Source-ery
All sources for which this site, as well as the books, have been built, have carefully and meticulously been sought:
Cross-referenced,
fact-checked and
de-bunked,
before being used.
The vast majority of said sources, are:
Peer-reviewed Meta-Studies.
As un-biased as possible.
And most importantly:
Publicly available for free, without requiring any form of log-in/subscription.
Sources are provided as embedded links in green, exactly where they are relevant, instead of numbered asterisk* you have to remember and dig for, later on, breaking the flow of reading, and disturbing the overall immersion.
The links open in a new tab/window for easy access, instantly or for later reading, while keeping you where you were, and not ruining your train of thought.
I strive to link directly to any given master-source/study whenever possible, as long as they are not pay-walled or too ad/cookie-infested.
Other times I link to articles that at least reference the main source, if the articles are either:
More easily understandable,
links to more knowledge on the given subject,
or simply if it is more entertainingly written, while still being factual.
Many links contain specific highlights to given sources, on devices supporting such sorcery.
Others are provided for the sake of piquing your interest to dig deeper any given subject, if you like.
All in all, I try to keep it:
Entertaining while educational.
Fun while serious.
Truthful, while sometimes tongue-in-cheekly, saying something ridiculous or over-done, to keep you on your toes and to maintain your own critical and rational mind engaged, at all times, because EVERYTHING is for sale to the highest bidder, and now, autonomously curated by AI.
Therefore, before you look anything up, you need to look out!
A case in point example, speaking of being on the lookout not only for your Self, but just as much, yourself:
You’d think that if you were suffering from a serious illness, that the world would seek to help you as best as it could, but in a health-insurance driven privatized marketplace, even in your time of need, you still need to look out for your own best interests, if you don’t want to end up paying interests, for services not rendered or unneeded.
Therefore ALWAYS seek professional and unbiased counseling BEFORE signing (up for) anything, and use their experience for your advantage, so you don’t end up taken advantage off!
A great example of an invaluable resource in regards to cancer treatment and mental health, would be; https://www.mesotheliomahope.com/resources/mental-health/, whose resources are freely available, and very comprehensive.
Regardless:
I don’t want you to take my word for anything on this site.
Quite the opposite:
I WANT YOU TO QUESTION EVERYTHING,
AND
COME UP WITH YOUR OWN ANSWERS!
“It is difficult to get someone to understand something,
when their salary depends upon them not understanding it.”
– Upton Sinclair
Question EVERYTHING!
KNOWING, is the foundation of CONFIDENCE.
BELIEVING is the foundation of OVER-CONFIDENCE!
If you don’t truly know something to be true or not, it will make all the subsequent derived actions hereof, half-hearted.
Therefore, if you want peace of mind, and strong Self-confidence, it all starts with doing your research properly, so you don’t end up wasting precious time, running in the wrong direction!
Don’t just take some charismatic authority figure’s word for anything. FIND OUT FOR YOUR SELF!
No matter the initial good intentions of someone when they started out in the “Self-help” business; Money inevitably corrupts everyone eventually.
It is either a question of the amount of cash on the table, or the amount of debt the person is in.
One thing is perceived external/monetary-worth, and hense societal status.
A larger thing, is perceived internal/Self-worth and hence peer trustworthiness.
Our brains have evolutionally evolved to help us survive, so regardless of what bullshit we may have learned and have been practicing until now:
IF OUR BEHAVIOR HASN’T KILLED US SO FAR, IT SEEMS SAFER TO KEEP GOING, THAN CHANGING BEHAVIOR!
This is among the reasons, that the most difficult thing for us humans, is changing beliefs, and hence behavior.
The longer we have held a belief, the harder it will be to change.
If you’ve held a belief for long enough, and you don’t yet have proper control over your fortified Ego, then not even empirical evidence, or objective scientific reasoning will change your mind.
You’ll have dug a trench, and this trench will become the very grave of your further mental development.
That being said, objective common sense will get you a long way, since a very used schtick is “Everything you know is wrong!“, and a good rule of thumb to apply to any assertive proclamation is:
The more hyperbolic and un-nuanced any given statement is, the more likely it is to be complete and utter bullshit!
As in all things in life, the truth lies in the details and accounting for differences.
It is NOT A GOAL in itself to find definitive statements to live by.
It is A WAY to make initial decision-making easier when you are stressed.
The world and the people in it are not black and white, so any either/or “truth” will only ring true to the most extreme ends of any given spectrum.
So if you can become okay with the possibility of being proven wrong by a better researcher, you’ll be so much more mentally free to explore new and better solutions, instead of just procuring stale Self-validation for your vain Ego.
So. If you are ready to find better answers to whatever is puzzling you, the formula is straight forward:
1:
FORMULATE an open and unbiased question with qualifiers. (And Boolean operators, for even higher precision).
-Unless of course you are merely just seeking reaffirmation for some belief you already hold.
Search examples:
“Why is [subject] the best thing ever?” (This search string will give you gossipy bullshit sources).
Vs.
“Peer reviewed meta-analysis on [subject]” (This search string will give you a quality summery of an objective body of data).
From the now available list of links, choose the least commercial and most respected and reputable sources, and find at least 3 different enteties stating the same fact, before accepting something as “likely true”.
It is worth noting that a lot of the non-government high-quality sources, are pay-walled, since proper unbiased journalism requires non-ad-sponsored websites.
2:
CHALLENGE potential conflicts-of-interests at the source.
Say you are reading a seemingly professional study on a new cutting-edge “revolutionary” supplement, full of convincing scientific terminology and impressive looking graphs, but find out that the influencer, giving their “honest” opinion, either owns part of the product supply-chain, company-stocks or are being paid by a third party to endorse said product, then this info must be discredited as propaganda.
3:
DEBUNK the distributor.
Even if there are no obvious monetary strings attached to their message, you need to go one step further and seek to debunk the person/entity, distributing the info, because political/religious/cultural-affiliation can severely implicate a person and their own moral compass, as well as their immediate external situation/environment/forces, which could invalidate the credibility of their statements.
(Say if they are in debt, have a vice that is controlling them or “have gotten an offer they cannot refuse”, that is either too tempting or too intimidating to say no to).
If you incorporate the above 3 simple principles into your own search methodology going forward, the quality of your results will be vastly better than if you don’t.
Remember: Speed is not important if the direction is wrong!
It goes like this:
Ask better questions -> Get better answers.
Get better answers -> Make better decisions.
Make better decisions -> Have a better life!
With all that being said:
Let’s go explore.
Happy reading!