Emerald

The main point that I was making is that I don't believe that people are a tabula rasa, which is what you had indicated in your reply. And I actually believe the opposite. So, he and I are in agreement that people have an innate nature and that they are not tabula rasas. But he's conservative, so he believes that our innate nature has inherent negatives that will remain the same over time that must be mitigated by top-down authoritarian structures. (and I agree that humanity will never be perfect... but I see lots of room for improvement and development, which necessitates a change in our structures.) And liberals and leftists tend to be the ones that believe more often that people are purely tabula rasas... and that there is no core nature but merely a collection of social conditionings. And for some, there is a sense of empathy for criminal behavior that has some efficacy in terms of focusing on restorative justice. But it doesn't really go deep enough to really address the roots of these issues. And that "collection of conditionings" idea was my view before I had my first awakenings back when I was 20. I thought everything was a social construct... and didn't know if there was anything under that conditioning. But my view is based in my experiences of the inherent perfection that sits underneath all imperfect human expressions. Because of those experiences, I am aware that many of our individual and collective disharmonies arise from underlying dynamics that can be made conscious and transformed. And I see top-down authoritarian structures as being a bit like temporary braces that we're using to keep society as harmonious as possible as we evolve and develop the awareness and emotional literacy necessary to heal collective traumas and to rise up into more holistic paradigms. It's the same thing that I had mentioned to you about the taboos before. I see taboos as a necessary, top-down control that society uses to push back on dynamics that it is not ready to integrate or deal with in wise ways. I see the same thing with top-down authoritarian social structures. When humanity is in its childhood, it really benefits from having a strict authoritarian father to teach it exactly the right and wrong way to do things. But as we grow in our paradigms and level of sovereignty and capacity for personal responsibility, we can see that the emperor has no clothes and develop structures that create order and harmony and bring people together... but don't require an all mighty and perfect Wizard of Oz to keep us acting right. It's like a macrocosmic expression of Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development... where societies move through each of those phases.

It's actually the diametric opposite of seeing people as a tabula rasa. Seeing people as a tabula rasa is to believe that people are blank slates that are merely shaped by conditionings and circumstances... and that there's no core innate features to anyone. So, you see my saying that I don't believe in "innate imperfection" as meaning that I don't believe in an innate nature. But I do believed in an innate nature. I have just experienced that innate nature as inherently perfect and good. So, I don't believe that people are blank slates. I believe each person has a unique core nature that is innate and unchangeable.... and I've experienced that that core nature is pure goodness at its roots. But through conditioning... that core nature can be reflected out into worldly expressions in both beneficial or detrimental ways. And I have experienced in my journeys that there is a core absolute innocence underneath all surface-level detrimental expressions. And that core absolute innocence is an ever present pure light that often gets reflected out into the world through distorted broken mirrors... and mangled by unprocessed trauma, unmet needs, and ignorance. So, on the surface, you can have the most negative depraved expressions you could imagine. But even the most depraved acts are based in drivers that are innocent and benevolent at their deepest core. And when that truth is recognized in the collective (which we have barely scratched the surface of at this juncture in human history) and we are able to exercise the depth of awareness and understanding that's only possible with unconditional compassion... that's when we can begin to heal the collective distortions that currently obscure that light of innocence from aligned worldly expression. This will never be perfect, of course. But we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the level of alignment that humanity is capable of. And we tend to chalk up all the negative behaviors human beings do as "just how it is" because we have never experienced such a deep internal revolution before. Regarding the human potential for healing, we are like peasants who laugh and throw fruit at the village idiot who tells of a future where there will be airplanes, cars, and computers. And I am happy to be seen as such a village idiot because I know I'm stating a truth that holds a lot of potential for collective human evolution.

Certainly it is not. It's really only 100% unconditional compassion that allows us to properly understand how people like Elon Musk are just the way that our collective shame comes to a head and impacts major institutions and societal structures through the amplification of the power of individuals. Huge collective traumas spill over into individual traumas and subsequent maladaptive coping mechanisms. And then, those coping mechanisms either get expressed through the collective itself... or through powerful individuals and society shapers like Musk. But looking at Musk through this lens really highlights a collective pattern. And while I'm angry at him because of the harm he's causing, it's not really helpful to look at the issue through that lens. It would just be chopping off the head of the hydra while three more grow in its place. You must cauterize the stump... which is understanding the role that shame plays in the collective consciousness of society.

Because justice in its highest expression is about keeping society safe and harmonious by preventing actions that harm the individual or collective. And the more revenge-focused a society is in its concept of justice, the less safe and harmonious it is. So... the revenge paradigm is actually incompatible with justice. It totally takes the focus away from the outcomes of justice and diverts attention to vengeance against evil-doers.... when revenge doesn't do anything to make a society more safe and harmonious and even invites more discord. And even putting the focus on the punishment of criminality OVER AND ABOVE creating a safe and harmonious society just takes the focus off of the purpose of justice in the first place. And it's basically looking at the symptoms as the cause disharmony... and trying to seek vengeance on a symptom rather than to address the root cause. In its best form, prison is a revenge-less exile station that sequesters away people who are a danger to society... which are the natural consequences of those behaviors. And I believe in approaching this in a matter-of-fact pragmatic way that's about creating a safe society... rather than getting all the emotionality of revenge and punishment involved with it. And death should never be seen as a punishment or exile... unless there are no other solutions. As I mentioned before, it creates negative punitive associations with death itself when death is actually empty of the quality punishment.

I might personally want him dead or to kill him. I might even try to kill him myself. That's quite normal and natural to want revenge. But the death penalty actually costs a lot more than life-imprisonment for the tax payers... first off. But the crux of my reason for opposing the death penalty is that I want a non-corrupt justice system based on the exalted archetype of justice... and not based off of lower paradigms where punishment and revenge are the focus of the justice system. And the paradigm of justice where death is viewed as a punishment is an inherent corruption of the concept of justice itself. You can either focus on punishing evil-doers as the priority of the justice system... or you can focus on actual justice (aka promoting harmony and safety in society). Death is not a punishment. It is a natural part of life. And framing death as a punishment will enforce the notion that death is bad and that life should spring eternal. But also, the exalted paradigm of justice and the death penalty are incompatible with one another. That is one of the reasons why the most harmonious safest places on Earth don't have the death penalty.

I agree. While this person in the video does have a strong grasp of the platonic ideal of conservatism... in the real world, most of the people that are currently in power who want to make things 'more conservative' are just authoritarian, corrupt, eroding the system, and abusing the system. And I'm sick to death of being a lefty that feels like I need to sacrifice all my progressive values every time I vote, just to be the glue that holds this imperfect system together that I'm not even that big a fan of in its current form. I'm having to be conservative just to compensate for the corruptions of the so-called conservatives in power. And the real irony is that the most conservative thing that could happen to the system that would preserve it the most is if a Bernie-Sanders-type got elected and some of the corruptions he seeks to weed out were eliminated. And MAGA is an agent of chaos... and is more about politicians and constituents who are consciously or unconsciously trying to tear down the entire system and social order in favor of a single father-figure dictator.

@aurum Here are my takes on the video... - I agree that we are built for specialization... and that society requires both open-minded progressive people who will push society forward AND more rules-based people who will enforce the rules. Different people have different skill sets and strengths and it makes the world go around. - I agree that liberalism isn't the solution to every problem... and that conservatism is also necessary. But I see the current state of conservatives as being more about breaking down the system, as opposed to actually preserving the system. And it causes us lefties to have to go into conservative mode to try to save the system from these so-called conservatives. Ironically, the most conservative thing you can do in this day and age is to vote Democrat as that is a choice that will actually preserve the status quo of the system. - I see caste-systems as out-moded and problematic... but I agree that there was once a function of staying in one role your whole life. But I am grateful to have been born into a Stage Orange individuality-focused dynamic, as there are many parts of myself that I would have needed to sacrifice had I been born and raised in a Stage Blue caste system. - I agree humans are an inherently political animal. But I don't believe that liberals actually reject that notion. And I don't believe that liberals actually see people as tabula rasas as he claims. It's a bit of a strawman. - I agree that communal norms and rituals matter... but also that some of the value of these communal norms is in the pushing back on them. But I do have a problem when communal norms and rituals are approached dogmatically and valued over human beings. Religion is for man and not man for religion. - Limitation is the birthplace of meaning... and depending on how developed someone is they can lose meaning if their scope of awareness moves beyond a certain degree. So, I see a huge need for limitations in the world. But the only forces that are acting on that limitation are authoritarian and corrupt... and really unsafe. But the driver towards this more corrupt MAGA form of conservatisms does arise from the desire to have an authoritarian figure impose limitation. Humans need limitation so much that they'll support crazy people if they can't get it through healthy sovereign means. - I disagree with the point about putting chains on moral appetites. That leads to suppression and repression, while those appetites can be integrated and sublimated in wiser and more exalted ways. But agree that those that cannot act as a self-sovereign and sublimate their own appetites will and must be governed by an external sovereign who will place limits. This is why I value sovereignty because it is where you have a true synthesis of authority and freedom... and it's' so uncommon. This lack of sovereignty is why so many people clamor for authoritarianism and dictatorship... and why the conservative impulse is so corrupted in the modern era. Ultimately, we will not leave Stage Orange until a sizable portion of the population develop personal sovereignty... and a balance between power and responsibility. - I agree that people will wield different outcomes for different levels of work... but most liberals (and even most progressives) agree with that. So, his thing about equality of outcome is a liberal strawman... though he seems not to be aware of that. This has even been studied. And the conservatives and liberals who participated in that study tended to be mostly in agreement about healthy levels of income inequality in society. Often the right strawmans the left with "equality of outcome". But it's more like the lefty position is to remove the corruptions within the system to get rid of perverse levels of inequality when people rig the game in their own favor. And my viewpoint is more of one of deconstructing corruptions in the systems and institutions and abolishing poverty, rather than everyone having the exact same economic outcomes. - I 100% agree that things have become super atomized and that the old Stage Blue social structures that we used to coalesce under have eroded away... and that has caused a tremendous amount of negative social and psychological consequences. And it makes sense to me why so many people want to go backwards to previous structures that worked for us. But I see this erosion of Stage Blue social structures as a natural and necessary occurrence that has lead us into the hyper-individualism of Orange where we can individuate beyond levels earlier humans were capable of and develop true sovereignty... and eventually lead us into a re-coalescence into Stage Green where those social structures and rituals will come into play in higher forms that leaves less human potential off the table, allow for higher degrees of sovereignty, and greater degrees of meaning. And it will be less of a "let's keep everyone smooshed together with top-down authoritarian control" and more of a "let's understand human relationships and human systems at such a deep level that we can have both authenticity and community coalesce at the same time". - I agree that we need to become more grounded and re-coalesce... but disagree that it will look like the classical conservatism of the past. It will likely look a lot more like intentional communities that emphasize more sophisticated ways of coalescing together without squelching sovereignty. - I agree that the deconstruction period has been extreme... but disagree that it's over-done. You have to break some eggs to make an omelette. And that deconstruction is part of a greater ordering principle of humanity that includes both preserving structures and dissolving structures. That said, in this deconstruction period, it makes sense that many people would clamor for the structures and limitations from before. - I don't believe that the future of society is one that will gather together around dogmatic religious practices in the same way it always has. But there will always be some collective social spiritual need... and there will likely be higher expressions of that in the future. - WIth the claim about religiosity and patriotism as being key to the maintenance of social order, I see the Stage Green future as being one where religiosity and patriotism mean very different things than they did in Stage Blue. In Stage Green, religiosity becomes collective spiritual practices that have rituals and collective meaning but less dogmatism, absolutism, and ethnocentricity. And patriotism becomes less about ethnocentrism and more about love of and interconnection with the Earth itself... just as Stage Blue was about patriotism to nation... and Stage Purple was about patriotism to tribe.... stage Green will be about patriotism to planet. - I agree that attempting to equalize things in a top-down way leads to warping... and ends up being authoritarian. But I see equity as fundamentally being a bottom-up means of subtracting corruptions in the system rather than about adding equality or focusing on having a totally equal outcome. - I do agree that humanity will always be imperfect and that top-down systems will always be necessary to some degree to deal with that imperfection... especially when those imperfections lead to criminality and behaviors that decay the social order. But I see the lion's share of what's considered to be "innate imperfection" as a symptom of deeper individual and collective traumas, unmet needs, and ignorances. And we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what's possible for us as a species when we start to become emotionally and psychologically literate enough to heal that trauma and to prevent the repeating of these cycles in families. And I know I won't see full scope of the effects of this nascent emotional and psychological literacy in my lifetime. But perhaps in several hundred years, many of the problem behaviors that have been considered innate to the human being will be significantly more rare... and our systems will evolve in line with this deeper emotional and psychological shift. Until then, however, top-down systems and patterns are necessary to push back behaviors that are degenerative to the social fabric. Just like taboos exist for the purpose of suppressing that which cannot yet be handled in a conscious way. - I do agree that social hierarchies naturally exist around merit, and that makes sense and has a lot of efficacy if experts are regarded as such over the lay person. But (not that he's saying this... he's actually saying the opposite) I do not believe social hierarchies should be imposed on demographic circumstances or birth... as society has developed past the need for people to be sorted into social hierarchies in regards to gender, race, caste, etc. But I do agree that that is a feature of earlier stages of development. - He tends to conflate Liberalism and liberalism... which actually mean different things. So, while Liberalism is about free markets and material goods do become people's gods with the LIberal mindset. But this is something that people who are more liberal-minded tend to be more critical of than the average conservative. But a lot of liberals and leftists tend to be more secular in the mindset in general... so there can be a tendency for the spiritual impulse to come out towards more political causes, or even to treat science as a religion. - I agree that all Yin and Yang (in this case conservative and liberal respectively) need to be synthesized. - I agree that market-based Liberalism is alienating... but disagree that market-based Liberalism has a lot to do with liberal-mindedness in practice. - I agree that people should mostly coalesce together by means rather than ends, except in cases where reform or revolution are necessary. In general, any overt focus on outcomes will create an authoritarian machiavellian tendency to try to force society to conform to the notions of those in power. But the means is more like a detachment from outcomes and following the automations of the system because "it's not about whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." It's more about doing it properly rather than getting the exact wanted outcome. But I don't believe there is an actual liberal/conservative split in this way (neither in practice nor philosophy)... as both liberals and conservatives are guilty of doing this.

Strictness is incredibly valuable as the other side of compassion and mercy. And without adequate strictness, chaos will consume the society. But there are wise and unwise ways to be strict... and the death penalty and the punishment-as-crime-solution-paradigm are examples of that.

You're saying that I'm closed up in my mind about the death penalty (and also that my paradigm is a run-of-the-mill leftist paradigm, when it isn't... but I digress on that point). But I do see the value of the death penalty in societal structures that don't have the resources to deal with harmful behaviors a different way. So, I was mentally flexible enough to concede your point within certain contexts... but you have yet to be mentally flexible enough to concede anything to my perspective. So, as a concession to your perspective on the death penalty... if we were in a tribe and someone starts acting up and making the rest of the tribe less safe... toss that mf-er off a cliff! That's the cleanest and most effective solution that that infrastructure allows for. And it's taken out of practicality and not from a space of punishment or revenge. But if you have some kind of idea that the death penalty increases the levels of safety and harmony in society (which is the core function of the justice system in the first place) then you're just incorrect. There's no evidence that the death penalty deters people from committing crimes more than run of the mill prison sentences. And there's no evidence that the death penalty makes for a safer and more harmonious society either. In fact, the most safe and harmonious places in the world tend to be places that have already abolished the death penalty. No one who decides to murder when there's no death penalty will be deterred by the death penalty being added. If a life-sentence doesn't deter someone from murder... a death-sentence certainly wouldn't either. But if you have evidence that shows that the death penalty makes the society more harmonious and safer, then please show it... and I will consider it. But there are much more effective means of preventing crime and increasing societal safety and harmony that actually have very little to do with what goes on in the prison system. Though of course, it's important to have consequences for harmful actions and a place where you can sequester away people who are threats to societal harmony and safety... so there does need to be a place to house both violent and system-eroding criminals away from regular society. But prisons and punishments don't produce a just society. They're just exile stations for people who break laws... and ideally they become exile stations only for people who truly upend the social order. But this thought of being "tough on crime" as a deterrent for crime really neglects that ACTUAL levers of power we have over the macrocosmic crime patterns.... which have a lot more to do with "lax" values like softness, compassion, and connection than with punishment and prison. And the harsher we are as a society, the more it begets more trauma... and therefore more crime. It's like cutting off the head of the hydra... and having 3 more grow in its place. So, any rigorous person who has an actual commitment to justice in its exalted expression will not be focusing on making the punishments harsher. That's like trying to cure a sickness by punishing and shaming the fever... as opposed to addressing the root cause.

I'm not say you want to create a loophole for murdering disabled people. I'm saying that's the natural conclusion of your logic... even if you don't agree with creating a loophole for murdering disabled people. And you saying that my perspective is liberal is silly as it is so far removed from what liberals or leftists believe. My perspective is just a reflection of a society that's more aware of the actual consequences of the current punishment-based paradigms we're operating off of.

I already said that we need to switch the paradigm away from the concept of punishment altogether. And that' because the punishment paradigm creates worse societal outcomes. And analogy in the microcosm is the difference between parents who use corporal punishment on their child versus the parents that teach the child with natural consequences. You'll find a lot more criminal behavior in the former group than the latter. But the parents that beat their children genuinely believe that they are creating upstanding citizens by beating their kids... and will even attribute the problems in society to the fact that parents are too soft on their kids and don't beat them enough. And you are like them in your support of the punishment paradigm and support of the death penalty.

But the death penalty is a corruption of the very concept of justice, except in cases where the societal infrastructure is such that murder is the only option for protecting the society. Having the death penalty in modern society is just Medieval executions for sheer entertainment. That's really the reason why people support it... they would rather punish evil-doers than live in a truly just society. That's why the most developed nations have abolished the death penalty. The death penalty will likely be seen as being as barbaric as lobotomies and blood-letting in a century's time.

Based on your logic, if someone murders a person who produces a lot of relative value (like a CEO)... the murderer should get a greater punishment than someone who murders an able-bodied adult of an average value output. And therefore, if someone murders an elder or disabled person who provides a lower value output (or extracts value from the collective) then that murderer should get less time than if they were to murder an average value output person. That's the logical conclusion of the hierarchical legal paradigm you're operating off of... that murder charges should vary depending on the relative value that the murder victim produces for the world. So... death penalty for killing a CEO... then 40 years for killing an able-bodied able-minded average adult who makes enough money to pay taxes... then maybe just 20 years for murdering someone who's physically or cognitively disabled or elderly, or poor enough to take a lot of government services. And maybe an even lighter sentence for murdering children, who only extract from the collective. And you may say that that's silly and irrelevant to your point... but that is the logical conclusion of your paradigm around hierarchical relative value that people provide determining how the law is applied to murderers... if you're really being consistent with they way you approach relative valuation of people.

It's a fair question to ask to probe at your worldview. That's why a few people have approached you with that question. You did say before that some people are more valuable than others because of what they produce for the collective. And that the law should reflect that hierarchical understanding of human value. And many disabled people and old people aren't able to provide a lot of value to the collective. They might actually need to extract value from the collective. So, you either believe that disabled people and elders are less valuable than the average person... or the hierarchical understanding of your worldview is inconsistent and you haven't fully thought it through. It has to be one or the other.

This works in less developed societal structures... like villages and tribes. If some village idiot is posing a threat to the safety of the tribe, there are no resources to deal with them any other way but to leave them to the bears. But in a more developed societal context where we do have the infrastructure for higher expressions of justice, the death penalty is just a way to give the peanut gallery a sense of satisfaction that someone got their come-up-ence. And that's because our collective understanding of crime and justice is so low and rudimentary... and wrapped up in the ideas of punishment and revenge. And this plays a major role in metastasizing the cancer of criminality in ways that most people don't recognize. It's just another intonation of the public executions in Medieval times where everyone would bring the kids out to enjoy. Be careful not to succumb to the devilry of the status quo, just because you're trying to manage perceptions of "laxity" among certain swaths of the population. Also, in relations to your other point about CEOs providing more relative value than others... All people are regarded as equal under the law in a just system. And if you actually want a just system that isn't run off of corruption and elitism, you can't be advocating for a system that treats the murder of a CEO as different than the murder of anyone else.... even if that CEO is ostensibly producing more value.... (though that one's arguable in this case because healthcare CEOs are also the head of an unnecessary for-profit system that would better serve the average person if that private system was abolished in favor of socialized medicine like most other places in the developed world have. So, we also have to recognize that for-profit healthcare also extracts value from people and society at large... which may mitigate the net value of that system and the net value of that CEOs role.) If the justice system were truly just, it would see people indifferently through the eyes of existence itself... and not on the level of relative doings and subjective relative valuings. You can have an elitist understanding of the world prevailing... or you can have justice. You can't have both.

The presence of the death penalty is a good litmus test for how corrupt a given justice system is because the paradigm that the death penalty operates off of is incompatible with justice. Death is not a punishment. And any society that regards death as a punishment will try to cling to life-everlasting... which corrupts the spirit. And beyond that, the whole concept of a justice system based around the idea of punishment is quite ineffective if the goal is actual justice. If you try to chase two rabbits, you catch none. And if you're chasing the rabbit of punishment... you cannot ever catch the rabbit of justice. Contemplate into what justice ACTUALLY is and why imbuing the justice system with the paradigm of punishment works in opposition to it. I'm sure you will see this as "laxity", but understand that you don't need to be lax to shift out of our paradigmatic distortions around the concept of punishment-based justice and the logic behind the death penalty. In fact, justice should be strict as it is about drawing lines in the sand to help society operate in a safe and harmonious way. And lines in the sand should be sharp. But the punishment-based paradigms that we currently operate off of regarding justice actually creates more unsafely and more disharmony because we're more focused on punishing evil-doers for our own sense of revenge-based satisfaction than we are on creating systems that actually serve the outcomes of justice... a safe and harmonious society.

I'm pretty sure that most bisexual people are monogamous. But I don't know the exact statistics. I know a lot of bisexual women end up in a similar position to me though where they mostly have relationships with men. For me personally, it's a genuine romantic relationship preference. I've only ever had deep romantic feelings towards a woman where I wanted a relationship with her one time... but with men countless times. But for many, it is just easier in a lot of ways to have an opposite sex relationship in the lead up to the relationship (meaning it's harder to find a woman who's interested in you than it is to find a man who's interested in you... because you have to find a woman who's into women AND women have more dating sorting mechanisms than men). And it's also easier in the aftermath of the formation of the relationship, where you don't have to deal with all the homophobia stuff because you pass as straight. As for my opinion on trans people in bathrooms and sports, they are the same as yours. Trans people should be able to use the bathroom they feel comfortable in. And the trans women in sports conversation could be totally solved just by doing some studies on how medically transitioning and taking estrogen over the course of different periods of time impacts things like strength, speed, endurance, etc. And then rules, protocols, and decisions should be made on the basis of those studies and what would be the most scientifically fair choice available... as opposed to random conjectures from a bunch of concern trolls on the internet who don't care even the slightest about women's sports except when it's used as a cudgel to bash trans women with.

I'm bisexual. And I'm about equally physically/sexually attracted to men and women... but I rarely have romantic attractions towards women. So, I don't have any experiences with dating women or being in relationships with women. And most people don't know that I'm bisexual unless I specifically tell them. I'm adding these details in case that means that I'm not a good candidate to ask these questions to because I mostly operate in the world in a very heterosexual-seeming way as I've only ever had male partners. So, I don't experience a lot of the same experiences that people in same sex relationships or who are trans or non-binary do.

100% Shame is an unfortunately common motivator for people's actions. And it keeps people on a hamster wheel of never feeling enough... but instead trying to become enough before they can truly live.

Interesting video. It mirrors the principle that anything you fight against will use your resistance to increase its power. It's kind of like in the story of Bre'r Rabbit when he fights the tar baby. Here's a depiction of the scene in the Disney movie "Song of the South". As a quick content warning, this movie is pretty racist because it heavily caricatures black American speech patterns. But the scene still depicts the sticky nature of trolling that the video talks about and how it uses your own resistance against you...

I notice that it isn't just edge cases. It is definitely the majority... and perhaps even the vast majority. Perhaps that isn't you in particular though. I notice this shame is by matter of degree to how attached a guy is to matching up to a specific standard of Masculinity. The higher the attachment, the more shame... the lesser the attachment, the lesser the shame. And the more a guy represses away his Feminine side, the more shame... and the more a guy integrates his Feminine side, the less shame. But the main thing is not the pick-up itself. That's fine to learn to approach women and to understand what works. And it is normal also to get a bit nervous about that. If I were a man, I'd also be doing the same thing. So, understand that I'm not making a definitive statement about the act of learning to approach women in itself. That would require some degree of learning of what works. The pick-up community/movement is just one that you'll see this collective male shame dynamic shine through in quite often. And pick-up is often used as a coping strategy to try to resolve the shame. And I just notice that most guys who get into pick-up that I've interacted with and worked with are unconsciously doing so to get away from shame by matching up to a particular standard of Masculinity... and being good with women is just a requirement to match up to that Masculine standard. This is why the pick-up community tends to be a magnet for guys who deal with this shame dynamic. So, pick-up (and other forms of self-improvement and/or attempts to increase Masculinity) often are approached from a place of shame and attempting to fix one's self. And that shame is what forms the basis of a lot of online male movements like Incels, MGTOW, and Red Pill (who operate from the same shame but different coping strategies... victim's mentality, avoidance, and minimization/resistance respectively)... and it's also common in pick-up and other male-oriented subcultures and online communities.

Thank you!

If you just feel like you lack skills and there's no strong emotions attached to it, then it's probably just a need to learn more skills. It takes some introspection and attunement to the emotions. What I would ask is... do you tend to feel insecure/shameful about things and thinking/feeling like you're not enough as you are? And do you fear rejection and shame? This could indicate that there's more to your motivation than just a desire to learn skills. But yes, if you're in survival mode (worrying about physical safety and stability), that's a different kind of insecurity that isn't necessarily shame based. But what I mean about operating as though you're a child who doesn't want to miss Disney World is to take productive actions from that place. Like, with your goals, think about the kind of motivation that a child has when their parents say "If you keep your room clean and get good grades in school, we can go to Disney at the end of the month. But if you don't clean your room and get good grades, we won't be going to Disney." You just recognize that you have to take certain actions to enrich your life... and if you do, you get the enriching experiences you want... and if you don't, you miss Disney World. And the good thing about this motivation is that it's very practical and self-loving... and not based in shame. Like, when I was in my teens and early 20s, the lion's share of my drives towards achievement were about getting away from shame and self-hatred. I really believed "If I don't achieve and outdo others in my fields of excellence, I don't deserve to exist." I was really hard on myself. Now, at the age of 35, I've gone through a lot of healing with shame. And I literally feel like I could literally lay around and do nothing forever and not feel very much shame about it. And my goal is to get it to where I don't need to do anything at all to accept myself. But now, my motivations are much more experience-based.... and more sustainable as a result. For example, with my business... I don't have many conscious drivers to avoid shame through having a successful business. My concerns are more practical... when it comes to negatives I'm trying to avert. Instead, most of my motivation comes from a desire to enrich my life and the life of my family... and to be able to have the experience of helping other people. I'm like a kid that needs to do their chores or they won't be able to go to Disney World. And that's my main motivator towards my success now. I do what I do because I love myself, I want what's best for myself, and I don't want to miss Disney World because I was slacking on my chores.

Men and women can both have shame individually for a variety of reasons depending on the details in their own lives. But I'd say men's collective wound is more shame-based, while the current state of women's collective wound is more about disempowerment than shame. But women do tend to deal with different types of collective shame patterns... like shame with body image, age, sexuality, Femininity, being seen as weak, incapable, inferior, looney, etc.. So, there definitely is female collective shame patterns as well. But there's been a lot of shifts over the past century or so (and especially in the past 10 years) that have created some genuine progress with those collective shame patterns that are based in the collective rejection of Femininity... and seeing Femininity as lesser than Masculinity over the course of millennia. So, there's still a lot of collective shame for women but the attitudes over the past several generations that have arisen are slowly shifting things. For example, when I was growing up, all the ads depicted perfect-looking women and slut-shaming and fat-shaming were off the charts. And it was just common for women to hate each other as a default and to internalize all these standards. But over the past decade there's more sensitivity to that kind of thing and a rejection of those beliefs and arbitrary standards that have been the cause of a lot of collective female shame. But the shame dynamic with men is one that men haven't quite collectively woken up to as of right now. And it has to do with unrealistic and prescriptive expectations of strength, responsibility, Masculinity, etc. Like, if you tell the average women that they're not Feminine enough and that they need to be more Feminine and to match societal expectations of Feminine gender roles, they'll get up in your face and bless you out. Go try it on the internet and you'll see. But if you tell the average man that they're not Masculine enough and that they need to be more Masculine and to match societal expectations of Masculinine gender roles, many men will feel genuinely beholden to that expectation and feel shame if they feel like they don't match up. The main difference here is that there aren't any really attractive boons to shoving one's self in the box of the traditional female expectations that you can't also get more and better of by sloughing off those expectations. So, women recognize that these "be more Feminine" shaming are basically just saying... "Take one for the team and get back in the box because it makes me feel more comfortable." So, it's easier to wake up to and shake off the majority of these expectations... as long as you're not caught down in a social system that requires you to conform or be ostracized. But with men, following Masculine gender roles dangles a kind of idealistic carrot of "If you conform to this expectation, you'll be the man!" And there's a lot of peer pressure from other men to conform to these expectations as well. So, there's all these sentiments that echo "You're not man enough" everywhere... from dads, to guy friends, to immature women with unrealistic expectations, to grifters on the internet who want to make a buck off of that insecurity. And it's hard to reject the box that limits you and causes insecurities when you feel like the box is necessary to get respect, power, connection, women, friendship, etc. The box is like golden handcuffs that aren't actually made of real gold. But the expectations still loom heavily. And to the degree that a man internalizes those expectations and tries to mold himself to match them, is the degree to which he rejects himself. And the degree to which he rejects himself is the degree to which he will feel shame. And then this shame around these expectations will play itself out in interactions with women. And there can often be jealousy and resentment towards women because they are not beholden to the same expectations.

Thank you! I'm not sure if everyone would be naturally flirtatious per say, as personalities differ. But I'm certain that it would be a lot easier to interact socially and to open up.