Emerald

That makes sense. Rarely am I ever disgusted by the individual men that I interact with. But that could be because of the way I've cultivated my social circle. I've been trying to develop a root-level understanding about certain political patterns and values patterns in many men collectively that I sense as (and many that are) a threat to safety and sovereignty for myself and others. And to notice the underlying vulnerability as to why these patterns arise and why a large portion of men are drawn to them... even at their own expense. But the actual famous figures that were in the dreams are a bit harder to empathize with because they are spearheads. And some of them are even aware of the issues they're causing... like Tucker Carlson. He doesn't believe anything he's saying... but yet he puts on a charade for his viewers and is well-paid to do so. So, individual men are very easy to be compassionate towards... men as a collective a bit harder... and these guys in particular, very difficult.

First off, when I say Masculine... I don't mean things primarily pertaining to gender. Masculine and Feminine are two polar energies that exist in all living and non-living systems. It's more like Yin and Yang than Woman-like-ness and Man-like-ness. And the issue with being unaware of which energies and archetypes are at play in a given dynamic is that we can have a bias against one of the energies/archetypes without realizing we have a bias. For example, when I was under the age of 20, I was thinking very similarly to you. And I thought that Masculinity and Femininity was nothing more than a social construct and that it was just limiting boxes to put everyone in. (And people can indeed make that mistake if they're not careful if they use this awareness to box themselves in.) But then, I had a direct experience of the Feminine in a medicine journey. And it defied all societal norms and boxes. And it had absolutely nothing to do with the Feminine gender role in society's eyes. But I felt a deep sense that I couldn't use any other descriptor other than Feminine to describe what I was experiencing. And I realized that I had been repressing this Feminine energy my entire life and it was disconnecting me from nature and my body... and huge parts of my personality. And prior to that, I had unknowingly polarized into Masculine traits and saw them as superior to Feminine traits across the board. Because I saw all traits as neutral and didn't realize that Masculinity and Femininity is real on an archetypal and energetic level, I didn't recognize my patriarchal biases which had resulted in a lot of Feminine repression and internalized misogyny. Also, in my post I only characterized tyranny, picking on the weaker, and making career power moves at the expense of other and society at large as Shadow Masculine traits. And these are archetypal Masculine traits that happen to be negative. Foolish, dishonest, heartless, repulsive, and frothing people into a rage and direct that rage towards more vulnerable groups of people is very specific to these types of famous right wing figures. So, the heartless one fits as a Shadow Masculine trait because disconnection from emotions is an expression of the negative Masculine. But the others could fall into either category. Wanting to be more successful than others and competitive are more neutral Masculine traits that can be expressed in positive and negative ways. But yes, right wing women often times do have many Shadow Masculine traits because that's what makes you more fit for survival in a patriarchal environment. Femininity isn't a plant that can grow in patriarchal soil, so all women in these hyper-Masculine environments must repress their Femininity and use Masculine shields to protect themselves. So, there's a dynamic with famous right wing women of being hyper-Feminine in appearance but possessing more domineering and Masculine personality qualities. Think of people like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green. But like I mentioned, the Masculine and Feminine exist in all living and non-living systems. Anyone can have positive Masculine or Feminine qualities. Also in patriarchal religions like Christianity, most of the things characterized as sins fall into the Feminine principle. In an archetypally patriarchal religion, there is a distant God that's usually associated with the sky. And there is the notion that the Earth is a lower plane and that the lower plane must be transcended by detaching from the world of form or the sins of the flesh. The Masculine has to do with the non-physical/spiritual/perfect and the Feminine has to do with the body, the physical world, and the imperfect. And Christianity is all about overcoming the sins of the physical world to transcend to a non-physical superior world. So, there is a very strong Masculine principled bias... even if it SOMETIMES isn't spelled out as such (though sometimes it definitely is). That's why it's important to know about these archetypes. We can accidentally become anti-Feminine just because so much of our philosophical framework is based on a rejection of the Feminine principle and the Earthly nature. So, Earth is like the Feminine... as is Hell which is even more deeply inset into the Earth. And Heaven is like the Masculine.

That's fair. I'll see myself out.

That's an interesting journey. I recommend the authors Jean Raffa, Maureen Murdoch, and June Singer. These were the most helpful authors that I found when I first started to reintegrate the Feminine.

Yeah, I see it more along the lines of them being symbols of my disgust towards my Masculine side. It also occurs to me now that perhaps their famousness is part of the symbol... as it isn't just some random right wingy guy with similar values to them. One of the regrets that I have about my YouTube channel is that I've been lukewarm in my motivations towards it. And despite that, I've still been pretty successful. I have almost 70,000 subscribers now. But if I had been more diligent like I was as a teenager with my polarization into the Masculine, I have no doubt that I could have made many more videos and a broader audience. And I would have been able to express far more of my insights. Yet again, my polarization from back them and my disconnection from the Feminine made me much narrower in my perspectives. So, I wouldn't have been able to provide as much value as I can now that I've gone through that process. So, I think... if I want to be able to be more prolific in my creative and intellectual endeavors and to grow my audience, I really have to heal my relationship with the Masculine. It's such a frustrating thing when you had something so completely in the palm of your hand before... and then you lose it.

I could see how that would apply to that dynamic with the "I can change him" thing. But in these dreams, it's almost like my attraction comes mostly from my sensing of their negativity... except the one with Andrew Tate. It's funny that he was like this super tender hearted guy in my dream. And I felt so guilty for sleeping with him because I could sense that he was in love with me and wanted a long term relationship. So, I think it has more to do with my need to embrace my own Masculine side that I've developed some aversion and disgust towards because of how I parted with it back when I was 20. I spent the first 20 years of my life totally polarized to the Masculine and basing my value on my productivity and achievement... and my ability to be more successful than others. And I really saw myself as a "human doing" rather than as a "human being". So, I was a workaholic by the time I hit my teen years. And this benefitted me in some major ways. I ended up graduating Summa Cum Laude from high school purely off of my own motivation (I haven't lived with my parents since I was 16), I developed a high degree of skill in the arts, and I brought myself through college. I was really into the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality back then, and I was deep in this Stage Orange hyper-individualism and competition. And I really felt like, if I wasn't achieving, that I was total trash. And I secretly harbored lots of judgments towards others based off of their ability to stick to my values (which I assumed to be universal values) around things like work ethic, chastity, honest, excellence, success, etc. Then, at 20... my whole house of cards fell down and life pulled my "I always succeed, even in the face of chaos" identity out from under me. And I sunk deep into my shame. And I happened to have my first medicine journeys during that time. And I had this realization in the first one that the Masculine and Feminine was real (and not just a social construct as I'd previously assumed). And I could sense the Feminine in the night air, in the trees, and the grass... and in myself. And this led to a year-long foray into integration of the Feminine by rending myself loose from all my hyper-Masculining patriarchal conditionings that were now very evident to me that every value that I held was archetypally Masculine... and I hated most archetypal Feminine values. But along with this dynamic, I also kicked my motivational motors out from under me. And I've found better motivational motors, but never fully reintegrated the Masculine. And now, there's a lot of accountability issues and laziness... and identities that correspond. Previously, I used to be the most motivated person I knew and wore that badge with pride. But now, I'm just gingerly rowing the boat down the stream in a way that's a little too liesurely for my liking. And I miss some elements of the lower state of Masculinity that I used to be in. But now I see an opportunity to integrate the higher Masculine, now that I've spent so much time detached from the lower Masculine and marinating and languishing in the positive and negative Feminine.

I do think the higher male suicide rate could be attributed partially to men tending to hold their emotional struggles to themselves more and not reaching out for help. That's especially true if his only connections are with brass tacks solution-oriented guys that he can't really bring up his emotional struggles with, as these guys might be at a loss of what to do with his feelings other than to try to solve them for him.

It's a means of opening up emotionally about problems and creating intimacy and connection with that other person. And it's a relief because I don't have to struggle with those problems alone and hold them in to myself. And I feel a lot lighter if I can have a heart to heart with someone in that way. I might even sometimes cry, which is a good stress reliever. Like, if I talk with people about my problems, it's 90% for the purpose of connection and sharing my life with that person. It's like, "Hey, I want you to know what I'm going through and what my internal state is because I want to you know this part of me." I rarely need someone's help to solve my problems for me. I usually know how to solve them, and am in the process of doing so. Like, right now I'm in the process of making big changes within my business. And I know my game plan. It will just take quite a while. So, if I open up to someone about my stresses with my business, 9 times out of 10 I'm not looking for solutions because I know what I'm doing already. The map is drawn out, and I have nothing else to do but do it. But when I'm stressed, I find it relieving sometimes to talk to friends about it.

I haven't read any Ken Wilbur. But I am familiar with his ideas around development versus awakening. And I do think of humanity as developing through more and more conscious stages of societal evolution as our technology develops... and that people can be more or less developed along those Spiral Dynamics lines. So, within the context of our species, I see that there is a kind of 10 steps forward and 9 steps back towards a more conscious and aware society, as is evident to me just from the changes in society and the paradigms we hold in the short time I've been alive. But in terms of evolution (in the Darwinian sense), humanity hasn't always been in a situation where more conscious humans are the most fit to the environment. In fact, the ability to be selfish, ruthless, and unconscious has conferred immediate survival and reproduction value up until present day... though it sabotages our collective survival and ability to raise healthy children who will be good for our collective survival. But right now is an exciting time to be alive. In our globalized world with air travel, the internet, and the atom bomb... we are in a place where we need to wake up to love and oneness or go extinct. Develop or die. It is only just now that our Darwinian survival of evolving to be the most fit to our environment... and development within the Spiral (in the ways that Wilbur speaks about) start to converge in ways that can only be ignored to our collective peril. And we may simply continue to default to what worked before to be fit to our environment (the ruthlessness and selfishness of us against them) and go extinct because that's no longer fit to the environment. Or we can recognize that our Darwinian survival requires global unity and an awakening to deeper levels of loving-kindness... and Darwinian evolution and Spiral evolution become indistinguishable from one other. And then, we might make it as a species.

You're welcome

It's similar to what I was expressing to you yesterday or the day before that. If you want real wisdom... and not just intellectual spiritual knowledge to help you spiritually bypass down-to-Earth human truths like "It feels bad to kick dogs"... you must hold two perspectives at once. And these two perspectives are... human-hearted and God-minded. From the God-minded perspective, you're operating from the perspective of the video game designer that recognizes the importance of positives and negatives within the game design. It recognizes that both Mario and Bowser are integral to the game. And from this perspectives, it is an acceptance of both mercy and suffering as integral to reality itself. But from the human-hearted perspective, it is the recognition that it is a much better experience to practice loving-kindness towards yourself and others... and to reduce suffering as much as is feasible. And it is honoring the bias of all sentient beings to want pleasure over pain, happiness over sadness, and mercy over suffering. This is the perspective where we recognize that, while Bowser is an integral part of the game, we still want Mario to win.

That makes sense. There could be an underlying belief that "intimate relationships always lead to conflict." And that could certainly be a reason for avoidance.

Do you have any experiences in childhood with controlling parents? This is a common reason for relationship avoidance. Another common reason is if we had family members going over our boundaries frequently when we were growing up. This creates the sense that "connection means allowing people to go over my boundaries." In both of these patterns, the main over-riding theme is the sense of connection and authenticity/boundaries/freedom being mutually exclusive, where you can have one but not the other. Does any of this resonate with you?

It only works that way for those who fail to grasp the value of beauty-in-itself, and only value utility. Not as to say that it isn't an incredibly human thing to devalue real beauty and engage in seeing everything as merely a ticket to another end. It is common. But it is a failure to see the true value and beauty in a potential partner to only view them through this 'supply and demand' lens.

If you mean by your bidding analogy that another person would only be interesting if others were also actively interested in them, I feel like this is a pretty immature way to look at relationship prospects that wouldn't lead to good relationship outcomes. If you need social proof and "other bidders" to be interested in someone, then you're not really interested in that person. You'd just be interested in chasing the social status of being with that person.

You can't actually be socially conservative and pro-human rights in a way that's meaningful in 2024. To revert back to social conservatism would be to cut back significantly on hard-won human rights over the past century. To be socially conservative is a paradigm that aligns with living in a small, mono-cultural, mono-religious, agrarian, patriarchal community where there are rigid gender roles to ensure that land is passed from father to son. And sexuality must be tightly controlled. And everyone has a role to play in a very rigid hierarchy... where men are at the top, the women are governed by the men, then the children are owned by the men but cared for by the women. And all social deviants (like gay people, trans people, people of other cultures/races, women who intermarry with other races, people who don't subscribe to the "one true religion", or other "degenerates") are kicked out from the rigid hierarchy of society. This is the paradigm social conservatives are operating off of. And to adopt that way of thinking would be to regress and undercut the rights of women, gay people, trans people, everyone in the out-group religions, and everyone in the out-group cultures/ethnicities/races. Also, you can't have a democratic theocracy. Those two things also don't go together.

They weren't talking about 'not sitting around for men' as a collective group. After all, not every man will ignore a woman he's interested in. In fact, most men don't do that. They were talking about not sitting around for a particular man that ignores them... and instead moving on to a man who doesn't ignore them. I feel like it's pretty obvious what they're saying. Move on from a man who ignores you, and instead invest your effort in one that doesn't. It's pretty straight forward. What's the value in pretending to be confused and making it out like they're being inconsistent?

Whoa! Young McConnell ad.

Integrating suffering is in the acceptance of suffering as an integral part of reality itself, and that mercy and suffering are two sides to one coin. It's like Yin and Yang. And in this integration, it means to recognize that a world without suffering would be like playing a video game with no obstacles. But if you apply the perspective of the "game designer" to your gameplay as the "avatar", you will play the game foolishly because you will see negative and positive as relative equals within the gameplay. And that is the mistake that you are making. You are applying the logic of the game designer to over-write the human-hearted common sense logic of the avatar. From the perspective of the game designer, you need to program the game with a workable balance of both positives and negatives in order to make a good video game. And the game won't be interesting if it's too easy or too difficult. For example, if you're the creator of the Mario games... both Mario and Bowser are an integral part of the game play. And you need a Bowser to give Mario a proper obstacle to work against. So, this is the higher perspective you would need to look at the world from to integrate suffering. This is what I referred to as God-mindedness because it looks at reality through the eyes of the creator who codes both negative and positive into reality. And it weaves suffering into the gameplay, because it teaches wisdom through contrast. But if you, as the avatar, engage in the gameplay from the perspective of the video game designer, you will just let Bowser kill you... because it's all an integral part of the gameplay. And you will see no difference between Mario and Bowser and lose the game. So, don't be foolish and reach for top-shelf God Consciousness truths to over-write more common sense down-to-Earth human-hearted wisdom. It is foolish to always be promoting top-shelf spiritual truths over down-to-Earth practical truths. Remember... Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. Instead of Spiritual Bypassing, embrace your humanity and be human-hearted. And to do that skillfully is where you do your best to reduce suffering as much as you can and to spread loving kindness as far and wide as possible. To operate otherwise is just folly.

Though suffering is an integral part of reality, it is wise to aim to reduce suffering as much as is feasible for an individual human being. It is the integration of human-heartedness and God-mindedness that allows for wisdom to flourish. To pay no mind to 'down to Earth' wisdom of the human-hearted bias towards reducing suffering is the folly of those hyper-intellectuals who are rich of mind but poor of heart.

Morality means making an a priori assumption of "This is an absolute good" and "This is an absolute bad"... and is treated itself like a premise. And it can get very arbitrary where the moralistic values have nothing to do with harm reduction. So, if we use the logic axiom of "If this, then that"... moralistic thinking is like "If wearing green hats is bad, then no one should be allowed to wear green hats." So, morality is totally arbitrary and based on the assumptions of a particular culture... or a particular individual. Because of this, I think it's wise to forgo all forms of moralization. Instead, I prefer to operate off of an ethical framework, where the premise I operate under is to cause as little suffering as possible as an individual. So, if we go back to the logic axiom of "If this, then that"... ethical thinking is like "If my intention is to cause as little suffering as possible, then I am wise to avoid engaging in actions that cause unnecessary suffering to others." And that's really my only one and only ethical compass. Moralism leads to arbitrary judgments and demonization... and losing sight of the reason why setting boundaries on our behavior is helpful. Ethical thinking leads to wise discernment based on the value of loving kindness toward all. This is useful. But do not fall into the trap of being moralistic about morality and ethics.

That's an interesting example. It really embodies Christ's statement of "Forgive them for they know not what they do." But one of the things that brought me to this conclusion is what happened in one of my Ayahuasca journeys. In this journey the medicine shared with me is my purpose, which is mercy and showed me how it had always been that... and why that was the case. And it was explaining to me that this entailed being this mediator figure between society and the mystery to help people work through spiritual, psychological, and practical issues that keep them stuck in suffering by giving them smaller insights that they can handle as an individual. And in this explanation, it was clear to me that this tendency was only given to those who really want at the deepest level of their being to play that role for their community. And it was given as a both a gift and a burden. So, most people genuinely don't want the burden of the exposure to deeper levels of gnosis, and thus are not given that gift. And it showed me how much of a mercy it is to allocate that job to a few people so that the many don't have to shoulder that burden. And the many can come to the few to reap the benefits of the work done by the few. Similarly to how, in a village with a great baker, the village people can simply rely on the baker for their baked goods. And they don't need to shoulder the burden of baking their own bread every day... and get freed up to do other things. And my estimate is that this that was shown to me in my journey, describes 1 in every 100 or 200 people... who may become medicine people, priests, priestesses, psychologists, and other helping professionals that help people explore the labyrinths of the psyche and the Self. But that is just one specialization out of many. And it is not superior to being a great baker or candlestick maker.

Thank you

That's because higher spiritual and psychological capacity isn't what nature is attempting to develop. Like, if fur evolves into feathers over time... it isn't because feathers are better than fur in the eyes of nature. It is just an adaptation. The same is true with higher vs lower spiritual and psychological capacity. Evolution doesn't inherently mean becoming better at those things... as spiritual and psychological capacity is values-neutral in the eyes of nature. It is just a neutral adaptation like any other adaptation. So, asking this question is a bit like asking why humans haven't evolved echolocation. Well, we haven't needed echolocation to survive and reproduce. The same is true of humanity thus far. We haven't needed the populace to have a higher spiritual and psychological capacity to survive. In fact, at earlier phases in human development, these qualities might be a hinderance to our survival if most average people possessed them. Instead, there have always been 1 out of every 100 people to act as medicine people, priests, priestesses, etc. that have bore the brunt of that job for their entire group. That way, the average person isn't burdened by such things... and they can focus on hunting or baking bread. So, we have evolved for the purpose of specialization because that benefits our survival and reproduction.... and higher spiritual and psychological capacity is one of many ways people are build towards specialization. But there is no need for the general populace to possess higher spiritual capacities... in the same way that not everyone in the populace needs to have stellar athletic ability.

It's a great game! I replayed it 13+ years ago when I was pregnant with my daughter to kill time until her due date... and she was two weeks later than her due date! I found it on the internet and replayed the Silver version, and it brought back all those nice nostalgic feelings associated with the music of the game.