Did you consider you might have a warped view on what is supposed to make you happy? IME society will lie to you about that because it has wholly different goals.
Happiness, to me, also seems like such a false goal. Happiness is, and should be, a fleeting sensation.
I think the term we generally really mean when we say happiness is contentedness. Because that is more a state of being than some temporary sensation.
And far from just a semantic difference, I think this opens up an entirely different life perspective because it's much more about controlling your response to things, particularly those outside your control than it is about pursuing some carrot of happiness that will always slip away as quickly as it comes.
The Stoics referred to this state of mind as apatheia [1]. It's not apathy, which has the connotation of indifference, but rather the freedom from one's emotions so you can guide your life without being pulled in a million different, and oft irrational, ways by emotion.
Yep! My family's first computer was 21 years old in 2005. (I remember scouring the classified ads in the newspaper each week with my dad in late 1987 to find the best computer deal we could. We wound up with an Apple //c from 1984.)
The difference between machines in the 2000s and 1980s is much, much larger than the difference between machines now and machines in the 2000s, though, making the "retro" timeline nonlinear.
Since the FAQ doesn't give much information, this Stack Exchange answer[1] is more helpful, which links to a paper about liver transplant and includes this quote:
> Regeneration of the liver can be more correctly defined as compensatory hyperplasia where in the remaining liver tissue expands to meet the metabolic needs of the organism. Unlike anatomic true regeneration, the expanding liver does not regain its original gross anatomical structure.
Essentially, it's not the same kind of tissue so it won't work as well for a transplant a second time. I guess you could donate multiple non-translated parts of your liver and the remaining could compensate up to a point, but it's obviously risky and is why no doctor would accept doing a second one.
This came to mind when I saw the post. I work at an ayahuasca retreat center and these types of things are front and center here. Physical wounds can and do heal, but traumas ("energetic"/psychological wounds) remain fresh as the day they happened and influence us in immeasurable ways. The effects of ayahuasca often put a spotlight on them and it can be a rough ride until they are fully processed.
> but traumas ("energetic"/psychological wounds) remain fresh as the day they happened and influence us in immeasurable ways.
I experienced this in two occasions. First, when I was going to therapy, and somehow managed to reach these traumas, the second is in deep meditation, which Japanese call "meeting with the ghosts".
Traumas stay fresh until you face them again, and acknowledge them. The moment you accept that they have happened, you have the chance to heal them.
This doesn't mean the process is smooth, painless or easy. It's neither, but it's very possible.
Reminds me of this [1] SSC post. It briefly talks about a paper [2]:
> the paper is trying to explain what psychedelics do to the brain. It theorizes that they weaken high-level priors (in this case, you can think of these as the tendency to fit everything to an existing narrative), allowing things to be seen more as they are
> A corollary of relaxing high-level priors or beliefs under psychedelics is that ascending prediction errors from lower levels of the system (that are ordinarily unable to update beliefs due to the top-down suppressive influence of heavily-weighted priors) can find freer register in conscious experience
In the context of trauma, the trauma-induced unhealthy belief systems would be the high-level priors that have lodged themselves in strongly, and the effect of the psychedelics would help the person actually process and validate them against real world evidence (beyond the traumatic ones). I can imagine that actually having to do that - seeing all your trauma-based narratives and how they have shaped your view of things, and confronting how they clash with reality - being a pretty rough ride.
Except the "trauma informed ayahuasca ceremony" is $500 a pop with a minimum of 5 ceremonies. Plus you have to travel outside of the USA. Good cottage industry.
It's a different school of thought for sure. We find traditional therapy to be very synergistic with it. Sometimes one can cognitively know how to fix something, but despite that it still sticks in the body. Ayahuasca can help to "percolate" that knowing into the body/nervous system for great results.
First off, the scientific method only finds things that are less wrong, there's never anything even close to certainty and finality. Your entire life's work could be entirely replaced by an Einstein.
Secondly, there's an enormous volume of trade, industry and commercial knowledge that has exactly zero published studies but sufficient less-wrong "scientific" testing to be knowledge.
And yet that's how things should be done, based on decades and centuries of craftsmanship, apprenticeships, and corporate knowledge.
Your opinion is exactly why I posted what I posted. The scientific method is powerful, but it's extremely slow to propagate.
I guess a primary source like myself doesn't count for much, but fwiw I have seen hundreds of people go through this. Those that have done a lot of therapy (and have little to no experience with psychedelics) often have a lot of tools they've accumulated over their journeys and tend to get a lot out of it.
This is precisely why peer reviewed studies are so valuable and sources so important. Folks can properly value anecdotes (which can be valuable, don’t get me wrong) against other sources of knowledge.
I'm very curious, from the perspective that you have based on your experience at the retreat, what it means to you when you talk about "processing" these traumas?
Maybe a very concrete way to ask would be: what's the difference between someone who undergoes the ayahuasca experience and successfully "processes" a trauma, vs someone who does not? Is there such a thing?
I don't think it can be covered in a general way, everyone's traumas are unique. Sometimes it involves going into the memory, reexperiencing parts of it (which can be a very visceral experience under the effects) from an objective place, really feeling them and letting go, forgiving, etc. It's usually more complicated than that- there are a lot of "hooks" that are created (relationships, places, the emotions felt going in/after an event). The most common traumas (sexual) create some downright awful patterns especially if it happened as a child (e.g. a parent who is supposed to be protecting you and providing safety...but is also doing bad things to you. There's a lot to undo there). It's usually not something taken care of in a single ceremony or even a weekend of ceremonies especially without a skilled practitioner.
Is there a difference between this and doing it another way? Hard to say. If the process resonates with you I think it can be done a lot faster and more completely this way. Some people can make little to no progress in therapy for years, dancing around the issue and constantly hitting defense mechanisms (often the memories of these things are blocked out and very hard to access under normal circumstances). A strong ayahuasca experience will put it front and center so you have no other choice than to deal with it. It's not easy, not some magic pill, and takes courage and willingness to go into it head on and do the work. It's absolutely not for everyone. I really love this modality so probably a bit biased- like asking a heart surgeon to heal your broken leg might get you a couple stents installed ;) it's very versatile but not always the best option.
Our center is run in a traditional (Shipibo) fashion, ceremonies are at night (8p until about 1a). For preparation...it's definitely good to clean up your diet but the only major things to avoid are contraindicated medications; backing off from recreational drugs and alcohol for a bit prior is a good idea too. It's good to stop caffeine just so you aren't withdrawing for a few days while here as well. (Many places are overly strict in terms of this stuff. If you come for a master plant diet, you're getting a vomitivo/purgative at the start to clean you out regardless).
Zot is (at least in part) from the old comic Wizard of Id and (by the same artist, Johnny Hart and Brant Parker) BC. It was the sound of a lightning bolt (natural or wizard-created).
Ultima Online, Everquest, Lineage...Blizzard definitely had a leg up with their brand recognition which boosted the genre to new levels, but it really wasn't a new idea.
In 1997 UO had ~100 000 subscribers, in 2004 WoW had over a million. It's nowhere near the same.
This is a very common misconception, really. Yes, there are no new ideas. The fact that LG Prada sported a capacitive touch is only relevant for mansplaining. rewind.ai predates Microsoft Recall but who cares, really? The chances of an abusive spouse discovering it and using it to oppress further a woman is nil while Recall will be right in front of their eyes. AirTag was not the first stalking device but for sure it was the first to reach mass enough adaptation to get multiple women murdered. The list is endless.
Been living in the Yucatan the last couple of years. The Mayans believe that cenotes are gateways to the underworld, so it's kinda on point. When people are having bad luck (injuries etc) and there is one nearby, they will pray and make offerings to the spirits that inhabit them. And if that doesn't work they will fire guns into them to scare them away.
I think it was the ancient Greeks(?) that walked while learning the epic poems in order to recite them by recalling their journey, using the associations made on the path they took. I think the method of loci[0] is similar except using purely imagined locations/details ("memory palace").
In India, there is an ancient art called 'avadhAnam'[1][2], where questioners pose various questions to the performer. This performer has to answer questions partially in a verse form, and this can go on for days, if 1000 people are involved. These people have to recite these 1000 verses after everything is over. Performer should not use pen, paper or any recording. These guys memorize many Indian texts that contain verses.
This is probably the minimum you should do. I remember a time when IPMI on (some?) Supermicro boards was really really insecure. From the IPMI client, you could set the encryption mode to "0" ("null encryption" or something, I dunno it's been years)- setting it allowed you to bypass the password completely. Assume if you can touch the IPMI, the system is yours.
IPMI is still a festering cesspool no matter which vendor. Assume that layer 3 access to the IPMI grants you unrestricted persistent code execution on the managed system and design for with it in mind.
Restrict access as tightly as possible. If you only need to power up/down/reset the system and access the serial console most IPMI implementations expose that via SSH. A small SSH proxy that exposes only those features would be a good investment. e.g. `ssh bastion [status|up|down|cycle|reset|console] <server>`. You could probably write it in <100 lines as SSH forced command. Deploy the SSH client to a different VRF (aka network namespace/vnet jail/rdomain) than the SSH server to make it harder to leak traffic from the bastion.
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