GENIUS FORUMS

Dennis Mahar wrote:Is that a breakthru'?

Well, yes it is. At one time I thought that being unempathic was a consequence of being non-attached. But now, it seems more likely that I'm just no empathic.

I don't know that this is easy for anyone to understand who is not psychopathic. I haven't felt much of anything for a long time. Somewhere around the age of 15 I lost touch with feeling. People close to me died and I didn't bat an eye. I even criticized people who shed tears over the death. I went to the funeral and thought "There is a dead body". I mean, I liked my Grandma, but like and love are seemingly not the same. It is hard to explain, I like a lot of things, and a lot of things I don't have a mind for, but its seldom that anything really grabs me. If that is enlightenment, let me tell you, its boring, repetative, predictable and meaningless. Its a bland existence.

I was watching some Joyce Mayers conference on television the other night. Joyce was talking about Jesus turning water into wine, and seemed to be making the point that Jesus liked to party and so should we. But in addition to that, she was saying that we should party with water instead of wine. That the real magic performed there is in the enjoyment of water as if it was wine. And that doesn't mean to be intoxicated by it, it simply means to have the appreciation and enjoyment of it the way we do with wine. Its no good to simply give up wine and continue drinking water with ingratitude, you never enjoy it. So in the same way, though I didn't have much attachment to life one way or the other, I didn't much enjoy it either.

I have to admit, I'm still on an endless struggle with repetition and predictability. I say to my girlfriend that people and situations are so very predictable and hardly anything unique happens. She looks at me very oddly. But it is how I feel and is constantly proven to me by the fact I can make such predictions. Now, I can relate somewhat to her when I point out just how often we go about predicting each other's actions and that we must have experienced it before to be able to predict. For example, someone puts there turn-signal on in traffic, we can predict what they are going to do. How a person stands, if they are turned-out and leading-away, they probably are about to leave or want to leave. Conversely they might be turned-in and leaning-in and are therefor engaged and comitted. We intuitively predict many things because we have experienced them ad nauseam. But for me this fact is emminantly clear as much of my life appears to be perfectly patterned according to past experience. I walk out to my porch last night to have a cigarette, and the Snowsquall that has been looming overhead is continuing to dump snow, which by this time has almost reached the roof. The whole scene to me is basically the same as a million others in my life.

It gets interesting when I am talking to someone of particularly shallow-mind. I can finish most of their sentences before they can, and predict the general outcome of the conversation shortway into it. I can feel my ego smashing its head off the walls of its prison, dieing for originality. But what am I to do? There is no vacation spot where people do things that have never been done before. So, things happen in my life and I just do whatever seems appropriate, I don't get hot and bothered by them, whether it is a girl or anything else. Even my girlfriend says I'm unempathic, fact it annoys me to be empathic, takes up too much time, its too slow or something. I frequently say I don't understand why people get so upset, afraid, worried or excited. Stuff like that only happens to me when I think of ideas, I get excited about ideas.

So, to come to terms with that, and realize that I'm not just not-attached, I'm detached is pretty big. For me its not a matter of seeking non-attachment from the point of being attached, but seeking it from the point of being detached. Except, I'm habitually detached from everything as a consequence of my past, childhood. As a matter of fact, I'm simply not aware of any such ability, any time I am empathic, its as if I was on drugs, abnormal.

Looks like where you're at is detached from the hullabaloo going on around you.
like an understanding and a mood that doesn't quite fit in with the worldhood of people and events you arise among in this , your existentiality.

Is it like that?

If it is, the seed of genius ( in the context genius the genius forum has it as) is sown in you, and if you want to come on to that as an ego trip...don't...it's a magnificent responsibility as a possibility for human being.

You know. I can't put words in your mouth.

I mean I've been there, so as a 'where you're atness'....I've got familiarity with the condition.

Animus wrote:Self-consistency bias, seems to be at play, when you claim to go directly to the truth of the matter, and then make postings that no more than shoot the messenger.

You're taking this rather personally for an indifferent messenger. Can't we stick to the ideas, rather than fall back into that slough of ad hominems?

There is only one way to truth, and that is through love, which is truth. Love, as in the indifferent kind, is not biased.

How is that not a biased view against any other view? Come on, Ryan.

I chose to associate myself with dedicated thinkers, and what I got was circular mud-slinging, proud minds, and even more misunderstanding. Yet, I talk to people of good heart, who know nothing of A=A, but who are wiser than you at first imagine. One said quite succinctly "If your heart is good, everything that comes out of it is good."

If you talk of love a lot, most people will swarm around you, and you will rarely be criticised. You will also not be able to speak of non-attachment and be an example of it, since love is attachment.

"People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it."
Anthony de Mello

I've also heard it said that the brain is a gonad.


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I agree the word love is problematical as I've noticed it used with an intent to exploit.
It also has pure connotations.
What word could be used that is safe, that is stripped of any chance that it could be construed as attaching..
that could be used to put into the space that the word love is ordinarily put in to that is problematic...

the connotation I have for the space that opens up where the word love can be slotted in is: 'I get you, we are in the same boat, subject to the same conditions, and I am for you and not against you, get me?'

that is a sense of the word compassion.

Putting 'we have compassion for you' in a sentence gets me as patronising and likely to burn a bridge...

same with 'we understand you'..
same with 'we have empathy for you'

If you say 'leave the space empty' and don't put anything there I find people call you cold.
In a sense people are looking at you for reassurance that they won't be judged...

I mean, people are driven to express, and for the most part the expression is put out there as a risk-taking venture...so there's a kind of caginess in it..which isn't wrong....it's part of the protection racket..

so what word can 'put at ease'

In the old Zen stories the seeker would front the Dojo expressing out of his conceptually entangled fortress,
and the Master would simply slap his face,
and somehow the seeker got his cure.

You'd get arrested for that today.

conditions require a painstaking approach perhaps.

If one defines what one means by "love", then that's an excellent start. Most often, people don't want to do that. It strips away the glorious mystery they've built around it ---

--- For most people "love" is about sense of self-worth, security, personal strength. That is a typhoon of power, a tsunami of power, in terms of concretising the ego, that turbulent wind.

But there is another way to define love, that cuts to the core of personhood and breaks it down as if it never were. It has nothing of the emotional upbuilding of the former kind of love, and consequently it is devoid of any sense of loss or tragedy, or attainment either. That is the kind of love I think is worth speaking of.


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Animus wrote: "I don't know that this is easy for anyone to understand who is not psychopathic. I haven't felt much of anything for a long time. Somewhere around the age of 15 I lost touch with feeling. People close to me died and I didn't bat an eye. I even criticized people who shed tears over the death."

"It was as if I suddenly became extremely empathic like I'd never experienced before. Then I began to realize how far removed concepts are from the lived reality. Consequently, I realized that the answers were not available entirely to the rational mind and that my search continues. Except, now, my search is not for concepts so much, the concepts are mere pointers to the lived reality, and that is why I don't make a big stink about them and why I've turned to reading like this. Sure, they are mere concepts, and not very flushed out, but they are pointing in the right direction and they speak to and activate parts of the mind not engaged by pure conceptual thinking. Hence the power of metaphor."

One of the interesting things about the Christ metaphors, the Christ religion and mythos, is the idea of the dead returning to life. On a psychological level we go through deaths of personality that can lead into 'resurrection experiences'. But whatever could a resurrection experience mean except coming into some sort of fuller relationship to life and to people? If we come to a psychological position of deadness and numbness there is a natural momentum implicit, which is receiving Life in greater abundance and becoming alive again. It is a motif as old as time.

What I think must be stated, especially as it pertains to this forum, and of course I have been trying to say this in different ways for a long time, but we live on the very edge of a brutal process of schizm within the individual. A shearing off of a part of a person from their unity. To describe how this has come about, in the progression of our culture, is an important bit of knowledge. But it is important to be able to state: There are forces, exterior to myself, that conduce me toward the realm of death and demand that I die, to be a living-dead. This is the ultimate effect of atomization of the individual. To recollect the self, to begin to come back into the unity of self, could be said to be the very essence of the Christ religion, and so the symbol of bread of life and flesh of existence and sacrificial wine which expresses the vitality of living blood and connection in a profound way to 'heatbeat' and all that means, and from that to a living spirit that moves in and around us if we come into life with it, is not at all mystical hocus-pocus but a very real possibility, facts of a whole self.

One of the things I have always endeavored to express about this 'pseudo-spirituality' of many who are attracted to this strange mental-religion, is the cost that will have to be paid for it. It is just a matter of fact that people have spent their whole life dominated by fear of being or motivated by ambitions of different sorts who, in the end, have to live in the aftermath of divided self. A kind of lingering death. Then, later in life, to have some facsimile of aliveness, even if it is partial, they have to go back to the point they separated from unity of self and try to reestablish the heartbeat, so to speak. It might have been better not to have disconnected so radically from 'the human self'.

Since so many are dead in various degrees, it becomes a little hard to know which suffering self one should listen to. Who can give one accurate and dependable advice about 'the correct way to live' and the 'right way to be'? The dead are strangely possessive and the alive terribly threatening to them. The discourse of the dead often only has the effect of keeping one in the realm of the dead, subject to deadness.

The smallest step, in the interiority of self, taken in the direction of life and spirit, moves one into a new paradigm of relationship.

Well, these are some of the thoughts I have been thinking lately...

Kelly wrote:Gene Roddenberry's portrayal of a highly logical person wasn't anywhere near accurate. ;-)

Since your ears are rather pointy, I can only assume you are complaining that Spock didn't have an Australian accent.

Alex wrote:What I think must be stated, especially as it pertains to this forum, and of course I have been trying to say this in different ways for a long time, but we live on the very edge of a brutal process of schizm within the individual. A shearing off of a part of a person from their unity. To describe how this has come about, in the progression of our culture, is an important bit of knowledge. But it is important to be able to state: There are forces, exterior to myself, that conduce me toward the realm of death and demand that I die, to be a living-dead. This is the ultimate effect of atomization of the individual. To recollect the self, to begin to come back into the unity of self, could be said to be the very essence of the Christ religion, and so the symbol of bread of life and flesh of existence and sacrificial wine which expresses the vitality of living blood and connection in a profound way to 'heatbeat' and all that means, and from that to a living spirit that moves in and around us if we come into life with it, is not at all mystical hocus-pocus but a very real possibility, facts of a whole self.

I have often thought Jews resist the true Christian experience because they are more susceptible to undergoing it than nonjews, including most people who are nominally Christian. Jews are potentially more Christian than are so-called Christians. Notice that Alex here is speaking of the "born-again" experience. "Born-again Christian" is an ironic term, as it implies there is such a thing as a true Christian who has not been born again. Ironic, in that because Christians see themselves as Christians (often having been raised as such), they somehow think they are already "there" and do not need to face the "atomization" of the individual.

It is said that a man can undergo a radical inner transformation seven times in his life, and that several occur early on in childhood and are forgotten, along with the "self" that preceded the transformation.

External events compel these transformations, up to a point, at which the individual must actively choose to seek them.

Perhaps it is worthwhile observing how the Catholic Church has become rite-centered, engaging in ceremonies which have become mere fossils. An example is the sacrament of "Confirmation." Most Catholics are ritually confirmed at an early point in their lives, but the idea behind Confirmation is the born-again experience, or transformation that I think Alex is referring to. This experience is by its nature an individual one, since external circumstances (living in this world of mankind) trigger it. The sacrament of Confirmation is performed by a bishop, and is the one sacrament that a priest may not perform. Usually the bishop will ceremonially confirm many people at once.

I think this is ridiculous. The ritual is without import. Most people who are thus "confirmed" have not undergone the actual born-again experience and many never will.

Kelly,

But there is another way to define love, that cuts to the core of personhood and breaks it down as if it never were. It has nothing of the emotional upbuilding of the former kind of love, and consequently it is devoid of any sense of loss or tragedy, or attainment either. That is the kind of love I think is worth speaking of.

That's perfect expression.

We have infinitehood, personhood, worldhood.

But there is another way to define love, that cuts to the core of personhood and breaks it down as if it never were. It has nothing of the emotional upbuilding of the former kind of love, and consequently it is devoid of any sense of loss or tragedy, or attainment either. That is the kind of love I think is worth speaking of.

Yes, Kelly! Love doesn't come from you, it comes through you.

cousinbasil wrote:

Kelly wrote:Gene Roddenberry's portrayal of a highly logical person wasn't anywhere near accurate. ;-)

Since your ears are rather pointy, I can only assume you are complaining that Spock didn't have an Australian accent.

Pointy compared to what?

The main reason I was complaining is because Roddenberry thought highly logical people had to suppress emotion.


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cousinbasil wrote:Yes, Kelly! Love doesn't come from you, it comes through you.

It's an expression from me of me and of everything else.


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Kelly Jones wrote:

cousinbasil wrote:Yes, Kelly! Love doesn't come from you, it comes through you.

It's an expression from me of me and of everything else.

I didn't mean you, I meant "one."

You think love is an expression? I take it back. It's not your ears that are pointy, it's your bloody head.

And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Born from the cross,
the anti-christ,
turns wine into water.

Is there anything more in emotion? A secret emanation from being? I can't help but to think that emotions proceeds from reasons.

Animus wrote:There is no vacation spot where people do things that have never been done before.

That's your problem right there. There are many vacation spots geared for just that, a thing you have never done before. But that's not what you're saying. You want a vacation spot that features something noone has done before. How exactly could they market something like that?

Everything in the post from which I took the above quote tells me you are a young man. Impatient (knowing where conversations are headed.) Girlfriend, not wife. Cigarettes. I'll read between the lines and say no kids.

Trust me, this non-attachment crap is not for you. You have been there and done that, just going on your own words. Maybe being detached is not so bad, you might just be a step ahead of the game. BTW - aren't you attached to cigarettes? Want to exercise those "attachment" skills? Try quitting. And don't con yourself that physical addiction is not the same thing as "attachment." It's attachment times ten, or a hundred. The order of magnitude makes it seem like it's a different animal, but what is an attachment besides something bad for you which you can't do without?

So Animus, you sound intelligent, your only problem is that you are young, and that problem always takes care of itself.

cousinbasil wrote:

Animus wrote:There is no vacation spot where people do things that have never been done before.

That's your problem right there. There are many vacation spots geared for just that, a thing you have never done before. But that's not what you're saying. You want a vacation spot that features something noone has done before. How exactly could they market something like that?

Everything in the post from which I took the above quote tells me you are a young man. Impatient (knowing where conversations are headed.) Girlfriend, not wife. Cigarettes. I'll read between the lines and say no kids.

Trust me, this non-attachment crap is not for you. You have been there and done that, just going on your own words. Maybe being detached is not so bad, you might just be a step ahead of the game. BTW - aren't you attached to cigarettes? Want to exercise those "attachment" skills? Try quitting. And don't con yourself that physical addiction is not the same thing as "attachment." It's attachment times ten, or a hundred. The order of magnitude makes it seem like it's a different animal, but what is an attachment besides something bad for you which you can't do without?

So Animus, you sound intelligent, you're only problem is that you are young, and that problem always takes care of itself.

I would never dream of suggesting that nicotine addiction isn't an attachment. The fact that I'm addicted to cigarettes opens my eyes to the addictive nature of all behavior. I feel the same withdrawal whether I'm craving a cigarette or someone to talk to. The addictive nature of egotistical desire is clear to me by relating it to my smoking addiction. And that doesn't mean smoking is a good thing, its really not, not good for you, especially if you want non-attachment.

I have plenty of attachments, but in the realm of feeling I'm fairly detached. When it comes to what others think about me, detached. I don't care for praise or blame so much. You just have to see that people can abuse me and the effect it has, or how easily I can let go of everything in my life if it is the right thing to do. There are a few things I haven't let go, and smoking is one of them.

Like you said, it is attachement times 100, so take your strongest attachment and multiply it, then tell me how to exercise that.

cousinbasil wrote:

Kelly Jones wrote:

cousinbasil wrote:Yes, Kelly! Love doesn't come from you, it comes through you.

It's an expression from me of me and of everything else.

I didn't mean you, I meant "one."

So did I.

You think love is an expression? I take it back.

In the sense it's conscious.

It's not your ears that are pointy, it's your bloody head.

And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Is that a reference to Flatland?


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cousinbasil wrote:Trust me, this non-attachment crap is not for you. You have been there and done that, just going on your own words.

Words that revealed he didn't know what non-attachment meant; therefore, neither do you.... But "crap" revealed as much.


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Kelly Jones wrote:

cousinbasil wrote:Trust me, this non-attachment crap is not for you. You have been there and done that, just going on your own words.

Words that revealed he didn't know what non-attachment meant; therefore, neither do you.... But "crap" revealed as much.
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You're right, of course. My bad. I meant "shit(e)."

Animus wrote:I'll switch over to Weininger if you want, maybe some Kant, Sartre, Mills, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Damasio, Metzinger, Churchland, Fromm, Hobbes, Locke, Augustine, Aquinas, I really don't give a fuck, I have all of them on my bookshelf at home and paid attention to all of them, and lived in all of their brick houses in turn.

I don't have any of those fancy names on my shelf. Well apart from Damasio. Weininger I read in little doses, mostly on this site.

What surprises me Animus is that you were so easily impressed with Ursula's utility in regard to the "Christian doctrine". I mean, with your reading appetite surely you must have explored some of the vast libraries which are bridging the gap, or trying at least, ranging from theosophical, anthroposophical to the hermetic library, and the insane amount of materials in the New Age sections, various channelled works and some modern Christian theology. And never mind the avalanche of self-help and create-your-own-reality books and methods, for example the popular Course in Miracles, dictated by Christ himself!

Anyway, content wise I don't see anything here but one of the many creative mixes of Christianity, "mesmerism", self-hypnosis and some perennial philosophy for good measure. Good luck with it!

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

Animus wrote:I'll switch over to Weininger if you want, maybe some Kant, Sartre, Mills, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Damasio, Metzinger, Churchland, Fromm, Hobbes, Locke, Augustine, Aquinas, I really don't give a fuck, I have all of them on my bookshelf at home and paid attention to all of them, and lived in all of their brick houses in turn.

I don't have any of those fancy names on my shelf. Well apart from Damasio. Weininger I read in little doses, mostly on this site.

What surprises me Animus is that you were so easily impressed with Ursula's utility in regard to the "Christian doctrine". I mean, with your reading appetite surely you must have explored some of the vast libraries which are bridging the gap, or trying at least, ranging from theosophical, anthroposophical to the hermetic library, and the insane amount of materials in the New Age sections, various channelled works and some modern Christian theology. And never mind the avalanche of self-help and create-your-own-reality books and methods, for example the popular Course in Miracles, dictated by Christ himself!

Anyway, content wise I don't see anything here but one of the many creative mixes of Christianity, "mesmerism", self-hypnosis and some perennial philosophy for good measure. Good luck with it!

You are right, all books are boring and stupid.

I just went and wasted some money on Dante's Divine Comedy, The Perennial Philosophy, the Baghivad Gita, Tao Te Ching and a few other books. Suppose I should take 'em all back, seeing as there are bound to be better books out there.

I bought this one book that made me think of Genius, its called: Loneliness as a Way of Life by Thomas Dumm

The back reads:

"What does it mean to be lonely?" Thomas Dumm asks. His inquiry, documented in this book, takes us beyond social circumstances and into the deeper forces that shape our very existence as modern individuals. The modern individual, Dumm suggests, is fundamentally a lonely self. Through reflections on philosophy, political theory, literature and tragic drama, he proceeds to illuminate a hidden dimension of the human condition.

"Dumm asserts that loneliness is the impetus that gives us autonomy, the ability to make decisions on our own terms. Although the feeling may be painful, it is only through loneliness that we become true individuals able to make rational decisions and able to interact with others as rational beings. And, in an odd twist, it is this true sense of self-awareness that leads us to seek the community of others." - Orli Low, Los Angeles Times

Animus wrote:

Diebert wrote:Anyway, content wise I don't see anything here but one of the many creative mixes of Christianity, "mesmerism", self-hypnosis and some perennial philosophy for good measure. Good luck with it!

You are right, all books are boring and stupid.

I just went and wasted some money on Dante's Divine Comedy, The Perennial Philosophy, the Baghivad Gita, Tao Te Ching and a few other books. Suppose I should take 'em all back, seeing as there are bound to be better books out there.

Interpreting Diebert's analysis of those books to refer to all books isn't rational. It's a tantrum-like reaction, which one would expect from a Bitch from Hell. Not from someone in the human realms. Not all books that touch on philosophical matters show insight.

I hosted a fellow last night, same age as myself, who'd been brought up a Buddhist, and who has been studying Tibetan Buddhism devoutly, including spending many years in India and Tibet, studying Tibetan and so forth. He is extremely well-read, and "well-experienced", but he is so deeply ensconced in the traditions and scriptures that he has lost sight of their purpose. It is bizarre to listen to him, because he sounds as if he understands perfectly what I'm saying - but his life expresses the opposite of what he says. It's an example of the expression of deep philosophical insight that has been handed down verbatim, rigidly, so one has all the benefits of listening directly to the teacher - but the students live centuries later, parrotting the same ideas with a fixedness to the script, so that the actual power of the words is lost on them. Like his peers, he is deadset against every questioning or doubting a teacher, which he regards as extremely arrogant, yet he won't even be saying this on his own account, but again be giving the adopted teacher's opinion - which has become his own perch.


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Kelly wrote:Interpreting Diebert's analysis of those books to refer to all books isn't rational. It's a tantrum-like reaction, which one would expect from a Bitch from Hell. Not from someone in the human realms.

You mean you think Diebert has read all of those books? Somehow I doubt it. It sounded as if Diebert was being snide and dismissive - which I suppose is rational, given that he hasn't read what he is dismissing. Right, Kelly?

I think Diebert is reasonably familiar with the dominating angles of thought, of the likes of Kant, Sartre, Mills, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Damasio, Metzinger, Churchland, Fromm, Hobbes, Locke, Augustine, and Aquinas. While an author may have some secret private unpublished works that are completely at odds with his public face, it is highly unlikely, so one seems justified in coming to a conclusion based on what they've generally given their intellectual efforts to forming an understanding of. I don't think his response was necessarily snide, but it was clearly dismissive. But one has to dismiss a lot of human outpourings if one has a particular goal, not shared by all, and is discerning about how it is expressed, and wants to promote the clearest expressions of it. It doesn't mean that the dismissed are necessarily inferior. It only means that one's intellectual efforts are focussed in a different area.


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