When You Feel Like Giving Up

[Mike]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=XICqcAac9jg

I've had several topics I've wanted to discuss, all floating thru my mind in a way that wasn't quite coherent enough to post in any reasonable way. And every time I tried to connect them in a way that would make for a good thread, I'd just get a headache.

Enter Jordan Peterson: lecturer, clinical psychologist and college professor. I spose I am drinking the Peterson cool aid lately, but the guy has a way of connecting all these seemingly separate things in a way that appeals to this part of me that demands tidiness and a pretty bow on top of everything.

The title of the video is "when you feel like giving up", which is pretty self explanatory. It's inspirational, but not in a flaky, everything-is-gonna-be-ok way. There's quite a bit to unpack in this video (which is really a compilation of his lectures and interviews), and if you folks show some interest in doing that, I think we can have a great discussion. If not, simply watch and enjoy.

[Valerie Villars]

"And every time I tried to connect them in a way that would make for a good thread, I'd just get a headache."


Oh my God, Mike. You are just too funny. I feel the same way, way too often. I'll have a look.

[RunningDeer]

Jordan Peterson YouTube Channel

WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE GIVING UP! - JORDAN PETERSON [INSPIRING]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=XICqcAac9jg

[Mike]

Paula to the rescue. Thanks

(I'm operating from my phone - I can copy and paste links, but I'm not quite sure how to post the video like that.)

[RunningDeer]

Two different ways to add a YouTube vid:

1) Highlight Youtube address and then click on Youtube icon in menu.

2) Type a tag in front and on the backend of the address. No space between tags and address.

♡

PS Feel free to delete post.

Posted by Mike (here)
Paula to the rescue. Thanks

(I'm operating from my phone - I can copy and paste links, but I'm not quite sure how to post the video like that.)

[Mike]

Alright, let's add a little order to this thread...(or at least try) Here we go:

Initially I wanted to say something about dominance hierarchies and our relative position in them as they relate to over sensitivity and a propensity to always be in crisis...and how this ties in with issues of engagism and escapism. I'll start there and see where it takes me..

(oh boy, I can already hear the collective groan haha. Mike is going to lecture about over sensitivity and personal responsibility again...run! What happened?...you used to be funny!)

There will be a little bit of that for context, but I promise to not harp on it.

It's interesting - when I first registered here in 2011 and began making a few friends, I quickly realized one thing: it seems everyone here is always in some sort of crisis. (including me!)

Was it some remarkable coincidence??? Or was it something deeper? The conspiracy theorist in us is tempted to write it off as psychic tampering, or electronic harassment, or this or that. Those things are real, but they also act as intellectual road blocks for those who don't want to look a little deeper, and begin to take personal responsibility for the circumstances of their lives.

The truth can be a terrible thing, but burying it and not facing it will only amplify it's power and cause you 10 times the grief. For the individual in crisis, the main problem with facing the truth is, you first have to admit how far you've fallen. This can be enormously difficult, and traumatic. It's humbling. Also, to acknowledge this is also to become acutely aware of all the time and energy and planning that may be required to solve this crisis. And for the emotionally strained individual, this seems way too much to handle...

...so they indulge escapism if they succumb to this overwhelming wave of responsibility they had been ignoring for so long. Escapism takes on many forms, like drinking and drugs...but also conspiracy. The paranormal. Spiritualism. The so called alternative community if rife with escape artists. Delusionals. They're everywhere. You, the reader, may even be one. I've been one, and often times still am one! (Why sit here and and plan mundane ways to improve my life when I can drink a beer and watch Mothman videos?)

The archetypal heroic journey involves courageously facing the unknown and returning to articulate it. This is what the individual that engages reality/crisis does. But he's smart; he breaks it all up into little pieces. He humbles himself and begins with seemingly silly micro habits, like cleaning his room. He is aware he is on a high wire, and has the discipline to not look down. He quite literally takes it one step at a time.. These small steps/victories begin to pile up, and over time result in bigger and greater victories. In this way, his personal power amplifies.

Notice, he is doing practical things, things that have utility. He is slowly but surely stopping the behaviors and habits that are harmful and replacing them with goal oriented, seemingly mundane things. It can be incredibly tedious, but he embraces the discipline when he sees it working. He is not consulting psychics, hypnotists, or past life regressionists; nor does he spend his precious time reading dusty old books from the "occult" section of the local used book store(that last one is a terrible habit of mine). Sure,there is a time and a place for those things, but this isn't it - crisis demands a more pragmatic approach.

It's crucial to articulate your goals to yourself, and set up a strategy for success. You must have a specific definition for success, because if you don't you'll never know if you've attained it. Some people prefer this - they stay deliberately foggy and vague so as to avoid the responsibility of goal setting. They fear failure, but here's the thing - if you don't set specific goals, you're failing all the time.

...and this often involves a schedule btw. I know, more tedium...but this type of tedium multiplied can result in greatness.

When you are at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy, you will have a very sensitive reaction to negative emotions - you will avoid them like the plague. This makes sense when you think about it. Being at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy doesn't just mean you're broke or have very little money...it often implies you may live in an unsafe area; maybe you can't afford a vehicle; maybe you're divorced, or have been recently fired. This makes you impulsive, susceptible to bad habits like drugs, drinking, or smoking. Or worse! Poor choices follow, and this creates a loop whereby you remain at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy.

Like I said earlier, when I started here (and up till now) I couldn't help but notice that most of us are sorta poor and usually in some kind of crisis. And when your whole world could bottom out at any moment, you are going to have an extremely strong reaction to negative emotions. In other words, you are going to be too sensitive. (I spoke quite a bit about this in a thread i started recently...about how overly sensitive people cannot communicate honestly due to avoiding any topic that may make them uneasy, etc, and how this results in superficially nice people and soft, unproductive dialogue)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote a book about the Stalinist forced labor camps called "The Gulag Archipelago". He was in those forced labor camps for many years, and they were beyond brutal. He had a lot of time to think in there, and his epiphany occurred when he began looking for ways in which he himself was responsible for his current conditions. This was all during world war 2, and he had Stalin and Hitler to blame if he so chose, and he would have been perfectly entitled to that. But looking over the details of his life with a fine toothed comb, he came to the conclusion that he was personably responsible for being there...that there were ways he could have avoided his fate had he taken certain actions.

So, I was hoping to discuss..

1) why are we in the alt community so poor? lol (making $ has always been a sort of taboo thing in the alt community. we find all sorts of reasons to avoid making the effort, hiding behind things like spiritualism and sanctimony and "the game being rigged" etc. in other words, nihilism. but i maintain we all have a personal responsibility to make money, to carry our weight so to speak, for the very simple reason that if you don't, someone else has to do it for you....which has endless ramfications and could be a thread of its own.
2) why are we always in crisis?
3) how much of that is our responsibility? and how should we proceed in relation to that?
4) are we attempting to engage reality by being here, or are we attempting to escape it?



p.s. If anyone actually reads this entire post I will be f#cking shocked And fair enough! - this is precisely the type of post i tend to avoid, honestly )

[ErtheVessel]

Thanks for this thread, Mike. I'm glad you're asking these thought-provoking questions.

For me, I believe that the world outside of me will not change until I change myself, on some core internal level, and that I am responsible for the life I live in the deepest possible way. The world I live in inevitably reflects back to me the secrets of my own soul and the places I need to grow, if I will only look.

In my experience what you're talking about includes rigorous yet compassionate self-reflection and self-honesty and an awareness of the principles of projection and how easy it is to project onto others outside of us the things inside our own selves that we cannot face. And more stuff that I can't quite find the words for right now.

And yet, this is not t say that people are not being victimized and brutalized unfairly. Complicated stuff.

I will sleep on this and see if I am able to make more sense tomorrow.

[Mike]

Posted by ErtheVessel (here)
Thanks for this thread, Mike. I'm glad you're asking these thought-provoking questions.

For me, I believe that the world outside of me will not change until I change myself, on some core internal level, and that I am responsible for the life I live in the deepest possible way. The world I live in inevitably reflects back to me the secrets of my own soul and the places I need to grow, if I will only look.

In my experience what you're talking about includes rigorous yet compassionate self-reflection and self-honesty and an awareness of the principles of projection and how easy it is to project onto others outside of us the things inside our own selves that we cannot face. And more stuff that I can't quite find the words for right now.

And yet, this is not t say that people are not being victimized and brutalized unfairly. Complicated stuff.

I will sleep on this and see if I am able to make more sense tomorrow.

Ah, well said! Thanks for this ErtheVessel.

There has been a feel goody, self esteem trend for quite some time, that "you're just fine the way you are"...when many people are pretty far from fine!

In order to improve, i think we need to acknowledge the disaster we've become. And we acknowledge that yes, it is our fault, and in doing so we empower ourselves to change.

Realizing that we are at fault is the most liberating msg, in my view, because that means we can do something about it. If it's someone or something doing it to us, we are pretty powerless.

I am a realist...and like you said, some people are victimized and brutalized unfairly. It needs to be acknowledged. But if Solzhenitsyn can find personal blame for being throw in the gulags, then surely we can assume some responsibility for most of the events in our lives, I should think.

I especially like what you said about changing yourself first, before attempting to change the outside world. it starts with the individual, in my view. That's why Peterson's suggestion to "clean up your room" has become such a popular internet meme - if you can't even clean up your room, what business do you have criticizing the outside world?

[Oddball]

deleted for posterity.

[Foxie Loxie]

Hey, Mike! Since I have been off line for two weeks it kind of gives me a fresh perspective on Avalon. Life was BORING without it!

In my own case, I can state that I was "led" to Avalon at a specific time in my life so that I might find the answers I was seeking after an entire lifetime spent within a tiny little religious box that ruined my life.

Don't quite understand what you mean about being "in crisis". We are each in our own particular "situation" at the time of our awakening. In my case, I had totally accepted the brainwashing of my childhood thinking if I followed that path everything would be fine! WRONG!

One great lesson I learned is that it is not possible to change other people! Funny thing is....once one begins the changes within one's own self, readjusting one's personal values,
these "others" seem to pull away from us & as the levels on which we used to operate simply are not there! That's o.k

For this reason we DO need Avalon; a place where we CAN relate to others who are no longer bound by conventional thinking & willing to explore other avenues of thought. What's great about Avalon is that we can do so in a civil, polite manner.

We have each come through our own peculiar set of circumstances which means that each of us can contribute in a unique manner to "the whole" for the benefit of all. I'd say that this is a pretty Special Place & we should be very thankful that Bill chose to create it!

As for "being poor".....I find nothing shameful in that, especially after having my eyes opened. The "riches" we have here on Avalon far surpass any material wealth, in my opinion.
Good thread you have started, I'll be interested to read others' replies!

Learning that I AM an Eternal, Sovereign Being is what "set me free", allowing the chains of slavery to drop off!!

YeeeHaaa! Much Love to All!!

[RunningDeer]

There’s a lot to unpack in your post, Mike… Here’s bits and pieces of what I’ve done and continue to do.

Life is as unpredictable as I am. We’ve become great buddies. We time-share this crazy earth space.
................................

Poverty, the kind that is a state of mind… is quicksand. Where, what and how am I allowing another or a situation to suck me down?

A crisis to some is a challenge for others to engage in problem solving, action and resolution. Each opportunity is a classroom of potentiality to follow through. Over time one discovers how to listen to the higher senses and work in tandem with them.

Life is self responsibility; engage life as an empowered individual. Life is down to earth and practical. Life is movement and action and out growth and in-growth and technique and expansion in evolution of self with best self.

Get the job done and be open to the subtle knowings. Stay open to and reach beyond potentiality to the innate gifts, richness and beauty within.

♡

[Mike]

Hi Foxie, I'm glad you're back!

I don't really feel any shame for being poor either; I just find it curious that a great majority of us are struggling that way. Not too long ago I'd started a thread on oversensitivity, and here I was trying to make the connection between holding low positions on the dominance hierarchy and how that makes one susceptible to crisis, oversensitivity, and impractical/unhealthy habits and escapism.

What do I mean by crisis? Gosh, when I first started here, quite a few of the people I met didn't work; they were being supported by the state for one reason or another (btw, I'm not ridiculing them! Sh!t happens. I get it!) And it seemed something was always happening with their bi weekly checks - they were late, short a few bucks, or being held up on some weird technicality. Many were divorced, single Mom's, living in unsafe areas. Their world was always right at the verge of bottoming out, which made them overly sensitive(understandably so) and impulsive and prone to bad habits. Crisis.

One friend of mine who is long gone now once said to me while all this was going on "i just can't navigate this world man". That stayed with me somehow. He was having a mini breakdown simply because he had to appear in court. Of course it was much more than that - he was extremely sensitive to any sort of controversy because he was on the bottom of the dominance hierarchy. Everything seemed like a crisis to him, even simply appearing in court. It was the result of a lifetime ofnot taking personal responsibility for himself.

These are just a few examples. But I could give you endless examples of crisis. Of course, not everyone here is in crisis. But there's certainly a trend.

And I think, when one winds up at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy, instead of doing the rigorous self examination and tedious, practical self improvement necessary, there is a tendency to escape into things like conspiracy research, or woo woo.

I mean, that's precisely what I've done, and still continue to do in weaker moments.

[Mike]

Posted by RunningDeer (here)
There’s a lot to unpack in your post, Mike… Here’s bits and pieces of what I’ve done and continue to do.

Life is as unpredictable as I am. We’ve become great buddies. We time-share this crazy earth space.
................................

Poverty, the kind that is a state of mind… is quicksand. Where, what and how am I allowing another or a situation to suck me down?

A crisis to some is a challenge for others to engage in problem solving, action and resolution. Each opportunity is a classroom of potentiality to follow through. Over time one discovers how to listen to the higher senses and work in tandem with them.

Life is self responsibility; engage life as an empowered individual. Life is down to earth and practical. Life is movement and action and out growth and in-growth and technique and expansion in evolution of self with best self.

Get the job done and be open to the subtle knowings. Stay open to and reach beyond potentiality to the innate gifts, richness and beauty within.

♡

You know something - I was feeling very tense while writing the stuff in this thread, sort of militaristic and quite serious....and the energy of your post just completely disarmed me It's relaxed me a little, so thanks for that (I needed it)

[Flash]

Posted by Mike (here)
Hi Foxie, I'm glad you're back!

I don't really feel any shame for being poor either; I just find it curious that a great majority of us are struggling that way. Not too long ago I'd started a thread on oversensitivity, and here I was trying to make the connection between holding low positions on the dominance hierarchy and how that makes one susceptible to crisis, oversensitivity, and impractical/unhealthy habits and escapism.

What do I mean by crisis? Gosh, when I first started here, quite a few of the people I met didn't work; they were being supported by the state for one reason or another (btw, I'm not ridiculing them! Sh!t happens. I get it!) And it seemed something was always happening with their bi weekly checks - they were late, short a few bucks, or being held up on some weird technicality. Many were divorced, single Mom's, living in unsafe areas. Their world was always right at the verge of bottoming out, which made them overly sensitive(understandably so) and impulsive and prone to bad habits. Crisis.

One friend of mine who is long gone now once said to me while all this was going on "i just can't navigate this world man". That stayed with me somehow. He was having a mini breakdown simply because he had to appear in court. Of course it was much more than that - he was extremely sensitive to any sort of controversy because he was on the bottom of the dominance hierarchy. Everything seemed like a crisis to him, even simply appearing in court. It was the result of a lifetime ofnot taking personal responsibility for himself.

These are just a few examples. But I could give you endless examples of crisis. Of course, not everyone here is in crisis. But there's certainly a trend.

And I think, when one winds up at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy, instead of doing the rigorous self examination and tedious, practical self improvement necessary, there is a tendency to escape into things like conspiracy research, or woo woo.

I mean, that's precisely what I've done, and still continue to do in weaker moments.

entirely agree with you Mike, I am guilty of the same.

However, I must say that with time, I filtered the real woo from the imagined woo woo, and did learn quite a lot. I also had to learn to filter emotional upheavals from different us, givne some times or life happenings.

But, even if I have been in very dire life circumstances (I still can't believe at times what i went through, and mostly cannot tell because it is crazy - and not necessarily conspiracies), I do have a strong mind and although sensitive, I do manage my emotions most of the time, and therefore I could manage the filtering, I think. Many people just cannot.

One key may be taking full responsibilities for oneself and for those we are the care takers, plus strong mind and will, paired with emotional control.

However, I post a lot when alone, lonely, or when I do not have a job, or a boyfriend (I do not know why both are equivalent in time spent) lollllllll.

[Mike]

Hi Flash, excellent stuff.

Another key might be, as Peterson says, treating yourself like you matter.

Of course that requires personal responsibility. I've got a friend who's favorite excuse to anything is "who cares, I'll likely be dead in 5 years anyway." By treating himself as if he doesn't matter, he has escaped any and all responsibility for his actions.

I think we have a personal responsibility to treat ourselves like we matter, because it reverberates into the world. Plus, if you treat yourself like you don't matter, you'll likely treat others even worse. If one continually pathalogizes oneself, one pathalogizes the world....like a ripple effect.

[Flash]

1) why are we in the alt community so poor? lol (making $ has always been a sort of taboo thing in the alt community. we find all sorts of reasons to avoid making the effort, hiding behind things like spiritualism and sanctimony and "the game being rigged" etc. in other words, nihilism. but i maintain we all have a personal responsibility to make money, to carry our weight so to speak, for the very simple reason that if you don't, someone else has to do it for you....which has endless ramfications and could be a thread of its own.

I lived in one of the most taxed place in the world. So taxed that tax evasion has become a must, if you can.

Why? because we have a social blanket covering all the needs of the needies, that is frankly quite good. However, this blanket is very badly managed by incompetent bureaucrats, who sometimes do not deserve their salary and who will not want to change even under an atomic bomb.

So, part of the society became passive - I understand a mother who had a sick child and need time off to take care of him to rely on society, although it was the case with me and did not rely on society.

I understand someone sick, unable to work, relying on some help to go through and sincerely, I DO NOT understand that health care is not free all over the planet, this is as basic as water and does put families on the street if they cannot afford it.

However, I have seen so many passive people, from generation to generation, eating from my taxes, in fact from me in a quite direct way, me, a single mom who had to raise an handicap child while working 70 hours a week, which made me physically sick (not able to take care of my body for lack of time), and me who paid for the alternative treatments of that child all along, it makes me sick to have paid heavy taxes for the lazy bunch.

In there you have those who simply will not work, those who emigrated in Canada to profit from the system, those who work under the table while pocketing the welfare gorvernment money, all those, I supported.

Having had only half the money I gave away in the highest taxes in the world would have made my retirement at least honorable and with living conditions called fine (not wealthy, just fine).

Instead, I am still thinking of ways of making money - while being the subject of jalousy from those who exploited the welfare system. They have no way of understanding how much one can work or how much one can take care of oneself by oneself.

my rant is over, now I will try to enjoy my life nevertheless.

And yes, I matter, certainly as much as all those welfare bums (not the real needy ones, but the exploiters and self reliance deniers)

My daughter mattered more than I did for years, the parent's dutie and love... now my turn arrived. I wish I had a bit more money though.

[shaberon]

One living disaster here. It's everyone else's fault, especially those pesky teachers who told me that I would have this wonderful bright golden future, and...no, of course it's not their fault. They provided a lousy environment in which themselves were ignorant pawns. Sentient beings are weak, ignorant, helpless. They suffer because of me. There is no escape.

When young, it is a bit easier to access "internal feel good energies" and have a feeling of total accomplishment, but this really has no foundation. The seeds and causes of every unhappy and violent thing are still there. Can't wish it away.

1) why are we in the alt community so poor?

At one point in time, my ancestors walked away from hereditary wealth to participate in the American colonies, revolt against the British, campaign on the anti-Federalist platform, and then attempt to live as simple farmers who did not like banks. Consequentially, my last great farming ancestor died with his furniture stuffed with cash, and I don't know where it went. I have been unable to replace it. The "working world" attempted to kill me. I've watched it generationally go down the tubes from landowners to people with nothing. Medical bills taking everything. Inability of employed people to get by. Wealth was removed in precisely the way the Revolutionaries were fighting against.

2) why are we always in crisis?

Hardly anyone ever listened to me. When I have looked to see what their "superior" point of view was, it never consisted of anything other than laziness and personal wants. That appears to be the "Juggernaut" placed in the way of understanding. If this is not done, there is no crisis. As with #1, this has been thrust into society intentionally. At the same time, we can use this to become stronger; a "crisis" for one person might not even get my attention any more.

3) how much of that is our responsibility? and how should we proceed in relation to that?

90%. There must be something inside me that draws and binds to various kinds of crisis-maker. Sometimes, the whole world is just "one's own" subconscious talking. I often reflect on Shantideva's thesis that, "Because of You, I am going to become a Buddha and purify infinite realms. Because of Me, You will fall through the hells and suffer endless agonies". This is a complex, delicate relationship to adjust. It has to do with erasing the thoughts which make the concept of "other", which are largely the same as those that compose "me".

My plan is more or less to freely give as much useful information as possible to encourage others to feel good from having a good heart. Outnumber the doomed slaves with free hearts and watch their leadership die.

4) are we attempting to engage reality by being here, or are we attempting to escape it?

Reality is not of this world, so, at best, we can rummage through the limitations of language to make the attempt to engage. Solutions to the illusion are not to be found within the illusion itself, which is why science cannot answer it. Without an axiom stating that consciousness exists independently, that it is not an accident of chemicals and neurotransmitters, there is nothing to engage.

This kind of thread is great, because, the deeper you look, the worse it gets. Our yards need extreme cleaning. When often it seems like there's nothing to do, and/or that you might lend help to the wrong object, those are spots that can be filled with a more powerful mentality. The illusion is telling you there's nothing, and it is up to you to inform it otherwise. In this sense, a single Mongolian wandering around out there with a clear mind, has brought me much more benefit than 300 million Americans swarming around in idle, useless chatter.

[Mike]

Shaberon thanks for that very thoughtful post.

I'm glad you brought up the concept of reality being an illusion. We've heard this so many times, and I worry that the message has gotten distorted in the process. This might be an example of the escapism I'd written about earlier.

When people hear that reality is an illusion, that it's not real...there is an implication that nothing really matters, which runs contrary to this idea of treating yourself as if you do matter, and the personal responsibility that accompanies that.

I worry that 3d-reality-as-illusion is sort of like the new age's answer to the biblical 'rapture'. If the world isn't real (or in the case of the bible, is going to end at any moment) and nothing really matters, why do anything? Why even lift a finger? Apathy sets in. Nihilism. It tends to suck the motivation out of the room

I think reality is somewhat illusory, in the sense that the universe is, in its true nature, a vibrating, oscillating, wave pattern of energies that are all interconnected. In this sense, it explains the concept of oneness as well. It is our eyes that makes objects out of the various oscillations, which suggests separation. This is my understanding.

However, I don't think that makes our experience here any less real....and i dont think that makes us any less individual. We are interpreting a deeper reality through our 5 senses, sure...but it still is very much valid. Our feelings are real...our joys, our pains. Nothing illusory about them. In my view we have to ground ourselves in this reality, recognize its authenticity, and take personal responsibility for our actions in it. I think that's step 1. I think folks get lost in the mystical and so forth before acknowledging this....i think they do it as an excuse to avoid recognizing this. Escapism, using spirituality as an excuse.

Yes, the game is rigged. But the notion of personal responsibility remains the same. It's facing the unknown, facing the impossible, and still making choices and giving meaning to our acts in spite of it all. This is the concept of the "warrior" in the Castaneda material.

[Foxie Loxie]

"Without an axiom stating that consciousness exists independently..."

I think you have hit on the crux of the matter, shaberon! If we were told from birth that consciousness is PRIMARY, that we are already Eternal Beings, incarnated for a specific purpose.....WOW! What a difference that would make! We are to "serve" no one; we "contribute"!

That what we are living through here on earth is not True Reality would surely be attested to by those who have experienced NDE's; my conclusion from what I have read.

[Valerie Villars]

Mike, the idea of giving a long, well thought out reply just gives me a headache.

But, the short answer to why we are more poor is that we are less mercenary than the rest of the population.

Take heart. Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the earth.