This post is an introduction to the Melon Cave podcast of Mark Bruns which goes to the heart of why I work on something called
Transformative Discipleship Technology (TDT) which is about different hacks
to assist me in better programming myself to ditch the bad habits of being myself ... the attempted transformation tech includes things like discipline improvement/tracking strategies, neurohacking, practices for developing one's self-awareness, especially in terms of how one thinks. It's about meta-cognition skills, thinking about the algorithms driving large-language learning models and stuff like retrieval augemented generation (RAG) and a variety how of human-in-loop AI
systems think, as
teams, with AI-savvy humans using/extending AI as their cognitive-support technology.
Melon Cave is about THINKING ... me thinking ... and the impediments to that, especially from my own bad habits. So, it's about my struggles to CAVE IN the MELONS of the personal demons that I am battling.
Yes, OF COURSE ... it is terribly self-absorbed, terribly autobiographical ... so what?! ... that's the nature of this podcast.
Hopefully others, who might face similar struggles, can benefit from hearing me talk about how impossible these demons have been for me to battle ... but I really do not care if people listen or not. I just want to talk about my demons, and my spiritual battle against them ... it is absolutely a spiritual sort of battle.
I fully believe that one of the hardest battles any human can ever fight is to battle against the bad habits of being ourselves ... overcoming fear or worry or doubt or laziness or some other deeply, deeply personal flaw or shortcoming ... it's about developing the *little* disciplines, in order to have the discipline muscle to be able to fight larger battles is what I am talking about.
Other people will have different struggles, different obstacles that they overcame ... but they overcame their personal demons by ruthlessly caving in the melons of those demons ... and Melon Cave is not special ... it's just one guy's story about CAVING IN the MELONS of his personal demons.
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Lent offers a particularly COMPELLING time for thinking about giving up old comforts and views that have hung around just because it's oh so convenient to avoid taking on the PAIN that comes from battling the demons that lead one astray. Those demons have power over us precisely because they are so familiar, so COMFORTABLE, so CONVENIENT -- those demons have the bags of candy that we can't say no to, so we keep our personal demons around ... but Lent is for giving up comfort, giving up convenience and think seriously about what is stopping us from being more effective at helping people.
We could say that the self-compassion of this nature, or battling one's own demons, is really a big part of the the basis for compassion for others ... but it can't even be about us, or about some nebulous bullshit that falls under the heading of ***Personal Growth***. Battling our personal demons is MOSTLY about being the warriors that God created, even though we're long overdue in stepping up. We cave in our personal melonsso that we can move forward and actually finally achieve what our Creator created us to achieve. Sure, almsgiving and trying to really help others is a big part of what Lent is for ... any moron can do checkbook charity or whip out the credit card and send $ ... however, this is much more PERSONAL and raw.
And this cannot aimed at someone else ... my Melon Cave podcast is entirely about MY personal demons. I say that because I know that it'