Wow, do I feel great today! I slept for just under 11 hours last night, and after almost a week and a half of not quite getting the sleep length/quality that I strive for, it feels damn good. These last few weeks have been a wild ride in SO many ways, from 2 profound healing retreat weekends, to lots of time in the woods, to making MASSIVE shifts in my plans for the coming months, effectively removing anything out there that doesn't align with maximizing my time & space for self-care & reflection.

I've spent quite a bit of time the last month traveling (including being stuck on the train for about 8 hours between Seattle & Portland the other day), and I generally love to listen to podcasts & interviews when I'm at the computer, so I've been taking in a lot of content. I figured it would be fun to share some of the highlights with y'all :-)

The top couple videos I've watched recently

Elon Musk on the Joe Rogan Podcast

Chances are you've already heard about this one, possibly even seen it yourself, and it is by far Joe's biggest podcast yet (almost 12 million in 6 days, just on YT). If you don't want to spend 2.5 hours listening to the talk (I don't see why you wouldn't), check out Hive account@ura-soul's full write-up of the episode here. These guys cover all sorts of things like technology & alternative energy, chimpanzees vs bonobos, the future of consciousness, Elon's successful not-flamethrower business, and much more. The last 30 minutes or so (after Elon hits a spliff) is especially wonderful, as his optimism and absolute hippy-ness really shines through :-)

Reclaiming Skepticism by @CorbettReport

This video really wasn't anything new to me, but I always so enjoy listening to James' take on things. The term "skeptic" in the modern culture has basically become a code-word for the gatekeepers of the mainstream story, with so many "de-bunking" sites like Snopes being absolutely farcical, and in this video James does a magnificent job of breaking down this attack on critical thinking & open-mindedness.

Graham Hancock & Randall Carlson vs. Michael Shermer

This video is a great follow-up to the skepticism video by @CorbettReport, as Michael Shermer was the main focus there, and this discussion on the Joe Rogan Podcast does a great example of showcasing the closed-off thinking of so-called "skeptics". If you aren't familiar with Randall & Graham's works around things like the age of the Sphinx, ancient civilizations, and Earth's previous cataclysmic events, I recommend watching ALL of the interviews both of them have done with Joe (there's quite a few).

The folks I've been enjoying in recent weeks

David Graeber is someone I just found recently (thanks to YouTube's recommendations actually, and I've been really loving his work so far. I've downloaded his most well-known book Debt: The First 5000 Years, and though I haven't gotten into it yet, I have watched a couple of in-depth interviews on it. David is an anthropologist, and an outspoken anarchist, and his take on money, debt, and economics is a breath of fresh air for sure!

The Crimson Circle is a spiritual community near Denver, Colorado, with an amazing YouTube channel that I was introduced to about a year ago. Since then, I've gone through many hours of their content, and so much of it feels like the next logical progression building on the things I've learned from Abraham-Hicks. The videos I've enjoyed best so far was a 2-parted called Channelers for Change (parts 1 & 2), though I haven't seen anything yet that wasn't extremely powerful.

Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder are so wonderful at having calm, cool, logical conversations with outrageous SJWs and other close-minded folks, and I've been really enjoying their Q&A's and discussions. I honestly disagree with them on MANY topics, but it has been great to listen to them and focus on their ability to stay cool and never get de-railed, no matter how triggered & aggressive the person they're talking to is. Funny enough, the most recent video from Steven is an interview with one of the founders of GreenPeace, whose take on the Climate Change debate closely mirrors my own

Bret Weinstein is an absolutely brilliant evolutionary biologist, who you may know from his drama with Evergreen College. I first saw him when he appeared on the Joe Rogan Podcast, which is what really got me focusing on the idea of dialectics instead of debates. A few weeks after that I watched him & Heather Heying on JRE together, and they really blew my mind in a lot of ways. Most recently, I watched the Jordan Peterson & Sam Harris debates, which Bret moderated, and I couldn't help but notice the Bret was the most intelligent & thoughtful person on the stage. See the debates here: part 1 & part 2

What I'm reading right now

(Each image is a clickable link to the GoodReads page for that book)

I've mentioned Iain M. Banks and his Culture Series many times, and I have to give a big shout out to my brother Hive account@mountainwashere for getting me turned onto these books. Far & away some of the best science fiction I've ever read (and I've read quite a lot), as well as being the best examples of what a techno-anarchist human society might look like on a galaxy-spanning scale.

I'm only about 100 pages in at the moment, and so far he's been mostly setting the scene and introducing the main characters, most of whom are Minds (the hyper-advanced AIs that control city-sized ships, orbital rings, and are the guiding force behind a lot of the Culture's way of being). It's already been extremely engrossing, and I can feel the momentum building and am quite excited to see what's coming!

This book was just recently given to me by Hive account@em-blem, after we spent a couple hours discussing some readings from it, and generally having a very long talk about love, relationships, freedom, and how the modern world's idea of these things lines up (or doesn't) with our own. I've only just started in on it, and it feels like the sort of book that I'll be reading one page at a time, sitting to let things simmer & distill, rather than charging through it. You can get the whole .pdf for free here.

Dan Millman is a truly inspirational human, best known for The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which was later adapted into the movie The Peaceful Warrior (surprisingly good, I recommend seeing it). Dan is an Olympic athlete, a martial artist, and has long dedicated his life to his spiritual journey, and his books reflect that dedication.

This particular book is much more of a handbook for life, including basic guides for living a joyful & potent life, a powerful & accurate (in my observation & experience so far) astrologically-based system of finding your life purpose, and TONs of guidance on how to act in a way that aligns with your purpose, and fits with the cycles of the natural world. To get a little sample, check out the Life Purpose Calculator on his website.

Image Source

What are you enjoying?

It's always fun to reflect a bit on what I'm taking in, and why I'm choosing to do so. I also LOVE getting ideas from others, and even when I don't get right around to reading/watching something, if it feels aligned, exciting, or like it can help push my edges, it all goes on a list for later :-) Even if it's not something you're on right now, if you've got a recommendation that you think would be a great fit for me, please let me know!

I'm also curious if anyone would be interested in starting a monthly book club here on Steemit?

PS: If you aren't using GoodReads yet, I HIGHLY recommend it. It's effectively like IMDB for books, but with quite a bit of community support, and there is a whole section where authors can run giveaways for their books, and you can sign up for free and get the opportunity for some free books :-)