Analyzing the need for "QRS" on the forum:

[Diebert van Rhijn]

...the intellectual capacity and leadership abilities of Dan and David

Sounds to me like we've found one of those followers! While mindlessly suggesting the others are! LOL!

[Dan Rowden]

I love irony. Always have.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Ryan wrote: "The forum definitely had periods of intense fire, argument, debate and creativity. The huge problem is the lack of new members that show a genuine interest in finding truth in their lives. Many of the old members know all the ideas promoted on this forum, but I still feel there are plenty of patient posters who would stick with a geniunely interested thinker. Sri Alex, Nick de Trick, The Gay Dutchman, Pussy-Lickin' Dan, Chaste Cory and 'moi' are just to name a few. Alex perhaps especially: his posts send me into an erotic/intellectual frenzy."

There are so many people who have made substantial contributions and have tried to connect with the 'intent' of this forum that you don't mention. One of the reasons your beloved forum shrinks in value and relevance is just because the people you mention, who your privelage, are really sort of assholes (aside from Alex of course). You are like a group of anal-retentive boys who think you know and understand everything about life, and the only people you will break out of your hardened shells to converse with are people who see things just like you. When you don't get this mirror image of yourselves shining dully back at you, you turn contemptuous. Also, since you refrain from communicating from your 'wholeness' of being, and only present a limited fraction, it is not surprising that you end up 'liars'.

The way I see it? You yourselves do not really know what Ultimate Reality is, and you don't really have any clear and tangible sense of what is worth pursuing in life or how to do that. There is a fundamental disconnect between what you say about yourselves, the complex charade of image-management that occurs in posts which stands in opposition to your actual conduct in life, the way you live, the things you do. By putting up a false front and asking all others to act in this way (or be ridiculed or ignored) you essentially create a coffin structure and forge the nails to seal it. But of course none of this is visible to you and you would never fault your own selves.

It is this utterly arrogant (and falsely conceived) aloofness, this boyish arrogance and contempt that slowly and surely takes its toll. Did you ever consider the possibility that people see through this limited dimensionality?

I guess finally---this is clear as day---y'all lack humor. What a drag!

"...a genuine interest in finding truth in their lives".

What else, really, can one do but laugh at this?! You define what this is?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The way I see it? You yourselves do not really know what Ultimate Reality is, and you don't really have any clear and tangible sense of what is worth pursuing in life or how to do that. There is a fundamental disconnect between what you say about yourselves, the complex charade of image-management that occurs in posts which stands in opposition to your actual conduct in life, the way you live, the things you do. By putting up a false front and asking all others to act in this way (or be ridiculed or ignored) you essentially create a coffin structure and forge the nails to seal it. But of course none of this is visible to you and you would never fault your own selves.

One knows what something is by defining or clinging to some definition and one is free to define Ultimate Reality as one seems fit. And everyone does, really.

It's true, at some stage there seems no clear and tangible sense possible of what's worth pursing in life. It has been discussed here many times and is an obvious element of any deeper understanding. Ultimate reality, absolute truth and all of that won't help here. Purposes and worthwhileness just come and go with life.

What is being said exactly by whom and what exactly is not followed through in ones life as far as you've examined it? Where's the beef Alex? Put up or shut up!

And how many more times are you're going to use the word "boyish"? Now that's a drag, perhaps even a priestly one?

[Alex T. Jacob]

Here is what the correct response migt have included, Diebert:

Yeah, you're right Alex. We are often a group of assholes. It's painful to say it but you hit it right on the head with that. Thanks. I believe I can do better. Hopefully, I'll be a beacon for others.

There are many people who arrive, who wish to contribute/participate/learn. I will make renewed efforts to dialogue with them.

Gawd. You are so right about 'anal-retentive boys'. It is such a simple description and yet so apt. Alex, how do you do it? With just a few well-chosen words you nail it. Hats off to you my Jewish-American brother! Long live Israel! (I may even dye my hair platinum! In solidarity!)

I want to make a personal confession about contempt. The burning, acid contempt that sometimes takes possession of me. I used to see myself as a sort of 'spiritual being', some mighty, advanced soul, and I used to see others---and you Alex!---as a 'beginniner'. I think I even used that word once. Oh God how wrong I was! Alex you are many things, many terrible things, but a beginner you are not! I now see the mystery and mastery of your Kung-Fu ways and...oh this is hard, so hard!...I..I..I bow down before your majesty in humbleness.

Oh, there is so much else of treasured truth in what you write. Please, please, don't give up on us. Though I don't understand what 'Zion' is I am beginning to think you may truly be leading us there! Hallelujah!

PS: And thank you for that utterly funny video of the Moloch on Auto-Tone over on A Soldier Speaks Up! That shit had me rolling on the floor!

PPS: I love and admire your fiction writing. Please send me more when you can. I don't know much about literature (despite appearances) but I have definitively got to move beyond Stephen King! My in-box is open and receptive and anxiously awaiting communications.

[Carmel]

...the intellectual capacity and leadership abilities of Dan and David

Diebert:
Sounds to me like we've found one of those followers!

Carmel:
? This logic doesn't follow from what I said. It was a simple observation of their intellect and leadership. You have a good intellect, too, yet clearly I'm not a "follower" of you.

Diebert:
While mindlessly suggesting the others are! LOL!

Carmel:
"Mindless" was a bit hyperbolic. "Unquestioning" is, in some cases, quite apt though.

...and I do think this forum has more structure and runs more smoothly when David is around. He does explain his ideologies in a much more comprehensive and compelling way than his "followers"...as can be witnessed by the fact that he attracts "followers" and they...don't.

[Carmel]

Dan Rowden:
I love irony. Always have.

Carmel:
So do I, Dan...so do I...

[Diebert van Rhijn]

It was a simple observation of their intellect and leadership.

It's a surprising observation as the terms intellect and leadership don't cross my mind when thinking about them. So I naturally wonder why they would cross yours, as if you project desired qualities on them? That would point to the mindset of a typical follower. It's true that David is capable of boiling down posts to bare essentials, often with success, but sometimes a bit too simplistic to my taste.

But structure and smoothness, in this forum? This must be some perception particular to your mindset, a fawning over a perceived power figure. He does control the moderator buttons and has been busy with working out the ideas he talks about for decades through diverse media, so it's quite naturally for opponents to focus on him and Kevin specifically, to single them out for a challenge. This might cause some degree of structure at times? The forum to me always consisted of a diverse group of people, around a dozen in practice, who all at times demonstrate clearly wisdom, with some of them being pushed in roles of authority figures by what seems mostly circumstance and projection.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "attracting followers". You mean people emulating him? Could you be a bit more specific? I guess you mean some level of agreement over the views on the Absolute or the feminine, or the use of similar sets of definitions and phrases? Are you sure you can describe that as "unquestioning following", when one adapts to the lingo and tune into a similar appearing set of ideas? It still all seems hyperbole from your side. Perhaps you should examine the real cults,gurus and their followers, or the suffocating peer pressure of 'common thought', perhaps it will show you how far removed that all is from the nature of the discussions here.

Group dynamics are everywhere, of course. The only way to prevent that is not having a fixed group and I'm one who has suggested closing the forum to prevent subcultures to arise as some seem to cling to the place a bit too much. But over the years most of the names here change, David and Kevin have been gone for a prolonged time now, Alex is posting everywhere unrestrictedly his subversions, Dan is left on his hands and knees cleaning the floors. Again: where is the following? To me it seems you're throwing words around with hardly any base, revealing a motive to keep something at a distance while being attracted by it nevertheless.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Alex Jacob,

What would you think of the statement:

• "Alex unloads everything he finds deplorable in himself on other people and then attack them for it. That renders a person not a person, but an object in his field of vision."

It has been said to you by others in the past, together with suggestions you are using forums to offload in a socially acceptable way an enormous amount of anger and contempt, attempting to play with projections of your supposed "anima", like some sort of highly advanced troll trying to get under the skin of selected targets.

While this is not far off from my observations over the last year, I do have the impression you're using the psycho-analytical theories of the subconscious to justify your need to act like a dick, a permission slip to play out your fantasies as confrontation of yourself in others, with the idea all participants might get "somewhere" with it. But the thing is, it never works that way. It ends up just like a little power play, a little fun, some excitement to drive away a numbing boredom. Mundane stuff, really, but not in your eyes of course.

Moreover, I think your belief in the myriad of symbolical subconscious processes has become more like a religion, some self-referential perpetuum mobile which provides cover for you to distill some identity from it. All your grandiloquent questions on life, meaning and health are nothing but a never-ending supply to feed your own disease, never meant to get anywhere at all.

It ends up being all rather pathetic and transparent. No surprise forum after forum throws you up and out with the same conclusions but mostly drawing the line under your abusive, repetitive demeanor all covered up with superficial brilliance and winks.

[jupiviv]

It's a surprising observation as the terms intellect and leadership don't cross my mind when thinking about them. So I naturally wonder why they would cross yours, as if you project desired qualities on them? That would point to the mindset of a typical follower.

Intellect is something that I certainly attribute to them. But leadership...? They are against any kind of irrationality themselves, so why would they even be leaders? And I for one don't think of myself as their follower. Rather, I consider myself to be one and the same as them.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Hi Diebert,

Inappropriately enough, what first draws my attention, is to your indents. Yes, the indents in your post. How do you do that?

As to the rest of it, well, it rather makes me yawn.

What would you think of this:

There was a girl---a big girl---in my neighborhood when I was growing up. Her nickname was Thunder-Goose which I admit was not too nice. People teased her alot of course. Her tactic of getting even, of winning, and only when she could because everyone in comparison to her was so nimble, so fleet of foot, was to get you down on the ground and to sit on you. That was her moment of triumph, when her power was realized. 'God' it seems had impeded her in certain ways, life had afflicted her with certain qualities and traits which defined her, made her what she was and, perhaps, what she would always be. It was everything that impeded her, held her back as it were. But in her moment of triumph, when she had you pinned, she glowed in her strength.

This is interesting:

"...like some sort of highly advanced troll trying to get under the skin of selected targets."

Think of this (but I warn you it requires a multilayered reading, there are 3 distinct levels of value here and each must be penetrated):

The Teacher of Enlightenment, to get through all the garbage that separates the chela from the Pearl, doesn't he essentially do exactly this? Isn't this almost a required phase? The 'getting under the skin phase'? But, wouldn't it be rather horrible if, say, you Diebert, were down at the Enlightenment Dojo where you had spent some years mastering the moves, suffering the blows to your ego-structure, but one day you suddenly, in the manner of satori, or epiphany, you see behind the veil of the devilish Enlightenment Teacher, and you see that he is not enlightened! He is playing an elaborate trick! Just in one sharp moment you see behind the mask and you see Coyote and at the same time you see yourself! (The quality of being mixed, complicit, a true affront to the ego). But meanwhile, each 'sincere student' still carries on with al the ritual behavior, is essentially creating him, is asking him to appear, needing him to appear and to engage in trickery as it were. But what can you do, Diebert? Other than sit there and growl and stew in your new awareness while the others (still) wash his feet, scatter flowers and intone hymns of thanksgiving to their 'awakening'?

Whew! I don't know man. You bring up this psychological stuff. What could all this mean? What the fuck is all this about?

[Carmel]

Diebert:
It's a surprising observation as the terms intellect and leadership don't cross my mind when thinking about them. So I naturally wonder why they would cross yours, as if you project desired qualities on them?

Carmel:
Am I projecting intellect onto you as well? C'mon Diebert. It was just a simple observation. I think you're reading too much into it. That said, you may be right about "leadership". I think "presence" would be a better word choice.
Also, I could just as easily view either of them, you or anybody through the lens of cyncism or idealism, alternately, knowing all the while that the truth lies somewhere on the continuum between the two extremes.

Diebert:
It's true that David is capable of boiling down posts to bare essentials, often with success, but sometimes a bit too simplistic to my taste.

Carmel:
What you see as "simplistic", I see as mental clarity, but I do understand your point. There's a danger of losing important nuances and subtleties when concepts get reduced down too far. In fact, some schools of philosophy would contend that adhering to the absolutism espoused here could result in philosophical suicide. I'd be curious to know your thoughts on this.

Diebert:
Perhaps you should examine the real cults,gurus and their followers, or the suffocating peer pressure of 'common thought', perhaps it will show you how far removed that all is from the nature of the discussions here.

Carmel:
Actually, I have studied the psychology of cults quite in depth. I have a few extended relatives who are Jehovah's Witnesses, which according to many scholars is a cult. This prompted me to read a few books on the subject... and no, this is not a cult! It simply doesn't fit the criteria according to what I learned.
The most obvious evidence of this, is that dissenters are allowed to participate here.

Diebert:
Group dynamics are everywhere, of course. The only way to prevent that is not having a fixed group and I'm one who has suggested closing the forum to prevent subcultures to arise as some seem to cling to the place a bit too much.

Carmel:
Close the forum? hmm yes, Well, I like that idea simply for the sheer boldness of it, but other than that, I have no opinion about it one way or the other.

Diebert:
To me it seems you're throwing words around with hardly any base, revealing a motive to keep something at a distance while being attracted by it nevertheless.

Carmel:
Yes, that's right. This forum is alluringly perverse...but without the allure...or the perversity.

?!

nevermind. I'm being intentionally flippant so as evade any further discussion of personal politics. I said what I said, now I'm over it. :)

[Nick]

...and I do think this forum has more structure and runs more smoothly when David is around. He does explain his ideologies in a much more comprehensive and compelling way than his "followers"...as can be witnessed by the fact that he attracts "followers" and they...don't.

If David is in fact better at attracting followers than "his followers", that would in my view go to show that he's doing a worse job of "explaining his ideologies". Because if I understand correctly what David and this forum stand for, and I believe I do, the last thing he would want to create is a bunch of followers.

That said, do you think it's fair for me to ask you to reexamine and explain exactly what you believe this forum and the philosophy behind it stands for? If so, then lets hear it.

[Alex T. Jacob]

[Golf Whisperer here. Shhhhh. Just a little interjection on my part.]

Nick writes: "That said, do you think it's fair for me to ask you to reexamine and explain exactly what you believe this forum and the philosophy behind it stands for? If so, then lets hear it."

That is a pretty good question, really. It would be really interesting if everyone took a shot at it. At the same time, every question is, in a sense, a trick question, a loaded question, a rhetorical question. Probably almost anyone who appears here and writes could relatively easily answer the question (as you deem it fit to be answered, that is, 'the answer you are looking for', the Q-R-S-Nick-Diebert-Ryan-Etc. answer), and really that is pretty easy. Ah but the question gets far more interesting when one sees (or suggests) that there are many levels to what people do with 'this forum and the philosophy that it stands for'. Now that is an interesting conversation, but it requires honesty and coming out from behind the veils, the image management. Therefor, it will never take place here.

You might ask a simple question, but it requires a layered answer. (And just about all of that, in your case especially, goes over your head).

[Golf Whisperer, over and out].

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Am I projecting intellect onto you as well?

Possibly. But to me projection is not a wrong, it's simply the underlying mechanism with which we resonate with others, being it intellectually or sympathetically. In both cases it's near impossible to obtain the certainty of clear view. It's getting increasingly complex in group settings and even more so when there's a feedback loop with the object.

In fact, some schools of philosophy would contend that adhering to the absolutism espoused here could result in philosophical suicide. I'd be curious to know your thoughts on this.

It all boils down to clearly differentiate between the rock-solids and the ever-shifting uncertainties of "nuances and subtleties". But to signify the difference in each and every sentence we utter might become a drag and possibly unreadable. And on this forum there's another element which creates confusion and that is the introduction of discussions around viewpoints of people who after announcing having reached clarity on the rock-solids start addressing for example some psychological issues in every-day life, like the whole discussion around femininity.

While the last element is often understood as the challenge it's supposed to be, the element of rock-solids, the philosophy of the absolute, often is not. Obviously, talking about an absolute is in itself not absolute. But this problem is not solved or improved by those schools which suggest to remain silent on it. It would really be a great error to believe with certainty that remaining quiet about the unspeakable, to limit oneself to target the relative issues, would somehow prevent or limit delusions on the topic to arise. And it doesn't. One is damned when bringing out the absolutes and one is damned when refraining from it, even when perishing the thought itself.

There is no solution to this drama but to accept absolutes are truly living in the spoken as well as in the unspoken. And that in both cases one cannot really capture it yet at the same time not deny it to the degree one is truthful.

[Alex T. Jacob]

[Golf Whisperer again. Diebert writes: "And on this forum there's another element which creates confusion and that is the introduction of discussions around viewpoints of people who after announcing having reached clarity on the rock-solids start addressing for example some psychological issues in every-day life, like the whole discussion around femininity."

Oh boy, you said it brother. Peculiar that you chose the word 'psychological issue' in the context of the woman-question. I say that any 'sane person' reading these pages will notice, intimately connected with the fine and upstanding discourse about women, women's general attitudes, capabilities, limitations, etc., there arises right within it, and runs along right beside it, another recognizable strain, and one that is essentially pathological. Perhaps the same 'psychological' knot that gives rise to classical misogyne? And this manifests not as evidence of accomplishment or even perhaps clarity but as a psychological complex in an intelligent boy that, among a group of boys, causes him to say 'ieeeew!' when girls are mentioned. (It is that basic).

So, one wishes to participate in the definition of 'rock solid absolutes' but one discovers that those who engage in this project seem also to go over the top in other areas, which tends to taint the original (and perhaps even 'noble') primary project.

[Golf Whisperer says: A toute a l'heure. *Blows kisses*]

[Nick]

That is a pretty good question, really. It would be really interesting if everyone took a shot at it. At the same time, every question is, in a sense, a trick question, a loaded question, a rhetorical question.

You are a delicate fellow aren't you.

Probably almost anyone who appears here and writes could relatively easily answer the question (as you deem it fit to be answered, that is, 'the answer you are looking for', the Q-R-S-Nick-Diebert-Ryan-Etc. answer), and really that is pretty easy. Ah but the question gets far more interesting when one sees (or suggests) that there are many levels to what people do with 'this forum and the philosophy that it stands for'. Now that is an interesting conversation, but it requires honesty and coming out from behind the veils, the image management. Therefor, it will never take place here.

We're all here for your entertainment Alex.

You might ask a simple question, but it requires a layered answer. (And just about all of that, in your case especially, goes over your head).

It takes a very pointed mind to see through these layers you're so focused on, and get to the core of things. Your inability to do this mostly leaves you in the dust. But who cares about getting to the core of things when THE LAYERS, the layers are so much fun, and safe as well.

[Alex T. Jacob]

This sort of unintelligent response seems to indicate that the points I made:

You might ask a simple question, but it requires a layered answer.
Just about all of that, in your case especially, goes over your head.
Therefor [such conversation] will never take place here.

May indeed be true.

[Blair]

Alex is throwing another hissy-pissy jealousy fit over QRS it seems.

No matter cutely or cleverly you think you present it Alex, it's always the same ol' sour grapes story from you. How many more years in various incarnations are you going to keep it up?

Yaw.

[Blair]

And you are just as much the whiney ass as he.

Two peas in a pod, stoned losers, etc etc

Get it?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Two peas in a pod, stoned losers, etc etc

Victim of circumstance, ultimately. Perhaps they do share the same "broken home" scenario, or a continuous dislocation as a child, like those unhinged children of 60's die-hards raised in a sequence of hippie camps, ashrams and communes? It gives rise to great insecurity, a complete loss of any sense of belonging which a sensitive mind in the early years needs, to stabilize, to prepare.

In both cases I suspect an exposure, too early, too violent, of some form of spiritual energy or drugs, which cracked open the untrained mind. Which leaves one in the best case with a never-ending shower of mental energy, cleverness and half-baked insights - sometimes even truly inspired like a broken clock having two perfect alignments each day.