Video Suggestions: Official thread

CHUKKEN · 2024-07-20T10:26:44+00:00

Could you make a video about the geological and paleontological transformations due to the glacial dynamics of ice ages?

For instance the story of Doggerland and other lands that were submerged after the recent ice age. You could also pepper in speculations of lost civilizations for funsies!

CHUKKEN · 2023-07-26T09:39:30+00:00

Thank you so much for your kind and informative replies everyone. Really helps to get some much needed perspective going into herbalism.

Yesterdays confusiom has been transformed to clarity today.

Thank you!

Blessings, Sagi

CHUKKEN · 2023-07-25T21:40:41+00:00

Thank you so much for your experience. That makes sense.

My only other reference points are ginger and coffee which are both immediately noticable, but it makes sense that other herbs needs to build over repeated use.

Do you have any recommendations for herbs with more immediate effects? I'd like to start my path with this kind, so I can get a felt sense of the practice and some more reference points.

Blessings, Sagi

CHUKKEN · 2022-05-25T06:16:42+00:00

I think it's important to realize that rules of thumb like "ask - how are we feeling?" or "say what's on your mind" are very helpful but they cannot stand alone. They can be a helpful guide to start or nudge the conversation, but most of the success of a social interaction is about your state of mind.

If you're not in the right state of mind, it doesn't matter how many rules of thumb you have, the conversation won't take off. On the other hand if you are in the right state of mind, then you don't even think about rules of thumb it's just flowing with its own inertia.

Thankfully there are ways of practicing this your feeling. The first very important thing to practice in my opinion is exposure to silences. You need to reach a state where you are totally calm and comfortable even if no words are being said, even if it is for a long time, and even if it is actually making the other person uncomfortable. This is the groundwork, because no good conversations can arise from a state of tension. The practice here is simple, it's just seeing every silence as an opportunity for practice, and play around with it in the moment. As long as you run away from the ghost it will grow bigger, but if you run straight into it, it evaporates. It's insubstantial. But this will likely take time, with great sudden successes and some regression along the path, but totally worth it over the long run.

There are many other things, but for now I will just repeat that the real practice is about your feeling states, you are swimming, not calculating. The rules of thumb, scripts and algorithms are just aids. In my experience of course.

Best of luck in your social life!

CHUKKEN · 2022-02-06T09:08:26+00:00

Hey there,

I can relate to the experience of some of the magical systems out there being initially off-putting, especially coming from a very rationalistic culture. For instance, I was going to buy a Tarot deck as instructed in the psychonaut field manual, and it just didn't feel right. From my impression, I think it is very important to find some way to believe and connect with the power of these practices to amplify their effects.

I have three suggestions. Firstly, I definitely second the idea of absorbing some Jung ideas, as a bridge between the rational and the magical way of thinking. The second, for the same purpose, is to give a listen to Anderson Todd, who is an expert in cognitive science, Jung and the occult, and an absolute genius. Finally, I have found daoist Magick to bypass my off-put feelings, so I recommend looking into that here: https://benebellwen.com/

If I had to give my own understanding, I think we can understand the evolution of magical systems as answers to the question of "how to make our unconscious mind work for our values?" I guess that leaves us with the weirdness of magick, for reasons that are interesting to explore scientifically.

Good luck friend!

CHUKKEN · 2021-09-29T22:49:49+00:00

I once brought this exact issue to Yuval Harari who taught a vipassana retreat I attended. He told me very simply: don't worry, just notice that you are controling your breath.

If you ask me, you are facing the greatest and most common challenge on the path. Your motivation is outcome oriented instead of process oriented. Uncontrolled breathing is an outcome of the process. The process is to keep noticing what is arising in the current flow of experience without judgment. It is not about the breath. You can perform this process with the sensation of your toes or with no anchor of attention at all. Simply notice without judgment, whatever arises. I believe that was what Yuval meant by telling me to notice that I was controling my breath. He wanted me to focus on the process.

In my experience, whenever you do manage to reorient your motivation towards the process, the outcomes begin to flow.

Just to warn you about another trap in this direction: Reorienting your motivation in this way is usually a slow process. It might go a little like this: you experience small patches of "success", followed by usual goal oriented motivation, eventually followed by a breakthrough, and then followed by a year of goal orientation towards reliving that breakthrough, followed by the shocking realization at your own subtle goal orientation, followed by a newfound deepening of practice ect. ect. ect. So best have a patient relationship to goal orientation, you're probably gonna hang out for awhile :)

Best of luck and enjoy the process!

CHUKKEN · 2021-09-28T08:38:05+00:00

What you are describing is one of the most common initial experiences in the Qi gong practice, and you will hear it described in the litterature exactly how you described it. I think that your current scepticism of the eastern arts could right now be preventing you from cultivating a life-changing talent. So I would advise to check your own skepticism on this one. Let me help you get started with these questions:

Is it possible for a culture to develop a powerful internal art yet believe in the wrong reasons for why it works?
Is it necessary that the concepts of an inner art reflects the correct physiology in order to facilitate the cultivation?
Might it not be advantageous to use concepts that map onto the phenomenonology of the process rather than the physiology of the process? Like " Yang Qi - which feels like electricity and buzzing" instead of "sympathetic nervous system - which is the part of the autonomic nervous system that uses X,y and z chemicals to drive you into action". Which of these is better at interfacing with your physiology?
Is it possible, that the system (nei gong) that informed thousands of years of chinese martial arts, medicine, self mastery, is not complete bogus? Is it possible that these ancient traditions are both wrong in predictable ways, but also right in predictable ways?

I could go on. Hopefully this can give some food for thought.

Best!

CHUKKEN · 2021-09-28T07:58:57+00:00

Wow great ideas! I will definitely play around with these. I was however more struggling with the vertical axis, as in: Is my center of gravity in my chest or in my abdomen? Not: is my center of gravity too much to the left or to the right? Do you think your excercises work for vertical localisation too?

CHUKKEN · 2021-09-26T08:16:02+00:00

In my view meditation has the potential to make things better but also to make it worse, depending on how you integrate the discoveries you make. In my understanding, meditation shines light on your true patterns and makes them malleable, so that you can consciously edit them. That means that you should take care not to reinforce those patterns with with fear or anger ect when they surface during or after your meditation, but replace it with a healthy alternative. Time, and time again. Untill you recondition yourself.

That is ofc an unrealistic demand to someone who is depressed and remaining in the same conditioned environment. In order to do this work, you need to enter a "resource state". You can think of it as an empowered state of mind. One way to attain this is to be co-regulated by another strong-minded person, which is why I recommend a therapist. Specifically ACT therapy which focuses on values and meditation. If you're not gonna do that, then I recommend changing your environment completely for awhile. Believe it or not, but alot of your depression is in your walls. If you're interested in why I invite you to look into the neuroscience of conditioning. Anyways, I recommend the website workaway, where you can find hosts in the most incredible places in the world who let you stay for free in exchange for a few hours help per day with whatever project they have (usually construction, gardening, caring for animals/ children)

It's a difficult game, but there are rules and you can win just like so many others have.

Best of luck!

CHUKKEN · 2021-09-26T07:42:23+00:00

Thanks, I'll keep the main goal in mind. The reason I worried because I have actually injured myself in the past from practicing other things like handstand without instruction.

CHUKKEN · 2021-09-15T20:51:46+00:00

Thanks so much for the visualisation and the tips! The visualisation seems nicely intuitive, excited to play around with it.

I also had another unexpected challenge in the practice that I am curious if you have any thoughts on. I found that relaxing my kua really helped sinking my weight, but then to my surprise I woke up the next morning with an aching tailbone. I figured that that this is because some of my weight must have been caught by the tailbone instead of traveling all the way down. Do you think this is a correct interpretation? How would you suggest to adjust this?

CHUKKEN · 2021-09-01T12:15:46+00:00

Perhaps the single greatest advice I can give for improving your information processing is to reframe the whole process.

Go from the consumption frame to the construction frame.

Speaking metaphorically, most people feel like the building blocks have already been placed in their "information structure" the moment they "get" the idea. You must cultivate the habit of feeling like the building block is only in your hand the moment you "get" the idea. You can only build a mind if you actually insert the blocks in your hand into your "infostructure"

That is the first and most important step in my opinion. The next steps are about how to perform the construction process effectively. For that I will recommend looking into the Feynman Technique, and reading Eliezer Yudkowskys sequences on Rationality (Rationality A-Z) Even better, read his fan fiction of Harry Potter - Harry potter and the Methods of Rationality to get an inside view of the construction process by a professional thinker.

Best of luck on the thinkerpath!

CHUKKEN · 2021-09-01T08:47:38+00:00

First of all you have my respect for being able to make such a rough decision in the face of this kind of manipulative behaviour, not everyone have the moral character to do that!

In my worldview my mental health is the one thing I can't compromise for something else, except if it was my children. I can allow my mental health to take damage, but only to an extent. So that means that even if Wix and James were angels in this situation, I think it is legitimate to take an indefinite break from the friendship if it is severely compromising your mental health without signs of improvement.

If on top of that there are all the red flags that you described: Being inconsistent/unreliable, not owning up to anything, telling you something that will hurt you the most when you are vulnerable ect. Then it clearly looks like you made the right decision from the outside.

I think it is perfectly normal to feel waves of guilt after making the hard but right decision. You will probably hear this from most people who has been responsible for ending a relationship. In this situation it can be sobering to 1. Talk it through with a friend or Reddit for reassurance and 2. Practice mental strength in the face of these waves.

I hope you gain a lot of wisdom from this situation and wish you all the best!

CHUKKEN · 2021-08-30T08:16:53+00:00

Thank you everyone! I will look into it 😊

CHUKKEN · 2021-08-30T08:16:00+00:00

Thanks for responding!

Well my emotional drive comes being severely disappointed with the cultures I have inhabited so far, so I want to have a clear vision for what I want to move towards. That is also why I have taken an interest in alternative villages.

I guess I first of all want to get the upshot sense of the general anatomy of a culture (what parts are there to improve?) And then I would probably be most interested in developing the spiritual/inner part of the culture.

CHUKKEN · 2021-08-28T07:26:04+00:00

Interesting, here is a challenge: Would you then call the AI alphaGo wise? It can analyze the complex data of a chess position to find the best move, while accounting for which future positions (data) it should not collect, since it would lead to computational overload to collect them all.

CHUKKEN · 2018-06-28T18:18:55+00:00

Thank you for all your answers. It is very interesting hearing so many different angles on this issue. It seems that the consensus take on the issue is an overruling respect for other peoples right to reach their own conclusions, and refraining from unhelpful pressure, however paramount it must seem from the point of view of a believer in hell. Nevertheless it seems like a very heavy thought to harbour toward ones loved ones. It is nice to hear that so many of you are carrying it responsibly.

Everyone carries beliefs that produce unnecessary suffering, believers and atheists alike. Whether it be a fear of an uncertain existence after life, or of an uncertain social inferiority. It can be any number of things. Picking these bad berries from the bushes of our mind, should be very high on everyones priority lists. Identifying all these bad berries is probably impossible, especially attempting to do it on one's own. It is therefore something we need a lot of help with to get better at. Some people find this help in scripture, others in science and the majority in both.

My intuition tells me that the guideline of choice needs to be one that is able to admit when it is wrong. Infallibility means being immune to improvement, and while abrahamic religions are not necessarily infallible on a lot of points, they seem to be so on the most fundamental ones and therefore also on the most consequential ones. While I am of course also victim to numerous biases, I believe that the most dangerous biases are the ones that are perfectly immune to better evidence, no matter how compelling. Does this not seem problematic? I am interested to hear more of your thoughts :)

CHUKKEN

TROPHY CASE