jjer94

perfectionism. I was chatting with a friend earlier about perfectionism, which reminded me of an insight I had a while back: Perfectionism is one of my subtle addictions. This realization was almost like finding a trapdoor under the stage, where gears and levers control the actors. The actors were distracting me from what was going on underneath. Perfectionism has snuck its slimy tentacles into nearly every aspect of my life. When one area feels "cured" of it, it shows up elsewhere: School grades - Back when I was in school, for as long as I can remember, I was obsessed with getting straight A's. Staying organized - My dad deemed me "president of the organized club" because everything on my bedroom shelves had to be in their perfect positions. Video games - I've already talked about this one. Min/maxing addiction is analogous to perfectionism addiction. Morning/bedtime routines - Sometimes I can get neurotic about keeping routines, and I get agitated when they're disrupted. Judging others/putting self on pedestal - This was a much bigger problem in the past when I was in "spiritual ego" stage. I tend to judge people based on their level of consciousness, like my parents. I look up to "higher consciousness" people and look down on "lower consciousness" people, which can give me condescending tendencies. In other words, I expect people to be perfect. Cringing with perfect pitch - This is a random one. Back when I was developing perfect pitch, I would cringe in choir at anyone who sang too flat or too sharp. I expected everyone to be on pitch, and would sometimes even call people out on it. Guitar - When I'm learning something new on guitar, I expect to have it down perfectly after only one or two practice sessions. I criticize myself if I don't. Making music - When I'm recording my stuff, I try to make everything perfect. Ironically, this makes me mess up and do more takes. It also dissuades me from recording more music, because of the high amount of micromanaging required. Personal development - Seeing the self as impure and in need of purification. Orthorexia (first paleo, then vegan, then raw vegan, then fruitarian, then keto, now bulletproof) - Seeing the body as impure and in need of purification. Minimalism - Seeing my belongings as cluttered and in need of sorting. So what's the cure? As with everything else, awareness. Half of these items on the list don't affect me much anymore, such as video games and staying organized, just because I've become aware of the triggers. But here are a few other notes worth mentioning: Practicing self-acceptance - Seeing things as imperfect means that I see myself as imperfect. Acceptance of the inner world brings acceptance to the outer world. Adopt a satisficer mindset - If the perfectionist is a maximizer, the opposite is a satisficer. A satisficer is someone who is okay with "good enough" rather than "perfect." (These terms come from Barry Schwartz's Paradox of Choice) Meditate, especially Strong Determination Sitting - This practice forces me to be okay with imperfections: pained back, feet falling asleep, butt sliding off the cushion, monkey mind that won't shut up, etc. Realize lack of free will (through meditation or contemplation) - When I try to control everything and then realized that control is just an illusion, I'm learning to relax a bit and let the universe take over. Realize that everything is perfect as it is - Same as the above point. This'll probably take a while. I love you, I love you I mean it, I want feel it God help me feel it...

@Gabriel Antonio Yeah...the deeper I go down this rabbit-hole, the more of a mindfuck it becomes. I dig it. I also dig the tunes, thanks for sharing! @Natasha

@Gabriel Antonio Funny you mention Ayahuasca...I was planning on doing it a year ago, but my parents won't let me (even though I'm an adult). Now in the past two months I've had three separate dreams in which I imbibed the medicine and had insights. In general, my parents don't support travel. They're very conservative and believe that the world is out to get them, that society is falling apart and that there's nothing to gain through travel other than risk. It's very dissuading, especially when I don't really have any friends to travel with, and the parents would really only let me travel if I had a friend to go with. Remember what you said about micromanaging parents, @Natasha ? Yes, I definitely sympathize with your opinion of psychedelics. My first LSD trip was like 1000 talk therapy sessions in ten hours, and the psilocybin has been just as powerful. I see the light more and more, but with that comes supreme resistance from within and without. Thank you for sharing!

@Natasha Oh my God... thank you so much for pointing this out to me, because I'm starting to realize this myself and I feel guilty for having the urge to cut ties. As I learn to accept my parents and forgive them for their shortcomings, I'm learning to accept myself and forgive my own shortcomings. And as I begin to do that, I'm beginning to think that the next step to accepting my parents and myself is to keep my distance. The truth is, I don't want anything to do with them. Talking to them kind of feels like a chore, because whenever I do speak openly, they don't get me. And in fact, most of the time they scorn me. There's no point in trying to make it work with them. It's more selfish to continue being close and secure with all of them just to avoid confronting my limiting beliefs (especially with money and career), than it is to be honest and risk being ostracized. I'm really doing them a disservice. Until I decide to be true to myself, I will continue to be a parasite. Thanks again for the wisdom. My mind is racing.

golden teacher. Last leg? Pffft. Nice try, survival machine. Truth is, I have matured over these past three years. A lot. I just have a hard time remembering. And emotions have been raw lately, no doubt. A lot of old baggage is coming up to be released. In particular, the anger, especially towards my family. No wonder why the universe brought me back to them. I've spent the past two years traveling and road trippin' and farming and exploring, all to realize that I've been running away from them. I've also been running away from myself, but that's a given. Referring back to Ralston's Book of Not Knowing has been helpful. Here's what he says about anger, which is confirmed in my direct experience: I felt a sense of neglect very early on. My mom weaned me only when I was a month old because she was too stressed out to make any more milk. We moved to the suburbs when I was only four months old, so my parents were heavily focused on the move. I have an older brother with low-functioning autism, so growing up with him has made me feel like a third-priority child. From my perspective, it seemed as though everything was about him and my louder middle brother. Always talk of getting more help, finding a new program for him, etc etc. I'm small in stature. My older brother and my dad ganged up on me and often used me as a punching bag. "Come on jj, quit being a little girl!" I used to be addicted to video games because it was my only way to escape the reality in which I felt so shitty about myself. At least in the video game world, I could be as powerful as I wanted. But my dad would only allow me to play on the weekends, and he insisted that I call "friends." (one of those "friend" groups ended up ditching me in middle school.) Having my coping mechanism micro-managed like this just made me want to play more. On a visceral level, I can feel my body in this constant state of tension. Hurt. Depression of the past, anxiety of the future. Constantly searching for the love I felt I didn't have in my earlier years. Feeling like a third-priority child made me feel inferior as a human being, as though something were wrong with me. Again, being a punching bag breeds the inferiority complex. I felt like my dad never understood me or my condition, and he still doesn't. This sense of inferiority breeds a sense of incapacity. The core beliefs: "I'm not good enough." "I don't deserve love, even though I need it." "I am subordinate." Dad is my target. I can read him like a book. His chimpery and utter hypocrisy is laughable. I want to push all of his buttons and destroy his fortress of ego to make myself feel capable, to get revenge, and to get attention. I figure that by proselytizing him, I can get him to understand where I'm coming from and maybe receive some love and appreciation for it. But the truth is, he is who he is. He's not going to change, and there's nothing I can do about it. A few days ago, I had an enormous release while tripping on 2g of golden teacher. I put myself in my parents' shoes and realized that they're just as clueless as I am. I imagined living in the early 90s, and receiving the news that my son was not normal. I experienced the utter heartbreak, hopelessness, and doubt. How could I afford taking care of him? Could I cure him? What about the other kids I want to have? Will they be autistic too? I see why my parents are the way they are. I see why my dad is a perfectionist control freak. Why he's so conservative. Why he's so protective and pragmatic and misanthropic. Why he's so afraid. He had to be, in order to be the father of an autistic child. I also see why my mom is so submissive. Why she's so coddling. Why she's also so protective. Why she's so afraid. She had to be, in order to be the mother of an autistic child and the wife of a control freak. And there I was, caught in the middle of it all, oblivious to what they were really going through. With this new understanding, I'm a lot less angry at my dad. The triggers feel like they're lessening day by day through the light of awareness. In fact, I feel a sort of tenderness for them and their current issues. These psychedelics, when used in the right way, have been 100x more effective than the 15+ years of talk therapy and 4+ years of antidepressants I've used. It's a shame that they're commonly stigmatized.

david and goliath. I'm not sure if I'll be able to rise up out of my own bullshit. I think I've reached my last leg. I'm tired and lonely as fuck. I feel like nothing's changed. I've meditated, stretched, breathed, read hundreds of books, tried pursuing a higher purpose with music for three years. I even went out and busked in front of hundreds of people on a busy street on several occasions. But nothing will remove the guilt of my friend's suicide. Nothing will remove the endless rage I have for my father and my brother. Nothing will remove the anguish I feel when I contemplate life's utter lack of meaning. Nothing will remove the sense of deficiency I feel constantly. Nothing will remove the inner critic that tells me that I suck at making music and that I should quit like I did a decade ago. From what I (barely) remember (seriously, I can hardly remember my past), I used to feel joy as a kid. I also used to cry a lot, but I used to feel genuine joy. Now, I can barely feel my feet. They're cold and sometimes numb. There's a tension deep in my navel that's been around since the suicide, and I haven't been able to go to the bathroom without assistance from an enema. Talking to my parents is like talking to fucking automatons. Especially my Dad. All he does is hoard, protect, hoard, protect, perpetuate his identity, rinse, repeat. All is logic to him, and little does he realize that his emotions are telling him that. Do you know how frustrating it is to try to communicate with someone like that? It's like trying to talk to a broken record. Like someone from another dimension. And I hold my tongue as much as I can, because money. The slimy, manipulative fuck that I am. And now, here I go again. As I'm drowning and sinking back down into the depths, I come back to this forum platform. For what? Do I really expect someone to throw a line out for me? To give me some magical bullshit word-formula that I've already heard in the 100+ books I've read? What the hell do I want? Nothing? Then what the fuck am I doing? What's the point of living if I don't even want anything? What's the point of trying to drive a car that doesn't want to start? I have a doc appointment in ten days, but I don't really expect too much, since it's a western doctor. He'll probably say it's depersonalization or DTD and give me some tranquilizers with questionable side effects so I can continue to plod along and chew my cud like all the other somnambulistic zombies (i.e. my family) out there. Treating symptoms not causes, as per usual. It's so sad. This physical, social, emotional and spiritual disconnection. Part of me wants to give life and everything a great big hug. But then there's the other part that doesn't want to be hurt again, doesn't want to be rejected again for the 10487th time and reminded once again that he's a defective piece of shit. But it's already too late, since he believes he's a defective piece of shit and it seems that no amount of mirror affirmations or inner child work will fix that. The fears are endless, and the walls are high. I've got no other enemy but myself. David and Goliath. At least I have this beaut of a song.

@Mad Max That quantum stuff gives you nasty glowing pee though...I prefer Sunset Sarsaparilla.

@Joseph Maynor Dude. Take it easy on the psychedelics! No more than one trip every two weeks, ideally one trip per month. The most important part of the trip is what you can take away from it - the integration phase after the trip. Integration can take several days or even weeks. But if you're tripping, like, every other day, which is what it seems like you're doing, you won't be able to glean any juicy insights from them. Instead, psychedelics will just become another addiction, done for the sake of the high rather than the sake of truth. Also, it's simply not good for the psyche to trip with such frequency. You run the risk of some serious neurological damage down the road. I say all of this not with an aire of superiority, but as a fellow psychonaut. All the best.

It's funny. I would have said a couple months ago that there are basically no cons to cutting out meat from the diet. All those vegan-propaganda documentaries like Forks Over Knives and What the Health bash animal products and really convinced me that they're all bad. Then, going even further, all the raw vegans/fruitarians say that even cooked food is harmful to the body. They talk about these fuzzy concepts like acid/alkaline balance, mucus/immune response to cooked food, detoxification, and species-specific diets - from sources dating back almost 100 years (I'm looking at you, Arnold Ehret). Then they top it off with the spiritual reasons for doing it, how it helps to raise the kundalini and all that. There's no convincing them that their way may not be the only way. I was one of them. I wouldn't listen to my family and friends, even when my hair was falling out, my muscles were wasting (lost 20 lbs total from already being a skinny 130lbs), I was endlessly tired, had no libido, and was breaking out like crazy. Noo, but it's detox, they say. So I kept going. Five months later... I lost my motivation to do anything besides prepare meals and think about the next ones. I isolated myself because all those other people out there were "impure" and didn't resonate with my agenda of purity. But then I snapped one day and had to go home because I probably would have died if I didn't. I reached the point where I had a hard time forming coherent sentences. That's when I knew it was time to try animal products again. So I started eating local pastured eggs. Instantly my energy came back. My hair's strength returned. My libido returned. Then I ate local grass-fed beef, and that's when the rest returned to me. I hopped aboard the ketogenic/Bulletproof diet and have been at it ever since. It's working pretty dang well for me. I gained back those twenty pounds in a matter of weeks, and actually have the motivation to exercise and lift weights again. Okay, ramblings aside. The point is, you just have to test drive these diets for yourself. It's very useful to educate yourself on the subject of diet, but you're going to find conflicting information all over the place. That's the nature of the beast. We're frugivores, we're carnivores. We should cook our food to avoid lectins, we shouldn't cook our food to obtain the maximum amount of biophotons. Don't just take anyone's word that you should eat X and avoid Y. Try them. Do you feel good after eating X? How about Y? Brain fog and bloating? Or clarity and energy? I happen to think that everyone's digestive tract is a little different. Some do really well with a little meat in the diet (I'm one of them), and some do better with lighter proteins like legumes. Some people thrive on a vegetarian, vegan, or even raw vegan diet. At least right now, I'm not one of them, though I wish I could. Another benefit of this approach is that you can take what works from one diet and combine it with another. I'm glad I went through the vegan phase, because now I have a much larger appreciation for eating quality vegetables. In fact, they're a main staple of my diet, moreso than the animal products at the moment. I also realized that gluten and pretty much all grains give me deadly gas and mood swings, so I tend to stay away. Oh, and most dairy makes me break out. So as the gurus say. Don't take my word for it. Use your direct experience. A good lesson for all domains of life. On a final note, don't take diet too seriously. It's not the end-all-be-all to health. Cheers, friend.

a farewell, for now. At least for now, I don't feel the need to write here anymore. My personal journal will suffice. Most of what I read and write here is just circle-jerking, and it's all a big fat distraction from the things I need to do right now. The whole field of personal development has left a bitter taste in my mouth lately. I feel like most of it is just another huge ego trip, a shuffling around of concepts and ideas in our mental prisons. We build all these habits and routines, say this affirmation, do this exercise, but for what? Because we actually want to do it, or because we feel that we need to fix ourselves? Because we like the activity, or because we need to find a new way to police ourselves because school is done? I see so many young people on this forum going through what I went through, the "I-want-Leo's-life-purpose" phase, where they get so obsessed and gung-ho about spirituality and PD that they completely forget about all the other aspects of their life until life itself becomes this bland, lonely mess, and they're sitting on top of their self-righteous mountain looking down at the "unconscious" people believing they have it all figured out but wondering in the back of their minds why they're still not happy. Hopefully, it's a phase. As Jed McKenna said, we are self-fertilizing animals. We rise up out of our bullshit, or we don't. My focus right now is on healing my body's energetics, as well as cultivating the innate bodily joy that I felt while tripping on LSD. I want my life to feel internally grounded. I don't like to force things. I want to do things out of an innate desire to do it, not because it's a chore. And this writing's beginning to feel a bit like a chore. Finding a mentor would be pretty dope too, but I have no idea how to do that. Anyway. I wish y'all the best on your journey to nowhere. And feel free to PM. I'll be around. JJ.

agape moments. Around an hour ago, I had one of those agape moments. You know, one of those moments where you feel so grateful to be alive that the crying, screaming, and tears become so uncontrollable and they begin to climax in this totally epic waking-up blissful explosion. I haven't had an agape moment for over six months. What triggered this one was my car ride home from the dentist. I was listening to music, and for the first time in a long time, I passionately sang along to it. I was utterly flabbergasted, considering for the past four months or so I have had ZERO motivation to do anything except mope around, be a hermit, and watch youtube videos so I could be militant towards other people's beliefs and hate humanity. I was so surprised that I began crying of joy. I was worried that my passion was gone for good. But it's slowly but surely coming back. And it's not the "I want to like this again so that other people will praise me" kind of passion. It's the "I want to make love to life for no reason" kind of passion. To what do I owe this surge of passion? Well, the only thing I've changed in the past couple weeks is my diet. Seems very likely that nutritional deficiency was the culprit of my muscular, psychological, motivational, physical, and spiritual degeneration. I think the vegan diet is very noble. Some people maybe thrive on it. But in my experience, it's definitely not the right one for my circumstances right now. You have to be very careful and make sure to supplement, because there are a few nutrients that you literally cannot get from plants. And just because the nutrition facts say it contains a particular nutrient doesn't mean it will all be absorbed, which is especially the case with plant foods due to anti-nutrients. There's a stereotype that goes around about how militant vegans are, how they love animals but hate their fellow humans. Based on my experience with the diet, I think a lot of those irritable vegans have nutritional deficiencies. Less than a month ago, I was on the porch, unable to get up because my legs felt like lead weights, unable to communicate, depressed and suicidal and angry at everyone. Now, after only two weeks of reintroducing meat and going keto, I actually WANT to work out and do stuff, to be outside, to breathe in the fresh air. I respect my family more and feel the urge to actually communicate. I'm not so irritable. I had the agape moment. A few other symptoms: No cravings. This is the most bizarre symptom. On the vegan diet, I never felt satisfied or satiated, and craved nothing but sugar and wheat products. On this diet, I have no cravings at all. I can go hours without thinking about food. And when hunger hits, it's not a violent gnawing as much as it is a call to eat. No bloating. All the starches and grains made me bloat like a mofo. On this diet, no bloating. I'm beginning to see the six-pack emerge once again. No brain fog. No post-meal comas. Less trouble communicating. Libido. It's back. That was my biggest concern on the vegan diet: I had absolutely no sex drive. Now I can actually feel my dick again. My extremities also aren't as cold. I'm excited to see what happens over the next few weeks.

(in the voice of Arnold) i'm back. I've been reluctant to write lately. Not just because of the video games, or because I don't feel like it. It's mostly because I've made a few drastic changes and I don't like to be judged. Now, I say screw it. I shall display my mistakes openly. I shall be who I am at this moment and feel the lightness of praise and the sting of criticism. I shall be poetic as possible by using as many "shall"s as I shall. I went a total 180 on diet to the "dark side." I'm eating a la Dave Asprey's Bulletproof Diet. Someone suggested it to me in my other journal, so I looked into it. Thanks @West ! My body was telling me to eat meat, so I decided to slowly chew on a grass-fed burger patty from our half-cow. The next day, I felt like a million bucks. I make my own version of bulletproof coffee in the morning: chaga tea, vanilla, cinnamon, kerrygold butter, and mct oil. Sooo good. It keeps me going until the afternoon. Tonight, I ate a smaller portion of new york strip steak from our cow. Again, feel amazing. Two nights ago, I had a sweet potato meal. Felt like a bloated balloon, couldn't think straight. Then, for my mom's birthday last night we had Italian. Wheat and pasta galore. Not only was I bloated, brain-fogged and craving sugar like crazy, this morning I was depressed and having a temper tantrum. I don't seem to do well with grains in general. My desire to have purpose is back. My skin is clearing up. No sugar cravings. No hunger every two hours. Energy and focus are skyrocketing due to dipping in and out of ketosis. I actually WANT to do sprints and go to the gym. And the most amazing thing is, my libido is back. On the vegan/raw vegan diet, I had zero libido, which was kind of scary. Now that I'm eating meat again, I feel like a sex-starved chimp. Based on what I'm learning about chakras, this all makes sense. The muladhara (base) chakra's associated nutrient is PROTEIN. Now that I'm flooding my body with dense animal protein, I feel more grounded. Of course, I had to battle with my ethics to eat meat again. I also had to let go of all the things I've learned from Dr. Morse, John Rose, Gabriel Cousens, Brian Clement, Dr. Greger, the vegan documentaries, et cetera. Well, not necessarily. I still think a lot of what they teach is valid. But I had to listen to my body. Direct experience trumps hearsay. Learning = behavior change. I still will not support factory farming. I will buy only pastured grass-fed meats and eggs. I'm still sprouting, eating seaweed and sauerkraut, and doing my chlorella/spirulina too. Ya know, all that healthy vegan stuff. But I'm supplementing it with high-quality animal protein. I'm also not cooking it to death, as to preserve the nutrition. As I grow older, I'm learning not to say "I will always_______" or "I will never __________". The only thing constant in the universe is change. And you either go with or against it.

the bethesda games. I just had a major insight while writing in my personal journal and felt the need to write it here, in order to flush it out. The reason I haven't been writing much here is due to a relapse of video game addiction. To be expected, since this place is too damn comfortable and I'm too damn unsatisfied with myself and my life circumstances. I began yearning for all the old games I used to play: Age of Empires II, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Final Fantasy X, Banjo Tooie, etc. I even booted up a couple of them using Steam and project 64. But the moment I started playing them, I'd become unsatisfied and quit within minutes... Except for Skyrim. Fucking Skyrim. The single-player Bethesda games (in particular the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series) are drug-like in nature. They give you an addicting reward system, but don't give you much else. You expect their next game to have more depth, only to discover the opposite: stream-lined choices, poor voice acting and writing, broken game mechanics, terrible bugs... But that doesn't stop you from exploring their vast open worlds and fighting endless hordes of the same enemies. Because there's always the chance that that one chest will give you that daedric helmet you've been searching for... When you add mods into the mix, it's a perfect recipe for addiction. So you're not just addicted to the game itself, but you're also addicted to finding the best mods for your playthrough. A couple days ago, I found myself quitting several times within minutes of playing, only to add this mod, remove that mod, tweak the load order, etc... My brain was buzzing a couple days ago. It wouldn't shut up. I played 'till 3 in the morning. Meditation the next morning was a doozy, but I'm so glad I stuck with it because it snapped me out of the haze. Fortunately, awareness has had a cumulative effect over the years. The more I try to return to my old ways, the more painful and depressed I become, and the more I realize I can't. Earlier tonight, I was researching video game's effects on brain chemistry, and it occurred to me just how much the Bethesda games have had an impact on the way I approach life: Exploration. Bethesda's open-world games are heavy on exploration, but they are also known for being "as wide as an ocean, as deep as a puddle." In other words, conducive to the dabbler mindset, as described in George Leonard's Mastery. I've had lots of dabbling issues through the years. Music and self-actualization have been two of the only things I've really stuck with. Min-maxing. I've talked about this before. Bethesda games are a gold mine for the min-maxing gamers. This tendency to try to create the perfect character has fizzled over into my everyday life, hence my perfectionism, feelings of self-deficiency, and obsession with personal development and trying to acquire a complete understanding of life, as Leo puts it. Reward. The dopamine-fueled reward systems in these games (new level, new quest rewards, new location discovered, new perks) wire you to chase after the newest, easiest "high." In other words, the hedonic treadmill. I think everyone's been on it before at some point in their lives. People. This one's a biggie. Especially true in Bethesda games, video game characters can feel hollow at times. There usually aren't many dialogue options besides questions, and the characters' passive dialogue can get pretty repetitive. The lack of dialogue options makes you more passive in the conversation and less interested in the character's backstory. Oh my lord, this resonates so much with my life and how I deal with people. I usually don't have much to say in conversations, because I have a hard time thinking of things to say. I tend to ask questions and prefer to listen. I see myself and most people as two-dimensional hollow characters like in the video games...which is further exacerbated by learning more about enlightenment. The list goes on. Familiarity. Playing through these games multiple times gives you a sense of comfort and familiarity. Playing some of these games feels more "home-like" than actually living at home. Which goes to show that home is not a place, but rather a state of mind. And it seems the goal of personal development is to become so comfortable with being uncomfortable that everywhere and everything begins to feel like home. I feel like these points are just the tip of the iceberg. Writing about them has brought some clarity. It'll be much harder now to hypnotize myself back into the darkness of addiction.

this too shall pass. (even though Gandalf thinks otherwise) The honeymoon period is over, and the depression reared its ugly head. Yesterday, I was sobbing in bed. Last night, the suicidal thoughts came back. They carried over into the morning, where I couldn't get out of bed for three hours. After breakfast, I lied down on the wooden porch outside and couldn't get up for an hour and a half. The only reason I got up was to go back inside and migrate to the bedroom. Gotta be comfortable when you're contemplating death. For the rest of the afternoon I was lying there, motionless. My feet felt like lead weights. My body refused to get up. I've never gotten this low before, and let me tell you, it's fucking weird. Now I understand people with depression, when they say that they just can't. How even when given the greatest advice, they won't follow it. Their mind and body doesn't let them. It's like being stuck in a glass coffin. You can see through the glass all the things you need to do to get better, but you can't escape the coffin. All you can really do is just lie there and surrender. I knew physical exercise would help, but my legs wouldn't move. I knew watching a funny video would help, but I had no desire to distract myself. I knew talking would help, but my vocal cords wouldn't move. No motivation to live, no motivation to die, no motivation to do anything. Just lying there. As I've learned through meditation, this too shall pass (even though Gandalf likes to think otherwise). Thoughts and emotions come and go. Nothing is permanent here. And soon enough, I got up and started to stretch and move around. Something in me changed. I was more relaxed. I was not drawn to do anything for a particular outcome. I didn't feel the need to distract myself. I just...did. For the sake of doing. For the joy of it. I haven't felt that way since I was very little. So relaxed and at ease! So present and grateful. Of course, here I am again, back to "normal" neurotic self. Who knows what'll happen in the coming weeks. Fortunately, I have some support. I sometimes wish that life came with an operations manual that could tell me how to fix this broken body with guaranteed results. Fix the throat tension, the sacral tension, the chronic constipation, the jaw clenching, the impotence, the social anxiety, the self-deficient programming, the addictions to thinking and min/maxing. It's a lot harder and a lot more frustrating to fumble in the dark and test out a million different things at once without any clue of whether they will work.

@Ludwig Thank you. Yep! I'm actually in the middle of reading Spiritual Nutrition. He and Brian Clement are the two dudes that I most support in regards to their views on nutrition. While their diet plan is my ultimate goal, I just can't do it right now in my current circumstances. I've been juicing pretty much every day, eating homemade sprouts, blue-green algae, seaweed, raw nuts/seeds, etc. but I've also been craving lots of cooked food. Also sneaking some grass-fed butter here and there, and plan to try local eggs in order to ease back into becoming fat-adapted again. No interest in meat/dairy anymore though.

minception. Okay. I have had ENOUGH. Enough of protecting this "vegan" identity. I didn't go into this diet plan for the ethical reasons. I went into it for the health reasons, and the ethical/environmental/moral reasons are a plus. But what's having some butter every once in a while going to do to me? Or an omelette? I really really crave some fucking eggs right now. More than any other animal products, it's eggs and butter... I had butter today in my millet. and it was SATIATING. I didn't have the urge to eat again one hour later, like I normally do with Starch-Solution-esque meals. I do really well with some fats, not so well with solely starches. I really don't like the low-fat diet...FOR ME. In fact, I loved being in ketosis when doing Paleo. The mental focus and energy was incredible. So what I've come to learn, especially with diet but really with all realms of life: everyone is different. There is no one-diet-fits-all. But generally speaking, "Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants." As stated in the book "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. Some other modalities I think are worth trying too: intermittent/long term fasting, mostly raw foods, not combining protein and starch, and eating fruit alone. I'm so sick of restricting myself, policing myself, and policing others. Jesus fucking christ! It's made me so fucking neurotic! I need a piña colata and a nice slap in the face. Oh, and a happy-ending massage would be nice too. All of this stems from my min/maxing addiction. I used to think I was addicted to video games, back when I played them for several hours every day. But I was never addicted to them in the first place. I was addicted to min/maxing, and I still am. Min/maxing is mentioned in Leo's subtle addictions video. It basically means, the urge to constantly improve to perfection, whether it be a video game avatar or yourself. I think a lot of people like me who have turned self-development into a hobby have this addiction. In my own contemplation, I think it stems from a lack of self-acceptance/a feeling of self-deficiency, which in turn likely comes from childhood programming. Kind of funny that I'm using my min/maxing addiction to try to eradicate my min/maxing addiction. Minception...

I stopped pretending. I stopped pretending to be an enlightened person. I stopped pretending to be the fool on the hill, looking down at the "unenlightened peasants" with their petty human ways. In reality, I am the unenlightened peasant. I stopped pretending that I know everything and everyone else is clueless. In reality, I'm the clueless twenty-something. I get most of my information from books and furiously masturbate my mind. I can't even turn off the monkey mind after a year of meditating 35 minutes per day. I think that I can somehow live on this hermit tower and get paid for parroting information instead of getting real-world experience among the "clueless chimps." I stopped pretending to dislike humanity. In reality, I dislike myself. I'm not particularly dislikable, but my programming can't help it. In reality, I'm afraid of people because of what they've done to me in the past. I don't want to be hurt for the thousandth time, so naturally, I avoid them like the plague and prefer to die slowly from lack of connection. The Internet is my Wilson. I stopped pretending that enlightenment should be my top priority right now. In reality, it's just a cop out to avoid my more pressing problems. I stopped pretending that I don't have problems because "problems are just thoughts." In reality, I'm lonely, lost, impotent, and a little depressed. I'm starved for connection, haven't picked up my guitar since Ireland, and have been struggling to getting out of bed. I've forgotten how to make friends and what it means to be a friend. I'm scared because I have no sex drive, not even to masturbate. I have no idea where I'm going or what the hell I'm doing once the lease runs out at the end of August. I beat myself up for not finding my "Life Purpose." God forbid I never do, then my life won't be extraordinary as Leo says it will be. Another reason to beat myself up. I stopped pretending that I'm being productive by endlessly watching educational Youtube videos. I'm just being busy. I'm filling my days with the illusion of getting somewhere to avoid the fact that I'm sitting on my ass getting nowhere. I'm barely surviving on the limited social nutrition of the Internet, instead of living on the sustenance of real human connection. I stopped pretending that I'm content. I'm not. I hate this dinky studio apartment. I hate the noise pollution. The train that honks its horn at 2 in the morning right outside my window every night. The fucking fridge that turns on its roaring cooler every 20 minutes. The lack of light, the toxic carpet, the toxic yellow water, the crippling desolation and dissatisfaction in knowing that I could respect myself enough to make friends and actually do something, but instead I choose this because I don't respect myself enough. My thoughts reflect my circumstances. But no matter what, there's this innate kernel of faith in me. I see it in others too. The amazing, utterly human faith that everything will work out the way it's supposed to. That even in the darkest of nights, we know the dawn is coming. I stopped pretending that I'm an adult. In reality, I'm just a kid with some growing up to do.

Howdy, As more and more of the self-structure is sloughed away like some salami on the chopping block, personal insights and anecdotes keep coming up. For the past year and a half, I've been writing all of them for myself. Now I feel the urge to express it to other bodies. Above all, these are insights. Insight = a realization gained from direct experience. I encourage you to take everything that is written here with a grain of salt. Don't just blindly believe what I say. It is very easy to stay stuck in thought-story-land with this forum platform. Please, please, please see if you can connect the words to your direct experience. Inward is the only avenue for growth on the pathless path to enlightenment. Along with some words, I'll be posting some music that I like whose lyrics are related to enlightenment. And, of course, there will be some chicken poop as well. Watch your step! Bok bok! Cheers, JJ

https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Health-Sex-Longevity-Practical/dp/067164811X https://www.amazon.com/Detox-Miracle-Sourcebook-Complete-Regeneration/dp/1935826190/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1499545648&sr=1-1&keywords=detox+miracle+sourcebook

pond jumping, part whoops; OR, the fast track. I thought I would need a part 2 to talk about Peru, but now I don't feel like talking about Peru. It was fun, challenging, and frustrating just like Ireland. The Inca Trail was the best part: 27 miles of hiking in 14000ft elevation for 4 days straight. Woohoo! What I feel like writing about is this past week. It was a doozy. A big, frothy, emotional doozy served with a side of fifteen pounds of shit. Literally. This forum, and Actualized.org in general, is heavily focused on psychological and spiritual development. It's easy to overlook the physical. But there's something I've learned over this week: Your body, psyche, spirit, and emotions are intimately connected. They all must detox together. Trying to spiritually develop yourself without cleaning up your diet is like trying to get clean in a sewer. Not likely. Along with the transition to raw veganism, which has been incredible, I've been experimenting with fasting. If you don't know anything about fasting, I suggest doing some research on it. Fasting has been used for thousands of years as a method of physical and spiritual purification. Last week, I did a special juice fast. A super secret one. One that flies in the face of convention. Now that I've survived nine days, I figure now I feel confident enough to advertise it. It's called the master fast. They also have a facebook group. A warning though: If you want to do it, make sure you follow every step. Yes, that means getting their herbal tinctures. They're expensive, but they last 60-90 days, and they're super potent. Overall, the expenses for the fast match food expenses. If your body is a theatre, digestion is the stage performance, and fasting is the janitorial staff. For most people, the show is always happening. The problem is that the stage gets pretty messy after awhile. When you fast, the show stops, and janitors start cleaning up the stage. When this happens, you experience a bunch of physical cleansing reactions all classified as "detoxification." Not only do old physical ailments reveal themselves again, but old emotions as well. Like I mentioned before, physical and emotional are intimately connected. Prolonged fasting has a psychedelic effect, as it is a "fast track" to your deepest darkest inner demons. Demons you thought you got rid of a long time ago. Demons that claw and gnaw at you. If you eat cooked food, you can guarantee that you have a food addiction. Don't believe me? Try fasting for yourself. The first couple days were brutal for me. Cravings galore! I wanted cheeseburgers, pizza, and mac and cheese. A barbeque smell outside reminded me of the days when I'd fry hotdogs over the fire with my grandfather in our house's backyard, and I started to cry. That's when I realized how most of the foods we eat cover up the memories and identities that we cling to. I realized that gnawing feeling in the lower navel area that we call "hunger" is really a withdrawal effect from not eating cooked food. Real hunger is a salivation of the throat/mouth. After day 2, the gnawing feeling diminished greatly, and I experienced a comfortable emptiness. Enemas and colonics are a part of the protocol. I could not BELIEVE what came out of my bum. Pounds and pounds and pounds of this dark rubbery stuff they call "mucoid plaque." Stuff that cakes to the intestines due to years and years of eating acidic, mucus-forming foods. Which is pretty much everything besides fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Overall, I lost 15 pounds of colon weight, and that's only the beginning. I suspect there's at least 20 more pounds of that stuff to go. Which is scary, considering how thin I already am. But man oh man. After this week, I feel so much more at ease. Meditation is easier, journaling is easier, life is more colorful. The suicidal thoughts are not as heavy as they used to be. I don't look like I have a pregnant belly anymore. Everything feels a little less like Sisyphus and that fucking boulder.

@eskwire Yes! Thanks for reminding me. My friend's farm also has a ton of strawberries ripe for the picking @Peace and Love Whoa! Thank you for the very detailed response. You reminded me of something I learned recently: buy in bulk! I plan to ask my local co-op if I can do that...once I finish this juice fast...but that's another story for another day... Amazing what a diet change can do to your health, right? Fasting too! Fasting feels almost as effective as psychedelics when it comes to emotional healing.

Hey there raw vegans, I recently joined the raw bandwagon a couple weeks ago and LOVE the results I'm getting. More energy, detox, skin clearing, more focus, more BM's, etc. However, I've got a problem. Where I live, the organic fruits and vegetables are ridiculously expensive. Like, $8 for a pint of blueberries expensive. As a result, I've been rationing and losing too much weight as a result. Here are some of the ways I've saved money so far on this diet: Discount produce bins. At my co-op, there are sometimes bags of slightly damaged produce for half the price. I pounce on those. Sales. I only buy whatever fruit/vegetables are on sale. Buy the necessities. Avoid buying out of desire. Bananas. Lots and lots of f*cking bananas. Sprouting. So far, I've done lentils. Easy and cheap. Even using all these tactics, I'm spending more than $100 per week on food. And this is coming from an ultra-minimalist with a spartan lifestyle. I only have two monthly expenses at the moment: rent and food. My question is this: What are some other ways to cut your spending on this diet? And another question for kicks: Is Raw Till 4 a viable option for someone like me who's having a hard time breaking even every month? Cheers, JJ

pond jumping, part 1. I'm finally back to some semblance of sanity after three weeks of insanity. Ten days in Ireland, ten days in Peru. Seriously, I was beginning to go insane. It wasn't because I was away from home, nor was it because of the layovers and long travel times. It was due mainly to lack of alone time and dietary options. No offense to the Irish, but your food totally sucks, especially for vegetarians/vegans. Hardly any fresh produce; all deep fried processed potato-ey constipating foods. The group that I was with also provided too much food. My constipation was so bad that I looked pregnant; I'm surprised nobody asked me if I was. Being incredibly constipated reminded me of my hellishly miserable school years. I have no doubts now: an unhappy body is an unhappy psyche. Then there was the group I was with. The three other millenials I roomed with were so shallow that even the Irish puddles were saying, "Dayum son!" Is this really what it's come to? Snapchatting every single fucking moment of your life? Filling every waking moment with noise? Gossiping about the Kardashians and the people sitting next to you? I know I sound condescending. But my God, I'm concerned. More and more, I feel like a stranger in a strange land, and Leo's recent episode on loneliness really resonates. I also think of this scene from Wall-E. I went to Ireland for a songwriting workshop, hoping that it could give me some clarity on my relationship with music. It did, but not in the way I hoped. The workshop felt like a break-up. I've spent the past three years seriously building my music and songwriting skills, but now I realize that it's not what I want to do full-time. I hate traditional songwriting. I feel like a charlatan whenever I do it. This workshop reminded me of my social studies classes in primary school, which I always hated. I was a math/science guy in school. The insight I gleaned is this: I'm primarily a musician, not a songwriter. I'm an emotional engineer, not a storyteller. I listen to music less for the lyrics and more for the musicality. For the past three years, the universe has been beating me down, telling me not to be a performing artist. I don't feel built for it. I'm extremely introverted, don't resonate with most people, and most people don't resonate with me. I went into music for music's sake, not for a sense of impact on others. Now I'm craving that sense of impact, and music's not giving it to me. The next insight: music probably won't be my full-time job. I can see myself having an online following and doing busking/local gigs, but no more than that. The blog's also been an interesting experiment, but I feel it burning out as well. I figure I'll keep writing here and ditch the blog. Along with "Follow your bliss," I received some solid advice from one of the songwriters who led the group. "If it ain't 'Hell yeah!' then it's 'No'", she said. Well, songwriting and the blog are not a "hell yeah" anymore, and no amount of listening to music/reading has reignited the fire. I purposely paused on the Life Purpose Course because of how volatile I've been lately. To be expected as a clueless twenty-something...

Phew! What a relief. Meditation, healthy eating, exercise, contemplation, self-enquiry, and all that PD bullshit is too difficult anyways. Welp, back to watching netflix while eating a bag of cheetos in one hand and doing... something else... with the other. I mean, it's all just pointless anyways, right?

@Annetta If you're using a b12 supplement, make sure it's methyl b12, not cyanocobalamin. The latter is not readily absorbed in the body. Also, nutritional yeast ("vegan cheese flavor") provides some b12, if you like that stuff. Cheers!