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Please don't do such a thing. There are many stories of now healthy people who were close to suicide and today they are happy and loved, by themselves and others. Killing yourself would be in fact ruining your life, as there's no way back to that. Your life can change from day to night, you just got to believe that. There are suicidal hotlines in your country. A quick google research will lead you to them. Call them and get help!

@flowboy @Nahm @Barbara Thanks a lot friends. I will watch the videos for sure and try to follow the plan. @Nahm you sound very spiritual I want to be like you one day. I don’t understand much about what you said it’s too advanced for me but thanks for the the advice. @flowboy I haven’t committed suicide yet but I am dangerously close now and without any hope. I am alone in my apartment with no social contact yet alone from any women. I am dragging myself through each day suffering. But I will try. @Barbara love is dependent on external conditions at least for an incel like me who’s a kissless virgin at the age I have reached. Everyone my age is happy and loved in relationships and not an outcast and with stable lives. Look at @Leo Gura he’s so rich and successful at 36 and loved by everyone. I wish I was like him or alone with normal happy lives. I am unloved and an alone incel living in poverty. I haven’t even held a woman’s hand before

Watch this video. You already decided subconsciously to not actually commit suicide, so might as well start fixing your life now. I gave you a step by step progression that you can use as a plan. If you commit to taking action to change, people on this forum can help you over obstacles every step of the way. You are not alone.

Thanks guys. Just know that not all incels or people my age are crazy cruel people. I am a good person but I am seriously struggling and to the point of suicide now. Everyone my age has succeeded. I am left behind. Call me bitter or resentful but I am a good person just seriously broken

@Gianna I meant that I do this in a physical journal. It has a different feeling compared to doing it online when it feels closer and more personal. I also feel pressure to keep posting when I commit to these online projects. I did an online journal a while back before I purchased the life purpose course and book list. Aside from the journal, what I discuss with my brother is specific to our life experiences. secondly, in order to resolve inner emotional tension, it takes a lot of different perspectives. Overtime, you can observe your thoughts and emotions and watch how they gradually evolve in terms of how you react to them. This happens through many small insights, gradually being integrated into your psyche. Do you have a thread about low self esteem in which you expand on this topic? The most powerful insight weakens suicidal thoughts a lot. Although you can moralize to yourself about suicide being selfish and use this to avoid killing yourself successfully, it is not optimal. It is far more powerful to recognize that the desire to die comes from love in that one seeks to reduce suffering. If you hesitate to commit suicide, then this is also a form of love when the desire to survive conflicts with the desire to die. If there is hesitancy, then there could still be hope. Rather than having these desires conflict with each other, one can meditate and observe both desires while releasing attachment to both. If one attempts to make the desire to live win out, then although this is another form of love, it backfires if the desire to die is repressed and not fully resolved. This leads to further inner conflict and backsliding into depressive episodes full of hopelessness. Through this counterintuitive move to release both the desire to live and the desire to die, one can begin to recognize the deeper underlying truth. The truth is that love is your essential nature and nothing can truly separate you from it. This also means that evil is an illusion, therefore harsh moral judgements about your behavior become untenable. This insight is what is being missed by most of society and it could save a lot of people's lives while fixing self esteem issues. This is how one can move from suicidal, to getting by, to optimally coping. I am currently checking my coping mechanisms to see if I am getting by, or can I optimize them to discover something powerful and counterintuitive as this can lead to a massive difference in our thinking. It is possible to self reflect so deeply that you can experience a state of consciousness in which you realize that all suffering is love, and in this sense you never truly suffered as outrageous as it may sound. you could feel as if all of your suffering was an illusion and you were never hurt at all. This makes me feel like crying in a good way. This might have been what Jesus meant when he said "the kingdom of heaven is found within.". My brother struggled with the philosophical and religious sounding insights and he found it helpful to study ego defense mechanisms as a form of practical psychology. You can find a list on Wikipedia and ask yourself "how do I use these defense mechanisms?"

@Marcel We talked about mom Grandad issues... Felt unsafe and uncomfortable as a teen How compassion is needed to heal mom's issues. Using gentle approach The incident with dad. After that a phone call with grandmother. He had npd. (avoiding conflict) did not understand when you were 15. Cold behavior And that there is conflict between. You don't tolerate disrespect. You won't take disrespect. Expenses, how many euros were spent in different ways? Money mis management Start working in 4 months. 4 months time for emotional healing, psychological healing, cultivation of compassion, ignore dad, mental health struggles, problems with expression, suicidal tendencies, open communication and sharing, you want to be able to access emotions properly, mental instability, no control over emotional state, weight loss, physical exhaustion (over exertion and body and mind abuse, self destructive behavior), existential crisis, confusion state there is no sense of direction, feeling all emotions at once, music was having a bad influence, mental and emotional exhaustion because of crying and pent up emotions, talking about and crying was making you feel better, healthy crying, uncontrollable crying causing exhaustion, you want to work out 3 times a week for 30 minutes. You cut out superficial friends Past addictions - TV, overeating, music and video games, walking, over exertion, studying Stage Orange mindset (from family) blue in family, maternal is green Suicidal tendencies Free therapy - planning to go to a therapist conflicted about therapy due to bias and bad experiences with therapists in the past Integration of masculinity Shaming your own masculinity Free expression of feminine side Morgue helps you. Some of his work Bob Proctor - stage orange Struggle with Stage Green emotional side. Can't relate to it Dominant and submissive side Food preferences changed - vegetables and fruits. Walking in early morning for 30 minutes Sleep quality - all over the place. Very sleepy. Over sleepiness. Not a proper schedule. Not able to keep a schedule for more than 2 weeks Don't watch porn Emotional issues - majority /major Definition of spirituality - to develop love, compassion and care and understanding Suicide attempts - 2, 18/20 Loneliness 2 years (last) Pyramid scheme- it helped you become more extroverted. Don't regret it. Lost money on it. Regret losing money on it. Overall negative experience. Interacting with different people was a positive part of the experience Number of friends - very very few. Bullying - 7th grade (13 years) to 10th grade (16 years ) cold environment Defensive at times in teens Some anger issues due to suicide based trauma Emotional Maturity - need to develop. Access to feelings needed. Impulsive during triggers. Less control on emotions. Dealing with everything all alone

of course not dude, you are not at all overthinking. i am quite surprised at the same things I have encountered on my journey. I might not be as advanced as many on this forum claim to be. dunno i u might find this useful but, anyways i will say that what you are experiencing is not uncommon. Even i got into this shit of questioning my own existence and reality around 16 y/o. this questioning lead me into depression and lost my entire view on reality. sertraline ain't the worst med i've taken . intrusive thoughts kept hitting my head every 5 minutes and I even seriously thought about suicide . super intrusive thoughts similar to the ones you describe are the most painful things I've had in my life.. .I believe that u r not having much of an emotional prob but, as i believe a shattering of your self image. I have witnessed a lot of things you say in my own personal life and have asked the same questions too. don't worry mate. you GOT THIS. !!!! i would personally recommend to stop all the mind-stuff you are doing and come back to the REALITY. get to a psychiatrist if you hv to and take some meds and the intrusive thoughts will vanish.

Their songs Wait and Bleed and Everything Ends are, in my opinion, about the lead singers suicide attempt. He really adds emotional depth into his work by channeling that anger and sadness he felt during that moment.

In the relative domain yes and no: - human can commit suicide - a rock can't in the absolute sense no

If god had the desire to, could he somehow stop existing? I've always found the idea of death comforting because an endless life has always seemed tragic to me, and I think if I found out I was god and that I can't die I would find that deeply horrifying.

My friends I am truly despaired and in need of an external point of view on my life so far, I can't ignore it anymore. I feel helpness and I don't know what to do. This summer I started to have backlashes of suicidal thoughts. One day I was so low: I went in a camp with a knife and I called my country's suicide hotline for giving this life a last chance. I called twice but they did not respond. I don't reccomand a similar experience. Since then I talked about it only to my girlfriend and a friend and that has helped a little bit. I feel judged by people, I feel that I'm not in the way I'm supposed to be but at the same time I don't know "how" to be. I started my self-help journey when I was 16 (now I'm 19). Since then I watched a lot of Leo's videos, read about 50 books of the booklist and still do that daily (I started the booklist about a year ago), I take copius amounts of notes, I journal twice a day, make affermations, meditate, do cold showers... I devoted myself to make my life better but the only thing that I want right now is to end my life in brutal ways. I feel like I should not consume media, but create media. The only thing I do is sell custom t-shirts online. That earn me some money but I don't feel original and when I do the creation does not sell. I feel guilty because I'm chasing money and success; I know that they won't make me happy but I keep on doing that. I feel like a failure because my success comes from a single artwork and even if I put a lot of effort in expanding my business and creating more I don't get results. I also fear that one day I will be betrayed by my girlfriend, even though things are going well with her. I feel like I'm not enough for her. This week I wanted to be alone and focus on my work. But I ended up finishing my goals early in the day and then have nothing to do. I don't know I should I spend my time because I feel guilty in watching videos, tv series, ecc... I meditate and contemplate on what I am but not understanding what awereness, nothingness and God are. Staying with the not knowing and the confusion drives me crazy. I can't explain to myself why the only solution seems to kill myself. I try so hard to prevent that, but no matter what I do I feel like a failure and basically I'm living my life in a confirmation bias upon which I search for reasons and situation to prevent feeling like a failure and by doing so basically confirming that I am one. Sorry I know this is rough and a lot to digest but I needed a toilet where to puke all of this. Most of the times I feel good and happy to live my life but sometimes this shit happens and nothing seems to help. Feel free to tell me any thought that you have had

Go to the Andy Cutler Chelation website and forum, and follow every step of the process. If the research you have done does not mention the dangers of heavy metal redistribution when beginning to detox, then this is probably dangerous advice to follow. If you half ass a heavy metal detox you will for sure debilitate yourself, people have been driven to suicide caused by mistakes made whilst detoxing.

I think I just realised the Essence of every teaching that promises spiritual liberation and purification. Please correct me if I am wrong or if you would like to add something to it. I'm gonna put it in advaida and vipassana terms. The distance between now and Liberation is at every Instant always so close. The distance is between "What IS" and "What should BE". When "What Should BE" becomes "What IS" then there's only what IS and nothing obstructing what IS from you. If I am right, then every instant of "What should be", that feeling of aversion, subtle or not is an OPPORTUNITY to be re-wired to WHAT IS. Shinzen Young calls that "recycle the reaction" and "the taste of purification". Easy example: Melancholy. I use that, because it has a taste of nostalgia, love and grief to it. You were so in Love, and you have lost it. I'm going to simplify it. In an Instant of Melancholy, WHAT IS Without you wanting to change it: Love, Nostalgia. WHAT SHOULDNT be: Grief and Loss with the thoughts about why grief and loss is bad. Integration means observing grief and loss with the same openness and concentration as what is accepted. The aversion ALWAYS gives a hint to "what is, but shouldn't be" The stronger the aversion, the stronger the purification if integrated entirely. "Once you get the taste of purification, the progress is going to be exponential" -Shinzen Young. So every type of suffering is potential for extreme growth, if handled correctly. I was a Wim Hof fan for so long, because intense physical pain would put me in a state of equanimity. Even though there's nothing wrong with it, the problem was I used cold and hot pain to avoid the Aversion towards what is (emotionally), without needing to face it right away. The Intense suffering Wim experienced after losing his daughter to suicide is what led him to jump in ice cold water for the first time. Sorry I'm rambling haha. The punch in the face is: For whatever reason you believe you want Liberation. You're gonna have to eventually work through that suffering you want to escape from. But don't worry, you're not gonna have to start with that, you can get the taste for purification first. Shinzen Videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyRaFN3TKYM&t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HPObyaLB68&t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsyekyUsImc

3rd-jhana, despair, insights into the dukkha nanas. It's an insight into the nature of suffering of living in duality, and it goes up to suicide being the only way out, just before gods Grace shows up, if it shows up. That's what Eckhart Tolle went through. For example. I made just a post about suffering that should be up in the list, where I describe what happened.

@Flowerfaeiry It's the ego's security shutdown. The ego has to, at one point go through every possible form of suffering an individual can experience. It's not to grow itself, it's to bring it to TOTAL DESPAIR beyond the point of suicide and no-return. Then God's grace shows up if you're lucky. It's futile and hopeless to do anything about the suffering that occurs. That would only bd leading to more conditioning and fighting. The only thing suffering teaches you, are insights into how miserable life in duality is. I fell into the trap of trying to fix my suffering because something feels wrong with me.

I'm in my early 20's, and for the entirety of my life (despite the past two years), I have been overtly empathetic. This has caused me to struggle in social situations and being overly sensitive due to the varying emotions I can feel in situations. For two years, however, I was in a relationship with a narcissist that would be emotionally abusive - and would often threaten suicide. This caused me strife with my education, and seriously strained my relationship with my family. Quickly after my relationship ended two years ago, I attached to a new friend (who is very objective and rational). This did not appeal to my current emotional state and neediness for his validation (especially after getting out of my abusive relationship), and caused me to emotional spiral which has been going on two years now. This altered my entire perception of myself, due to my external validation needs, which I am trying to learn how to get rid of. I have found myself incredibly numb, especially within my emotional state and how I feel towards others. I find myself not caring when I hurt someone's feelings, which causes extreme strife in my relationships. I can recognize when someone can feel pain towards my actions, however, I am so internally occupied with my own frustrations and feeling miserable, that I don't feel any emotions towards those I care about. This is upsetting for me, and makes me feel foreign within my own skin - as I used to care immensely for everyone and everything (a skill I would love to regain, without the attachment/neediness for validation). I believe part of this is also due to the fogginess I feel in my brain - I cannot consciously think through many things. Something that is also incredibly foreign to me, as I've been pursuing consciousness work since my early childhood. I am worried that I never truly cared, I only cared so much to gain other's validation. I worry I was only so nice and giving because I felt I had nothing else to offer. Then I wonder if this is true, then I need to learn how to build genuine empathy. Whatever the reason, I would love anyone's input on how to regain my empathy, or any thoughts on my situation. Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Excerpt from a book that discusses possible interaction between the two: Homoerotic experiences? And further: Both the later philosopher and the later dictator remained known throughout their lives for the bizarreness of their behaviour, for their absolute inability to have normal, uninhibited contact with other people. The philosopher had two homosexual brothers who committed suicide; he himself was homosexual and more than once pushed later lovers into situations (for example, participation in the Spanish Civil War) that led to their deaths. Cornish probably falls a little short here when he only touches en passant on the question of the dictator's sexuality. Was Hitler homosexual? Was he what is known in English as a "closet gay"? (So was he a "concealed gay" who possibly kept his "true nature" shamefully hidden even from himself - "in the closet")? Is it not striking how the dictator dealt with homosexuals in his own movement? Röhm and other gay followers of the SA, who had initially backed the "Führer" but could have become "dangerous" to him later, were liquidated. Residents of the men's homes in Vienna who knew him from his younger years were systematically investigated and eliminated. And all his "normal" sexual relationships, even when he was already in his prime, took place with almost boyish, barely twenty-year-old young women, who were consistently driven to suicide in the course of these relationships. (The same applies, in a modified form, to the relationship with Eva Braun). Curious? Certainly. And was there perhaps a particular experience that could be used to pinpoint the beginning of this development? Cornish believes it was the encounter with Wittgenstein. He had already had a relationship with Pepi, the son of his Linz host parents, which in quick succession included "infatuation", "rupture", "half reconciliation", "semblance of innocence", "reconciliation" and "tenderness" (according to the diary notes). "Tenderness" of this kind may have been commonplace at Haus Wittgenstein, the finest address in the cultural Vienna of those days, with two older brothers experienced in the matter. In Linz, this seems at least questionable. Among pubescents there may well be occasional moments that one later prefers to sweep under the carpet of a gracious oblivion. But how would it have been if there had been "tenderness" between these two teenagers? lol

@Moksha I think there is wrong meditation actually, that presevents insights and awakening. Especially if you think you're doing something wrong. And loving-kindness going through every possible type of suffering is counter-productive, because the ego fights with itself. "muncitu-kamyata-nana" is defined by this existence being devastatingly hopeless. There's nothing that's ever going to get you out of this unending misery. That's past the point of suicide contemplation, because even suicide isn't an alternative. There it is essential to beam it with god's laser of awareness. I wonder how many people have commited suicide at that stage. Going through one of the last insights on suffering. Why isn't this taught at school?

Documenting Backlash Comeback Had a good conversation with my roommate yesterday. He mentioned some research that said that people can generally handle 1 drastic stressful change in their life, in one time, in a healthy way. Maybe two. That kind of explains me taking a journey back to some unhealthy behaviors for the past 2 weeks. These are the changes I'm going through. Although they are individually very good, together they have proven to be too much for me to handle without a backlash. And I'm okay with it, but now I'm ready to climb out. I'm moving to a foreign country Where I don't speak the language very well I also have to figure out how to move a business to a different country, which is complex I'm leaving all my friends behind, with the promise that I'll be back for regular visits I'm going to live together with the love of my life I'm planning to go fulltime on my coaching and get enough clients to be able to quit my job this year. I've hired someone to help me get there as efficiently as possible. Very exciting, because I won't be split over different jobs anymore, so I can't wait. Very daunting, because it will involve a lot of hard work. While also finding our new rhythm in our relationship. And learning to live and handle myself in this new country. I have been fighting the conditioning of my younger self, which has turned into a monster of a shadow. Conversations we had around monogamy were the trigger for that to come to the surface for one last fight. Years ago, when I was in a lot of emotional pain and lack, I promised myself I would never be monogamous, and have anchored that into my identity day after day, year over year. And today I find out that it's really in my best interest to be devoted to one woman, it makes me the most happy, but it's a total obliteration of who I always thought I was since I was 20. And this shadow doesn't care about my happiness, really. It just wants to get what it was promised. So I have to do a lot of work there. And on top of that, it's understandably difficult for my woman to stay open during all of this, just because of the topic of it. So it's straining our relationship too. And I don't have a lot of time to do this work either, because of all the moving related stuff. It's just a lot... just a lot. For the past 2 weeks, I've been: Smoking No consistent bed times Not planning my days Not working out Not keeping up with my system, so I'm always lowkey overwhelmed. Basically working in urgency all the time. Forgetting about semen retention So basically going down a deep hole. Am I back where I started? That's what is often the fear during a backlash. Of course not. I know what I'm capable of now. I know how to function well. I don't let this affect my self-worth. I can tell when in conversation with others, I still connect well, there's no social anxiety, there's no sense of unworthiness. I get done what I have to get done, and I'm taking care of a lot, actually, albeit not in the healthy and calm way that I'd like to. I have no doubt that this will blow over soon, and no fear that I will keep these unhealthy habits. It just doesn't feel like me, so it's unsustainable. It's more like a blast from the past: my habits are matching the habits of my 20 year old self, who is unhappy with the life choices of my 28 year old self. Interesting. But still, a bit of shame has been creeping in. It's hard to avoid completely, when the cognitive dissonance of mistreating my body, even though I clearly am capable of making healthy choices, becomes too much. So it's time to give myself a little push by documenting my way out of this. I just threw out all tobacco, and will not smoke from now on I cold showered this morning I lifted some weights yesterday Today after work, I will clean my inboxes and make a new plan for the month, so I get that sense of control and overview back. Ego Check I came across this piece of wisdom: People who put themselves in a position to be seen as experts, are vulnerable to start believing that they are immune to what they are helping others with. Because it creates a bit of an echo chamber, where the clients all confirm this image of you as an authority who doesn't have to expend effort anymore. Doctors get asked for health advice all day, and it makes them feel like such an authority, that they start to think they don't need to spend effort to take care of their health, and get fat and diabetic. Psychiatrists are about twice as likely to commit suicide as non-psychiatrists. Why? Because they, as a psychiatrist, are embarassed to seek help with their own mental health. "Enlightened masters" get worshipped too much, and they don't feel like they have to keep doing the work on themselves anymore, and start cheating on their wife, or misbehaving in some other way. AD(H)D coaches start believing they are such an expert, they don't need to plan their day anymore or keep their basic health habits. This is definitely one factor in what happened here. Because if I look back a bit further, it's clear that the increase in number of clients coincided with me taking my own systems less seriously. That was even before all these stressors hit. I'm actually glad that I'm learning this lesson now, having still a relatively low number of clients. I can still serve them well while I recover and learn my lesson. It would be way worse if this happened only after my schedule gets completely filled, and I have no time to reflect, and start feeling like a fraud. It can also be boiled down to this: Helping others with advice, creates a bias to not take it. Something I will have to remain wary of during my entire career.

Yeah ?? I took that "ego vs. enlightenment" or "survival vs. awakening" WAY too far, literally to the point of psychosis and almost suicide. After a bad trip, I spiraled down into delusions like "this life is a test of how selfless/fearless I am and I have to prove my selflessness by literally committing suicide". Even had to spend some time in psychiatric ward.

@iboughtleosbooklist How bad it got:Constantly contemplating suicide. Because after a while you realise that this isn't a way out, it's an attempted escape that makes it worse. So you have to go through withdrawal, and find yourself in a worse position compared to before you started drinking. Substance abuse doesn't have a single positive aspect to it. And it gets really really bad real quick.

(Reposting because it was in bad need of a re-edit. I wrote the original summary, so I'm referring to my own work, not someone else's, lol.) 476. Summary: "Understanding & Coping With Nihilism” TLDR version: -People think nihilism is depressing, apathetic, and negative, but it isn’t. It's False Nihilism that says life is meaningless so why bother, just be destructive. Destroying something out of spite is attaching negative meaning to it. That’s not meaningless, that’s meaning. -True Nihilism recognizes that because life is meaningless, value is not absolute, but based on your survival agenda. Because value is arbitrary, you are free to question everything you’ve been programmed with. This cleans your slate and lets you build consciously, on a foundation that’s true to you. You get to question and deconstruct everything you know, because it’s all arbitrary anyway. -This is emotionally difficult and confusing to the ego, but it will lead to your authentic purpose and even awakening to God consciousness. -During this nihilistic funk, learn a variety of perspectives to figure out what you want. Cross reference them, Steel-man them. -You will create consciously instead of carrying out some inauthentic, default programming like an ideological robot. You will align with love/passion, and live a life of purpose that’s based on what you truly value and who you chose to be. -Your authentic purpose is your love for life expressed uniquely through you, free of the distortions of social conditioning, helping others to awaken to the truth of consciousness/infinite love/God. -When you're under the illusion that one thing is better or objectively more meaningful than another, you will always suffer because you will seek the better and resent the worse. -If you commit to realizing the Absolute Truth that nothing is better or more meaningful than anything else, you’ll discover that all things are wondrous, good and created by love and consciousness. (ep: Good Intentions II) That frees you up to joyfully explore life and let go of your attachments. _________________________________________________________________ Summary for "Understanding & Coping With Nihilism" “In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.” — St. John of the Cross -What is Nihilism? Which parts of nihilism are true? Which are false? How does it fit with personal development work? What are its limitations and strengths? Society Tends to View Nihilism Very Negatively Dictionary definitions: “The rejection of all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless.” “Extreme skepticism, maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence.” “A world view that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless.” “A doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths.” -Nietzsche's saw Nihilism as a way to clear away all false narratives and religious systems. It wasn't just about destroying all values. It was about creating a clearing on top of which one can build an authentic life, based on one’s true values instead of social conditioning. -How do you know something is true for you unless you derive it for yourself, from first principles? People are attached to society’s programming (religion, science, norms, values, morality, etc). They overlook its limits and problems (inequality, hatred, judgment, violence, etc). -Saying that things should be destroyed because they’re meaningless doesn’t make sense. If something has no meaning, how can it be “bad.” If it’s not “bad,” why would you want to destroy it? To actively destroy something out of spite is to attach a negative meaning to it. That's an extra step the mind has to take. That’s not neutral or meaningless or nihilistic. Nihilism at the turn of the century Nietzsche wrote during the late 1800s, when Judeo-Christian values were starting to unravel (11:35). Spiral Dynamics’ Stage Blue Christian culture was being challenged. Nietzsche was at the forefront of Stage Orange. Refresher on Spiral Dynamics: Stage Blue = Religious. Traditional. Rule based. God-fearing. Stage Orange = Materialistic. Success-oriented. Capitalist. Scientific. Stage Green = Inclusive. Compassionate. Diverse. New Age Hippies. (This part of the episode has been glossed over somewhat) -Many of the axioms, assumptions and frameworks that existed for hundreds of thousands of years started to be questioned. (language, logic, mathematics, science, physics, gender roles, political systems, God, etc) Some people claimed all this change would unravel society and lead to war, disaster and many monstrosities. You could say this is the backdrop against which World War I and World War II occurred. With all this change in this new directionless nihilistic world, how could society best move forward? After a period of nihilism and questioning Stage Blue, we have Stage Orange (materialist, scientific, capitalistic worldview). -With the materialism of Stage Orange comes a pragmatic approach to reality (25:20). The problem with Orange is if there's no higher order values, no God and anything is allowed. That leads to a hollow existence. Life is just about material acquisition, personal comfort and carnal pleasure. Losing spirituality leads to a lack of direction, and because of that society could become very dysfunctional. -With post-modernism, we start to question the idea of an objective reality, that science is the one true explanation for what reality is. After all, scientists are biased in determining what’s worth studying. It cherry picks data and how to interpret and frame that data. Stage Green emerges in the 1950s and 1960s. Nihilism, Feeling Lost and Aperspectival Madness -Stage Green is very difficult on you psychologically and emotionally because you feel lost (32:00). If there’s no objective truth, how do you know which perspectives are beneficial and which are toxic? -Aperspectival madness. If all moral systems are just constructions, programming and social conditioning. If all views are just partial, limited ways of interacting with reality, how do you know which views are the most valid? -Leo went through a phase of being a complete relativist in his teens. He thought neutrality was the closest to truth. He didn’t realize as a teen that there are higher quality ways of looking at things and not every side is equally valid. Later he started to question everything and became very skeptical. After all, if you take even one thing on faith, it can open you up to deep epistemic error. Why Nihilism Gets Viewed Negatively Nihilism Undermines the Ego (39:33) -Meaning and value are not found in the outer world. The ego constructs meaning and value in order to survive and orient itself. eg: Science doesn't prove anything is valuable or meaningful. Strictly speaking, all science does is measure and predict stuff. It tells you where the moon will be next year, but doesn't tell you if the moon is good or bad. -Your survival needs will override any philosophical considerations of nihilism. Humans are caught in an existential bind for survival. You have deep instincts from a billion years of evolution. You are biased against deconstructing meaning. Society is in the Business of Constructing a Civilization (41:55) -Constructions are very useful for survival. Society has a bias and the ego hates when its constructions are questioned. Western civilization is a house of cards built on an unquestioned foundation of axioms and assumptions (metaphysical, epistemic, religious, theological, scientific, linguistic, etc). eg: Money. If everyone saw money as just pieces of paper it would destroy the economy. -Western civilization would rather go with a useful falsehood than the truth. Most people aren't interested in knowing the dollar is imaginary. They just want to use the dollar to buy food. -When your attitude is very selfish, that opens you to all sorts of falsehoods, fantasies, constructions and illusions. These “useful falsehoods” get piled on. You get so lost in all the bs you forget it was just a construction from the beginning. -Dis-illusion: the loss of illusion (46:20). Nihilism leads to disillusionment. Deconstructing the foundations of your mind will lead to an existential crisis. The ego doesn't like this. eg: Why would a scientist who’s invested 40 years into his PhD work do a serious deconstruction of science or academia? How would he will feel if he realized the entire foundation of science and academia is built on illusions, fictions and constructions? -The mind has an infinite capacity for denial and rationalization. It’s interested in survival, not truth. You’re playing ego games, but you think you're being rational and truthful. This stops you from doing a serious investigation into the foundations of your mind and reality. What Nihilism Gets Right 1. Life Has No Meaning and Purpose (50:40) -Because all value is created by the ego, things only have meaning relative to your ego's survival. Meaning and purpose are based on ego and identity. What's meaningful to one person will not be meaningful to another. Buddha is meaningful to Buddhists, but not so much to Christians. In the Catholic Church eating a wafer/eucharist is meaningful. To a Buddhist, or scientist it has nothing to do with being spiritual. The moon has huge value to NASA and very little value to your dog, no matter how much he enjoys howling at it. -If everything is meaningless, why should a good life be any more meaningful than a bad life? After all, some people like to suffer! This means you’re free to pick whatever life purpose you want. 2. All Morality is Relative -There is no “good” without an ego. Morality is based on value, meaning and purpose. All the atrocities of human history were justified as “good” because it helped the perpetrators. -How can something be “bad” if you don't care what happens to you? If you didn't care about being tortured, then it wouldn't be bad. People think that badness is “baked into” the torture. “Badness” is just your reaction to fear, hatred or the pain it causes. Why should pain be bad? If you didn't have pain in your life you'd be dead. -Saying that “death is bad” implies a bias towards life. If life is meaningless, why should you value life over death? You can't have life without death, so if you condemn death then you also condemn life. Everything finite dies. The only thing that doesn't die is the infinite, but the infinite isn't alive to begin with. The infinite includes both life and death. It doesn't distinguish between the two. It also doesn't value one over the other. -If you think you're being rational or scientific by holding these beliefs, you just haven’t thought through them. Science has no opinion. In fact, science would tell you that pain and suffering are useful because it’s how we evolved. 3. All of Reality is Relative There is no objective, external world (59:35). Not just at the cultural level, but the ontological and metaphysical level. You are hallucinating physical reality. (Leo has other videos on this) 4. Reality Cannot Be Known in the Way Humans Try to Know It The universe is infinite and your knowledge is always partial and limited. Your models are just partial perspectives and you will never get the full perspective by acquiring more and more knowledge (Epistemic Nihilism). 5. All Beliefs are Ultimately Untrue (Leo has other videos on this) What Nihilism gets Wrong 1. Nihilism Gives Meaninglessness a Negative Meaning (1:01:48) -Meaningless means the absence of meaning, not the presence of negative or positive meaning. False “lower-case” nihilism: Surface level nihilism that doesn’t go far enough. Says life is meaninglessness and thus “bad.” Can lead to depression, cynicism. Giving meaninglessness a negative meaning is self-contradicting. True “upper-case” Nihilism: Deep nihilism that deconstructs your ego and worldview, so you can create your life and values from a clean slate. -If hearing that “the world is meaningless” means something to you, that's not meaninglessness that's meaning. If you truly realized that life is meaningless, you couldn't be depressed about it. If you're using that as a reason to destroy or be lazy, that’s giving it negative meaning. -False nihilism is just toxic ego. That’s why people intuit that nihilism is maladaptive. You don't want to live in the world as a toxic, false nihilist. If you're angsty and turning into a misanthrope, you need to recognize this not true nihilism. You’re attaching negative meanings and that is ego. It’s also less functional than the ego of those who construct illusions and houses of cards. -You need to take your Nihilism deep enough so it goes full circle into True Nihilism which deconstructs all your illusions. 2. You can't derive an ‘Ought’ from an ‘Is’ -Reality could be completely meaningless and you could still enjoy it (1:05:25). To say that “reality is meaningless” does not mean you ought to do something about it, like destroy an institution or commit suicide. eg: You could be a total nihilist and still enjoy sunbathing in Hawaii with beautiful women, or gazing into the ocean eyes of an Adonis, an exemplar of the Divine Masculine, over a candlelit dinner at sunset, after a day of snorkelling off a glass bottom boat surrounded by cute baby seals, while indulging in fresh roasted macadamia nuts drenched in chocolate, after riding a hot air balloon over a safe but bubbling volcano, flocked by singing doves, and then Mr. Ocean Eyes gets down on one knee and says, “FlyingLotus, you could make me the happiest man in the world by”—sorry, where was I? Yeah, anyway, those things are perfectly compatible with nihilism, meaninglessness and whatever. (It’s not pathetic. It’s a good song!) -Nihilism completely frees you up to be any way you want. The question is: what do you really want? Now if destruction genuinely makes you feel good, I guess you could go for it, but does it make you feel good? Is that really what you want? You might say, "no, that's part of the game. You ought to destroy the system, man.” But, why is destruction better than creation? Shouldn’t nihilism leave you in a neutral position? -The real problem is you’re confused about what you want. If you cleared that up you would be very careful in what you destroy. Certain things need to be questioned and reformed, like corrupt social institutions. However, the desire to take a wrecking ball to everything is a dead end. 3. Nihilism Doesn't Complete the Deconstruction of the Ego into Awakening and God Realization -Skepticism is often misused. False skepticism happens when nihilism is used to destroy everything outside of you, but it's not turned in towards you. -True skepticism is also skeptical of itself. It takes the wrecking ball of nihilism and skepticism and swings it at yourself. It deconstructs your giant ego before you go deconstructing institutions, social systems, science, religion, etc. -Most nihilists Leo runs into have a giant nihilistic ego. Nihilism becomes their ego and identity, but they're not conscious of that. They are contradicting themselves, because when the nihilism gets so deep, the nihilism has to destroy itself too, but most nihilists won’t do that because it’s too threatening for the ego. -The ego co-ops nihilism, which becomes very dysfunctional. Nihilism as a survival strategy in life won’t work out well for you. 4. Nihilism is Stuck at the Level of Concept -It’s not actualized into deconstructing your ego, which leads to true awakening. Mostly nihilism is a belief or philosophy. 5. Nihilism isn’t Political -If you think government is evil, you're not being a proper nihilist. It shouldn’t necessarily lead to anarchy. 6. Nihilism overlooks what happens when you reach the bottom of nihilism -If you go all the way down the rabbit hole of nihilism, you eventually awaken to the absolute. Everything loses meaning, but then you go through the dark night of the soul and the ego dies. Then you awaken to God. -Consciousness is the only real thing. Nihilism is missing the very soul and heart of reality. You are God. God is everything. God is beauty, love, divinity, spirit, goodness, truth, consciousness, all as absolutes. -The paradox of meaninglessness is that when it completely collapses you discover infinite love and absolute goodness, which is everything (1:11:47). Then you’ll realize all those stupid nihilistic beliefs, all those philosophers you read, were all deluded. “I was just using nihilism as a defence mechanism against the realization of what I am as God, as infinite love.” -Then you're no longer depressed. You no longer want to destroy at that point. You fall so in love with yourself and reality that you actually rediscover a higher purpose. Your higher purpose is to help mankind awaken, not because you have to, not because someone told you to, but simply because that's what God would do. That's what consciousness does. Consciousness is a Self-Awakening System -Everything that happens within consciousness is just a means to help consciousness awaken to itself (1:13:00). When you relinquish your selfish needs you lose yourself, then you become a force of the universe for its own awakening. There's a million ways you could do that (art, teaching, engineering, science, politics, etc). Then your life takes on the highest and deepest meaning. -You realize that all meaning is a construction, but awakening is not a construction. The universe awakening to itself is an absolute. So what the nihilist is overlooking is the the existence of the absolute. Many scientific, atheistic and rational people just can't open their minds to the possibility of the existence of an absolute truth. -Consider that you're wrong and that absolute truth does actually exist. This is it. You're in absolute truth right now you just don't realize. Criticisms of Nihilism from Above and from Below Criticism of Nihilism from Below: Fear-based, ego-based, shadow-based. Nihilism will lead to an inability to function in the world. Relativity will lead to total chaos. Society will fall apart without traditional values. The criticism is a defence mechanism from deconstructing the ego. Criticisms of Nihilism from Above: Nihilism is self-defeating and conceptual. When you go all the way with nihilism, you realize something deeper: infinite consciousness, love and God. Before you Critique Nihilism, First Acknowledge its Truths Everything is absolutely groundless and relative. The world is inherently devoid of meaning. All value is self-biased. The trick is that applies to nihilism too. You gotta do the self-reflection, complete the strange loop and realize that your nihilism eats its own tail. The Real Problem with Nihilism: It Doesn't Go Far Enough -You need to take nihilism past ideas and into embodied practice. The ego loves to neuter things that can change your life by turning them into mere ideas or philosophy. -A mystic is just a nihilist who went all the way, who took it from philosophy to embodiment. Spirituality is Nihilism -Spirituality and nihilism are not opposed to each other. Spirituality is just nihilism actualized (1:20:10). -All your attachments were programmed into your mind. It’s all social conditioning (ego, religion, culture, identity, etc). You didn't sit down and choose them consciously. This includes “objective” stuff like science and materialism. Your consciousness is hindered by social conditioning. -Nihilism lets you wipe the slate clean. It allows you to deconstruct the value of everything. From that clean slate you can develop your own meaning in life, your own purpose, your own system of values. You can’t be satisfied in life and inauthentic at the same time. -It's paradoxical, by questioning and deconstructing everything, you will become truly, deeply spiritual. That will make you more spiritual than anyone who professes to be spiritual under the social conditioning model. You will become very authentic, very grounded, strong as an individual and powerful as a leader. -“But values are still meaningless constructions!” Yes, but when you realize you’re in a dream, there's nothing to do but play. Ask yourself: How would I play the game if I was totally free and unattached? If I wasn't coming from neediness, attachment or fear? How do I want to manifest my love in the world, according to my own personal preferences? -You can have preferences but they don’t have to be absolutes. You also don’t have to force them on others. -Knowing that reality is an illusion is the greatest gift, because there's nothing to fear. Construct whatever meanings you want and be honest with yourself that you're constructing them. Construct consciously rather than unconsciously. Becoming Superman -Humans take their own constructions so seriously when it’s mostly ?. -The Superman is living completely from his or her own authentic inner core (1:26:25). His inner motivations run far deeper than anything that society can program. (Nietzsche's Ubermensch) -These are superhuman capacities: infinite intelligence, deep consciousness, living presence. Unlike finite algorithms or social programming. Nihilism and the Hero’s Journey -Nihilism is the belly of the whale in the Hero’s Journey (1:30:20). People invent distractions and excuses to avoid it. Don’t fear it, go through it! -The belly of the whale is the lowest point in the journey. It's your deepest turning inwards to figure out if you have what it takes to defeat your deepest obstacle. The key to victory isn’t a magic sword, it’s your heart and spirit. Is your soul steeled enough to face your deepest inner weaknesses? -The Hero’s Journey is a metaphor for God realization. The hero breaks through to infinite love, brings back the holy grail to his villagers and helps them drink from the cup of infinite love. - You have to be careful because you can go through the journey in a dysfunctional way and end up killing yourself. Being a hero is more difficult than living in mediocrity, going to your nine-to-five job. (ep: Dangers of Spiritual Work) Nihilism is Nothing -The tragedy for the false nihilist is they never realize that God is nothing. God is an infinite, loving nothing. -The Godhead’s Nothing is an infinite shapeshifter with no shape. An eraser that can erase itself. Nothing is not non-existence. Nothing exists. Non-existence does not exist. There’s no such thing as non-existence because there's only existence/consciousness. eg: The Holy Spirit. Consciousness. Nirvana. Shunyata. Teotl. Fana. Shiva. The Groundless Ground. Mu. The Tao. The Force. -If your worldview is as true as you believe, deconstruction can't harm it. Why are you so threatened by nothing? It takes enormous humility to question everything you know. -The devil co-opts spiritual truths to put on a facade of spiritual work. It’s the ego, scared of losing itself and all of its constructions. (ep: What is the Devil) Some of the biggest devils portray themselves as the most spiritual. Practical Tips The problem is you can't find yourself unless you lose yourself first (1:45:20). So, how do you deal with the relativity, neutrality and multi-perspectivalism of the nihilistic process? 1. Distinguish Between Relative truth and Absolute truth -Science, religion, culture, etc may not be Absolutely True, but they can be true about some things (Relative Truth). (ep: Relative vs Absolute Truth) eg: The absolute truth is that all is One, but the relative truth is that the US has a two party system and you can only vote for one. So, which is more aligned with your values? -I still have preferences even though God loves everything equally. I may want a passionate life, but not because it's absolutely true or God is forcing me. Wanting a passionate life is valid, in and of itself. -Leo has many episodes on Absolute Truth. The Structure of Reality episode is a good one among many good ones. 2. Know that your Preferences and Biases Aren’t Objective Truths -If you admit they’re relative, you don’t have to play defensive games anymore. Being honest about your preferences and selfishness stops you from grounding it in a made up story that pretends to be “objective” (genetics, science, religion). You’re freed from ideology. eg: “I’m Christian because I was born in Texas where Christianity is popular and I enjoy Jesus because I know him better than other gods.” versus “People who don’t believe in Jesus are bound for hell.” 3. Study Lots of Perspectives -Do a lot of studying during your nihilistic funk. Date around without marrying the first perspective you meet. This could last 2-5 years. (books, videos, retreats, teachers, traditions, etc.) -Not all will be equally good or bad. You’ll have biases. You will be confused and that's okay! You can play them off each other and cross reference them. 4. Distinguish Between Lower Quality vs Higher Quality Perspectives 5. Don’t Get Stuck in Neutral or the Default -Not choosing is a choice. Life is an existential bind where you must act, you must choose. You can’t align with perfect neutrality. -You’re Not a Blank Slate. You have a default position no matter what because of social programming. If you don’t choose, that is what will run the show. 6. What you Want is the Good Life. -Watch Leo’s episode on The Point of Life. It's really good, especially if you care about Life Purpose. -Be the excited kid with millions of lego pieces. Experiment with building many things. Get inspired by different legos and other people’s unique creations. Follow Your Bliss. Don’t be the bitter kid with only 100 pieces, who builds what everyone else builds, who is close-minded about which pieces to use, who debates and hates creations and creators that are different. 7. Embrace Confusion -Trust the process. Don’t view confusion as negative. Your ego is scared of uncertainty. (ep: How to Deal with Confusion) -Play with ideas, play with life, have fun ?. Verify different perspectives for yourself. You’re building your own epistemology from scratch by questioning everything. It’s a very healthy thing to do. Signs that a Perspective is Higher or Lower -The big difference is selfishness vs. selflessness (2:05:55) . Lower Perspectives: Selfish. Based in fear, hatred, judgment, violence. Us vs Them. Uses emotion, dogma and ideology to demonize the other side. Close-minded, clings to attachments. Doesn’t take in new information. Tries to monopolize other perspectives. Ignores other perspectives, “All other perspectives are stupid. Just focus on my perspective.” Unaware that it’s subjective, that it’s just a perspective. Thinks it represents “reality." Also rejects parts of reality that don’t confirm its biases. Higher Perspectives: Selfless, courageous, loving. Open minded, curious, playful, interested in exploring more perspectives. Nuanced and sophisticated. Intellectually honest and rigourous. Systemic, meta and holistic. Self-aware. Higher perspectives are aware they are a subjective perspective among many. Non-monopolistic. Doesn’t claim to be the only valid perspective. Inclusive. Higher perspectives understand and include the Lower perspectives, but not vice versa. Higher perspectives can Steel Man lower perspectives. Lower perspectives cannot steel man higher perspectives. Find the Good in All Perspectives. Try to Steel Man Different Perspectives It’s the opposite of a Straw Man. Steel Man: Challenging your opponent’s best argument. Watch for how a perspective tries to lock you in. -Do they let you study other perspectives? For example, the scientific community will discredit you for studying the paranormal, new age or religion. Fear vs Love If a perspective is coming from fear, it's false. If it’s coming from love it's true (2:12:45). That’s because truth is Love, there's just many degrees of love/truth. If you commit to the path of raising your consciousness, you can discover the Absolute Truth that nothing is better or more meaningful than anything else, because all things are wondrous, good and created by love and consciousness. (ep: Good Intentions II) When you are under the illusion that one thing is better or objectively more meaningful than another, you will always suffer because you will seek the better and resent the worse. Love is its own reward. Surrender to love, beauty and truth. Live your life like it’s a work of art. Work towards that love with courage and purpose. Your authentic purpose is just your love for life expressed uniquely through you, free of the distortions of social conditioning.

There's many different ways to suffer. One can suffer from a broken arm. Or from getting cheated on. Or from living in Iraq with no money. Or like in my case, forever being a lonely, disliked, unloved, unlikeable person. I think that my suffering is even bigger than the other kinds of sufferings that I mentioned. Because those other kinds of sufferings don't usually cause suicidal thoughts. I'm probably one of the most suffering living beings in existence, because if I would suffer even more, then I would be dead. And anyone who would suffer more would committ suicide. Don't you think that's a logical conclusion? I think that makes perfect sense. Maximum suffering while still alive achieved.

''The hijackers who carried out the attacks on 9/11, like all radical jihadist groups in the Middle East, spoke to us in the murderous language we taught them. The explosions and collapse of the towers, however, were, to me, intimately familiar. I had seen it before. This was the familiar language of the empire. I had watched these incendiary messages dropped on southern Kuwait and Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War and descend with thundering concussions in Gaza and Bosnia. The calling card of empire, as was true in Vietnam, is tons of lethal ordnance dropped from the sky. The hijackers spoke to America in the idiom we taught them. The ignorance, masquerading as innocence, of Americans, mostly white Americans, was nauseating. It was the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. It was the greatest act of terrorism in American history. It was an incomprehensible act of barbarity. The stunningly naïve rhetoric, which saturated the media, saw the blues artist Willie King sit up all night and write his song “Terrorized”. “Now you talk ‘bout terror,” he sang. “I been terrorized all my days.” But it was not only Black Americans who were familiar with the endemic terror built into the machinery of white supremacy, capitalism, and empire, but those overseas who the empire for decades sought to subdue, dominate, and destroy. They knew there is no moral difference between those who fire Hellfire and cruise missiles or pilot militarized drones, obliterating wedding parties, village gatherings or families, and suicide bombers. They knew there is no moral difference between those who carpet-bomb North Vietnam or southern Iraq and those who fly planes into buildings. In short, they knew the evil that spawned evil. America was not attacked because the hijackers hated us for our values. America was not attacked because the hijackers followed the Quran — which forbids suicide and the murder of women and children. American was not attacked because of a clash of civilizations. America was attacked because the virtues we espouse are a lie. We were attacked for our hypocrisy. We were attacked for the campaigns of industrial slaughter that are our primary way of speaking with the rest of the planet. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense in the summer of 1965, called the bombing raids, which would eventually kill hundreds of thousands of civilians north of Saigon, a form of communication with the communist government in Hanoi. We did not, and do not, grasp that we are the mirror image of those we seek to destroy. We too kill with an inchoate fury. The lives of Iraqis, Afghanis, Syrians, Libyans, and Yemenis are as precious as the lives of those killed in the twin towers. But this understanding, this ability to see the world as the world saw us, eluded Americans who, refusing to acknowledge the blood on their own hands, instantly bifurcated the world into good and evil, us and them, the blessed and the damned. The country drank deep of the dark elixir of nationalism, the heady elevation of us as noble and wronged people. The flip side of nationalism is always racism. And the poisons of racism and hate infected the American nation to propel it into the greatest strategic blunder in its history, one from which it will never recover. We did not, and do not, grasp that we are the mirror image of those we seek to destroy. We too kill with an inchoate fury. Over the past two decades, we have extinguished the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who never sought to harm the United States or were involved in the attacks on American soil. We too use religion, in our case the Christian faith, to mount a jihad or crusade. We too go to war to fight phantoms of our own creation.'' "The manipulation of the images, however, had already begun. The scores of “jumpers,” those who leaped to their deaths before the collapses, were censored from the live broadcasts. They seemed to wait for turns. They often fell singly or in pairs, sometimes with improvised parachutes made from drapes, sometimes replicating the motions of swimmers. They reached speeds of 150 miles an hour during the ten seconds it took before they hit the pavement. The bodies made a sickening thud on impact. All who saw them fall spoke of this sound. The mass suicide was one of the pivotal events of 9/11. But it was immediately expunged from public consciousness. The jumpers did not fit into the myth the nation demanded. The hopelessness and despair were too disturbing. It exposed our smallness and fragility. It illustrated that there are levels of suffering and fear that lead us to willingly embrace death. The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live. The story is fabricated out of the ashes of the twin towers was a story of resilience, heroism, courage, and self-sacrifice, not collective suicide. So, mass murder and mass suicide were replaced with an encomium to the virtues and prowess of the American spirit." ''The intoxication of violence, the anodyne of war, is a poison. It condemns critical thought as treason. Its call to patriotism is little more than collective self-worship. It imparts a god-like power and licenses to destroy, not only things but other human beings. But war is, ultimately, about betrayal, as the defeat in Afghanistan elucidates. Betrayal of the young by the old. Betrayal of idealists by cynics. Betrayal of soldiers and marines by war profiteers and politicians. War, like all idols, begins by demanding the sacrifice of others but ends with the demand for self-sacrifice. The Greeks, like Sigmund Freud, grasped that war is the purest expression of the death instinct, the desire to exterminate all systems of life, including, ultimately, our own. Ares, the Greek god of war, was frequently drunk, quarrelsome, impetuous, and a lover of violence for its own sake. He was hated by nearly all the other gods, except the god of the underworld, Hades, to whom he delivered a steady stream of new souls. Ares’s sister, Eris, the goddess of chaos and strife, spread rumors and jealousy to fan the flames of war.'' ''This moral fragmentation, where we define ourselves by tangential and often fictitious acts of goodness, is a psychological escape hatch. It allows us to avoid looking at who we are and what we have done. This willful blindness is what the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton calls “doubling,” the “division of the self into two functioning wholes so that the part-self acts as an entire self.” This doubling, Lifton noted, is often done “outside of awareness.” And it is an essential ingredient to carrying out evil. If we refuse to see ourselves as we are, if we cannot shatter the lie perpetuated by our moral fragmentation, there is no hope of redemption. The gravest danger we face is the danger of alienation, not only from the world around us but from ourselves." https://scheerpost.com/2021/09/10/hedges-the-evil-we-do-is-the-evil-we-get/

A New Flavor of Crazy I just want to reflect on all the ways I feel currently insane. Like, I stopped dealing with a lot of these issues pre-pandemic. It's been difficult to watch me slide back like this. And even though I did grow a lot during this pandemic, I didn't come out of this in one piece. I really just want to acknowledge that, accept it, and have all of my shit laid out in front of me so I know what I'm dealing with. Because sometimes, having your problems laid out in front of you in a bullet pointed list instead of having it be this ball of mess that you don't know how to navigate helps. I don't know how I identify as sexually as far as my orientation goes. I'm horny, touch starved, and emotionally thirsty all the time. I am isolated platonically because I didn't have a social circle in forever. I don't know what I'm doing with my life and where I'm going career wise. I'm dealing with the repercussions of emotional neglect from my parents since March 2020. I had a suicide attempt because my anxiety got so bad around last year. That's going to take a few years to come to peace with. I have developed a few kinks as a result of my current emotional state. I have anxiety from my dumpster fire life for the last few years. Money. That's it. I'm collecting shiny rocks and believing in astrology as a coping mechanism with all of the uncertainty in the world. I go on doomer spirals every now and then because of the pandemic, capitalism, and climate change. Everything feels dystopian. My body image is kind of fucked up because of the amount of time I spent with my mom and my school's culture around diet and exercise. I'm still a procrastinator as far as school work goes I still crave stability and a quiet/ boring / almost mediocre life. I don't have much confidence academically or professionally because of the shit show that has been my life in the last few years.