Playing With Perspectives

[UnbornTao]

What is a perspective?

Is it a way of holding reality?

How can you shift perspectives?

Edited July 19, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Holding a negative future is what allows for depression to emerge.

Therefore, create a positive vision for your life. Then, depression won't arise.

What personal goals can you come up with that are aligned with your values? Create a list and start pursuing them asap.

Be passionate about life, learning and relating.

Edited December 14, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Integrity when presenting ideas: holistically though out expression that can stand on its own.

[UnbornTao]

Reinventing the wheel helps you grasp its nature at all levels. It then allows you to restructure or recreate it as you wish, enabling the possibility of true innovation.

When something is reinvented from the ground up, mastery and understanding relative to that are gained more easily, or they at least get accelerated.

Edited July 19, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What are loneliness and aloneness, fundamentally? 

Edited July 19, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

How you frame an event determines how it is seen -- as an opportunity, a problem, etc.

How you frame a situation creates the opportunity or the problem.

Recontextualization solves the problem by helping you realize that it was of your own making in the first place.

A problem isn't "out there"; it is caused by the way you perceive and make sense of a particular circumstance or set thereof.

Perceiving opportunity is more empowering and healthier than the alternative. 

Edited July 20, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Perceiving reality through models can easily become a trap. You get lost in the model by taking it seriously.

Besides, you lose what actually happens by superimposing concepts onto experience.

Watch out for this trap. Don't take models so seriously. Reality is happening before your eyes. The menu isn't the actual food, no matter how good or accurate it looks.

Edited July 20, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

In order to change something, first we must know (become directly conscious of) what the activity is about. Before attempting change, we must grasp its nature.

Instead of asking: How can I stop being depressed, anxious, fearful? Or: How can I be happy, joyful, humorous? First, focus on contemplating what each of those are.

Once insight into their nature is gained, you'll be able to control and generate them at will.

For example: How many of us attempt to transform ourselves without knowing what self is?

This is the norm, not the exception.

Edited July 20, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Listening prioritizes the message itself, not the one expressing it, much less her personal details, credentials, agenda, etc.

What are they trying to communicate? Is it true, factual, logical?

Then, you can ask about the person.

Keep in mind that who's communicating is rather secondary, tertiary or even irrelevant sometimes.

What if Einstein told you that 1+1=3?

[UnbornTao]

Telling the truth is a skill that can be developed.

Instead of taking on spiritual and philosophical fantasies of all kinds, use honesty as your spiritual practice.

[UnbornTao]

Huh.

Do you subtly assume that what you think is true because the thought is yours?

Since it is a thought held by you, you automatically and blindly believe in its legitimacy. Bad move.

Be very vigilant of this dynamic because you likely do unconsciously follow it.

Edited July 19, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Being deeply invested in something, especially on an emotional level, makes it harder for you to be impartial, unbiased and objective. It increases the probability of being partial in relationship to it.

To the extent to which you're invested in an activity is the degree of difficulty in adopting a meta-perspective and subsequently becoming free from it.

So, based on this: What are you invested in? How are you biased in regards to it?

Become aware of this dynamic in order to free yourself from this particular domain or activity.

Edited July 20, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Following a set of established distinctions has benefits and a major drawback: becoming stuck on or enclosed within them.

For instance, a psychologist who perceives reality through a psychological, scientific paradigm misses what's in front of her. Without being aware, she's slowly become entrapped within that technical field and its particular distinctions, which are also shared by her peers.

Edited July 19, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Do what you like and make it work for you.

[UnbornTao]

How do you know that there exists an objective, external world? Who told you that? Where did you learn it? How did you come to that conclusion? 

[UnbornTao]

Getting lost in conceptual abstraction is a continuous trap my personality type must be specially cautious of. I'm very likely to fall into it.

Watch out for intellectual masturbation.

Ground your considerations on your experience.

[UnbornTao]

I'm deeply curious as to what intuition is.

In my childhood, it was easier for me to be intuitive. The process of becoming adult diminished that ability, as well as curiosity and creativity.

Intuition seems to involve a free and open awareness. But what is it?

Edited July 19, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Dropping the roles you play makes you bigger.

It empowers and enlivens you. It also makes you more present, "real-er" and effective.

By doing that, you become a more powerful human being, not just the small, limited persona you were rehearsing before.

Haven't you felt pushed to drop your roles by dramatic or dangerous situations, whether physical, emotional, or social?

Imagine you're being hunted by a lion. In this example, the roles you play are irrelevant. You don't play smart, funny, mysterious, or charismatic. You run for your life without giving a crap about social concerns.

So, try dropping your roles to see for yourself. 

This post is about the principle of self-expansion. Keep reflecting on it.

Edited July 20, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Recognizing that you as a self are not especial, existentially speaking, is at the same time disturbing for your ego, and liberating.

Edited July 20, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

How can we be certain that our so-called knowledge is true? What is knowledge? What does it mean to know something? Does it always involve sense perceptions, or is there something beyond that?

Edited July 19, 2022 by UnbornTao