Donald Walsch, "The power of Now" of  
Eckhart Tolle.
I cited some subject, but it could be anything that requires a certain intellectual rigor !
 
For fight:
@Jason Actualization
@RendHeaven 
@StarStruck 
@NoSelfSelf
@mr_engineer
@MarkKol
@Majed
@mmKay
@bebotalk
@Someone here
@r0ckyreed
If I'm notified of you, it's because for some reason I remember your screen name and know that you regularly talk about topics that involve being particularly masculine. But again, it's open to everyone who want bing ass-kicked lol.
Either because that's who you pretend to be in one way or another, or because you want to be or need to be but can't (typically the incels one)
Fight
The choice of MMA is not imperative, if you really want to take risks we can even do bare-knuckle boxing for example.
Vice versa, if you tremble and fart at the idea of doing a friendly amateur fight in MMA, it can also be English boxing, Thai boxing, Full contact, Jujitsu, whatever...
 
I will probably be able to travel at least twice.
We can rent an octagon (or other ring/lounge, depending on the sport) and prepare a fight in certain cities preferably in North America, South America and Europe.
 
The legislation in France is a bit cumbersome (you have to have a local license, there's a lot of stupid paperwork...), but we can still use super octagons in the Paris region.
Otherwise we can easily organize a fight in most countries of Eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine, Russia...), Central Europe and even Scandinavia.
Because you have to know how to decide in life :
-London (the simplest)
-Prague
-Oslo
-Stockholm
-Warsaw
-Moscow
-St Petersburg
 
I can also (and I intend as a tourist) to travel to North America.
It can be (preferably) in Florida, California, or even Oregon (I know people there)
I propose : 
-Portland 
-San Diego
-San Francisco
-Miami
-Even Las Vegas
If you are cat-perched on the east coast, we can also organize this in New York.
Whether in the European case or in the United States, it could be other cities, these are just (in part a priori) preferences.
Obviously, I'm not going to spend several thousand euros just for fights so it won't be in a random city.
If MMA (or bare-knuckle), then we will do classic 15 minute fights in three rounds.
Victory only by submission, TKO or KO, otherwise draw.
 
I'll stop there, I'll modify the topic if necessary.
 
Now PM or dunce cap 

I'm reading about deep stuff on science, engineering, technology, computer science and physics.
I will develop a deep understanding of these fields to create new solutions to humanity.
I will share resources, books, lectures on these fields.
 

Hey, 
There are many reasons why it could be so. It could be a compromised immune system in general or a prior infection (e.g. COVID) that has taken hold of you. It might also come down to your lifestyle, diet or living environment. Sometimes, immune system is also weakened by a challenging life circumstances. 
Here is a non-exhaustive list of things to look into  
long-COVID - a possible and somewhat likely explanation given it was the trigger low iron - significant contributor to weak immune system  low vit D / zinc / selenium / protein / hypocaloric diet/ low antioxidant status (e.g. glutathione, vit E, selenium etc) or even antioxidant depletion if your body was, for example, struggling to produce sufficient glutathione because your levels of proline, glycine and other amino acids was low during a period of high stress or while experimenting with restrictive diets, fasting etc - this is a speculation without testing.  chronic stress, burnout, redundancy any situation that requires you to "burn the candle from both ends"  living with someone who is often sick  living in a "sick building" - mould contamination, loud noises, poor air quality, poor water quality (old piping, high chlorine levels)  thyroid - anything and everything could be anchored in thyroid hormone imbalance  insufficient sleep quality / length  insufficient or excessive physical activity  temperature at your home - too cold / too hot  some form of low-grade allergic response - pet, food item, environmental  undergoing a major life transition (career, housing, childcare, caring for an elderly, bereavement)  If I was to guess based on the little info I would write you a referral and sent you off to get your full iron panel, vitamin D and thyroid assessed. Then I would ask you to make sure you are eating enough and that your diet is covering all your essential micro and macro nutrients. You can easily track a few days in Cronometer and see what's missing. I'd also critically assess your - exercise routine, sleep and stress levels. 
Once those are all checked and good, move down the list 

I consider myself an intermediate lifter (even tho more on the lower end) and want to simplify my program and focus. I want to train 3 times a week with the same 7 exercises. How far can I expect to get?
Here are the exercises:
- https://www.strengthlog.com/smith-machine-squat/ [legs] (I prefer the stability of a machine rather than doing a normal squad)
- https://www.strengthlog.com/bar-dip/ [chest] (I know bench press is the king, but I feel very anxious doing them and half-ass it with very low results)
- https://www.strengthlog.com/deadlift/ [lower back/legs] (might replace with a back extension if this will fatigue my body too much)
- https://www.strengthlog.com/cable-close-grip-seated-row/ [upper back]
- https://www.strengthlog.com/hammer-curl/ [biceps]
- https://www.strengthlog.com/tricep-pushdown-with-rope/ [triceps]
- https://www.strengthlog.com/dumbbell-lateral-raise/ [shoulders]
+ I consider either adding or replacing 1 arm exercise with an abb exercise. To keep myself fresh, I might change the order of the exercises.

I know @Michael569 promoted something similar. Any opinions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRC9-q4_UK8 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY6h37zMPNY&t=335s <-- Best diet for intelligence
I saw some people post about this channel in an old thread. This guy claims to have boosted his IQ by 15 points with quad n-back training and in the process developed better problem solving skills and visualization skills that helped him solve chess puzzles better, even though he barely played. Could be worth looking into
^^^ This guy also has a really interesting channel that deals with memorizing with the use of visualization and memory palaces. He also has an interview with Kurt from Theories of everything. Looking into memory palaces and memory techniques used in books like "Moonwalking with Einstein" could also be useful

Let's get a thread going that showcases the deep intelligence of survival in nature. This helps people see the intelligence and sneakiness of survival in the human realm.
Try to post examples not merely of survival, but the intelligent, deceptive, and sneaky nature of survival.
 

I read Leo's recent blog posts about science/spirituality.
They're hilarious! ...But also seriously on point, and they've inspired this rant that I'm about to go on about my development as a scientist and self-ac.
This will be about how I got into science, my epic fails with attracting girls, and my militant atheism that slowly evolved to spirituality. 
My writing style is chaotic, bouncing left and right, so bare with it. I'm curious if there are any other scientists in the house who share a similar story. Go!
                    
So, where do I begin ? When I was about 12 I'd reached my peak of social stifled-ness and self-pity. I got bullied at school every day and I hid it all from my family; I was so embarrassed about it I didn't even want to reach out for help, lol. I couldn't talk to girls for shit and anything sexual terrified the living shit out of me (even though of course I secretly longed for intimacy with a girl). I'd spend about an hour a day watching Neil Degrasse Tyson and using his talking points to debate religious people over atheism on Facebook. All of this was all around the same exact time I was introduced to my love-passion to this day: geology. I knew this was what I had to devote a large portion of my life to, as I had the insight that "Holy shit, this is the first time I've ever been enthusiastic about something ever!" 
So I have something I'm passionate about now. But... (fuck!) having a passion outside of people doesn't kill aloneness. Ya still gotta mingle. So, why did I struggle to make connections? On the surface it was obvious: I played video games all the time, all my friends were also virgins, and I secluded myself in my bedroom trying to meet girls on Omegle. Oh dear, how those early days make me cringe immensely. Ah, but whatever, it's the truth.
I spent 6 years at college studying geology, honestly loving it. I loved getting straight A's in something I believed in. I loved hiking mountains with seasoned professors and doing research. (Side note: I was lucky to have green profs; I've met orange ones and they are everything that's wrong with science. But we'll get to that shortly.) In the middle of those 6-years at uni, I was starting to have second thoughts about the legitimacy of science, all before I'd even found Actualized.org. Getting into weed and psychedelics was a solid catalyst in the process of deconstructing science: no other student in my classes that I knew was taking them to understand something. I could now see that science doesn't know everything. (Duh! How in the fuck could it explain the experience of psychedelics?!). I began to have a total change of heart about what I was doing.
In my senior year I began dating this actually decently attractive girl (I really have no idea how she came barreling in!). But that sexual bond with another human finally gave me the confidence to investigate reality further. So I did. 
Right before the start of COVID I began meditating every day. After just 10 days of practice I began having an ego back-lash that would break my notions of science down further. I remember to this day sitting in a climate change class and being like "fuck, how do I even justify being here? I love studying this shit, but I can see the systemic epistemic problems now, clear as day." So I began reading lots of books to gain additional perspectives. And... I moved towns for grad school and broke up with my girl. I did it because I had my first inklings of getting into cold-approach seduction; new girls abound! But since it was COVID, I remained this bedroom-cave monk, meditating daily for 14 months straight before switching to binaural beats for a while. Oh and also I was taking psychedelics once every couple months and having more and more ridiculous trips.
In spite of seeing through science, I chose to get into grad school, mostly for a free ride to Mongolia, where my field work would be. As COVID ended, I tried and failed at a lot of chances of getting with girls, because I was afraid of asking and I kept hiding my sexuality. So I decided enough was fucking enough and began cold-approaching. Didn't do much of it at first, but enough to build a foundation. Had a wing here and there, but no results. I was still alone. But whatever, the point was I kept moving and self-actualizing, discovering new aspects of self and life.
This year I am 25 years old. Last year I flew to Mongolia and had the summer of my dreams, camping in the steppe and sedeucing incredible Mongol women back in the capital city.  I just attended an Owen Cook bootcamp and now approach regularly. I moved from northeast to southwest USA and showed up with barely anything in my pocket. I work in Alaska on and off in a geotechnical job at a mine. The job I'm working at is full of people who are stuck in their heads and I'm not immune to that, as it rubs off on me. In my first week I was told multiple times to tone myself down by higher ups. Some of the younger men I work with are married or have girlfriends, but it's obvious they don't have any amazing social skills and are settling in some form. Nothing wrong with that, but it's funny how this is almost always the case. 
On another note, I've written half a book and recently barfed-up a big MS OneNote philosophy about geoscience and how the field would benefit from a deeper investigation into epistemics, big-picture thinking, and consciousness, blah blah blah. It's super cool to me, but I think I need to excommunicate myself from the field before I can open up about it, whitsle-blower style. Here's the true dilemma I face and why I might just leave: under the conditions I'm currently in, I am (1) working with people who are sexually beige, and socially meh unless they drink a couple beers (yep, geology has a big beer-drinking culture, look it up), (2) I want to talk about personal development, psychedelics, spirituality, but there's zero room for that and I can literally feel myself wanting to talk about it, but then stuffing it down on the regular.
Of course, I can't leave this job right away as I'm still recovering from being a broke-ass grad student. Things are gonna take time to evolve. The way things are now as I see it, living in a big city environment for the first time has exposed me to just how materialistic people can be. But somewhere in there also lies the social elites who at least know how to connect with the opposite sex. And therein lies the crux to the personal development problem: how to do work with the right people AND be socially attractive, yet detached, AND pursue a deep spiritual awakening / God-realization process all in one? It's a beautiful problem I'm working on, and I think the linchpin is changing how I make money to survive.
Being self-employed and financially-independent are big steps, and really where everything might spring forth. I'm trying to see if I can learn copywriting / ghostwriting. Or something that will also set me up for releasing content when the time comes to break free. But for now we stand here.
                    
Where are my scientist peeps at?