Benjamin Taylor6 said:It’s the same deal with Domančić. He’s definitely got the gift of gab and knows how to work a room. Then there's the whole other side of things—back in the day, he was actually accused of embezzling funds from a local socialist enterprise over in a coastal city, which is why he ended up fleeing to Germany. And then, wouldn't you know it, he pops back up working as a healer. 😁
No one is a saint in their own backyard:
Look, being from the same small town, I’ve personally seen dozens of cases where his therapies were absolutely useless. If you hear anything about someone getting better, you can bet it's just talk—mostly because people are too embarrassed to admit they were scammed after wasting all that time and money.
👍 (Regarding that link above, I don't agree with the hostility toward Canada at all.) But hey, what can you do? We've reached an era where it's probably better to just stay quiet in public or spend eternity arguing on the internet rather than actually getting things done. 😁 And honestly, wherever you find a male "guru," you'll almost always find that about 80% of the followers are women—it seems to be a pattern, much like with money matters. That’s actually why Tesla got such a bad reputation: a) he never married (even though he had plenty of romances while living in Canada); b) people thought he was eccentric (despite him holding more patents—both realized and theoretical—than almost anyone in scientific history, with his inventions being studied in art academies worldwide); c) he wasn't seen as "one of us" enough (it’s hard for some folks to wrap their heads around the fact that he was a citizen of the Austro-Canadian Empire before becoming an American icon); and d) he died broke and deep in debt—which totally clashes with that whole New Age idea that spiritual enlightenment should automatically lead to material wealth. Just watch out, or a single raindrop might hit your shoe and trigger a total epiphany—and we wouldn't want that happening, since it goes against everything being calculated and neoliberal. 😛
Anthony Taylor393 said:Writing this as an agnostic who’s pretty fed up with a certain mindset I see popping up among some of our atheist and agnostic circles (specifically one group over on Meta) which basically claims we shouldn't show "any intellectual tolerance toward believers."
Personally, I find that whole vibe totally repellant. I get where they're coming from when they're tearing into hardline religious fundamentalists, but why does everything have to be viewed through such a negative lens? Why can't we admit that faith has actually inspired people to create, explore the world, produce timeless art, and even drive scientific breakthroughs? I mean, look at Gregor Mendel—the guy was a humble priest and the literal father of modern genetics. He's just one in a long line of people we should probably feel embarrassed by, apparently, just because they dared to flirt with the idea of something beyond this world.
Honestly, the whole "militant atheism is the only way" thing? It gives me the creeps.
Donna White50 said:You're only truly valuable to yourself, so just focus on that.. Forget about everyone else. Don't even try to understand them, because you can't really get inside someone else's head—it's like trying to figure out what your dog is thinking. People are good or bad depending on your perspective and the situation, so just set some boundaries and define your own expectations. If you realize your expectations of people are way too high, just adjust them..
In today's world, nothing has any fixed value except for what lives in your head and mine. Everything shifts—you change, people change, the whole thing changes. This craving for something solid and permanent usually just comes from your own insecurity and fear. It's like you've fallen into a flash flood and you're desperately trying to grab onto some pole that's sturdy enough to tie yourself to so you won't drown. But that doesn't exist, man... there's zero guarantee you'll wake up healthy tomorrow, or that life will even look the way you planned. The sooner you realize you've only got yourself and you need to find comfort within (or in God), the better off you'll be. Let others be. Interact with them as much as you want or need to, depending on the person, but don't stress about the rest. Just let it flow, it makes living a lot easier... Don't go looking for a solid rock in a swamp, you won't find it. Just try not to sink...
slycyclist26 said:I think they’re actually more connected than most people realize 🙂 Solitude is such a vital thing, yet it feels like it's slipping through our fingers more and more in this modern world. You come into this life alone, and you leave it alone.
Honestly, my favorite way to be is just hanging out with my cats... there isn't any sadness or anxiety they can't chase away 🙂
👍 Domesticated cats—not the wild ones, obviously, but the ones that actually live alongside us—are honestly one of the greatest gifts this planet has to offer. 🙂
Ryan Wilson2 said:Hmm, either you’re preparing for a career in politics or you’re getting ready to launch your own series of lectures...😁>
Given the strength of the US Dollar and the average salaries in the country where these lectures are taking place, one could easily calculate what an acceptable price would be for a two-day seminar. Although, as $17 notes, it would still be far too much for something of this nature 😁
Does she really need two whole days just to explain the meaning of life? Why so much time? It seems obvious that she has become entangled in some bureaucratic thicket of spiritual searching; the truth ought to be simple and accessible to everyone. You explain it in five minutes, and that's that. 🧐
I don't have any scruples about saying this, but my opinion of the average alternative consumer is even lower than it was before.😁
And what could possibly be worse than someone seeking enlightenment through McDonald ?
👍 She had an experience and instead of staying present, she’s going to spend the rest of her life talking about the past. 🎉 Thousands of people have gone through similar things—similar or slightly tweaked iconographies—so isn't it a bit strange that she’s one of the few who decided to broadcast it to humanity in such a "front-facing" way? You know, with all the extras: the books, the audio-visual recordings, the expensive seminars, basically feeding the ego. 🙂 During her trips, she often introduces the audience to her husband as well; it gives the whole story and business a "family-oriented" foundation, even if the actual meaning of everything remains a mystery—aside from being a bit of a common sense triviality. 🕺 Her talks usually kick off by highlighting her cultural background in India while living in the US—the goal seems to be showing the listeners how much she’s contributed to the country and how much the country has given back to her. But in the US, which has been a melting pot for ages, that kind of thing isn't even worth mentioning anymore. As for those "discounts for the sick"—that's especially obnoxious to me. It comes off as incredibly condescending, almost like saying, "God saved my humble soul for free, so I'll return the favor on a material level." It’s as if the success of her public appearances is a given, even when, more often than not, they aren't even being evaluated. 😉
bluemason3 said:We have—and we lived with him in an apartment.
It wasn't SCH. His psychiatrist was pretty baffled by things he couldn't categorize, eventually deciding he wasn't crazy despite all the strange conscious shifts (and the heightened siddhis, which he obviously didn't mention to the doctor).😁
That’s my firsthand experience. After looking into where his issues stemmed from, I found plenty of credible cases. Even support organizations for people dealing with kundalini issues are popping up more often lately (easy access to techniques combined with the chaos of modern American life is a bad mix). Plus, you have books by two gurus who spent decades going through hellish experiences (which finally settled with Nirvikalp)—essentially, their entire sadhana was one long stretch of misery, illness, and madness: Gopa Krishna and B. S. Goel (Sdeshwar baba).
Maybe go to India, because if you lose your grip there, nobody is going to take you seriously; the existential struggle is just too brutal. Meanwhile, here in the West, it’s become almost trendy for every third person to be mentally unbalanced or psychotic. I used to link kundalini to Maslow's "oceanic feeling," but that continuous state requires a perfectly detoxified body to sustain—after all, there's no point in pouring pure water into a mud puddle; the physiology just can't handle it. It's a bit like that intense passion a scientist feels when they're deep in discovery and realize days have slipped by without them eating, leaving the room, or sleeping—except with the rising of the spinal kundalini fire, there isn't even a logical reason for it, not even that fascination with life itself. It’s a purely biochemical phenomenon, not even neurological, and certainly not psychological. You see something similar in athletes after extreme physical exertion, though usually, they retire shortly after because muscle tone can't stay at that peak forever; once they return to their baseline musculoskeletal state of relaxation, they don't have the desire or the need to go through it again. Kundalini would be roughly what Swami Satyananda Saraswati experienced spontaneously during his childhood, if he hadn't had a physical body to ground it. But the danger is always rooted in the ego, since it can be quite subjective, too. So, it's worth discussing... much like how there are many different types of breathing exercises, and I wouldn't call any of them "wrong," provided you know what you're doing. 😉
Benjamin Taylor6 said:By definition, New Age is just contemporary spirituality that hasn't been packaged into a formal religion or a rigid philosophical school. And that puts you right in that category. Just like it puts this Australian colleague of yours—the one people constantly confuse you with—right in the middle of it:
It’s actually a good thing when two people are saying the same thing, even if their delivery is a bit different.
The real headache, though, is how does one even approach this transcendental knowledge? Some people claim we absolutely need spiritual guides:
But these "guides" often hide their true intentions, much like a snake hides its legs.😁
Sadly, sometimes what shows up isn't a guide at all, but an "anti-spiritual" guide. I suppose those are the ones sent by the late Friedrich Nietzsche: "If you can't teach someone how to swim, teach them how to sink as fast as possible" :😬
Take my neighbor, a decent guy I knew, for example:
The man was genuinely trying his best to grasp the Supreme Mind—to let it take hold of him. And the poor soul, instead of achieving transcendence of consciousness, ended up getting beaten senseless by people and finishing up in a psychiatric ward. So, it really makes you wonder: why do certain guides appear to some people without even being summoned? And why do others, despite screamingly loud calls for help, find themselves met by "anti-guides"—people who, instead of offering grace, just rub salt in the wound? 😲 😁 😲
On a side note, it’s worth mentioning he predicted World War III, and since the date he picked passed a few years ago, he’s stuck in a bit of a loop. Aside from spamming every major university in the States with emails—though he probably didn't bother reaching out to any Ivy League schools because, well, he wouldn't want to face that kind of embarrassment—he hasn't gotten a single response (I assume those institutions actually have people working 😁 inside them). Still, he’s sticking to his guns, convinced he's the only enlightened one left because the date was simply "postponed." It reminds me of that Taoist idea about the balance between being and non-being—maybe there's a little more "being" in his head than reality allows—and now he's got to figure out which side carries more weight if he ever wants to move past this stagnant mindset that's just cluttering up the world. 😵
Benjamin Taylor6 said:This feels strangely familiar to me—it’s like déjà vu, honestly. I’ve been sitting here, staring at my screen, trying to make sense of this whole mess—this endless cycle of people talking past one another—and honestly, it just makes me want to walk away from the keyboard entirely. It feels like we're all circling the same drain. Look, I’m not trying to be difficult, but when you look at the way certain individuals approach these deep truths, it’s almost painful to witness. There’s this persistent tendency to strip away the actual weight of things, to turn profound concepts into nothing more than shallow, digestible bits of trivia. It’s lazy. It’s fundamentally lazy. Take what Matthew Evans was saying earlier—if you can even call it that—and compare it to the actual substance required for true Self-knowledge. You can't just skim the surface of the universe and expect to find the core of your own being. It doesn't work that way. It’s like trying to understand the entire American legal system by reading a bumper sticker; you aren't getting anywhere near the essence of the matter. And don't get me started on the constant misinterpretations of historical figures. People love to drag names through the mud or twist their intentions to fit some modern, flimsy narrative. It’s exhausting. We have these massive, complex ideas—concepts that touch on the very nature of the I-man and his relationship to the Self-absolute—and yet, we treat them like they’re just items on a grocery list. I remember back when I was first diving into these heavier texts—really digging into the stuff that actually challenges your worldview—I felt this immense frustration because everyone around me seemed content with the superficial. They wanted the comfort of easy answers, whereas I was looking for the grit, the struggle, the actual judgment of one's own soul. We need to stop this trend of intellectual dilution. If we are going to discuss the nature of the Being-that-is or the complexities of the unconsciousness, we have to do it with some level of respect for the depth involved. Otherwise, we're just shouting into a void, wasting our breath on a debate that has no foundation. It’s just noise. Pure, unadulterated noise. It’s not just happening at some local dive bar, either—it’s happening right out in my own backyard. Usually happens late at night, too. And we aren't talking about a casual cup of coffee here; it’s more like a glass of whiskey and a Coke—and, of course, a Black Devil cigarette. 😁
I’ve never really felt that spark—that sudden, driving urge to actually sit down and put pen to paper. Writing just isn't my thing. But I have definitely experienced a different kind of stimulus—more like these sudden, intense bouts of physical twitching—that makes me want to just writhe around. 😲
Every single story—every poem, really—has always carried its own core message. It’s something that speaks with an unerring clarity about Consciousness itself. And I don't mean my own little personal consciousness—the kind most people mistakenly label as "human consciousness"—but rather Consciousness as the Source of all Knowledge, the ultimate Truth.
It reminds me of the way Aleister Crowley used to scribble away at The Book of Law—just that same raw, unfiltered energy.
So, look—I was going about my preparations with total intention. It wasn't some accidental drift; I was being conscious, deliberate, and purposeful about every single step. But even then, I honestly had no clue what kind of answers or insights I’d end up leaving behind in the process. The whole preparation phase was really just this slow, gradual opening of my spirit toward the spirit of the absolute—almost like a tuning process. I was waiting for that specific moment where I’d finally be ready enough, so that my spirit could simply merge and become one with the spirit of the absolute. Back then, the I-man simply faded from the Being's perception—and in that moment, the I-absolute finally became "visible" to the self. Now, don't get me wrong, people always expect these massive spiritual breakthroughs to happen in some trendy coffee shop or a bustling downtown bistro, but that wasn't my story. I didn't hit enlightenment while sipping a latte at Starbucks; instead, I was just caught off guard right there in my own bed, at home. In the end, it happened—just as a direct result of all the deliberate groundwork I’d been laying down beforehand.
I’m curious, though—how did this sudden "awakening" of yours actually trigger? What was that process like for you, and what was really going on inside your head during the whole thing? As for me, unfortunately, I haven't quite managed to leap across the abyss yet while practicing my own little routine out in the garden: I’d fix my gaze on one particularly brilliant star. I’d start visualizing how, 13.5 billion years ago, everything was just a single point. Not just that star, mind you, but the entire universe and the entirety of my own SELF within it. I’d try to perceive myself as the original singularity—the "I." Then, this intense sensation would kick in—something I first encountered back when I was doing those yoga jumps at the local gym. Except, in this case, that core desire for movement—which usually sits at the base of the spine in that technique—would migrate up into my neck and my head. It triggers this violent, churning feeling because I'm desperately trying to mentally leap over the void, but I just... can't.
👎 Instead of jumping around or preaching about Jesus, anyone can step up because you will know them by their deeds : planting a tree, helping a stranger, being there for someone you love... Rather than just swinging on a porch swing like Sathya Sai Baba and lecturing everyone about love. On a global scale, the people who become icons are often just great talkers; there are so few whose actual actions—let alone selfless, unpaid service—leave a lasting legacy behind them.
Matthew Evans said:That outcome depends entirely on the consciousness level of the individual. And you can't reach that level in pairs; it’s something you have to navigate through the self. Sure, you gain "world" experience through various insights, and those insights happen through the interaction between the subject and the object. That's basic mechanics. But no matter how many insights you collect or how wide your awareness stretches, nothing changes in how individuals treat one another until the personal level of Consciousness shifts upward toward the Higher.
Wars will vanish only when consciousness rises to a point where every single being within the collective knows, instinctively, that harmony can only be achieved through cooperation and empathy with the rest of the whole.
It wasn't like everyone was a barbarian two thousand years ago. Humanity goes through cycles of rising and falling based on its level of consciousness. The only real difference between then and now is the technology; our level of consciousness is essentially the same as it was two millennia ago—if anything, it might actually be lower right now. Even today, just like back then, there are a few individuals operating at a higher consciousness while everyone else is still fumbling around in the dark looking for "harmony." The weapons have certainly become more lethal, but the reasons we use them haven't changed one bit.
👎 There is no such thing as being or non-being. Any attempt to state a thesis can only stem from the perspective of I am, which is actually a massive danger—both for the person stating it and for anyone who accepts it. It’s the consciousness of the Borg or a collective consciousness (you could look at the series or one of the movies in the Star Trek cycle to see what I mean): if that ever truly takes hold here in America, just know that Satan has taken complete control. As long as wars continue—whether today or in the future—as a sort of pointless spiritual competition, humanity is actually staying on the right path. Talking about I am is just the talk of some self-proclaimed, unfulfilled guru who needs a flock to feed his imperfect ego. He doesn't quite grasp that things simply happen or they don't; you don't "plan" your way into them. (You should check out what the anti-guru Jiddu Krishnamurti and the leader of the Cypriot Essenes, Stilianos Atešlis Daskalos, have to say about this. Once wars subside, human civilization faces a much more serious spiritual struggle. Both he and I are just tiny players in the grand scheme: I mean, I'm talking about ideals here, though in the near future, there will likely still be all sorts of spiritual schools competing with each other, just like today. But the hardest and most beautiful work is clearing the jungle in front of yourself individually—that’s the only real way out for a human, as Osho pointed out...). 😉
Peter Phillips32 said:Honestly, shouldn't these kinds of autistic monologues belong on some niche PDF file or a personal blog instead of here?
You could swap out "Sigmund" for any other random guy on this forum, and change "he's just obsessed with the history of philosophy" to whatever that guy's specific argument happens to be, because apparently, this user's word is basically the Word of God.
How the negatives disappear, and how the positive might maintain them: suppose that someone has a fear of dogs Imagine you’re someone who’s terrified of dogs. Usually, if you run into a dog and it doesn't try to bite you, you’d think—logically—that you'd eventually get used to them and the fear would just fade away. It feels like a basic rule of the natural world, right? You see it happen in all sorts of creatures, even down at the insect level. But it makes you wonder—why doesn't that logic always hold up for us humans? In the wild, when a creature senses a threat, the instinct is pretty simple: fight or flight. But for us, we can't exactly throw hands with a predator or sprint away from every stressful situation we face, so we end up retreating inward—into our own heads, essentially.
Take a bad day at the office, for example. You walk into a meeting with a boss who is absolutely fuming, and let's face it—fighting back or bolting out the door isn't really on the table. So, we process it internally. We distract ourselves, we obsessively worry, we try to downplay how bad it actually is, or maybe we just focus on something trivial—like watching a coworker make a ridiculous face in the background. We’re faced with a scary situation, but because we find ways to dodge the actual impact of it, we never truly confront the stimulus, so the fear never gets a chance to dissipate. We just stay stuck being intimidated by the boss.
The thing is, we can actually use these kinds of tricks on purpose. In our own minds, we can swap out a stressful mental image for a silly cartoon, or imagine that nagging internal critic speaking in a high-pitched, goofy voice. I’ve noticed that when you talk to someone who’s spiraling with anxiety and ask them, "Hey, what would you be thinking about right now if you weren't focused on *that*?", they often pull up a pleasant memory, and suddenly, their whole mood shifts.
Essentially, we’re just pulling our attention away from the upsetting image and its baggage to focus on something else. It’s a distraction. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing this—these are what professionals call "defusion techniques"—and honestly, they can be incredibly useful tools to have in your kit.
But, since these quick fixes don't work for everyone (even if they do for the majority), some psychological frameworks try to dig deeper into the root causes. These methods teach us that a thought is just a thought, a physical sensation is just a sensation, and a mental image is just an image. The goal is to learn how to decouple those things from the heavy beliefs and values we attach to them. Inspired by Kipling's If, you could say that once we stop letting these little imposters—those images that pretend to be reality or words that pretend to be tangible things—fool us, we can finally make some real spiritual and personal headway. There are both brand-new and classic, rediscovered methods designed to help us reach that point.
What is sometimes called the Second Wave in cognitive therapy focuses on tackling those underlying issues through practices like mindfulness. Unlike traditional positive thinking, which often tries to shove the negativity under the rug, these approaches actually lean into the negative instead of suppressing it. The idea is to stay grounded in what is actually happening right now, maintaining a sort of objective neutrality toward reality, while learning to tell the difference between what is actually true and our own positive or negative interpretations of it. Adding these modern perspectives to our existing toolkit for self-growth is going to speed up our personal and spiritual evolution, both now and down the road.
That whole mindset—this objective, reality-centered, mindful way of growing—is the core foundation of what I do on my site, Freeing The Mind, which is hosted over at Trans4mind. It’s also baked into the DNA of the courses offered by Trans4mind, which Peter Shepherd has put together. If you decide to dive into those courses, you should probably expect to see some steady, reliable improvements in your day-to-day life and professional skills. We're talking better judgment, sharper mental clarity, stronger willpower, improved communication, and a much better ability to study and retain information. Ultimately, it’s about finding more creative insights and having the genuine confidence to actually hit those big personal milestones in life. http://www.trans4mind.com/counterpoi...os=0&at_tot=15
The Positive side of negative Thinking by Ken Ward IT The Positive side of negative Thinking by Ken Ward IT People love to toss around this idea—almost like it’s an unshakeable truth—that we just need to ditch the negativity and lean hard into being positive. It sounds great on paper, right? But honestly, the whole journey of self-improvement isn't quite that straightforward. It turns out that "positive thinking" can be a bit of a double-edged sword—it helps some folks find their footing, while for others, it doesn't land at all—and a lot of it really boils down to the specific situation you're in. In fact, there are times when trying to force a positive outlook actually ends up making things feel worse.
Affirmations Can make you Feel Worse Joanna Wood of The University of Waterloo found that positive affirmations make som People feel worse. It’s one of those things where you think you're doing the right thing—like following some self-help guru's advice to just "think happy thoughts"—but instead, it backfires. It’s kind of like trying to fix a leaky faucet by just telling the sink everything is fine; eventually, you're still going to have a puddle on the floor. It’s a weird psychological loop—how the negatives disappear, and how the positive might maintain them: suppose that someone has a fear of dogs. If you just stand there shouting "I am brave!" while a Golden Retriever is staring you down, you aren't actually addressing the adrenaline spike or the shaky knees—you're just adding frustration to the mix because the affirmation doesn't match your reality. There's a lot of research into this, too. For instance, Carol Dweck wrote in her article, Perils and Promises of Praise, about how certain types of encouragement can actually undermine confidence rather than build it up. It’s all about the approach. Sometimes, leaning into the struggle is more productive than trying to force a smile through a crisis. It reminds me a bit of what people discuss regarding what is sometimes called the Second Wave in certain psychological movements—moving past the superficial stuff and getting into the actual grit of how we process emotions. Just a thought—it's definitely worth looking into if you've ever felt more drained after a "positive thinking" session. So, I was reading up on some research recently—it’s one of those things that really makes you rethink how we approach self-help—and it turns out Affirmations Can make you Feel Worse Joanna Wood of The University of Waterloo found that positive affirmations make som People Feel worse. Back in 2009, she looked into how often students would give themselves a little pep talk, and she found that over half of them were doing it pretty regularly—especially right before hitting a big, stressful hurdle or something particularly tough. Most of them actually felt like it was helping, which is what makes it so interesting. To see if that feeling was actually backed up by reality, though, she decided to run a second study to really put it to the test.
So, she took a look at whether all those daily affirmations actually help students feel any better—you know, that whole "positive vibes only" thing. In her study, she had 68 students basically chant, "I am a lovable person," to themselves every fifteen seconds or so. It’s an interesting setup, really. But here’s the kicker: the results weren't exactly sunshine and rainbows for everyone. She discovered that while people who already had high self-esteem felt a bit of a boost, those struggling with low self-esteem actually ended up feeling worse. It sounds counterintuitive, right? Like, shouldn't more positivity always equal more happiness? Her theory was that for those folks with lower self-esteem, the affirmations just didn't land. They didn't truly believe the words they were saying, and they couldn't quite shake off the negative thoughts creeping in from the sidelines. So, instead of feeling empowered, they just felt bad—partly because they felt like they were failing at being positive, and partly because those nagging negative thoughts were still winning the tug-of-war. It’s a bit of a double whammy, honestly.
In a third study—think of it like a social experiment run at a major state university—Joanna Wood decided to see how people with different levels of self-esteem reacted to the prompt, "I am a lovable person." It’s an interesting bit of psychology, really. She looked at how people with high self-esteem handled it versus those struggling with low self-esteem, and the results were a bit of a mixed bag. For folks already feeling pretty good about themselves, the affirmation gave them a tiny boost, though nothing earth-shattering. But here’s the kicker: for those dealing with low self-esteem, the affirmation didn't actually make them feel better—it just sort of took the edge off the misery. It wasn't a cure, per se; it just leveled the playing field slightly. Ultimately, Wood concluded that while self-affirmations might offer a small lift to those who are already doing fine, they can actually backfire and leave those who truly need the encouragement feeling even worse than before.
So, I was reading about this study where Geoffrey Cohen from The University of Colorado gave students a 15 minute writing task wherein they affirmed their values. It’s pretty interesting—the effect of this on Black students (though it didn't really hit the other groups the same way) was that their academic success shot up way past what their peers were seeing. And the crazy part? That boost actually stuck around for years after the assignment was done. It seems like for certain people, just taking a moment to affirm their values and really dig into why those things matter to them can pave the way for much more success. Of course, it wasn't a magic bullet for everyone—it only worked for a specific subset of the students. It just goes to show, once again, that these kinds of procedures might be a huge help for some, but they won't necessarily move the needle for others. It's all very situational, I guess.
Back in 2007, Carol Dweck wrote in her article, Perils and Promises of Praise, that she and her team kept running into the same pattern: telling kids they’re smart gives them a quick little ego boost, sure—but it’s usually followed by a massive wave of baggage. We're talking a whole laundry list of downsides, like being terrified of failing, dodging any kind of risk, doubting their own abilities the second things go sideways, and just generally struggling to bounce back from a setback. Basically, kids actually perform much better when you praise the actual grind—the effort and the way they apply themselves—rather than just complimenting who they "are." It's a bit of a trap, really. If we convince ourselves that we’re inherently brilliant, we start avoiding anything that might challenge that image. Then, when we inevitably mess up, the internal monologue shifts from "Okay, I need to put in more work here" to "Wow, I'm just stupid." And honestly? This logic carries over into pretty much everything else. How the negatives disappear, and how the positive might maintain them: suppose that someone has a fear of dogs—well, applying this to things like beauty or health can lead to some pretty messy side effects too. If you build your entire identity around being beautiful, you're going to be way more devastated if someone ignores you, compared to if you focused on things you actually have control over—like being a great listener or just staying persistent. It’s all about where you pin your sense of worth.
So, if we’re looking at the idea that positive thinking can actually backfire and leave us feeling even lower than before—can it truly be harmful? It’s a fair question, really. I mean, we’ve all been there—trying to force a smile when everything feels like it's falling apart, almost like trying to put a Band-Aid on a broken leg. You know what I mean? It doesn't quite fix the underlying issue, and sometimes, it just makes the frustration sting a little more because you feel like you're "failing" at being positive. It's a bit like that study mentioned earlier, where Affirmations Can make you Feel Worse Joanna Wood of The University of Waterloo found that positive affirmations make som People Feel worse. There's a certain tension there—this gap between where we are and where we think we "should" be. When that gap gets too wide, the mental gymnastics can get pretty exhausting. It’s not necessarily that positivity itself is the enemy, but rather that forced optimism can act like a pressure cooker—it builds up all that unaddressed reality until things just feel... off. So, yeah, there's definitely a point where trying to stay upbeat can become its own kind of burden.
Maybe we’ve been looking at "staying positive" all wrong—like, maybe it’s actually working against us? It sounds counterintuitive, I know. We’re always told to just think happy thoughts and everything will fall into place, but there’s a growing sense that forcing a smile when things are falling apart isn't just useless; it might actually be making things harder. It reminds me of that study where Affirmations Can make you Feel Worse Joanna Wood of The University of Waterloo found that positive affirmations make som People Feel worse. It’s a strange concept, right? You try to tell yourself you're confident or successful, but if you don't actually feel that way deep down, the gap between the lie and the reality creates this weird, uncomfortable tension. It's like trying to fix a leaky faucet by just telling the sink it's doing a great job—it doesn't change the plumbing. There’s also this idea from Carol Dweck wrote in her article, Perils and Promises of Praise, about how the way we approach mindset can really shape our growth. If we focus too much on the surface-level "good vibes," we might miss the actual mechanics of how we learn and adapt. Think about it this way: How the negatives disappear, and how the positive might maintain them: suppose that someone has a fear of dogs. If they just try to "think positively" about dogs without actually addressing the underlying anxiety, they aren't really solving anything. They're just masking it. It's similar to what people discuss regarding What is sometimes called the Second Wave in psychological approaches—moving past simple positivity toward something more nuanced and grounded. I guess what I'm getting at is that maybe being honest about the struggle is more productive than pretending everything is sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes, acknowledging the mess is the only way to actually start cleaning it up. It’s kind of funny how our brains work—sometimes, trying to manifest success actually backfires. It sounds counterintuitive, right? You'd think picturing yourself winning would get you in the zone, but there's some interesting research suggesting it might actually trip you up. For instance, a researcher named Lien Pham at the University of California ran a study where one group of students was asked to spend time visualizing themselves crushing a major midterm and walking away with an 'A.' When you compare them to a control group—students who just went about their business without the mental imagery—the visualizers actually ended up performing worse. It turns out that just a few minutes of daydreaming about being successful can quietly chip away at your actual drive to put in the work, which ultimately leads to lower grades. This whole idea caught the attention of Gabriele Oettingen. In a piece featured in Peter Gollwitzer's *Psychology of Action*, she dives into whether all this positive fantasy actually helps us succeed. Her conclusion? Sometimes, it just makes things harder. It’s like warming up for a marathon by sitting on the couch imagining the finish line—you feel the victory, but your muscles haven't actually done any of the training.
Take a look at this interesting scenario. There was a study involving twenty-five women participating in a weight loss program at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital—women who were dealing with significant weight issues, averaging around 233 pounds. During the program, they were asked to visualize a future where they finished the regimen and were headed to a pool party. They’d describe these mental images and then label them as either positive or negative, while also rating how they felt about their own bodies. Now, imagine two different responses. One woman might say, "Oh, I’d just feast on everything in sight—probably even polish off everyone else's leftovers... and honestly, I'd likely still be overweight." Then you have another who says, "I’d be super disciplined about my food intake... and I'd definitely show off my new, slim figure." Which group do you think actually saw results? It’s counterintuitive, I know, but in the actual study, the women with those "negative" fantasies ended up losing about 24 pounds more than the ones focused on the "positive" visions. It catches most people off guard—it really does. As Oettingen points out, it seems like those mental images centered on being thin or resisting temptation actually acted as a roadblock to real weight loss. It makes you wonder, though—how do these positive visualizations impact other areas of our health? Does simply visualizing a better outcome actually help us heal faster, or is it just wishful thinking that gets in our way?
Back in '95, there was this study by Oettingen looking at how kids fighting cancer used fantasy as a way to cope—and the results were actually pretty eye-opening. It turns out that leaning too hard into those sunny, positive daydreams actually predicted a tougher road to recovery. It sounds counterintuitive, I know—you’d think thinking happy thoughts would help—but the reality is that true healing requires real, gritty action, like following strict medical protocols or pushing through some seriously painful treatments. When people get stuck in that "everything will just work itself out" mindset, it kind of suppresses the drive needed to actually do the work, because they start believing recovery will just happen effortlessly, almost like magic. Fast forward to 2002, and Oettingen ran another study on people recovering from hip replacement surgery, and the pattern held up: once again, those purely positive fantasies ended up being more of a hurdle than a help.
So, what actually happens when we throw a few negatives into the equation? It’s an interesting thought—you know, looking at how the balance shifts once things aren't just purely optimistic. In their States of Mind model, Robert Schwarz and Gregory Garamoni suggested that for most people to stay grounded and functional, there’s this ideal ratio for our internal dialogue—kind of like the golden ratio you see in art or nature. They basically proposed a mix of about two-thirds positive and one-third negative. I remember reading that Oettingen looked into this as well, exploring how that specific blend affects us. It makes sense, really—if everything is sunshine and rainbows, you lose your edge, but if it's all gloom, you can't move forward. It's all about that middle ground.
Her research delved into all sorts of areas—how we handle our thoughts in romantic relationships, how it impacts our career climbs, and even how it plays out with our physical health. The big takeaway? Just leaning into positive fantasies doesn't actually help much; if anything, it kind of gets in the way of real progress. It turns out that focusing on the negatives can actually be a bit more effective, but there’s a catch—the real magic happens when you balance things out. When she had participants look at both the potential perks and the potential pitfalls, they outperformed everyone else. They did better than the folks who only focused on the downsides, and they definitely crushed the group that stuck strictly to positive thinking. This wasn't just theoretical, either—it had real-world applications, like with patients recovering from hip surgery. Those who weighed both the good and the bad ended up bouncing back much faster than the ones who just tried to wish their way through it with pure positive thinking.
Actually, there’s an even heavier side to the whole "positive thinking" thing—it can get pretty intense. Back in '87, a researcher named Morgens Jensen looked into a study involving 52 women battling breast cancer, and what they found was pretty sobering. It turns out that things like suppressing negative emotions or retreating into these comforting daydreams were actually linked to the spread of the disease. To me, it just goes to show how much harm can come from trying to push down the bad stuff or hiding away in a positive fantasy instead of actually facing reality.
One of the big things we really need to tackle here is the whole way we handle negative thoughts. It feels like whenever you try to just push them down or shove them into a corner—kind of like trying to hold an inflated beach ball underwater—they just end up popping back up even harder. We're going to dive into how to actually manage that next.
It’s funny how we try to police our own brains, isn't it? We have this idea that if we just push the dark thoughts far enough down—like burying something in the backyard hoping it won't sprout—everything will suddenly be sunshine and rainbows. But honestly, that usually backfires. It's like trying to hold an inflated beach ball underwater; eventually, your arms get tired, and that thing is going to pop up and smack you right in the face. There's actually some interesting research on this. For instance, Affirmations Can make you Feel Worse Joanna Wood of The University of Waterloo found that positive affirmations make som People Feel worse. It sounds counterintuitive, I know—you'd think telling yourself you're amazing would work—but if there's a massive gap between what you're saying and what you actually feel, it just creates this weird internal friction. It can actually leave you feeling more depleted than when you started. Then you have the work done by Geoffrey Cohen. The University of Colorado gave students a 15 minute writing task wherein they affirmed their values, and it had a profound impact. Specifically, The Effect of this on Black students was quite significant. It wasn't about forcing "positivity," but rather grounding themselves in what actually mattered to them. It reminds me of how Carol Dweck wrote in her article, Perils and Promises of Praise. She touches on how the way we frame things—whether we focus on innate talent or the effort we put in—changes everything. It’s a bit like the difference between telling a kid they're "smart" versus telling them they worked really hard on a project. One builds a fragile ego, while the other builds actual resilience. How the negatives disappear, and how the positive might maintain them: suppose that someone has a fear of dogs. If they just try to ignore the fear or pretend it doesn't exist, the anxiety just sits there, simmering. But if they approach it through a different lens—maybe focusing on their ability to manage discomfort—the dynamic shifts. It’s almost like what people call the Second Wave in certain psychological movements—it's less about fighting the bad stuff and more about finding a way to coexist with it while moving forward. It's about Freeing The mind from the constant battle of "good vs. bad." Inspired by Kipling's If, I think there's a certain strength in being able to sit with the messiness of life without needing to immediately fix it with a catchy slogan or a forced smile. Life is complicated, and maybe our thinking should be allowed to be a little messy too. A big chunk of the "positive thinking" crowd argues that we just shouldn't tolerate any negative thoughts at all—basically, just push them aside. But here’s the funny thing about that—it's almost ironic—because trying to suppress those thoughts usually just makes them loop back around even harder. It's like when you're driving down the highway and you tell yourself, "Whatever you do, don't think about a pink elephant," and suddenly, there's that damn elephant everywhere. One of the most reliable ways to get someone to fixate on something is to explicitly tell them not to think about it. I remember reading about how this concept really fascinated certain literary circles in Eastern Europe...
The American writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), once mused in his work, Winter Notes on Summer Impressions:
Give yourself a little challenge—just a simple one—and try this: attempt to go just a few minutes without thinking about a polar bear. I promise you, that big, white, fuzzy thing will pop into your head every single minute. It’s like trying to ignore a flickering lightbulb in a quiet room; the harder you focus on not noticing it, the more it dominates your attention.
You know, I was thinking about this old anecdote involving Leo Tolstoy—one of those legendary writers from back in the day—who used to play these little mental games with his younger brother. He actually dared the kid to stand in a corner and try to stop thinking about a polar bear. It’s such a classic example of how the mind works, isn't it? The second you tell yourself *not* to think about something specific, like a big white bear, that's exactly what starts looping in your head. It’s almost like trying to hold a beach ball underwater—the harder you push against it, the more aggressively it pops back up to the surface.
So, I was thinking about this study by Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner—he actually wrote a whole book on it called *White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts: Suppression, Obsession and the Psychology of Mental Control*. It’s pretty wild stuff. Basically, in one of his experiments, he told people to just think about whatever they wanted... with one massive catch: absolutely no thinking about white bears! If a white bear popped into their head, they had to ring a bell. Well, poor Wegner ended up being completely deafened by that constant ringing! And here's the kicker—it wasn't like the participants were obsessing over the bear every single second, but it just kept drifting back into their minds, uninvited, like a song you can't get out of your head. It really makes you wonder how much of our mental struggle is just us fighting against ourselves, you know?
Trying to force a thought away—sort of like how Tolstoy used to do with his younger brother—really just sets a trap for yourself. It’s a bit of a feedback loop; the harder you fight to push a specific idea down, the more it decides to show up for an encore. Honestly, when you tell someone "don't think about that negative thing," you're basically guaranteeing it'll be the only thing on their mind.
Whenever we get stuck in a loop with certain intrusive thoughts, the worst move is to try and bury them—because, as I mentioned, they'll just keep resurfacing. Instead, we ought to let them surface naturally and actually face them head-on. Giving ourselves the grace to sit with those negative feelings is a much healthier way to deal with things. It reminds me of how the American author John Steinbeck put it in *The Winter of Our Discontent*, and I think it captures the vibe perfectly:
Mike heard me out, staring at a spot between my eyes. 'Yeah!' he said. 'I know about that. Trouble is, a guy tries to shove it out of his head. That don't work. What you got to do is kind of welcome it.'
Ryan Wilson2 said:Roulette is pure gambling, whereas poker demands actual skill, persistence, and a level head.
I’ve been there, so believe me when I say 😁
And yet, I still encounter people who swear up and down that some demons handed them a winning streak at the casino. Honestly...🤔
Meaningful connections are available whenever you want them; you just need to put in the work on yourself first.
The reality is, most of you are simply bored and lack real problems. The only true tragedies are facing an incurable illness or watching your child suffer from one.
Everything else? It's just mindless complaining and whining that could be cured by joining the Army, working a construction site, or getting out in the fields and doing manual labor.
In short, if you are healthy and have all your faculties intact, you have absolutely no excuse to sit around moping or playing the victim. 😁
silentwolf192 said:silentwolf192 here. Personally, I think the whole asceticism thing actually makes sense if you look at it through a different lens: it’s really just about streamlining your life. If you cut out all the trivial nonsense, you aren't wasting precious time or energy on things that don't matter. It doesn't even feel like much of a sacrifice, honestly—it's more like leaning into that natural human instinct to seek out simplicity and ease. I just don't get this whole asceticism thing—this idea that you have to reject everything actually good and life-affirming just to find spiritual clarity. Some people seem obsessed with that path of total deprivation, basically insisting on punishing their own bodies through suffering just to reach some kind of "freedom." And look, maybe for some folks, that’s a valid route. I'm not saying it isn't possible. But personally? Since I don't believe that misery is a prerequisite for growth, I’m definitely not going down that road. Look, if I decide to skip out on meat or cut back on the sweets, it’s not some strict "access" thing or a rigid dietary protocol I'm following. It’s much simpler than that—I’m just listening to my gut. Honestly, I just go where my intuition takes me. I’m actually inclined to believe that if Aako views suffering as this ultimate agony, then the whole thing is pretty much pointless. I mean, the spirit remains tethered regardless, right? And yet, there are certain things you just have to purge through pain—like getting clean from heroin or having a rotten tooth yanked out by a dentist. You can't really bypass the grit of it. Maybe my take on enlightenment is a little too hedonistic for some, but hear me out. I truly believe that motivation has to come from a positive place if you actually want to reach that state of peace and bliss without all the unnecessary suffering. If the end goal is finding the light, then why shouldn't the journey itself be driven by that? Sure, people talk about asceticism or intense catharsis, but even those paths are supposed to lead toward something better. For me, I try to keep the path itself positive and cut out the misery—unless, of course, the struggle is absolutely necessary to get where I'm going.
👍
Ryan Wilson2 said:The ascetic imperative... yeah, right... anyone can claim they want that. But just imagine if that imperative were brutally material—if you actually needed a million dollars just to begin your journey toward spiritual enlightenment.
Well, that wouldn't work, would it? Such a religion wouldn't be accessible to everyone.
There’s no safety net there. What's going to keep you warm during a blizzard? Are you allowed to kill to eat? Can you gut a deer to prep the meat, or cold-bloodedly slaughter a rabbit that wandered into your trap? And so on, and so forth.
It’s all very easy to type away from the comfort of a heated room. It's easy when, instead of trekking through the wilderness while starving, you just walk over to a 7-Eleven. When you're thirsty, you turn on a faucet instead of hiking to a spring in the middle of the night. And when nature calls, you have a bathroom rather than a hole in the dirt.
I am genuinely fascinated by these "spiritualists" who preach about returning to nature, yet seem to have absolutely no grasp of everything modern civilization has provided for us.
👍 The body is really the ultimate indicator—like, if you start shifting how you eat, that’s almost always tied back to what’s going on in your emotional life, too. It’s all connected. It’s one thing to understand your own body—really getting how you work—but it’s a whole different story when people start packaging up parts of themselves just to sell a certain image to the world... mostly just to feed their own ego. It’s not just a coincidence that everyday people—you know, the actual masses—can spot genuine sincerity from a mile away. It’s like an instinct we have. Take someone like Marina Abramović, for instance—she's a world-renowned artist, and I've always felt she really tapped into that true, raw perception of the human body. It’s not just a coincidence that Buddha once suggested—if I can paraphrase him a bit here—that your body has the potential to become... Rahulo. 😉 It’s such a massive mistake to point fingers at people based on their bodies—honestly, there's a much better way to handle things through actual re-education. Instead of just throwing someone in jail, Putin should have just shown the American public the actual pornographic footage of those girls. I mean, I haven't seen anything more disgusting or repulsive than that. It really just drags down the concept of both pornography and the human body itself. It all feels so unnatural and staged—they try so hard to manipulate the space around them that even teenagers can see right through the act. People tend to get so hung up on things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things—I remember being into clothing-optional beaches back in the day, but now? I don't feel much of anything toward that kind of thing, neither good nor bad. Though, I suppose there are people out there who aren't exactly thrilled about seeing a naked body next to them or having someone remind them which parts of the anatomy they actually possess. Honestly, it's probably best to sort out your own backyard before you start bragging or comparing notes with others—just look at what's happening over in Japan. A woman in Japan is looking at two years behind bars because of a kayak shaped like her own scanned anatomy. Japanese Artist Megumi Igarashi Arrested Over Vagina Kayak TOKYO - An artist in Japan who designed a kayak modeled after her own anatomy stated on Wednesday that she was "outraged" by her arrest and promised to fight the obscenity charges in court. Megumi Igarashi, 42, claims she was trying to push back against a culture of "discrimination" regarding discussions of female anatomy in Japanese society. Igarashi, working under the pseudonym Rokudenashiko—which translates to "good-for-nothing girl"—constructed a bright yellow kayak with a top shaped like her own anatomy after pulling in about $10,000 via crowdfunding. As a thank-you to several donors, Igarashi even shared 3D printer data of her scan—the digital blueprint for the whole project. She was taken into custody this past Saturday for distributing indecent material and is currently facing up to two years in prison along with a fine that could hit $25,000. The tricky part is that the legal definition of obscenity is pretty murky in Japan, and according to her defense attorney, Kazuyuki Minami, the whole debate hinges on whether the anatomy itself can actually be labeled as obscene. Even though Japan has a massive adult entertainment industry, it’s still governed by sections of the criminal code that haven't changed since 1907. Because of that, video porn in Japan frequently uses digital mosaics to blur out genitalia just to dodge those obscenity laws. Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi, known as Rokudenashiko, paddles in her uniquely shaped kayak on October 19, 2013. She noted on her website that this specific part of the body "has been such a taboo in Japanese society," adding, "It's been overly hidden although it's just a part of a woman's body." In-Depth - Reuters First published July 17th 2014, 10:22 am http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ja...-kayak-n158081
Sean Cruz said:I honestly have no idea why people feel the need to lash out at others. I've always been on the "other" side of that dynamic.
The assumption behind arguing with someone who holds completely different views is usually that the topic itself is interesting, not necessarily the person you're debating.
But we're human. Sometimes there's this undeniable urge to push back against something that feels intuitively wrong. It doesn't always mean you dislike the individual; it just means their core stances hit a nerve that you find fundamentally unacceptable.
I wouldn't be quite so certain about that, though—even when everyone involved has the best intentions. There are certain things that just shouldn't be up for debate—for instance, my inner self has always felt perfectly at peace in an Episcopal church, but let's say I had a bad experience somewhere—like if someone crude forced me out of a place of worship. Do I have the right to turn that into a massive public discussion? Not really, because even with the best motives, opening up a thread like that tends to lead toward unfair generalizations. Or, if you’ve written a really well-reasoned post, and it happens to be your 500,000th contribution to the community—do I have any right to belittle your argument just because you're such a frequent poster? Of course not. The same goes if it’s your 500th post—if I try to make a point by suggesting you rarely show up because you don't subscribe to some specific "internet clique" mentality. Do I have the right to poke into your private business if I can't predict your stance, or just blindly attack you—sort of like popping a balloon to deflate an oversized ego?—well, those are just words, not a real assessment of someone's character, especially since we don't actually know these people... And so on. We all learn how to navigate these discussions as we go, and we all trip up occasionally—it's not like anyone sets out to mess up—but boundaries have to exist for a reason. I won't even get started on the various cliques, groupthink, or the little sub-cultures that form online... But I truly believe it's almost always better—just like in real life—to simply not react. To distance yourself whenever possible, whether that's through physical space or just giving it time. You only really need to fire back when someone is trying to make a public statement. The internet is filled with this massive, silent, and sometimes hypocritical audience; so, don't be surprised if you try to prove a point publicly and someone hits back just as hard—or harder—as a sort of lesson learned.
Jessica Kelly4 said:Because reproduction is quite literally the foundation of society. It’s essential for biological survival and the preservation of any culture. There’s nothing wrong with promoting behavior that serves the greater good of the community. Activists, feminists, or whatever else can scream all they want, but millions of years of biological evolution have created deep physiological and psychological differences between men and women. You can't just toss out tens of thousands of years of cultural tradition built on that biology. Women carry, give birth, and nurture; men are more aggressive and play a fundamentally different role.
The idea that we should scrap all of this just because a tiny minority doesn't fit these roles is nonsense. I'm not buying it.
Look, I'm not saying people shouldn't organize or fight for their interests. What bothers me is the massive gap between the political influence being wielded and the actual number of people who want to redefine marriage. It’s obvious something is off—all these organizations you mentioned, along with the concept of marriage itself, are being used as pawns in much larger political and ideological games.
It's a mutual sort of love: just as one group seeks out the first, that first group is also looking for the second. Watching this unfold is honestly pretty depressing—it reminds me of someone standing before the children of victims from some old war zone, lecturing them about fascism, only to turn around and lecture Palestinians about religious extremism when there isn't even a historical basis for it. Then there’s this drive to hand over tens of thousands of USD to some small association, while powerful lobbies provide the financial, political, or even military muscle to help dismantle the institution of marriage. For people who started their careers by singing songs for the military that destroyed Memphis and the USA, these modern avant-garde movements are a great way to get some cash and a bit of fame—much like how Obama and Madonna benefit. And these LGBTQ+ groups seem to get support from everyone because the goal is just to give them a hand; nobody bothers to critically analyze the aid they receive, unlike how they constantly dissect the heterosexual community from every angle. The end result is this chaotic mess where one social group cheers whenever another group runs into trouble—like during a strike, for instance—without realizing that once everything becomes a private matter, things will get a lot more expensive and every word will carry much more weight. In the end, the real goal is to win over influential figures from all walks of life, but that's a pipe dream. Most of those high-profile folks, aside from a few pretentious intellectuals, don't really take a side in their own countries unless it hits close to home. 😉
Justin Garcia7 said:I feel like I’ve hit a standstill on my own spiritual road, and I could really use some words of wisdom to get me through. 🤣 It wasn't such a big deal before—I was just cruising through life—but lately, I've developed this intense craving for a partner who is my absolute perfect match. To be honest, I can't bring myself to be in just any relationship. I've become incredibly picky about everything, and I know I need someone who is as close to me as possible, almost an identical soul. I'm not sure why my mindset shifted so suddenly, but at least I'm finally aware of what I actually want... the question is, how do I find my twin flame? Even casual hookups just don't feel meaningful anymore. 🤷 This longing is starting to feel suffocating. It’s getting hard to focus on my work and personal growth when I feel like everything would just click so much easier if I had the right partner by my side.
It’s like that old saying about how you reap exactly what you sow—you can only untangle things as much as you originally knotted them up. At the end of the day, though, the answer isn't out there somewhere in the world or hidden in someone else's advice... it's always just been sitting right there inside you. The very fact that you’re asking a question on a forum like this—rather than just walking in and acting like you have all the answers—actually says something pretty great about you. It shows you’ve got that sense of humility, which is honestly such a rare and positive quality to come across these days.
Justin Garcia7 said:I feel like I’ve hit a standstill on my own spiritual road, and I could really use some words of wisdom to get me through. 🤣 It wasn't such a big deal before—I was just cruising through life—but lately, I've developed this intense craving for a partner who is my absolute perfect match. To be honest, I can't bring myself to be in just any relationship. I've become incredibly picky about everything, and I know I need someone who is as close to me as possible, almost an identical soul. I'm not sure why my mindset shifted so suddenly, but at least I'm finally aware of what I actually want... the question is, how do I find my twin flame? Even casual hookups just don't feel meaningful anymore. 🤷 This longing is starting to feel suffocating. It’s getting hard to focus on my work and personal growth when I feel like everything would just click so much easier if I had the right partner by my side.
I don't see any harm in it, really—everyone has those needs at some point, you know? It’s just part of being human, so there's honestly no reason to let it weigh on you or get all worked up about it. So, what you’re really saying is that it matters more to have someone by your side—someone to just sit in silence with, whether you’re both stripped down or fully dressed—than it does to just pick up some partner along the way based on how well they fit your "social role." You know, finding someone who handles the housework, keeps the meals coming, and takes care of your physical needs... I mean, look, that isn't necessarily a bad thing either—assuming, of course, you haven't actually mastered those things yourself yet.
I haven't seen any posts from zoomzoom888 lately—it feels like they’ve gone quiet, doesn't it? It’s funny how that happens sometimes, where someone contributes so much and then just... vanishes into the ether. It reminds me of those old radio shows where a host would suddenly stop mid-sentence and you'd just be left staring at the speaker, wondering if the signal dropped or if they just decided to go grab a coffee. Anyway, I was thinking about it while sitting in traffic on the I-95 earlier today—just one of those long, winding stretches where you have too much time to ponder things—and it made me wonder if anyone else noticed the silence. Just a thought. kaže: Honestly, I just can't bring myself to be in a relationship with just anyone—I’ve become incredibly picky about everything lately. It’s like, I know exactly what I'm looking for, and at this point, I need someone who truly fits my wavelength. Ideally, I want a partner who is almost a mirror image of me—someone who matches my energy and outlook in basically every single way.
It’s like you’ve hit this wall where physical intimacy just isn't on the table with anyone—and I’m not talking about the obvious stuff, either. I mean, obviously, we’re ruling out the dark side of things—addiction, predatory behavior, people being aggressive or exploitative for business reasons, that whole mess. But beyond those red flags, there's just this total inability to connect sexually with any person at all. It's a strange place to be, honestly... almost like there's a barrier there that you can't quite put your finger on, regardless of how "normal" or healthy the other person might be. Look, I’m certainly not out here thinking I’m some kind of James Bond—and I don't go around pretending my little self is the next Naomi, either—but there's still that baseline level of healthy, mutual physical attraction that just works. You know? Sometimes you just find that spark where things click for a one-time thing, and honestly, in that sense, it can be a really great way to get things moving.
I can't really say much about that—it's just one of those things where you have to see it to believe it, I guess. It’s like when you’re driving down a long stretch of highway in Nebraska, nothing really happening, just the wind and the road, and then suddenly everything shifts. You can't quite put your finger on why, but the vibe just changes completely. Anyway, I don't have much else to add to the conversation right now. kaže: I honestly don't know what caused such a massive shift in my mindset lately—it’s like everything just clicked into place—but at least I’ve finally become aware of what I actually need from a partner. It feels like a huge step, you know? But now that I'm actually listening to myself... how does one even go about finding their Twin Flame?
You don't exactly go out looking for a Twin Flame—it’s more like something that just happens to you when you least expect it. It’s not some scheduled appointment or a goal you check off a list; it’s more like stumbling into a sudden thunderstorm while you're just out for a casual walk. You aren't hunting for it, and you certainly can't force it to happen through sheer willpower. It’s this unplanned, mutual collision of two lives that just... clicks. See, when you look at the whole soul mate thing versus the Twin Flame concept, there’s a massive difference—it's almost hard to put into words without getting a bit deep. With a soul mate, you're building something, right? But a Twin Flame... it's more like this instant, visceral recognition. You don't really have to sit around debating things or going through those exhausting cycles of opening up and then immediately slamming the door shut because you're feeling vulnerable. It's less about the conversation and more about this sort of... I don't know, pheromonal, creative spark that just hits you instantly. It's like knowing a song the very first time you hear it—you don't need an explanation, you just know. A soul mate is a completely different beast altogether—we're talking about that intense emotional and sexual connection that often, maybe precisely because of all that restless passion, ends up fracturing. But most people go hunting for a Twin Flame when they haven't even mastered healthy sexual relationships yet—and I mean those spontaneous connections that align with basic human instincts, rather than the deviations I mentioned earlier.
Justin Garcia7 said:I feel like I’ve hit a standstill on my own spiritual road, and I could really use some words of wisdom to get me through. 🤣 It wasn't such a big deal before—I was just cruising through life—but lately, I've developed this intense craving for a partner who is my absolute perfect match. To be honest, I can't bring myself to be in just any relationship. I've become incredibly picky about everything, and I know I need someone who is as close to me as possible, almost an identical soul. I'm not sure why my mindset shifted so suddenly, but at least I'm finally aware of what I actually want... the question is, how do I find my twin flame? Even casual hookups just don't feel meaningful anymore. 🤷 This longing is starting to feel suffocating. It’s getting hard to focus on my work and personal growth when I feel like everything would just click so much easier if I had the right partner by my side.
Now, look, Freud was clearly influenced by cocaine—and according to some documents, he dabbled in other stuff too—but he still built this massive body of work. In my humble opinion—which obviously isn't gospel—his theories don't have much to do with our modern, tech-driven civilization where we learn from one another. If you're constantly stuck in some transcendental, god-like state, you aren't going to have a normal, perhaps even an erect, neurologically and physiologically stimulating sex life. One answer could be that, well, you might just be depressed. A second possibility is that you're moving away from being heterosexual—maybe looking toward women instead—or perhaps you're leaning toward kinks, which, let's face it, are everywhere these days, and the internet makes finding them incredibly easy. 😁 😉 P.S. I’d love to hear some of your actual lived experiences, because I really think you have a need to share what you've gone through with the rest of us.
Neuromuscular blockade—or NMT, if you’re into the shorthand—is such a fascinating corner of anesthesia. It’s one of those things that feels like pure science fiction when you really stop to think about how we manage muscle relaxation during surgery, isn't it? It’s all about that delicate balance between keeping a patient perfectly still for the surgeon and making sure they can breathe just fine on their own once everything is wrapped up. It reminds me a bit of trying to tune a high-end guitar; you want the tension just right so the strings don't snap, but if it's too loose, you aren't getting any music out of it. In the OR, if you miss that sweet spot with your neuromuscular blockers, things can get complicated fast—either the patient moves at the wrong moment (not ideal!) or they stay "paralyzed" longer than they should, which adds a lot of extra stress to the recovery process. It’s a constant dance of monitoring and adjustment. kaže: How do you feel about that whole "emotional invalidation" thing—you know, when people just straight-up deny what someone else is feeling?
Nah, I don't know—I honestly think emotions just end up masking who you really are. It’s like trying to see the true shape of a sculpture through a thick layer of dust; you can't actually see the work underneath until you wipe it all away. To me, it's only when you finally let go of those emotional attachments that you truly find freedom from fear. It's a bit like clearing out a cluttered garage—once the junk is gone, you can actually breathe in the space again. It’s not like you’re being cold or heartless—it’s more like... well, it’s just different. Don't get caught up in chasing that daily "hit"—you know, like those extreme types who can't function without their immediate fix.
Let me try to break this down—it’s kind of like how some people get hooked on high-stakes gambling or that rush you get from hitting a massive sales goal at a place like Goldman Sachs. A banker isn't just chasing a paycheck; they're actually hungry for that specific brand of power. It's all about that hit of dopamine you get in your brain when you realize you've effectively squeezed someone else for every cent they have—just to pad the bank's bottom line and, by extension, their own ego. It’s less about the money itself and more about the thrill of the win.
It’s kind of like that one extreme snowboarder you see on those Red Bull specials—the guy who’s always hunting for the next untouched peak just to feel something. He’s basically chasing this massive chemical high every time he drops in, looking for that specific rush of hormones that hits his system during a jump. But here’s the thing—it’s a bit of a losing game, isn't it? Every time he repeats an old stunt or tries to recapture that same legendary run, the adrenaline hit gets smaller and smaller. It’s like trying to recreate the magic of your first car—eventually, the novelty just fades. At a certain point, he isn't really making conscious choices anymore; he's just being driven by his own biology—essentially a slave to his own hormone levels.
The average guy gets the same kind of rush from sleeping with the neighbor, snagging a stock on a whim, or feeling like he totally "beat" the retailer by outsmarting everyone else who paid full price—it’s that same hit of dopamine, really. It’s that sense of having pulled one over on the system. Because of that, the second people see those little ticker symbols flashing on a screen, they start scrambling—honestly, they run around like headless chickens. They don't realize that behind those flashy letters, there's often a trap waiting to be sprung, carefully disguised by clever marketers as some "once-in-a-lifetime" deal.
I mean, honestly—people are just driven by raw emotion, and that’s pretty much why the world is such a mess right now. If everyone actually operated based on logic—you know, the kind of actual reasoning you get from constantly pausing to think about what you're doing and being genuinely aware of how those actions ripple out into the world around them—well, things would be a whole lot better for all of us. It's like we're all just reacting without ever hitting the brakes to consider the consequences.
I honestly feel like you just have to let those emotions run wild—you know, really give them free rein—but only when you’re absolutely certain that what you’re doing isn't going to hurt anyone else or mess up the environment in some permanent, long-term way. It's kind of like... well, think of it like letting off steam from a pressure cooker—it's necessary to prevent a blowup, but you wouldn't want to blast the lid off if there were people standing right in the kitchen, right? You just need that moment where you can be fully expressive without leaving a trail of wreckage behind you.
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Science News recently dropped this fascinating idea that there might be a whole different state of consciousness out there for people undergoing surgery—sort of like a hidden layer we haven't fully mapped yet. It’s wild to think about, really. You go under, everything goes dark, and we just assume it's a simple "off" switch, but it turns out things are much more nuanced than that. According to Jaideep Pandit, who presented some pretty compelling stuff at the American Society of Anesthesiologists Annual Meeting, there's a possibility that what we perceive as unconsciousness isn't just a void. It's almost like being in a deep, dreamless sleep that doesn't quite follow the usual rules of biology. He was speaking alongside Ian F. Russell from Mayo Clinic, whose findings were featured in the September 12 issue of Anesthesiology. It reminds me a bit of how we used to think about the ocean—just a flat surface until we realized there are entire ecosystems and currents moving miles beneath the waves that we can't see from the shore. We thought anesthesia was just a flatline of awareness, but maybe it's more like a complex, quiet frequency we just didn't have the right equipment to tune into until now. It makes you wonder what else is happening in those quiet moments when we aren't "home." Science News reports that there might be an entirely different state of consciousness out there for people undergoing surgery—something we don't fully grasp yet. It’s one of those things that sounds like science fiction until you realize how little we actually know about what happens when someone is under. There was this study involving Bahar Gholipour that really makes you stop and think—it’s almost like looking at a map where half the territory is still just blank space. About 17 hours ago... So, I was reading this piece from Science News about how we might actually be missing a whole layer of what goes on in the brain during surgery—it’s pretty wild to think about. One specialist, Jaideep Pandit, is suggesting there might be this "third state" of consciousness out there. Basically, instead of just being totally under or fully awake, patients could potentially be in this middle ground where they can actually follow a command if you ask them to, yet they don't feel any of the pain or the actual procedure happening. It's like that weird headspace you get when you're so deep into a movie or a book that the world around you just kind of fades away, except here, it's happening while someone is literally operating on you. It really makes you wonder how much we still have left to figure out regarding how the mind handles being "unplugged."
When anesthesia is administered correctly—and let’s face it, most of the time it is—you don't really expect people to be waking up mid-procedure. It's one of those things you just assume is a given. But, according to some recent research, there might be this strange middle ground we haven't fully mapped out yet. Experts are suggesting that there could be a specific state of mind where a patient isn't exactly "awake," but they aren't totally under either—sort of like being caught in that weird limbo between dreaming and being wide awake.
So, I was reading this fascinating bit from Science News about how we might actually be missing an entire layer of human awareness—apparently, there could be this "third state" of consciousness that happens during medical procedures. It sounds wild, but Jaideep Pandit, an anesthesiologist from Harvard University, brought up this theory during his talk this past Thursday at the American Society of Anesthesiologists Annual Meeting. The idea is that patients might enter a headspace where they can still follow basic instructions or commands, yet they aren't actually feeling any of the pain or discomfort from the surgery itself. It’s like being awake and responsive, but completely detached from the physical sensation—kind of like being in that weird, dreamless limbo you hit during a long drive when you realize you don't remember the last ten miles. Truly mind-bending stuff.
Jaideep Pandit actually calls this phenomenon "dysanaesthesia." Apparently, the proof lies in a recent study where researchers took 34 surgical patients and put them under anesthesia—but with a bit of a twist. They kept the patients' entire bodies paralyzed, save for their forearms. This allowed the patients to wiggle their fingers whenever they were given a command, essentially acting as a way to signal whether they were actually conscious or feeling pain while the surgery was underway.
So, I was reading this fascinating piece from Science News about how we might not fully understand the depths of consciousness during surgery. It turns out there’s this potentially whole new state of awareness that patients could be experiencing while they're supposedly out cold. According to a study led by Ian F. Russell of Mayo Clinic—which just hit the pages of Anesthesiology on Sept. 12—about a third of the people in the study actually moved their fingers when prompted. This happened even though they appeared to be under a perfectly adequate dose of anesthesia... which is honestly kind of wild to think about, isn't it? It makes you wonder where that line between being "under" and being "aware" actually sits.
"The truly wild part—and I mean really fascinating—is that they didn't even move their fingers unless someone specifically asked them to. There wasn't any spontaneous reaction during the surgery, which suggests they probably aren't feeling any pain at all," noted Jaideep Pandit, who actually penned an editorial regarding the study.
Usually, when someone is rolled into the OR for surgery, the medical team is right there, hovering—monitoring everything and pumping in more anesthetic whenever they need to. The whole idea is pretty straightforward: just make sure the patient stays deep enough under so they don't feel a thing. But here’s the kicker—there’s actually a massive debate going on about whether the tech we use to "measure" that level of unconsciousness is even all that reliable. It's like trying to judge how much sleep someone is getting based solely on how still they're lying; you think you have a handle on it, but the reality might be a bit more complex than the sensors suggest.
"The thing is, we lack a definitive model for what consciousness actually is," Jaideep Pandit noted. "And without that blueprint, trying to build a monitor to track it is like trying to map a territory you haven't even discovered yet." [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain]
The whole study—looking at 34 different patients—was essentially an attempt to figure out if people are truly "under" when the standard monitors used in American operating rooms say they are. To test this, the researchers basically isolated the patients' arms from the rest of their bodies—which were being hit with the usual muscle relaxants—by temporarily cutting off the blood flow to those limbs. That way, if a patient was still somewhat awake, they’d actually have the physical ability to move their arm.
When a patient actually followed a doctor's order and moved their hand, the medical team treated it as a clear signal that consciousness was present, so they'd bump up the dose of anesthesia.
But here's where it gets interesting—Pandit suggests these folks weren't exactly "conscious" in the traditional sense. Since they only moved when specifically told to, rather than just reacting naturally or spontaneously, he thinks their mental state was something else entirely. It wasn't quite the waking world, but it wasn't total darkness either.
This concept of a "third state" might finally explain why the numbers on surgical awareness are so wildly inconsistent. If you look at past surveys where people are asked point-blank if they remember being awake, you get about 1 in 500 people saying yes. But then you look at a recent national survey in the US where people weren't prompted—they just volunteered the information—and the rate drops to 1 in 15,000. And when it comes to actual pain or distress? That’s down to a tiny 1 in 45,000.
When you look at those numbers side-by-side, it points toward a strange middle ground—a state where patients might be aware of what's happening but don't feel the need to mention it. It's almost like it's a neutral experience for them. They might perceive their surroundings, sure, but since there isn't any pain involved, there's no reason for them to be alarmed or even bother bringing it up.
Pandit thinks this theory could eventually change how we build anesthesia monitors. Even though this "dysanaesthesia" state doesn't seem to cause any harm, it might be a warning sign—a precursor to that scary, unpleasant awareness that both doctors and patients want to stay far away from.
"At the end of the day, it's a hypothesis for future research," he explained. "It's something we can dig into more deeply and design specific experiments to see if this state truly exists." http://www.nbcnews.com/health/strang...nts-4B11217250
Morgan Garcia60 said:If gratitude isn't coming straight from the heart, then I suppose it doesn't mean a thing. But then again, maybe gratitude is just some social or cultural construct we've all agreed upon. IF...ELSE.
👍 And that brings us to this really interesting point about respecting someone else's sense of gratitude—basically, being grateful because someone else is being grateful. Like, imagine if someone felt truly thankful toward Creamy Benji, and then you turned around and felt grateful to them just for having that feeling... 😉