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Revolver: An Allegory of the Reptile Brain and the Individuation Process

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Director: Guy Ritchie Notable Actors: Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Vincent Pastore, André Benjamin Release Date: September 22, 2005 (UK) Gross Profits: Approximately $7.2 million worldwide (Box Office Mojo) Critical Reception: Revolver received mixed to negative reviews upon release, with a 15% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 65 reviews. Critics praised its ambition and visual style but often criticized its convoluted narrative and philosophical pretensions, with some calling it […] Read more »

The Mob Mentality as a Means of Escaping Karmic Debt (Cause and Effect)

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Karma, as a universal principle of cause and effect, posits that every action—whether physical, mental, or emotional—generates a corresponding consequence that inevitably returns to the individual, shaping their present and future experiences. This metaphysical law operates impartially across all beings and contexts, transcending time and space to ensure a balanced return of energy based on the intent and nature of one’s deeds, a concept recognized in one way or another […] Read more »

Reflecting on the Message of Easter via a Transactional vs Non-Transactional Lens

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Transactional Love is a conditional exchange where affection or care is offered with the expectation of receiving something in return, such as validation or reciprocation. It operates like a contract, driven by external motives and often tied to a sense of obligation or debt. Non-Transactional Love is given freely without expecting repayment, rooted in genuine care and intrinsic motivation. It prioritizes authentic connection and truth, unbound by calculations or external rewards. […] Read more »

Mistaking Depth for Narcissism: The Role of Shallowness and Cultural Bias

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Has your depth ever been misunderstood to the point where you are personally shamed, judged, or attacked by shallow people? Getting misjudged, straw manned, and ridiculed by superficial and shallow people is a lot like children playing in a kiddie pool, where the children are judging a submarine navigating the depths of the ocean as if it was evil, mean, and scary due to its capacity and size. If such […] Read more »

The Tragic Irony of CPS: A Case Study in Psychological Harm and Institutional Failure

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NOTE: Certain facts and reasoning within this story, as well as names, were left out to protect the innocence of the children. These are my rational conclusions and judgments based upon our experiences from the past fifteen months or so with slander, libel, and the Dutch family law system. Is the pen mightier than the sword? I guess we’ll find out as we move forward, and continue to use our […] Read more »

Breaking the Matrix: How Abductive Reasoning Unites Reality and Truth

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Deductive reasoning, defined as starting with general premises assumed true and deriving specific conclusions—like “all dissenters disrupt order, so Jane, a dissenter, is disruptive”—often shapes how people perceive reality, mistaking their subjective lens for universal truth. This process can create a thought matrix, a rigid mental framework where premises from culture, authority, or personal experience dictate thought’s boundaries, defended dogmatically as reality itself. For example, someone shaped by childhood trauma […] Read more »

The Straw Man Fallacy: Reducing Depth to Shallowness

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The straw man logical fallacy—where an argument or character is distorted into a weaker, oversimplified version to be easily attacked—serves as a potent tool for misrepresenting individuals of depth and complexity. A person of depth, marked by nuanced ideas, emotional richness, and intricate reasoning, becomes a target for those with agendas or those too biased or dimwitted to grasp such complexity. Whether driven by malice or ignorance, these critics erect […] Read more »

Shallowness, Depth, Truth, and the Purpose of Force

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The angry mob, fueled by ignorance and prejudice, stormed the castle, their shallow understanding of the world reduced to simplistic labels and stereotypes, as they sought to destroy the monster, which they called “Depth” – a symbol of complexity and nuance that threatened to shatter their comfortable illusions. With each blow, they struck not at the monster’s heart, but at their own limitations, attempting to silence the whispers of doubt […] Read more »

Hades and the Alchemy of Pain: Transforming Hurt into Depth

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We live in a culture obsessed with positivity, productivity, and the relentless pursuit of “moving forward.” Yet, this constant push for superficial success often masks a deep-seated fear: the fear of feeling. The truth is, pain is an inevitable part of the human experience, and our attempts to escape it are ironically what keep us tethered to a life of shallowness. It’s time we re-evaluate our relationship with hurt, recognizing […] Read more »

Connecting the Character Traits of Pride, Humility, and Dignity Together

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Pride, humility, and dignity emerge as authentic virtues when they arise from an internal locus of identity, shaped by self-awareness and rational integrity. These internalized traits stand in sharp contrast to their externalized distortions—arrogance, pretentiousness, and a superficial mimicry of dignity—which depend on an external locus of control or identity for validation. Ayn Rand, the creator of Objectivism, extolled pride as a moral summit, while rejecting humility as a flaw. […] Read more »

From Instinct to Insight: Mastering Emotional Pain

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The Roots of Pain and the Power of Reflection Emotional pain often feels like an assault on our very being, a visceral signal that something is wrong with us or the world around us. But what if this pain arises not just from the event itself, but from how we identify with it? Consider the possibility that people—whether children, narcissists, or anyone in a prerational state—see their pain as a […] Read more »

Duality, the Garden of Eden, and Ayn Rand

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In the biblical narrative, duality emerges as a consequence of humanity’s choice to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, an act framed by me as providing the necessary “opt-out” from a higher harmony and morality, to ensure free will. Eating the “forbidden fruit” plunges existence into a polarized state, where good and evil are no longer integrated within a unified moral framework but are instead […] Read more »

Why False Accusations Are So Potent and Destructive

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Question: It seems that there is a dynamic where false accusations generate some sense of imagined or real power over others, where they are acting as the judge, lawyer, and sentencing authority all in one. For example, to accuse a friend or relative of wrongdoing without evidence and then punishing them for it by blocking all further contact, or by turning friends and/or family against them with dramatic certainty, but […] Read more »

The Power Over Others Game vs the Logocentric Truth Game: The Actual Evil vs Good

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I began writing this article back on July 31st, 2024 as I was starting to see a pattern of basic assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors that filtered into two major categories of relating to others, each having their own very distinct rules for playing, the “power over others game” and the “Logocentric truth game”. It was turning into quite a long article when my family and I had a massive collision […] Read more »

Bridging the Gap Between Theology and Philosophy

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I used to be a Christian theologian, or at least, somebody who loved studying doctrine and debating it, but I was also somebody who asked a lot of questions, and that led me through and out of Christian theology, and into psychology and philosophy. Along the way, I converted to Judaism and spent many years devoted to learning, understanding, and practicing it, especially since they valued psychology a bit more […] Read more »