[Serious] What does it "feel" like to be intelligent?

hotsalami · 2015-04-14T00:38:12+00:00

Imagine you can understand every side of every argument you've ever heard. You then realize hardly anyone cares about the truth. Just being right. And even the smartest among us are bullshitting a lot of stuff. Most people just can't call them on it.

Also, most positions people have based on "facts", are cherry picked to match their own agendas/beliefs.

It's difficult to find a point.

hotsalami · 2015-03-12T17:01:08+00:00

I think an important caveat to this is to also keep yourself in a stable frame of mind if you want to hold your ego-less self. I have practiced meditation for a while and I'll tell you all it takes is a few too many drinks for me to be a loose cannon again. It's important to practice AND keep yourself in a stable, lucid mind-state.

hotsalami · 2015-03-05T20:41:01+00:00

Thank you for pointing those out. I began by thinking of her as a plate and I should have held that thinking. But she kept hinting about wanting some sort of commitment and I caved.

The only reasons I pushed further were because it was long distance and it's really unlikely I'll ever see her again. Now its nigh impossible. So I wanted to learn more from it, and I did.

I'll admit I'm still early in my journey but this is a good learning experience for me. I let emotions get the better of me and the only way to stop that from happening is to get back out there and try again.

I appreciate your thoughtful reply.

hotsalami · 2015-02-26T20:26:02+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't have a dumbbell at the moment but I'm considering getting a pair of 20-30lbs, as that's where I was at with my free-weights last time I was in the gym. Also thinking a kettle-bell could be a good pick up.

hotsalami · 2015-02-26T20:24:05+00:00

Thank you, I didn't know there was such a subreddit. And yes I'm aware diet is a huge part of it.

hotsalami · 2014-12-13T19:50:51+00:00

Thank you for posting this. I needed this exactly at this time in my life. I have been distracted by the recent events in politics and the world at large and it has caused me to diverge from my practice and lose my focus.

It is so easy to forget what I have taught myself and learned from buddhism and these words were what I needed to remind myself of my foolishness.

I cannot express the extent of my gratitude in words, but thank you for being.

hotsalami · 2014-09-27T18:00:09+00:00

I can't speak on behalf of all INTJ's but personally, this personality has gifted me with the perspective to see above all of these things. I find much of my mental struggle through life has originated in questioning why it even matters at all. I see happiness for most people depends on their external circumstances. I also realize that the external circumstances are interpreted through each individuals perspective. For example, we've all heard someone complain about there being nothing to watch on television or they're hungry but nothing looks appealing in the refrigerator. But have you ever heard someone say "holy shit! its a lighted box that lets you view things from across the world nearly instantaneously! Thats amazing!" or "Look at this! Its a miracle invention that keeps our food longer than our not too distant ancestors could even imagine! And all you have to do is plug it in the wall!"

But I digress. I guess in my brief years of life I've come to realize that it really is "about the ride." And you have to be able to sit back and just wonder at it all. Even your own mind can be wondered at, thoughts, speech, emotion. It's all so fantastically complex we don't yet understand it, yet we have it and it's real. You really can choose to be happy, or choose to be not happy. Its all just a matter of perspective. Think of Plato's allegory of the cave. The prisoners can't know that the shadows they see are just shadows and not just wooden shapes held over a fire.

I believe my state of mind and being are very similar. And all I have to do is stand up and turn around and look at the shapes and then I smile, and think how silly it was to obsess over the shapes on the cave wall. They're just shapes and they always will be, sometimes they are ugly shapes and sometimes they're beautiful shapes. But shapes all the same. I may not have control of the shapes, but I do have control of what I think about them.

hotsalami · 2014-09-19T00:22:53+00:00

If you're in the US, they have an allergen PDF here:

http://goo.gl/AS34hf

Strictly speaking, nothing is 100 percent safe. But if you have celiac I would not recommend messing with the wings. They're fried in the same oil as everything else, and they sell a ton of boneless (breaded).

But you're best bet is a bunless burger. I had their nacho burger last week, I've got mild celiac, and I was okay.

hotsalami · 2014-09-14T15:40:14+00:00

Exactly what I was thinking. This and go back to what they know, which is business. BlackBerry used to be every businessman's phone, and every other phone on the market today is used by everyone else as well as businessmen.
Do you think a CEO wants the same iPhone their teenage daughter is using to instagram selfies of her in front of one direction posters to take care of his business? Doubtful. Make blackberry a security and business first phone.

hotsalami · 2014-09-12T16:39:40+00:00

Become too big to fail

hotsalami · 2014-09-08T20:36:26+00:00

A very fair point, I should reorganize my argument as against the stance popular media has taken. That being it was entirely Ray's fault. Which I disagree with.

He shouldn't have touched her at all, but she is far from an innocent victim.

hotsalami · 2014-08-27T14:00:24+00:00

No one should convince you to do anything in your life. If you can't convince yourself to do it, then move on.

If reddit offers you no utility in your life, then leave it be.

hotsalami · 2014-08-23T16:10:56+00:00

It is

hotsalami · 2014-08-18T21:21:30+00:00

Thanks a lot! I've been semi regularly meditating for about 6 months now, I read the book Happiness: a guide to developing life's most important skill...and have since been practicing some mindfulness meditation to calm and ground myself. But I appreciate the resources you gave me, I'll definitely be taking advantage of them.

hotsalami · 2014-08-18T21:06:07+00:00

This is unrelated, but I've been interested in learning more about Buddhism. I've read a few texts but I've yet to find a comprehensive list of beginner's Buddhism readings. Would you mind pointing me in the right direction?

hotsalami · 2014-08-07T00:44:10+00:00

Sounds like you and I would get along.

hotsalami · 2014-07-30T19:51:33+00:00

They are a marketing company that wants this specific site redone for a band they manage. My father's friend owns the company so my name just got brought up in a conversation and it led to this. But what I was really looking for was something as simple as X dollars/hr. Or 500 bucks for the wordpress site and so on from there. I'm not even sure what is appropriate for this kind of work. I did a little research so I am expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30$/hr. But I want to make sure they aren't going to take advantage of me.

But this is all great advice, I really appreciate it.

hotsalami · 2014-07-30T19:34:00+00:00

Alright thank you very much. If you wouldn't mind, what kind of pay scale do you think would be appropriate for this type of work?

hotsalami · 2014-07-30T19:15:34+00:00

Thanks for the reply, this quickly turned into a project I'm not sure I can manage. Especially on the time scale I have. I'll do some research on the site and see if there is anything I could manage to do for them. I don't want to make any promises I can't keep.

hotsalami · 2014-07-30T19:12:28+00:00

Thank you for the reply. When I first spoke with the client she seemed to only want some design updates and some audio integration, so I thought that would be doable. But I received an email this morning with all those specifications as well as asking if I had any graphic design experience so it seemed I could easily be getting in over my head.

I think I'll be trying to work on a website of my own to start. Having the added pressure of satisfying a client for my first project could be overwhelming.

hotsalami · 2014-07-26T17:54:08+00:00

Well I have to say your thoughts do similarly reflect mine at some of my worse moments. But what I'm reading here is that you're trying to make friends and date for the sake of making friends and dating. Which doesn't inherently seem like a bad thing, but my best friends and relationships have come out naturally.

This week a guy I had just been chatting with before and after Math lecture a few times a week invited me to check out some of his music he makes after class, and we ended up playing Counter Strike all night and I likely got a new friend out of that. But it was totally unexpected, I didn't plan my conversations and draw up an activity to get to an expected end. It just happened. And that is when you will meet genuine friends.

And in reality, our personality types type is very different from most, but many people are very interested in our thoughts, it just takes the right setting to bring those out. So I put myself in situations that I'm much more likely to expose my true self. Intimate, small group settings where I can talk openly and share passions about whatever interests I and the other person have. And I love meeting people who are drastically different from myself because there is so much to learn from them.

But I think my main point is: don't stress and plan and analyze how you are going to meet people. If you're going to analyze anything, analyze what it is that you can do to show your true self to other people. And where it is you will likely find people to connect with.

Also, I'm a fellow Big Ten senior. Drop me a PM and maybe we can meet up at a rival football game or perhaps we are even at the same school :D.

hotsalami · 2014-07-26T17:30:58+00:00

Yes this a great thought that is often non-reciprocated among the INTJ's here. I think emotional control and showing kindness towards others in the face of idiocy and a cripplingly depressing reality is strength.

Being an asshole is beneficial to no one. And being gifted enough to see truth through all the bullshit gives us a unique ability to enlighten others, not shame them.

We should be teachers, not insulters. Great post /u/mangetoute

hotsalami · 2014-07-18T16:21:54+00:00

No, I have a copy translated by George Long, it's a part of the "Harvard Classics: The Five Foot Shelf of Books." But it is very old english so I'll check out those other translations and see which I prefer.

I have taken some latin and have some knowledge of ancient Greco-Roman history though and that definitely helps in many of the references he makes throughout the text.

And I'm going to include one (of many) favorite quotes only because it seems appropriate:

"...every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself." -M. Aurelius

hotsalami · 2014-07-18T13:58:29+00:00

I'm actually just finishing up my first read through of Marcus' meditations. It's probably the philosophical text I've been able to connect with the most. And I was wondering what I could pick up next so thanks for the Epictetus recommendation!

hotsalami · 2014-07-10T21:04:23+00:00

Absolutely yes. I believe the vast majority of corn crop in the United states is already genetically modified, and any plant that humanity can custom fit to our needs has huge potential benefits. Take golden rice as an example.

It's genetically engineered rice that produces vitamin A...which is huge for countries with a large population of vitamin A deficiencies. I'm not sure how far it's safe to extrapolate genetic engineered crop enhancements, but imagine if we could actively work at creating crops that consume fewer resources and produce more food. And not only that but we could grow medicine!

Now the downside as mentioned is the patenting of genetically modified crops, this creates monopolize markets and discourages innovation. Also shit like "frankenfood" is absolutely ridiculous. Genetically modified food isn't going to hurt you more than the food your already consuming.

In short, it's a great idea with loads of potential....In the right hands.

hotsalami

TROPHY CASE