Posts by Jack Harris3

Jack Harris3 said:Maybe the beginning and the end of a search like that... they both just circle back to the exact same spot...?

Just imagine if that were actually true. 😁
Whether you walk away from it or not, you always end up right back where you started. 😁
Anyway, that's my two cents on what that guy was talking about earlier. 😂

Besides, I don't really see any other way to find, reach, or achieve enlightenment or whatever you want to call it.

Actually, how would you even describe it? Since you're out there looking for it, you must have some sort of vision of what it looks like or how it should feel, right? 😁

She went with Roosevelt and ended up killing off Ludwig van Beethoven. 😂
Man, I really love Ludwig... 😢

Rebecca Cox2 said:Look. First off, what’s actually driving you to go hunting for some kind of "revelation"? It’s just this universal frustration felt by everyone in our society—whether they're out East or right here in the States—because nobody seems to know how to just exist in harmony with their surroundings or even within themselves. I think Jack Harris3 is one of the few people who’s actually caught on to that, and honestly, you're heading in the right direction too...

Honestly, he doesn't even get what he's writing about. 😂
Whenever I tell him that if you just live your life, everything will work itself out, he snaps at me. He argues that if you're "just living," then you aren't seeking anything, and if you aren't seeking, you won't find anything.
Then he goes on and describes some movie scene where Buddha is just lounging under a tree, buzzing around aimlessly, and suddenly "realizes" something.
And then he writes all this happy stuff about how Siddhartha let go of his passions and reached enlightenment.
But wait—what passion did Siddhartha actually have, if not the intense drive to find the "truth"?
So once he let go of that very pursuit, he succeeded.
Which basically means—once he stopped searching, sat under a tree, and simply "lived." 😁

Speaking of passion, I honestly feel like people who go out of their way to stay "moderate" end up missing just as much of life as those who let their passions run wild.

I mean, besides the fact that you can't even define what moderation actually looks like if you haven't experienced the extremes—it's like trying to learn how to tune a guitar without ever snapping a string... don't you think every single experience is worth its weight in gold? 😁
It sounds like you're chasing wisdom, but real experience is such a massive part of that journey.
Sometimes, hitting those extremes is exactly what teaches you how to find balance.
Before you decide a theory is absolute truth, you really ought to test it out in the real world—not just the theory itself, but everything that contradicts it too. 😁
You don't truly know anything until you've lived it. And even then, you might not know everything, but at least you'll be a little less clueless... 😂

hollowviper72, stop whining like a baby and stand up for yourself like a man! 😁

I honestly don't know how much of your post actually hits home for me, and since I could easily be one of those people you're calling out, let me just clarify something... for me, this isn't about "winning" an argument, it's just about having a different perspective. 😁
Sure, I could write back telling you exactly what I think and pick a fight, but if that was my actual approach toward everyone, I probably shouldn't even be on this forum in the first place.
It feels exhausting trying to find something to disagree with just to force my point of view on someone else, while they try to shove theirs down my throat. And honestly, I almost feel bad if we end up agreeing in the end, but there’s always some kind of compromise to be made... 😁

What kind of discussion can I even have with you if I believe the exact same things you do?
What's even the point then? Just sitting around patting each other on the back?
And when I "rebut" your points, I'm not being serious or mocking them, despite 😛 the smilies and the little jabs. (😛 those are aimed at you, not your opinion. 😁)
How am I supposed to take any opinion seriously when I truly believe everyone has the right to their own views, even if they're totally ridiculous?

Seriously, stop the unnecessary drama.
First you tell everyone else they're taking the forum too personally, and then you go and prove that you're actually worse. 🙄

hollowviper72 said:"If you tighten the strings too much, they'll snap," the Master says. "But if you leave them too loose, they won't play at all."

So you just assume that automatically means finding some "middle ground"?😁
When you look at it through the lens of music, it’s really about finding that exact calibration—knowing precisely how much of everything you need in your life to pull out the most beautiful melody possible...😁
And that "exact amount" doesn't necessarily have to be moderate or "balanced" in the way people usually think.😁

I mean, have you ever turned the music up louder than what you actually needed to hear?😛

velvetpilot212 said:Nah, those boundaries aren't just going to pop up out of nowhere right when you hit them.

So what then? You just breeze past them without even noticing? 😁
Or maybe they show up if you're actually looking for them?

Well... I guess I have to weigh in on which move makes more sense for the bottom line, right? 😛

frozenangler9 said:I mean, obviously, if you spread your energy out over way too many days, you won't burn yourself out, but you end up losing... well, you lose time. 😁 😁 😁

Finally, someone who actually gets what I'm talking about. 😁😁😁

hollowviper72 said:

It isn't about holding back; it's about self-discipline. That’s really the only way a person can actually conquer themselves, which is pretty much a prerequisite for any kind of progress, whatever you're aiming for.

👍

Honestly, discipline just for the sake of being disciplined feels like nonsense to me. Like, what's the point? Proving something to who? Showing everyone you can do it? Or that you "conquered yourself"? 😁
As far as making progress goes, I don't need discipline... I just need to channel my passion into it, and then it happens. 😂

It's like what Velma said: just pour all your energy into whatever you're doing. 😁
And once you've done that, it's easy to shift all that intensity over to something else.

Back in school, I was definitely one of those crammers. I never sat down to study a little bit every day... I'd just wait until right before the exam and then go absolutely all in, using every ounce of focus I had. 😁
Of course, as soon as the test was over, everything went straight out of my head. 😂
That's still how I operate today. When I need to get something done, I dive in headfirst... otherwise, I'm just messing around. 😁

frozenangler9 said:I just think it's a good idea to have plenty of energy at your disposal—you know, being passionate. 😉

Actually, I feel like most people already have plenty of energy... it's just that the passionate ones are the ones who actually aim it toward something specific, whereas the moderate folks tend to just scatter it all over the place. 😂

frozenangler9 said:Don't passionate people leave this impression of being total energy bombs, unlike those moderate, lukewarm types who just kind of flicker? 😉

😁😁😁

I actually really love how you put that... 😁

But you've definitely given me something to chew on...

Isn't it possible that the actual source of all that energy is always sitting right inside us?
Maybe sometimes that energy just happens to "aim" itself at whatever we're passionate about, and that object is really just the spark that sets it off...
I mean, I doubt things like collecting vintage stamps have enough energy of their own to force someone to hunt them down with such passion... 🤔

frozenangler9 said:hollowviper72, when I’m reading through your take on what passion actually looks like... I can't help but feel like you're describing an addiction more than actual passion...

So, let's talk about smoking...
Some people like to call it passion. Personally, I think that’s just addiction... and it has nothing to do with actual passion, regardless of how much "thrill" those heavy smokers claim to get out of it.

Ha, Jack Harris3? 😁 😉

It’s a bit of both, really... maybe even neither.
Passion isn't some permanent thing, you know? It can burn out, fade away, or just sort of fizzle out entirely... You hit a point where you’re just exhausted. You start questioning things, wondering if it was ever really worth it in the first place... It happens. And honestly, that's okay. Just take it easy... no need to let anyone else push you or tell you how to feel...
Addiction... it’s loyal, in its own twisted way. It won't just pack up and leave you on its own... you can't count on that. If it ever decides to turn on you, you're going to have to fight it hard... really go all in if you want to come out on the other side... 😁

I’ve been sitting here thinking about the line between passion and addiction... It's such a thin one. Honestly, it's hard to even put into words because they feel so much alike. The symptoms, the way it takes over your life... it’s almost impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins...
I mean, I still don't think they're really the same thing, if you ask me...

hollowviper72 said:That’s exactly where the problem lies—it doesn't actually bring him any joy. Unchecked passion, like I was saying before, just never leads to real fulfillment... or, to use your words, it's "never enough." It’s a hunger that can't be satisfied, and you just can't find happiness that way. Sure, people might claim they're happy on the surface, but deep down... they know the truth.

People are just genuinely happy when they get to chase what they love... 😁
They’re really just taking the same path everyone else is... they're just doing it on a much more extreme scale. At the end of the day, they're just chasing whatever makes them happy, but their version of "need" is just... a lot more intense than yours or mine...

People who are actually content with what they have, or just happy with who they are... they don't feel this constant, nagging pressure to always be pushing for more. More money, more status, faster, harder... or even the opposite, like slowing down just to prove a point. They aren't caught in that endless loop...

Exactly. I mean, honestly... how many people do you actually know who are truly content with what they have and who they are? It’s a rare breed... 😁

We’re all out there searching for our limits... trying to figure out where we stand. But here’s the thing: when that search starts turning into something that actually holds you back... It’s about doing the things we *have* to do... rather than just the things we *want* to do...... then we're talking about nothing more than an uncontrolled passion...

Why do we even bother obsessing over where the lines are drawn? Isn't it simpler to just... live? I feel like if you actually move through the world, the boundaries will just reveal themselves naturally once you get close enough...
I’ve got some thoughts on this whole "having to" thing too. Honestly, passion shouldn't feel like an obligation... it's just not that kind of thing. If you're forcing it, then it isn't really passion anymore...
It’s like hunger. You know? That constant, gnawing feeling... you just have to eat, every single day, over and over again. It's never enough. Never...
You don't really have to, of course. But if you don't... you're basically just working against yourself...

A passionate person just doesn't have any sense of scale... They aren't really thinking about their life, or even being fully aware of it. They’re just completely lost in that passion, and honestly, they couldn't care less about anything else...

Even if that turns out to be true, everything's fine again... Honestly, life is meant for actually living it, not just spending all your time overanalyzing it, I guess... 😁
I don't think anyone truly wasted their life... not when you consider who they actually were at their core...
Thinking about things after the dust has already settled... it's kind of pointless, isn't it? If you're only starting to weigh your options once everyone else has already reacted, it doesn't really look like careful consideration anymore. It just looks like you were being indecisive or, honestly, just playing it safe because you were too afraid to take a stand from the jump... 😁
I was reading something yesterday that really stuck with me... it said that theory without practice isn't worth much of anything, but then it went further and suggested that practice without theory doesn't even exist at all. I think the exact wording was something like...
I honestly feel like we’ve got it backward... that true theory only really starts to take shape once you've actually gotten your hands dirty in the field. When you try to force a pre-packaged model onto a situation before you even understand the nuances, it rarely holds up. You almost always end up having to trim the edges and reshape things from every angle just to make them fit reality... 😁

Of course people are interested in my metrics... If they weren't, there wouldn't even be a thread started here, and nobody would be asking for my take on things in the first place...

I wasn't really talking about that specific line of work... but I definitely want to hear what you think about it, just as an opinion...
But honestly, I couldn't care less when it comes to my own business.
You can tell me I’m being excessive all you want, but who do you think you are? 😁
That was just my thought... 🙂

hollowviper72 said:I think there's been a bit of a misunderstanding here. You seem to be viewing passion and moderation as polar opposites, like night and day, where you can only be one or the other.
But "moderation in all things" really just means finding that sweet spot—not doing too little, but not overdoing it either.

jep, I see where you're coming from.
The thing about passion is that it's notoriously hard to satisfy... it's never really "too much" for the passion itself. 😁
My take is pretty much aligned with yours: you should do exactly what is necessary. Not a bit more, not a bit less.
Passion is always going to demand way more than just some "average" amount. 😁 And honestly, the moment you start arguing against it, you're basically admitting you view passion itself as being immoderate.
From your perspective, someone trying to feed their passion probably looks excessive or greedy. Maybe they would look that way to me too, but does that actually matter?😁 If it makes them happy...
They’d probably tell you it isn't "too much," it's just that it's never enough.
😁
😂

Nothing, except for a life wasted. When the house burns down, the fire stops. But what does that actually mean to the person who just lost everything?

It means they'll be sleeping under a bridge. 😁

But about this "wasted life"... whose yardstick are we using to measure that?
By a passionate person's standards, it's hard to call it wasted.
Maybe by yours, sure, but nobody else is really checking your math...

hollowviper72 said:Why? I feel like there’s this skewed way of looking at passion here—like it's something purely vibrant and alive. It gives the impression that someone who isn't obsessed is somehow... dull... stagnant... just inert.

If they aren't obsessed, fine, but if they are and they try to suppress it because they read somewhere that moderation is a virtue, then that's just bullshit.
And that's the vibe I was getting. Like you're supposed to stifle your passion. 😁

That's the flaw in our civilization. We always swing to extremes. Even when people talk about being moderate, they tend to be passionate about being moderate.
Moderation should be a natural state, not something forced upon us. It ought to be our healthy approach to life... the person I’m talking about isn't "non-vibrant," they aren't some empty vessel... quite the opposite, they're someone who wants to experience life to its absolute fullest. But passion can actually prevent a person from experiencing anything *except* what they're obsessed with. They focus so intensely on that one single aspect that everything else just falls by the wayside...

Like I said before: a moderate person knows a little bit about everything, but nothing deeply. 😁
But then again, people really value someone who knows way more about one specific thing than anything else when they need help. For example, imagine someone wants to learn Spanish and goes to a tutor. That teacher speaks perfect Spanish, but doesn't know a word of French. Damn that lack of balance... instead of being able to speak a little of every language since there are so many out there... he's become so obsessed with Spanish that he's forgotten how to truly embrace all the other languages in their full glory... 👎
Life works the same way. You can't know everything about everything; you can only know a little bit about a lot of things. Do you really think that's better than actually "knowing" something for real, with a bit of depth?
Besides, there are so many different paths in this life, and maybe some "passionate" person will figure things out before a "moderate" one ever does.
And wisdom is such a subjective thing. People have even told me I'm wise, so just imagine how much weight that carries. 😂
What even is wisdom? I've seen your "fundamentals," but you know what? Real wisdom comes from living your life and actually observing the world around you. Every "wise saying" I've ever read just points back to that same idea. And honestly, even old farmers who haven't left their patch of land in decades end up saying some incredibly profound things. Where does it come from? They might not even know how to quote or write properly, let alone possess formal "knowledge"...

and just like it always does with passion, that aspect within them burns hotter and hotter, growing paler and paler, until like an emotional addict, the obsessed person is trapped in a feedback loop where the passion itself triggers even more passion just to sustain the sensation... eventually, people just burn out, they exhaust themselves, and... what's left?

Then they become wise, obviously. 😛

Passion shouldn't be excused just because it's "normal"...

Then what?
It's "normal," sure, but its suffocating nature isn't. And besides, in most cases, passion just burns itself out. Like you pointed out... once it flares up and dies down. And even if someone clings to it until they're old, then what?...
Why mess with the natural order of things? 😁

...nothing more than a lack of understanding.

Well, if you really want to look at it that way, then a lack of understanding is also "normal." There isn't a person alive who understands everything, so they're forced into a state of not knowing. You either get it or you don't...
So, true understanding requires certain predispositions, and once all those pieces fall into place, understanding just happens automatically...
But while those pieces aren't there, it’s perfectly normal for understanding to be absent, simply because something is missing. 😛

Let me shift the discussion slightly: can anyone name a passion that is actually positive? I’m going to try to show how every single passion eventually leads to something negative. Just a little game. 😉

You don't even have to try. Of course you'll find something "negative," because if all that energy is poured into one passion, there's nothing left for anything else...
And so what? For the person involved, none of those other things even matter...
Take a passionate painter, for example. His paintings might be all he cares about; everything else is just noise to him. And the people looking at them feel the same way...
And occasionally, that painter might say more to them than those moderate folks could ever manage with their own hard-to-find wisdom... 😛

hollowviper72 said:Imagination is the driving force behind the human spirit... passion is just its expression... it always needs something to feed on, much like a fire, and just like a fire, it can't exist on its own.

So imagination doesn't feed on anything? 😁

The old folks say youth is madness because it’s so full of passion. Every passion stems from a misunderstanding... a failure to grasp what we do, the consequences of our actions, but mostly, a failure to understand ourselves. That’s why a passionate person stays blinded by their own fervor, and the wisdom that comes from truly understanding all those layers remains out of reach.

Or maybe passion just comes from being young? 😁
And then when someone young like you—for whom passion is basically just your default setting—starts preaching about having to "rein it in," it sounds pretty "unnatural" to me... if not something worse... 😁
Partly because of the age thing, and partly because of that word "rein in"... it implies force. Even a horse won't let itself be reined in voluntarily.
You have to break it... or, to put it more politely, "tame" it. 😁

And jumping over to a different thread for a second:

Siddhartha pursued his purpose through passion. Once he let go of that passion, he found his true aim.

Did he leave it behind, or did it leave him? 😁

Noah Myers8 said:They’re just too scared to be themselves, so they end up holding back...

Exactly. 😁
I wouldn't even go as far as saying they're being restrained... it's more like they're performing restraint. Mostly for their own benefit. 😁
There's a massive difference between actually being someone and just forcing yourself to act like it...

Noah Myers8 said:why is wisdom always tied to moderation... you know, finding that middle ground?

Honestly, I think it’s just because people are terrified of actually being themselves. 😁

I was wondering the exact same thing when I talked to hollowviper72 earlier... though you went into much more detail than I did. Now I'm just sitting here waiting to see what they have to say about it... 😁

hollowviper72 said:...because every passion needs to be kept in check.

Why though?

Oh, please. That’s nothing more than some silly theory rooted in Christian origins. 😁

Besides, who’s actually talking about overdoing it?
If I’m feeling hungry ten times a day, then yeah, I’m going to eat ten times. You might look at me and say I'm being excessive, but from where I'm standing, I'm just doing exactly what needs to be done.
To me, "overdoing it" would be eating when you aren't even hungry, or following that old system used by the Romans where they would just gorge themselves, purge, and then load up again... just a constant cycle...
Meeting the needs of both the body and the soul can never, and will never, be considered excessive in my eyes. 😁
And those needs are personal. One person might need a whole lot more, while someone else needs way less.
It would honestly be much smarter to just use that as our guide.