Each soul, once it rises above the animal level and is no longer guided by the group soul of the species in which it is incarnated, has a personal spiritual guide emanated from the divine --- "guardian angel" is one traditional word for this entity. That entity works with the slowly awakening higher self of the individual to help it incarnate in situations that will help it clear its karma and prepare for a life outside of material incarnation. Over time, the higher self takes on more and more of this work.
The quality of a decision is a function of the decider's commitment to it.
How are you? --- The end approaches. I'm dying for nobody, with nobody, for nothing, with nothing. And how are you? --- Good.
Your soul may be inside your body now, but soon their positions will be reversed. Your shape will survive in your soul after death, like a charm encased in resin, or an organ in an infinite crystal clock.
When I was a TA, grading student demonstrations of final projects, staying up well into the night at the end of the semester tolerating their ill-preparedness, (and the ill-preparedness of the professor) to be able to give full partial credit, and disentangle students who had been failed by their teammates, a woman asked me, if there was anything (her emphasis) she could do to get extra credit. I said, well, yes, there is one very advanced engineering project she could do to improve her grade, but I couldn't guarantee it was possible. And she perked up: ~ "what is it?!" I said, ~ "well, you actually have plenty of time to work on this, but you can build a time machine, and go back before 5pm and turn in an improved version of your final project" I kept my voice neutral, exactly as if giving an assignment, watching her face and lifting her hopes up until the exact moment I said the words "time machine" and dropped them off a cliff. Feeling both horror and vicarious pain, and giddiness as I did. And still do. I don't even believe in school as a value system. And only half-believed then. But I figured I'd believe in it even less with one more TA not grading by the rubric, or worse, extracting sexual favors from students for grades. Wasn't that needlessly cruel though? But I don't feel bad about it. I all else equal prefer that a point be made in the most intense and memorable way possible. On anti-wireheading principles, this is valence-indifferent. I remember specifically not even judging her negatively for trying to cheat by sexually bribing TAs. For all I knew the rest of the system was sexist and corrupt such that they were forcing her to get the same grades. But if this was a tragedy of her being randomly unlucky because e.g. if she were assigned another TA she'd be handed a few points of fudging numbers out of pity, without denying that tragedy, I wanted to make it plain and funny. "A time machine, yeah." She said in a sad voice, like she'd heard that one before.
Recently when I think of dying I've also been imagining a Path of Exile Necromancer manifesting briefly and casting Detonate Dead on me. My body bursts like a grape and covers my crying, loving family in fiery blood.
The beginning of Culture --- of a human culture, of a society, of a world or a nation --- is, metaphysically, rejecting women. Culture begins when you are capable of saying "no" to a woman who offers you sex.
Trust, the irrational trust of friendship, the leap of faith, loyalty. It all begins when you say NO to a woman. It does not exist without it. Forget about "would you let them watch your kids" --- that is WAY, way down the line, that is a thousand times more complicated of a moral judgement. First is, would you let him be alone with your wife.
Do not get overly entangled with the affairs of the world.
You ought to love your enemy for his potential to be your friend. Now this must include loving him as enemy, for it's only in an enemy that friendship appears as POTENTIAL. Love the potential as well as the actual equally and bless the whole world. No cherrypicking.
When you don't understand something but somehow know it makes sense. An increasingly evanescent and eternally seducing feeling. What guides all true scientists and philosophers.
Again, the paradox is: you have to relinquish control. You have to be truly open. You can only say "yes" or not say "yes", but you cannot craft something to which you WOULD say yes.
I've recently found a productivity hack that moved me from bottom 10% conscientiousness to top 10% overnight, where other techniques have failed.
The technique is to ardently follow a single rule: write down every decision on paper, don't act without first writing down a decision. I've followed this rule all day, every day, for the past four weeks. The rule has two primary effects:
It eliminates impulsivity by forcing you to reflect and consider every decision. About to check your phone? Oh yeah, I have to write a decision down. On second thought, I'm supposed to be finishing this other task, so it can wait.
It gives you a tool to cut through indecisiveness. Instead of getting stuck in analysis paralysis until you get distracted with something unproductive, you are forced to make a concrete decision if you want to act.
Since starting I've completed many things I've been putting off for weeks or months. I've made progress on long term goals where I was previously making none. I've successfully implemented routines and habits that never stuck before.
You might be thinking, as I did before starting, that this is too strict. On the contrary, I've found it's actually surprisingly flexible as long as you implement it properly. The way I implement it, you can cancel any decision as long as you do it conscientiously, by crossing it out on the page. This allows unlimited spontaneity, as long as that spontaneous decision is approved mindfully.
You also don't have to be hyper-specific with decisions. As long as your current action is compatible with the last written decision, it's valid and doesn't need to be written down. This means you can be as specific or as general with your decisions as you deem necessary. This flexibility is what allows it to be used all day every day. If you want to relax, simply write "relax for an hour" and set a timer. While relaxing anything goes. The key is that you made the decisions intentionally rather than impulsively.
This technique also has the effect of making other tools much more effective. When you are stopping to consciously decide what to do next several dozen times a day, you have many opportunities to decide to check todo lists, schedules, routines, etc. I don't expect this technique to work for everyone, but it's easy enough to try and find out. If you happen to have a similar set of strengths and weaknesses as me, it could be a game changer.
"Overthinking" does not exist. You are either in the realm of action (where all thinking is retarded) or of thinking.
The future already happened, pulling you onto the path leading to it. You can change the future by steering off this course, but the further you go, and the more people you drag off their paths along you, the harder it is. Let's call it temporal inertia.
Changing the course of history is a specific skill unto itself. Doing so --- applying free will --- fatigues people greatly, some more than others. Your tools in this arena are insanely strong beliefs --- faith, visualization and continuous flow states. Do not conflate this with the near-pointless new age thing where you artificially "sit and manifest" something, which is entirely predicated upon the belief that what they want to manifest is untrue to begin with! Pretty funny when you think about it. Did Napoleon meditate and manifest a changed course of history? No, he had unshakeable belief in himself doing what needed to be done.
On a smaller scale, you can gauge how strong free-will people have by giving them novel stimuli, and seeing how they react. Those with little free-will avoid such situations, where free-will and novel behavior is necessary. Some will simply blank out. Say things to people that have never been said before, those abundant in free-will are drawn to it, others will seek refuge, as they cannot afford to waste the little power they wield. This is the real NPC debate, by the way.
If during your developmental years you are constantly overstimulated, you grow fundamentally incurious, because you come to associate new information with being tired, annoyed, etc and this manifests socially as hostility, because socializing has become the threat of being overburdened, so you are constantly defensive and anxious, because the Other represents new information. There is no passive interest in understanding, because new information is associated with being tired, bored, annoyed.
Imagination is more powerful than the will. Use of willpower but image is demotivating? Thing doesn't happen. Image is motivating but willpower tries to prevent it? Thing will happen anyway. Maintaining vivid picture of the thing is more efficient than effort.