Emerald

I recommend having a relationship for a few years before considering marriage. That might be looked down upon culturally, but you really need that to know if you're going to be compatible long-term. And since marriage is a strong commitment that will totally fuck up your life if you get it wrong, you should really know her EXTREMELY well and enjoy her company before considering marriage.

A lot of people are recommending that you do art every day. This can be good advice but is definitley not a requirment. Being a great artist doesn't require that. Also, don't try to be a great artist, because this aim will make you miss your mark. Learning about art and learning the basics is important, but it really comes down to what you're trying to communicate. It's not about competing to be the best artist. It's about birthing into reality, the internal contents in whichever way they want to come out. I recommend taking a few months and really immersing yourself in the basics. Check out book, "Drawing on the Right side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. This will teach you how to see (because you don't currently know how to actually see) so that you can learn to draw/paint realistically if you want. Also become acquainted with the elements of art and the principles of design. These are really all the basic groud-work knowledge that you absolutely need to start developing your skills. There are other things to learn as well about color and reflective light and other things like that, but these are great tools for groundwork. Then, I recommend practicing with observation and drawing and painting. And with painting, learning how to mix colors to match the tones that your eyes are actually seeing. It's rare to use any colors directly out of the tube. I highly recommend working with nude models, since the flesh is like a really dull mirror and gets its color from reflecting other colors around it. So, you can find subtle reds, greens, blues, purples, oranges, and yellows in the skin tone and having these colors in there is really the only way to make the flesh look realistic. Otherwise, your just using a bunch of tans and browns, which is what the illusion of flesh as a mirror makes it register as to the mind. But there's really a rainbow in the flesh. And to a certain extend, everything has this mirroring effect to where you can find unexpected colors in things if you really start to perceive what you're looking at accurately. Then, after a few months of practicing and starting to have the insights necessary to have skill in art (which doesn't take very long), you can pick a topic to do a series on, so that you can explore a topic more deeply through your art. So, if you have a theme or concentration, each art piece can be like a staircase to descend yourself down into what you're hoping to communicate and birth into existence.

This is not true but I can see how the truth could be distorted to look like this from the outside. Women don't like to be below men in value and don't like to be treated as lesser. And if women are treated this way, she'll lock up and go into masculine mode and come at the man who suggests this swinging, if she has healthy boundaries. However, women do tend to like to take the receptive role in relationships and generally like to be feminine in relation to a masculine guy. It's just that society frames femininity as lesser than masculinity, so it looks like women want to be beneath men because there is an implicit assumption that to be feminine is lesser. But it's really just a different orientation to life and relationships that is more free-flowing and receptive. And it's fun to be lead by a man in many situations, as there is something romantic about it and it puts most women in a very soft and melty state that feels really good. But this is the case, if and only if they feel safe with that man and trust that he won't abuse his power. Otherwise, there is no capacity to be in that softened state and women have to harden themselves and be in the masculine to fight against the man that abuses his power and treats her as lesser. So, an imbalanced relationship relative to value and power, makes it to where women can't be fulfilled. So, your impression is the exact opposite of what women generally want... which can be summed up in the four masculine archetypes... King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. And relative to King and Warrior, there is an attraction to men who can be protectors. And being a protector implies the ability to lead and be aggressive and do violence if there is a threat. The problem comes when he instead uses that capacity to lead and be aggressive to harm the woman instead of protect her due to his lack of self control and lack of emotional integration and mastery. So, an attractive man is like a lion tamer with a lion. The more aggressive the lion is and the more self control the man has, the more attractive he will be as a partner because he has the capacity for aggression plus high levels of self-control and emotional mastery. A man with a weak lion is not attractive because his lion tamer has nothing to tame. A man with an unskillful lion tamer is not attractive because his lion won't obey him and it will wreak havoc on the lives of his romantic partners. The problem is when women can't tell that the man's lion tamer has no control over the lion. So, at once, I recognize why you would be under this impression that women like to be beneath men. But I also see how your lens distorts this pattern and makes it about a dominance/submission relationship between men and women instead of about a communicative/receptive relationship between men and women. Also, men who are always sexual with women and wearing their sexuality on their sleeves is a clear indication of an unskilled lion tamer. So, this also is not attractive. It comes off more as desperate and creepy. But a man whose sexuality subtly glimmers out through his platonic ways, is a very fetching man because it shows that his lion his fierce and that his lion tamer is highly skilled and has a lot of control over the lion. Tame lions are very fun to play with. Untamed lions are not.

Where's the intimacy at, if you're just going to play a fantasy role the entire time? Not to mention a fantasy role that's seemingly meant to cater to the sensibilities and proclivities of a 19th century gentleman. I think the desire to always fit into this role would eventually come to grate on a modern man's nerves, even if he appreciates the attention and care. This feels very steeped in the insecurity that a man will leave and the idea of FOREVER... which as an idea, ruins the beauty of a relationship. Relationships should not be polluted with the idea of eternity, as it destroys all present moments. And if a woman is clinging onto a man hard enough to sublimate herself into the idea of a fantasy woman, then the man will naturally be repelled and seek intimacy with a woman who can be real with him. Both partners should give each other love, intimacy, support, and care in the ways that they are best able to give and receive it. And in doing so they will feed eachother and the relationship, and the relationship will be worth keeping alive because everyone's needs are being met. And these bits of advice may or may not work to make a man feel loved, Maybe some men feel loved by a woman cooking for him. Maybe some men don't really feel loved through acts of service such as that. Maybe he would appreciate more if the woman took a vested interest in his passions. And finding out these unique ways to love your partner is the key to longevity if longevity is what you want. And I'm all for treating a man very well in a relationship and appreciating what he contributes, and even spoiling him a bit from time to time . But this entire post feels like a very surreal bit of advice to give to contemporary woman-folk. It feels like some old 1950s ad that's really meant to sell some kind of product to desperate housewives.

I think the main thing is to cultivate sensitivity and receptivity. And the latter is contingent upon the former. So, you can start by getting in touch with your emotions more, and to practice expressing from them. That way, as you own your femininity, it will be genuine and not just a caricature of femininity. So, cultivating emotional sensitivity is key. You could also look into various tricks to accentuating your feminine attributes. But this is just 20% of the battle.

There are many heart-centered reasons why you shouldn't do it, as well as many relative reasons not to do it. But from the absolute, there is no such thing as right or wrong. So, reality does not abhor suicide. It's all part of the one thing that is all things. But from the perspective of considering health, harmony, and functionality; committing suicide is inherently unhealthy, unharmonious, and dysfunctional. So, it is not good for you or your loved ones. But on the absolute, there is nothing invalid or wrong under the sun. God loves all and abhors none.

Wonderful advice.

@How to be wise Consider that you may not really know what you think you know. Listen to your heart, not your mind.

Be careful not to use spiritual truths to write over your emotions. That is just using the truth to lie to yourself. Forget everything you think you know and everything you've learned about spirituality. Realize that you do not know anything at all. Only then, you can see what's really there. Until then, your spiritual beliefs will be nothing more than a smoke screen for the emotions and thoughts that swirl around inside of you.

I watched this video a week or so ago. It's really clear that all this alpha talk is often just a cover for deep insecurities and you can sense it is Elliot's need to delineate alpha men from beta men, to ensure himself to be categorized as an alpha. So, this is a perfect example of that.

Ahh... So, that was what all that commotion was earlier. I had thought it was just squirrels. Who knew?

I think the most important thing is to really get to know your fears about having children and your fears about not having children. If the fear leads, then you won't really know what you want because the fear will cloud your sense of clarity. So, it's important to be aware of all of your fears so that you can allow them to be there but detach from them. Then, you can really start to tap into your emotions and where they lead you. And if you find you are inspired toward having children, then things will fall into place accordingly. But if you don't feel inspired toward having children, then just allow that to be as well. Also, if it helps, adoption will always be available to you if you should have the motherly urge come online at some point after you're unable to bare children. So, if you really want motherhood, it is always a possibility. And if you have resistance and fear of adoption as an option, also be aware of what those fears are and put them on you list of fears to be aware of.

Funnily enough, the idea of the Alpha wolf was discovered by a scientist who was breeding wolves in captivity. And he recognized that one wolf would come out as the Alpha. But later on, as he researched wolves in the wild who were not in captivity, he found there was no clear Alpha wolf and that his theory was only true with captive wolves. And so the guy who created the theory of Alpha male wolves found later that it was only a behavior that sprung about as a symptom of captivity and the emotional state of the caged wolves. You can find this similar kind of thing in prisons, where small packs gather together and there is one clear leader in each group. Human beings do this in captivity as well. But generally speaking, there are no actual alpha males in the human species that everyone would agree on as alphas. However, there are plenty of masculine men and plenty of inspiring men, and they have great leadership potential. The idea of alpha is flawed because it automatically sticks men in this competition mindset, where it is a zero sum hierarchical game with one man on top and everyone else as betas. And I notice that men really torture themselves emotionally with this idea, while also holding out hope that they can one day become the alpha. So, the idea of the alpha male itself is ironically a kind of psychological captivity that many men impose upon themselves and eachother. And it really cuts those men off from their actual masculine power source because they're always looking outside themselves to see where they fall in the hierarchy as a way to protect themselves against feelings of low self-worth imposed upon them by the high standards society heaps upon men and boys to have this that or the other quality.

There are skills to be learned for any given society. But masculinity and femininity have no form in and of themselves. And the forms and symbols they project forth onto is highly contingent upon the social structure. For example, in contemporary culture, wearing make-up is almost solely imbued with the feminine in collective consciousness. Make-up itself, however, is both Yin and Yang but neither manly nor womanly inherently. So, if we look at a tribal society, the men may wear war paint as an intensely masculine symbol. So, the collective consciousness of that tribe may imbue the projection of masculine energy onto what is similar in form to what we imbue feminine energy onto. Think of masculinity as a light with no form of its own. The same is true of femininity. And this formlessness is exactly why it's a subtle energy. Light has no form of its own, and yet it gives solidity to everything we perceive. The same is true of the masculine and feminine. So, if masculinity is the light, then think of society and collective consciousness as a lens that that light (as a subtle energy) shines into and produces a tangible expression from the otherwise formless masculine. So, in our society, men don't need to be taught to hunt to hone their masculine energy as it is not a necessity in our society. So, that lens can be used, but it need not be so for a man to own or re-integrate is masculine energy. The masculine is there regardless. And if a man gets too caught up in socially recognized symbols of masculinity (such as hunting or stoicism), he will become so focused on the form that he will not be able to see the light. And he will write over his natural masculine essence with socially scripted and canned masculine symbols. So, his ideas of masculinity will block his actual masculinity. It will be form without substance. But a man who can find his masculinity inside of himself, and own all of himself in his natural masculine/feminine signature, will be incredibly magnetic. Most men are so busy trying to add masculinity onto themselves from the outside by imbuing themselves with mostly dead cultural symbols to hide their fears and vulnerabilities of somehow being less than. But a man who truly owns his natural subtle un-pretended masculinity (as well as his Anima) is a treasure to be around, and people will naturally find him magnetic, both romantically and platonically.

Don't worry about being an alpha male. Just work on owning your unique masculine/feminine signature and you will become magnetic. Masculinity is subtle. It cannot be learned from the outside. It can only be discovered from the inside.

He was talking about Andrew Yang, not Bernie Sanders.

You'll find that politicians can find tons of ways to pay for free stuff for the ultra-rich and huge corporations. What we have in America is corporate welfare, where Jeff Bezos (the richest man in the entire world) not only paid $0 in taxes in 2017 and 2018. He also got money back from the government. Not to mention huge bank bailouts. And corporations not paying living wages to their employees, forcing their employees into welfare programs like food stamps and cash assistance. So, corporations paying poverty wages is also being subsidized by the government, simply so those people can eat and live. So, there's always a TON of money to spend when it is in the interests of the upper-crust. Yet, when it comes to things that benefit the average person like healthcare and education, it's always "Look at all this frivolous free stuff. We can't afford that!" And there's this huge act like they just can't do it. But they can. In fact, a Medicare for all, single payer healthcare system (aka socialized medicine) would actually save between $2 trillion and $5 trillion over the course of the next ten years compared to what we currently have. Also, free college for all would cost abut $80 billion per year. America currently has a military budget that's over $700 billion per year. And it just got a $100 billion dollar increase last year. So, the increase (just the increase) to the military budget from 2017 to 2018, would more that cover free college. So, it's really just a matter of re-allocating government funds from things that only benefit the very wealthy to things that benefit the people. America is already a mixed economy with both capitalism and socialism. So, the use of the word "socialism" as a scare tactic is quite laughable. We already have it and always have. It's just that our socialism that we currently have (tons of corporate socialism) is benefiting the few at the expense of the many. So, what Bernie Sanders is proposing is to re-arrange the socialism we have to work for the common good. But this video shows how everything can be paid for quite simply. There are about 20 different solutions that are given. And if we only pick a handful of them, it will be more than enough to pay for the programs Bernie is proposing.

I made a video on this topic, since I've also gotten myself into this same trap...

@Cocolove I know that when I was in high school, I wouldn't have been willing to go all the way with someone I wasn't in a relationship with. And I would suppose that's true for most girls that age. Most people lose their virginity in high school, and they will put a lot of thought into who they want to share that experience with. Having said that, there are plenty of people who are itching to get their virginity off their hands, and many girls who are very promiscuous. They are just more in the minority, as compared to the number of teens who are being more cautious. But you're missing out on a lot of good times if you're just wanting to get sex and that's it. One of the best things about being a teenager is in having a big friend group and meeting potential partners within that friend group. And then having sexual experiences that bloom organically when you're just having a good time and listening to music. And for the most part, the relationships don't tend to last very long. So, it's rarely super serious. So, just embrace the time for what it is. And the most important thing is to develop a tight-knit social group to do things with as well as a large circle of acquaintance-like friends as well. And this will allow you to get the most out of your high school experiences socially and sexually. Basically, just have as much fun with this time as possible.

I think it's a good idea to be forthcoming with your audience. As a spiritual YouTuber, I've done a lot the same for myself. I still keep a certain degree of discretion if the situation involves other people that wouldn't want to have me talk about it. But otherwise, I'm quite open about my shortcomings. Now, if you're going to talk about spiritual concepts, you also should talk a lot of emotions and psychological things. And you can weave in that information about yourself about how you used to be and what patterns you would get into and how you transcended those issues and/or integrated your shadows. But if you're stills struggling with something as serious as being abusive or something like that, then I recommend holding off on doing it until you can grow past those tendencies genuinely. And once you can genuinely grow past those tendencies, then you'll have a lot of useful insights to impart to others who are struggling with the same patterns of behavior which will make your content a cut above most others who are just parroting learned insights.

You can also submit your music to Pandora. Here's the submission process. https://diymusician.cdbaby.com/musician-tips/get-music-on-pandora-internet-radio/ You should also create a Facebook page for your band, and spend some money to attract people to your page via ads. Even $100 would be a good starter amount. Hash tagging your posts also helps a lot as well since it will show up if anyone searches certain terms. And you can put in short clips of live performances and behind-the-scenes as well as other things related to your music that are not on your YouTube channel. This will create more of a personal connection to you and the other members of your band and encourage people to look on your YT page and subscribe.

Since it is music, you won't be able to rely on tags and titles to drive people to your music, as no one will be searching it. What I recommend is to make connections with people who have blogs and websites that relate back to your style of music. Then, you could possibly come on as a guest blogger and include a link to your music. Or you can see if there's anyone that will feature your music on a high traffic music-related website. By the way, I just listened to 'Rust' and I really enjoyed it. I also subscribed.

Perhaps she really was joking, but not really realizing that it was really bothering you. This especially could be true if she were at the bar and drinking. When I was younger, I had a tendency to assume that guys were emotionless because they hid their emotions due to social expectations around manhood. But I wasn't really aware of this. I just thought, "Guys are tough. I can tease them a bit and fake-insult them and they won't mind." And looking back, I was sometimes really blunt about it and assumed that they knew it was a joke and most of them genuinely knew that... I think. And it's what I would do if I liked a guy or if I had a guy friend that I was also somewhat flirty with. I was quite Helga Pataki when I was in middle and early high school especially. But one time, I was 19 and I was teasing my friend Nick that he was secretly gay. And it wasn't really a one-sided thing because he would tease me that I was a lesbian and stuff like that. But he was always telling me to stop, but I didn't really think he meant it because of his tone. But one day, he really blew up on me and I was shocked how hurt he was. I had no idea that I was really bothering him with my comments. So, I apologized. But it really made me consider that maybe a lot of men are more emotional than they let on. But if I had to bet money, I'm guessing that this is the mindset of that girl and the other girls that you've heard talking like that. There is an underlying assumption that guys don't have strong emotions, and girls tend to assume the guys that they know have iron-clad self-esteem. I was really surprised that so many men seem to have a lot of anxieties about talking to women in general. I always heard that in movies and things like that, but I never considered that it could actually be a common experience among men as I just didn't see many signs of it. Men hide vulnerabilities pretty well. I really only know about it because of the internet. So, that's my take on it. Now, the woman at the bar was probably being drunk in general. So, this probably compounded any problem behaviors that already existed. She probably really did think she was joking and flirting with you, but was too drunk to realize that her comments were inappropriate and coming off that way. And women get nervous about letting a guy know that they like him, so they'll often use teasing and making fun to flirt with a guy while being able to hide their flirting.

Perhaps you're right. I look forward to when lab-grown meat becomes the main or only meat farming practice. That will definitely cut down on a lot of animal suffering and will take away one of the largest contributors to climate change, as well. But right now, there are like 9 companies (or some small number like that) that contribute to the majority of air pollution that causes climate change. So, I fear that these structural changes, legislation-wise, won't be made in time... especially with regard to China that is not showing signs yet of moving to Green. Now, there are people working on carbon scrubbing technology, and this would really help us as we wouldn't just be going to net zero carbon emissions but actually removing them from the air. But the technology is still in its baby phase.

That's true. I figure that it will probably be scary, tumultuous, and bloody like it always has been. There are a lot of hurt men, who have had expectations placed upon them to deny their humanity and emotions and just suck it up and be men. And these communities of pain pop up around the collective hurt that men feel. So, we have a situation where women have gone through liberation from their gender box, as there is very little boon to living in that box. So, once the social structure changed to liberate women from that box, women were all to eager to get out of the prison of narrow societal conscriptions about what femininity means. And there is still a huge reaction against the feminine from women, because there is a conflation of the societal conscription about femininity and femininity itself. But men are still beholden to their gender box. Society at large, still judges men for not being man enough. And men still believe that there is happiness and power to be found in the prison of societal conscriptions about what masculinity means. So, they cling to their prisons in an attempt to salvage their self-esteem only to play a hierarchical losing game and bring themselves lower and even further from their natural masculinity and true center. And they have to walk this very narrow line of what is acceptable for men to be for fear that other men will police their behavior and call them beta or some other feminizing insult. The thing that makes me doubt our ability to make the jump relative to climate change is that we're about 12 years out from the point where things go past a point where it would be very difficult to return to a change in climate that would have an intense impact on so many eco-systems. But given that there's so much growth and awareness happening, I still have hope even thought it feels like a bit of a long shot.