Women, Freedom, Entrapment, Strategy

[SeekerOfWisdom]

To avoid suffering, all that is need is the recognition of the illusory nature at all times, aka, be awake and observant, letting everything go, then there is no reason to feel suffering, no desires, no chasing and hurrying after illusions, just mystery. Thought processes based on ultimate reality don't mean anything when they are based on evidence taken from the particular manifestations of sensation, but when thoughts are seen also to be illusory and dream-like, then as you say there is nothing save for ineffable silence. There is no seperation...someone is hollerin

[Alex T. Jacob]

Diebert wrote: "This waxing creature has made his home, or some attempt at such, in the old age of appearances, somewhat represented by the 19th century. This in response to a certain contempt and revulsion to the age of meaning, called modernity and somewhat represented by the 20th century. The age where meaning and its discourse, the dialectic of meaning churns on like machinery, with the postmodern fumes rising in the gray sky. Although he is being accused of being the foggy postmodern, this is not the case as the postmodern is still a creature of meaning, folding back the analyzing on the analysis. Not this reactionary creature, it prefers the surface of things, reflections and projections, a place one does not have to exist much if at all. It enjoys the Latin-American culture as a reservate for the past age of enlightenment, reminiscent of a time without the churning wheels of law and system, where art and thought, and desires still can run free at times. / Or in short, just a pretentious wonk lost out at sea and clinging to the lifeboat like the rest of us, afraid to take the dive."

For the sake of conversation I would question the veracity of the part about residing in the 'old age of appearances', and though it is possible you are exaggerating for effect I don't think so. You have said it in different ways more than once. In a sense, in a forum and environment where the written word and all it's history is our medium---disembodied voice---we are bound into a symbolic world, or we can only throw up (as 'into the air' as opposed to barfing on the table) groups of symbols. To parody an overwrought poetic style in these conversations might have a good deal to do with the ludicrousness of attempts to assert the 'equations of meaning' which becomes (case in point Dennis/Seeker attempting to hash it out) a venturing farther and farther away and into sheer nonsense with yet with a glimmer os 'sense' too. It seems to me sometimes that to believe this can be done one must exist within a sort of later romanticism! And hence the voluptuousness of the terms of parody! And the references to the young romantic soul. But actually I hadn't really thought of this specifically until---your first attempt at another, a newer label, for my activities!---you brought it up. I see much of this attempt at communicating one's personal little system of organizing one's abstract system of perception, or abstract concept, to an overblown faith in words and conceptual symbols: as abstracted from one's own person and one's own will. Meaning that what we are really communicating is our own abstract little world and the force of our personal, subjective will.

These floating word-palaces can be intricate and magnificent, or in Dennis's case dreary, reductionist and over-beaten, or narcissistic audible masturbations like with Dan's mellifluous video lectures on the Dharma, but they still seem so terribly abstract and unrelated to life actually lived. Agreement or 'conversion' is never achieved anyway and the ones that agree and refine their agreements already started out agreeing! (Jufa/movingalways for example, or David Quinn/Kelly Jones, etc.) So, it becomes all a little absurd and thus possible to parody using all the overblown language. One is really only speaking to oneself with all this. (And I don't 'mind' this at all but I think it could be better understood).

I can't be sure if you are serious about Latin America as a 'reservate' of the old Age of Enlightenment. It doesn't at all fit, though. This 'Latin America'---both the place I reside in and your-plural imagining of it---seems to me to have all the markings of a classical postmodernism. One notices it in bookstores: in a sort of archaeological ordering of materials: the old religious missals, printed in Italy or in Bavaria, the Catholic books-of-days; and then the old tomes of the classics that exude sense and surety; and then overlaid the different layers: Freud, Nietzsche and all those who come out of the late 1800s and turn of the century; and then the later political material: Marti, Sandino, Castro and Latin American nationalism including, often, the complete works of Mao! And then all the strange esoteric material of the 70s and 80s---crystals, gurus, schools of yoga, mantras, magic candles, color therapy, angels, invocations, Christian esoteric revisits, manuals on the use of Magical Words, 'the inside knowledge' of all manner of strange arcana, some of it so arcane and strange and reverted/inverted.

And much of this material often (unfortunately for collectors especially in valuable and interesting works) carefully underlined and with studious marginal notes, where the readers were really working hard to master their material, to inscribe it in their memory, to make it part of their self and reality; to take it out into their world, to have the advantage, to gain the power from it and to use it!

And then all the self-help material which is very very popular here, a great deal of it translations of American motivational literature and all that Protestant Northern industry.

But what all this material sits upon is a rather raw, and a rather tortured, confused, not terribly literate, Latin American subject. And this is one of the reasons---it is perspectival---I often laugh at the endeavors of the good chaps of this forum. Often, you-all are so completely ensconced in your little first-world system and you imagine that it is Universal and universalizable. You speak as if you are the very center of the world, that you have achieved understanding, and that you can preach! 'You' are comfortable, pampered, spoiled, self-assuming, and at the same time terribly ignorant of 'reality'. It is all terribly funny of course but it is no wonder 'you' rarely get the joke...

But in my case what I see around me is a person so close to the raw side of life, not really very far from the rural community, not really entered into this 'false world' of modernity and technology, and seeing that I tend to become forced to see that as 'real' and 'you' as false. And as I said, in this region where I am, in spite of all those disadvantages, I see a beauty in people that is deeply impressive and worthy of valuation. Name one person here who 'speaks' from some kind of noticeable 'inner beauty'! It is not a category of possibility for y'all (I sometimes think). What has twisted you and distorted you so thoroughly? (This is not really a statement about anyone specifically so much as a general rhetorical position).

So in this sense it is 'you' who are using all the flowered language of some other age, but instead of real floridity (which might also have some language-beauty in it), 'your' (that is in general, in plural) prose is mechanical, uninspired. It has more in common with the language in some manual for your computer devices than it does with the possibilities of beauty, but then so few appreciate or even know of such a thing: beauty is NOT a word that could ever be used.

In lieu of this, I wonder if you might talk more about what 'taking the dive' might mean? Also, can you speak more about what you mean by 'pretension'? It would be pretty important to define what is 'non-pretentious' in order to be able to then label a true 'pretension'. Question: Does what I have written in this post appear seem pretentious to you?

[jufa]

Questioning is the nature of expansion. Expanding to what, we are told has no meaning by some. From other we are told expanding is to achieve the greater Self. Yet, that without meaning, or achieving the greater Self is lost in the rhetoric of non-sense, as living the words spoken by those who speak of living in actuality of awareness now. All is fulfilled in The Breath of Eternity now.

Eternal is the life one is aware of now. Eternity is the thought one thinks in that moment of awareness now - jufa

Eternity, as infinity, as actuality of now are words and phases, I have come to discover, to be only myth. All metaphors, symbols, rituals, laws, principles and patterns dealing with, and have come to represent those non-definitive words above as subject matter are myth, metaphors simply because they are an activity of individual consciousness which originate, in the vision of silence before they manifested as eternal word thoughts of understanding.

Awareness of the eternal presence of visual solid objects of individuals living, - includes the awareness of man's individual thinking and reasoning self - is the eternal subjectivity which is, is not, yet is. So, then, experiencing the eternal now is only a flash - poof it appears, poof it returns to its source, poof, poof, poof, poof. The very second the flash of awareness occur, the experience of the awareness is no more, yet it is in memory, yet not in the reality of the moment now. Thus, from what I comprehend, eternity is only the experience of a moment which was, yet is, but is not because a moment of eternity last only as long as the moment of awareness right now. Poof!

The eternity of right now is not right now, except in man's memory. Right now is then the infinite eternal movement of the continuum of itself within the infinity of the Spirit which moves Itself for man to experience the eternal awareness of what is taking place in his life in the moment of his awakening now.

Stabilization of eternity is therefore of man's awareness of understanding and comprehending all the moments which has moved through him and has been stored in his soul for recall which is named experience redefined..

Experience is relativism. No recall is exact in duplication to the moment which it took place in the eternity of the moment which placed it immediately upon the walls of the mirrors reflecting that specific attitude of the soul, so that the eternity of right now must and could not intrude upon anything other than It kind. Words therefore are the only means for man to understand the nature of the reality of that which he has experienced. Not symbols, rituals, metaphors, or myth. These things are only relativism.

Relativism is the mystery of the belief of that with no meaning or the expanding of the belief to the greater Self. Both pretentious and non-pretentious.

Never give power to anything a person believe is their source of strength - jufa
http://theillusionofgod.yuku.com

[Dennis Mahar]

.

There is no seperation...someone is hollerin

There is John.
many roads.
many travails.
much ado.

2 truths operating simultaneously.
separate and united.
seamless.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Meaning that what we are really communicating is our own abstract little world and the force of our personal, subjective will.

Well, yes, but... nothing lives in some sort of clinical isolation. Meaning it might have relevance to some degree, under or above a certain treshold of interest and effect.

I can't be sure if you are serious about Latin America as a 'reservate' of the old Age of Enlightenment. It doesn't at all fit, though. This 'Latin America'---both the place I reside in and your-plural imagining of it---seems to me to have all the markings of a classical postmodernism. One notices it in bookstores: in a sort of archaeological ordering of materials: the old religious missals, printed in Italy or in Bavaria, the Catholic books-of-days; and then the old tomes of the classics that exude sense and surety; and then overlaid the different layers: Freud, Nietzsche and all those who come out of the late 1800s and turn of the century; and then the later political material: Marti, Sandino, Castro and Latin American nationalism including, often, the complete works of Mao! And then all the strange esoteric material of the 70s and 80s---crystals, gurus, schools of yoga, mantras, magic candles, color therapy, angels, invocations, Christian esoteric revisits, manuals on the use of Magical Words, 'the inside knowledge' of all manner of strange arcana, some of it so arcane and strange and reverted/inverted.

Perhaps I did stretch the meaning 'age of enlightenment' a bit far. It's also phase in which appearances were in the process of being destroyed, like the postmodern is still the 'age of meaning' but also a possible label to talk about the destruction and disabling of meaning. Your archaeological bookshops sound to me actually very much like the power appearances and their magic realism. That's why they remind me so much of the (Western) age of enlightenment. I live in an old city with its 17th and 18th century glory time on each and every corner. Your Latin Ameria is perhaps a partial reinvention of that time, a local revival of what has been lost in the West - at best: only in a certain aspect and appearance of course!

carefully underlined and with studious marginal notes, where the readers were really working hard to master their material, to inscribe it in their memory, to make it part of their self and reality; to take it out into their world, to have the advantage, to gain the power from it and to use it!

When I buy some old print of a book here, especially from the first two decades of the 20th century or earlier one can often see the same notes and underlining. But the memorizing and power gaining belongs to an older age in my opinion. Not the postmodern although there are modern equivalents like the hyperreal and higher degree simulations. I don't believe your descriptions are about that.

But what all this material sits upon is a rather raw, and a rather tortured, confused, not terribly literate, Latin American subject.

Which is exactly part and parcel of a world still believing in appearances as they so obviously do. The distinction alone is telling!

, in spite of all those disadvantages, I see a beauty in people that is deeply impressive and worthy of valuation. Name one person here who 'speaks' from some kind of noticeable 'inner beauty'! It is not a category of possibility for y'all (I sometimes think). What has twisted you and distorted you so thoroughly? (This is not really a statement about anyone specifically so much as a general rhetorical position).

Exactly. Such powerful, the appearance, the beauty! I might come and live there because you are right that it's hardly anywhere "here" [waving in the general directions] and sometimes I think I still long for it now my eyes are getting older.

your... prose is mechanical, uninspired. It has more in common with the language in some manual for your computer devices than it does with the possibilities of beauty, but then so few appreciate or even know of such a thing: beauty is NOT a word that could ever be used.

Yeah, sure. But that's because I'm mostly a child of the age of meanings, manuals and functionality. The age of 'iron'. Many can even distill beauty from that, think about modern art and design. The "beauty" for me is when I can say many things at the same time with a minimum or optimum amount of words although it does take effort so I'm not always talking like that, or like you god forbid. It's true, it's mostly functional at the core with perhaps a clever wink or two. The beauty in minimalism and even perhaps "zen", the art of destruction by being exactly right in a context: "just" right and it cannot be explained so easily.

Question: Does what I have written in this post appear seem pretentious to you?

No but it shows how you are looking for appearances in a way I find interesting and informative. It's not like I do not understand of feel that much different at times, at least I think I do.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Allow me to clarify...and to press a point...dramatically, for effect.

My endeavor pretty much has to do with discovering and rediscovering genuine meanings. If I *fight* against those ghost-demons that appear in my mental space when I read some of the ugliness that is tossed up on these pages---by people who see themselves and describe themselves as 'spiritual'---I deliberately throw myself into reaction. Why? Because I do not wish to be destroyed by mechanical ugliness. It actually infects you. And 'the world', in its increasing mechanical ugliness, force-feeds us a diet of valueless crap; we breathe it, we see it, we flow along with it. It is not a pretty sight. Let us focus for one tiny second on both Dennis and John (Seeker). For while it is possibly to 'admire', sort of, anyone who makes an effort to discover depth/meaning, to go to the core of things, to open up to the spirit to truth (sic), it is also necessary to 'violently strike down' some folks who are, more than anything, committing written atrocities against value, meaning, beauty, and against the very essence of spirituality (naturally, I make this interpretation, but I own it and take responsibility for it). This idea of 'absolute reality': I piss on it! ALL of this wackadoodle psycho-babble in the last few pages by these dirty little terrorists who yet see themselves as saints...is valueless garbage...and eventuates in a form of self-destruction. It is poisonous to read, and like poisonous gas it creeps out under the doors and through the vents. But I suppose the ride down must be exhilarating, eh? But the real truth is: they are not in control of their descent. They descend and as they descend, destroy. Unconsciously. Honestly, that is how I see it. It is that serious.

[Alex T. Jacob]

I bit from the poem 'As I ebbd with the ocean of life':

• O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth,
  Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,
  Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have
  not once had the least idea who or what I am,
  But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet
  untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,
  Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,
  With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,
  Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.
  
  I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single
  object, and that no man ever can,
  Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon
  me and sting me,
  Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.
  
  ---Walt Whitman

[Sphere70]

Alex, your writing sometimes remind me of Don Delillo.
Have you read 'White Noise'?

[jufa]

In a lack of understanding the reading of ones reality, one does not comprehend time nor timeliness thinking is a dribbled projection of flowing thoughts entering and leaving the conscious house of sentient awareness. Names and labels an individual place upon pictures within their minds are the reality of the moment one is living. Acknowledgment of those pictures in mind are relative memories within the soul of ones inner subjective sentient feelings. Sentient feeling within the being of the individual who does not realize

“Though we should soar into the heavens;

though we should sink into

the abyss,

we never go out of ourselves,

it is always our own thoughts

that we perceive.”

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

and are earth bound in memories attached to the walls of the soul's cord of outer objective visions.

All that is pure, dear, and resembles reality and truth to man's disposition, all which men curse, worship, rob, cheat, lie and will kill to possess, every problem men strive to overcome and solve, every cause, slogan, and button of commitment men take to heart has but one purpose: to keep alive the recycling of the universal human mentality within the maze of ignorant arrogance the collective human mind lives within and thrives upon. This is the foundation, creed, and principle for and of the self-righteous religious thought. This is the god of this world's agenda. It is this god's thought pattern of self-righteousness which causes men to believe they have a split personality.

This self-righteous religious thought appears spiritual; it is not. It is only a concept of earlier man's belief in a mystery unattainable to his human grasp. A belief in an idea imagined, but not realized. A belief which rages war between man's inner subjective beliefs and his outer objective visualization. This self-righteous religious thought is an idea which keeps the war between his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality ongoing in his conscious. Ongoing in the human conscious is the good of the human mind at odds with the evil of the human mind. A mind which is one with inverted personalities confused by what appears to be individual separations of man's inner subjective feelings and outer objective visions. Men are at odds only with the ignorance of believing they are three dimensional beings with split personalities, influenced by a third personality, when all are one. - jufa

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa
http://theillusionofgod.yuku.com

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Look man, just because you haven't yet seen what we are talking about...

And wtf are you on about? This is all about "absolute reality" or "ultimate" and enlightenment, not your problems with desire, Latina's and romantic moments with 12 year olds. If you had any clue you would know that this is the way, in the words of the Buddha 'A wiser man than you, "recognizing the world is but an illusion, doesn't act like it is real, and so he escapes the suffering". What he means here is that understanding the "illusion", illusory nature of everything, is both necessary and relevant to understanding the way. What is "the way"?

It is a way of being, based on the wise interpretation of the way things are.

For example Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching constantly gave comparisons between how the sage would act and how the "Tao" would act. Once ultimate reality is properly understood, then the "great way" becomes a natural way, the only way to act. One no longer falls as a helpless victim to their own fears and desires, eternal life becomes the only reality, one is no longer "hurrying and hastening through this round of rebirths".

"When a superior man hears of the Tao,
he immediately begins to embody it.
When an average man hears of the Tao,
he half believes it, half doubts it.
When a foolish man hears of the Tao,
he laughs out loud.
If he didn't laugh,
it wouldn't be the Tao."

If you want to understand this way, first let go of all your knowledge and accept how deeply ignorant you are.

Then, practice meditation and wakefulness, until you realize it is your primal state, until your wakefulness is more or less permanent, eventually you will find comfort in non-being, it will be serenity for you, when that happens and you are free from your delusions, you will live only in the moment, knowing all your actions will arise of their own accord and in their own time, thoughts or worry about past or future will not cross your mind again, and you will no longer be intentionally running through fire after ILLUSIONS :)

And, at the end of it all, at the very end, when you are laughing your fuckin' ass off, and only when you are laughing your god damn ass off, come back and talk to us.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

There is John.
many roads.
many travails.
much ado.

2 truths operating simultaneously.
separate and united.
seamless.

Ok, many roads, true, but besides the varying experiences, we have no identity of our own, nothing to make us individual or with a self nature.

Really think about this, when you are staring at a wall, and I am staring at a wall, we are the same dull, flat, empty projections, the only thing that defines us is our experiences, and those are more or less the same.

When you take this into consideration along with the eternity of experience, then maybe the separateness you are perceiving is only based on you now experiencing a particular projection. What if "you" were to have seen everything?

That would be evident from eternal experience, all of this happening without time, then where is the separation gone, John?

[Dennis Mahar]

Yeah, I get it John.
just saying there are 2 truths.

for the time being.

one of the truths we call appearance, the other we call Real.

The Alex view opposes.
He calls our Real an appearance.

So what?
Who cares?

We each make our own way.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Seeker writes: "It is a way of being, based on the wise interpretation of the way things are."

There is really no way to get through to you nor it would seem to any of those who adopt these modes of seeing and relating. It is a sort of disease of thinking, an infection, a fire on the brain and a delirium, but one where those possessed are CONVINCED they have got hold of something substantial. Any resistance to the Doctrines is used as combustible material to refuel the mania. And on and on it goes. In this, you are a direct disciple of one David Quinn: completely wrapped up in yourself and capable of deflecting any criticism. As someone insightfully said: You are GF's karma! All karma is deserved... ;-)

[Alex T. Jacob]

Sphere70, I have not read Delillo but I did find a PDF with a rather hard to read version of White Noise. I'll have to look into it. I found these excerpts on some blogs which I liked, though it is hard to grasp the novelistic context:

"There's a theory about déjà vu."

"I don't want to hear it."

"Why do we think these things happened before? Simple. They did happen before, in our minds, as visions of the future. Because these are precognitions, we can't fit the material into our system of consciousness as it is now structured. This is basically supernatural stuff. We're seeing into the future but haven't learned how to process the experience. So it stays hidden until the precognition comes true, until we come face to face with the event. Now we are free to remember it, to experience it as familiar material."

"Why are so many people having these episodes now?"

"Because death is in the air," he said gently. "It is liberating suppressed material. It is getting us closer to things we haven't learned about ourselves. Most of us have probably seen our own death but haven't known how to make the material surface. Maybe when we die, the first thing we'll say is, 'I know this feeling. I was here before.'"

‘This is the nature of modern death,’ Murray said. ‘It has a life independent of us. It is growing in prestige and dimension. It has a sweep it never had before. We study it objectively. We can predict its appearance, trace its path in the body. We can take cross-section pictures of it, tape its tremors and waves. We’ve never been so close to it, so familiar with its habits and attitudes. We know it intimately. But it continues to grow, to acquire breadth and scope, new outlets, new passages and means. The more we learn, the more it grows, Is this some law of physics? Every advance in knowledge and technique is matched by a new kind of death, a new strain. Death adapts, like a viral agent. Is it a law of nature? Or some private superstition of mine? I sense that the dead are closer to us than ever. I sense that we inhabit the same air as the dead. Remember Lao Tse. “There is no difference between the quick and the dead. They are one channel of vitality.” He said this six hundred years before Christ. It is true once again, perhaps more true than ever.’

[Dennis Mahar]

It is a sort of disease of thinking, an infection, a fire on the brain and a delirium, but one where those possessed are CONVINCED they have got hold of something substantial.

Thanks for caring.
The same post written 4,000 times over 6 years is an extraordinary degree of caring.

We're doing fine thanks.
I can't recall a request for a rescue remedy?

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Which disease have I got? I didn't notice, but if these truths are really a result of delirium, then show us your more clear sighted grasping of things?

You can't repeat, "you've gone wrong, this is crazy" without providing some kind of reasonable alternative, you are a very smart guy Alex, a really big fool, the next step is intelligence, which goes beyond contention.

"But the real truth is: they are not in control of their descent. They descend and as they descend, destroy. Unconsciously. Honestly, that is how I see it. It is that serious."

Yes, I've come to destroy, after first being lucky enough to destroy my self and descend to the philosophy which requires the lowest wit, the next step is to plant the seeds of disarray in the mind's of those still in bed with desire, you, and confuse those who presume to know, you, till you can understand not to eat from the tree, because you were told everything would be perfect if you just let it be, and still you go running after more or trying to hold on to what you've already got, that's the reason you will feel anxiety, stress, and fear every time something goes wrong.

Then I will be there whispering in a creepy ghost voice, nothing has actually gone wrong alex, it's all just in your mind, it's all just an illussioonnn, and you'll be whimpering trying to explain to me how everything has gone wrong, how it's serious and we've got to plan to avoid the consequences of this harsh world, lest our enemies steal our shit.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Thanks for caring.
The same post written 4,000 times over 6 years is an extraordinary degree of caring.

We're doing fine thanks.
I can't recall a request for a rescue remedy?

The trick is, he is attempting to remedy his own sickness, not knowing that feeding the ego only makes the disease spread.

[Dennis Mahar]

In the Zen paradigm:

1. first there are trees
2. then there are no trees
3. then there are trees.

Sometimes he displays insight concerning 2 but doesn't want to go there.
dread of nothing.

He likes 3.
the beauty.
He assumes falsely we aren't up to speed with 'beauty'.
Speaking for myself, my eyes moisten daily in astonishment of the appearance.
That such a display is possible.

The forum introduction mentions a conversation about 2.
He tries to stop the conversation about 2.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

All day outside staring at it, marvelous, incomprehensibly intricate, and to think, it can't really be considered a phenomena to understand, it's simply just the way things are! This really is the kingdom of heaven, aka, I'm the happiest and least interesting person alive.

dread of nothing.

"Thus it is said!
The path into the light seems dark,
the path forward seems to go back,
the direct path seems long,
true power seems weak,
true purity seems tarnished,
true steadfastness seems changeable,
true clarity seems obscure,
the greatest art seems unsophisticated,
the greatest love seems indifferent,
the greatest wisdom seems childish."

[Dennis Mahar]

Yeah, vulnerability 'gets it'.

designing women,freedom,entrapment strategies for PredatorWorld in order to get sex and relationship and hang on to your money which lasts longer in impoverished,
patriarchal countries where daily living is cheaper and the women are necessarily more compliant and call it an unassailable position.
Gosh.

looking out of the peepers and seeing body/minds rushing about with their strategies.
'tis funny, uproariously so.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Because I do not wish to be destroyed by mechanical ugliness. It actually infects you. And 'the world', in its increasing mechanical ugliness, force-feeds us a diet of valueless crap; we breathe it, we see it, we flow along with it. It is not a pretty sight.

But what could this little drama say about you? That you're hiding out in a dead age, still riding on the coattails of Kant and Hegel (so representative for the age of appearances, its prime facilitators as it were)? You are so much in conflict with the process of meaning and analysis, so out of pace with the inner workings of a whole age that you might even classify as schizophrenic in that regard. Or perhaps just stubbornly nostalgic and reactionary which would make it kind of sweet.

This idea of 'absolute reality': I piss on it! ALL of this wackadoodle psycho-babble in the last few pages by these dirty little terrorists who yet see themselves as saints...is valueless garbage...and eventuates in a form of self-destruction.

Value is there in the eye and need of the beholder. It's hard to take you seriously with this when you are so much removed from the whole process of logic and conclusions that it would be impossible for you to understand the process in any personal manner. It becomes "wackadoodle" to you simply because you are like one of the dinosaurs looking to the rise of the mammals: begone rats! And yet it's you who is going, who has left, who is pissing against the winds of time.

[Alex T. Jacob]

This is the point, Diebert, where you take a step away from 'genuine communication' and a class of conversation which might be fruitful and at least interesting, and go in another direction. The statements you are making, I see now, are less about me and more about yourself. I hadn't seen that before. You are defending something now. Perhaps you feel threatened? Offended? Go into THAT and talk about it. I will with great pleasure participate in conversations with you but the far less fruitful method you propose through your last post is no longer of interest to me.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Seeker:

"There is really no way to get through to you nor it would seem to any of those who adopt these modes of seeing and relating. It is a sort of disease of thinking, an infection, a fire on the brain and a delirium, but one where those possessed are CONVINCED they have got hold of something substantial. Any resistance to the Doctrines is used as combustible material to refuel the mania. And on and on it goes. In this, you are a direct disciple of one David Quinn: completely wrapped up in yourself and capable of deflecting any criticism. As someone insightfully said: You are GF's karma! All karma is deserved..."

Everything seems to hinge on the way ideas, ways of seeing, interpreting, are used. But you should really thank me: my apparent denial of 'you' is providing you, and Dennis, and even possibly Diebert (surprisingly), with a whole new batch of fuel. That is actually one of the mechanisms of one of the founders of the forum and it works very well for him.

[Dennis Mahar]

Thanks for caring.
it's been fine all along.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Think nothing of it! And what I also wanted to add, for you, is that I am aware that no conversation is or was ever possible when it comes to you, your positions, your views. You have a similar advantage to the one John is working out: it is the absolute and ultimate arbiter's position. Everything is an 'illusion' and 'empty and meaningless', where everyone is 'a fool', and you manage a philosophical-spiritual position that requires and values 'the lowest wit'. Right at that point all possibility of conversation is destroyed. I have come to understand that that is how you want it and that is how you shall have it. And when I talk about a 'descent' and 'destructiveness' I am certainly not only speaking about you alone, I am speaking about trends that are in movement all around us. I have staked out a territory for myself here and in general: to look for, to 'hold' and to value the ways and means of seeing, understanding, existing in and valuing life. I believe that the doctrines (of Zen, of the Buddha, and whatever else you-plural quote and are inspired by), in the hands of other people, may indeed be productive and 'affirmative' messages. My argument is not against the texts per se. It is against the way that some people pick up the doctrines, wear them like clothes and costumes, or wield them like swords, and go into the world, destroying things they do not understand. I know that you do not and cannot see what I mean by 'destructiveness', or value for that matter, and there is nothing I will ever be able to do to convince you of my view, but I am pleased that in some small way the 'message' I wish to share is received by some others. You really do have the advantage, and I really am the interloper: the forum, ostensibly, is dedicated to the project you feel attracted to. It has been defined by some men who are carrying it out, just as you are. You are in the right to work the angle you do in this context, and in this context I am in the wrong. Though I participate here I do it (now) intermittently and for my own personal purposes, and always I stick to just one thread and one that I begin for that purpose. It may not seem like much but that is how I express my 'respect'.