Nuthin'

[Carl G]

You really want to hash this out further? Okay, I'll go back and respond more fully to your last postings.

[xerox]

...

[Laird]

You really want to hash this out further?

Not particularly, but you haven't actually said anything concrete yet. If you have something to say, then you might as well go ahead and say it. If not, then don't. Either way's fine with me.

[snow bunny]

What do I get in return? "Girly man", on a forum that values masculinity and when you know that I want to be attractive to women.

If you want to be attractive to women, start by getting rid of the beard. Or change your name from Laird to Mountain Man, and they might like what you're doing with it, in that context.

[sue hindmarsh]

Carl wrote to Laird:

You really want to hash this out further?

Carl, hang on a minute, instead of going over the same ground again with Laird, why not go deeper into the matters you raised in your posts on this thread. For example, you brought up the attachment to love and women. Laird is definitely attached to these, but he isn’t alone in this attachment. It would be interesting if you now outlined why those attachments arise, and their consequences.

Laird can't be expected to answer these questions, for his attachment to these matters blind him to the reasons behind them. And anyway, the attachments highlighted were done so by you, and therefore it seems fitting that you continue to investigate them so as to make clearer your philosophical concerns about said attachments.

I look forward to reading your further thoughts.

[brokenhead]

Carl wrote to Laird:

You really want to hash this out further?

Carl, hang on a minute, instead of going over the same ground again with Laird, why not go deeper into the matters you raised in your posts on this thread. For example, you brought up the attachment to love and women. Laird is definitely attached to these, but he isn’t alone in this attachment. It would be interesting if you now outlined why those attachments arise, and their consequences.

Laird can't be expected to answer these questions, for his attachment to these matters blind him to the reasons behind them. And anyway, the attachments highlighted were done so by you, and therefore it seems fitting that you continue to investigate them so as to make clearer your philosophical concerns about said attachments.

I look forward to reading your further thoughts.

= "Carl, can you spout the same pseudo intellectual nonsense that I do? Go on, I'll correct you if you forget to put WOMAN in capitals."

[Laird]

Carl wrote to Laird:

You really want to hash this out further?

Carl, hang on a minute, instead of going over the same ground again with Laird, why not go deeper into the matters you raised in your posts on this thread. For example, you brought up the attachment to love and women. Laird is definitely attached to these, but he isn’t alone in this attachment. It would be interesting if you now outlined why those attachments arise, and their consequences.

Good suggestion Sue. Carl, let's get to the heart of the matter. Don't bother to respond to my posts, but do write us an essay titled "The problem with Laird (and people like him)" as well as a follow-up titled "The remedy to the problem of Laird (and people like him)". Or if you prefer, combine them into a single essay titled "The problem with and remedy for Laird (and people like him)". And in case you think I'm being snarky, I'm not - I'm being serious. But I don't want simple assertions, I want details and justifications.

[Laird]

If you want to be attractive to women, start by getting rid of the beard.

Thanks for the advice buns but there's only so far that I'm willing to go. These days I trim my beard down really short occasionally, to the point that it looks acceptable, and I do that purely because it probably makes me more attractive to (most) women (and in general). If I wasn't interested in keeping myself relatively attractive then I'd never cut the thing. Monstrous bushy beards are way cool. If I were to find a woman who didn't mind (or even liked) big bushy beards then it'd be party time.

[snow bunny]

Make sure she has hairy legs and pitts, and you're good to go mate.

[Laird]

Yeah, we'll both be coughing up furr-balls.

[Carl G]

You really want to hash this out further?

Not particularly, but you haven't actually said anything concrete yet. If you have something to say, then you might as well go ahead and say it. If not, then don't. Either way's fine with me.

I have said plenty to you, and you continue to indicate that nuthin' has gotten through. I think it is ego-defense on your part. You do not want to see what I am pointing to. I want you to make an agreement to yourself to see yourself more clearly.

[snow bunny]

Are you a smoker, sounds like you have a smoker's cough, Laiurd?

[Laird]

Carl, I made that agreement a long, long time ago. I constantly analyse myself and my behaviour from as many different perspectives as I can.

But still no substance Carl. I'm starting to believe that you'll never justify this attack upon me. Are you going to write those essays or what?

Indeed, nuthin' has got through. If you want to break through my "ego defence" then you have to explain yourself. So far you've alluded to the undesirability of my attachment to love and of my idealism. I'm supposed to do with these unsubstantiated charges exactly what mate? You haven't explained in any way shape or form exactly why I should reject love and idealism, merely that I should. So far I don't see any reason to reject them. Go ahead and bloody well justify yourself!

[Laird]

Smoke, buns? No fear! Yuck! I don't go near ciggies.

I've just got a bit of a cold and a sore throat right now, that's probably why you can hear me coughing.

[snow bunny]

No, from the Marijuana. You've got to be a Pot_Head, with and Afro like that.

[Laird]

Nah, I don't touch the stuff anymore. It does horrible, horrible things to me.

[snow bunny]

Well, there you go, you've turned over a new leaf, and perhaps Carl doesn't see that. I don't know either of you very well, but why not just leave the bickering to me, myself, and Irene?

[Laird]

You're still wearing your mediator's cap aren't you? :-)

Yeah, bickering's not much fun. I'd like to drop the bickering but I wouldn't mind having a debate over my values. Carl would have to go first though and explain his attack upon them. He doesn't seem to like to take me up on my invitations though.

[snow bunny]

I'm outta here, at 3am in the morning! I give you my vote and moral support the rest of the day. Tell Carl to kiss my white ass!!

[Laird]

Thanks and good night buns. Sleep tight in your cosy burrow.

[Carl G]

Sue,

Thank you for inviting me to speak to Laird on the dynamics of Love/Hate and their attendant pitfalls when it comes to human relationships and how this affects the quest for wisdom, but, after all, you are a Master in the articulation of these particular subjects, so I will instead refer the reader to a couple of recent conversations between you and Laird directly.

The first, from "the more intrenched injustices of the world"

Sue: attachment to love and compassion are direct causes of hate and intolerance. Most people are thoroughly addicted to the emotional highs of the love drug. And like all drug addicts, they can’t see the total wreck they make of their own lives and the lives of those around them.

Laird: And in doing so, you reduce yourself to ridiculousness. This is classic QRS double-think. I've commented in the past on the tendency of QRS to make statements akin to the Orwellian "war is peace", and this fits right into the same category: "love is hatred"; "compassion is intolerance".

Sue:Firstly – I wrote: attachment to love and compassion are direct causes of hate and intolerance. That is not the same as your Orwellian concepts of “‘love is hatred’; ‘compassion is intolerance’”. Love is a cause of hate, for we hate to see that which we love hurt, or taken from us. For example, if your girlfriend is lured away from you by another man, it causes you pain and suffering. You hate the whole circumstance: the other man, your girlfriend, relationships, love, the pain and suffering. But all that changes when you find a new girlfriend. Her love pushes away the pain and suffering, as well as the hateful feeling about relationships and love. But those feelings of hate readily return if she leaves you for another, or dies, or falls out of love with you, or looks at another man, or won’t give you sex when you want it, or she grows fat and ugly, or… .

Most people exist wholly dependent on their emotions. And, because circumstances are continuously changing, those who are in the sway of the emotions cannot predict or control what those emotions will do next. Basically, this means that the world is being controlled not by reason and logic, but by the emotions.

Replace “girlfriend” with country, money, house, car, political party, religion, or any emotional attachment, and you will see that there is the recipe for all the turmoil in the world today, and in the world of the past.

Many people like to believe that the above scenarios are natural and inevitable. And, yes, they are that if you are ignorant of the emotion's true nature. But once you do know, you’re able to cut the strings that had bound you to being their puppet.

Secondly – Orwell’s “doublethink” came about because of his disgust with government propaganda, and their use of euphemisms and half-truths. His book Nineteen Eighty-Four shows that saying one thing and meaning another - usually its opposite – is easily accepted by the majority of people, as they have no desire to think for themselves. And his cautionary tale is a useful one; for politicians, and the newspapers that support them continue to feed the populous what they are to think and believe.

Note that neither QRS, nor I are interested in spin-doctoring truth to make it more palatable to the masses. When I write, my aim is to always write clearly, simply and directly about the truth of any issue. And if someone does understand my ideas, it isn’t that I’ve taught them to understand, or bludgeoned them to understand - it’s that they themselves already possessed the prerequisites for that knowledge. It is actually their knowledge that they are considering.

Laird: Sue, contrary to my usual experience, I was able to take you seriously in this post. It had some sense in it. I didn't agree with everything that you wrote but I don't care to express those specific disagreements - rather, I'd like to cut to the chase:

Please explain then the emotion's true nature.

Sue: As I described in the above paragraph, the emotions do not act independently of each other. They affect each other and the circumstances that arise. They colour how we see people, events, views, happenings – everything! We are literally their puppets – for whilst they are in charge, we act according to their whims.

What may at first appear odd is that to understand the character of the emotions, you first use them to propel your thinking toward uncovering the truth. And, as you may now gather, a strong mind is a necessary prerequisite for the job. But once you arrive at the knowledge of the interdependent nature of all things, you naturally become loosened from the emotions, and thereby act not solely according to them, but more and more according to the truth.

Here, Laird moves the conversation to the making peace with feminitiy thread.

Laird: Sue, you do make some reasonable points and in some ways I see the sense in what you're saying. The main problem that I have with what you're saying though is your implication that hatred is a necessary consequence of love. That's why in another thread ("the more entrenched injustices of the world...") I had a go at you for doublethink - I was of course exaggerating your position for rhetorical effect but my point was this: that even though you might not specifically equate love with hatred, you imply that to love is ultimately to hate in the end, and that the only way to end hatred is to end love. I couldn't disagree more. Personally, there is very little hatred in my life and a lot of love. I think that the goal for a person should not be the eradication of both love and hatred, but the eradication of modes of thinking that lead one to hatred, in favour of a more equanimous perspective in which love is the norm. In that sense we probably agree that many people are lacking - for many of the reasons that you have pointed out - we just disagree about how to go about changing it. Perhaps the key to our disagreement lies in our understanding of "love". To me love incorporates not only the heady high of romantic attachment, but also the slow burn of genuine other-focussed compassion, and all states of appreciation for life in-between the two.

Sue:

Laird: Sue, you do make some reasonable points and in some ways I see the sense in what you're saying.

Apart from the above pronouncement, nothing else in your post attested to your having understood any “points” I made.

It appears that you consider ‘love’ an independent entity. My post described that idea to be false, for all things depend on other things for their existence.

Sue:

Laird: Personally, there is very little hatred in my life and a lot of love.

Here you’re saying that there are some things you love and some things you do not love. Have you ever observed that some of the things you love now were not loved, say, ten years ago? And that some things you now hate, were once in the love pile?

Have ever wondered how that came to be?

Laird: Let me ask you then, Sue, whether you consider that it's possible to live a life in which love and not hatred is the norm, in which one uses rational, willful thought such that as negative emotions arise, one reflects on their unhelpful/unfair consequences and gradually trains one's mind into a more generally loving one?

Sue: You keep imagining you’re onto something with this idea of love as an independent concept. If you thought about it, you’d see that you’re not. All you’re doing is ignoring what is in front of your very eyes – that EVERYTHING is interdependent.

Love doesn’t just sit there all by itself waiting to be called upon to perform. It’s constantly out there hustling and bustling along with all the other emotions.

Laird:

Sue: But once you arrive at the knowledge of the interdependent nature of all things, you naturally become loosened from the emotions, and thereby act not solely according to them, but more and more according to the truth.

Truth to me is that love and respect are the best way, and that all emotions that lead me in that direction should be fostered, and that all emotions that lead me in a different direction should be rationalised away (insofar as that is possible).

Sue: Suppressing emotions only works for a short time – then they rear their ugly head twice as angry, and at a time when you are least expecting them.

Also - the idea that, “Truth is that love and respect are the best way” has been bandied about trillions of times in every conceivable way that even you, Laird, must wonder why the world is so rife with turmoil and sorrow when so many people so obviously value love and respect. Love must actually have something to do with creating that turmoil and sorrow.

Love is all around, it's everywhere you look: a young couple in love marry, start a family, build a home, pray together with all the other families in the community church, build a fence around their house, get a guard dog, and buy a gun to shoot any bastard who comes near all that is so dearly loved.

[Carl G]

Thanks and good night buns. Sleep tight in your cosy burrow.

Night night, widdle cat-hating bun-bun troll, from me to. Kissy wissy.

[Unidian]

Everything Sue says there is basically true. And yet, that is human nature. That is the way of things. QRSH calls for a sort of Nietzschean "superman" capable of rising above all of it and living a perfectly rational life. But no such superman exists outside the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (see schizoid personality disorder).

The normal, healthy, functional state of the human being includes a full range of emotional engagement. While this undoubtedly causes and exacerbates all sorts of problems, progress cannot occur without it. Conflict is the engine of progress. Perhaps in a parallel universe, there is some strange world where everyone is a super-sage living in a tub without the slightest emotional engagement. But such a world is not progressive. Nothing is improved because nothing is perceived as wrong. A world in which "absolute ultimate truth" is available is a dead world.

The temptation to seek such a world is quite understandable. Never-ending conflict and uncertainty can be a bitch. Hell, if I had one of the latest inter-dimensional UFO's in the garage, I might move there myself. This whole humanity thing certainly hasn't worked out peachy-keen for me. But the fact remains that in this world, the "superman" will always be a fantasy - a fantasy which bodes danger for the rest of us in whatever form it appears.

But then again, I suppose they do helpfully label it "dangerous thinking."

[snow bunny]

I just had a terrible nightmare that Carl came on here, and posted the truth about all my hideous inner secrets. Thank God that it wasn't true. Now back to beddy weddy.


EDIT:Actually, it could be true, but I don't read any posts that extend beyond more than a couple lines, or posts that have too many snippets pasted in there, so I'll never know for sure.

EDIT2:Actually, it could be true, but I don't read any posts that extend beyond more than a couple lines, or posts that have too many snippets (from other members) pasted in there, so I'll never know for sure.

[Carl G]

Another short exchange on the same topic, Love, between Sue and Laird:

From the "why it is awkward to say I love you" thread:

Laird: It is shallow to love a child?

Sue: Loving a child as a parent does, or as paedophile does, or even just loving children in the same way as people ‘love’ animals - are all acts of violence done to children. These expressions of love, these “appreciations” as Shardrol would say (though not to describe the paedophile’s idea of love), are really just acts of plain old-fashioned selfishness. Not that many adults can see it as such as they have no understanding of their own minds, and therefore have no knowledge of why they do the things they do. For example, they don’t know that the main reason they are attracted to, and form attachments to children is because children are useful amusing distractions. They don’t recognize that kiddies are, at base, just another one of their big-people’s toys – used to try and plug the gapping emotional black-hole that constitutes much of their life.

Children have been successful gap-fillers for generation upon generation. These days, many adults consider bonding to children as pleasurable as snorting cocaine, watching TV, having a successful career, or traveling on overseas holidays; but for others, children will never surpass the pleasure of shopping, chatting on the mobile phone, playing computer games, decorating their home, or seeing their favourite sports team take home the winner’s trophy. Some adults, such as mothers and paedophiles, find children are their greatest source of pleasure and become completely obsessed by them. These lovers of loving children basically rip the living spirit out from their beloved little ones, and only leave go of them when their childhood is spent. (Well, paedophile's do; mothers will often keep on squeezing life from their children until death intervenes.)

But even more horrifying is that the violence doesn’t end when the children are children no longer. No. The violence endures and emanates now out from those who were a short time ago the 'tortured ones'. They, having been dragged down into the emotional abyss by their loving adults, now emerge fully grown with gapping emotional black-holes of their own that need to be fed. And using the lessons well learnt from their parents and other ‘loving’ adults, they set about using the next generation of little ones in the same horrific manner that they’d been used.

Laird: Sue, I think that what you describe in the rest of your post is the psychological games that people play with each other due to the position that they take in life. This occurs especially in families. I agree that these games can cause pain. There are ways of examining the games that a person is involved in and how to extricate that person from them by changing that person's life position and awareness. A tool that I have found extremely useful for this purpose is known as Transactional Analysis[1]. It is described in layman's terms in the book, "I'm OK, You're OK"[2]. And Dan, before you say "oh no, not more New Age gibberish": through this technique I have experienced profound understanding of the way that people relate to each other as well as practical feelings of empowerment (even though I am now poorly acquainted with the details, I still am affected by the principles). I even more highly recommend the book "Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy"[3] by the founder of the technique, Eric Berne, although it might be a bit hard going as an introduction. Eric also wrote the book "Games People Play"[4] which is insightful and intriguing.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_Analysis
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_OK,_You're_OK;
http://www.amazon.com/Im-OK-Youre-OK-Th ... 038000772X;
[3] http://www.amazon.com/Transactional-Ana ... 0345338367;
[4] http://www.amazon.com/Games-People-Play ... 0345410033; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book)

Sue: That list of yours reminds me of people who collect books and show them off on bookshelves. It is ‘intelligence’ by association. They’re just showing-off, and so are you.

--

The list also shows how much you value thinking.

Obviously - not a lot.

If you wanted to really understand what makes people tick you need never open a book, or even talk to another person. You could simply ask yourself the question of what you yourself really were. If you passionately wanted to know the answer, you’d figure it out quick-sticks.

--

But I don’t think you’re that interested in understanding anything. You replied to my post about people valuing the emotions over the sanctity of young life with glib phrases that might sound very clever to you (because they come from the works on your list), but to me they just exposed your inability to think for yourself on this issue. For example: I wrote of love as “violence”, and you carted out “Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy”. I spoke of adults cannibalizing children so that they can enjoy their lives, and you regurgitated, inspired by some book or another, “I agree that these games can cause pain”.

Because of your shallow mindedness, no amount of begging on your part could stop Dan, I, or anyone else on this forum who regard thinking as important from uttering the words you dread to hear, “Oh no, not more New Age gibberish”. Better to ask how we could not, when confront by such careless mumblings, as: “through this technique I have experienced profound understanding of the way that people relate to each other as well as practical feelings of empowerment…”

I think it is more the case that, through this technique of never thinking seriously about anything at all, you have experienced the joy of profound ignorance, and that feeling has obviously empowered you.

Laird: It is because I am interested in understanding that I open myself up to the words and opinions of others.

You perceive loving relationships as "violent", and those with a child as "cannibalising". Yet here you are, on a forum, relating to others. Are you a violent cannibal?

Sue, I provided these references because they have genuinely enriched my thinking. You are of course free to ignore them. I do not retract that I have found them to be extremely valuable and insightful.

--
The only thing that we should hate is fear. Fear is the opposite of love. It is the hold that evil has upon us. I fear no evil. Evil has no hold on me. I hate nothing.

Sue: But; if you haven’t the type of mind capable of focusing on an issue in order to get to its very heart, any “interest” you have can only be considered superficial, rendering your “opening up to others words and opinions” as just you enjoying a natter.

In contrast, my post about love and children went to the very heart of the matter and explored the consequences of people loving children.

It is true that other people’s ideas and views often provide the meat for further discussion here – but that’s clearly the very nature of a forum – and for it to be any other way, it would cease being a forum.

Laird: Sue, I provided these references because they have genuinely enriched my thinking. You are of course free to ignore them. I do not retract that I have found them to be extremely valuable and insightful.

You make so light of this issue, and yet we are talking about the very souls of innocent children. These young beings, which are totally at the mercy of adult behaviour - you would ignore, just so that you can enjoy the loving embrace of your “references”?

And this last bit of yours:

Laird: The only thing that we should hate is fear. Fear is the opposite of love. It is the hold that evil has upon us. I fear no evil. Evil has no hold on me. I hate nothing.

From this, I can understand why you find it so difficult to approach topics like the “love of children” one I raised, as topics such as it require a great deal of thought. You're a bit too busy at present pushing thought away to actually do any.

(Wondering to myself why Laird acts like the "criticism" I raise is news to him and unique from me.)