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A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

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Discuss the November 2022 Philosophy Book of the Month, In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes.

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#460655
Hi Eckhart,

Your response: How do you define the word 'motive'? How do you define the word 'motivate'?

My definitions for each term:

Motive: the reason behind taking an action.

Motivate: to encourage someone to do something.
#460750
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes wrote: February 13th, 2024, 2:21 pm If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.

Cryptic Spy wrote: February 3rd, 2024, 12:58 am I'm currently in my college, 1st year...
How do I manage everything around me?
Hi, Cryptic Spy,

Thank you for your question. However, it is very vague, so I am not sure I understand your meaning fully.

Nonetheless, my primary suggestion to you is to first carefully and slowly read my book, In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All, twice.

The reason for reading it at least twice is explained here.

Then, my next piece of advice for you is to do your absolute best to strictly follow all eleven of the numbered suggestions at the end of the book.

If you do that, you will surely have invincible free-spirited inner peace (a.k.a. inspired consistent true happiness), which in turn will come along with having incredible grace and gracefulness, meaning you will be able to play and juggle whatever cards and punches life is throwing your way with happy grace and infinite ease.

You will then be approaching life and its exciting endless challenges in the way the best martial arts master in the entire world would approach a martial arts fight. You will respond to it with a happy calm confidence competence that is so empoweringly and enricheningly graceful that it seems supernatural.

In other words, my book (In It Together) will teach you how to feel neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed but perfectly whelmed, a powerful state better known as inner peace, grace, or gracefulness that comes with instant invincible free-spirited happiness and also leads to seemingly supernatural levels of external success and achievements, such as making huge amounts of money or achieving ridiculous results in the gym, or whatever your unique external goals happen to be.


Beyond that, you may also find my answers to the following previous Q&As relevant and/or helpful:


- How are you able to balance your work and do it so efficiently? How do balance your time so well to accomplish all you do?

- How did you handle it when you were a full-time single parent of two young kids?

- How did you manage to sleep between jobs and taking care of your children when they were young?

- I need some ideas on what to do when you are parenting alone between work and caring for the young children.

- How do I combine my school activities with work?

- How did you manage to get all parts of your life in order while en route to success? It seems like you had everything all planned out.

- How can I balance two competing priorities (e.g. fitness goals vs having fun and not being bored)? (includes notes on prioritization with helpful analogy of rocks/pebbles/sand)

- How does it feel to run many websites? (includes notes on compartmentalizing and monotasking)

- Can one multitask occupation? For instance, can one be a doctor, engineer and an artist at the same time?

- I am just awestruck. You are a founder, a coder, and a dad on top of that. How do manage it all?


Some common themes you will see in my answers to the above questions are as follows:

1. Determine your actual real priorities. Namely, this answer provides a helpful analogy of thinking of different level priorities as different sized rocks.

2. Compartmentalizing

3. Monotasking

4. Do less, better. (That is the title of a chapter from my book.)


Here are a couple especially relevant excerpts from the answers I have linked above:

Eckhart Aurelius Hughes wrote: January 31st, 2024, 4:41 pm My system for maintaining inner peace and achieving huge external success with incredible grace, confidence, and happy ease is built on honestly determining what one's own priorities are, in order, and then making absolutely certain to take care of #1 before taking care of #2 and to do #2 before #3 and so on. I look at the big priorities and top goals like big rocks, and look at the the lower priorities as sand, and look at it is if I am looking to fill a finite sack. I put the big rocks in first, then once I am sure I have got those in there, I pour in as much sand as I can.

If you put the sand in first, then you won't have room for the rocks.

[...]

Even if in reality you won't have to choose between the two in the most extreme black-and-white binary way, such that you can have all of one and still some of the other, it's typically very helpful to start by hypothetically imagining you only had the binary option of all of first and none of the second vs none of the first and all of the second. And that's just so you can understand what you real #1 priority is, meaning what your biggest rock is and thus also which is just some of of the infinite sand and pebbles in comparison. It's just some of the infinite of pile of available extra icing some of which you might throw on top if you have some time left.

[...]

The seeming conflicts (e.g. maintaining sobriety while maintaining friendships, losing weight while still eating tasty snacks and not feeling hunger, etc.) tend to evaporate once one takes the time to do the self-exploration and meditation to honestly know oneself. The false appearance of conflict arises from trying to fit an impossible amount of rocks and sand in a bag, and then one in that situation might ask me how they can fit even more rocks and sand in their bag. My answer is you cannot. It is impossible. Instead, I suggest you start emptying your cup. A cup is useful because of it's emptiness. Conceptually take everything out of your finite bag; in your mind, dump out all the rocks and sand. Then, slowly, with extreme self-honesty, one at a time pick your priorities and put them in the empty bag one a time. You'll get your big rocks, then you can throw some sand in, and other people will be asking you, "Wow, how did you fit so much in your bag? It must be the heaviest most filled bag I've ever seen! How do you get so much done? How do you achieve such incredible success in everything you put your mind to?" Do what I've told you in this post, and they will be asking you that.

***

Eckhart Aurelius Hughes wrote: January 11th, 2024, 5:36 pm

With monotasking and compartmentalizing, you take the pros of putting all your focus and energy into one thing without the con of putting all your eggs into one basket. Likewise, you get the pros of having a diversified portfolio of investments, skills, and incredible accomplishments without the con of anxiously and counter-productively being spread too thin and juggling so much at once that you drop everything.

Not only do monotasking and compartmentalizing make you much more productive and lead to incredible external success, but also (by no coincidence) they are much more conducive to having an amazing sense of inner peace and a calm, quiet, powerful, resilient, self-determined, peaceful, spacious state of mind.

There's a wild hilarious irony to the correlation between willful anxiety (namely that which comes from one attempting to juggle so much at once) and the utter lack of productivity that comes with that anxiety. I suspect many people choose that miserable counter-productive anxiety because they foolishly imagine it as being the price of productivity when the exact opposite is the case. The price of productivity is letting go of the anxiety and letting go of the addiction to restless overdoing, an addiction that comes in large part from mistaking effort for productivity.




With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott



monotasking.jpg





---
In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.
I am going to share my 1st year in college experience. I didn't really have a mentor like Mr. Scott by then, but I found away to get through it.
College just wasn't what I thought it would be. It isn't like what you see in the movies. I thought I would go to college, have a cool life, enjoy all the parties and always chill around but oh boy was I wrong. It was twice the number of assignments and you were expected to grasp so many new things in a very short period of time.
I ended up losing so much weight to the extent that my parents even got worried. I almost dropped out and even ended up missing some papers.
I decided to go for guidance and counselling and this helped me get back on track. I also decided to solely focus on academics and stop dreaming of what I thought college would be. Turns out I had over fantasised my college experience and being unable to live the life I had imagined left Me completely shattered.
In It Together review: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewt ... p?t=489094
#460863
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes wrote: October 11th, 2023, 12:22 am
Thera reads wrote: October 10th, 2023, 10:27 pm I want to have a wider view on philosophy. After watching the Truman Show, I'm beginning to wonder if anything is real. What do you think?
Hi, Thera reads,

Great question! :D

I love The Truman Show. I'm also fan of some of these other movies that have a similar way of exploring the concept of reality itself:

- The Matrix

- Vanilla Sky

- Fight Club

- Jacob's Ladder

- Free Guy


However, we don't have to rely on fiction or the age-old question about whether you might be dreaming right now as you read this. Modern science has shown that waking life is at best almost entirely just as much a hallucination as a conventional dream. Your brain is like a PlayStation or Xbox creating this VR world, the same as it does when you are having a sleeping dream, but at best your brain is really just in a dark quiet skull with no light or sound. Here is a post I wrote about that subject that I think you might like:

Commentary on self-transcendence, ego death, and dying before you die; with a finger snap more brutal than Thanos


There's definitely a lot of things that we typically treat as real due to misleading intuitions and/or for practical purposes that definitely aren't real.

But we can start to get a grasp for what definitely is real by playing with the idea of this life and this world being an actual dream. Let's assume you are dreaming right now. Or make it not pretend by literally reminding yourself to literally ask yourself this question next time you are sleeping at night having an actual literal conventional dream. You can talk about it with the other characters in the dream world. Maybe literally have a debate with yourself in your dream tonight.

There's an undeniable reality to your consciousness itself, meaning you yourself, meaning your true self, the real you. From that, there's other equally undeniable realities. What you feel is one. A hallucination or dream or even the story in a fictional book doesn't need to be real for the way it makes you feel to be real. Your experience of it is real. A nightmare is really scary regardless of its reality. Fiction has a way of becoming real when it is experienced (and/or created) by consciousness.

In my book, In It Together, I write that even a dream is real if it is consciosuly dreamt.

What you see may be a hallucination, but that you see it is not.

Your true intentions and the choices you make are real, no matter what.

Just because you are playing virtual poker instead of with real cards, your choice to play those cards--real or not--the way you do is real. Your choice to unconditionally accept the cards you are dealt versus hate and resent what you cannot control is real. The cards your dealt don't need to be real for your choice of how to play them to be real. The cards your dealt don't need to be real for this to be real: your choice to lovingly accept them versus choosing to engage in miserable impotent resentment or hate of them.

The hate you choose to have in your heart, if any, is real.

Or, if instead, you choose to practice love and acceptance, that is real. The love is real. The choice is real.

That is, in part, what I mean in the book when I write, "Not even a god can come between you and your choices."

Your choices and intentions are real, even if what allegedly actually happens as a result of those intentions and choices cannot be known or is not even real.

If I choose to hatefully point a gun at an innocent little baby and fire, not realizing I am dreaming, and then wake up before the bullet strikes, my choice to murder that baby was still real. That hateful or otherwise murderous intent was still real, even if the baby and the gun was not. In a sense, I am still really a hateful murderer even if I wake up after committing the murder to find I was dreaming without realizing it.

That's why I don't commit murder and why I don't engage in miserable resentment or hate, neither in my dreams at night nor in this waking life we often falsely treat as so much realer than our dreams even though it clearly is not.

For some things, the ends don't and can't justify the means because the means are undeniably real and the alleged ends are not.

It's not just the choice or intent to commit hateful miserable murder. The same goes for things the like the choice to be honest and brave versus being a coward and lying thieving cheater. These choices are undeniable real, even if one is dreaming while one makes them, or unknowing living the The Matrix or The Truman Show.

The hate or love you have is real. Your choice to do your best to put that love--or hate--into practice is undeniably real.

That is in large part why I say that to have hate in your heart is to be in hell. One like that will be miserable hateful while dreaming and miserably hateful while awake. They will be miserable hateful while in the north and miserable hateful in the south. The miserable hate they have is real, and so no dreamy forms or possibly fictional worlds can cover it up or give them an escape. It's all just a different mask on the same real thing.

In contrast, to have unconditional love in your heart for everyone and everything is to be in heaven. The masks and covers change, but the reality beneath does not.

I am in heaven before I fall asleep at night, I am in heaven while in my sleeping dreams, and then still I am in heaven when I awake in the morning to this waking life we falsely think of as so much realer than our dream worlds at night.

For better or worse, we can't escape our own hearts, by which I really mean our own spirits and choices. What's in there is real, and it stays wirh us with through all these dreamy dancing forms in these quickly changing worlds, like an unconcealable scar on the face of an actor playing different roles in different moves. It's a glimpse of the real sneaking into the fiction. It's a peak at the naked constant underneath the ever-changing clothes.

What my book calls the real you is real.

In a way, the clothes never are.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott





seneca-quote.png
Hi Scott.
Are you saying that we have control of our dreams and we are responsibility for what happened in a dream? Suppose I commit murder in a dream, does it mean I am now a murderer.
In It Together review: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewt ... p?t=489094
#461123
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes wrote: July 10th, 2023, 2:17 pm
Wenesha K wrote: July 6th, 2023, 6:49 pm Hi Scott,

I hope this post finds you well.
So tell me, what motivates you daily?
Hi, Wenesha K,

Thank you for your questions!

Different people tend to mean different things by the word motivate, and, by extension, the word motive.

Word for word, two people might both seem to ask the same exact question, such as "What was the murderer's motive?"

Or, they might ask, "What motivated the murderer?" Or, "What motivated the alcoholic to drink?" Or, "What motivated the adulterer to have the affair?"

Of all those people together, one might collectively ask, What were their shared motives?

However, despite two speakers' words being the same, the meaning might be very different between two different speakers who ask those questions.

To really answer your question accurately, let me first ask you, how do you define the word 'motivate'? In other words, what do you mean by the word 'motivate' when you use it?

In any case, let me say that I hold my inner peace (a.k.a. consistent true happiness) as very valuable to me and as an absolute top priority. As such, I tend to do my best to avoid what most people would call 'motivation'. Because I value my inner peace (a.k.a. happiness) so deeply, I work hard to be un-motivated and to have relatively little desire, for a human, that is.

Many philosophies and religious traditions have taught that desire is the root of all suffering.

In my book, I state a similar but slightly different premise: I say desire is suffering. In the lingo of my book, they are two words for the same thing.

More roughly speaking, one could say I do my best to desire what I have and only what I have. But, of course, the more common word for that is gratitude rather than desire.

For example, I do my best to not covet my neighbour's wife; that is, of course, assuming she isn't already in my bed. :lol:

An elaboration on how such intentional de-motivation can play out more practically is in the chapter of my book titled, "Do Less, Better".

Wenesha K wrote: July 6th, 2023, 6:49 pm And what philosophy inspires you the most that helped you a lot in your daily life?
I have been very inspired by the following philosophers, thinkers, and spiritual teachers:

- Albert Camus

- Eckhart Tolle

- Alan Watts

- Marcus Aurelius (and Stoicism in general)

- Lao Tzu (author of the Tao Te Ching)

- Buddha (i.e. Siddhartha Gautama)

- Jesus

- Ram Dass

- Albert Einstein


In more practical and human matters, a couple of my personal role models are self-made multi-millionaire Rob White and self-made multi-millionaire Jorge P. Newbery, both of whom by no coincidence have more than one book on My Reading List for My Mentees. :)


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott




power-in-acceptance.jpg
That part of your neighbour's wife is funny 😁 .
And yes doing your best to desire something can trul6 motivate you. Personally, I think of all the reasons I should do something and that actually motivates me.
In It Together review: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewt ... p?t=489094
#461825
On the topic of the starving child vs the starving millions of children, have you ever watched the 1949 movie version of “Little Women” in which the girls are discussing sharing their breakfast with a poor famiiy?

Jo wants to take their Christmas breakfast to a poor family, but Amy is selfish, and she says something about people starving everywhere. Jo counters with, “We don’t know them, but we do know Mrs. Hummel,” or something to that effect. Your comments reminded me of this movie. They took their breakfast to share with the poor woman and her many children.
In It Together review: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewt ... p?t=517515
#462180
Juanita Phelps wrote: May 8th, 2024, 7:41 pm On the topic of the starving child vs the starving millions of children, have you ever watched the 1949 movie version of “Little Women” in which the girls are discussing sharing their breakfast with a poor famiiy?

Jo wants to take their Christmas breakfast to a poor family, but Amy is selfish, and she says something about people starving everywhere. Jo counters with, “We don’t know them, but we do know Mrs. Hummel,” or something to that effect. Your comments reminded me of this movie. They took their breakfast to share with the poor woman and her many children.
Hi, Juanita Phelps,


Thank you for your question! :)

No, I haven't seen that movie.

Do you recommend it? Is it one of your favorites?


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott
Favorite Philosopher: Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
#462823
If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.

Puckett Elizabeth Marie wrote: April 24th, 2024, 1:18 pm Am really scared starting my life as a young person. How did you deal with it during youthful era.

Hi, Puckett Elizabeth Marie,


Thank you for your question! :)


As a human, your life started at your birth. Since you can read and write, I assume that was many years ago. Thus, I don't really understand your question.

Your life is not about to start. It's already started. It's already going. And there's going to be many new chapters throughout the rest of it.

Fearlessness is not a goal I recommend anyone set. It's a fool's goal, meaning those who set fearlessness as their goal are fools, which I say with love. The reason it's a fool's goal is because it's an impossible goal. Every single human will feel a lot of fear and pain throughout their life, typically every single day.

Have you read my book, In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All?

My book does not teach one to not feel feelings like hunger, pain, sexual attraction, anger, discomfort, and fear. To be at war with those feelings is to not have inner peace. You can never win that war as long as you fight it, and you will remain lacking in inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness or spiritual fulfillment) as long as you choose to continue to engage in the needless futile unwinnable miserable war.

Instead, my book teaches one to have spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) in relation to their bodily feelings such as hunger, pain, sexual attraction, anger, discomfort, and fear.

In relation to fear specifically, we have a word for spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline): bravery. Another word for it is courage.

Bravery (a.k.a. courage) is an example of spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline). It's what we call being free-spirited in relation to fear.

In contrast, a coward would be someone who is a slave to fear.

In the same way, we can have spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) in relation to fear or be a slave to it, we can have spiritual freedom in relation to or be a slave to any other bodily feelings in general, including anger, hunger, sexual attraction, pain, and so on.

A key teaching of my book is to understand and firmly and consistently focus on the dichotomy of control, meaning understanding the difference between that which you cannot control and cannot change (e.g. the weather) versus that which you do (namely, your choices).

Accordingly, my book teaches the reader how to easily divorce their feelings from their choices.

You see the difference between (1) hunger versus (2) the choice to eat.

You see the difference between (1) being sexually attracted to a person versus (2) choosing to have consensual sex with them.

You see the difference between (1) being afraid to do something, such as jump out of a burning building, versus (2) the choice to do it.

You see the difference between (1) feelings versus (2) choices.

Typically, you don't control #1, and thus it is to be fully and unconditionally accepted exactly as it is. To worry about it at all, resent it, or desperately and futilely try to change it (e.g. go to war with your feelings) is to take undue responsibility for what you don't control and therefore, (since your time and energy are limited) not take full self-responsibility.

Someone following the teachings of my book would never say something like the following:

"I felt hungry so I had to eat."

"She forced me to have sex with her by wearing a short skirt."

"I am afraid, so I can't do it."


Indeed, that's also why the phrases "must", "have to", and "need to" are listed in my article The Six Dangerous Misery-Inducing Words: "Must", "Have to", "Need to", "Should", "Ought", "Try"


Those are slave words.

Those who use them are slaves to their feelings and delusions. Those who use them tend to feel like prisoners in their own bodies.

In contrast, free spirits (e.g. those who follow the teachings of my book) do not use those kinds of words, those slave words.

They use free honest self-responsible language.

They don't connect their choice to eat or not eat to the feeling of hunger. They aren't slaves to their body's feelings and urges. They fully and unconditionally accept what they cannot control and put their full focus on taking responsibility for what they do control.

What do I do when I am afraid? I do what I would do anyway if I wasn't afraid.

Feelings like fear are not my master.

I am a free spirit.

I am free.

I am 100% successful, always. And everything I see is 100% successful, because (whatever it is) if it's not in my control, and thus it is freely doing its own thing outside of my control, I fully and unconditionally accept it with an acceptance so full and unconditional it warrants the word love. I lovingly look at it and rightfully see it as successfully being what it is and successfully doing what it does. And everything else, by definition, is what's in my control, and, over that, I am omnipotent and thus always successful.

I cannot fully describe with words how incredibly liberating and unwaveringly fulfilling this way of looking at things is. I scratch at it by calling it invincible inner peace, unwavering spiritual fulfillment, and consistent invincible true happiness. But even those labels merely scratch at the surface of how wonderful and graceful and indescribably amazing it is. They only barely scratch at the surface of the deep indescribable level of transcendence and invincible safety and spiritual security that comes with looking at the world in that accurate, brutally honest, and self-responsible way, where everything you see is an acceptable lovable success. Everything you see is acceptable. Everything you see is lovable. Everything you see is a success. And you and your freedom and your consistent unwavering happy inner peace are all invincible.

If you aren't there yet, then read my book.

If you already read it, then read it again.

Choose to do your absolute best to follow all eleven of the infinitely easy-to-follow numbered suggestions at the end.

Then, you will be there. I guarantee it.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott



I am a free spirit. I am free..png
I am a free spirit. I am free..png (1.76 MiB) Viewed 48818 times



In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.
Favorite Philosopher: Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
#462899
If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.

Risper Ouma Lisa Anyango wrote: April 26th, 2024, 8:46 am
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes wrote: October 11th, 2023, 12:22 am
If I choose to hatefully point a gun at an innocent little baby and fire, not realizing I am dreaming, and then wake up before the bullet strikes, my choice to murder that baby was still real. That hateful or otherwise murderous intent was still real, even if the baby and the gun was not. In a sense, I am still really a hateful murderer even if I wake up after committing the murder to find I was dreaming without realizing it.
Hi Scott.
Are you saying that we have control of our dreams and we are responsibility for what happened in a dream? Suppose I commit murder in a dream, does it mean I am now a murderer.

Hi, Risper Ouma Lisa Anyango,


Thank you for your question! :)


1. "Are you saying that we have control over our dreams?"
 
That would be a question better asked of a neuroscientist. My favorite neuroscientist is David Eagleman.
 
I recommend you watch the following three-video series by Dr. Eagleman from his podcast, "Inner Cosmos":
 
 
Ep 50: Why do we spend 1/3 of our lives asleep?
 
Ep 51: Why do brains dream?
 
Ep 52: What is lucid dreaming? (Sleeping & Dreaming Part 3)
 
 
If I had to bet on either a simple flat-out 'yes' or a simple flat-out 'no' to answer your question, then I would bet that the answer is, yes, you control your dreams. However, I would be more confident and slightly too willing to place that bet if you instead asked about 'lucid dreams' rather than just 'dreams' in general.
 
 
 
2. "Suppose I commit murder in a dream; does that mean I am now a murderer?"
 
If you believed the dream was real when you committed the murder, then I would say you are a murderer in the same sense that Dalia Dippolito is. For reference, Dalia Dippolito was a woman who hired an undercover cop posing as a hitman to kill her husband. The police then staged a murder, making her think that the hit had been completed and her husband had been killed. Then she was recorded pretending to be surprised, upset, and extremely sad upon being told her husband had been killed. You can see her performance here. It's disturbingly hilarious to me.
 
Humans. :lol:
 
 
In contrast, if you knew you were dreaming and that the would-be victim was imaginary and presumably had no real feelings, then I'd say you are no more a murderer than someone who shoots a fictional character in the game Grand Theft Auto. I used to play a lot of GTA. I slaughtered a lot of people in that game. I would snipe them from the rooftops. Then, when the ambulance and police would come, I would blow them and their vehicles up with a rocket launcher. It was brutal. It would be so sadistic if those cartoon people had feelings.
 
But in real life, I'm a vegetarian and don't even murder animals.
 
 
 
Things look a lot different when you realize and honestly acknowledge that you control what you control and take responsibility for it. What seemed real can be revealed as an illusion if it is your own creation. What once seemed like—and in a sense was—a hellish nightmare can be revealed as heaven once you become lucid in it.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott



You control what you control and take responsibility for it..png
You control what you control and take responsibility for it..png (606.58 KiB) Viewed 48741 times



In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.
Favorite Philosopher: Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
#462984
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes wrote: October 11th, 2023, 12:22 am
Thera reads wrote: October 10th, 2023, 10:27 pm I want to have a wider view on philosophy. After watching the Truman Show, I'm beginning to wonder if anything is real. What do you think?
Hi, Thera reads,

Great question! :D

I love The Truman Show. I'm also fan of some of these other movies that have a similar way of exploring the concept of reality itself:

- The Matrix

- Vanilla Sky

- Fight Club

- Jacob's Ladder

- Free Guy


However, we don't have to rely on fiction or the age-old question about whether you might be dreaming right now as you read this. Modern science has shown that waking life is at best almost entirely just as much a hallucination as a conventional dream. Your brain is like a PlayStation or Xbox creating this VR world, the same as it does when you are having a sleeping dream, but at best your brain is really just in a dark quiet skull with no light or sound. Here is a post I wrote about that subject that I think you might like:

Commentary on self-transcendence, ego death, and dying before you die; with a finger snap more brutal than Thanos


There's definitely a lot of things that we typically treat as real due to misleading intuitions and/or for practical purposes that definitely aren't real.

But we can start to get a grasp for what definitely is real by playing with the idea of this life and this world being an actual dream. Let's assume you are dreaming right now. Or make it not pretend by literally reminding yourself to literally ask yourself this question next time you are sleeping at night having an actual literal conventional dream. You can talk about it with the other characters in the dream world. Maybe literally have a debate with yourself in your dream tonight.

There's an undeniable reality to your consciousness itself, meaning you yourself, meaning your true self, the real you. From that, there's other equally undeniable realities. What you feel is one. A hallucination or dream or even the story in a fictional book doesn't need to be real for the way it makes you feel to be real. Your experience of it is real. A nightmare is really scary regardless of its reality. Fiction has a way of becoming real when it is experienced (and/or created) by consciousness.

In my book, In It Together, I write that even a dream is real if it is consciosuly dreamt.

What you see may be a hallucination, but that you see it is not.

Your true intentions and the choices you make are real, no matter what.

Just because you are playing virtual poker instead of with real cards, your choice to play those cards--real or not--the way you do is real. Your choice to unconditionally accept the cards you are dealt versus hate and resent what you cannot control is real. The cards your dealt don't need to be real for your choice of how to play them to be real. The cards your dealt don't need to be real for this to be real: your choice to lovingly accept them versus choosing to engage in miserable impotent resentment or hate of them.

The hate you choose to have in your heart, if any, is real.

Or, if instead, you choose to practice love and acceptance, that is real. The love is real. The choice is real.

That is, in part, what I mean in the book when I write, "Not even a god can come between you and your choices."

Your choices and intentions are real, even if what allegedly actually happens as a result of those intentions and choices cannot be known or is not even real.

If I choose to hatefully point a gun at an innocent little baby and fire, not realizing I am dreaming, and then wake up before the bullet strikes, my choice to murder that baby was still real. That hateful or otherwise murderous intent was still real, even if the baby and the gun was not. In a sense, I am still really a hateful murderer even if I wake up after committing the murder to find I was dreaming without realizing it.

That's why I don't commit murder and why I don't engage in miserable resentment or hate, neither in my dreams at night nor in this waking life we often falsely treat as so much realer than our dreams even though it clearly is not.

For some things, the ends don't and can't justify the means because the means are undeniably real and the alleged ends are not.

It's not just the choice or intent to commit hateful miserable murder. The same goes for things the like the choice to be honest and brave versus being a coward and lying thieving cheater. These choices are undeniable real, even if one is dreaming while one makes them, or unknowing living the The Matrix or The Truman Show.

The hate or love you have is real. Your choice to do your best to put that love--or hate--into practice is undeniably real.

That is in large part why I say that to have hate in your heart is to be in hell. One like that will be miserable hateful while dreaming and miserably hateful while awake. They will be miserable hateful while in the north and miserable hateful in the south. The miserable hate they have is real, and so no dreamy forms or possibly fictional worlds can cover it up or give them an escape. It's all just a different mask on the same real thing.

In contrast, to have unconditional love in your heart for everyone and everything is to be in heaven. The masks and covers change, but the reality beneath does not.

I am in heaven before I fall asleep at night, I am in heaven while in my sleeping dreams, and then still I am in heaven when I awake in the morning to this waking life we falsely think of as so much realer than our dream worlds at night.

For better or worse, we can't escape our own hearts, by which I really mean our own spirits and choices. What's in there is real, and it stays wirh us with through all these dreamy dancing forms in these quickly changing worlds, like an unconcealable scar on the face of an actor playing different roles in different moves. It's a glimpse of the real sneaking into the fiction. It's a peak at the naked constant underneath the ever-changing clothes.

What my book calls the real you is real.

In a way, the clothes never are.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott





seneca-quote.png
I appreciate this question and response.
I have watched the Matrix, The Truman Show and Freeguy.
I am going to probably check out Vanilla Sky and Fight Club.

It's amazing how much of what we have believed is true , revealed as delusion.
I love exploring clarity and truth and perspectives and experiences that lean towards this.
Thank you for your views on reality Scott, it makes sense . Our choices are real, love is real ❤️
I agree with the Senaca quote as well, I have realized how my own projections of the world has caused me suffering and as I dig deep and let go of the delusions, I see that I can choose to breath in love , clarity and truth that nourishes the " true me"/ the reality of my being.
In It Together review: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewt ... p?t=508012
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Bakka Bhai wrote: May 15th, 2024, 8:55 am Was there ever a point in your life when you thought that you couldn't go further? Like did you ever get frustrated enough to just leave everything?

Hi, Bakka Bhai,


Thank you for your question! :)


If by "just leave everything" you mean commit suicide, then no, I've never been suicidal in this human life.
 
If I had ever thought that "I couldn't go forward", I would have been objectively wrong, as proven by the fact that I did go forward.
 
That relates heavily to this recent advice article I posted:
 
99% of the time someone says they cannot do something, they are lying to me and/or themselves.
 
 
Keep in mind that lying can be done simply by misrepresenting one's level of confidence or knowledge in a claim.
 
For example, the statement "It's raining outside" can be true, even if the statement "I know it's raining outside" is false and a lie.
 
Even if it is in fact raining outside, it could still be a lie to say (to yourself or others), "I am certain it is raining outside". If you aren't certain it is raining, then it's a lie to say or imply that you are certain.
 
If you only have evidence amounting to probable cause to believe it's probably raining outside, then it's a lie to say, "It's raining outside" since that implies knowledge or certainty. The honest truth would instead be to say something like, "I don't know if it is raining outside, but if I had to guess based on the limited evidence, I'd say it is probably raining outside. I have probable cause to believe it's probably raining, but I don't have proof."
 
There's an old joke that goes like this: "It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you."
 
It's a funny joke, but it's actually kind of wrong.
 
You can still be insanely paranoid even if they are out to get you, and you are if you don't have sufficient evidence to believe they are out to get you.
 
Most people don't suffer from full-blown paranoid schizophrenia, but many people (if not the vast majority of people) suffer from at least a moderately debilitating amount of unhealthy low self-esteem and/or social anxiety.
 
Even if every single person you met is in fact actually thinking bad things about you and is actively thinking you are dumb and ugly, you'd still generally be lying to yourself if you think they are and present those thoughts to yourself with undue certainty.
 
If you cannot know what they are thinking, then you are lying to yourself if you act like you know what they are thinking, even if your guesses are technically correct.
 
These are just examples.
 
Even if you live alone on a desert island and never communicate with another human, it can happen. Even if you are a total ugly idiot, it can still be a lie to think or say, "I am an ugly idiot", if you don't have sufficient evidence to support that claim.
 
A guess presented as knowledge isn't any less of a lie if it turns out to be true.
 
If the honest answer to a question is "I don't know", answering it as if you did know is a lie.
 
The question here is, can you go on?
 
Answering that question "no" will likely be a lie, even if you couldn't go on because the honest answer isn't the same as the actual answer. Even if the actual answer is no, the honest answer is probably "I don't know".
 
If you don't know and you flat-out answer yes or no, that's a lie.
 
If I had to guess, I'd bet that well over 90% of the negative and/or self-critical thinking the average person does is a lie.
 
They are thinking things they can't possibly know, and thus—even if they were true—are still lies.
 
 
I suggest you re-read the chapter in my book, "To find inner peace, simply stop fighting", since that chapter talks in detail about how to deal with the lies of the ego and mind, which are common; everyone's mind lies, meaning every human's brain thinks a lot of thoughts that are lies. However, mainly, the overall lesson my book teaches is to realize that you cannot stop the mind or brain from thinking false thoughts, but you can realize they are untrue lies and not believe them. You are not lying to yourself just because your mind has the untrue verbal thought, but only when you choose to believe it versus laugh it off as yet one more example of our silly, egotistical human minds doing what they do (e.g. jumping to wild conclusions and overthinking things).
 
 
Next, I suggest you right now choose to strictly follow all eleven of the numbered suggestions at the end. Then you will have free-spirited inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness and spiritual freedom). Then, like me, you will believe that life is so worth living. You will look around, and everything you see will be a wonderful beautiful success. Everything will be acceptable and lovable. No matter where you look—left, right, up, down, east, or west—you will be filled with infinite love for the infinitely lovely and beautiful things all around you. You will be so invincible free and happy. That's not happy in the sense of the emotional high a drug addict feels when shooting up or that an overeating food addict feels when eating, but rather the true happiness that someone can feel even from within a literal prison cell or concentration camp. It's invincible spiritual freedom and invincible total complete spiritual fulfillment (i.e. unwavering spiritual happiness and inner peace) that nobody can take from you and that no outer circumstance can take from you.
 
If heaven is inner peace, and inner peace is a choice, then hell is just heaven for masochists. Hell is just a subset of heaven. In this most heavenly of heavens in which we find ourselves, even the masochistic hell-wishers get their wish.
 
The philosopher Albert Camus once wrote, "Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy."
 
I answer it with YES. That's not a guess. It's an answer that I wrote a whole book to explain. Anyone who reads my book and follows its suggestions can likewise answer Camus's question with a loud confident certain honest YES.
 
YES, life is so worth living. YES, I am so thankful this world exists rather than nothing. YES, this is heavenly, beautiful, perfect, and amazing. YES, I am so grateful. YES, every second I am awake in this world, I am grateful.
 
Life is a challenge, and, YES, I love it.
 
Even when I get punched in the face or encounter especially challenging challenges...
 
Correction: ESPECIALLY when I get punched in the face by life or encounter especially challenging challenges, then I say to life:
 
"Thank you, Life, for doing your best to punch me in my face and often succeeding. Thank you, Life, for being a worthy opponent, because if you were a less worthy (a.k.a. less tough or less challenging) opponent, I would be proportionally less happy due to the lack of challenge and the lack of having a worthy opponent. Thank you, Life, for constantly challenging me and never letting me rest for very long without a wake-up punch to the face. I love challenges! So thank you for constantly challenging me."
 
To paraphrase what I wrote in this Instagram post, I can only be as good as my toughest opponent. Life for me has become a journey of happily seeking ever-worthier opponents. Every day I say to life, "That's all you got, Life? Come on. Be a worthier opponent, Life. Come harder, Life. Surprise me. Give me your best, because that's the only way I can be my best."



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott



“That's all you got, Life Come on. Be a worthier opponent, Life. Come harder, Life. Surprise me. Give me your best, because that's the only way I can be my best.”.png
“That's all you got, Life Come on. Be a worthier opponent, Life. Come harder, Life. Surprise me. Give me your best, because that's the only way I can be my best.”.png (1.84 MiB) Viewed 85283 times



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Bakka Bhai wrote: May 15th, 2024, 8:59 am Also, question 2nd. Whenever I pick a new hobby or a task, I'm very confident and happy and interested in it at first. But then I just get tired and bored of it. Did you ever feel like it? If yes, please tell me what must be done to get rid of it?

Hi, Bakka Bhai,


Thank you for your question! :)


What you are talking about is described in my book, In It Together, in detail, including but not limited to the following pages:
 
- Right at the beginning on page 4, when, among other things, the book says:
 
In It Together (Page 4) wrote:There is always more money to make or more fame to achieve. It is a constant, endless chain of desire. If you get this, then you will want that, and if you get that, then you will want this, or something else, something more. You cannot eliminate desire by fulfilling desire. Fulfillment causes desire and goals to be replaced, not eliminated. You cannot achieve a state of goallessness by achieving goals. So long as you live as a human, you will have unfulfilled desires and unachieved goals, as the human body and mind will always want more and will invariably create new goals once old goals have been achieved.
 
 
- On pages 112 and 113, where it discusses the concept of the grass always being greener on the other side, it says:
 
In It Together (Page 112) wrote:Without the contentment of inner peace, the grass is always greener on the other side and never green enough where one is.
 
In It Together (Page 113) wrote:No matter how much you feed the body and ego, it will only get hungrier. In terms of that figurative hunger, the greedy always starve, damned to a living hell of their own insatiability.
 
No matter how much you chase greener grass, it will never be green enough, and it will always appear greener on the other side. There will always be greener to reach. You will be stuck in a cycle of addiction, always discontent with where you are, always discontent with the grass upon which you stand, always chasing ever greener grass, always fighting, never winning, always lacking inner peace.
 
You cannot feed the spirit with the body’s food.


- On page 173, when I discuss The Hedonic Treadmill:
 
In It Together (Page 173) wrote:If you define happiness as having no unachieved goals, and wait to have inner peace until you achieve all your goals and fulfill your desires, it will never happen. That's a future that does not exist, that cannot exist.
 
This process of trying to get to that living heaven on Earth by feeding the insatiable body and ego, of foolishly trying to actually satiate it, is called the hedonic treadmill.
 
Inner peace does not exist at the end of the hedonic treadmill. Nothing does. Nothing does because the end of that treadmill does not exist.
 
 
Those are just a few examples of where these concepts are discussed in the book.
 
My suggestion is that you re-read the book in full.
 
Then make sure you are following all eleven of the numbered suggestions at the end of the book.
 
If you do that, you will definitely immediately have full-fledged invincible unwavering inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness and spiritual fulfillment) and extreme self-discipline (a.k.a. spiritual freedom).
 
That won't get you off the proverbial treadmill. You will still always have unmet goals and unfulfilled desires, but you will be spiritually fulfilled (a.k.a. truly happy) with free-spirited inner peace while you enjoy that endless chasing of ever-new goals.
 
A person with free-spirited inner peace will tend to have more consistency than an unhappy person (i.e. someone lacking inner peace and/or lacking spiritual freedom, a.k.a. self-discipline). That's mainly because someone with free-spirited inner peace isn't expecting the impossible from these external activities, indulgences and accomplishments.
 
In contrast, consider someone who lacks inner peace and (in other words) feels like they have this unfillable hole deep down inside of them, like a spiritual hole or emotional hole in them. That person tends to use external activities (sex, videos, TV, etc.), indulgences (e.g. alcohol, food), and accomplishments (becoming famous, getting an award, reaching a goal, having a fancy car, etc.) in a desperate, futile attempt to fill that hole inside of them, but those kinds of things only make that hole bigger and make the person more hungry for those kinds of indulgences and accomplishments.
 
To speak in shorter, rougher words: The unhappy person wants those external activities, goals, and accomplishments to make them happy—truly happy—but those things can't and never will, which leads to short-term inconsistency and also leads to long-term cycles of addiction, which create toxic and miserable forms of abstract stagnation (i.e. staying still by running fast in a big circle over and over, proverbially speaking).
 
Since the external activities, indulgences, and accomplishments don't ever work in the way the unhappy person wants them to, the person tends to get bored with any such activity or accomplishment and/or gives up on the activity, habit, or goal much more quickly than someone with free-spirited inner peace would.
 
I mention this in the book when I say that someone who is happy to run and happy while running will tend to run longer and further than someone who is unhappy running and is only running because they falsely think the running will make them happy when it won't.
 
In part, it's common sense: The person who hates working out at the gym and is miserable while they do it is going to tend to quit faster than the person who is happy while they do it.
 
Many mistake the emotional high that comes with novelty, new relationships, gambling, drinking alcohol, and bodily indulgences like sex and eating cookies for true happiness (a.k.a. inner peace and spiritual fulfillment). They mistake the inherently fleeting highs that are always balanced by equal lows as if they were true happiness or fulfillment, which in contrast, is unwavering and persists through both ups and downs of the yin-yang-balanced roller coaster of bodily comfort, bodily indulgences, and emotional highs and lows.
 
In yet another example of the same pattern, an unhappy person who expects their romantic partner to make them happy, namely by believing in The Misery-Inducing Myth of the Magical Other will thus likely tend to have many short-term relationships that don't last and end poorly, versus someone who is happy and doesn't expect their romantic partner to do the impossible. However, there is a dangerous irony in which, at the start of the new relationship (or hobby, or drug addiction, or activity, or job, or career, etc.), there is an emotional high and honeymoon phase that deceivingly reinforces the misery-inducing myth of the magical other. The inherently fleeting emotional high of a new lust-filled relationship, the novelty of a new exciting hobby, or the fleeting high that comes with the first few drinks during an alcoholic's relapse can all be mistaken for true happiness, which then reinforces the false myth that indulging in those kinds of things can bring happiness, which ironically is what makes the person want to drop those things in a short time once they fail to live up to that impossible mission. Even just a few months later, the person might even resentfully hate the new girlfriend, the new job, the new hobby, or the new relapse and then hatefully give it up with resentment, anger, and bitterness because it 'failed' to make them happy (i.e. didn't do the impossible).
 
If you continue to look for those kinds of things to make you truly happy (i.e. to give you free-spirited inner peace), then you will continue to keep ending up frustrated and disappointed, and you will never get to enjoy the taste of true happiness for even a moment.
 
That's not to say don't do those things. I'm not saying don't start a new hobby (e.g. rock climbing), enjoy some comforting indulgence (e.g. alcohol), or enter a new romantic relationship. I'm just saying don't use it as a means to get happy, because it won't work, and then you won't ever be happy.
 
Instead, be happy first. Be happy now.
 
Don't chase happiness, because then you will never be happy. Be happy chasing while you chase whatever you chase. Then you will always be happy because the chasing never ends.
 
 
Essentially, with your question, you seem to be asking how to do something that my book explicitly says is impossible to do, like Sisyphus asking me how to get his boulder to stay at the top of the hill. Based on the fact that you even asked this question, it seems like you missed key teachings in my book, In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All.
 
I could be off, but it also seems like you don't yet have free-spirited inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness and spiritual fulfillment). That presumably means you aren't following all eleven of the numbered suggestions at the end of the book. That's because if you were following those suggestions, you would already have free-spirited inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness) and spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline).
 
Assuming the above guess is correct, then my advice to you is to re-read In It Together and then immediately start doing your absolute best to strictly follow all eleven of the easy-to-follow suggestions at the end. If you do that, you will then immediately have free-spirited inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness) and spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline). Then, your problem will be solved in two ways: First, you won't mind when you get bored with one hobby and thus decide to pick up a different one because you'll already be happy throughout that whole process. Second, you will actually tend to stick with your hobbies (and relationships, and goals) longer. You'll stick with them longer because you will have unfading unfleeting true happiness while you are doing them, so you have less motivation to quit in that you won't have unhappiness motivating you to quit. Likewise, when the would-be crisis of disillusionment hits (i.e. when the honeymoon phase starts to end), it won't be as devastating and won't really be a crisis of disillusionment because you will never have the illusion that the activity, hobby, or relationship will make you happy or that the honeymoon will last forever. The irony is that when you don't expect the honeymoon phase to last forever and do the impossible (i.e. make you happy), then it tends to last much longer because you don't get all upset and hateful when it fails to do the impossible and fails to live up to impossible expectations.
 
They still phase out, but they tend to do it slower. You never get off the roller coaster and never achieve a state of full-fledged outer peace, but inner peace does tend to smooth out the roller coaster a bit and make the outer world around you much more peaceful.
 
Once you let go of those impossible expectations, all that frustrating hate-worthy failure becomes revealed as an illusion created by your own unrealistic expectations.
 
As I wrote in my article about letting go of expectation: I have inner peace because I have no unmet expectations. I have no unmet expectations because I have no expectations.
 
Don't expect it to last forever, and it will tend to last long. Don't expect it to last long, and it will tend to last longer.
 
Don't expect anything, and then it won't matter how long it lasts, because you will be invincibly happy with invincible unwavering inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness and spiritual fulfillment) no matter what happens. Then it will tend to last the longest of all, and without asking, you will be showered with all the external things other people desperately chase because they falsely think they can bring true happiness and freedom.
 
But true happiness and spiritual freedom cost nothing, and you can have them right away.
 
You don't need to read my book to find it and have it. Many find it and have it without reading my book. But, reading my book and following all eleven of the infinitely easy-to-follow suggestions at the end is guaranteed to result in you having inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness) and spiritual freedom.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott



Don't chase happiness..png
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In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.
Favorite Philosopher: Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
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Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021


DEI and Doublespeak

Actually, I think Trump's base will thrive as new […]

I am unable to post links here but these provide a[…]

Reading List for My Mentees

Burn Zones, Debt Cleanse, Sword Swallower and the […]

Lagayascienza, No argument with that. If […]