Musings, Critiques.

[Patrick Watts]

A Siren causing a Shipwreck

Song to the Siren (different version)

Do you see why this is problematic to Spirituality?

[David Quinn]

I say what I think, David, I describe what I see. How it is dealt with, or not, is not my affair or my problem.

You are making it your problem because you claim to be disappointed with the responses. If you want different responses you're going to have to change your approach.

It's not rocket-science.

I have been avidly following all of David's posts to his new blog, and even more avidly following the near complete uncritical response of the intellectual lemmings who for all their assertions, blustering and fundamentalist formulations, seem to reveal again and again merely a self-imposed limitation in the use of the mind and spirit. I am again somewhat shocked by the intellectual laziness and the desire (need?) to shut-out constructive dialectic.

I stand by this and everything I have written.

But all you have written are empty, generic insults that can be applied to anyone.

You cherry pick from the world's spiritual traditions, just taking what appeals to you (the mediocre aspects of Christianity) and ignoring the rest (Eastern philosophy, the wisdom of the sages, etc), which of course makes you an anti-intellectual fascist. You are disconnecting yourself from life, from the life of the spirit as expressed by Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Meister Eckhart, etc. You use Christian thought as a kind of foil in which you hide away from the most important realities in life. You sychophantly bow down to a large cult called "mainstream society" and happily regurgitate its current postmodernist tenets. And so on and so on.

The game you play is easy, but hollow.

It is typical of the followers and the disciples to fall into line and perform this important role in defense of the Edifice. In these 3 pages even IF you saw me as the snarling Devil himself there are hundreds of opportunities for discourse and dialectic.

Still, I have a very clear idea where I wish to proceed. It falls into 3-4 areas. One is the sycophantism one notes here, especially in the responses to your blog posts.

Or it could be that they are tapping into a deep truth, the same deep truth that Nagarjuna, Huang Po and Kierkegaard spoke about, and they are excited about it. A truth that you consistently show you have no inkling of.

The default position you take, that it is all a load of crap, is what is killing meaningful dialogue from the outset. No one wants to have meaningful conversation with an arrogant wanker who refuses to listen to any point made to him.

As I say, you need to rethink your approach if you want to have meaningful dialogue. Otherwise, people will begin to harbour the suspicious thought that meaningful dialogue is not really what you want from this place after all.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Curiously, since it was brought out first by David and then echoed by Diebert, the analysis is now at a parental level.

Not that you will remember much beyond last month but your parental thing has been brought up several times over the years as recurring theme by a few posters. Starting with yourself, going on about the environment you grew up in and your fixation on the difference between being "boyish" or "manly" in life. But never mind, like so much you bring forward it's just not true in the larger context, just not applicable, if not just silly rants.

As opposed to Quinn I do not believe a different approach is possible for you. I've seen too many repeats by now and if there's any development it's about you reading less carefully, forgetting more and discussing increasingly isolated (with yourself basically). Why is anyone bothering with responding to you? Because you know the buttons to push to get the conversation you want, one you can continue to dismiss. And so on. It's still fascinating: ecce homo!

[Alex Jacob]

Esteemed Colleague David!

• I would be disappointed in the responses if I had made them. I believe that we should all do much better and, even if there is stark disagreement or open opposition, should write very carefully and thoroughly.
• My 'approach' will not change. Don't plan on it or wait for it.
• In that paragraph there were generic descriptions, in polemical style, which fit generally. In other posts I specify the issues I have with things. You have a choice: to focus on the generic or to deal with the specific. It is yours and yours alone. If you do or if you don't doesn't make too much difference to me.
• In conversations with you, I have attempted to show that you do not understand what 'Christianity' is. True, it is not one thing, not a monolith. But it has certain known, salient features that are characteristic of it. When YOU quote Christian scripture, or the words attributed to Jesus, you radically take those words out of their context and make them work for you in another, foreign context. I seek to point this grave error out to you and I attempt to explain to you what Christianity is historically. It has led to so much that we are not even aware of. So much that is a part of us and that flows through us has come to us through the Christian traditions. But, I am not a Christian! Though I would not at all consider it an inferior platform, and indeed I am certain that Christianity is indeed a very elevated platform. True, like religions, and in all human ideation, there are mediating structures of symbols that are problematic if considered as 'real': as real as a rock sitting in your garden. But in your religion, I have often pointed out, is also an 'imagined context', and laden symbols. Though you paint it as a direct glimpse of the Kosmos with no intermediary---a direct, raw and 'perfect' vision---I do not believe this possible. Indeed, I consider those words symbols and idealistic, and this corresponds to the same within the Christian vision. Not the same, but correspondingly similar. You continually make the mistake of conflating Kierkegaard's Christianity with some sort of Zen revelation, and you put him and various post-Taoists on exactly the same level, and you assume they speak of exactly the same thing. This is a grotesque mistake. Not to say that all 'higher thinking' and spiritual conceptualization will not share commonality, it will. But to be able to see and discern the shades of difference is what makes all the difference. On another level, Christianity is a religion that has a strong link to specific action in this realm. To a sort of immanence. I also contrast this being-here and acting-here with what I perceive as 'severing-away-from' in your doctrines.
• I do not at all deny any part of the teachings of the East. But I do believe that they need to be compared carefully with 'our own'. You throw all these figures (Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Meister Eckhart, etc.) into the same pot and assume they are all the same, essentially. I fully disagree with you. They are NOT the same. And it is the differences that make all the difference. But those differences are irrelevant to you because you seem only to use these people to pursue your pet project, which may and also may not have been what these people meant. Again, it is the differences that make all the difference. It is true however that, having grown up in Eastern teachings, I have seen them lived out, and have noted deleterious effects through their influence. That process is noted by others, and it is something real and discussable. In my view, you are clearly located within this zone. My argument is not with those teaching, in se (though aspects of them are certainly questionable), but in your use of them. Very different.
• When you place 'Nagarjuna, Huang Po and Kierkegaard' in the same boat, you make a big mistake. You assume and imply that they all arrive at the same praxis. I do not believe they do. In fact, they may be the products of radically different matrixes with radically different philosophical bases. But in your mind you can blend them at will. You might also subsume the Gospel message there, and then see yourself as the Prophet of it. And if someone disagrees with your formulations you can then assume they are disagreeing with 'Nagarjuna, Huang Po and Kierkegaard' and any historical figure of your choosing.
• 'Meaningful dialogue' can only occur when those who partake in it are capable of thinking clearly and rationally. And additionally who have a basis from which to speak that is not completely arbitrary...invented...whimsical. The stuff you come up with, I begin to understand, does not in fact have a rational basis. It has certain connections with whimsy, even fantasy, and a peculiar form of mysticism that is non-rational. And this I take issue with. The effects of errors in thinking have consequences, and the consequences are distortions that take form in thought and in life lived.
• An arrogant wanker? Me?! I have a forceful approach which is different. I think you hate more than anything to be shoved off the dais you've established for yourself, and that I don't respect the ego-managed self you desire to broadcast: Holy David synonymous with 'Jesus, the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Huang Po and Kierkegaard', and this is understandable. You will never accept that I do this and that I call you on your bullshit. It is really a delightful impasse. I accept its terms and have fun within them. What it all means to you is...irrelevant. It is really all within your choice, I mean.
• Diebert, friend. You cannot tolerate the ideas I bring forward. You will do everything in your power, and you have quite a little bit here in this space, to shut down the conversation! All that you do, especially lately, is directed to that purpose. This is 100% your own doing, and you do it for your own reasons.
• I have a whole mass of busy work to attend to over the next few days, Dear Ones, but will be back as soon as I possibly can.

[Cory Duchesne]

I can't help but think back to a Satyr I once knew who tried to prove his flute was superior to my Lyre.

Did he use language or did he try to do it on the Pan Pipes? ;-)

Greek myths use common tools such as arrows or wings as metaphor for unusual states of consciousness, painful judgements, great capacities, etc.

Overall, my diagnosis of your psychology is this:

You seem to merely pay lip service to "subjectivity". Because you failed to make the distinction between analytic(objective) and sensory(subjective) truth, you start believing in your own sensory perceptions as if they are impersonal and objective structures to "share".

That's why you put so much importance on the difference between spiritual teachers. You think that there is some objective thing to grasp through your senses. There is not. You create reality, you co-create, and you re-create. That's the truth. As for the truth about those spiritual teachers, nobody really knows in any empirical sense. We can only draw inspiration from their words to create our lives in a manner that does not leave us prone to these homosexual wresting matches that you keep inciting.

Spirituality is a creative act, a constant renewal through creative consciousness. There is no mansion of Christianity in any objective sense, although the deep, personal mysticism of an enlightened person can seem to have that spacious, wealthy, vastness that a mansion might afford. However, the truth infinitely dwarfs any mental structure you wish to push forward. That's why a good teacher emphasises analytic truths, because it is through a firm handle on conceptual reasoning that you can create realities, rather than merely adopt them from your past experiences, or even worse, draw from other peoples books and cultural beliefs as if they were objective facts.

[Dennis Mahar]

Reading these long, piping, prancing and presumptuous rivers of misunderstanding, I can't help but think back to a Satyr I once knew who tried to prove his flute was superior to my Lyre. I tend to see things as existing in complimentary contrasts, and anyone who comes into my space with the idea that I cannot exist in harmony to a different note really doesn't deserve life.

Alex, you're merely a different note in the grand musical scheme. A different instrument, a different shade. Perhaps a fox berry bush tucked away among some pines.

I'll have to dedicate this latest song to you, as you remind so much of a particular Satyr I came across not too long ago.

If you think satyr's exist it's time to check your meds.
Alex's just a normal, disfunctional human being.
He gets sick, he dies.

There is one fact about him.
He fails to comprehend David's project.
Hasn't got a clue.
Comprehension failure.

His act is inauthentic because if we were all in a room face to face he wouldn't carry on as he does.
The comprehension failure would be clearly seen.

[David Quinn]

My 'approach' will not change. Don't plan on it or wait for it.

I know full well it won’t change. You’re too locked in within the postmodernist framework that asserts that everything is uncertain, everything is contextual, everything is symbolic, etc. It would require a drastic shift in perspective on your part for this to change and you are probably too old and set in your ways for this to happen.

Just don't expect the responses to change. I think it was Einstein who said that insanity is behaving the same way and expecting a different result.

Though you paint it as a direct glimpse of the Kosmos with no intermediary---a direct, raw and 'perfect' vision---I do not believe this possible.

Yes, that is the natural view of someone who has closed himself from all deeper truth.

In the interests of meaningful dialogue, you should perhaps explain how you have established that understanding and directly experiencing reality is impossible. You haven’t actually travelled along the path to enlightenment yourself, so by what means have you decided that enlightenment is impossible?

What do you think Zen teachers like Hakuin and Huang Po meant when they talked about the importance of “seeing into one’s true nature"?

What did Jesus mean by his frequent exhortations that we should do everything we can to “enter into the Kingdom of Heaven”?

When the Buddha sat down under the Bodhi tree and vowed to never get up until he was "enlightened", what do you think he meant by that?

Were they just poets playing around with symbols? Or were they talking about something infinitely more serious and important?

In conversations with you, I have attempted to show that you do not understand what 'Christianity' is.

Christianity is following in Jesus’s footsteps and making every effort to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Every other form of Christianity is a pile of horse dung that needs to be shovelled into a compost heap and left to rot.

When YOU quote Christian scripture, or the words attributed to Jesus, you radically take those words out of their context and make them work for you in another, foreign context.

The context of Reality or God may well be foreign to you, but it isn’t necessarily the case for other people.

True, like religions, and in all human ideation, there are mediating structures of symbols that are problematic if considered as 'real': as real as a rock sitting in your garden. But in your religion, I have often pointed out, is also an 'imagined context', and laden symbols.

Given that you have closed yourself off from reality, what you point out is meaningless. You have, with this closing off, undermined your ability to distinguish between imagination and reality.

You continually make the mistake of conflating Kierkegaard's Christianity with some sort of Zen revelation, and you put him and various post-Taoists on exactly the same level, and you assume they speak of exactly the same thing.

It is no assumption. I know they are speaking about the same thing. It is like how a person who has fought in the frontlines of a war is able to distinguish between those who have also been to the frontlines and those who haven’t. He can recognize them by their “limp”, as it were.

Kierkegaard had already gained a thorough understanding of the Infinite by the time he started his literary career. For example, in Fear and Trembling he talks about the knight of faith who “resigns everything absolutely and then again seizes hold of it all in the strength of the absurd”. This is something I understand completely. It points directly at the same reality that the Buddha and Lao Tzu pointed at.

I do not at all deny any part of the teachings of the East.

You deny the heart and soul of these teachings, which is seeing into one’s true nature.

You deny everything that is important in life and affirm the rest.

But I do believe that they need to be compared carefully with 'our own'. You throw all these figures (Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Meister Eckhart, etc.) into the same pot and assume they are all the same, essentially. I fully disagree with you. They are NOT the same. And it is the differences that make all the difference.

They make no difference at all. It is the destination which is important, not the various starting points. If the goal is to travel to Rome, then the important thing is to actually reach Rome. Where the traveller leaves from, what accent he has, what cultural environment he comes from, etc, is irrelevant. Reaching Rome is all that matters.

You focus on differences because you have no interest in reaching Rome. That is the long and short of it.

[Dennis Mahar]

any second rate, down at heel, vaudeville comic recognises the art of lampooning, ridicule, taunt to get a few laughs from the dimwitted.
It's the only time the comic feels alive.

[Bobo]

When you place 'Nagarjuna, Huang Po and Kierkegaard' in the same boat, you make a big mistake. You assume and imply that they all arrive at the same praxis. I do not believe they do. In fact, they may be the products of radically different matrixes with radically different philosophical bases. But in your mind you can blend them at will. You might also subsume the Gospel message there, and then see yourself as the Prophet of it. And if someone disagrees with your formulations you can then assume they are disagreeing with 'Nagarjuna, Huang Po and Kierkegaard' and any historical figure of your choosing.

So is wisdom historical? Truth is that which is least personal, but it can only be gained trough personality. The non personal aspect of it would be the historical, contrary to the personal. This set a problem of personality termination (giving way for truth) for the maintenace of personality (which must seek termination). And an impossible task from the start, especially when dealt in absolutes?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Diebert, friend. You cannot tolerate the ideas I bring forward. You will do everything in your power, and you have quite a little bit here in this space, to shut down the conversation! All that you do, especially lately, is directed to that purpose. This is 100% your own doing, and you do it for your own reasons.

Fair enough. Only there is no conversation to shut down, only the verbosity of intellectual pretense, only the perpetuated confusion of an old bitter child. The secret of joy in the cruelty of taking someone apart. You must know it. But what you do not recognize is your own defeat: it's your shamelessness.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Christianity is following in Jesus’s footsteps and making every effort to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Every other form of Christianity is a pile of horse dung that needs to be shovelled into a compost heap and left to rot.

Those other forms, and it's most of Christianity nowadays, could be called Pharaseeism: all efforts geared toward preventing anyone to enter. Stoning the ones having any claim being more familiar with God than they are, or anything suggesting inequality. It's worldly that way, the constant activity of creating all sorts of extraneous edifices with the sole purpose of not having to face eternity.

[Russell Parr]

And yet another episode passes.

Alex, with his love of all things materialistic; story telling, feminism, love, comes through his predictably extravagant, long-winded posts which all curiously amount to little to no points being made.. playing out the role of an infinite labyrinth creator masterfully and proudly.. caught up so deeply in his creations that it is no doubt that he feels very much alive when doing so.. especially as a contrast to the perceived lifelessness observed in those responding to him.

Indeed, he comes here to feel Alive, as I imagine that there are few other places where he can contrast his worldview against others in order to validate and experience his emotionalism to such a degree.

Tune in next week for the next episode. Same time, same channel.

[Alex Jacob]

• Esteemed colleagues & friends. In that there are three formidable intellects (sorry Dennis but I do not include you here) offering response, and because I have a slew of work that just came in, I will have to respond in the free moments.
• First one is to Cory: subjectivity/objectivity. My position and my interest is in what can be demonstrated to have value and relevancy. In word and in deed. As were the Heroic Greeks, I am interested in tangible life, and the divine forms (the gods) who inspire me are anthropomorphisms: ideals about what humans can and should do. But perhaps like the Greeks in that heroic epic I am not interested in disconnected abstractions, nor in what effectively removes us from the field of life. I appreciate that you have brought up (a reference to Greek existential attitudes) because I have discovered just how vital it is to me, personally. If you think that I do not see how I am subjective (if I understand what you mean), or that I cannot grasp another's subjectivity, I think you are incorrect. It is true indeed though that I am more concerned with sensory reality, and my being in it, than with an analytical reality you refer to (again, if I understand you rightly).
• About teachers. All depends on what teacher and teaching one submits to. A Ramakrishna on one hand and, say, a Nicolas Berdyaev on the other. These represent very different poles within groups of conceived possibilities for the living of life. One has to be able to make the distinction, and there is a great deal of importance in distinguishing. At this point I have no way of making the distinction you do between the 'sensual' and 'analytic' and in some sense you become incoherent to me. Do you mean perhaps to distinguish between, say, an Heroic attitude and a 'neo-Platonic' attitude? In my case, it is true that I am less interested in neo-Platonic edifices and more interested in the facts of tangible existence. It is personal and subjective, no doubt, but emphatically conceived and felt.
• This homosexual stuff. No idea and very little interest in your musings in this area. If it is an area of interest for you, either for idea or fantasy, please do so without including me. You would do well to speak about your own involvement in the 'homosexuality' you refer to (on intellectual levels...) and that would be honest. I have nothing more to say about it (and hope you don't either!)
• I very much agree with you that spirituality is a creative act. That is a very important understanding in my view. You have developed this idea interestingly 'as against' your previous, shall I say, thralldom to the GF platform. Once, you were a sycophant (I am being honest in my view) but what was deeply creative and very internal in you was not crushed and smothered. You came up out of that with real life and vitality, and creativity. As to creativity: This idea of yours about it is quite contrary to the Quinnian platform, as I see it. There can be no 'creativity', not as you are defining it and as you live it, within the Quinnist structure. Creativity is to be annihilated. But with your forumulation you have radically separated yourself from the Quinnian project. The essence of Quinnism is some unmediated Vision of 'Reality' that annihilates the self in this plane of existence. I don't see much of a space there for the creative, spiritual soul that you propose. My own view? I think we are involved---we need to be involved---in deeply creative projects of gestating spirituality. It cannot be assumed before hand and is something one goes into and LIVES.
• There are---and I meant it this way---cultural mansions within Christianity. There are the ideas and the creative works of people who have spent their lives within this tradition or area. I refer to these things as mansions. They are distinct 'places' one can go and I refer to these places and the tangible legacy of those persons in the works they have left behind. If you mistook my phrase for some sort of metaphysical, otherworldly zone, you misunderstood me.
• And yes, a 'deeply personal mysticism' of a person who has lived in spiritual creativity is, I think, a good object. But I would not include the word 'enlightenment' in respect to this because it is misleading. Who will you point to as an example of an enlightened one in this, your creative spiritual sense? And when I ask that I mean do you include yourself? What tangible person in your immediate area will you hold up as an example of 'enlightenment'? I cannot relate to the term at all, myself. But you can talk about people who have lived their spirituality very creatively.
• 'Mental structures'. No, the 'mental structures' are the fruit of contemplation and sacrifice to creative spiritual work, as for example in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and so many others. We enter into relationship with those mental structures and this is part of spiritual life: opening to that relationship. To be creative is to gestate in oneself and to give birth within this plane of reality. My view? You have romantisized an abstract 'truth' and seem to propose, as does Quinn, an abstract or an Absolute 'truth'. I feel this operates against your won notion of 'creative spirituality'. I would like to say that even if I don't carry it out well, what interests me is creativity within the work of defining spirituality. That is why I don't accept a priori definitions but only what can be demonstrated as having value and meaning. My defense of 'our own traditions' and 'our selves' (I see our selves as outcomes of vast amounts of creative work that links us, tangible, to those who have gone before), is not to revert to the past or to remain bound in the past, but to value the work of those who have gone before us in so many different areas of spirituality: from service on the ground to the human body all the way up to monastic renunciation. But in no sense at all do I think we should throw this stuff onto the dungheap or into the bonfire, as recommends Sri Quinn, and I note a radical destructiveness in that maneuver, and one that I have noted among numerous hot-headed young men who have appeared in this space.
• Bluerap: 'Is passing'...'Is going on'. Not 'has passed'! ;-) And really, you are only performing what is performed every time someone comes along with a contrary vision. It is a sort of group hack job. I know you can do better!

[Alex Jacob]

Diebert wrote: Fair enough. Only there is no conversation to shut down, only the verbosity of intellectual pretense, only the perpetuated confusion of an old bitter child. The secret of joy in the cruelty of taking someone apart. You must know it. But what you do not recognize is your own defeat: it's your shamelessness.

There is a conversation, the conversation that I create...am creating. If it were 'intellectual pretense' it would not have the effect it seems to have...in you! You are getting your underpants all in a bundle. The reference to the 'bitter child' brings this, on your part, into an ugly area. It is not my area, nor my reality, nor my feeling. The 'secret of joy in the cruelty of taking someone apart' really does astound me!

Here, listen!

"Genius is a discussion forum that is passionately dedicated to the nature of Genius, Wisdom and Ultimate Reality and to the total annihilation of false values. It is an unconventional discussion forum suitable only for the brave hearted. It is for those who like their thoughts bloodied and dangerous".

This is why I call you 'boys'. You want to play in a man's field, with men's toys, but when push comes to shove you break down and cry! Gird up your loins, Diebert! The 'game' is one that has absolutely critical consequences for the personality. I do very much and indeed 'know it'. But I do not play in accord with the chicken-shit values you have established that allows you (apparently) to back away at the critical moment! Your comment about 'taking someone apart': Who in the heck are you referring to? David? You?

Over the last few posts, Diebert, you have begun to whine. What's up with that? When one establishes a philosophical platform at this height one subjects oneself to the criticism of it. If we are at all intellectually and philosophically responsible we will accept the basic terms. You fail in this test, Diebert. Seeing this, stating it, will subject me (has subjected me) to your unending contempt and resentment! Get the fuck over it.

[Russell Parr]

Alex, you will have to come to terms with this belief that there are no absolute truths if any progress is to be made here. You must know that you assume the role of an authoritative figure when you declare that no such truths exist, but for the life of you, cannot see the contradiction in such a declaration.

It is clear that pure absolute logic doesn't serve much of an interest to you, and pure logic is the very basis of what this forum is all about. As long as you hold this stance, there will be a perpetual stalemate between you and those who stand by the ideas held here.

[Alex Jacob]

What is progress for you and progress for me...is all the difference in my position! I have no good reason to accept your definition of 'progress'. Unless you can demonstrate the value of it, tangibly, articulately, by your word and deed.

I have come to terms with that. Long ago. I don't really mean this in the classic Christian sense but it is useful to express an idea: 'By their fruits shall ye know them'. So many people define truths, ethics, how life shall be lived, in relation to their Ideal. Quinn et al is non-different in this sense. I do not have a problem with this, per se. But I think we have a duty to examine the works and the declarations and the platforms that arise from this, and to resist the formulations of those who set themselves up as arbiters of 'absolute truth'. To do otherwise is to become a sycophant. Or better stated: philosophically irresponsible.

Consider The True Believer, by Eric Hoffman. It's just a suggestion of the way that such ideas and formulation can work. Just a suggestion.

The notion of absolute truth is so obviously---potentially---fascistic to honest and open inquiry that it must always be placed in quotations. Imagine a state that arrives at and imposes an 'absolute truth'. Imagine an intellectual environment that does this. Imagine a person who does this in relation to all others. Imagine an Internet forum! ;-) Can you say you are completely aware of what attracts you to the notion of 'absolute truths'? I suggest looking into it and seeing how this idea has manifested itself historically.

I can't, myself, make any such statements about 'absolutes' in the sense you mean. If that is my limitation than I accept it. If you can assert an absolute and attempt to convince me with it, well, I can at the very least listen to you and hear you. But I don't have to sign up...

No, pure 'absolute logic' does not hold my interest and not the least reason being it is a fantasy! Logic (as you seem to mean it) functions within cerebral systems, within the context and the rules of a cerebral game. It is obviously and by definitions it must itself assert and support, limited. I think it is you who needs to come to terms with this, Bluerap!

[Dennis Mahar]

Alex,

One has to be able to make the distinction, and there is a great deal of importance in distinguishing.

There is a conversation, the conversation that I create...am creating.

Yeah, I get it.
making it up as you go along.

It's still only one post X 4000 times.
What are you rehearsing for?


When do you finally get to feel impregnable?

I can see some script enhancement possibilities for you.
The excellent players 'get' enrollment.
If the script is enrolling is what the excellent players concern themselves about.
Enrollment is found to be the important distinction.

80% of your playmaking involves ridicule.
that's not enrolling.
that's the valence an 'opposition' takes on.
the 'opposition' is the one without power.

To be or not to be.

[Alex Jacob]

I get so many complaints about my writing that I begin to feel bad! I just reviewed everything I wrote so far and find it clear, pointed, well written, accurate, reasonable and also 99% polite! What is the fucking matter with you people?!? I am very, very happy with everything I wrote.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I get so many complaints about my writing that I begin to feel bad! I just reviewed everything I wrote so far and find it clear, pointed, well written, accurate, reasonable and also 99% polite! What is the fucking matter with you people?!? I am very, very happy with everything I wrote.

If you can suffer some advice on that: try for a change to crush a few of your longer posts crammed together, cutting everything away until you have the essential point left covering to various degree all of those other things. Then chisel that further, using intuition and turn it around again and again to see if it there's any weird stuff sticking out. Now serve that to the world. Of course it won't ever be explicit or detailed this way but remaining somewhat ambiguous, multifaceted while working its way deeply in yourself. That might get interesting. Just try a few posts like that, but seriously, the hardest part is the cutting.

[Tomas]

I get so many complaints about my writing that I begin to feel bad! I just reviewed everything I wrote so far and find it clear, pointed, well written, accurate, reasonable and also 99% polite! What is the fucking matter with you people?!? I am very, very happy with everything I wrote.

If you can suffer some advice on that: try for a change to crush a few of your longer posts crammed together, cutting everything away until you have the essential point left covering to various degree all of those other things. Then chisel that further, using intuition and turn it around again and again to see if it there's any weird stuff sticking out. Now serve that to the world. Of course it won't ever be explicit or detailed this way but remaining somewhat ambiguous, multifaceted while working its way deeply in yourself. That might get interesting. Just try a few posts like that, but seriously, the hardest part is the cutting.

Exactly. Cut out the excess fat and stick with the lean meat.

It's like going to the grocery store and selecting a good cut of beef roast. The gristle makes for some nasty chewing and the excess fat [truly] makes for gravy but too much gravy isn't always the order of the day. Some added carrots, potato, celery and onion plus seasonings work for me.

You wrote about 50 some words above, not bad and you made your point without breathing once or twice in doing so. Bravo, sweetheart!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

the effect it seems to have...in you! You are getting your underpants all in a bundle.

It's not me sounding like that (eg chicken-shit, you whine, back away, heck, get the fuck over it). Please go on having a meltdown but of course I'm only dreaming.

You are living in a strange bizarro mirror world, Alex. And I cannot help but poke and joke when you get that way. And you get that way after thee postings in a row, on average, some of which do start out very well. You cannot see that and you will not listen to any crawling lowlife-intellect (but with more common sense) trying to point it out to you.

The 'game' is one that has absolutely critical consequences for the personality. I do very much and indeed 'know it'.

Do you now, please tell! You saw some people upon a time burn and crash? I happen to know that you have no idea what you're fucking with here. The lack of clues lies in every breath between your words.

[Alex Jacob]

You're fronting Diebert. You'll play the same blocking game until time ends. And who asked you, Tomas? :-)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Please tell us all about the absolutely critical consequences for the personality you do so very much and indeed 'know'.

It sounds very important. If you told it before please augment but keep it concrete. I'm not kidding.

[Alex Jacob]

I've asked you I think 5 direct questions over the last few days but each one was sidestepped. Any one of them, engaged with, could have brought us to a far more interesting place. You are getting way too hung up in this conversation on a personal level and frankly I don't really like you so much in this manifestation. Why should I submit to your questions? Your whole point now is to do whatever is in your power to derail my thrust. It is the same game that is played by the 'pack' when the Edifice is threatened. Respectfully decline therefor. ;-)

I cannot and will not address all of your writing above, Alex. It should not become some tête-à-tête between us again and perhaps others are driven to comment on the rest.

Remember?

[Dan Rowden]

Alex, why do you believe in God?