Being open to new experiences makes you smarter.

This is a fact that I'll explain in a moment, let's clarify the other side of the coin first.

The more you stay within the realm of your comfort, the more you numb your senses and mental abilities.

Doing the same expectable things repeatedly leads you to live on autopilot.

An obvious example: mindless scrolling on Twitter or Instagram.

How many times do you catch yourself doing that?

Hold on, how many times do you catch yourself doing that as a way to distract yourself from the outside world?

This is just one of many examples of how hiding from the outside world makes us less aware and less present.

So, how does trying new things and having new experiences makes you smarter?

The answer is quite easy and obvious.

Intelligence is defined by one's ability to adapt to any given situation, circumstances or environment.

One of our most powerful tools when it comes to problem-solving is undeniably memory.

It's also the one we will tend to turn to first.

If you've already seen it, then there is a whole process of familiarization that vanishes, you know exactly (or approximately) how to deal with the situation at hand.

Now think of what happens when you're adventurous and look forward to new experiences; as you compile lessons and find out about new things.

You for one reduce the natural fear of the unknown. By experiencing it many times, you learn how to manage it and control it.

But you also and most importantly earn a considerable amount of experience and familiarity that you can more easily spot the difficulty and solve it right away.

Don't limit yourself, expand it.

Using Empathy To Manipulate

How do you identify when someone is trying to get you to do something using empathy? How can you do this to someone yourself?

First of all, to emulate empathy, you should allow yourself to feel the empathy, but have a rope to pull yourself out when the task is complete. Reason being that it's a bit difficult to imitate being empathetic. Lay out rules of what you will and won't do.

An example is always best for conveying these kinds of ideas, here are a few:

Men often take advantage of women who have been hurt in their relationship by simply being empathetic. She's having problems with her boyfriend and is feeling resentful of him at the time, so he offers her a shoulder to cry on. He sides with her instead of her boyfriend, but also acknowledges one or two things the boyfriend did as not so bad, so it doesn't seem that he's antagonizing her boyfriend (which would come off as suspicious). But, he agrees with her that her boyfriend fucked up massively and overall she's in the right, and even if she's not she did not deserve to be hurt like this. Boyfriend bad, girlfriend innocent and in pain. She seeks comfort and warmth from the imposter and ends up sleeping with him. This has happened one too many times.

Another example is of the guy who got robbed at home. The imposter (who had organized the robbers) expresses how deeply sorry he is to hear that, and even offers the victim shelter at his place for the time being till they can be sure the victim's home is safe again and even gives him some money to hang on to while he sorts his affairs. The victim, who might have been suspicious of the imposter will most likely do away with such suspicions.

Now, to set what you will and won't do is to mentally structure the limit of your empathetic demonstration. Will you spend money? Will you offer help? Will you give your time?

This will guide you not to get sucked and become an unwilling victim when emotions might enter. It is paramount that you set your empathetic limits before hand and no matter what happens do not change them. This is a decision you make once and do not review.

Depending on the magnitude of what's at stake, you could invest time, help and even money to rope them in further and increase their perception of your level of empathy. The more they are seduced, the more easily they will be exploited and vice versa.

HOW TO ACT WHEN YOU ARE IN A ‘TOXIC’ ENVIRONMENT

Fundamentally we are programmed by our surroundings and the people we interact with.

Unfortunately, most of us are surrounded by people that (unintentionally) are not aligned with the values that we discover or begin to value more when we get on the path of self improvement, or simply disconnecting with the decaying modernity around us.

The key to existing in such environment is (as always) a perspective shift. Like all situations, we can choose to view it as something to be resisted, or something to be enjoyed and learn from. This choice is always ours as we are the masters of our own minds.

View your ‘toxic’ surroundings as a training ground, as a mental dojo in which you HONE your mental toughness. If you had an easy life surrounded by likeminded people forever, you would never develop the mental callouses that serve you in life.

Carlos Castaneda has an amazing concept called ‘the Petty Tyrant’:

“A petty tyrant is a tormentor. Someone who either holds the power of life and death over warriors or simply annoys them to distraction.” - Carlos Castaneda

The petty tyrant can be anyone in your life that tries to exert their level of control over you, could be family, could be coworkers or a boss, or just someone you have to interact with.

“My benefactor used to say that a warrior who stumbles on a petty tyrant is a lucky one.” - Don Juan

NEVER TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY. - This is the biggest gift of the petty tyrant. To be able to separate from and recognize that even though you will likely be annoyed to no end by the petty tyrant, you must not allow yourself to be energetically attached to the petty tyrant, and their bullshit that they throw your way.

Tyrants are effective teachers because they force the warrior to closely monitor their own reactions and habitual behaviours. The result is mindfulness.

This shift to being appreciative of the mental training they give you changes at core your vibrational state, allowing you to transcend those circumstances after a period of time. And of course, it is a process.

Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Trust me on this

https://twitter.com/EgoDriv/status/1454189051850919946

Brainwaves and Self-Conditioning Trick your brain and create your own reality This will be longer than usual.

When you understand how your brain work and the electrical field it is; you can work on controlling it's performances

The first thing you need to understand is that; in period of tiredness or confusion (before bed or in the morning) the brain is in perfect condition to learn.

There are two ways for the human brain to learn and absorb knowledge that it won't forget:

-Repetition
-Hypnosis

The practice described in this thread consists of capitalizing on both in order to optimize one's brain performances & mindset in general.

Shaping one's own reality

Hypnosis state:

The closest one can naturally get to a hypnosis state is in the morning or before going to bed; but why? The low energy of those periods of time; combined with a state on unclarity and tiredness result in the brain only radiating Theta waves. Why it matters? Let's clarify the importance of Theta frequencies.

Before the age of 7, the human brain radiate Theta frequencies at most. It is incapable of getting beyond that frequency. Which makes it in a state similar to hypnosis; a state of creativity yet mental ineffciency. When the brain is on a Theta frequency; it reaches a state of absorption and stocking. It basically feed the subconscious and memory everything it receives and stocks them in there.

In other words; during Theta state our brains are as fresh as a kid's. It is open to learning. They often tell you to read stuff you want to keep in mind either before going to bed or right after waking up right? If that information will be printed in your mind almost certainly and become easier to remember.. Then how about you feed enhancers to your brain at that time?

Repetition: We all know repetition is precursor of learning. If we now know when is the best brain state to learn; we know when the repetition should occur. For any given skill; it is during the Theta state that one should try and feed information to their brain. Now, with all the previous information in mind. We will add another ingredient to this process: Affirmations. The power of affirmations resides in sending conscious messages to program our subconscious to think in a certain way.

If the kids are the easiest to program… Then your Theta state is the best time to condition yourself. That state allows you to access your subconscious and determine the information it holds. Feed it what YOU want it to believe. Solution: Each morning and each night; condition your mind to deal with what's coming. Affirm what you want to create as a reality. If you don't know where to start; get TERMINATE.

Force pre-requirements and control how your brain perceives your life. Feed it positive self-talk and optimism so that it starts expecting the best. You have total control over your thoughts. Take it.

PS: All your senses can be used to condition your mind. If you want to make the most of your affirmation; write them down while you think about them. This increases your perception of said idea (as you visualize it) and increases the likelihood of you retaining it

Side note: this is an old thread of mine; thought I'd share it again for those who missed it when I deleted all my tweets.

Techniques to free you from the mind

1 - There are no mistakes

The most notorious habit of the human mind is to resist reality. We prefer to live in our little world of imagination (painful or pleasurable), than living in reality. Because quiet honestly, reality is boring.

Yet all human frustrations stem from the mind’s inability to accept life as it is in the moment. We attribute all effects to our actions, and rarely consider the sheer immensity of things outside our control. As a result we expect our actions to be well calculated, 100% accurate and effectuate only positive effects. Quite foolish considering the fact that we neither have the mental capacity to compute all possible factors per moment, nor the covetable ability to predict the future. Simply put, humans hate to err.

This fear of erring has deep roots in your upbringing. It was painstakingly instilled in you by your parents and school system. The school system fulfills its part of the quota by employing a grading system that destroys the confidence of students. A terrible and inaccurate method of judging intelligence.

Generally, society upholds a strong stigma against failure. Academics isn’t the only test society puts you through. Your lifestyle, spirituality, health, appearance, relationship status, career choices are always being scrutinized by people who should have no business in your business. Unfortunately that’s the world you found yourself in, and you’ve learnt to adapt… Or have you?

The price of “adapting” is far costlier than anything you can imagine. What it actually means is that you’ve learnt to suffer in silence as the countless voices in your head incessantly judge you. Yet these voices aren’t really yours - but a composite of your parents, religious leaders, partners, friends, and even influencers. With varying intensity depending on what group you are most subservient to. The expectations of these people constantly bombard your mind. You frantically try to act in accordance with their set of rules, beating yourself up mentally for any slip up. Paradoxically, when you are overly conscious not to err, everything you do would seem like a mistake.
To be free of this obsession with perfection, let’s look into the concept of mistake.

What exactly is a mistake? Psychologically speaking - it is the mere idea that reality could be different other than what it is. Read that again. An idea that you create in your mind of the possibility that things could have happened differently. There’s no such thing. All of that is just a play of your intellect & imagination.

Understand this: No matter how hard you imagine it - things will never be different than how they are presently. You are only able to change the past in your mind, it never reflects reality momentarily.
So why waste mental energy in fantasy land. Reality may be boring or painful, but fully accepting it as it is changes the quality of your mind, and in turn, the quality of the experience. See it as a way to sharpen your Stoics.

You don’t have to let your own mind keep torturing you with could haves, would haves and should haves. Henceforth, whenever a thought pops up in your head saying you made a wrong or said the wrong thing, stop it dead in its tracks. Things are always exaggerated (positively or negatively) in your mind. There’s no way you could possibly know how things could have turned out alternatively. It’s guess work at best.

This habit of wanting or imaging things to be different is so deeply ingrained that it’s almost second nature. It’s not easy to break from but you can start practicing today. Just don’t be interested or invested in your mind's stories, no matter how tempting they are.
Even in this you’ll err and your mind will try to guilt trip you. Remain detached and indifferent to whatever it says. Rather than participating in the discourse between all the voices in your head, be the watcher. Don’t even be the judge or corrector. Be aloof, and gradually the ability of your mind to pull you into dream land will start to wane….
Hope this helps someone 🤎

Demystifying the lie around Narcissism.

This is a piece I have been keen to write for a while and some of it's focal points have already discussed here but this aims to clarify it all.

There has been throughout History a pattern of vilifying anyone that values themselves while paradoxically celebrating historical figures that have dared to believe in themselves.

There is this social lie that someone who loves themselves is evil and negatively described as arrogant and cocky.

I'll concede, the line is very fine and thin.

Let's redefine something so that you get my point, someone who's genuinely narcissistic is someone who admires and values themselves, that being their internal belief.

On the other hand, someone who suffers from a narcissistic disorder, which is psychological condition and pathology, does not truly and internally believe that they are worth it.

Quite the opposite.

Let's explain further.

The narcissistic disorder makes one unable to face their own ego; as such, they are unable to truly put a value on themselves, they do not have a purely subjective idea of who they are.

Instead, they prefer assuming how other people will see them. They rely on a fake idea of how they are perceived because they are not proud of their own self-perception.

In short: their ego is insecure.

As opposed, genuine narcissism, although the word bothers some people, does not make you see yourself through others because it's essential prerequisite is self-awareness.

The thing is, with anyone who exudes confidence, there is one question that never fails to show where they stand:

Do you keep yourself in check?

Someone with a narcissistic disorder never does.

Someone with high self-esteem and confidence always does.

For the former is scared of facing himself.

While the latter finds clarity in doing exactly that.

Would you join a Basedonia discord server?
anonymous poll

Yes – 87
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 69%

No – 39
👍👍👍 31%

👥 126 people voted so far. Poll closed.

USING YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS TO SOLVE LIFE PROBLEMS FOR YOU

Our unique power as humans is our connection to the Divine
This unparalleled intelligence is what gives us our most stellar ideas, our realisations and our intuitive guidance. You can develop this connection by practicing meditation, living healthily and in general raising your vibration.

Now, on to the specifics of how to ask your subconscious to solve things for you:

At the close of each day, write a List of the five most important things for the next day.

Run them over in the mind just before going to sleep, not thoughtfully, or with elaboration of detail, but with the sure knowledge that the deeper centres of the mind are capable of viewing them constructively even though conscious attention is surrendered in sleep.

If you have a particular problem which seems difficult to solve, just before bed, lightly review it for the imaginative unconscious to play with during the night.

Do not be discouraged if no immediate results are apparent. Trust in your superconscious that it will solve the issue.

Remember that fiction, poetry, musical composition, inventions and innumerable ideas spring from the Unconscious, often in forms that give evidence of the highest capabilities of this force.

For example, the periodic table came to the inventor in a dream.

Give your unconscious a chance. Give it the material, and stimulate it with keenly dwelt-on ideas.

It is a habit which, if persisted in, will sooner or later present you with some very valuable ideas when you least expect them.

This is the essence of why we are told 'sleep on it'

During the state of unconscious dreaming, although our logical conscious mind is not 'thinking' of it, it is being worked on by our subconscious.

You can intentionally use this power by consciously suggesting it work to do.

Unthoughtful reactions, led by your emotions and will more often lead you to regret.

Impulsivity comes from an inability to control one's emotions and a failure to clearly picture the consequences.

In order to stop being impulsive, one has to work on optimizing their reactions.

Rather than fighting your reactions and overly controlling yourself,

You should work on the WAY you react.

Forbidding yourself from reacting will lead to a greater frustration.

Now, how does one train and work on their reactions?

It's quite simple.

Impulsions come from situations of uncertainty and frustration.

If you want to do that, you need to reduce those situations as much as possible.

Here is how you can do it by doing 3 simple things.

1- Plan your day

If you have a clear path to follow every day, external events will be of very little importance.

Having clear goals each day drives you to ignore possible impulsive reactions.

With the whole day layed out in your mind, everything becomes but a distraction

2- Fabricate reactions

You already know what makes you go bonkers.

You know what frustrates you and what makes you act unthoughtfully

Write them down and DECIDE how you will react to each thing.

Take the time to plan your reactions so that you never do something you'll regret.

3- Sleep 8 hours and eat every 8 hours

This one might sound cliché or unrelated but what you need to know is that

Both your hunger and sleeping hours define HEAVILY how you will act

Provide your body with optimal conditions so that your mind can make optimal decisions.

What if it still goes wrong occasionally?

Each moment of impulsion you go through is a lesson

Each moment should be added to your list of reactions

Everything is a lesson.

Compound mistakes and you'll compound experiences

Compound experiences and you'll find out who you are.

Also something I cannot stress enough:

Meditate for at least 20min every morning

Use that time to prepare for the day,

Use it to be ready to be the person you want to be.

Uncertainties are part of life, but let them be external and control whatever comes out of you, be it reaction or words.

Reducing uncertainty will bring you more peace of mind and allow you to think more critically in tense situations.

Cultivate your inner peace; nobody's gonna do that for you.

My 2 cents on society and where it all went wrong.

https://twitter.com/EgoDriv/status/1457731178895716357?t=PalFuKr3fOUoSKsz_Q6cAw&s=19

Why am I obsessed with neediness?

That's what one of you asked me.

It's quite simple yet very interesting.

For a long time, I used to hate people.

That's no longer true, now I don't care about them.

What happened is that I realized the following:

The more you need someone, the higher you expectations from them.

That's the fucking trap.

Because the more you need them, the more you get attached to them, it makes sense, you expect them to deliver.

But here is the thing:

Nobody owes you shit.

Unless it's a written legal contract, you can eat shit.

Then I asked myself, how can I have a decent social life without being worried about people disappointing me?

I had to have zero expectations.

How would I do that?

By fulfilling on my needs on my own.

And guess what?

All relationships and friendships became positive experiences.

I could finally appreciate the platonic exchange most people want.

I realize I wanted that too.

Exchanging genuinely without expecting anything from one another.

It is liberating.

Seek self-sufficiency.

https://twitter.com/EgoDriv/status/1457837272565432320?

It's over!

I'm going to try and organize a voice chat in the coming days.

I'll be bringing a very special guest, someone that taught me a lot and someone that has a lot of value to share with us here.

PS: Expect a lot more audio and video content from me going forward, really excited for what's to come!

Cheers Basedonians, stay Based

See the obstacles you face in life as rivers you have to cross.

Any situation you face comes down to this very simple analogy.

And as each river has a different depth of water, it takes different efforts to cross one as it would for another.

But here is the thing:

If you think the only way to cross is to swim, you'll get yourself wet when you could have went around.

If you think the only way is to have stepping stones, then you won't be able to cross if there aren't any stones to step on.

If you're used to going around the river and find an already made bridge to cross, then again, you'll be stuck if nobody built a bridge before you.

For you to cross ANY river, aka for you to get through any problem, you NEED to evaluate all possibilities and know what you have at hand.


Yes, taking action is important.

But you know what's more important?

Picking the right action to take.

Your past experiences won't always give you the best solutions.

As Dylan Madden would say:

Understand this and prosper.

Have a nice weekend ahead 🥂

Assertiveness vs Aggressiveness and Passiveness

Typically, people will think assertiveness refers to passive-aggressive behavior. There is a common misconception or confusion between the two, but they are very different. While one aims at mixing up passiveness and aggressiveness; the other aims simply at defining clear boundaries and impose respect.

The essence of passive-aggressive behavior is a tension in the person displaying such behavior, while assertiveness aims at achieving the exact opposite.

Passive-aggressive behavior is often a sign of discomfort and an inability to express one's frustration explicitly.

It is the tool of the weak.

It is a tool for cowards.

Assertiveness on the other hand respects other people's personal space and boundaries will explicitly putting up clear and distinct boundaries of your own.

It doesn't mean harm or disrespect.

It aims at defining the limits you accept without crossing other people's limits.

It is not about dominating your interlocutor; it is about not letting anyone disrespect you.

Assertiveness is polite yet firm.

As opposed to aggressive communication, it isn't pushy. There has to be a balance between saying "no" to others and saying "yes" to yourself. Those who are assertive know what they want and how to achieve it without stepping on others.

It is the sweet spot between self-confidence and proper social skills that allow you to impose yourself without putting others down.

As opposed to being passive-aggressive; or being either aggressive or passive.

Aggressiveness will lead you to nothing but useless conflict; as your raised voice indicates a lack of self-confidence that you try to compensate by violent.

Or in opposite cases, being passive; not being vocal enough to the point where you basically invite people to take advantage of you.
A sweet spot IS POSSIBLE.

Work on your assertiveness and your overall social skills will drastically improve.