Emerald

My advice would be to avoid it all costs, even if she’s within the age of consent for your region. Honestly, even if she was 20 and you were 30 it still wouldn’t be too great for her. Take this from me as someone who met their 32 yr old husband at 20. It really made me miss out on a lot of normal early-20s things as I felt it skipped me straight to my 30s. But dating someone 10 years older as a 17 year old would be incredibly damaging and stunting for her in ways you may not anticipate. And she probably is looking for something in you that you can’t give her. Younger people tend to get attracted to older people because they’re looking for someone mature to take care of them… when they didn’t receive it from others. And unfortunately this leaves them a match to immature older people that don’t consider their vulnerability.

It makes sense that you'd be concerned about getting someone pregnant. But your fear seems a bit intense, given the precautions that you're taking. And it might get in the way of you actually getting closer to a a partner since there's a lot of fears of lack of trust and the other person having power over you. So, it makes me believe that it's more than just a concern about pregnancy... but rather a fear of powerlessness. Definitely take contraception seriously. But is there a deeper fear of powerlessness that underlies the fear of making someone pregnant... and other non-related fears around powerlessness?

Here's a bad boy anthem to help transform yourself into what a bad boy REALLY is...

Thank you!

Thank you for your insights, all knowing ones. I'm merely sharing my direct experiences with Ayahuasca. There is nothing that I've said here that is untrue as I'm just sharing my direct experiences working with the medicine. You both seem to be under the impression that you know the true nature of God. And if you're honest with yourself, you'll recognize that no one knows that.

In the past, Western imperialist powers would justify their dominance and colonization over other peoples under the guise of bringing civilization to the uncivilized people.... which is very similar to your idea of being the more evolved ones in comparison to the less evolved ones. And it was a way to get more liberal-minded (gullible) people to get on board with colonization, exploitation, slavery, wars, etc. In America, the gullible liberal types eventually caught wise... and realized that it was based in ideas of racial/ethnic supremacy. So, now America says "We're bringing Democracy to the region." which sufficiently fools the gullible liberal types into supporting colonization, regime change, wars, etc. You are doing the same thing in this... and characterizing Israelis as more evolved than Palestinians. But that is just another method you're using to get rid of your cognitive dissonance and find justification for the fact that the government associated with your cherished national/religious identity is committing a genocide. So, you can see the mote in Palestinians' eyes but you can not see the giant log in the eyes of Israel and the IDF. Let go of your self-bias and you will see it more clearly. If it were some other country doing what the IDF is doing... and they were doing it to some other non-Palestinian group... I'm pretty certain it would stick out to you like a sore thumb that a genocide is going on and that it's quite deliberate.

Thank you!

Thank you!

Well, that's a spectral thing and largely depends on the semantics used to define these terms. If we look at things from a Left vs Right semantic perspective... we could call Hilter right wing If we look at things from a Liberal vs Conservative semantic perspective... we could call Hilter conservative. But my argument along these lines is that Conservatism and Fascism are spectral with one another because Conservatism tends to have mildly to moderately fascistic elements (though the radicalization of the recent decade makes the average Conservative far more comfortable and familiar with Fascist talking points)... like there will be a general dislike a immigrants coming in, a desire to maintain in-group purity and traditions, and more traditional gender norms. And with Fascism, it's about actively cleansing society of outsiders and restructuring it to fit more traditional norms. So... the Conservative and the Fascist tends to have the same groups on their shit-lists.... minority ethnic, racial, national, and religious groups, the LGBT community, anything that deviates from traditional gender norms that upsets patriarchal order. The difference is by matter of degree and action. And to categorize the Conservative and the Fascist as fundamentally different and not existing on a spectrum with one another, just feels like another way to muddy the waters so that people don't notice the Conservative Overton Window shifting further to the right. Actual White Nationalists often do this to try to distance their movement from the likes of Hilter and the Nazis because the average normie doesn't like Hitler and the Nazis. So, redefining Far Right as "not Conservative" feel like what White Nationalist try to do to make themselves more palatable... or some normie picked up that talking point and is spreading it without realizing they're being tricked into muddying the waters.

There are two strains of conservatism that apply here... one is a more preservative kind of conservatism around preserving the status quo... the other is a more reactionary kind of conservatism where it seeks to rehabilitate a mythologized past. So, a person can be a conservative who wants to maintain the current power structures that be (in the case of those that benefit from the current structures). Like a person might want to preserve Capitalism if they have current success under the Capitalist system. But a more reactionary conservative wants to resurrect a traditional ideal (one that never truly existed but that they believe existed). This is where the archetypal "Golden Age" myth comes into play. And you can tell who is progressive and who's conservative based on that. Someone who is on the far left would project the Golden Age into the future and imagine a future utopia that has not yet existed. You can see this in far left ideologies that are all about the idea of the ideal social where workers own the means of production and the problems of that past are gotten rid of. Someone who is in the center-right might view the current era as the Golden Era and have the thought that we already reached the Golden Era... and that not we need to preserve that by fighting against progress. And someone who's in the far-right will project the Golden Era into the mythologized and idealized past... which deals with in-group purity (ethnic, national, and racial), traditional gender roles, ect. And it appeals to fears of outsiders (like immigrants and those of different ethnic, national, racial, and religious groups that differ from that of the in-group. And it maintains itself on the masculine sexual insecurity of outsiders coming in to "rape" of the dominant groups women. And I use scare quotes on rape because the fear is actually a fear of consensual miscegenation. And this is in alignment with Hitler's vision of the Aryan mythology. And it really doesn't take too much awareness to recognize that HiItler is right wing. It's really obvious. The far right wing is all about rehabilitating a mythologized past where the dominant racial group was great (before "the outsiders" came along and ruined it)... and is thus anti-outsider and commits atrocities like genocides against particular minority ethnic, national, racial, or religious groups to cleanse the land for the "chosen people" and to bring back the good old days where women were women and men were men and everything was in its proper place in the hierarchy with the dictatorial father on top of the society and every household with the father on top. The far left wing tends to be futuristic and utopian and seeks to undermine the status quo to go in a brand new direction that wasn't done in the past. And it commits mass murder of those who don't subscribe to the revolutionary agenda or who are seen as enemies of the movement. This is how you can tell the difference between a right wing autocrat and a left-wing autocrat.

A handful of people and ideas you put in the Far/Radical Left, I would say actually fall more in the Left Wing/Progressive category. Like Rational National, Secular Talk, TYT, and Majority Report are not very radical because they tend to take a more incrementalist/reform the system stance on progressivism. And I haven't heard any of them express a desire for a total over-turning of the current economic system... even though they critique Capitalism. I feel like, in order for people to fall into the far/radical left, there has to be a focus towards revolution... and specifically socialist/communist revolution... particularly of the authoritarian left variety. So, I would call all of them progressives... as they are more for Social Democracy adjacent reforms to the current system. But actual radical leftists would turn up their noses at all these figures because they would see them as not revolutionary enough.

It's definitely not rare. But what I would say is that, (given that you live in the Middle East where most cultures are traditional) that it's actually quite fortunate that you're attracted to women as well as men. That means that you'll be able to have a female romantic partner and won't come across in a way that might be stigmatized. The main thing is to come to accept yourself and not to worry too much about your attractions. It's not that rare... probably 10%-20% of men you know also have the same thing going on. It's just that they may hide it to avoid social stigma. And I'm bisexual myself... so I am more attracted to men and tend to have more romantic attractions towards men... but I also have sexual attraction to some women.

Consider that you don't get to choose what someone else's priority should be. And that's especially true given that women have a shorter fertility window compared to men and may want to find a partner and start a family concurrently with starting their career. Plus, my experience has been that dating and schooling/career focused stuff was always a concurrent focus and that having a relationship was a supportive force for my school/career aspirations. And I notice that forgoing one for the other can leave a person stunted in life for years to come. This is something I notice in people who are my age (mid-thirties to early 40s) that focused on schooling/career in lieu of relationships has led to people who are a bit stunted and behind the 8 ball in terms of dating/relationships/family. And for women in particular, this can lead to over-shooting the fertility window and missing an opportunity for children... which is sad when someone who wants kids can't have them And my friends who have forgone schooling/career for relationships ended up parents by 18 and don't have very well-paying jobs but do tend to have fulfilling relationships with people. Perhaps my experiences are a bit extreme... but I had my first serious boyfriend at age 16... I was with my husband by 20... and I was both a college grad and a mom by age 22.... and out into my chosen field by age 23. And these relationship/family things never took away from my studies or career.

You seem not to have grocked my main point that I was trying to drive across to you. My point was not to say... here's my experiences with misogyny. My point was to say that hatred of any particular group is never going to allow someone peace of mind or a strong sense of self. Hatred toward whole groups of people always comes from insecurity. And I only bring up my experiences to give you a sense of how misogyny looks from my perspective... and it doesn't matter how confident the front is of the misogynistic person.

This is a great idea!

Definitely! I use that quote all the time to teach unconditional compassion. Everyone's ALWAYS doing the best they can... no exceptions.

Here's a helpful post for anyone who's interested in doing Shadow Work for Personal Development. One thing that has become evident to me in my Shadow Work practice is that there tends to be 4 main reasons why people repress parts of themselves away into the Shadow. I'll list them below with a brief description for each... To preserve an identity - When we identify ourselves with a particular quality that we label as good or desirable in some way, we will try to preserve that identity (in our own eyes and in the eyes of others.) And the way we do this is by denying and repressing any quality in ourselves that might undermine the qualities that we identify with. To preserve a worldview - Our identity is always built upon the foundation of our worldview. So, worldview preservation is often identity preservation in disguise. For example, if I'm the Pharaoh in Ancient Egypt, my identity as the Pharaoh slots directly into a particular cosmology and a very specific way of viewing reality. And if someone comes over from Ancient Greece with a totally different cosmology and a different Pantheon, this might threaten my identity as the Pharaoh. To cope with trauma - When we experience events in our lives that produce emotions in the Nervous System that are too intense to process at a given time, the body/Nervous System shuts the processing of these feelings down and we go unconscious to them. And the parts of our psyche that bore the brunt of these experiences will also be made unconscious. That's where this type of repression comes from. To cope with unmet needs - When we have a chronically unmet need (especially one that we've never had met before) we have an in-built mechanism for coping with this unmet need. And that is to go unconscious to the parts of the personality that are most in touch with that need. For example, if we need connection from our parents as children, but our parents aren't capable of giving us that connection... then we may go unconscious to this part of us that has this connection need. And we may feel like we don't value connection at all and are more of a loner type... but down in the Shadow there is a part of ourselves that's constantly seeking connection in subtle ways.

People can always intuitively tell when people are lying and inauthentic. Untrustworthiness shows up in subtle but pervasive ways in the facial expressions, gestures, behavioral patterns, and speech patterns. And this tendency is absolutely costing you all the best things in the world! The opportunities that you would have if you were honest and trustworthy are running away from you at a million miles per hour because your dishonesty is repelling them from you. The tragedy is that you don’t realize that lying is causing you to miss out… because it all happens silently based off of people mentally picking up on dishonest vibes and not trusting you or wanting to get closer to you. If you keep being dishonest, people with good character and self-respect won’t want to be around you. They won’t say anything to that effect, they will just quietly avoid you so that the interaction doesn’t happen without you ever being the wiser. And you will miss the opportunity to have healthy relationships and friendships with these people And you’ll also be treated much worse with more hostility because you don’t pass the sniff test. And you’ll miss out on other types of non-relationship related opportunities too. I emphasize all of this to show you that what you’re doing with these lies is that you’re being penny wise and pound foolish. You’re cutting the corners of honesty to avoid some kind of discomfort… and you’re inviting WAY worse discomforts into your life.

It is not possible to hate another person or group of people and be at peace with one’s self. And as a woman who’s been on the receiving end of misogyny many times, I can tell you that misogyny always comes from deep levels of insecurity and fears of being inferior to women… and a deep resistance to one’s own Feminine side. Misogynistic men are the ones who are most afraid of women… even if that fear comes out in the form of anger. If you think the issue is with women… think again. The call is always coming from inside the house… and I’m sure that (deep down) you know this.

Here’s a list of some of my most favorite acclaimed women who have been my top role models that have had the most impact on me… Jean Raffa Bjork Marianne Williamson Teal Swan Frida Kahlo And here’s a list of all the female role models that I can think of off the top of my head that I’ve drawn some level of inspiration from… Simone Wiel June Singer Maureen Murdoch Aurora Jean Shinoda Bolen Jessica McClintock Wangechi Mutu Chappell Roan Natalie Wynn Danit Dolly Parton

Every year in the Spring, I participate in an Ayahuasca ceremony. (In fact, I have my yearly ceremony next week) And back in Spring of 2022, I received an insight from Ayahuasca that I'd like to share as it revealed to me a key ingredient to connection with other people, nature, and the universe at large. That key ingredient to connection is ordinariness. Up until that point, I had always gotten by by polarizing into my differences and becoming exceptional and extraordinary. And I always identified strongly with being a bit rebellious and strange. And I had valued being different and extraordinary since I was around 13 or so and was always seeking for ways to differentiate myself from others and to be be more and more unique. And I would often have aversions to ordinariness. Like I'd feel really threatened at the prospect of being ordinary in relation to other people because I didn't like the idea of blending into a crowd. Then, in this Ayahuasca ceremony the medicine brought me through this process where I was oscillating (psychologically and emotionally) into two different states. One state was more like my default state, where it would polarize me into extraoridnariness and uniqueness to the exclusion of ordinariness and averageness... and then it would bring me back into integration with ordinariness. And it polarized me back and forth into these two states of 'extraordinary and disconnected' to 'ordinary and connected'... back and forth... over and over again to make sure I got the message. And when I was polarized into the extraordinariness to the exclusion of ordinariness, I felt totally alone in the universe and disconnected from all things in existence. And all the pressure of the universe would bear down on my head, neck, and shoulders like Atlas holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. Then, it would re-integrate me with ordinariness... and it would be like I was puzzle piece that effortlessness clicked back into the puzzle of life. And it made me feel like a human amongst other humans and totally intertwined and connected with other people. And I was able to feel myself as part of nature and part of the universe at large. And all that existential pressure dissipated as it was diffused evenly over all of existence... instead of it all bearing down on my shoulders (and mine alone). It brought me back and forth between connection and disconnection quite a few times. Then, it was like on this threshold between connection and disconnection... and individualism and collectivism. And it was bringing collectivist words into my mind like family and community... and I could sense a little hint of disgust in my intuitive response to these words that was very subtle but noticeable under the influence of the medicine. And I sat there at the threshold between connection and disconnection... contemplating whether to relinquish my hermit-like ways and cross the threshold into connection or not. It also occurred to me later that this is why human beings feel so disconnected from nature... because we see ourselves as extraordinary animals and NOT ordinary animals. And the sense of identification with extraordinariness makes us feel like we live above and outside of nature.

Personally, I've had plenty of struggles in my own life... material and otherwise. (And that certainly isn't uncommon, even for people in first world nations as suffering is everywhere) But I still have a hard time stomaching all the suffering of the world. I can't imagine what it would have been like if I was a teenager with this much access. It's just technology allowing for a widening of the circle of concern for sensitive individuals. Edit: It reminds me of the case study on chimps where researchers were studying chimps and there was a group of depressed chimps among them. And so, they separated out the depressed chimps from the rest of the group to see what would happen to the depressed chimps and non-depressed chimps. And what happened is that the whole group of chimps died. It's just that the depressed chimps were extra sensitive and functioning like a canary in the coal mine. And the other less sensitive chimps couldn't heed the warning signs with the depressed chimps gone.

My view on this is that it's wisest to make money only off of things that provide real value to society at that is what money/wealth is meant to be a symbol of. And trading Crypto back and forth is mostly just pushing numbers back and forth and playing a game that doesn't really lead to any value-based outcomes.

No, I don't own any gold or silver. But I apologize if it came across as me judging or anything like that. I was just thinking of possible interpretations of why someone might throw away someone else's things. Like I said... take it with a grain of salt as I was just exploring possibilities and I don't know you or the situation personally. It seems that there are some feelings of anger towards your dad though. And you may want to talk to someone about them to work them out.

I suspect it has to do with the fact that girls/women tend to be more emotionally and intuitively attuned to pain and suffering compared to boys/men who tend to be a bit more detached. And the internet has given a direct window into all the sufferings of the world. I know it impacts me very strongly because I can feel the pain of the world as a constant looming presence far more than I ever did before. My ignorance and the lack of the internet (in the capacity it is today) in my teens and early 20s kept me insulated from taking on all the pains of the world. But now everything has opened up to reveal all the profound suffering in ways that weren't as front and center as they are now. And I've thought "Jeez! I'm glad that I wasn't constantly experiencing this soup of worldly suffering in my formative years and that I was numbed out from it because my world was allowed to be smaller." There is an almost maternal instinct to want to alleviate the sufferings of the world... and yet no one takes these vulnerabilities seriously and just brush it off as "wokeness" or moralization or being a killjoy... etc. This is probably also why you see a divide politically between young men and women. Young women tend to be very progressive and attuned to all the problems going on globally and use the internet to connect with others who are involved in similar progressive causes... while young men tend to be more focused towards individualistic forms of content around self-betterment. So, young men may have ways of keeping themselves insulated from the sufferings of the world via individualistic focus, self-improvement focus, anti-wokeness, and other ways of feeling individualistically empowered and ignoring and detaching from collective pain and trauma. But these things are difficult not to feel and notice for more Feminine individuals who are more attuned to under-currents of pain. This is especially difficult when there is very little that can be done to move the needle to create relief for the suffering.