alyra

extroversion and introversion are just labels to denote patterns. humans love to use labels in order to lock them into these patterns! so funny, yet so sad

nope, I am not enlightened. there is no such thing as enlightenment! *giggles*

I giggle chuckle and laugh lots. people think I'm weird for it! lol.

I should just start a religion which requires regular meditation throughout the day. so that when I go work I can say "look see this is my religious practices so it's important that I only work for 45 minutes and then meditate for 15!" and then I would no longer suffer for lack of smoke breaks this is a joke that idk if anyone will get but who knows maybe it is easier to enjoy than I expect

no, leo is perfect in every way, and has nothing left to improve. he can no longer change in anyway. all things about him are solved.

do you cuddle? do you like cuddling? does cuddling relate to self-actualization? does that matter? what is cuddling like? (I don't currently have opportunities to go out and find out for myself - so I'm interested in the thoughts of those of you that do) the few times friends in the past have been all "let's cuddle" I just didn't. I was too nervous lol. so I've always wondered - is cuddling really so exciting? if only I had opportunities now to find out. sorry if this question is kind of - "only you can know silly, go find out" I would if I could. right now I just don't have social skills it'll be several years before I can find out- that is, if I prioritize being social

@Damien ooh good vid - thanks for the referral

@Nahm what list on topic, I actually was looking for self-help videos when I stumbled on leo. so well I guess that even tho it didn't effect me that he always posts videos consistently - what consistency did matter to me was how his themes are self-referential and he refers to them again and again. It helped me to see the links of insight faster. and his quality of work is consistent, I ended up only watching vids from the actualized.org channel for a bit, just because I could click on any of them and find solid, inspiring content.

I don't really do that, retain info about people that inspire me. tho currently I am working on improving my motivation and ability to be inspired, passionate. but I'm working on that by content of ideas, not by looking for people to be a muse. like, what gets me up and going in the morning is often focussing on something that I want to do.

I"m very aware of the progress I am making so I know that it is worth it. but I feel impatient, There are some goals I want to be working towards but I cannot because some other goals need to be met first and I am not super excited about the midway. so I get tired and worn out, and I'm so unmotivated. I manage to make efforts towards me more immediate goals, and like I said there is considerable marks of progress all around. but I just feel so done with this. In my mind I have the idea of me having an independent life and I like that idea and I can see various paths to get there and I want those paths. but at the same time, I want to just idk somehow be in a situation where I don't have to work and someone else carries my financial burden because they enjoy having me around. like sure, a relationship, I admit it. what a codependent life lol. but I just wish I Could play my video games all day and not care about the world and just stop doing work. when I had high anxiety it was really easy to do the hard emotional labor because the alternative was harder emotional labor. but ever since overcoming that anxiety, slowly I've been getting this weird sense of impatient frustration and I just... it's difficult finding that will to face the hard emotional labor. as I usually do. this is just a rambling of thoughts. there is no real point to me creating the thread except to put what is loose leaf and abstract in my head, into concrete words and a structured rant. the posting in and of itself is helpful in inspiring self-insight :3 but naturally any responses I Will find meaningful, and it's always a nice feeling to get attention from other humans :3 thanks for your time, dear reader. hope you found my rambling thought provoking or something :3

I say, "romantic" in the phrase "romantic relationship" is nothing more than an honorary classification that explains "close, intimate, trusting, and ongoing" such a relationship could be with anyone. for certain reasons of course you prefer one gender, and certain personalities, and certain looks, and etc. but really, it is a matter of cultivating the self, trusting in the other, cultivating that trust, and cultivating the relationship. this is all there is to it. what is the illusion is the fantasy of "soul mate, perfect love, intuitive knowledge that they are the one true Other" lol. cute poem :3 perfect "will o wisp" trap. realize that the soul mate is you. the perfect love is you. and you are the one true Other. lol. then go out and find another wave of consciousness to Be with. if that wave waves away, then shrug it off and find another. NBD. grow through experience. easy as pie. says the girl who pushes all friends away screw humans who needs em

it would be useful for some but not for others. there is no one way which is good for all it is indeed an Idea I've considered before inspiring to see someone else think of it as well. in a way, it is sort of already happening. we are gathered here because of leo, and we post in this forum, learning from each other. sometimes I think about how leo restricts the forum in certain ways, which hinder the growth of community, and I mean he's got good reason, he wishes to cultivate a sense of us individually looking within instead of around. but I sometimes wonder, about how cultivating a strong community would be great in this way - this way where we can communicate lessons we learn to each other, and learn through verbal discussions with each other. naturally this does not replace self- insight. But there is not one way which is good for all

when I wake up I'm afraid somebody else might take my place

anxiety (aka my own mind) what a demon that chibt is!

don't bother trying to tell them what to do lol. that's so rude no matter how much you butter it up. I learned the hard lesson it really is difficult to figure out, understand, practice, and learn. That when there is more than 1 person it is a team. and when something goes wrong it is just another factor contributing to the challenge the team is working to overcome. and if there is anything you can do to help, it is what you can do to help, not what the others should do or should have done. it is about taking your own responsibility. notice this is not placing blame! just saying. "what can I do in this situation to contribute to the good outcome we want? and trusting that if it is difficult or doesn't go as complete as you and your team hopes this time. that you are both exploring options, and relecting upon the circumstances, to learn for the future how to do better to prevent and/or recover from the situations that arose this time. your parents aren't needy and they aren't controlling. stop creating flaws in others (and in yourself) it is just that certain things have happened, and also you have a certain goal in mind. stay focused on the actions you can take to work towards that goal, and trust that others are doing the same. even if someone takes an action which hinders the goal, you can't go anywhere without trying - going backwards is just the long route towards going forwards. it's taking a left turn on accident,f from being stuck in the left turn lane, so just taking it, and then taking a right turn and a left turn to get back on track. that is what "doing the wrong thing" really is. if someone asks for advice on what they can do, that is the time to speak up on what you saw. and honestly, it's much more effective when you've spent a year thinking about how there is no blame. the advice you give is 1) more insightful, due to its lack of bieas 2) more meaningful to hear, due to its lack of bias 3) more meaningful to say, due to its lack of bias lol. I didn't even plan that but it's true. removing blame makes a Huge difference in understanding circumstances and moving forward from them in a productive, learning manner.

there are times often when I feel "just done" and if I take a short break it helps. I think it is something to do with the brain using up a certain something and then we are worn out because were using the mental resources. idk. any suggestions about what I can eat or drink which can help refresh my body's reserves? I am not even sure how to start to research this. and so I ask for advice because I'd pretty much not commit resources to figuring it out at this time, unless I had some good tips. so I'm not looking for any deep insights here, just like... what is it that you often eat or drink that picks you up? I like coconut water, for example. I feel guilty if I buy a lot of it tho so I don't! but when I do buy it it is always a huge pickup emotionally and energy-wise. orange juice was also something I used to love, but I don't anymore becuase it's soo high in sugar and I used to prettymuch consume sugar all day so OJ is too potent for me anymore

well idk about for you and your history but for me. idk I can't really identify why I have difficulty with humans yet. and in many ways I'm actually quite excellent at interacting, but it's kind of... it isn't what is needed in other ways. idk. but what I've done in this past year is worked on becoming self-reliant, that when I am in a foul mood I am able to negotiate with it myself without need of others. it isn't the best thing because it truly is wonderful to have person-to-person contacts and I do still try to find them when I can. but the difference is that I'm working on being stable without what I find best. being stable because of myself, being satisfied with my self, and focusing on things in ways which keep me moving, because when I am in motion I am not wallowing and that is what I need most really. sometimes I wallow but when I do I am mindful of the fact that I'm choosing it.

I've never understood the apparent need for happiness I see in various people. I find happiness every day. I found leo's videos because I was dealing with a long period of common and extreme anxiety, and was watching a lot of you tube self-help, mostly ted talks really, and stumbled upon leos work. really it was only a hyper-packaged sort of stuff I'd always been doing in my life, seeking awareness of my "flaws" so to speak in order to improve and become more wholesome in mental capabilities. So his videos hugely assisted me in bringing into the light ideas that were already brewing in my thoughts, finding clarity or consistency and enabling me to take action upon things I was unable to quite make a decision on. or even notice yet that I was thinking of it. I find that I am more stable in my moods than before and less "petty" so to speak than before, and also than people around me too. but moreover I've learned to project onto others less, and have noticed people who are on a higher level of consiousness that before I dismissed as arrogant or fools. I did not understand a lot of the language that is wisdom, and so I imagined wisdom was often... well I think the stereotype is, useless, false highs. fool's gold. so really if anything I have become more aware of how people shine, rather than how they are left behind. after all, success is possible from any level of consiousness, and happiness, satisfaction... it is just one paradigm that I prefer. If I am to believe that the others' paradigms are somehow "less happy" ones... I have not really embraced this paradigm correctly so to speak. it's funny for me now to say words like "should" and "correct" and etc. becasue they still are in my language but when I say them they carry a very different meaning than before. so often I need to edit my language for the sake of others - and often I say it feeling like I'm not delivering the right message because what is heard is moralization but what is meant is just. idk - what is wanted, what we are trying to embrace.

super secret hint - leo lies some times for the purpose of delivering a point oh wait we all lie all the time because words do not contain the truth! they only point the way. a lie points the way to the truth just as effectively as a... not-lie. which is also a lie anyway. er, hard to express these things! I guess that's the point

things I think about language are the following. they may help but it's hard to experess them really, or even honestly, it's hard to capture these experiences into an idea in the first place. I had to teach myself to think in words. I naturally, thought in. well, in something else. I've said before, that it's been in concepts, or in emotions, or in a tactile sensation which is not exactly comparable to touch. with these internal processes of thinking, I've been able to create and process and explore rich worlds, and deep contemplations, and act as the muse for conversation, despite naturally not thinking in language itself. I just held onto the ideas and memories and etc. in a different way. nowadays I think a lot in words however, it is a lot easier to interact with the lingual world this way, using language itself. next thought is understanding that things are completely and utterly formless. we create form with our... well I've always said with our mind but as Leo points out even our mind and the creating of forms, is a form we've created our selves! I've recently said to a friend, that I've never liked the phrase "think outside the box" because as a creative, "outside the box" thinker so to speak, that just really doesn't capture what's being done. at least not my style of it so to speak. that it is more like, creating my own box. destroying or ignoring the box. I could compare any two things as if they are indistinguishable. the difference between two "separate" identities we form, is only by the lines we've imagined ourselves. note that by "identity" I am refering to every single word as well, not just the concepts of "male" and "Hispanic" and "comedian" but also the identity of "the" or "hello" or "meow". I think this is the last thought I'm sharing - it is.... hm, about how what I choose to name "understanding" and "knowing" are not the same at all. I say that "knowing" is holding a fact, being able to recite information, whether that recital is precise or always paraphrased. but this form "knowing" is not "understanding" understanding is what happens when we are able to put the food into our mouth. or when someone says our name and we look up to see who is addressing us. I used action to show it but here is my attempt to esplain - understanding is how we truly know a thing, when the words we are reciting are no longer a recital but instead an explanation of... well, understanding. let me do this another way - at the moment after studying when we experience a moment of insight and go "oooh! now I know" that is how we might exclaim that we've suddenly come to understand. before we only knew, we had flash cards and where memorizing information. so the thing about understaning is, that understanding can never ever ever be transferred from one person to another. or from a book to our self. understanding is only ever created by our own labor of contemplation. With language, we can only ever try to share knowledge, but only hope that in sharing of knowledge we somehow assist the listener in finding that spark of understanding. or perhaps they've already spent the effort to understand before - and so they understand what we are saying. language is common knowledge. we trust that when we say "rose" the other person understands the same thing we are pointing to. but we have no way of truly knowing - what "rose" that person imagines. maybe it is a design. maybe it is a black rose instead of a white rose. maybe it is a person they know or used to know. maybe they think we are talking about waking up in the morning!

well then can it really be said they are so finite then

would there be infinity if there was no existence?

we can even claim that one does not ever grasp the infinite. in "Grasping" this is a finite experience

a play on "nothing" :3 nothing is no thing. well, except that is a thing, so it's not that either.

I have always been a person who pursues self-improvement and that will never change. And I find Leo's work and similar videos inspiring, and will continue to both practice mindfulness, self-reflection, and youtube as a resource, for increasing my capabilities in life. But I don't find there to be much merit in the pursuit of direct meditation habit, searching for enlightenment, nonduality, or Leo's idea of authenticity and self-actualization, not for me. I'm looking for some people to respond to my thought on it. Basically, I've found a loss of meaning in what is done - whether I find enlightenment many ways, or am a person who is trapped in the lower self, nothing about the universe or existence itself changes in anyway. it is only a change in perspective - and this change in perspective is not something I really want. it's nice Leo's video of the 10 things you want but don't know it - but I just don't really find much meaning in "Wanting" or "desires" and whenever I say that I "want" a thing it is always just a decision. I want to relax, aka, I will now take the day off. Sure there are emotional drives that I notice - but in the end I always am making a conscious decision in these acts. What I intend to pursue regarding those is cultivating my focus and my mindfulness in the moment. Some times I may meditate as a way to increase these, but the habit I will form regarding meditation is mindfulness in the moment, or short breaks of self-observation or meditation, or a short break of a kind of intuitive release. something in a video I saw about allowing the mind to wander. so I will be using meditation as-needed, not as a habit. most often I will just lay down and nap, or if I'm on the work, take a walk outside. these are not "meditation" lol! but there is a way to make them like meditation, and that's what I'd be working on. The thing about nonduality and the authentic self - chasing that accomplishes what, enlightenment? I trust that enlightenment would be a great thing, and maybe later in life I will pursue it. but now - there are more pressing things in my life - and that is the thing. even in nonduality there is duality. (and even in duality there is nonduality) I was thinking about this before, and I've self-observed minimally, the other day. And as I sat in self-observation this morning I noticed a curious thing - when my eyes are open I see rich imagery, and when my eyes are closed I see no imagery at all. I do not fabricate images when my eyes are closed. this is something I always knew but - the point is, even if I find the enlightened perspective of how I really understand how all things are as one, infinity, nothingness, however you wish to call it. We go on living life as normal, just with a new perspective. Pursuing that is necessarily an endeavor of ego and duality! and even if we had a perfectly nondual perspective, there is necessarily a vibration of energy however way we theorize it which creates the illusions of duality and that won't change. I will not in my life find a situation where I'm a monk meditating all day in order to be as authentic as possible - in fact if I wished to be as authentic as possible I would just decopose as quickly as possible - but I do not do that because the splash of dual existence is nothing in comparison to infinity, that the true authentic path is to allow my splash to naturally unfold. our duality is itself the authentic nature of existence. and my splash does not follow a path towards monk-dom, and now I find it does not seek enlightenment. I do not really know what the ego is - in my perspective, ego and duality are one and the same. after all, all things are nondual in the end - the duality is just the illusion - right? but even that cannot be known. it's advised that nonduality can be directly experienced and witnessed - but so can the duality. I heard recently a person say, "what is "Real" in meaning? it is just an honorary title." and he said something about how in quantum mechanics, we call one thing or the other thing real but both realities are equally valid. This falls the same with duality v nonduality. both are valid. and if I were to fully pursue nonduality to be as nondual as possible - I would be discarding the dual existence that it so convincing. as I've mentioned before in this post - my perspective at hand is that in infinity my splash on the "consciousness field" so to speak is irrelevant - the perspective shifts create flow and being - and I can work on those without needing to dump my efforts into nonduality and enlightenment. through mindfulness, and being. It is not necessary for me to sit and contemplate enlightenment and nonduality, in order to exercise my ability to be present and aware. and in my limited life I will not reach the level of enlightenment of a monk - I will have significant dual existence, and it is more to my merit to work on making my dual existence one in the present moment, strategic, and aware. Sometimes I will meditate. sometimes I will self-observe. sometimes I will contemplate existence. but mostly I will practice mindfulness in the active moments. I will work on flow and focus and strategy, and work on negotiating my emotions so that they are no more than an experience, and not a tide which consumes my being. I will work on my practical skills beyond these - my skills of cooking, minimal lifestyle, employment. not in the immediate moment and future, but I will find life purpose both in work and in casual pursuit - maybe they will even tie into each other or be one and the same - but right now my "life purpose" is becoming self-sustainable within the next five years - not a 20-year goal - but it is what motivates me. I may be focusing my current efforts on picking myself out of my chair. walking to a new place. laying my hands upon some object. and manipulating in. this is what I've found to get me moving in an effective way - along with the various paradigm shifts which allowed me to focus on my work in this way. but by no means is this an enlightened decision. by no means is this "the final shift" by no means do I think I will stop self-improving, and self-actualization completely, just because I found a certain perspective that leads to this decision. But the path I am following is not the path of enlightenment and nonduality. it is a path of duality. and this is the path I follow. I feel that I have always been more in touch with intuition than the others around me. I do not know for sure what "intuition" means or how to truly tell that my ideas come from intuition instead of logic. and IMO - intuition and logic are like yin and yang - one cannot exist without the other. but I feel as if I am following intuition on several levels. and I know that logic is a part of my decision. But I do not feel that this is a decision of Ego. well - like I said - it is because ego is really just all of duality. but I have in the past been strongly swayed by my ego, but in this moment - I am swayed by intuition. maybe it is an intuitive response to a logical clinging onto duality. but I cannot just up and discard my duality - which means I will have restricted resources, or even wither away and die, if I try to focus on nonduality in my present life situation. I need to improve my dual existence first before it can even be worth pursuing enlightenment and nonduality - and I won't even pretend to carry on the assumption that that "will" happen later - that would be holding onto ego Thank you for allowing me to type this out. speaking and righting is another form of thinking and processing. I also look forward to any and all responses to my expressions here. and while I will minimize my forum use both here and elsewhere in the future - they consume me with ego, forums. I find it too distracting and too much of an influence on my emotional consumption -which is something I am working to minimize. so be it. but I will not kill my forum use outright - after all, expressing is a form of thinking, and the dual experience of the Other is an extension of my self that I must not sever off