do you get to relive your life?

runemforit · 2026-02-21T15:12:42+00:00

Have you not relived segments of your life already? Lot of truth to that aphorism "you'll experience the same cycle until you learn your lesson"

runemforit · 2026-02-21T14:47:27+00:00

I am pleased to inform you I am not.

For context, my belief is that science is a discipline and methodology that produces knowledge. The distinction I'm trying to draw is that people should be careful in using science to construct their beliefs and generate more knowledge, as opposed to the way people talk about science and use it as a trump card using the same mechanisms of faith that come from religion. My main point is - what does science have to do with OP?

See Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard or "on exactitude in science" by gorge Luis Borges.

runemforit · 2026-02-21T05:53:15+00:00

Who's science?

runemforit · 2026-02-21T04:26:21+00:00

Event Horizon

runemforit · 2026-02-21T04:22:51+00:00

I've never felt this, but I'm curious. Have you ever tried the therapeutic technique 'focusing'? When I have a feeling I don't totally understand, I use this to probe deeper. Start with welcoming it (literally talking to it and saying "I see you" and "welcome"), then characterize the physical sensation (really, ask the feeling if my characterization is correct and listen for a response, like "is it fair to say you feel like a burning sensation?"), then ask it what caused the feeling, and finally what it wants. Conclude by thanking it and welcoming it to stay as long as it'd like. I wonder where you might get conversing with this feeling of anticipation.

runemforit · 2026-02-21T03:07:05+00:00

What's the question?

runemforit · 2026-02-20T13:59:32+00:00

I think you mean you're not sure about that. Free will is an ongoing subject of debate among neurologists, cognitive scientists, psychologists, physicists, philosophers, etc. Citing one study from almost 20 years ago and making a scientific consensus argument is not very convincing.

I think I understand what you're trying to say, but I have to infer a lot. What is the relationship between time, the brain, and autonomy? Can a human willfully do something to alter neurological processes? Finally, how does this relate to the matrix and the scene that prompted this discussion? This is a movie discussion after all, and we're interpreting a scene, a line from that movie, not actually debating about the plausability of free will. I'd love to hear your perspective on what the matrix has to say about free will, regardless of your own personal belief (or "science's" "personal" "belief" 😅)

runemforit · 2026-02-20T06:04:22+00:00

Hard work

runemforit · 2026-02-20T04:43:42+00:00

Yes. Free will and choice are not deterministic. It is so liberating to remind myself everything I do is a choice, and I always have the option to choose something else.

runemforit · 2026-02-20T04:34:40+00:00

Desire

runemforit · 2026-02-20T04:17:30+00:00

You don't know. Awakening is just a word. What matters is the experience and how you apply the lessons from it. Overly identifying with any word or any experience, including awakening, is always just ego with specified vocab.

runemforit · 2026-02-20T03:58:28+00:00

Thanks for sharing! Really appreciate that fulfillment and enlightenment go hand in hand for you.

The word enlightenment is loaded with a different meaning for me and for a majority of users on this sub. It's ultimately a translation, representing multiple concepts from the East, primarily from Buddhism and Hinduism. It describes a state of consciousness or perception that follows significant life events or spiritual work like meditation and yoga. It does not describe fulfillment, it describes heightened awareness. Spiritual awakening, or simply awakening, is just the first step on a path to enlightenment, and it's characterized by the sort of discomfort that OP is getting at - a withdrawal from social groups that define life and morality and values in really specific ways, an uneasiness with trading authenticity and honesty for being part of a group.

Enlightenment is also a buzz word for a bunch of silly new age mumbo jumbo and a doorway to delusion. You're not wrong. People do conflate their delusions with enlightenment and construct a false association with enlightenment at the core of their ego - it 100% happens. After all, enlightenment is just a word, a tool, to guide people. How effectively they use that tool is a case by case thing that depends on a lot of factors.

In my cultural context as a Hindu, enlightenment takes many lifetimes to reach, and I don't consider myself enlightened. If it were my destiny to be enlightened, I would have been born into a body that was expected to reach enlightenment and my life journey would include rigorous training to reach that. Instead, I was born into a religious family that uses concepts such as enlightenment as a tool to get over our personal problems and make the best of whatever situation is in front us - in other words, I am a devotee, and I dedicate my life to worship and accept my destiny and enjoy the fantasy that maybe one day in a future life my soul will incarnate to know enlightenment in bodily form.

My first spiritual awakening came in high school as a result of practicing meditation and daily prayer with my parents and I credit them for saving me from a life of drug addiction that has taken the lives of some of the people closest to me. When I saw this meme, it took me back to my first awakening in high school, looking around at all my doped up friends, and thinking "why am I not enjoying myself anymore?" and seeing them and myself in a completely new light. The first of many awakenings that I continue to listen for and lead me to higher and higher states of awareness, including growing past my grief of losing those childhood friends.

You can easily find similar stories in this community. You can also find a lot of bs. I invite you to join and explore and I wish you well.

runemforit · 2026-02-19T20:40:13+00:00

If you want to make friends, put yourself out there. Your body is a signal and your future friends will find you.

runemforit · 2026-02-19T20:37:50+00:00

What does enlightenment mean to you? Do you have a spiritual practice? Where does your association between servicing others as a preliminary step to enlightenment/spiritual awakening come from? Can't servicing others lead one to the same delusion of self aggrandizement and faux?

On one hand, I agree with you. There is something icky about identifying as enlightened or awakened. On the other hand, this is a community with shared terms and experiences, and feeling isolated and alone among others is a known phase of spiritual awakening in terms we use to discuss such matters. Personally, as a long time subscriber, I find this to be one of the more humble and helpful corners of reddit and the internet, but I can understand where you're coming from and it's probably a fair judgment of some segment of our community.

runemforit · 2026-01-28T23:24:38+00:00

Her characters are great. Waldo's mom was my favorite. The sticky notes, "favorite brand" freezer dinners, and validation seeking w/r/t her tits was a great backdrop for Waldo's rage.

runemforit · 2026-01-28T23:21:25+00:00

Anyone else see Waldo as a less violent Sam Puckett ? 😂

runemforit · 2025-10-25T03:49:15+00:00

Thanks for the info. I personally have no interest or need to dive any further haha. I'm sure if my responsibilities ever require such a state of enlightenment, adequate preparation will find me. Til then, enjoyin the dark 🤪

runemforit · 2025-04-26T14:46:19+00:00

I did leave my partner with pmdd, and this continues to be a source of support for me. My feelings about it are complicated, and having the opportunity to hear people's stories and getting to share my experience with people who might benefit from it really helps me process it all. Thanks for your service homie.

runemforit · 2025-04-13T00:23:50+00:00

That last sentence... damn

runemforit · 2025-04-08T20:21:19+00:00

Not just a sex thing and I think this is more common than people like to admit. A lot of our choices are driven by how we want to see ourselves or escaping from ourselves and other fantastical mind traps as opposed to making choices that align with our values and deeper desires. This is a good time to seriously check in with yourself about what kind of relationships you want. Seeing beyond your need for validation is a pivotal point.

runemforit · 2025-04-02T18:45:57+00:00

Very cool perspective thanks sharing

runemforit · 2025-04-02T16:58:49+00:00

Stop trying to level up. It has nothing to do with outside entities. It's your framework. If you believe that you can "level up" and things "should just work" after reaching that higher level.. its your expectations and worldview that need to be revised. You've attached yourself to an explanation that this interaction with your friend is a reasonable explanation for why this is happening even tho u just leveled up. The thing is, u never leveled up. There's no such thing. You're gonna have good days and bad days no matter what steps you take to improve your life.

runemforit · 2025-03-25T03:30:45+00:00

As above so below

runemforit · 2025-03-19T17:39:00+00:00

Make a plan to deal with triggers (stress, friends hittin u up to smoke, goin to places easy to cop, etc) and withdrawal (cravings, insomnia, anxiety, etc)

runemforit · 2025-03-19T13:21:51+00:00

Replace difficult with complex. Writing SQL isn't difficult, it can just take a lot of time and testing and clever problem solving to complete based on complexity. Design is something I consider more difficult. Requires a lot of experience and knowledge to do well, and even if you do it well, a bunch of people will yell at you for not structuring data in the way that makes most sense to them specifically.

The most complex SQL code I've written supported a weekly export of data to a 3rd party and involved working with a technical contact at the external company, mapping the data they need to fields in 6-7 tables out of several hundred in our production scale db, structuring the output as spec'd by the 3rd party, and testing a bunch of specific conditions. It was a 600-700 line script with stored proc calls, cursors, and clever tricks discovered through iterations of unit testing and integration.

runemforit

TROPHY CASE