Philosophy Discussion Forums

Good day Wonderful people

I hope that you are all wonderful on this sunny and faithful day

I am excited to be part of the Philosophy Discussion group. Thank you Scott Hughes, for the Opportunity.

I would like to take this opportunity to say Thank you Scott, for the Wonderful and Spiritual insight. I am mesmerized by both the book: 'In it together: the Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All and your response to the above question. I like the qoutes and the explaination behind it. It is meaningful, when you said: "I think Alan Watts may have answered that question the best in my opinion. He said, "The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves." I have to say, I just cannot stop reading it. I see myself going back and forth, every now and then trying to 'instill' and 'distill' every word said, I am amazed and emotional. What a WOW

This Spiritual insight that you shared is refreshing and rare.

I am not sure if I am mistaken if I say that your insights or spiritual knowledge takes me back to the book of Ecclesiastes 1:9[b][/b], that was written by King Solomon: Everything Is Meaningless

1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

This knowledge about existence, being and purpose has to be shared and discussed. Most of us spend a lifetime craving for success (money and material things) thinking that money can buy Happiness, joy and peace but that is all meaningless.

Amen!

How does it it feel to run alot of websites. Like now the online philosophy club abd the book club.?

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.


Hi, Risper Ouma Lisa Anyango,

Thank you for your newest question!

Risper Ouma Lisa Anyango wrote: ↑December 4th, 2023, 3:14 am If life had a "rewind" button, allowing you to relive any moment, which one would you choose and why? How might that alter your present perspective?

For me to answer such a hypothetical question, I would need a lot more background details on the exact terms of the magic power I imagine myself having. For instance, what would be the difference between "rewinding and reliving" versus just remembering as I already currently can do and sometimes actually do? Are you suggesting what I might do I have the power to time travel and change the past, or am I just getting the chance to re-watch it like an unchangeable movie? And, if you are giving me the opportunity to change the past, then how does it deal with time travel paradoxes? Those are just example questions of some of the details about the magic power that would factor into how I would use the magic power.

Impossible hypothetical can be fun and playful and even informative and educational, but they also can be extremely dangerous in terms of being symptomatic of or conducive to one not fully accepting what they cannot control and giving up their inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness) by willfully wishing for things to be different than they unchangeably are. I am not advising to never play with such hypotheticals, but rather to be very careful when doing so. An analogous example is when people ask "what would you do if you were in my shoes", to which (as I explain in my book) the only logical and true answer is that I would do exactly what they do. Whether it is a fellow human accross a space, or a younger version of Scott/Eckhart, if I was in their exact shoes, in an atom-by-atom copy of their body, in an atom-by-atom exact copy of their situation, having their memories, desires, trauma, instances, genes, upbringing, bodily urges, etc. then I would do exactly what do.

In practice, as humans, we cannot change what's in our relative respective pasts. Wanting to change the past is like wanting 2 + 2 to stop equaling 4.

Thus, your question at least loosely or indirectly touches on an important teaching of mine, which itself comes from the important principle of fully and unconditionally accepting what you cannot change (e.g. the past including anything that's already appeared in your present). For more on that, please see the following post of mine:

Let go of the illusion that it could have been any different.


Likewise, extremely related to this concept is Nietzsche's views on "Eternal Recurrence" and "Amor Fati". I follow that way of living which can be described as follows: Live your life not as if you could re-live your past, but rather as if you literally will, as if when time ends it simply restarts from the beginning and everything happens exactly the same way all over again. Thus, for example, if you choose to slap yourself in the face 10 seconds from now, you aren't merely slapping yourself once, but literally infinite times. Every second you suffer without the true happiness that is free-spirited inner peace, you can choose to have instantly anytime since it is 100% in your control, is actually literally infinite seconds of suffering you condemn yourself do. Each second of self-chosen suffering in the present is actually literally an infinite eternity to which you condemn yourself, and likewise each moment of grateful gracious appreciative accepting loving true happiness (a.k.a. free-spirited inner peace) that you choose to have is an infinite eternity of heavenly joy that you give yourself. For more on that concept as explored by Nietzsche, please see these social media posts of mine:

Instagram -- May 16th, 2023 -- Eternal Recurrence

Facebook -- September 13th, 2022 -- Amor Fati

Twitter -- April 27th, 2023 -- Amor Fati



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





---
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.

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.

Esther Deekor wrote: ↑December 24th, 2023, 2:13 pm I'm glad to have this opportunity, my question is, what keeps you going everyday that you wake up to another brand new day? Do you ever wake up feeling less enthusiastic about life?

Hi, Esther Deekor,

Thank you for your question.

I wake up feeling very groggy, not enthusiastic.

I believe strongly in the power of creating new micro-habits incrementally, which then grow exponentially over time into huge habits and incredible powerful routines that wonderfully utilize hours of my day without any willpower, enthusiasm, or expensive mental energy usage. So I have a long routine that I do on autopilot in the morning while still half-asleep. When do I really wake up? When I first get out of bed and brush my teeth and fill up my water cup and start brewing the coffee? Or hours later when my routine ends and I start making actual decisions that require actual significant mental energy or willpower?

There's a reason top performing CEOs and business people (e.g. Steve Jobs when he was alive and Mark Zuckerberg) will wear basically the same simple outfit every single day: It's one less decision to make, and the mental power to make decisions is actually very limited. Waking up and deciding what to wear is to your mind what waking up and running a marathon is to your physical energy. It's exhausting. Every decision you make regarding one thing (e.g. what to wear) is a decision you are too mentally tired and worn out to make about another thing (e.g. something way more important than what you wear). Every little bit of willpower you use on any one thing is something else that you won't have willpower left to do later in the day. Waking up and deciding whether to brush your teeth first or comb you hair first (or working up the willpower to do either) is exhausting and intimidating. In contrast, since I have a pre-programmed routine I do on autopilot while still practically asleep, it's neither exhausting nor intimidating nor something that would be met with the opposite of enthusiasm. I don't need or use willpower to do what I do in the morning, because they are habits, and I don't waste my very limited mental energy and decision-making budget on what order to do the tasks or such.

It's not that I am enthusiastic in the morning, but rather that I don't need to be enthusiastic because I create a scenario that doesn't require enthusiasm to get out of bed and perform at a high level in an exceptionally productive way. If anything, getting out of bed and being extremely productive and efficient with my time is boring and easy for me. It basically happens without me. I'm almost still asleep, in a very pleasant way that entails great inner peace and a sense of deep mental spaciousness with wonderful relaxing reservoirs of unused power acting like a big savings account but for willpower and decision-making energy rather than mere literal money.

From someone watching me from the outside (e.g. spying on me in my house), it would look like I wake up with tons of energy and am thinking very carefully (yet supernaturally quickly) about each clever step I make because I am so fast, efficient, and productive, performing intelligently and quickly with what seems like an eager extreme motivation.

But it's actually because it's pre-planned and I'm on autopilot.

I've already been out of bed and gotten hours of ultra-productive non-exhausting decision-less work done before I even really "wake up" so to speak.

Then when I do wake up from my ultra-productive groggy auto-pilot, I am overwhelmed with a sense of pride, accomplishment, and gratitude regarding how productively I spent my morning and the extra freedom that provides me with the rest of my day.


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




---
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.

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.


Hi, Celestine Apiche,

Thank you for your question!

Celestine Apiche wrote: ↑December 26th, 2023, 2:38 am Do you believe one can be successful without being rich?

Yes, of course.

Success is relative to your goal or dream. If someone is an alcoholic, and they want to stop drinking, the success likely means simply not drinking and achieving sobriety. Receiving a one-year sobriety chip at AA might be a huge success and milestone for such a person.

In fact, for many people, material greed and money is the temptation that causes them to not achieve their stated goals and dreams.

Many people's relationship to money and material luxuries is like the alcoholics relationship to alcohol.

There are a lot of ways one can choose to be a sell out instead of a free-spirited person who has spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) and liberated self-determination. But being a whore for money is a common way that people get tempted into it.

Sadly, almost all people would sacrifice success for riches. That's why the few who won't and don't are so incredibly valuable and exceptional and can use that incredible value and exceptional integrity, dignity, and free-spirited self-determination to achieve unbelievable seemingly supernatural things at will. To not be a sell out to money and/or material wealth/comforts is to be like a god walking among humans. To not be addicted to money or comfort is to be like a supernatural god, in large part because it is so incredibly exceptional for a human to be like that, to be so spiritually free and self-determined, as opposed to a sell out, a slave to comfort, money, or temptation.

And putting aside what they would do, the perhaps sadder fact is that most people do sacrifice success for money, but ironically not even enough money for it to be called riches. Most people aren't just sell out money-whores, but they are cheap ones at that. And I say that with playful love.

Many people falsely think money buys happiness (it doesn't) and so they (1) excuse/rationalize their self-chosen voluntary unhappiness in the present as a necessary condition of their current financial wealth rather than doing something about it (i.e. choosing to become happy despite their lack of riches which is easily possible) and (2) sacrifice their success and happiness in the future by being addicted to money, material comforts, and the chasing of money as a cheap sell out. In other words, their addiction to comfort and/or money causes them to be sell out, and sell away their dreams and success for petty money or comfort.

I've often tweeted about the various ways money-chasing tends to prevent success:

Who's painting would you buy: the inspired artist or the one who's just in it for the money?

Money doesn't buy happiness...

Money [and success] runs away from those who chase money...

If money bought happiness...

Money is the master of the fool.

If money is where you find happiness, you will always be poor

Once you put enough money in the bank, you understand that money isn't enough for you.

What you think you own ends up owning you

Time [not money] is our most valuable resource

Don't chase money. Chase your dreams, and let the money chase you.

We are prone to sell our soul for the false promise of that which one can never truly have

"For what has a man profited if he gains the world for the price of his soul." (Quote of Jesus)




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



---
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.

There's a reason top performing CEOs and business people (e.g. Steve Jobs when he was alive and Mark Zuckerberg) will wear basically the same simple outfit every single day: It's one less decision to make, and the mental power to make decisions is actually very limited. Waking up and deciding what to wear is to your mind what waking up and running a marathon is to your physical energy. It's exhausting. Every decision you make regarding one thing (e.g. what to wear) is a decision you are too mentally tired and worn out to make about another thing (e.g. something way more important than what you wear). Every little bit of willpower you use on any one thing is something else that you won't have willpower left to do later in the day. Waking up and deciding whether to brush your teeth first or comb you hair first (or working up the willpower to do either) is exhausting and intimidating. In contrast, since I have a pre-programmed routine I do on autopilot while still practically asleep, it's neither exhausting nor intimidating nor something that would be met with the opposite of enthusiasm. I don't need or use willpower to do what I do in the morning, because they are habits, and I don't waste my very limited mental energy and decision-making budget on what order to do the tasks or such.
t's not that I am enthusiastic in the morning, but rather that I don't need to be enthusiastic because I create a scenario that doesn't require enthusiasm to get out of bed and perform at a high level in an exceptionally productive way. If anything, getting out of bed and being extremely productive and efficient with my time is boring and easy for me. It basically happens without me. I'm almost still asleep, in a very pleasant way that entails great inner peace and a sense of deep mental spaciousness with wonderful relaxing reservoirs of unused power acting like a big savings account but for willpower and decision-making energy rather than mere literal money.
From someone watching me from the outside (e.g. spying on me in my house), it would look like I wake up with tons of energy and am thinking very carefully (yet supernaturally quickly) about each clever step I make because I am so fast, efficient, and productive, performing intelligently and quickly with what seems like an eager extreme motivation.

But it's actually because it's pre-planned and I'm on autopilot.

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


One of the things that I do is select what I am going to wear the night before. That's one less thing that I have to do in the morning.

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.

Priyankan Nayak wrote: ↑January 1st, 2024, 6:21 am Hi Scott
First of all, wishing you a very happy new year to you and your family. I would like to know what you do when you feel alone, despite everyone being present around you. How do you maintain yourself in those lonely times?

Hi, Priyankan Nayak,

Thank you for question!

I think it has been many years since the last time I ever felt lonely, especially in the sense of feeling lonely while physically close to people, meaning while literally having people around and not actually being physically alone. Nonetheless, I understand deeply the feeling you describe because in my much younger years there were many times when I felt deeply lonely even in a crowded room. But I have not felt that way in many years.

So I cannot answer your question exactly as asked because the simple answer is I never feel that way anymore.

The reason I never feel that way anymore is because I discovered the truths that I share in my book, In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All. In other words, I found invincible free-spirited inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness), and now I get to enjoy that incredible liberation and inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness) every minute of every day of my life, no matter what happens externally or what bodily feelings I happen to be experiencing at any given moment (e.g. hunger, discomfort, sexual arousal, pain, sleepiness, etc.). I notice and watch these external events including bodily feelings as a happy interested viewer might watch a dramatic movie, or like one watches unique clouds passing by overhead, some stormy and some light and fluffy.

By being in touch with my eternal essence (i.e. the unchanging spirit that is one with all), I have a literal sense of invincibility towards the inevitable ups and downs of life, and the inexorable perfect yin-yang balance of such things, in the same way a wise movie-viewer has a sense of invincibility towards the movie. No matter how dramatic or scary or sad it gets, it can't really hurt you, not the real you. From that sense of transcendence and invincibility, you then tend to have a totally opposite relationship to these kinds of things (fear, pain, discomort, etc.), the same way someone who understands the movie can't hurt them might therefore prefer an even scarier or more dramatic movie. Nowadays when I get to experience inevitable so-called "negative" emotions such as pain, fear, or extreme hunger, I mostly think to myself, "Oh, how interesting." I notice and look at the feeling like one might look an abstract piece of art.

Just as one who is deprived of food may feel literal physical hunger, one who is deprived of human contact may feel what we can call physical loneliness, both of which (physical hunger and physical loneliness) are very comparable to pain, fear, and other forms of discomfort. However, I suspect that's not what you are talking about, because you mention feeling it even when people are around. Instead, I would describe what you are talking about as a spiritual loneliness or spiritual hunger. It's the kind of deep longing that persists no matter how much you eat or indulge in addictions or material comforts such as sex or the high a gambling addict feels when gambling or that an obsessive attention-seeker gets when their social post goes viral.

May I ask if you have read my book, In It Together?

Here is a relevant quote from page 112 of In It Together:

In It Together (Page 112) wrote:If you ask an ultra-wealthy person the right questions, once they finish wiping their butt with their gold toilet paper, they will generally admit they feel a hole inside—and not the one they just finished wiping, but rather a spiritual hole. They may indulge and indulge in their own bodily urges and addictions in an attempt to fill that spiritual hole. But no amount of fancy clothes or luxury cars will fill that hole. No amount of social media likes or sexual partners will fill that hole. No amount of drugs or alcohol will fill that hole. No amount of dietary success will fill that hole. Neither overeating food nor having a chiseled beach body will fill that hole. You can overeat literal or figurative food to the point of morbid obesity but it will not fill that hole. No amount of food will alleviate spiritual hunger. 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.

Someone with that kind of spiritual hole, which most people have, will still feel spiritually hungry (i.e. unfulfilled) no matter how much they eat, and they will still feel lonely and unfulfilled even in a crowded room full of people.

Perhaps what you are feeling as loneliness in a crowded room could be more accurately generalized metaphorically as a spiritual hole in your heart that you wish to fulfill. But that fulfillment won't come from attention on social media, from fame, from money, from having lots of sex, from having lots of boyfriends or girlfriends or even from having lots of platonic friends. No amount of physical or material comfort will provide that kind of fulfillment. In fact, quite the opposite! The more you desperately indulge in those kinds of things in a desperate futile attempt to be fulfilled, the more poignant the lack of spiritual fulfillment and thus the more unfulfilled you will feel.

In other words, when you futilely attempt to achieve inner peace by chasing externals, you feel even less inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness) and feel even more spiritually unfulfilled (i.e. spiritually unhappy).

The more you mistake comfort or emotional highs (e.g. the high an addict feels when indulging their addiction) as happiness, and thus desperately chase it in a futile attempt to achieve true happiness, the more unhappy you will be, in the sense of lacking the true happiness that is invincible free=spirited inner peace.

My advice to you is to carefully read (or re-read) my book, In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All. Then do your absolute best to follow all eleven of the suggestions at the end, day in and day out, every single day. Then you will have invincible free-spirited inner peace (a.k.a. true happiness), and then you won't feel lonely in a crowded room anymore.

You will instead feel happily at one with the universe and with your timeless eternal true self, the real essence of you independent of any of your varying forms and different ever-changing outfits, meaning what some would call your spirit or soul, or really the singular uniting spirit or soul of the entire timeless universe and all of reality itself.


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






---
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 just want to know what motivated you to begin Online Book Club. How tough was it at the beginning. I'm only looking for some motivation to do something meaningful.

Otieno Lydia wrote: ↑January 3rd, 2024, 1:51 am

Eckhart Aurelius Hughes wrote: ↑November 1st, 2022, 5:09 pm For those who don't know, I am Eckhart Aurelius Hughes.

Post any questions you have for me as a reply to this topic, and I will do my best answer.

It can be a question about anything. It can be about me, about the book, or about anything else!




ask-me-anything.jpg

What motivated you to start OBC

Hi, Otieno Lydia,

I already was asked that question earlier in the topic:

What was your motivation for creating OnlineBookClub?


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

Akinyi Jane wrote: ↑January 3rd, 2024, 7:12 am Who motivated you to start onlinebookclub?

Akinyi Jane,

I was already asked that question earlier in the topic:

What was your motivation for creating OnlineBookClub?


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

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.

Omondi Peter wrote: ↑January 4th, 2024, 11:05 am How does it it feel to run a lot of websites. Like now the online philosophy club abd the book club.?

Hi, Omondi Peter,

Thank you for your question.

For me, simultaneously running several websites, businesses, and companies generally comes with a sense of stability and invulnerability that I didn't have for much of this human life.

To use stock market investing as an analogy, it's analogous to the difference between having a stock account with one stock in it versus having a larger and much more diversified stock account portfolio.

You mitigate a lot of risk by not putting all your eggs into one basket. In other words, you leverage the law of averages, and you no longer are so subject to the whims of luck.

In short, it feels good.

In a broader context, outside just the realm of business and finances, it also speaks to my general strategy of monotasking and compartmentalizing as a way to simultaneously leverage both (1) the benefits of extreme laser-vision focus on a single goal or task, and (2) the benefits of having a diversified portfolio of investments, skills, and projects. Monotasking means doing one task at a time, with extreme whole-hearted focus and passion, but it doesn't mean only doing one task per day or only doing one task ever.

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





---
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.

Jevonte Malik wrote: ↑January 10th, 2024, 9:03 am I just want to know what motivated you to begin Online Book Club. How tough was it at the beginning. I'm only looking for some motivation to do something meaningful.

Jevonte Malik,

I already was asked that question earlier in the topic:

What was your motivation for creating OnlineBookClub?


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

I believe I have answered all the questions that were asked.

If I missed anyone's question, please do let me know.

Otherwise, if you any of you have any follow-up or other questions about anything, please do post them.

It will not only help me help you by answering your question for you, but it will likely help many other people who read my answer and have a similar question.


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

Heyz I'd like to know if your mentorship program is still available.

Have your mentorship program started already? Also, is there a certificate to be given after the mentorship?