Emerald

But you forget... that while that may be true, they were only the lowly stone masons in my family's employ, who drew up all the blue prints for all the great monuments and commissioned all of them.

Apt

That's interesting. I had assumed that all older countries have a group of hyper-nationalist Fascist-types dreaming up all sorts of wild stories like that. But it then causes me to wonder... is it just because the outlandish story places that have that have a fuzzier history, or one that isn't well-taught in schools?

That doesn't surprise me at all. I'm sure that it's in every country that's 500+ years old.

I know quite a few Hungarians through my husband (both in Hungary and in the states), and most of them are not very nationalistic.. except for a few of his more distant friends. But yes. Lots of Hungarian nationalists want the land back from Romania and will hate on Romanians because they took Transylvania like 100 years ago. And they did fall from being the powerful Hapsburg Austo-Hungarian empire to being a poorer country when that happened. So, it is a collective national trauma. But it was deeply ingrained into my husband growing up (in the 80s and 90s) that there was this default hatred of Romanians. Then, when he was in his teens he was like "Why do I hate Romanians?" And he realized that he had no reason to and that it was stupid. But Hungarians hating Romanians for taking the land was seemingly as normalized as hating on gay people was back in the 90s. It was just taken for granted as the norm. And to be fair, there are Hungarians that are native to Transylvania (my late brother in law was Hungarian but born in Transylvania). But there are FAR more Romanians in Transylvania. So, it makes sense that things are as they are. But it's literally just doing the group-think that comes along with maintaining a nationalist identity to hate on an out-group.

Yes TOTALLY delusional. My husband and I frequently laugh about it as he's never had a strong nationalist identity. But unfortunately it's not new delusion at all. Most older countries probably have some similar version of that as it's the archetypal ultra-nationalist Golden Age narrative. Americans are somewhat spared from it in our country's mythos because of the fact that we learn a lot of real facts about how America was founded since it's just about 250 years old. And the delusional narratives we use are more like sugar-coated superimpositions of fanciful meaning onto stuff that did happen (like Manifest Destiny being used to explain away genocide) rather than all-out fabrications of stuff that never ever happened that's 100% myth. Also, the fact that we know that we're a nation of many different cultures prevents nationalists from mythologizing about Americans being the superior people of the same blood. And that instead gets placed onto racial identity instead of national identity. But if America was comprised of one single ethnic group (or appeared to be) and America were 500+ years old, you'd be hearing all kinds of outlandish tales about how the original pure-blooded ancient Americans were responsible for building the great pyramids. Yet again, according to Mormonism, the Garden of Eden was located in America. So, there are some instances of this.

@Leo Gura Who would have thought that someone whose work theorizes and waxes poetic about a mythological past where there were ancient advanced civilizations that were once great and then fell would be attractive to Fascists. This is just par of the course for nationalistic Fascist types or even just run of the mill nationalists from other countries outside of the US... but you don't see a lot of this with American nationalists because America is such a new country. So, we build our country's nationalist mythos differently than older countries build their nationalist mythos. Instead, you only see this "we were once a great ancient people until they took us down" around the concept of race in more niche Neo-Nazi echo chambers, since there is more of a taboo against racism that isn't there with nationalism (which can be framed as patriotism). But my husband is Hungarian, and he knows some run-of-the million Hungarian nationalists, who are as passionate about Hungary as American nationalists are about America. And it wasn't too uncommon for them to believe some wild pseudoscientific stories like... "Here's the REAL story about the ancient Hungarians who once were the dominant world power and were responsible for ALL innovations in the great early civilizations." This is me paraphrasing what I remember from reading one of these articles that one of his friends posted on FB like 10 years ago... 'Hungarians were the original people who were behind all the advanced civilizations in the world. In fact, it was Hungarians who taught the Ancient Egyptians how to build the pyramids. And Hungarians used to be the dominant people in the world, until (fill in x group) came and oppressed them and stole credit for all of the things Hungarians created.' So, when you have a "historian" who talks about Atlantis... and how it was once a great civilization and then fell, it tracks on nicely with the Fascist tendency to put the archetypal "myth of the golden age" in some idealized past that never actually existed. The concept of Atlantis in general is a great "blank screen" that Fascists (and run-of-the-mill nationalist types) can project their mythologized past onto.

Right wing pundits often misuse post-modern relativism to muddy the waters and create confusion... so that they can convince the average non-political person to shift further right. Post-modern relativism gives them the veneer of a balanced view of "just sharing a perspective... and who's to say who's right or wrong". Jordan Peterson tends to do this a lot... especially in the past when he was playing the part of the intellectual who's just "considering all the perspectives." But this is just them using that element of Stage Green as a tool. They're typically using this Stage Green tool as a way to re-normalize and resurrect old values (usually traditional or ethnocentric blue values) that society now deems as taboo. So, it's the post-modern "let's look at the myriad of different perspectives because that's the balanced thing to do."... and once people fall for it enough to normalize those perspectives, it turns into "This is actually the ONLY correct way to think about the world. If you disagree, there's something wrong with you or evil about you. And we want to codify this paradigm into law and punish anyone who challenges it."

If I were in that position, I'd probably want to keep 90%+ of it in the market in a stable long-term diversified investment fund. Bear in mind that the longer you keep that money invested, the more you get compound interest on it. And if you keep that money in there until you're at retirement age, you will have a nice comfortable old age. And that's important to prioritize. But, if I were in that same position where my investments are great, in the future, I would also make sure that I'm putting away money every month just for personal enrichment. I might also take out 10% of what I put into the market to have as a liquid asset to use for personal enrichment... education, travel, experiences, fun, etc.

It's probably similar to why Mormon's aren't supposed to drink coffee. You'd think the prohibition on drinking coffee is because of the caffeine content... which is what I always assumed. I thought it was similar to prohibiting alcohol because caffeine is also a psychoactive substance. But the actual reason why Mormon's aren't supposed to drink coffee is because Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism) was reading some random article back in the 1800s that said that hot drinks were unhealthy for the body. And he believed that. Then, he told his followers that they should stop drinking coffee because he thought the article had sound advice. Though from what I understand, he also wasn't super strict about that himself. So, while I'm almost positive that the prohibition on eating pork originally came from health concerns... the continued adherence to it is just because that's what the rules are that the leadership of the religion set up. And people have just put a lot of stock into those that set up the religion.

It seems that there's an incompatibility between you and her in terms of your values and lifestyle preferences. You have to decide whether or not that's a deal-breaker to you. Some people would be okay with sacrificing psychedelic use for a relationship because it isn't that big of a deal for them. But others would not feel okay with making that sacrifice. For me, I don't use psychedelics often. I do an Ayahuasca ceremony once per year, and that's it. And I'm probably not going to do it again for a good long while because the Ayahuasca church that I usually attend closed up. But even I still wouldn't be okay if I had a partner whose values didn't match my own who gave me an ultimatum that I can't do an Ayahuasca ceremony... not because that person is wrong for having those boundaries themselves, but because it just wouldn't be a good fit. I'd definitely break up with them because they wouldn't be understanding why I do the ceremony... and they'd just be on a totally different wavelength. And I'd definitely say that sex is not a good reason to stay in a relationship. And that you would stay in for sex indicates to me that you have some scarcity thinking around sexual/romantic connection. This may be what's led you into an incompatible relationship in the first place. So, you have to question whether these value incompatibilities are a deal-breaker for you... or if you're willing to make the sacrifices she needs to feel comfortable in the relationship. Those are really the only two options.

@aurum It seems you're correct about Stage Green within the model itself. But I suppose, I disagree with that characterization within the model. What seems quite evident to me is that each level of development forms a unique and sustained societal structure... from Purple to Orange. But Green never gets seen as a sustained collective societal structure. And in order for a Stage Green culture to truly coalesce into the mainstream (beyond just random political or hippie circles)... as all other stages have done, you have to have an ordering principle. And the more individualist stages of human development require deconstruction and chaos where individualism is the highest value. But in more collective societal structures, you actually have to have a structure. So, I think the model is a bit faulty in that way because they are making conjectures about Green without ever witnessing a Stage Green society in the way that they have witnessed or have historical records of societies from Stage Purple to Stage Orange. That's why I don't perfectly agree with the Spiral Dynamics framework in this regard to the quote you mentioned... as it's framing Stage Green and hyper-individualistic and deconstructive, when re-coalescing collectivist phases of human development require convergence and limitation. Otherwise, Stage Green would be the only phase of human development that isn't possible to reach in a sustainable way. And that doesn't make any sense why we'd just have to skip that one as a collective.

I think you're misunderstanding both Stage Green and conservatism. Stage Orange is where the deconstructive process happens... but Stage Green is about recoalescence and re-ordering. I notice that people often misunderstand what Stage Green is... and think about the current state of left politics as that is the closest thing to Green that is currently on offer. But we live in a Stage Orange society. And current-day leftists are mostly Stage Orange with a smattering of Green. And that's because Green is merely a future vision at this point. But because a Green society hasn't been fully lived or fathomed of on the world-stage, even the most Stage Green people amongst us are seeing Green through the individualistic lens of Stage Orange. But Stage Green proper is fundamentally about re-coalescing back into community... and that requires a resurgence of collective ordering structures and the limitation of the individual. So, you cannot move forward to Stage Green without integrating healthy conservatism. But when most people think about Green, they think of lefty politics... as that is what Green is from the perspective of Orange. But Green is actually about the re-coalescing of community that was present in Stage Blue... only with greater levels of human sovereignty realized and with greater skills with understanding how to come together as a community without sovereignty being squelched. Purple, Blue, and Green all have that same community coalescence dynamic... but on levels that have a wider circle of concern as you go up the Spiral... and that have greater space for human potential to come forth. And you can't have collectivism without containers and ordering structures.

I wouldn't necessarily call it sense-making... as that suggests something that's more about active intellectual rigor and reconciling multi-varied perspectives to produce a more holistic understanding of a given situation or the world at large. To talk about it in Spiral Dynamics terms... that's a more Stage Yellow kind of perspective on things. In contrast, these medicine experiences that I mentioned are more in Turquoise... if I'm to characterize them through the SD model. And it's not so intellect-heavy, nor is it a state of active sense-making. And you cannot 'get there' through sense-making or anything that's too mind-heavy It's more of an embodiment of Christ consciousness and being able to feel the unity and oneness... and from there deeper holistic intuitions arise that emotionally lay bare truths that were previously clouded and obscured by judgment and ignorance. And the root causes of macrocosmic collective issues are effortlessly seen with crystal clarity without needing to figure them out because the understanding is already etched in the human heart... and then the solutions become obvious. So, I'd call it more as unconditional compassion or Christ consciousness... which entails being in the wisdom-receptive state and depth of understanding and alignment that unconditional compassion enables you to be in. And it doesn't really require intellectual rigor per se... nor sense making. It's more of a subtractive process of the removal of the judgments and ignorances that cloud the heart wisdom from our conscious awareness and prevents us from dropping into the embodiment of Christ Consciousness. And while Stage Yellow is useful, you can't really get there from Yellow. But someone could drop into Christ Consciousness, understand the root causes and then use that understanding to choose a problem to solve on the deeper root level. But I agree that healthy conservatism must be found and integrated. Right now, what's on offer is dangerous and degenerative. I suspect we will find healthy conservatism in the rise of the intentional communities of Stage Green.

@integral This one seems promising... Targeting Microclots & Blood Flow – There is evidence COVID causes microvascular damage. One user in an Mt. Sinai trial found he had microclots impairing penile blood flow (Long haulers with Erectile Dysfunction : r/covidlonghaulers). His doctor put him on anticoagulants (Eliquis + aspirin) for nearly a year, until labs normalized (Long haulers with Erectile Dysfunction : r/covidlonghaulers). He also took fibrinolytic enzymes to dissolve clots and did hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) – together these brought him “essentially to baseline” and ultimately cured his ED (Long haulers with Erectile Dysfunction : r/covidlonghaulers) (Long haulers with Erectile Dysfunction : r/covidlonghaulers). Numbness in the groin was attributed to small-fiber neuropathy from poor circulation, which improved with these treatments (Long haulers with Erectile Dysfunction : r/covidlonghaulers). This suggests that addressing microcirculation issues (under medical supervision) can restore erectile function in long COVID.

One thing that could be important to take into account is that your dad likely repressed his own guilt and his own conscience to enable him to continue doing these crimes. And there is a saying that goes something like "The biggest burden to the child is the unlived life of the parent." So, you may even be taking on the burdens of your father's guilt... and taking it on as your own. There's also dynamics where people who are in powerless or very low power situations, can tend to internalize blame and shame themselves in order to give the illusion of power. These are just some other dynamics that I've seen a couple clients of mine (who have criminal parents) go through. But the reality is that you were not to blame for anything that was going on. And expecting yourself to turn him in, is almost like expecting yourself to cut your own limb off... as children are wired to bond with their parents out of a deep survival need.

I looked around at the different suggestions, and most of them seem king of boiler-plate responses to increase sexual function for someone who's dealing with ED that isn't Covid-originated. The best advice that I saw seems to be around getting a scan to see what the root cause issue is... and also looking up information on Long Covid ED. Now, I do have a suggestion that's from a slightly different angle to look at this from... because it's not about fixing or changing the situation. But I find it useful and empowering when I find myself in deeply unwanted situations without clarity on how to change the situation, or even if the situation can be changed. What I do is ask myself the following, "If I am the pure consciousness that creates reality and all of my experiences... and I assume that that consciousness is 100% trustworthy and benevolent... and that it is always working in the best interests of a greater trajectory of my/its' personal expansion, even in deeply unwanted situations... what is the function for this unwanted situation showing up in my life?" It won't change the situation. But it will often provide deeper levels of understanding and new leverage points for personal expansion.

I certainly am a progressive in terms of my political views with regard to the possibilities currently on offer and the issues that face contemporary people. There's no doubt about that. And while I do see the value in the actual holistic conservative values, I really don't see much in the way of constructive or healthy conservatism in the government nor in the populace at present. Growing up in a conservative redneck town AND observing the current state of politics, I can tell you it's usually just all just the most socially degenerative human impulses disguising themselves under the labels conservative, patriotic, and pious. And it's not wise to "both sides" it or seek balance as long as the conservative forces at play are taking this lower form that will cause tremendous amounts of suffering. We must ACTUALLY preserve our system the best we can by interrupting and pushing back against these eroding forces. So, I don't make any bones about it. I'm definitely on the left, with regard to the current state of politics... though my visions for the future of society would vary wildly from leftists and liberals. But there is a lot of overlap with liberals and leftists in terms of what causes we would ally around. And most liberals and leftists may see people as fundamentally good to some degree... but will define goodness very differently (from each other and from how I define it). And most do still somewhat believe in a fundamental evil to some degree. But I've been in each one of those paradigm frames at different points in my life, and I can tell you that neither the liberal nor the leftist viewpoint remotely scratches the surface of understanding how to exercise deep levels of unconditional compassion... nor how deep that fundamental goodness goes. And they don't understand the nature of goodness well enough to know what alignment looks like. And in terms of solutions, both liberals and leftists tend to focus more on the system itself as the root cause of social issues and to suggest reform and revolution (respectively) as a means to improve the state of humanity. And while I see both reform and revolution (as well as preservation and re-integration) as part of human evolution... I don't see the geo-political systems and institutions (like government/society/etc.) as being a root cause of problems. For example, leftists often say "Capitalism is the root cause of ____." And they will see getting rid of Capitalism as a solution. But I say that, while leftists are correct that there are some fundamental corruptions in Capitalism that are irremovable... you cannot improve the situation solely by getting rid of Capitalism, as Capitalism (and its level of irremovable corruption) is just a natural outgrowth of the current level of technological and ideological development... and level of alignment/dis-alignment to the deep fundamental goodness that humanity is currently in. Capitalism is itself a symptom. But leftists make the mistake of seeing it as a root cause. And if you try to get rid of Capitalism prior to us fully transcending it, you will just get another system with similar levels of corruption (which is the problem of cutting the head off the Hydra), until that which keeps us misaligned to the fundamental goodness is resolved. And you can't even effectively move a society past Capitalism prior to lots of inner and outer work without destabilizing humanity for a while. But I'd argue that conservatism (in it high form) does preserve... but moreso than that, creates limitations so that people can be socially grounded in the context of collective meaning.

I've talked a bit about patterns I've noticed around collective male shame in the past. But I ran into this video that talks a bit about the origin point of that shame through the lens of discussing the insecurity of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

I'm saying that I'm observing you doing victim's mentality in your previous posts with precisely the words you're saying. So, it's not a personal attack... just an observation about your behavior in those particular posts. And I was drawing your attention to the fact that you had slipped into victim's mentality. It would be wise to question why you jumped to vaguely gesturing at non-descript problems in society and blaming women for those vaguely gestured at problems, when I was just talking about collective male shame dynamics and never engaged in blaming men for these dynamics. There was clearly something you found offensive about what I said... and that caused you to jump to projecting some generic internet-Feminist perspective onto what I was saying. And you jumped right into victim's mentality and scapegoating women for generalized societal problems. You seem to perceive me to be firing shots at you... so you tried to fire them back at women as a general group by proxy of referring to me as "your gender". But I'm not interested in getting on gender teams and being like "Yeah well... men this..." and "Oh yeah. Women that..." The male shame dynamic I mentioned is just important to draw attention to, as it is often misdiagnosed in more surface-level ways.

My first two medicine experiences were with Mimosa Hostilis and Syrian Rue... used as an Ayahuasca analogue. That was 15 years ago, though. And you could order it online. And they had it in head shops.

@NewKidOnTheBlock You don't even recognize that you're in victim's mentality right now. And you're not even taking personal responsibility for your own victim's mentality... and prefer to blame women for your own victim's mentality. You're itching to scapegoat women for something just so you can continue to complain and wallow in victimhood.

I watched that one as well. It's really important to see how much even a single individual's trauma can impact our species. It really emphasizes the importance of understanding and resolving the true root causes of the macrocosmic issues that our world is faced with. Otherwise it's just throwing knives at the shadows on the cave walls.

Careful with the victim's mentality. It'll ruin your life!

I would argue that liberals and leftists do not see people as inherently good in the way that I mean it. It's clear that most lefties do believe in an essential evil. And most serious leftists do believe in top-down solutions to that evil to impose justice. It is mostly the "innocents" that they are focused on exercising compassion towards. But most leftists do believe in dropping the hammer on evil-doers and that evil-doers should be shown little to no mercy. And most leftists don't see the pragmatic value of 100% unconditional compassion. Leftists tend to reject that idea in favor of strictness to enforce justice. And in lefty circles, I would be laughed at for my naivety and chided for my enabling of evil-doers just by suggesting unconditional compassion. But there are also some naive apolitical liberal types that do embrace 100% compassion in theory ( and this is what leftists would see me as). And these naive apolitical liberal types just want to be soft on everyone and be bleeding hearts because they don't understand how to practice compassion effectively AND how to do so without undermining justice. So, both liberals and leftists don't seem to understand the true efficacy of unconditional compassion... which is accurate diagnosis of root causes and the subsequent treatment of those root causes for up-and-coming children. And they don't see a synthesis between compassion and justice... where the naive liberals tend to polarize more towards an imperfect shallow practice of compassion, and the leftists tend to reject compassion towards evil-doers and only focus towards justice... while compassion is reserved for innocents. It's either leftists going "Stick it to the Fascists and oligarchs. Time to get the guillotines out." or naive apolitical liberals going "Kum ba ya. Can't we all just get along. Maybe the Hitlers of the world can be redeemed." But my view is that compassion is valuable because it takes off the blind spots that "good and evil" thinking creates. And it lays bare collective wisdom and solutions that help us shift our societal structures and paradigms more into alignment, so that the children of the future are less likely to succumb to the problems and sufferings of now. But with your question about what is evergreen about conservatism, this is my view... I see the primary function of conservatism as limitation. And human beings will always need limitation... as limitation is the birthplace of beauty and meaning. Limitation is what creates context... and the ability for grounding in that context. And out of limitation comes order as well. Think of conservatism as being like the circulatory system... and human sovereignty and human experiences as being the lifeblood that flows through that system. Without the system itself, the lifeblood sits as a blob on the ground. But our aperture will widen as we develop. But the aperture will never go away. It's not like braces in that sense, as braces eventually get removed. But we will always need containers, protocols, and contexts that we must collectively agree to abide. (some will need to orient to this as dogma... and others who are more aware can exercise pragmatism around these collective rituals) And we need to have a sense of the game that we're playing and the limitations of that game... or the game will lose meaning. So, we will always need institutions, containers, and structures to hold society together. And we need collective rituals... and a strong communal focus. But in the past, this required people to cut away a lot of human potential because of the level of development of society (including the past's limited technologies and limited ideologies). But I see us as moving into structures that will allow more of the human sovereign authenticity to come through whilst being able to navigate the collective organization through a deeper understanding of human relationships and better practices around community organization. And what we're going through right now is a flash in the pan... and is the process of a hermit crab going from a smaller shell that it has outgrown to going to a bigger shell. But the hermit crab will still need a shell. It's only the vulnerable transition where the hermit crab can expand and grow... which is what's happening now. But it's a hermetic time... where we are all incredibly atomized and operating like hermits. This is necessary for now... but I sense it won't be much longer before intentional community starts becoming a necessity. And with it, there will need to be structures and limitations. I talk about this a bit in a video I made a while back...