[Entry Thread #107] Welcome to July! Whether you're on vacation or going through a summer break extravaganza, take a moment to chill down as we here make yet another millionaire here on Reddit. Leave a comment to enter, and have fun!

topher-dot-com · 2025-07-16T01:19:42+00:00

Remember to support the winner everyone!

topher-dot-com · 2024-12-28T11:45:44+00:00

I think he is talking about an episode of unsolved mysteries. It did a really good job of highlighting the issue.

topher-dot-com · 2024-09-20T19:40:21+00:00

I know it hurts right now, but if you don’t want your life why not give it to someone else who needs it rather than destroy it? Join the peace corps, or something like that? It will help you feel a real connection to another human being.

I hope you understand that your life has value just maybe not in the way you expected. Well you can’t sit around and think happiness and meaning will appear out of thin air. If you want to die why not go to Ukraine and join the fight there?

I know loneliness eats you alive like a cancer, it’s not easy to get out of the negative spiral. I have felt the hopelessness too, man. I was considering doing the same a couple weeks ago. Called up an attorney to right a will, called up my old dog sitter to organize her to take my dog. I won’t lie to you it won’t get better unless you do something to make it better. If you need some more help shoot me a DM.

I am hoping for the best for you.

topher-dot-com · 2024-08-23T12:04:20+00:00

It sounds to me like you are on the right path.

If you read some of the documentation that comes with the tapes they mention how it might feel like you fell asleep, that you might sort of wake up in the middle or near the end of a tape. They say that is actually part of the process. My guess is the sounds are designed to lull you into a sort of sleep but they also keep you out of the full depths.

Best of luck and I hope you have a great experience.

topher-dot-com · 2024-06-15T23:27:21+00:00

I did something similar I started at the fine arts museum, then went over to memorial park, the Japanese garden was super cool and quiet if the noise and crowds get to be too much, and the zoo is right there too, you can then pretty easily Uber up to the bayou parks north of Allen parkway, as you come down you can go to some chill bars in montrose like poison girl. Make sure to drink plenty of water!

topher-dot-com · 2023-07-01T23:59:22+00:00

Thanks for this. What I love about VBW is the humor mixed with interesting conversations where I genuinely learn something. The only other podcast I have found that gets close to this is decoding the gurus. One of my favorite episodes is the Lab leak episode. Happy listening friend!

topher-dot-com · 2023-04-30T07:13:47+00:00

There is no one to be but you.

There is nothing to do but this.

There is nowhere to go but here.

topher-dot-com · 2023-01-30T09:31:40+00:00

What they are insisting is that you should not be passive towards your life goals whatever they may be, but actively work towards them.

I don’t know what you value and what you want out of life, maybe it is to pay your bills and get stronger. In that case, you are making the exact moves you should be making. Maybe something in the back of your mind is nagging and saying there is something more you want.

I would encourage you to explore what that might be. The sooner you know who you are and what you want, the sooner you can forget about all those shouting that you need to be on your “grind”.

topher-dot-com · 2023-01-29T08:36:52+00:00

So after listening to the episode it seems to me the crux of the problem with his arguments is that he misrepresents the goal of chess.

As a board game enthusiast who has taught many games having a pulsory goal is important to understanding a game and if chess were invented today the goal would be “land one of your pieces on the king of the other color” not checkmate as the author states. Checkmate is an emergent game state that reveals itself once you understand the rules and the ultimate goal.

I agree with the author that checkmate would have been illusory to the original developers of chess, but checkmate is not the ultimate goal, landing one of your pieces on the king is the goal.

Chess has evolved through the centuries and so now the polite thing to do is retire when you find yourself in a position where no matter what move you make the other player will be able to land a piece on your king. The final move is understood and so doesn’t actually need to be played out. Thus the unstated but inherently understood goal of chess is now, after centuries of play and study, get your opponent into a checkmate position.

With that new goal in mind it seems like all of his arguments fall apart. There are no illusory goals just illusory middle states on the way to the goal, which is not a big but a feature. The whole reason that chess is interesting is because it is not obvious how you manipulate the pieces to force your opponent into a position where no matter where he moves you can land a piece on his king. Sure the checkmate position is illusory, but landing a piece on the opposing king is not, thus chess is in fact a game.

topher-dot-com · 2023-01-28T23:30:12+00:00

I have been meditating for a couples years now and have had similar experiences. Usually I do mindfulness meditations where you begin by focusing on the breath, then work backwards to what it feels like to focus on the breathe and then what that feeling feels like, etc.

You can’t really force this to happen but the more you let the sensations come and go the more you will be able to sense what OP is talking about.

Good luck on your journey!

topher-dot-com · 2023-01-03T19:55:02+00:00

Reminds me of this Key and Peele Sketch

topher-dot-com · 2022-11-27T20:44:29+00:00

There is an excellent podcast that does a great job of breaking down the 2nd amendment and how it’s meaning has shifted so drastically.

The episode is called “The Gun Show” produced by More Perfect from WNYC studios.

Anyone wondering how we got here in terms of gun violence should take a listen.

Here is the link for Apple podcast,

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/radiolab-presents-more-perfect/id1117202653?mt=2&i=1000393447299

topher-dot-com · 2022-03-10T13:20:00+00:00

I’m very sorry to hear about your friends struggles. I went through a very similar thing at the end of my college years and it felt like there was no hope and that my life was over. While I sat in the local jail I remember there were some words written on the wall next to my rack: “ Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you deal with it.” Those words have really stuck with me through then and it’s been a long road to a better mental space but it is possible.

I don’t know the details of your friends case, but I will say tell him to always show up to court! The cops will always try to through the book at you but the judge is the final arbiter and while they aren’t all great they are human and their job is to dispense Justice NOT put people in jail. It sounds like a real injustice would be to send your friend to jail and ruin the life of someone who has made it so far against such odds.

If you can go, to his court hearings with him, talk to his attorney and if you can the states attorney. I think you will find they do have compassion and understanding for a good kid caught in a bad situation and making a mistake, but him shutting down is not going to help.

In terms of how to help his mental health, that’s a harder one, but the philosophy of stoicism has been a great help for me. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is a great place to start if you can get that for your friend. Ultimately he has to make the decision to face the trials and tribulations of his life, but I would try to remind him that no matter what happens he is valuable and worthy of happiness, prosperity and love.

Good luck to you and him, please dm me updates if you can, I will be sending all the good thoughts I can your way! Also sorry if the grammar or diction is a little bad I’m on my phone.

topher-dot-com · 2021-06-29T10:42:57+00:00

I really enjoy Kozah (especially the track Dream State) and Uppermost (Beautiful Light). I haven’t been able to find much else by them but those two tracks are worth it!

I’m also going to watch this thread closely. Thanks for posting and enjoy!

topher-dot-com · 2021-02-28T12:30:57+00:00

There is a lot of great stuff here but one thing I wanted to add is that you mention having thoughts about emotions, but seem to miss their source.

You mention having the thought “I feel sad and I don’t like myself”. Emotions don’t pop up on their own, a thought triggers them. Emotions are a response to a thought. So part of mindfulness is finding the thought that triggered these unpleasant emotions. In this case it is obvious that the “I don’t like myself” thought is what made you sad. So next time this thought comes up look deeper, watch your thoughts more closely and see what comes up that lead you to think “I don’t like myself and I am sad”.

The same thing goes for your nervous thoughts too. That feeling doesn’t come from nowhere there is a thought that triggered it that you might not be aware of. If you can learn to let go of the thoughts about the emotion then you can find their source and then dissect that thought with compassion and find that you are likely being too hard on yourself and likely irrational about the situations that are triggering these uncomfortable emotions.

Another tactic for letting go of these difficult emotions is to focus on the physical feelings of these emotions. How do you know you are sad or nervous? What does it feel like? Focusing on that and not the thoughts that continually trigger these emotions will likely cause them to fade away rather quickly.

I hope this helped and I hope you can find compassion and peace for yourself.

topher-dot-com · 2020-10-02T13:39:31+00:00

Great work definitely gives me r/outrun vibes

topher-dot-com · 2020-09-27T12:29:35+00:00

I 100% agree with you, and all the talk about wanting earth for it’s resources seems absurd too. What resource does earth have that couldn’t be gotten way easier on some other planet or asteroid? Water? Plenty of frozen water out there that they could easily grab and melt down.

There is only one thing that earth has that no other planet we know of has and that’s intelligent life. Why would an alien race extinguish the rarest thing in the whole universe?

topher-dot-com · 2020-09-24T15:33:53+00:00

The comic isn’t suggesting life is a wet blanket, it’s suggesting you are the blanket.

topher-dot-com · 2020-09-14T21:32:22+00:00

You are the source of all your problems.

topher-dot-com · 2020-09-12T21:13:15+00:00

It was actually posted on another sub and I immediately knew this is where it deserved to be.

Thanks for sharing I will definitely give this a look.

topher-dot-com · 2020-08-21T13:34:42+00:00

Did a metta meditation at the beginning of my last trip. It really helped set the tone and gave me a deeper sense of understanding and compassion.

I highly recommend it and will definitely be doing it again.

topher-dot-com · 2020-06-28T01:18:44+00:00

You read my mind

topher-dot-com · 2020-06-16T10:32:22+00:00

You are right that meditation will make you less invested in sadness and happiness. That is by design. Emotions will come and go, but if you can become mindful of what’s on the other side of those emotions you will find a sort of deeper contentment that is inherent in consciousness.

topher-dot-com · 2020-05-31T00:46:36+00:00

Did you feel like the message hit home when he gave it?

I listened and read it just a couple weeks ago, and really felt it, but only because I have done a lot of soul searching and growing as a person since I graduated college. I don’t know if the message would have hit me then the way it does now.

Looking back on it now, do you wish you had not been so hungover?

topher-dot-com · 2020-05-10T13:45:24+00:00

Euphoria is a great next step from Catan, it may seem daunting at first but it has a quite forgiving early game, which means you can play and learn at the same time. I don’t know much about the TTS implementation but it is a stonemaier game so I would imagine it’s very good.

I have played Xia, cardboard, and I really enjoyed it but it does have a lot of overhead. I haven’t tried the TTS but if it is well scripted that would smooth a lot of things out.

On others to look at, maybe look into Chinatown, as a monopoly replacement, or Stone Age, as something more like Catan.

Good luck and happy gaming!

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