The Century of the Self

[Dennis Mahar]

All you ever do is play the victim.
what's the matter?

can you see it/

probably not.

every nuance of victimness shows up in you.
outrage, anger, grandstanding, vile and idle threats, pleading, denial, fight and flight, manipulation, control, bargaining, hatred, obliviousness, messiah complex.
rollercoaster.

meaning anxiety.

terror!

[Alex Jacob]

You've stated it very clearly. There is little more for you to say. I think it is a good choice that we leave it at that, don't you?

[Dennis Mahar]

A down and dirty googling 'Harold Bloom and Heidegger' reveals that he more or less held him in contempt. But Bloom is one of strong opinions.

A jew outwardly expressing contempt for Heidegger is:

a) common.

b) and yet the Heideggerian influence in the jew is evident.

Have you got any idea why?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

[Alex desires to ground ourselves, tangibly, in 'this reality': the facts of history, and the facts of ourselves in a factual world. I don't know all of Adam Curtis's work so I can't comment on it, but the film/study in question is about the influence of a specific man and the influence of a specific [PR/propaganda] industry that has affected the world we live in, and quite really and quite dramatically, our very selves: the formation of our selves, the use of selves, the definition of selves in this world.

This discussion should be in the worldly matters section, as far I'm concerned. And then we can talk about Freud's cousins and media, facts of history and the facts of ourselves in a factual world. It's not a topic to avoid, actually I find it quite interesting at times, but it has all very little to do with what I'd call here the "transfactual". I'll explain, briefly.

Alex, there's this great misunderstanding acting through you which prevents any proper discussion from rolling ever since you started attacking the windmills on these Internet backwaters. There's 1. ego defined as you do, as a place in the world, a mode of being, suffering and healing. This whole movement in space and time and the quality of those movements. And there's 2. ego in this "neo-Buddhist" sense, as error, as something to eradicate, a fog to blow through, a window to be washed. Which is a clinging to everything, places, modes, suffering, healing and this whole movement in space and time.

Of course there can be effects, a lack of clinging might change views on suffering, preferences, value system but who knows. Obviously it will change everything based on erroneous clinging which might be a lot, it might be a little.

Now the modern concept of self is one of the equivalence of perceived self and clinging to self. It's one and the same. And the modern conclusions is then that to "kill" a self means to kill yourself effectively, being it directly or indirectly. To reduce ones being, ones functioning. This is because in much of modern discourse the two have melted, as if the shadow finally has succeeded in merging with the original. But much of the discussion on this forum assumes a distinction to exist between shadow and object. Between clinging and action.

In more technical terms: Upādāna, the Sanskrit and Pāli word for "fuel" is differently understood in Buddhist and Hindu doctrines. In Buddhism the central idea of suffering is caused by clinging to self but in much of Hinduism it seems linked to a material manifestation, way closer to the Freudian concept of self or yours, as means of existing as a person. This is a fundamental difference which I believe you just do not accept in this discussion. Of course this is ultimately not a Buddhist forum and all the subtle differences in schools are not relevant here, but your own exposure seems more Hindu oriented when you talk about these things.

The main problem remains: the only way to know the difference between self as material existence and self as clinging is experience and personal insight. And until that happens we can go on speculating on how much damage or poison a certain philosophy of liberation might contain but without any evidence, without any facts, it becomes just a charade. And my opinion about your charade, Alex, is that it's an intellectual attempt to cling to your own self as if it has reality. You're making yourself "real" through this discussion and that's why it doesn't even need to be rational to work for you. That's why you need it, that's why you're fueling it. And that's why even banning will not change much. Our discussion is just the same as most discusions here. It's more exposition and exposure. Even if you leave, the exposition goes on here and elsewhere.

[Alex Jacob]

There is in fact no misunderstanding, Diebert. What there is in fact is understanding. Now, on your part there seems to be misunderstanding [deliberate misreading a la Bloom?], which of course is a more 'honest' and possibly productive place to start. Still, I do very much understand why, for you and others, it is necessary to apply a label to the structure of my oppositional stance. What I hope that you can see is that that 'defensive labeling' was begun not by me but by 'them'. But I am not saying that is 'wrong', indeed it is necessary when one is defining and strengthening a viewpoint and an attitude.

This discussion should be in the worldly matters section, as far I'm concerned. And then we can talk about Freud's cousins and media, facts of history and the facts of ourselves in a factual world.

Depending on how such a topic as this were broached of course would determine whether it is enough of a relevant topic [to higher issues of spirituality, enlightened attitude, etc.]. In my view, and whether you or anyone understands and accepts it or not is not highly relevant to me, an object of living should be the spiritualization of life. To the degree that I understand, say, David's declarations about his way of perceiving 'God', and the immediacy in the way that he relates to that, one might say that his is an attempt to live within 'the Holy' [although I don't think he uses the word 'holy']. But there is an attempt, in his own terms, to define the sacred, which also means the most important, the most worthwhile. Much of it, as I understand it, hinges on the assigning of importance. This much I understand, this much I relate to, this much I appreciate.

In some way at least, with your apperception of the distinction between ego-incarnate (which predicates dis-incarnation) and ego as a clinging tendency within self, I agree with where you seem to go with this. (I do tend to see your 'level of realization' about the importance of these issues as somewhat sophomoric, and in crucial moments you reveal what I think are your own shallow realizations, and by that I mean realizations that might become more profound, still you have located an area that is quite important.)

But I do not see this as a 'mundane' topic by any means. My basic assertion and the area I am working on in my own investigations and studies has to do with the 'conquest of self' or the 'domination of self'. Obviously, this has to do also with subjugation of self, and mechanization of self: to turn 'selves' into cogs in cultural and economic machinery. If there are 'forces' that act in this way, and if they act against, say, the sovereignty of self, of persons and of course the possibilities of persons in our world, then it is is pretty easy to see that this is not at all a 'mundane' topic and especially as it relates to spiritual life, enlightened attitude and activity, etc.

The one who is experiencing the difficulty in seeing and understanding this is Mr van Rhijn himself. But these difficulties in seeing clearly and accurately do not stop there. It is true that Diebert, as his understudy so accurately states it, is a 'wonderful man' and 'as good as it gets', but even such a one as he would not, I don't imagine, lay claim to a position of 'ultimate arbitration'.

Now, one interesting thing is that we are all products of a world, an advertising world essentially, a propaganda world, where an aspect of the self: the self of desire and longing, is manipulated. And in the sense that you mean the self that is contended for is precisely that 'clinging' self. The manipulation takes place on psychological levels and reaches out to subterranean parts of our human selves. But it would seem that my view of the human being and of the 'soul' is perhaps more unitary than yours. I see the 'field' where the battle is taking place (and one can define it in Marxian terms or, if you wish, in Christian terms: a battle in high and low places, etc.) as being singular and not plural. And the reason for this is simple: I wish to assert and 'defend' if you will a specific spiritual philosophy of 'personalism'. One could probably do this strictly within a Buddhist orientation and it likely is done. But I would say, between you and I, that we might locate an esseential difference between our viewpoints in the following:

• 2. Ego in this "neo-Buddhist" sense, as error, as something to eradicate, a fog to blow through, a window to be washed. Which is a clinging to everything, places, modes, suffering, healing and this whole movement in space and time.

So much---everything!---hinges upon those further definitions that will follow from such a, permit me to say, vague and nebulous [foggy!] statement of predicate as the above. And I further state that many, many people who take up this particular brand of 'neo-Buddhism' seem to me confused about just what exactly will be seen as 'fog', 'place', 'mode', 'time', and of course suffering and healing. I think there is also a great deal of difficulty in determining what 'washing a window' might be! But what I do wish to repeat here is that it is in this sort of area, and it comes up often, that you yourself get a little 'foggy'. This is the point where Diebert slips into the fog. It is Diebert's mystical luxury. So, the statement, in fact, doesn't really mean anything. It is---too foggy! And as you say to apprehend it, you have to have had some certain 'special experience'---a revelation one assumes---where you see and understand things in some certain, special way. But I must reject this mystical and metaphysical side-stepping. And so once again I put forward that we deal with a 'real real', in actual space and time, and we locate this 'real real' within bodies. Bodies, it is true, that can actualize both 'the spirit' and 'spirituality' in conduct and perception, but in a form that is constant and unchanging.

And so time and time again I cut through your metaphysical garbage and the [subtle] tendency to self-deceive and to represent [potential] deceptions as 'ultimate truths', and this is why, naturally, it is attractive and interesting to stay focussed within these areas and to continue to express these ideas on this forum. You dig? Now, you can jump up in the air and holler, you can have a snit-fit about it, but the actual ideas that I work with are totally substantial and, at least I think so, deeply relevant and linkable to and conversation about spirituality.

This is a fundamental difference which I believe you just do not accept in this discussion. Of course this is ultimately not a Buddhist forum and all the subtle differences in schools are not relevant here, but your own exposure seems more Hindu oriented when you talk about these things.

While I see what you mean, and I do at times use the idea of 'incarnation' into this 'flesh-realm', in actual point of fact the overall philosophy I am dealing in, thinking about, is essentially 'Christian'. I am the first to admit it is a difficult and problematic area for one such as I with a rather bizarre concept of 'god'. But, I think you might also see that Chritianity [and the figure of Jesus] seen through a Hindu lens is seen in fact as a form of Vaishnavism (worship of the avatars of Vishnu) and Jesus Christ as an incarnation of Vishnu! (To me these are idea-symbols more than anything).

And you are right: this is not really a Buddhist forum and it could never be. We are not 'Buddhist selves' and our cultural and even spiritual trajectory is anything but Buddhist. This is a radical Christian forum, or a radical post-Christian forum. And that is another reason why, in respect to the way the philosophy functions, it is possible to employ, deviously I admit, certain Christian-derived symbols: drowning men, wayward boys, rebellious penis, naughty children who won't listen to their Mother. But of course the only purpose in acting this way, of being a prick, is to say essentially: I don't believe you. Or, don't believe yourselves so thoroughly. Remain open. Don't lock yourselves down just yet. And when you raise your arm with that terrific hammer of destruction agains a perceived enemy---stop! think a moment!

• 'Alex is not your enemy. He is a friend of your soul!' ;-)

[Insert canned laughter].

And my opinion about your charade, Alex, is that it's an intellectual attempt to cling to your own self as if it has reality. You're making yourself "real" through this discussion and that's why it doesn't even need to be rational to work for you. That's why you need it, that's why you're fueling it.

I believe that everyone who participates in such a discussion forum, and everyone who deals with the communication of ideas in any realm, is carrying on the activity of 'solidification' of self. Yet a great deal would hinge on what aspect of self is being solidified. But I don't at all think your activity is outside of this, either. So why don't you talk about that, Diebert? You can clarify for others their intentions and even what they are 'secretly' doing, but you literally never leave this space. You are melding with the space. The space is becoming Diebert. It is possible that when no one else is left standing, you will be the last one here! And that must mean something. But who will clarify it?

[I for my part have done nothing but clarify my reasons for participating. A whole group of different reasons].

The only problem with attempting to get 'charade' exclusively to stick, is really that it is inaccurate. This post and almost every post I write is filled with factual, concrete and conversable ideas. So, it is more accurate to see 'charade' as a tactic, as an added bonus, as a game even, in a conversation with some blokes who, time and time again, take themselves and their 'profound realizations' about life [sic] (which often appear damned shallow, to me at least) just a wee bit too seriously!
______________________

This goes out to Sphere70. Not exactly seriously, but neither non-seriously!

This one goes out to one who will not be named and yet who will be named! ;-)

[Dennis Mahar]

So, it is more accurate to see 'charade' as a tactic, as an added bonus, as a game even, in a conversation with some blokes who, time and time again, take themselves and their 'profound realizations' about life [sic] (which often appear damned shallow, to me at least) just a wee bit too seriously!

6 years and 4000 posts of obsessive bile isn't taking it a wee bit too seriously?
liar.

This one goes out to one who will not be named and yet who will be named! ;-)

straight to victim position again.

trapped in a vicious circle.
geddit?

Bloom is postulating 'breaking free' of vicious circles.
opening up a clearing for fresh possibility.
What is this persistent failure of comprehension of yours when reading Bloom?

[SeekerOfWisdom]

What are you guys doing?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

What are you guys doing?

Waiting for you to come and wise crack.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Still, I do very much understand why, for you and others, it is necessary to apply a label to the structure of my oppositional stance.

I think it's because it's all too familiar. Because it sounds exactly as the yapping, yearning, yoking egg yolk inside that has so many labels that it keeps on wildly labeling all by itself.

In some way at least, with your apperception of the distinction between ego-incarnate (which predicates dis-incarnation) and ego as a clinging tendency within self, I agree with where you seem to go with this.

It's hard to belief you know what I mean with "clinging". The clinging, the self, the doing, the world. They are all piggybacked, like a leech on a body of whirling actions and events. This is why I've called it "clinging" but not limited to some desire to remain or not wanting to let go of one thing or another.

[Alex Jacob]

Well, I do know what you mean. I have read and absorbed such ideas, been around, listened to, thought about, imagined myself into, and to some extent lived such a relationship to 'life'. In some sense everyone also has to detach from 'the swirl' as you put it: a world of passing appearances. Like one of those Chinese landscape paintings where 'the world' is shown in that aspect: just motion, profound beauty, and interconnectedness and only after looking at it closely do you notice somewhere in it, sitting very still, and blended into it, a part of it: the Sage in meditation.

It occurs to me that any one of us in certain moments chooses that modality. We need a resting point, a point where we re-merge with being, or when we stop all 'clinging'.

But I do question what it means to adopt a romantic projection of oneself into that sort of canvas because, in fact, the present is intolerable, or the route to an unobstructed connection between self and the world has been shattered or severely damaged. Where a Buddhiat maneouvre is 'pathological' and becomes a form of zealotry. I was going to say 'where it is not actually Tao but contrivance, avoidance. But that would presuppose knowing 'the will of Tao'. ;-)

Will Master answer any of the interesting questions he was asked?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Well, I do know what you mean. I have read and absorbed such ideas, been around, listened to, thought about, imagined myself into, and to some extent lived such a relationship to 'life'.

What does that mean "living such a relationship"? You mean a detached stance of some kind? How does that translate in "how to live"? Did you try to take on a rule or expectation or did you figure out a way by yourself? Are we talking about a life style?

It occurs to me that any one of us in certain moments chooses that modality. We need a resting point, a point where we re-merge with being, or when we stop all 'clinging'.

That would be more like the first introduction to it. But did it seem then so disabling and pauzing over time (and it certainly can be) that you concluded that it's impossible to live at the same time?

[Tomas]

What are you guys doing?

Waiting for you to come and wise crack.

Very good, Diebert! You win a cookie (insert happy face)

[Alex Jacob]

Diebert, one sign of a Master, I am learning, is the assumption that only he gets to ask questions but is not required to answer them. (The reason is because the Master has arrived at the 'correct' viewpoint and all is instruction offered). ;-)

I will make the assumption, though I have no way to verify it, that I have spent much more real time in and around Buddhist and neo-Buddhist communities of the West than you have or likely will. And though it is true that I was a child observer and not a willing practitioner, I was able to see it all function. So, what 'living the relationship' meant was living in and around it, seeing how people modified their life and their attitudes. But all within American Buddhist communities and never in authentic Buddhist environments. But you already know this, right? I have mentioned it a few times.

How in those circumstances does a detached stance dovetail with the question(s) of How to live? Well, the answer to that is provided by what those people did with their lives during the period of time when they gave themselves to the practice of their Buddhism in that particular 'post-Sixties' epoch. You can look into that, say, by reading George Leonard and a myriad of other people including Watts and seeing what they spoke about and what they did. That is the community of people that I grew up under. Is it only 'life-style'? No, because these people came out of the same sort of oven as many of us: a Protestant intensity, a literally Puritanical heritage that induces people to put themselves into their religion [their idealistic vision of what life can/should be] with their entire heart and being. While Sam Keen (next door neighbor when I was growing up) was never a Buddhist [as far as I know] and remained pretty oriented within a socially active post-Christianity, these were people who lived the philosophies that they entertained and also had a large impact on contemporary thought. They wrote, lectured and taught.

I don't quite understand what you mean by 'Did you try to take on a rule or expectation or did you figure out a way by yourself?' but I will attempt a guess. I think you mean did I attempt to adapt myself to an external creed or behavioral mode or did I enter into it genuinely. As I said, I am a product of a community or a school of people, predominantly intellectual and in this sense influential, who engaged themselves in a 'radical' experiment with new existential and spiritual modes in the context of a great upheaval in society. But this is how I see most of us here and now, still. We are 'outcomes' of a huge upheaval.

Where you fit into this I have never been able to ascertain because you are clandestine in what you reveal. I know that you were at one time 'a Christian' but I have no idea (and I don't think you ever stated it) if you come out of an evangelical family or community or (and I expect this was the case) you underwent a conversion in your late teens and twenties which deepened eventually into a dissatisfaction with the limits of a strict Christian belief-system, and from that you ventured into other modes, a notable one being 'Buddhism'. But at what level I can only guess. Did you live in a monastery? Did you disciple under some monk or in some Buddhist seminary? Do you practice? All questions that will likely never receive answers. And that's fine...

In my own case, I went very very radically off on my own. I got hold of a group of ideas/practices that I have described as being 'hermetic'. What 'hermetic' means to me is a way of seeing and experiencing (knowing) that goes beyond any particular form. The hermeticism that I practice(d) was, at least for me, a kind of activity that required the whole world as a space to move, act, react, perceive. It is a religion (bad word) or a science of 'working the roads' and what that means is standing before 'roads' (actual roads or any channel of movement on any or all levels) and focusing one's intent on the 'spirit' or power, impossible to define, that 'rules' or 'controls' all spheres and all movement, and stepping into that flow, but always with a 'hermetic circle' of protective force. It suits a personality such as mine. But in the end, after so many twists and turns and all sorts of analysis, I see myself (I am forced to see myself), to place it in contextuality, as an 'outcome' of very definite American traditions of spirituality and religion: Emerson, Melville, Thoreau, Whitman and a very characteristic and unfettered American imagination.

That is 'who I am', at least in some sense.

Who are you, Diebert? Let us make this really really interesting by getting a little into that. Where do you come from, where are you going? You must know, and I hope you do know, that an articulate person such as yourself, even if you choose to operate on an 'Internet backwater', is one who helps other form their opinions, and that actually means helps 'self' to coalesce. Indeed, powerful people who are also articulate [and if they have a characteristic Dutch stubbornness it will help!] and who get down into the hermetics of existential questions will inevitably leave their mark, 'for good or for evil'. [Indeed you have at least one admirer and loyal disciple! With a 'stimulating' and persistent tongue!]

[SeekerOfWisdom]

"Diebert, one sign of a Master, I am learning, is the assumption that only he gets to ask questions but is not required to answer them."

Perfect. Dennis openly admits to doing this, Diebert's arrogance on the other hand is much more subtle. Some of the most egotistical people I've ever had the pleasure of frustrating. The more they are convinced of their self-mastery, the less they are able to see in themselves the very flaws they love to point out in others. I'm more of a realist, I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about, which is much better than what they do, taking so much pride in their knowledge and wisdom of age (clinging)that they can't admit they are like stubborn little kids getting grumpy, similair to Dan.

If I were wrong, then why all the childish fighting? Can't explain that one can we. Not being able to admit your own ignorance is the signature action of the ego, the stubbornness and grudges are clear to everyone. You are children, at least Alex seems to be more aware of this with his humour. Can't wait for all the frustration to sink in, luckily for me, the worse the returned insults, the more laughter. How was that crack?

[Dennis Mahar]

seeker,

like Alex, you are playing the victim.
think about it.

'bleeding from gaping wounds'

on full display.

push button, monkey squeals.

you can go deeper.

[Dennis Mahar]

seeker,

your buttons are getting pushed all the time.

to get emotional integrity or poise or equilibrium or character or 'mastery'.

A great thing to do is 'used car salesman'.

ordinary folk go to the lot 'bleeding from a gaping hole' or 'desire'.

the used car guy is an expert at pushing the buttons to entrain that desire towards the car he wants to sell.

go to a lot, appear interested and a little aloof and watch the moves.
after a while he'll wise up and go cold and angry on you because his desire is thwarted.
best to make a hasty retreat, politely.

It's OK to realise emptiness or 'beginner's mind'.
it's only the beginning.

the character development is 'grounding' in emptiness.
you have to decide finally whether,
all is empty or none is empty.
causality or all is empty is the truth.

the self has no intrinsic existence and yet is full of aversion and preferences or gaping wounds.
that is the stuff to be weeded out.

think of a trained 'police horse' standing by serenely at a rowdy political demo or street parade.
'bomb-proof'.

that's why wisdom traditions use 'baiting' or button pushing to clear bozo of all his crap.

You only have to mention 'Buddhism' to Alex and he turns neanderthal and 'Buddhist War' floods the pages.
Major Button.
Traumatic.
Freak out.
emotionally crippled.
bleeding from a gaping wound.
victim.

even if he laughs like a hyena,
he don't 'get it'.

jehovah's witnesses and other christians are expert at pushing buttons,
it's all good practice.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Diebert, one sign of a Master, I am learning, is the assumption that only he gets to ask questions but is not required to answer them.

A sign of a master is to be able to understand what is asked and not supply childhood stories time and again as fuel for some pointless self serving bonfire.

What I asked was any description of how you as an adult tried to "live" out your claimed understanding of "a world of passing appearances" or "sage in mediation". Did it change your actions or life choices in any way? I'm not even asking for specifics, just as an introduction to a different way of thinking about these things without falling back to what we've read somewhere or witnessed over there as a young chick.

Did you ever work out for a few years some philosophical issue you found out as an adult, whole by yourself and seeing what that did? In a way these questions are always rhetorical. What I'm aiming for is the "transfactual". The questions serve purely as a way to expand the frame of a discussion but in an abstract manner. Why abstract? Because of the mastery needed to provide any proper abstract and the lack of detraction and swamping of any focused exchange. Swamping remains a big problem since it removes any potential power and renders it into an exchange of opinions on various matters. But exchanging opinions we can do everywhere with everyone. I'm not on this forum for that, actually, it would be rather silly because I'd know many more opinionated and better informed people to have such exchanges with. But philosophically those conversations hardly go anywhere since there's generally a case of ego's fueling each other.

But in the end, after so many twists and turns and all sorts of analysis, I see myself (I am forced to see myself), to place it in context, as an 'outcome' of very definite American traditions of spirituality and religion: Emerson, Melville, Thoreau, Whitman and a very characteristic and unfettered American imagination.

The question might rise if that desire to place oneself back in some lineage is another type of outcome of who you are as a person and the kind of needs at a certain stage in life.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

If I were wrong, then why all the childish fighting? Can't explain that one can we.

It's unexplainable for us maybe because you were the one introducing the term childish fighting?

By the way, were you posting on this forum earlier with another name? I'm pretty sure you also were NobodyListens2Genius and perhaps some other accounts as well. Just thought I mention it since the topic of maturity seems important to you. Which starts which consistency and some degree of transparancy.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

In my own case, I went very very radically off on my own. I got hold of a group of ideas/practices that I have described as being 'hermetic'. What 'hermetic' means to me is a way of seeing and experiencing (knowing) that goes beyond any particular form. The hermeticism that I practice(d) was, at least for me, a kind of activity that required the whole world as a space to move, act, react, perceive. It is a religion (bad word) or a science of 'working the roads' and what that means is standing before 'roads' (actual roads or any channel of movement on any or all levels) and focusing one's intent on the 'spirit' or power, impossible to define, that 'rules' or 'controls' all spheres and all movement, and stepping into that flow, but always with a 'hermetic circle' of protective force.

I didn't want to ignore this bit but I don't think it's really hermeticism or any other clear philosophical idea apart from having defined something as "impossible to define" and then stepping in a circle of a force which now has been defined as protective and flowing at least. I'd say you're describing confusion, something suiting your personality indeed, since it's basically all over the place. What it seems to boil down to is that you found some powerful writing and ideas which fueled your imagination and you created a personal type of religion for a while. But lets just not call it philosophy or anything related to a tradition of philosophy. But thank you for trying to describe the process even if it was not what I was asking, which was about the ideas of detachments and mediations you named and its effects on your quality of life.

[Alex Jacob]

In a way these questions are always rhetorical.

Not 'in a way' but significantly rhetorical. What is notable is the means you choose to avoid entering into a more self-revealing discussion. In my view, the only importance of entering onto a so-called spiritual path [when one could spend one's incarnation in front of the TV or 'asleep'] is to bring the entirety of one's self into the light, as it were, or 'on to the road'. Based on what you write, the way you write it, and your noted tendency to act slippery when the questions get personal, I would conclude that you are a man of limited experience [in the sense I just defined it], and your greatest strength is to remain [stuck] within rhetorical positions. A kind of abstract intellectualism. But certainly that can't be the whole truth, and I don't think it is, and it is really quite impossible to really get a read on someone through the written medium of a forum. But your recent responses, in my view, were comprised of 'tricky maneuvers' to avoid the group of questions I asked. In your, shall we say, 'rhetorical game', the tactic you play with is a form of bluff where you hide behind your self-assigned role of question asker-topic dominator where you control how the conversation is framed. I would imagine you do have some direct experience in dialectical philosophy but in an academic setting, and I would say this is a downside of your approach generally. An academic philosopher, in his abstracted mental world, is not sufficiently in contact with that great outside 'swirling' world that is the 'field' of all our activity.

So, I do want you to know that I do note this and also note that further progress in communication will stall even more than it already has. I do accept this and in the same spirit I accept the often extreme limitations of many of those who have drunk down some of these philosophical tenets.

I did not use the word hermeticism and if I refer to Hermes or the 'hermetic' it is usually in quotes. It does not surprise me though that you would focus, academically, on an established definition, because then you could endlessly debate if it 'really is' or 'really is not' what the scholastics feel it is or have defined it as being. But to take that approach is to miss the point. But I cannot define the point [my point] any further than I did. Well, except I would add that if I were to define an 'existential philosophy' [of or for myself] I would use that group of terms I have been using. And what I was attempting to do was to answer your question. Generally, I always answer your questions and the reason is because I am here representing what seems to be a radically oppositional stance taken in regard to the 'you-plural' of this forum. But I really do think you should also answer some of the questions put to you. And don't continue, as you always do, with tricky side-stepping to avoid them.

I'd say you're describing confusion, something suiting your personality indeed, since it's basically all over the place.

This is a rhetorical use of a defining tactic. But let me take it apart since it has an interesting core. First of all, for everyone and anyone, life is inherently confusing. We step into a place that is simply overwhelming. It becomes an interesting project to begin to express all that we don't know and don't understand about 'being here'. In fact we don't really know 'where' we are. But we are certainly 'here'. But yes, the 'hermetic' path that I described is curiously linked to these questions.

Because we need tools, no matter how advanced or how paltry is our store of information about 'the living of life' (our epistemes, such a fun word), to be able to move in the world. Now here is where the issue gets interesting, as I see it. There are people in this world who have virtually no education, and who do not and never will dominate any of the idea-systems [the rhetorical system with all its ploys and tactics] in which you, Diebert, function so well. [And with certain qualifications I place myself there too but with a caveat]. And yet these people are able---and how can we describe what the source of their personal power is?---are very successful in 'operating' their lives. When I lived in Venezuela and 'studied' the African religions that have blended with post-Christianity in a very vital, ruthless and lawless cultural and social platform, I met people so unlike me who yet had a great deal of 'personal power' and who could with their 'power' affect change in circumstances and people. Now, these people are not living, as you are, in some 'abstracted plane' where ideas are debated endlessly and one fights over definitions. This is an important thing to take note of, and it is one of my main thrusts in respect to 'this forum': how tempting it is to trade in one's 'real life' and one's 'real self' and the possibility of living 'really' for a group of abstractions and a 'holing-up' within an abstract space! And what is the evidence of that: you! You and a group of persons, young men and 'boys' as I say, who latch on to some ideas [because they have powerful minds and what seems to be a disconnect from 'body' and even 'soul' and so abstract, cerebral living is an easy alternative]. This is all right on the order of what I have been talking about for years.

Well, if dealing in this area---being concerned about it say---is for you 'confusion' then it is a really good idea to own that 'confusion', because to be truthful, and if I were to be truthful, I have not so far come into such direct contact with a more confused group of people in my wanderings and driftings through those Cyber back-waters you describe! This place, in fact, seems to me born in confusion, but stillborn in confusion. Confusion overcame it and stops it from being alive. And you, too, in your way, serve a 'stillborn' philosophy that...goes nowhere! Because it does not and cannot lead to 'empowerment of self'. And this is why I have referred, time and time again, to those 'acids' which we wield against ourselves. Now, do you think that I think that this will get through in any way to you? [that is, Mr van Rhijn]. From the look of it, no. And so as you know I don't really write to you or for you. I write to those who look at these conversations, take the ideas away, and then mull over them in their own context: the context of the life they factually and really live. You, Diebert, more than anything else, here, explicate your lack of comprehension even as you establish a front---and use that front---of masterly understanding...

Busted!

But thank you for trying to describe the process even if it was not what I was asking, which was about the ideas of detachments and mediations you named and its effects on your quality of life.

Oh no: thank you! But to clarify: if I were to use the term 'detachment' I would not use it as you seem to use it. I described a picture, a rendering, of a Chinese idea into a symbolic painting: a sage sitting still in the swirl of 'reality'. It is a beautiful image at the very least, and it is also deeply experientialized and in that sense tangible. And it is also useful. And yet I would define 'detachment' differently, but not completely differently. I live(d) in very different worlds from any Zen Chinese monk. Always New World contexts, worlds of chaos, post-slavery, post-conquest. Worlds of confusion, upset, and peculiar forms of 'pain' and trauma to the 'body'. One is 'detached' insofar as one is a seer and not exactly a participant. One moves along roads and one takes what comes one's way. Every event is a 'sign' and every event has relevance that can be deciphered. I don't know if 'detachment' is a good word though. I would rather describe a kind of 'poise' in relation to.

But no, I never was very taken by the strictly Buddhist techniques which are about an detachment that is often much more like avoidance. To avoid things is not the point.

Did you ever work out for a few years some philosophical issue you found out as an adult, whole by yourself and seeing what that did? In a way these questions are always rhetorical. What I'm aiming for is the "transfactual".

Sure, except Diebert: who cares what you are 'aiming for'? You are not exactly the topic of conversation right now. The topic of conversation has more to do with what groups of people have done with these ideas in a convulsive post-war era. The 'transfactual' is I think just a technique by which you will avoid a more genuine revelation of your own upbringing, development and path.

But I can answer your question and I think my answer will serve your ulterior purposes. When you use the word 'philosophical issue' you seem to use it in an abstracted way. Like a philosophical problem one gropes with in the comfort of a drawing room with a fire burning and the wind rapping at the sills. In my own case, I began in the experiential realm and only later did I move into the 'intellectual' realm. And the people I was with, those who sought to impart 'knowledge', showed me through the example of their being [through the 'body' as I say] that the personal power to live life is quite distinct from an abstract idea about the living of life. I am almost inclined to illustrate this with a story but I think it would go over your head. Or, you would take it up like a mathematical problem, discover [or invent!] some fault in it ['not truly Hermetical!'] and then go on and on inanely...

The point is we don't solve the problems of life in our head, we do that 'on the road'.

I'm not on this forum for that, actually, it would be rather silly because I'd know many more opinionated and better informed people to have such exchanges with. But philosophically those conversations hardly go anywhere since there's generally a case of ego's fueling each other.

But here is another view: is it possible they don't go anywhere because of your own 'ego'? Is that possible? It would be a radical reversal of your predicate but it is considerable! The rest is typical Diebertian pomposity. I am very sure you are in daily contact with some people who are infinitely better prepared. Oh yes!

You Diebert begin to convert yourself into the Ringleader of Genius Forum!
_____________________________________

;-)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

In a way these questions are always rhetorical.

Not 'in a way' but significantly rhetorical.

Indeed like questions asked in order to make a point and without the expectation of a reply. That is what rhetorical means here. Why on Earth would you turn it into some girl scout bonfire gossipy affair? It's true I keep most of my personal history out of the discussions although I've shared more than enough at times. It's interesting that it annoys you after sending me recently questions about my profile location and etymology of my given name. Aren't you showing signs of some obsession? Don't answer please, it's another of those rhetorical thingies. I think everyone knows the answer by now.

But lets go on with something actually relevant you wrote.

When you use the word 'philosophical issue' you seem to use it in an abstracted way. Like a philosophical problem one gropes with in the comfort of a drawing room with a fire burning and the wind rapping at the sills. In my own case, I began in the experiential realm and only later did I move into the 'intellectual' realm. And the people I was with, those who sought to impart 'knowledge', showed me through the example of their being [through the 'body' as I say] that the personal power to live life is quite distinct from an abstract idea about the living of life.

Thank you for that, it clears up a lot for me. In my view there cannot not exist any philosophical problems in the comfort of a drawing room. You are confusing academical problems with philosophical. A philosophical problem, any real "dangerous" or "bloody" thought will be fully experimental in whichever room or group one tries to hide from it. Once unleashed it will hound you, effect you, be with you in each and every attempt to experience life.

But since you don't seem familiar with it at all and suddenly retreat using all kinds of Castanedian or Shamanic terms, I can only assume you really do not know. You don't know what philosophy is, not on the level of your heart and this is how you came to this forum. This is why you got stuck here. Or why you suck at it. In the end what it boils down to is that you do not show any sign of ever having done any philosophy at all. In any shape or form. You have read about it, lived a few stories perhaps, had some adventures in your life. You keep on confusing the brouhaha of book facts, gossipy accounts, memories of what you think happened to others from a distance, complaints of disillusioned sect members and that kind of stuff without actually having thought deeply in any dangerous way. You are, at best, an artist who thinks he can think but cannot do more than calculate the next move and write lyrically about it. A kind of lobotomized Nietzsche, left to play his violin.

So in your reply you go off again talking about what the African religions are doing and other people you met with "powers" and whatever tricks up in their sleeves. Worthless! Worthless! Vanity and absurdity. It means nothing outside cultural anthropology and the power of influencing social emotions. How to control people who cannot control themselves. Neverending stories. But you remain mum about the philosophy I value: as a personal struggle, existential, closer to San Juan de la Cruz than to Miguel de Cervantes.

You are not exactly the topic of conversation right now.

I forgot, it's you and always will be you because you wheel it in whatever you write. Oh, and then ends up blaming others for doing it of course.

[Alex Jacob]

That is what rhetorical means here. Why on Earth would you turn it into some girl scout bonfire gossipy affair?

What is revealing here is the terminology you employ, not what you are describing. It is your characterization that can be examined. If speaking about actual events one has lived, actual lived experiences that have been one's 'teacher', and too in relation to what you call 'philosophical' problems but which I place under 'existential' as a sort of primordial ground where a 'philosophy' is an overlay, if that for you is 'girl scout bonfire gossipy affair' then, at least as I see it, this issue is yours to solve. To know in a general sense how you came to the Christianity you speak of, what it meant for you, and to ask you to speak in relation to:

"I believe that everyone who participates in such a discussion forum, and everyone who deals with the communication of ideas in any realm, is carrying on the activity of 'solidification' of self. Yet a great deal would hinge on what aspect of self is being solidified. But I don't at all think your activity is outside of this, either. So why don't you talk about that, Diebert? You can clarify for others their intentions and even what they are 'secretly' doing, but you literally never leave this space. You are melding with the space. The space is becoming Diebert. It is possible that when no one else is left standing, you will be the last one here! And that must mean something. But who will clarify it?"

...is really no invasion at all of your privacy nor is it the stuff of girlscout campfires. But note your characterization, which is classical Quinnean stuff! That sort of stuff is for 'girls' but we here, we are 'real men' and we do something else. Your post is filled with these arrogancies.

But lets go on with something actually relevant you wrote.

Everything I write is relevant. And much that you reject of course.

But since you don't seem familiar with it at all and suddenly retreat using all kinds of Castanedian or Shamanic terms, I can only assume you really do not know. You don't know what philosophy is, not on the level of your heart and this is how you came to this forum. This is why you got stuck here. Or why you suck at it. In the end what it boils down to is that you do not show any sign of ever having done any philosophy at all. In any shape or form. You have read about it, lived a few stories perhaps, had some adventures in your life. You keep on confusing the brouhaha of book facts, gossipy accounts, memories of what you think happened to others from a distance, complaints of disillusioned sect members and that kind of stuff with actually having thought deeply in any dangerous way. You are, at best, an artist who thinks he can think but cannot do more than calculate the next move and write lyrically about it. A kind of lobotomized Nietzsche, left to play his violin.

This is another classical Quinnean move. Rowden loves this kind of play too! It's the little barking dog who yet never quite bites.

As someone once said to me: 'You know what you know'. Every life is a trajectory in experience, essentially. No matter what the relationship to higher ideas and ideals is. And in a certain sense, of course, you are right insofar as I did not, say, come out of high school (as a starting point) with a head filled with the ideas of some specific philosophy. I would imagine that you did though. I would not invalidate that, in se, but nor would I invalidate me own trajectory and experience. That would be folly. And also true is the fact that the men I admire most are men who have gained their experiences directly from life; from a direct grappling with life. But I have noticed that men who were informed more philosophically and as you say academically, more than often enough seem to lack a certain vitality and as I said 'personal power'. I don't mean to use it in its strict Castanedian sense though. But I do very much believe in the principals of 'shamanic experience', which is of course the ur-experience of all mankind. Don't forget that, Giant Grasshopper. In one way or another, at some point or another, with whatever knowledge-base one has, either 'philosophical' or 'academic', one goes into the inner meaning for oneself of one's experience here. That to me is 'shamanism'.

Will you allow me, in the most kindly of manners, to correct you on a few points? It has to do with 'obsession'. Using that term as you do---time and time again you bring it up---I suggest that you will do well to own it for yourself. Do you see how you have taken it upon yourself to see yourself in a role of adjudicating my presence here? Do you see how you have framed it? It would be much more interesting, and relevant, if you spelled out what you are doing here. As to 'being stuck': what if it turns out that you are stuck here?

What else you do, and this is truly par for the course in the Quinnean sense, is enact a kind of violence against other people's experience. When push comes to shove this is what the GFers do. They condemn everyone else and claim that they are on some exalted platform, distinct. What I find interesting in these last few pages here is that the normally moderate Diebert, the one we all love and value, has a very harsh judgmental streak. This originates in your person and is enacted for your own reasons. No one, you see, has to answer to you. But you, within your 'philosophy' [whatever it is] feel that you can take others to task. It is a little suspect, Mr van Rhijn.

If my thinking at least in relation to this forum and to you were not dangerous at least in some sense, I really do not think I would get the reactions I do. I take issue with the 'dangerous thinking' of the 'dangerous thinkers' and get into a certain amount of hot water doing it.

You are, at best, an artist who thinks he can think but cannot do more than calculate the next move and write lyrically about it. A kind of lobotomized Nietzsche, left to play his violin.

This brings us full-circle! Years ago this was one of the armaments lobbed against my fort of asininity. And though it is true, or may be true, that I have a certain amount of artist in my temperament, I see it as a source of strength and not weakness. But again: the characterization is what count, and it is the characterization that requires examination. To live spiritually is, to me, a high expression of art. Or at the pinnacle of spirituality is always art, too. But the main ideas that drive me are not artistic nor specifically tied to a philosophical school. They are experiential and 'of the roads'.

And I had no idea that Nietzsche played the violin!

So in your reply you go off again talking about what the African religions are doing and other people you met with "powers" and whatever tricks up in their sleeves. Worthless! Worthless! Vanity and absurdity. It means nothing outside cultural anthropology and the power of influencing social emotions. How to control people who cannot control themselves. Neverending stories. But you remain mum about the philosophy I value: as a personal struggle, existential, closer to San Juan de la Cruz than to Miguel de Cervantes.

[Laughs!].

One thing I notice about you, but it only really jumps out at certain moments, is your arrogance. A man knows what a man knows. I discovered a great deal of real wisdom in the most unlikely places. You just never really know where you are going to find it. But with these judgments of yours: 'Worthless! Worthless! Vanity and absurdity!' our own Ecclesiasticus might not be able to see it, even as the Africans say if it came and sat on his own head. And that is pretty much the core of my critique against the GF edifice. You claim 'wisdom' but long before you really discovered what it was. But y'all still have time, and life is a very skillful instructor.

It is all pretty damned interesting though. I have tremendously enjoyed the last few pages here.
_______________________________________

• 'In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.'
  
  'If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.'
  
  ---St John of the Cross
  
  'Those who play with cats must expect to be scratched.'
  
  'Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.'
  
  ---Miguel de Cervantes

;-)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Hmm, no Alex, you are putting clearly way more energies in your writing here than me and getting way less out of it. You cannot put the stuck thing on me. And please not the nonsense again about discovering my "mean streak" suddenly. It's just your ever changing emotional response to whatever is written. You perception of my "anger" has flipped from one thing to another and back over the years. But my perception of all your errors are still the same as my first posts to you. If I'm stuck it's in repeating the same story again and again. But what a story! Murdering ignorance!

As for the reason you find no danger on this forum is because you're not thinking about it. The danger is not here but it's in the area's you don't look into. Which includes a lot of things people have trying to point out to you. Things you refuse to look at. Coward!

And I had no idea that Nietzsche played the violin!

He was a poet, composer and played (some) violin, if I remember correctly from some remarks in his letters.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Eine Sylvesternacht, for violin and piano

I discovered a great deal of real wisdom in the most unlikely places.

But will you discover the greatest deal on the most unlikely place imaginable?

[Alex Jacob]

I'm a loser!

[Tomas]

I'm a loser!

After all the years of listening to the Beatles, this song has become depressing to listen to.