Chase Hughes

#1

#2 - The neighbor that occasionally screams at his kids went out with a rake to clear the clogged drain that was flooding our parking lot.  I peeked out my door and said, "Thanks!"

#3 - A family member got some concerning medical news earlier in the week, that sounds less frightening now that the doctor called and explained.

#4 - I am not skillful at being flexible with plans.  There was a winter weather advisory today which changed my weekend plans, followed by a winter storm watch that may change them again.

After briefly feeling resistant to this yesterday, I did well today going with the flow and recalibrating, and I may have a travel window in between the 2 events.

Plus I spent a day fully at home which was kind of nice.  The fitness center was closed for Passover so I did a growingannanas video. On Thursdays I have only 1 family home visit, they were sick. So I just worked from home today, spent a little time on my living room puzzle, and washed the clothes I bought at the thrift store on Tuesday.

#5 - "If you are exposed to a product that can't tell you the problem that they are solving, you need to be terrified, absolutely terrified. So if I look at Door Dash or Uber Eats, they get food to me faster. I don't have to leave my house. I don't have to do anything. I can continue writing my book or doing something on my computer, and the food just shows up. They tell you the problem that they are solving right?...But you look at something like Apple Vision Pro, they can't tell you. You will never see it. You'll see all the problems that a Mac book solves. There's this camera, it does all this, it does all these things. It helps you get this done faster. And you look at Facebook Meta, these AR googles, none of them will ever tell you the problems that they are trying to solve, because it's loneliness and people needing to anesthetize themselves from being in their own life. And we are in a loneliness epidemic right now, in the midst of, all this we've never been more connected but we've never had more loneliness than is in the world right now. 

So and there is so many products that are out there, that seem great, but they can't articulate what they're really solving, and it is usually loneliness, boredom, or a need to anesthetize myself so I don't have to think about my life. I don't have to be in my life. And that should be one thing, if I could just program into everyone's head be so, I did this to my kids, just be so so scared and so cautious when I see a product or an app or anything, that's not openly advertising the problem that they are solving." Chase Hughes

"I mean there's a lot of entertainment apps right at the moment for young kids so that works." Steve Bartlett

"Yeah which is fine for boredom." Chase Hughes

"Is boredom a problem?" Bartlett

"It might be." Hughes

"I'm trying to distinguish between like, is TikTok solving a problem for a young kid?" Bartlett

"Right.  So that might be solving loneliness instead of boredom. And I think TikTok does not talk about solving any problem." Hughes

"It's like a casino isn't it? The dopamine." Bartlett

"Yeah. It's so bad. And they use a hypnosis technique, not just Tik Tok, this is everybody, called fracturnation, which is where you bring somebody up, so like you'll see one of those videos  of a Grandpa holding his Grandbaby like that makes you almost cry. Have you ever cried just watching a 60 second Instagram reel?" Hughes

"Yeah." Bartlett

"I have too and I feel stupid. I'm by myself, watching a 60 second video. But like they'll pull you down and then punch you back up 2 videos later. And you'll start to notice this. Two videos later, it will be a riot, someone robbing a store, a fistfight, a car going way too fast flipping off the road, an airplane almost crashing. So they get you up and down and up and down, and the more I can do that, this is proven, that ramps up suggestibility. Dr. Milton Erickson did studies on this in the 1960's, and that increases your level of suggestibility 10 like fold. The more I can get you up and down, and up and down. And what happens after you get like 4 or 5 cycles of up and down? You get an ad. And it's so reliable. And I didn't realize it was happening until my wife said, 'Why are you buying shit off Instagram like once a week?' It was working on me. I was buying stupid shit that was on Instagram ads, and then I finally set time limits on this apps." Hughes

"You set time limits on those apps?" Bartlett

"Yes, Yes. My wife has the passcodes to unlock the, whatever it's called, screentime, iPhone screentime. But I am a brainwashing expert and I am personally terrified of short form social media like that, and I am not immune. And I'm one of the best in the world. And I am not immune to it. And I think that should be a stark warning for a lot of people." Hughes

"What's the cost though?  What's the cost of the like, in your view, living this kind of life where you know, we go home and we just like burn our brains out with these social media apps and fry our dopamine receptors. Is there like a cost?" Bartlett

"Yes I think the cost is increased loneliness.  And these apps, any apps that sell ads has 2 main goals. #1 - and all advertising shares these 2 main goals. #1 - Make you compare yourself to other people in unhealthy ways. #2 - Make you think, 'I am not enough' and we see that everywhere. I'm not enough and I'm comparing myself to other people." Hughes

The Diary of a CEO around hour 1:45:00 or a bit after with Chase Hughes

https://youtu.be/RvjR9GM2kX8?si=f4f5nzPYbB8JXY2t

No Kings 3

I had a friend yesterday say she restarted writing gratitudes after talking to me and then sent the 5 from her day and asked for comments.  After reading hers I realized that my rule that my gratitudes be unique not only helps me be more specific, and be a better writer, but it also forces the gratitudes beyond the superficial. To say "I am grateful for the sunrise" or "grateful for my family". Ok maybe. But are you even paying attention to your family?  Because if you are paying attention you can find something specific to be grateful for about them. 

 Today was No Kings 3 and I was grateful that when I mentioned it to a family member, she said she wanted to go. I don't enjoy going to rallies alone and it was nice to not have to recruit someone. We also both had similar preferences.  We both wanted to wait to cross the bridge when it was packed with people. I thought we might have to wait a while to get on the bus, but we got on easily and they added a bunch so also did on the way back.

I've been to much smaller protests where I couldn't hear anything, so that is what I expected today, but the sound system was impressive and I heard it all, including Bruce Springsteen's original song which was my highlight.

Reading creative signs is also always a highlight. Many are confrontational.  I appreciate the humorous ones.  I think my two favorite today were - "Never been prouder of my neighbors" and

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."

Anne Frank

Tolle Quote of the Day

 "When you talk in The New Earth about the flowering of consciousness.  How strongly do you feel that movement happening around the world? Do you witness it? Do you see it?" Sir Ken Robinson

"Yes, it's definitely happening, whether it is happening fast enough to prevent a collapse of the civilization, whether that is even desirable that the civilization should not collapse, I don't know. It may have to collapse. But definitely there is an awakening. The strange thing is I can almost tell you, by looking at any human being in the street, who is already beginning to go thru the awakening process and who is not yet. I'm not always right, but a lot of the time I can tell, just by looking at a human, just for a few seconds. Because there is a light that comes thru, that isn't there in those humans who are still totally trapped in their conceptual mind. And that's the awakening. The disidentification from the conceptual mind and the arising of presence. It's happening on a much larger scale than ever, for the first time on a large scale. It still of course, is a minority of the total population of the planet. Definitely. It's even a minority in the Western countries. I cannot even tell you what the percentage is of, like say, in North America or in Western Europe who are going thru the awakening process. But my intuitive guess is something like..." (and here I thought Eckhart was going to say less than 1%) "...20%, which is quite a lot of people."

Who am I? (in a 5 minute write)

Who am I?

A being of light, a traveler, an agent of peace, a confused and lost soul, a worry, an embrace. I am gleaming, a gift, a guffaw, a melting away. I am the opening and closing of time, a postcard forgotten to send in the mail. Rumi says, “I am all orders of being, infinite galaxies” did he say the milky way? I know his poem ends, “Say who I am. Say I am you.” I am an occasional memorizer of poetry, a recreational soccer player, an outdoors lover. I am a human in a body and a soul in the world. I am spinning and lost. I am found in the sunset and sunrise. I am connected and alone. Interwoven and unfrayed. I am blue ink upon a notebook page, and the pen encasing it and writing. I am the paper that came from life cut down to create. I am not afraid to have fluid and expansive definitions. I am concerned we are too defined.

Last Module/Month of My Tolle Course

 For a long time I've wondered how and why it is that if someone is reading a book or writing in a room with me, I still feel very connected to them.  They feel very approachable.  However, if they are on a device I feel the opposite.

"...the people who create these things know they how to get you more addicted, they do know that. So these devices are quite dangerous.  They could be used in a helpful way, and in a conscious way, but they are dangerous.  So you need to not allow to let your consciousness to be dragged into these devices."  

Eckhart Tolle

Yes that is how it feels that someone's consciousness is dragged into the device.  If someone is reading a book, even if they are absorbed in the story completely, I still feel their consciousness in their body.

******************************************************************************

The following quotes don't seem like gratitudes, in fact the next one frightens me immensely, but I understand it on some level too.

"We're living in very challenging times, and this is almost certainly only the beginning, and it's inseparable from the emergence of the new consciousness...the origin to most of them [the challenges] is to be found in the human mind." 

Eckhart Tolle

Yet another reason to not put one's hope/life in the future. Between climate change and human dysfunction it's hard to imagine much stability.  

"The greatest danger for humanity, also pointed out for example by Carl Jung the psychologist, is collective psychosis. Collective psychosis that produces absurd conflicts in the world...what's a psychosis? Certain thoughts have taken possession of your mind and you don't even know it because there is not sufficient awareness to have immunity against toxic and irrational thoughts...it's like a virus infection on a mental level." 

Eckhart Tolle

Then You Put the Words on the Page

 #1 - Laying beneath my bedroom window watching the snow fall and a return to winter with legs over the radiator and a blanket across my lap.  It's not the same as forced air heat under a blanket, but I still feel wealthy.

#2 - Listening to the Against the Odds podcast "Schoolchildren's Blizzard" while I worked and watched the snow fall.

#3 - I picked up a family from a co-worker who resigned. She had given out some books/toys ahead of time.  (Usually halfway thru an hour visit I'd have a new book or toy to pull out.)  This made me concerned that those visits were going to seem really long, but I think today we caught up and it ended up being, not ideal, but fine.

#4 - Emailing a friend to ask if we could shift a plan (made back in Nov) so I could take part in another friend's birthday event. I don't like changing plans myself and I especially don't like asking other people to change plans, and this friend is traveling internationally so I hate to bother her.  However I am trying to remember that sometimes a change of plans is better for everyone, and to just ask, which I did.

#5 - "Writing is practice also. It's not enough to want to write, you have to start writing...You have to start writing and then do it everyday, even if it is just 20 minutes, a half hour. Just write something and see if the flow is able to use your mind and create the words. Then you put the words on the page." Eckhart Tolle

Quote of the Day

 "I find it very hard to call God 'he'. 

Because you are limited already. 

'It' is also difficult. 

And 'she' also limits it. 

So, maybe one day I'm going to ask God,

 'What are your pronouns?'"

Eckhart Tolle