Owledge

I don't drink coffee, tea (anmore), coke or energy drinks. I've only recently started again drinking frappé every now and then, maybe once every two days, and since it's mostly sugar, there should be little caffeine in it. So I wouldn't say I have developed a caffeine tolerance. So I noticed that frappé gave me a nice motivational boost, and since I don't have many means easily available to combat the blues, I decided to explore this a bit more. It seems there's something about the combined intake of caffeine and sugar, or maybe it's a psychological effect, who knows. But I started taking a 200 mg caffeine tablet whenever I get the kind of tiredness that I can identify as mood-induced. 200 mg should be quite a lot, but the effect it has on me is surprisingly moderate. While I do notice that it makes me somewhat more active and motivated, it's subtle. I'm definitely not worried about side effects, especially since it's said that one develops a bit of a tolerance after a while anyway, and neither about addiction, since there's nothing about its effect that excites me, haha. Maybe the frappé effect really is connected to past memories or something, but since I started taking caffeine tablets, the frappé effect has become very little, too. Because frappé had such a massive positive effect, I started with 50 mg (quarter tablets), believing that micro dosage is the key, but that wasn't it. And even then, taking just 50 mg a day, the frappé lost most of its effect. This might be one of the depressing chain of things I try that work at first, but once I try to emphasize more on it, it loses its effect. But as long as it makes even a little difference, it's definitely something I welcome. What are your experiences in connection to dosage and mood alteration?

Thing is though that while I enjoy sugar intake, the frappé effect was a wholly different thing. It made me feel ALIVE, you know. I'd say this depends on a person's addiction tendency and on what you take the caffeine for. I don't take it in order to function longer so that I can fulfill obligations. I merely take it to chase some 'moodiness' away. Also, even if I developed a dependency on some substance. As long as it's as easy to acquire as caffeine and the results justify it, I don't really care (anymore). Life is too short to put extra difficulty on oneself just so that one can boast with their achievements.

OK, so this is Tesla's account of what he learned, not the original source. The claim here is that Voltaire consumed 72 cups a day at least while he was writing that 100-volume work. I don't know how long that took him, but since this is such indirect account that could very well be a bit exaggerated for dramatic effect, I am skeptical. Not saying it's not possible, just sensing some potential inaccuracy. I guess since it's possible to drink that much coffee a day, there's not merely a loss of initial sensitivity to caffeine or whatever, but a real wide-spectrum tolerance just like with other substances like alcohol. Probably the same effect could have been achieved by cutting back a little. A growing tolerance due to growing consumption indicates too much reliance on the substance.

Hm. P.S.: Two objections about your signature. 1) When you are dead, you know you are dead. 2) Stupid people actually do know they're stupid. They're getting plenty of feedback. If they entertain mental convenience and/or lack of courage, they might deny it, but they will still know it beneath that suppression. The only exception would be if they didn't get proper feedback due to being in an environment of other stupid people, but then it probably won't pain others, or at least they have to moral highground to be pained by it.

Assuming 18 hours awake and 6 hours asleep, that would be one cup every 15 minutes. Where is that number coming from? Might it actually be a "sometimes up to" figure?

Here is an exploration of a thought: Imagine someone who has a karmic blockage that prevents success in finding fulfillment across the whole spectrum. Naturally that person, after failed attempts to pull it off on their own, would seek help. But anybody with the theoretical potential of causing positive change in that person's life would naturally become part of their experience of that karma blockage, thus unable to have that impact in their life. Now supposedly there are people who are skilled in helping others dissolve their karma blockages, right? ... They can't do shit for that person. ... Because they won't. Because karma.

This is the kind of unpractical wisecracking I'm talking about. One can view that word from any philosophical angle they like, but there is a context; e.g. a limited timeframe in which something does, in fact, not change. I am so not impressed by words anymore. I have experienced how easily they are uttered, while even the simplest of compassionate action sometimes seems too scary to people. A computer monitor can moderately light up a dim room, but a mere grain of raw matter can light up a whole city. That's how much more powerful the means of the physical realm are, due to the easy access to them. The immaterial might be potentially more powerful, but only to a select few who put in the effort to use it. I have learned that many people seem like they operate on altruism, but in reality only act in their own interest. I used to misunderstand this and assumed altruism where there is none. Faking is a huge culture and many people never knew there's a difference between the real thing and faking. They fool themselves and others. It might be that people who made it far in society did so because they played by the rules, and that might have made them incapable of helping those who didn't play by those rules. There's so much saddening 'behind the curtains' stuff going on, I cannot capture that in a few brief remarks. (I just felt like rambling a bit, because I'm in an especially bad mood lately.)

Thank you. That made me laugh. -------- OK, when I said karma, I probably could have said destiny/fate. All those three words don't exactly hit the nail on the head though. I'd almost call this a popculture scenario, because that side of spiritual drama seems to always be examined and treated like it's the only damn side possible. The complete opposite, welcoming help and not getting it seems too scary or abstract or whatever, and the fact that it's treated like it doesn't exist kinda hints at part of the problem and why so few people know how to tackle it. It reminds me of a related problem, which is when people say stuff like: "As long as there is progress, no matter how small or slow, things are fine." Because people who say that are oblivious to how those words are received by people who don't make any progress, but are more like falling down. It's like that popculture part of the spiritual community (in lack of better words) is in denial about the really tough stuff, and those who are going through such tough stuff see how all those people in denial cannot help them, because THEY would need help first for shedding their fear and repulsion of the stuff others have to deal with all the time. Some are especially vicious and will become judgmental and blame them for having so much difficulty, because imagining that it might not be their fault is too scary and shatters their illusions of an orderly world of harmonic problem-solving.

I'm not sure it's not even self-defearting to try and do anything about it, but since I experienced a certain effect several times, I want to inquire about its nature. You know the experience when something new you do, maybe a new realization or any thought has an effect, likely desirable, and even if you do your best to really just let it flow, sink in, you can't help but notice how it gradually turns into just words in your head? The general experience that something works great when it's new but quickly stops working can be very frustrating. I understand this is very likely due to the mind somehow latching onto it, but apparently that process can be so unconscious that there seems to be nothing you can do about it. It happens, I'd almost say, automatically - whether you do anything or not. I mean, isn't a mantra supposed to be a realization or wisdom that is to be repeated to sink in? But it seems when I put a fleeting realization into words in order to not lose it, it's doomed to lose its power. I can either totally not care and let a realization slip through my awareness or I can capture and ruin it. There seems to be no way to win. Either you put importance into something or you don't. Either way comes with certain actions or non-actions. Often I wish I was blessed with active influence from outside, because that would make it easier to really let go. (That's why I enjoy massage a lot.) It also seems that many people, even of otherwise relatively great enlightenment, might not understand this dilemma. I mean, I had this with Kunlun Nei Gung even. It had some impressive effects at first, and even more so while Max was directly involved, but after that it quickly lost its potency, and then practicing it was self-defeating. The more I practiced, the less it had any impact, thus more and more frustration built up. Really seems like I'm at a point where I cannot pull these things off on my own, because "on my own" is one root of the problem, but I haven't found any feasible external help in this, and I tried a lot. And from this position, the probably only solution - a saint-like level of indifference - is not realistically achievable. At least not for more than brief moments, shorter and less often. It can really feel like running out of options, like burning through methods, even if you're not even actively pursuing those methods. Again, maybe writing these words is a mistake, too, but after all this - you know - I kinda don't care anymore; if it feels like I have the choice of several different mistakes.

Anything helpful. Details aren't important regarding this problem. They'd only confuse.

No, it's not that. It's not about being impressive, but about actually doing anything that can easily be recognized as a process.

@C T Preaching to the choir.

All but one of those things are essentially internal. Also my experience: Many people with great potential are scared of making a crucial difference in other people's lives; scared to cut the bullshit, embrace the beauty of simplicity and just get stuff done. There are various isolationist/individualist 'philosophies' in spiritual circies that cater to this fear. The idea of self-empowerment can be misused for this when it's denying the interdependence of everything. The self-help sector in spirituality can be - as the name suggests, lol - very selfish. It is boosting the egoic, analytical mind. Those doctrines help people to succeed in a selfish world and thus don't lessen the selfishness in the world. And when I see that, it can piss me off, because I see what's happening. ... Sometimes I condemn myself for being such a damn saint and try to be more egoistical myself. Seems I have been living an imbalance; a luxury I couldn't afford, out of the wrong reasons.

( from my blog: http://dowlphinblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/natural-order-is-a-yang-view/ ) The term “natural order”, even if implying disorder, comes from a mindset of order. It is merely the idea that nature imposes an order of higher authority, and bowing to an authority is an order thing. This is easier for an order-affine mind to accept than to realize that there is no natural order. There is only nature. Nature implies both order and chaos. It is no surprise that in our world that has been so much shaped by order addicts and control freaks the term “chaos” has such negative connotations (and "anarchy" with it). But keep in mind the great horrors that excessive order can manifest. … Especially when its imbalance is threatened to become more balanced through the forces of chaos and it tries to preserve its dominance. One might find that it is often not chaos itself that manifests the great peril, but the fear of chaos.

It amuses me when even professionals are working on things like "true RNG" while not having done the philosophical work about those ideas. They feel smart when talking about "pseudo-random", yet only to those who are impressed by fancy words. Those ideas are showing their lack of understanding. There is only one type of random, the only thing that can differ is the quality, depending on the obscuration effort invested. When used for a purpose, there is always an enabling structure in place to produce those 'random' results, and if that enabling structure, which represents an element of non-randomness, is what is regarded as making it pseudo-random, which very much seems to be the case, then it is by definition impossible to create a 'true random' number generator or such. On the highest level, you can either see everything as random, or nothing, but this distiction is just the mind's folly. So what could that fancy quantum technology do different? Enable an algorithm that brings up a different result under the same conditions? Impossible. The conditions are always different if it yields a different result. It seems what computer scientists are trying to achieve is making an algorithm that they themselves don't understand, so that they can believe in their idea of true randomness. But the creator of an idea cannot be inferior to the idea itself, so this is madness.

Religious concepts involving God-symbology cannot be expected to be the ultima ratio of wisdom. Does it claim that it's a goddess because of yin? Are they even making that connection like in Taoism? As I said, this might be because the people who made that symbology associate order with balance and/or harmony. It's like a yang mind coming up with a religious system that puts itself as the ideal center. This is exactly what I meant in the beginning that the idea of a "natural order or things" isn't order, it's balance, yet by using the word "order" it creates confusion in the mind. And that's why the masses are so favorable towards the law&order mentality that brings so much suffering to the world. They think order is good, it makes a pleasant life, so we need as much of it as we can. They see order as good and chaos as bad, thus any hint of chaos will be opposed. The last thing the world needs right now is to "restore order". All the political upheaval lately exists BECAUSE they are still trying that. People (taken the population on average) need to learn to live with less order, then they can move towards balance first and in turn harmony.

I read a slogan like "[...]is the gateway to reality" and I think of a religious sect, maybe not unlike a slogan of some taoist sect I read some time ago. Religion after all is to a good degree a search for meaning and purpose in life and the human experience, and in organized form, people sometimes claim to hold the keys to enlightenment in order to gain power and influence over others. Well, I could confirm that the Twitter/Tumblr site I found is not a parody. It calls itself "Atheist Power" and its slogan is "Atheism is the gateway to reality." (Please don't look it up, you'd only be tempted to comment, and arguing about religion with fanatics is futile, haha.) This is one more example of the irony enusing when people fanatically fight something while being just like that which they oppose. ... Because what they oppose is in the same league, a direct competitor to their beliefs. The result of overly analytical instead of synthetic mindset. I think it's like what artists get when they work for too long on the same piece. They lose the ability to recognize whether there is anything wrong. They get professional blindness. Analysis works best in tandem with synthesis, not in an extreme, because otherwise the process loses its purpose and becomes a self-serving circle-jerk. And thus, you have confused people searching for purpose in the abandonment of purpose.

As an answer for that, I only have the relatively common viewpoint that life itself, for everybody, is a spiritual and religious journey. We all strive for happiness, and true happiness is the realm of the divine. Many people just don't see their lives that way, but it still makes it valid as a viewpoint. Also, people apply very different strategies, but even if it might not appear like it (e.g. if someone is confused/misguided), it's always about finding happiness. Ironically, true happiness / bliss / whatever you want to call it, is not the realm of the divine, but merely the effect of the distance of us from it. We experience bliss when we witness the divine, but when we become the divine, there cannot be emotion.

Unless you interpret religion as originating from re-ligare = reconnecting with the divine, that from which we have been separated when we came into life.

@dustybeijing I think the problem there is that when people refer to religion in that sense, they are talking about the worldly part of it, the actions of organized power centers. And indeed, THAT problem can be found in all areas of life. It doesn't depend on religious mindset, but on power in the hands of the few and manipulation of the masses. And because this association is made between the phenomenon and the term, with the same reasoning people rightfully call things like Apple worship or man-made global warming religions. The latter one is a very good example of how especially Atheists (/Antitheists) can easily compete with the most appalling of Christianity's bigots. THAT belief system is so effective that even someone like Steven Colbert turns into nothing short of an arrogant prick in its defense. (Offense would actually be more fitting word.) So, without wanting to polarize or alienate too much, but there seems to be a duality, a difference with the same result, in that the strongest of theist minds tend to be unbelievably naive, while the strongest of atheist minds tend to be unbelievably arrogant. The former have too much heart focus with weak mind, the latter too much mind focus with weak heart. Both are imbalances, thus causing problems. What is to be aspired is the Buddha nature: strong heart and strong mind. The greater the imbalance, the less progress is made due to high difficulty.

Order is patterns, conformity, structures and adaptation to it. It requires active effort and the rational mind as guide. Chaos is manifesting without a plan, without an urge, without an intention. I would say an exact association cannot be made. Order and chaos both have yin and yang aspects. Ultimately, yin and yang are only themselves and don't equate to anything else. Just like shown in the taiji, you can only identify tendencies, but there are no absolute extremes. And I'd say chaos tends towards yin and order towards yang. Just look at the relation between people's agendae of order and their means. The opposite tendencies would be order's contracting aspect and chaos' expanding aspect. As a comparative example for the adverse tendency in yin/yang: Do you realize that the very capitalist strrategy of selling new or top notch products for especially high prices in order to be able to lower prices of lesser products for the masses is a socialist aspect?

You listen to Brain, I listen to Pinkie.

Facebook culture: Lists of thumbs ups vs. thumbs downs. Preferrably updated weekly. Personally, I remember a job interview long time ago. They asked me about my weaknesses. I told them I surely have them, and I will know them when I encounter them, but I don't like to keep a list of them. In retrospect, I'd add that it would just feed them energy and be like: This is me. I identify with these things, I like them because they make me an interesting person. To be able to list my weaknesses spontaneously at a job interview I'd have to have them active and ready in my mind all the time. I prefer to be in doubt about whether the idea of a certain weakness really appies to me. And also stating a weakness implies its presence in any kind of situation, which is too general and often not the truth.

It indeed isn't very practical, yes. I was confronted with that stuff during my ayahuasca trip and it made me more practically-oriented. ... Not sure whether that's just a fear-based avoidance strategy though. Distinct memory is getting vague there, I mostly just remember my reactions to the things I was aware of, but that's already eerie enough. You could say the whole experience weakened my fear of death, but what's the point? I'm still afraid of not finding fulfillment, so it comes down to the same result.

By the way... your posting ... "http://thetaobums.com/topic/36593-atheism-as-a-religion/page-23#entry588857" ^^