Forestluv

I would say these are social constructs that lead to expectation, yet they are not hard boundaries and the boundaries are breaking down through times. As you’ve said, some men can be supportive and some women unsupportive. I think a more obvious example would be with empathy. Women are often seen as being more empathetic and able to be open about their feelings and connect with others. Men with these traits may be seen as being emasculated.

That is a great question! Explore that. . . What are systems? Why is a collective consciousness? How do individual consciousness and collective consciousness inter-related? How do external extrinsic factors affect the the individual intrinsically? How do I distinguish between internal and external? What are the relationships between the two. A simple example are neurotransmitters. One intuitively knows that there internal neurotransmitters their brain chemistry and how they think and feel. For some contracted in a separate individual consciousness, they will see this brain activity as “me” and internally controlled and that there is a separate outside world. Yet those external people are neurotransmitters to you. Some people are dopamine neurotransmitters, others are serotonin , others are gaba, cortisol etc. They are altering your brain chemistry just like your internal neurotransmitters are. This is one small step in becoming aware of collective consciousness. Yet it can be threatening to an ego and there may be resistance. I am not saying that your definitions of merit and performance are incorrect. I think they have a lot of value. Rather, notice how you are presenting these definitions as if they are objective universal truths. Someone may agree with your criteria, someone else may agree with part of your criteria and add some new stuff, another person may disagree and scrap it and come up with new criteria of merit and performance. It’s relative. People with influence will want to control the definitions of terms like “merit”, “qualified”, “racism”, “masculinity”, “sexism”, “sexual harassment” etc. This is part of the problem with disproportionate unequal power and representation. If all the upper administrators and Board of trustees at a University are middle age white men that will have an effect. And if there has been a 200 year history of the University being run by middle age white men, that will have an affect. This will effect each middle-age white male and as a group of middle-age white males. That history will have an infrastructure still present and the group dynamics of an all middle age white male administration will have a particular group dynamic. If you change the composition from 100% white male to 50% male, 50% female and 30% minority. That group dynamic WILL be different. The energy and discussions will be VERY different in meetings. Not just individuals. The GROUP dynamics have changed. All the individuals are neurotransmitters to each other, each bringing in their own life history, experience and views as a male, female, white or minority.

This is key. Every teacher or therapist is several steps removed from you and interpretation through filters occurs at each step. It is not direct. I’m thinking of an analogy with massage. When I went to a massage therapist for pressure point massage, I would have to give them cues - “a little to the left, a little deeper, it hurts a bit. Not a throbbing pain. No, more like a sharp pain, but not like a neuron kind of shooting pain”. All of this were steps removed from. . . me knowing directly. There was several steps of interpretation and stuff was lost. The massage therapist did the best they could and had skills. I figured they knew more and better than I did. Then, I got into self massage and it was more direct. I didn’t have to try and explain anything and there was no one trying to interpret what I said through their own filter. There was just knowing. My mind and body intuitively knew what to do. My mind and body intuitively knew exactly where the tension was, how much pressure was needed, the best angle etc. Then it occurred to me that I was better at this than the massage therapist. In a way, psychedelics can be like that. There comes a point where they can be more powerful than any teacher or psycho-therapist because it is direct. Several interpretation steps and filters are removed: trying to communicate something to a recipient - the recipient interpreting what you said - the other person responding and then the first person now receiving and interpreting. That is four processing steps that are removed. Each of the processing steps involve filters. It can be much more direct and efficient to go in there yourself. I’m not saying it can’t be done without psychedelics as well, psychedelics can cause confusion. Yet when one does this skillfully it is extremely direct and efficient. It’s on a whole nother level than interacting indirectly with other human beings.

That’s not the true power of psychedelics. It goes waaay beyond that. That is a surface level. Seeing psychedelics and psychedelic-induced stares as “no substitute” for other practices, creates separation and distinction between psychedelics and those practices. As such, one will not see inter-relationship and integration. This is why integration over many trips is so important. Seeing these as two worlds in which one is not a substitute for the other misses depth and gives more weight to a sober reality. As well, saying psychedelics are useful to a sober reality puts a so-called sober realty on a higher plane than a psychedelic reality. That perspective is contracted and will miss depth and holistic value. For example, such a view will miss the immense value of integrated psychedelic-therapy and view it as a technique treating the mind as a simple object to crack. This goes much much deeper and broader than that.

@Leo Gura Did you plug fumarate? Was there much body load? I I’ve only taken it orally and there can be quite a bit of body load for about an hour or so.

I just use the categories of “masculine” and “feminine” for convenience and because there is social constructs of masculine and feminine that have influence in society. I agree that ideally we would value traits that make a good leader (although this becomes relative). Categorizing as masculine and feminine becomes a disservice when traits men tend to process, or expected to process, are labeled as “good” or strong and traits women tend to process or are encouraged to process are label “less good” or “weak”. In the USA - of the traits you listed above - “supportive” would be considered a “feminine” trait that is believed to be possessed more by women than men. Women may be encouraged, expected and allowed to be supportive. It has a submissive tinge to it. For example, I woman that is supportive of her husband when he screws up. For men, if they were supportive in a way that looked submissive, they would be considered weak by many people and judged harshly. Male leaders are often oriented toward “winning” against another. Male leaders tend to portray a sense of strength when showing support for someone in need. A lot of these social constructs have a long history. I suppose they can have some value in social structures over history, yet I see them as silly. I’ve dated a few women that were oriented toward social constructs and gender roles. I was supposed to have certain male traits and behave a certain way and she was supposed to have female traits and behave a certain way. To me it was silly and I couldn’t operate that way.

You haven’t reached a stage of consciousness at the collective level yet. To view a collective as a collection of individual parts is a contracted state of consciousness. Such a view is unaware of emergent properties. It would be like saying your consciousness is simply a collection of the individual consciousness of the trillion cells in your body. This fails to see a higher level of conscious - your emergent human consciousness. Here, you don’t see how a collection of individual human consciousness give rise to an emergent collective. Lol. What counts as “performance”? These are relative terms. A white man and a black women many have different relative ideas of what counts as “merit” and “performance”. You are seeing this boss as a separate, external entity. Again, you are not seeing inter-relations At more holistic levels. I’m not saying you are wrong. Rather, you are not seeing their levels. It is like looking at a map of Paris and not realizing Paris is within France and France is within Europe. It’s not like the details of Paris are wrong. It’s that one will not be able to see the inter-relationships between Paris, France and Europe. As such, one will be unaware of how the broader context of France and Europe affect the dynamics within Paris. Paris is not a separate, external entity making it’s own decisions. It is within a much more holistic system. Another way to get at this, is that you are contracted within the proximal cause (the boss makes any decisions he wants) and are unable to expand outward to ultimate cause.

Psychedelic-therapy in clinical settings has shown off-the-chart results. On a whole mother level from other advancements in psychological therapy or medications have shown. Psychedelics will become mainstream in psych-therapy and psycho-analysis and take it to the next level. Psychologists that have utilized psychedelics are fighting for the ability to utilize them legally and putting their reputations (and at times careers) on the line. And once laboratory research is opened up, we will learn psychedelic mechanisms and improve their effectiveness. In two generations, today’s forms of psycho-therapy and analysis will crude and rudimentary.

That’s such a sweet spot ♥️

Along these lines, men have been able to define what has merit and what qualified is. For example, if we consider what makes a good leader, the responses would be predominately male masculine - strong, assertive, aggressive at times, decisive, a strong negotiator, won’t back down, a winner etc. Feminine traits might be - a good listener, works well within groups, can see other people’s perspectives, empathetic, intuitive, flexible. What we we consider good traits for a president? I think it would be based predominately on masculine values and feminine values may be perceived as secondary, neutral or a weakness.

Of course, that is how the dominant group wants to frame it! That is not my point at all. My point was at the systemic level. And saying “merit is merit” also empowers the dominant group. The dominant group gets to decide what counts as “merit”. And they will try to frame things in terms of protecting their ability to decide what counts as “merit” or “qualified”. You are making assumptions that “merit” is some objective universal truth. It is not. It is relative and the dominant group has a very strong incentive to define “merit” because it empowers them to maintain control of disproportionate influence. Again, this is from the perspective of a dominate group. Notice how you said if a group has *no access* they should be given. . . That is your bar? No access?! How generous of you ? As well, framing it as throwing resources at irresponsible people is another dominant group trope. For someone who genuinely wants equality, they may raise concerns - yet then offer ways to better reach equality. People that don’t want equality raise concerns but offer no better ways to reach equality. They will say vague things like “everyone should have equal opportunity” and leave it at that. There will be no substance and drive to reach that equality because they don’t want it. When the dominant group says “everyone should have equal opportunity” it’s a way to maintain the status-quo and maintain their disproportionate influence. Because the dominant group knows nothing will get done without their consent.

90 min.float. It was my 2nd or 3rd float. My first float, I had to get the swing of things. If you have Groupon, they often have 50% off specials.

The argument of merit-based opportunity is another tactic used by a dominant group to maintain their disproportionate influence. It is a form of conflating individual and population levels. For example, conflating individual racism without acknowledging systemic and structural racism. At the individual level, we can say it is ethical to give a job to the most qualified candidate. If candidate A is more qualified than candidate B, candidate A deserves the job. Race should not be a factor. The dominate group would get very upset if a minority candidate B was awarded the job. They would yell ”Reverse racism!!!” At the individual level, this would be reverse racism. Yet the analysis at a population level is a different level of consciousness and analysis. This is the level the dominant group would fight so hard against. At the population level, we see that the resources for the dominate culture A are not proportionate with the resources for the non-dominant culture B. At the population level, culture A is advantaged and culture B is disadvantaged. Cherry picking within these groups is dropping back down to the individual level to evade/obscure the population level. You are not seeing the problems associated with under-representation because you cannot see it from an under-represented perspective or from a meta view. If minorities suddenly had 90% of governmental and corporate power you would quickly realize the problems with under-representation. When one says “I think everyone should be given an equal opportunity”, both individual and population level must be considered. As well, the dominant group will want to control the narrative on what “qualified” means. If you ask men and women, what traits make a good leader, you may get some different answers. Why should men have more say in what makes a good leader? I used 90% as as a hypothetical “If”. I did not say women were subjected to 90% of sexism. I would say women are subjected to a disproportionate amount of racism. Statistics are an important tool. My concern with statistics is that they are often misinterpreted and misrepresented to support an underlying view and agenda. This is often subconscious since many people are immersed, attached and identified within a personal view. I find the studies you linked to be interesting. They are the type of thing that would have value in Yellow level discussions. However, the manner in which it is offered seems to be from an Orange orientation - in which statistics are being offered to support a personal pre-conceived view and oppose an imagined opposing view. In particular, what you present seems very much oriented toward a dominant group perspective. You don’t seem to be aware of this and unable to see outside this perspective. This sets up an Orange level “debate” in which one person supports/defends their view against an opposing view. Ime, such debates generally lead to more contraction than expansion and I find them to be inefficient and unproductive.

Lol. If you think the USA values equal human rights to the point no legislation is needed to promote and protect equal human rights, you don’t understand America.

This is what a dominant oppressive group would love. “Why think rights of white slaveholders and rights of black slaves? Let’s just do what we have to do”. White slave-holders would haves LOVED that attitude. It empowers a dominant oppressive group and perpetuates oppression. Even today, this is a common frame a dominant group wants. For example, in the U.S. some people would say “Why have gay rights and minority rights? Let’s just do what we do”. Notice how this attitude is only embraced by an advantaged group and not by the disadvantaged group.

This conflates the individual and population levels. It is one of the most common tactics for a privileged group to maintain disproportionate influence and control of the narrative. At it’s root is equating true equivalencies at the individual to create false equivalencies at the population level. The fundamental drive here is trying to preserve individual interests at the population level. For example an oppressive act against a male can be considered equivalent to an oppressive act against a female - at the individual level. This cannot be extrapolated to the population level. This is a different level of analysis. At the population level, more oppressive acts are against females. Thus, to reach gender equality at the population level, more effort needs to go to give females more input and influence. This is the core feature that some men will deny and obscure in an effort to maintain control of the narrative and disproportionate influence. One common way is to equalize the problem at the population level (or try to reduce the degree of disproportion). For example, if a dominant group bears 10% oppression and the non-dominant group bears 90% oppression, the dominant group will try to exaggerate and/or reduce the disparity for there own gain. For example, they may exaggerate the disparity by saying “Women say they are the only ones who face sexism. Males face sexism too! Reverse-sexism”. This obscures the situation because it turns it into a binary model of two poles in which neither poles are true. Women do not receive 100% of sexism. So this construct can be used by men to discredit a more nuanced construct. Advocates for gender equality are not saying women receive 100% of sexism. They are saying that women receive a disproportionate amount of sexism. . . . Another tactic the dominant group other use is to reduce the disproportion or create a false equivalency at the population level. They may say “both men and women are subjected to racism, we should take both of them seriously and in an unbiased manner”. This is an effort to create a false equivalency at the population level. If women are subjected to 90% of sexism and men only 10%, it should not be viewed equally at the population level. To attain equality, 90% of effort should go into reducing sexism toward females and 10% of effort into reducing sexism toward males. This will be very difficult to see and accept for someone that identifies as male and wants to maintain disproportionate influence as a male. And this isn’t just relevant to gender equality. These dynamics arises in all sorts of inequalities between a dominant group and a non-dominate group - for example the same tactics are seen with racism inequality.

@Robi Steel You give a long narrative from a a particular male-centric perspective. An essay pretty much explaining “This is how it is” from this male-centric perspective. I find it interesting that once this male-centric perspective seems grounded, concern about the welfare of women arises and solutions for how women can improve their well-being is offered. This is a form of concern trolling used to control a narrative. More “concern” from a male-centric perspective. You just wrote an essay about “this is how it is” from a male-centric perspective and now ask for male and female to come together. Yet can’t you see you are asking male and female to come together based on your rules for how things are and how things should be? You would likely be happy with women “coming together” if they play by your rules for gender roles. This is classic male bias and privilege. Notice how you are unwilling to give up 50% of your narrative and allow space for a female narrative to have influence and power. It comes across as extremely male-centric and male-biased. If you want to expand in this area, let go of your narrative and learn about the female perspective. Really learn about it. Not through demonized caricatures of toxic feminists that feel threatening to you. Let go of fear of being emasculated. Learn about female experiences. Make some female friends and ask about their experiences and their perspectives. Get their perspective on toxic masculinity, sexual harassment, sexism and misogyny. What it feels like to live as a females. Speak with men that have expanded beyond contracted male-centric views. Read books on gender from female perspectives, go to seminars, take a college-level course, volunteer in female-centric areas. This is the type of stuff that expands consciousness. I’m not saying that the perspective you offer does not have value. It is a perspective that should be brought to the discussion table. The problem is believing that this perspective is correct and “how it is”. If we had a committee to establish a consensus on gender, etiquette and public policy, you would likely be in that meeting wanting 100% influence because you know “how it is”. You likely would not be ok if your perspective only carried 20% weight in this meeting, because you would feel like you were losing control of the narrative and would need to make concessions you find uncomfortable and threatening. This makes it very difficult to see other POVs.

@Ibn Sina I’m not disagreeing with you. I am trying to provide clarity. You give a great example with the ice cream cone. Someone eats an ice cream cone and thinks “I decided to eat this ice cream cone. I caused this”. This would be referred to as a “proximal cause”. Yet as you state, we can expand outward toward an ultimate cause. What caused you to desire ice cream? Perhaps the hot weather? What caused the hot weather? What caused the neurons in your brain to fire in such a way for you to desire ice cream? What impact did your diet have on this? What influenced your self image such that you are not on a strict diet to lose weight and can’t eat ice cream? What events led to the ice cream vendor to live in this town and open an ice cream shop? These are all valid inputs, yet it gets deeper. You state “An infinite chain of cause and effects that has bounced us like a ping pong ball to and fro has finally brought us here.” Notice how you use the term “infinite”. If it is infinite, then we cannot trace the cause. If Ultimate cause is infinite, then it is untraceable. As well, notice how you say “an infinite chain”. This suggests a linear chain of cause and effects. Yet this goes beyond an infinite linear chain. It is beyond linear. For every causal point in that linear chain, you can branch off and find inputs from another line that influenced that cause. It is infinite in multiple dimensions. Infinity is not simply infinite along one linear chain of events in a timeline. Infinity has infinite dimensions. At this point, we are at total inter-connected One. This is a nondual realization. However, this is not to say causes in-between proximal cause and ultimate cause and not useful. It is very useful to have a functioning society.

Notice the opposition thinking here. The brain is conditioned to think in opposites. This creates separation and leads to suffering. Is Leo 100% businessman that gives 0% shit about us? That is an extreme view that would be hard to hold. The opposite view would be: Leo is 0% businessman and gives 100% shit about us. That is also an extreme view that would be hard to hold. You are asking your mind to choose between polar opposites. Since neither polar opposite is absolutely true, there will be internal turmoil as the mind tries to interpret the world through this lens.

A few of the mockings in this thread are over the top. Mocking can be fun and beneficial in some contexts, yet it can also be harmful in other contexts.

I don’t see it as a plan - that is too anthropomorphic to me. I don’t see it as determined unfolding ether - that has too much of a cause and effect timeline in it. From one perspective, it’s amazingly simple: there is simply One Now of happenings. From another perspective, it’s incredibly complex and includes imagination and reality, time, intentions, desires, cause and effect, material and immaterial etc. An integrated, comprehensive understanding here goes deep and broad. Notice how you say responsibility is an illusion because there are too many variables that influence what we do. Yet then say we can follow the reasons behind our action to see there is an outside cause. That would be assigning responsibility (to an outside cause). I’m not saying either is right or wrong, just that they are not the same perspective. If there are too many variables that influence what we do, we cannot find an outside cause. What factors caused that “outside cause”? What factors caused the causation of that outside cause? Eventually, it leads to infinity in which everything is One interconnected whole. I think this is one of the most direct ways to have a nondual realization.

I think you make a really good point about having conscious ideas and thoughts about what is good for the collective. Everyone has their own self biased ideas about what is good for the collective, including myself. I may like to think my ideas are “more conscious” and better at a collective level. This can cloud one’s ability to see different perspectives and nuances. For example, China uses a lot of surveillance for the “social good”. In parts of China, they have sophisticated AI and facial recognition. There are over 200 million cameras in China monitoring people’s behavior and assigning social scores - one’s score is a measure of how trustworthy they are and affects someone’s level of freedom and access to resources. To me, this seems like a way to control people and maintain power in the communist party. Yet some people think it’s good for the collective and helps promote personal responsibility and public safety. From one perspective it’s done out of love for what one sees as good for the collective welfare. . . At times, it can be difficult to distinguish what is “progress”. It can be relative, nuanced and self-biased. When I look at social conflicts in other countries, I see it from an outsider’s perspective. Yet when I look at conflicts in the U.S. it is much harder to see it from an outsider’s perspective.

It's great hearing Alan Watts tell this story.

Grasshopper. . . .You don't know what absolute infinity is, you ARE absolute infinity. There is no external thing called "absolute infinity" that one can come to know. Why spend all this time conceptualizing through thoughts? Direct experience is king.

Below is just what is arising in me. As a person, I am not an authority. Others may give different insights that resonate with you. I think when people talk about decisions and actions, they are 99.99% at the personal level. "How do I make decisions?", "How do I take actions?". This has practical value for survival. Decisions and actions are how we navigate through life. In terms of evolution, reflecting on prior decisions and considering how we can improve our future decisions has an evolutionary advantage. And only humans can do it. Yet if we take a closer look, it's an illusion. Decisions depend on a timeline and a story. Nothing wrong with that. But that aint happening Now. If one surrenders into Now, there is no person and there are no decisions. It would be more accurate to say that there are happenings without a "me" taking ownership of it. There may be thoughts about decisions happening Now, yet in the context of Now they have no more relevance than bird chirps. Stories like “I decided to have cereal with blueberries. Then I decided to do Yoga instead of running because it was hot outside” - are just stories. Yet that’s what humans do - a big part of our life is storytelling. However, there may be a transcendent form of decisions. A god-like mechanism of decisions. Yet this would be a different context than how we normally use the term decision since it would be transcendent of the person. I haven’t heard anyone communicate on this level, yet Leo seems to be exploring this area. I have limited direct experience in this area.