Sven--starFury_flames--

i found it =) three things understood by toddlers:"mine!" (property rights)"you said!" (words and deeds must not contradict)"that's not fair!" (universal absolutes apply to all)

My Facebook friends list peaked around 1500. I was a fire-performer/dj at Burning Man-style festivals here in Australia and I saw it as sort of a promotional tool, I was way too promiscuous adding people from that scene. So I've had to do quite a lot of culling in the last few years, I'm at just over a thousand now but there's still a lot to do. It's kind of a 3-strikes-and-you're-out rule on my newsfeed. Another picture of their dinner, excessive lol-cats, or pretty much any posts about sports teams, then I check their timeline and if I don't find anything of substance in their last 10-20 posts, it's "bye, bye!" =)It's been a gradual process for me but I'm happy to say I'm now at the point where I only post about Stuff That Matters on my Facebook timeline. You quickly discover who amongst your "friends" is genuinely curious and capable of thinking.... As for the rest, well they don't really matter.... And as for the ones who attack you for asking uncomfortable questions, I say thank you for showing your true colors, hit the defriend button, and don't look back.... As free-thinkers we need to support each other particularly on social media, we need to recognize how powerful a medium it is.... And also recognize how tough it is being the sole voice of reason when you're trying to make some point and you have 50 of your Facebook "friends" telling you you're arrogant, threatening you and all the rest because you had the audacity to ask "is soldier a euphemism for murderer?" (this is a personal example). That one really was a 50 vs 1 situation on my timeline, it was frightening to maintain my position, but highly instructive nonetheless. Who knows, if I'd had a couple of FDRers on my side in that conversation, things may have gone differently... AustinJames, I've sent you a friend request on FB, my name's Sven =)

I'm having trouble finding a quote about babies/toddlers/kids being philosophical, I'm not sure if Stef said it or someone else.... My google-fu doesn't seem quite up to it.... It was something along the lines of: Kid's say: IT'S MINE (property rights) I DON'T WANT TO (free-will, self-ownership) and something else which i guess must have been the NAP (non-aggression principle).... Does anyone know what I'm talking about, if so could how did the original go ?....

Then there's the so-called nootropics ("smart drugs"). Modafinil would be an example of a state-approved stimulant, used by airline pilots and college students alike.... I would not recommend cocoaine to anyone unless they have near-inhuman levels of self-control, it's in the nature of drugs that you need ever-increasing doses to achieve the same effect. This would soon become very expensive especially considering they're illicit and the price is ridiculously inflated. If someone really needs a lot of energy might I suggest improving their diet, getting enough sleep and having some sort of physical exercise regime like a daily yoga practice. There's so much we can do to increase our energy and mental clarity that doesn't involve "better living through chemistry". Yerba Maté is the south american version of coffee and oh boy does it ever have a kick !.... Then of course you can grow your own coca plants and chew the leaves (mixed with a bit of bi-carb soda). Cocaine is the super concentrated form refined from coca leaves. Chewing the leaves is still effective but with a far diminished toxic-burden on the body.

My partner (of the romantic/life kind) and I started our business just over a year ago. Don't let your lack of "business education" discourage you, neither of us had any..... We just created the best product(s) that we could, we absolutely believe in them and they're so easy to sell for that reason (because we know they're the best available). I think the most important factor in our success is that we found a niche and that we're totally staunch on our principals. I was terrified when we begun the journey but wow, the amount of personal growth I've had this past year, even if the whole enterprise failed tomorrow and all the money was lost, it would still have been worth it in terms of experience points and levels gained! =P Do it, brother !!

The challenge I've always had talking to people about drugs (and I'll admit that I have, in my past, done a lot of them) is that they tend to just throw them all in one group and that drugs are bad, mmkay!.... There's no awareness that there's a continuum there in terms of potentcy, in people's intentions when using them, potential harmful effects, degree of dissociation from reality, potentials for addictition. etc. The casual user that smokes the occasional joint and enjoys a psychedelic experience now and then is no different from the kinds of rock-bottom utterly dependent junkies you can read about in Gabor Maté's excellent book 'In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts'.

I agree, I don't think they're synonyms... My post was a bit of a pushback against the whole glorification of war thing going on around ANZAC day here in Australia. Those poor brave honorable soldiers and all that, that we'd all be speaking German if it wasn't for their sacrifice. That's why I ended with "lest we forget the meaning of war"----isn't the reality of war death, destruction and murder? And aren't the soldiers the ones that perpetrate it...? And one of the better responses I got was:A soldier is one who fights as part of an organised armed force.A murderer is a criminal who commits homicide. "what if they threw a war and nobody came?"

it'll happen sooner than you think..... think 3d printers =P

I did end up doing a 2nd talk, more self-knowledge & honesty and also about my experience with journaling and how I helped rescue myself from depression.... Feel free to check it out and I'd value any feedback, this was the second time I'd done any public speaking =)

There was a recent public holiday here in Australia called ANZAC day (from Australian and New Zealand Army Corps). This is supposed to be to commemorate the ANZAC troops that went off to fight (and die) in world war 1 & 2. As a kid in school I remember parades and the minute of silence and the big motto was "lest we forget"... Anyway, last week on that day I made the following Facebook post: is “soldier” just a euphemism for “murderer" ? lest we forget the meaning of war...... Obviously I knew this was going to set people off and was in fact doing it as a bit of an experiment----and anyway, I don't mind me a bit of provocation =)It did spark quite the "debate" and I decided to just let people argue amongst themselves for a day or so. I got a lot of accusations of being disrespectful, admonitions that I should "know better!", a couple of veiled threats of violence along the lines of "if some veteran came and punched you out for saying that, you'd deserve it!" (yay, instant defriend!)... Got to a 100 or so comments by the end of it and I'd say maybe 1/20 people participating were reasonable and were able to give considered responses.... Anyway, I'm just curious what do board members think, is "soldier" a euphemism for "murderer" ?.... And is it "disrespectful" to point that out on ANZAC day ?.... My response to these people was that facts/reality can't be disrespectful and that I don't mind calling a spade a spade (fun fact: in Australia we call them "shovels"!)

I wanted to share the way I get my FDR content, perhaps if more people do so Stef and Mike might notice a slight easing in their growing monthly bandwidth costs! I’m one of those people that compulsively downloads everything Stef puts out... But it’s been many years since I’ve downloaded from the actual FDR site as pretty much all the content goes on YouTube.It’s actually quite easy to download videos from YouTube and there’s quite a few browser plugins that add this functionality, personally I use Download Helper for Firefox which let’s you download pretty much any embedded video (pretty handy)... There's equivalent plugins/add-ons for the other popular browsers. If you’re on a Mac I recommend downloading in .mp4 format. I then use QuickTime to convert the video to audio and then it’s ready for the iPod for direct transferal to your brain...If you need help setting this up on your own computer, feel free to PM/email me and I’d be happy to walk you through it =)Sven ∞ <3

That's really appreciated, thanks for taking the time to respond =) Incidentally, why is it that you get excited when someone calls from Australia---or are you just a fellow Aussie ?... So I intend to focus on my delivery being slow, slow, slow... I'll be concentrating on keeping my breathing steady and deep. I guess if you heard me on the call just now, there was a torrent of words and I'm sure I came across as rushed and somewhat confused... Nerves played a part and I also didn't want to waste Stef's valuable time---tho alas it seems I wasn't all that succesful on that count! =/ I do believe I'm much better with my focus when the topic is something I have clarity on instead of this intensely emotional and personal issue... Re. the first paragraph... I felt that, by telling people I was nervous/excited/etc that this was actually demonstrating the whole idea of honesty in the moment about emotions... In a way that is introducing the topic... Otherwise I do realize that, to a certain extent, I'll need to feign the confidence even if i don't totally feel it---fake it 'til you make it, right ?... Also, it's definitely short on time for me (even if I hadn't put it off 'til a couple of days before), my partner and I are both putting everything we've got into the business but this was still important to me, I am really passionate about these ideas... So I only gave myself a couple of weeks, and that was self-imposed too, it was up to me when I did my talk but I just wanted to throw myself into it, otherwise I'd keep putting it off... And like I said in the call-in show today, I've always needed the impending time-pressure to really motivate myself to do something... I definitely take your point about intro, body, summary... I'll rework it a bit tonight...

In a couple of days I'll be doing this little speech in front of an audience. It's a fortnightly event called the Village Circle that people in the local community here on the Gold Coast (queensland, australia) have organized. The kinds of people that have been coming might be said to have hippy-ish tendencies---into their organic food, permaculture, concerned about fluoride in their water, chemtrails, gmo-food, the general epic fail that is government, etc. (bit of a spiritual vibe in there too of course)... But I feel above all that they're just frustrated with the lack of any real solutions to the issues in our world.... It's only been happening for about 3 months so far, and I think we don't really know what we're doing, but it's a cool thing to be a part of and I'm looking forward to seeing how much philosophy I can inject into this space over time.... =)Each week there's someone from the community that speaks for about 40mins, then there's a raw vegan organic meal offered for $3 (that's probably less than cost price, most of the food being donated by local organic farms and made by volunteers)... Then the last 40mins or so people break up into groups they call 'solutions circles', these are more specific topics, so there's a permaculture group, an anti-fluoride group, there's a men's group that i've joined, a bunch of others...Anyway, though i've never done any public speaking, but I love these ideas that are the fdr conversation, self-knowledge/nap/rtr/upb, I love what fdr is about and I feel compelled to share this stuff!... So I just asked if I could speak for 5-10mins, told them it would be about communication and relationships and that's about it…So this is going to be fun =) It's awesome to be level 0 at something and begin the journey of progression…. Life: Next Chapter. <3-------I'll be saying something like this, I'd be very grateful for feedback from the fdr massive =)this is my first time doing any public speaking since high school… it's somewhat terrifying standing up here in front of you all, but i'm very passionate about these ideas i'm about to share with you and so, despite being ridiculously busy with the new business i've started with my beautiful partner, i decided to just go for it so here i am =)i've been coming to a bunch of these village circle meetings, and it's been so awesome to see people coming together to talk about such vital issues… in fact, it's awesome to see people come together to talk about anything that's not just sports or celebrities or politics or the weather---to talk about something real… so you guys are all awesome and thank you!…but i must confess that some of this stuff we talk about is really daunting for me, chemtrails, fluoride, GMO-food, vaccinations, ending the fed, oppressive governments all over the world, the monetary system, the encroaching police state, the fukushima meltdown---argh!, there's so much going on and even though i try and keep myself well-informed and especially with so much conflicting information, it's often hard to know just what what to think let alone what to do about it!….but i think all these topics have a common thread and that thread is 'freedom'… so tonight i'd just like to talk for a few minutes about an even more basic freedom, and maybe it's one of the most fundamental of all, and yet it's something that's attainable by all of us right now… that is the freedom to be honest, the freedom to have real and truly genuine one-on-one relationships…i mean, what use is getting the fluoride out of the water if we can't even have a real conversation with the ones we love ?...it's so important to be able to show our true selves to people, without masks, without walls, without telling them what we think they want to hear... just perfectly open communication channels such that we can explore ourselves and each other without fear...because i believe that honesty is intimacy… and that, in the absence of honesty, there can be no relationship but only fog and illusion…but with the ones we love, those people with whom we believe we have a deep and genuine relationship, if we can't be honest, then we have to ask ourselves why that is, what's stopping us…?are we afraid of how they'll react ?… afraid that they might judge us in some way ?… or maybe we know exactly how they'll react and we're avoiding that knowledge… maybe we're seeking comfort in the illusion…but that's not how i want to live, i want to live in reality...so tonight i just want to share something i've learned, it's like the ultimate way to discover if you have a real and genuine relationship with someone… the ultimate way to talk about something real…and that is simply to honestly report your feelings in the moment… i'll say that again… to honestly report your feelings in the moment… and that's it.so if you're feeling angry… you say "i'm feeling angry"… and that's it… but you say it without judgement, without assigning a cause, without demanding something be done about it… just say it in the spirit of honesty and vulnerability and from a place of curiosity, invite the other persons empathy and explore the emotion together…that's how we can gain objectivity on ourselves, that's how we can gain self-knowledge…because maybe the emotion is appropriate, maybe it's not… maybe they'll be surprised, maybe they knew it all along but were afraid to bring it up… maybe they'll be honoured that you'd share that with them, maybe they'll recognise the strength it took to be vulnerable in that way, to have shared your true self with them...i like to call this Real-time Relationships…and there's such immense power in this, because no one can ever challenge you on that, no one can dispute how you feel inside…and if the person you're talking to has empathy and is genuinely interested in you and your well-being they will be curious and ask why… they'll want to explore that emotion with you, discover where it comes from...i believe relationships are like celestial bodies orbiting one another… but there's no such thing as a stable orbit and either we're getting closer or we're drifting apart---and honesty brings us closer… in a universe of constant change there is no standing still, either we grow together or we grow apart… either we evolve or we dissolve…so it's a matter of putting your feelings out there, which can often be a scary thing, especially for us men who are so often taught that being "strong" means hiding our emotions… but that's wrong, hiding emotions is a weakness… and we should never need to hide our emotions from the one's we love…and it's so important to do this in the moment as the feelings begin to arise… because whatever we don't express will end up getting repressed and eventually, as time goes on and the pressure builds there'll be an emotional explosion which serves no one…of course, it's easy to tell someone you're feeling happy or feeling good… but to tell someone you're sad or depressed isn't so easy…carl jung wrote that "The foundation of all mental illness is the avoidance of legitimate suffering"…so don't hide your suffering, express it and experience it, set it free...and that's why it's so vital to teach children about emotions, particularly to give them names for emotions so that they can express their feelings with their words rather than having to act them out… give them the ability to tell us they're angry or frustrated instead of having to throw a tantrum...and sometimes we don't know how we're feeling, or we're confused or we don't know what to say… but this still applies… it's ok to say "i'm feeling confused", "i don't know what to say", "i'm scared", "i need help"… and then to be open and vulnerable enough to explore the reasons why…and of course all this comes back to the highest value, and that is self-knowledge… like the famous inscription in ancient greece at the oracle at delphi: "know thyself"…and that takes empathy and a deeper connection with ones' true self… who am i ?… how do i feel ? and why ?……finally let me just say that we don't owe everyone we meet total honesty and when the person at the checkout at the servo asks "how are you?", there's no obligation to be 100% honest….as my favourite living philosopher likes to say: "the truth is not a sword to be drawn at all costs"but please, please, be honest with the ones you love, share with them your true self, remember that honesty is intimacy and it's the best and only way to grow together… have empathy and encourage it in others by being curious about them… and above all: know thyself.much love and thank you all ! =)