GENIUS FORUMS

Elizabeth,

I'll guess between 5'8" and 6'1" with greenish/light brown eyes and hair that some would consider brown while others would consider dark blond. Clean shaven, but gets scruffy. One broken/peeling fingernail on your right hand. Athletic build but not muscular. A little more of a tan than most Australians, but definately not "tanned" per se.

Yep, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, errr probably not really, nuh.

Shardrol,

Shardrol wrote:Big, almost kind of bearish, but not hairy. Kind of long face. Dark hair, pale skin, grayish (?) eyes, small hands, big feet.

Nope not really, nuh, nuh, yep, yep, nope, no, no. I was waiting for you to guess that I had one hugely overdeveloped arm and one normal arm, that would have meshed with a bit of an image that seemed to be associated with me on Genius in earlier days.

I think it was one of those strange temporary psychic episodes like one time when I worked in an office & I suddenly felt like I knew what kind of dressing gown everyone had at home. A group crowded around me & I named about seven in a row correctly

After that "display" are you sure they didn't just think you were the office nympho? Heh.

Leyla Shen wrote:City of Brimbank (wild western suburbs--yeehaw).

Where are you?

Near Werribee hey? What do you think of it? I'm in the East, city of Manningham.

Werribee's about half-hour outbound on the freeway from me.

Next door to Taylors Lakes, myself.

Wyndham, eh? Nice. You're buying the coffees, then.

Leyla Shen wrote:Werribee's about half-hour outbound on the freeway from me.

Next door to Taylors Lakes, myself.

Wyndham, eh? Nice. You're buying the coffees, then.

What??? I'm not in Werribee, I'm in Manningham. I meant you're near the sewage, not me. ;)

[laughs]

Fuuuuck!

Sorry, I'm tired. I realised my mistake (albeit on a considerable lag!) and came back to correct it.

[Suddenly sparks up] Man, talk about electromagnetism:

Sewage? What sewage? Sewage is something I know nothing about. I suppose you guys in MANNINGHAM don't shit, then? Or are you saying Werribee gets it all??

Hurry up, I have to go to bed but I need to know where your crap goes!

Leyla Shen wrote:Hurry up, I have to go to bed but I need to know where your crap goes!

I just wrote down the answer to where my crap goes, on a piece of paper, and flushed it down the toilet. If you go out into your backyard in about an hour or three, and search around in the sludge, you're sure to find it.

Never mind. I googled it:

The Western Treatment Plant continues to provide an essential public health service, treating about 52% of Melbourne's sewage, or about 485 million litres a day. This serves about 1.6 million people in the central, northern and western suburbs.

No need to put your gumboots on Leyla, looks like my answer has been sent somewhere else:

The Eastern Treatment Plant at Bangholme processes about 370 million litres of sewage daily, from Melbourne's eastern and south-eastern suburbs. This is about 40 per cent of Melbourne's sewage.

Kelly,

Kelly Jones wrote:If "isolation" makes you feel disembodied and detached from reality, it may ground you to get in touch with a few other thinkers.

I think you misunderstand, I'm not actually disembodied from reality, like I'm on an acid-trip or something. I'm talking about being quite distant from common social/cultural "reality."

I found it helpful to meet Kevin, for instance. I visit a few times a year, as it helps me to learn and deepen my experience of Truth - examining how other people express their understanding in their daily lives. Using one's voice a lot. Seeing how much demanding and challenging stimuli one can cope with.

I'm also heading up to visit the Brisbane folk in a little while, so that should provide some more interesting things to reflect on.

That sounds kind of disciple-like to me, and Kelly to be honest, in general I have found that you do sometimes come off as a disciple of QSR, but I could be completely wrong about that. But I do understand that interacting face to face might add different and possibly beneficial dimensions to philosophical discussion/growth, at least for some.

Patience means staying grounded. Not running off impatiently in one's thoughts, away from emptiness, in the hope that there might be something new. It means, not denying that everything is empty, and that there's nothing to hold onto. Part of this process is abandoning all motivations.

Yes, I am masochistic to an extent, to be capable of inflicting the pain of non-attachment, while still attached. But the amount of pleasure - and therefore the pain - that I gain out of becoming awake is slowly lessening.

I am finding more and more that emotions are painful, with much trouble in "detoxing" to become human again. So now they don't seem so easy to engage in, and less able to get a foothold. Slow but steady.

I don't think I agree with your ideas about emptiness and such, so we part company at that level, but also the whole idea of pushing and using discipline and force and masochism to further philosophical growth is kinda alien to me. It seems to me that if you actually have faith in truth, no pushing is needed: truth is truth, you can't avoid it, so there is no forcing necessary. Because of that, I see this pushing as possibly just an attempt to try overcome the fact that faith in truth is lacking, and anything attained using such a forced method would be inauthentic and lacking a proper foundation. Not much different to how those vipassana retreats sound, all very ritualistic and missing the point. It's the difference between you trying to force truth, and truth forcing you despite yourself.

The overall impression I get of you Kelly, and your philosophical journey, is that you're a little bit on the frantic and desperate side. That would also make sense if you are valuing the end more than the means, which would fit with the vision I seem get of you trying to force truth. But again, I could be completely wrong about this.

What do you invent? Is this a way of earning more money?

I don't talk specifics about these things for various reasons, so we'll leave it at that.

Do you receive a disability pension ?

Why?

I didn't notice your reply til this morning.

Jason wrote:Kelly: If "isolation" makes you feel disembodied and detached from reality, it may ground you to get in touch with a few other thinkers.

Jason: I think you misunderstand, I'm not actually disembodied from reality, like I'm on an acid-trip or something. I'm talking about being quite distant from common social/cultural "reality."

That is the sense I picked up earlier.

I see no problem with distancing oneself from the mainstream.

It's a problem when one imagines it no longer exists.

Could be from feeling uncomfortable about telling Reality as one sees it. So, chatting with other real thinkers can help in this area.

Kelly: I found it helpful to meet Kevin, for instance. I visit a few times a year, as it helps me to learn and deepen my experience of Truth - examining how other people express their understanding in their daily lives. Using one's voice a lot. Seeing how much demanding and challenging stimuli one can cope with.

I'm also heading up to visit the Brisbane folk in a little while, so that should provide some more interesting things to reflect on.

Jason: That sounds kind of disciple-like to me, and Kelly to be honest, in general I have found that you do sometimes come off as a disciple of QSR, but I could be completely wrong about that.

Using your meaning for "disciple", the one who is not a disciple has no attachment to status, reputation, and rank. So, in truth, almost all people are disciples.

Using the meaning as "one who has a goal, and obeys his own reasoned methods to meeting it", then there's no problem with being a disciple. The "master" is also oneself. This is the kind of disciple I value being.

But I do understand that interacting face to face might add different and possibly beneficial dimensions to philosophical discussion/growth, at least for some.

Who one interacts with can make a difference to what one learns.

Kelly: Patience means staying grounded. Not running off impatiently in one's thoughts, away from emptiness, in the hope that there might be something new. It means, not denying that everything is empty, and that there's nothing to hold onto. Part of this process is abandoning all motivations.

Yes, I am masochistic to an extent, to be capable of inflicting the pain of non-attachment, while still attached. But the amount of pleasure - and therefore the pain - that I gain out of becoming awake is slowly lessening.

I am finding more and more that emotions are painful, with much trouble in "detoxing" to become human again. So now they don't seem so easy to engage in, and less able to get a foothold. Slow but steady.

Jason: I don't think I agree with your ideas about emptiness and such, so we part company at that level,

What is the greatest insight you have had about Reality?

but also the whole idea of pushing and using discipline and force and masochism to further philosophical growth is kinda alien to me.

Can you conceive of discipline and masochism that is purely logical and without emotion?

It seems to me that if you actually have faith in truth, no pushing is needed: truth is truth, you can't avoid it, so there is no forcing necessary.

Right. What I see as "Pushing" or "forcing" is simply a resolution to be Truthful, when one is not.

Perhaps you see this as heavily emotional.

Because of that, I see this pushing as possibly just an attempt to try overcome the fact that faith in truth is lacking,

Yes. It is reasoning that tells oneself to remember one's goal.

and anything attained using such a forced method would be inauthentic and lacking a proper foundation.

For a person who lacks faith in reason, a "proper foundation" would be a great love of truth. It will be emotional, but that's ok. Later, this foundation can alter gradually to be less emotional, and more reasoned.

Not much different to how those vipassana retreats sound, all very ritualistic and missing the point. It's the difference between you trying to force truth, and truth forcing you despite yourself.

The latter is built by many years of daily, and consistently, resolving to be truthful. Nothing else.

The resolution comes from one's own thinking, and carries one forward in all one's experiences. Without this resolution, everything one does will be misguided.

The overall impression I get of you Kelly, and your philosophical journey, is that you're a little bit on the frantic and desperate side. That would also make sense if you are valuing the end more than the means, which would fit with the vision I seem get of you trying to force truth. But again, I could be completely wrong about this.

I'm at the stage of heading away from the masculine striving, down towards the unmoving source.

Where are you?

Kelly: What do you invent? Is this a way of earning more money?

Jason: I don't talk specifics about these things for various reasons, so we'll leave it at that.

Alright. I'm quite interested in the mentality of inventors, as I have that sort of mind myself. How do you describe your intellectual processes during coming up with an invention --- all the stages up to the "market-place"?

Kelly: Do you receive a disability pension ?

Jason: Why?

How a person gains their money has a very great effect on their life, goals, speech, thoughts. For example, an office-worker has to continue to reflect his environment in order to keep his salary, while a thinker on a disability pension can live wholly in line with his reasoning.


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Kelly,

Jason: I think you misunderstand, I'm not actually disembodied from reality, like I'm on an acid-trip or something. I'm talking about being quite distant from common social/cultural "reality."

Kelly: That is the sense I picked up earlier.

I see no problem with distancing oneself from the mainstream.

It's a problem when one imagines it no longer exists.

I probably agree with that, at least to some degree, but for what reason/s exactly do you see it being a problem?

K: Could be from feeling uncomfortable about telling Reality as one sees it.

Yep, I think it is at least partly due to me being uncomfortable speaking truthfully in a lot of social situations.

K: So, chatting with other real thinkers can help in this area.

Philosophy is ultimately an extremely personal thing, it is about me and bare existence, so in that way other people(and probably moreso any necessity of face to face communication) could be seen to be less important, at least regarding deeper philosophy. What do you think? heh.

Kelly: I found it helpful to meet Kevin, for instance. I visit a few times a year, as it helps me to learn and deepen my experience of Truth - examining how other people express their understanding in their daily lives. Using one's voice a lot. Seeing how much demanding and challenging stimuli one can cope with.

I'm also heading up to visit the Brisbane folk in a little while, so that should provide some more interesting things to reflect on.

J: That sounds kind of disciple-like to me, and Kelly to be honest, in general I have found that you do sometimes come off as a disciple of QSR, but I could be completely wrong about that.

K: Using your meaning for "disciple", the one who is not a disciple has no attachment to status, reputation, and rank.

That's not how I was thinking of the word. Replace "disciple" with "follower" and you'd be closer to the definition I was thinking of. But I don't want to be too judgemental here, or appear too certain, cos I'm making a lot of assumptions and guesses based on little real knowledge of you. And just to be clear, I'm not totally bagging you, I've been quite impressed with many of your posts here.

I'm not sure how or why you've attached theses ideas of status, reputation and rank to "disciple" in this particular case, do they describe your relationship to/with QSR?

K: Using the meaning as "one who has a goal, and obeys his own reasoned methods to meeting it", then there's no problem with being a disciple. The "master" is also oneself. This is the kind of disciple I value being.

Good. What specifically do you think you get out of face-to-face meetings and discussions with QSR that you don't or can't get out of this forum, or other forms of telecommunication?

J: But I do understand that interacting face to face might add different and possibly beneficial dimensions to philosophical discussion/growth, at least for some.

K: Who one interacts with can make a difference to what one learns.

I gotta write this stuff down. ;) But you mean specifically face to face interaction in this case, do you?

K: Patience means staying grounded. Not running off impatiently in one's thoughts, away from emptiness, in the hope that there might be something new. It means, not denying that everything is empty, and that there's nothing to hold onto. Part of this process is abandoning all motivations.

Yes, I am masochistic to an extent, to be capable of inflicting the pain of non-attachment, while still attached. But the amount of pleasure - and therefore the pain - that I gain out of becoming awake is slowly lessening.

I am finding more and more that emotions are painful, with much trouble in "detoxing" to become human again. So now they don't seem so easy to engage in, and less able to get a foothold. Slow but steady.

J: I don't think I agree with your ideas about emptiness and such, so we part company at that level,

K: What is the greatest insight you have had about Reality?

That things are just as they are.

J: but also the whole idea of pushing and using discipline and force and masochism to further philosophical growth is kinda alien to me.

k: Can you conceive of discipline and masochism that is purely logical and without emotion?

Sure I can imagine it, but I can also imagine flying winged-elephants. Isn't masochism related to the emotions(or the physical, in some cases) by definition? Discipline is kind of similar to masochism in this way too I think, but I could more easily imagine that to be without(or with less) emotion involved. They both tend to require enduring some level of pain, and pain isn't logical in nature, it is physical and/or emotional. Is QSR the new BDSM?

J: and anything attained using such a forced method would be inauthentic and lacking a proper foundation.

K: For a person who lacks faith in reason, a "proper foundation" would be a great love of truth. It will be emotional, but that's ok. Later, this foundation can alter gradually to be less emotional, and more reasoned.

Do you think you lack faith in reason?

J: Not much different to how those vipassana retreats sound, all very ritualistic and missing the point. It's the difference between you trying to force truth, and truth forcing you despite yourself.

K: The latter is built by many years of daily, and consistently, resolving to be truthful. Nothing else. The resolution comes from one's own thinking, and carries one forward in all one's experiences. Without this resolution, everything one does will be misguided.

Maybe we're coming at this from different places. I'm honestly trying to avoid ego when I say this, and to be accurate, but I think that most of my life from my childhood onwards has been unusually intensely directed at being truthful and uncovering truth, in a very rational/logical and philosophical type of way. So like I said, I've never felt like I was pushing, or "resolving" to be truthful, for me there seems like there is no choice, I'm not trying to be this way, it is who I am, it's just my nature.

I think I remember you saying once that deeply valuing rationality and truth was not something you really did until you were about in your early twenties, is that correct? Maybe you're still wrestling with that?

J: The overall impression I get of you Kelly, and your philosophical journey, is that you're a little bit on the frantic and desperate side. That would also make sense if you are valuing the end more than the means, which would fit with the vision I seem get of you trying to force truth. But again, I could be completely wrong about this.

K: I'm at the stage of heading away from the masculine striving, down towards the unmoving source.

Where are you?

Philosophically, I'd say I'm trying to remember and have a more continuous and deep realization that "things are just as they are".

Jason wrote:K: I see no problem with distancing oneself from the mainstream. It's a problem when one imagines it no longer exists.

J: I probably agree with that, at least to some degree, but for what reason/s exactly do you see it being a problem?

The presence of fear in the mind, about anything at all, can poison one's overall confidence.

Philosophy is ultimately an extremely personal thing, it is about me and bare existence, so in that way other people(and probably moreso any necessity of face to face communication) could be seen to be less important, at least regarding deeper philosophy. What do you think? heh.

I see no separation between private and personal.

Since most people are afraid of this boundlessness, one uses an "orange-flavoured pill" to help open them up to it.

The orange flavouring is Truth.

K: I found it helpful to meet Kevin, for instance. I visit a few times a year, as it helps me to learn and deepen my experience of Truth - examining how other people express their understanding in their daily lives. Using one's voice a lot. Seeing how much demanding and challenging stimuli one can cope with.

I'm also heading up to visit the Brisbane folk in a little while, so that should provide some more interesting things to reflect on.

J: That sounds kind of disciple-like to me, and Kelly to be honest, in general I have found that you do sometimes come off as a disciple of QSR, but I could be completely wrong about that.

K: Using your meaning for "disciple", the one who is not a disciple has no attachment to status, reputation, and rank.

J: That's not how I was thinking of the word. Replace "disciple" with "follower" and you'd be closer to the definition I was thinking of. I'm not sure how or why you've attached theses ideas of status, reputation and rank to "disciple" in this particular case, do they describe your relationship to/with QSR?

Status, rank, reputation, and slavish following, are the sense of "disciple" I thought you were getting at.

Contrast that with the discipline necessary to follow one's own reasoning, when "following" is very much an uphill, upstream, headwind battle. Namely, against all the deep grooves of habitual thought.

I tend to think of Kevin, Dan, David, Scott, Elizabeth, Cory, et al. as Nature. There is no QSR to follow.

I do follow the Truth that seems to pervade writings of men like David and Kevin, Hakuin, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jesus, Chuang Tzu, and the like.

But ultimately, I rest in my own understanding, which is the works of Nature.

What specifically do you think you get out of face-to-face meetings and discussions with QSR that you don't or can't get out of this forum, or other forms of telecommunication?

I have not met David or Dan in person.

It's just another way to stimulate the mind about Reality. Spending almost every waking hour in focussed observation, discussion, and analysis, on absolutely anything one can think of, is Genius Forum SE Turbo. The topics can be about how to catch fish, but the meaning is Nature. In other words, how to catch fish.

J: But I do understand that interacting face to face might add different and possibly beneficial dimensions to philosophical discussion/growth, at least for some.

K: Who one interacts with can make a difference to what one learns.

J: But you mean specifically face to face interaction in this case, do you?

Yes.

It's like using a lift to go down into a mine, expecting to do the digging oneself, and to dredge up great things.

K: What is the greatest insight you have had about Reality?

J: That things are just as they are.

What do you think the role of satori is?

Isn't masochism related to the emotions(or the physical, in some cases) by definition? Discipline is kind of similar to masochism in this way too I think, but I could more easily imagine that to be without(or with less) emotion involved. They both tend to require enduring some level of pain, and pain isn't logical in nature, it is physical and/or emotional.

What is your opinion on how non-attachment arises?

J: and anything attained using such a forced method would be inauthentic and lacking a proper foundation.

K: For a person who lacks faith in reason, a "proper foundation" would be a great love of truth. It will be emotional, but that's ok. Later, this foundation can alter gradually to be less emotional, and more reasoned.

J: Do you think you lack faith in reason?

Not at present.

It fluctuates when there are difficult decisions to make.

I think that most of my life from my childhood onwards has been unusually intensely directed at being truthful and uncovering truth, in a very rational/logical and philosophical type of way. So like I said, I've never felt like I was pushing, or "resolving" to be truthful, for me there seems like there is no choice, I'm not trying to be this way, it is who I am, it's just my nature.

Yet earlier, you mentioned feeling so uncomfortable about expressing your truthfulness openly, that you basically cut yourself off from people.

Doesn't sound rational to me.

I think I remember you saying once that deeply valuing rationality and truth was not something you really did until you were about in your early twenties, is that correct? Maybe you're still wrestling with that?

I consciously chose to enter the philosophical path when I was 26. I'm not wrestling with this decision any more, so I don't feel divided.

The idea of patience I was talking about was thinking about Truth every time there is some kind of backsliding. This means consciousness every moment of the day. That does take an effort.

If one's mind is taken up with attachments, then Truth doesn't get a look in.

J: The overall impression I get of you Kelly, and your philosophical journey, is that you're a little bit on the frantic and desperate side. That would also make sense if you are valuing the end more than the means, which would fit with the vision I seem get of you trying to force truth. But again, I could be completely wrong about this.

K: I'm at the stage of heading away from the masculine striving, down towards the unmoving source.

Where are you?

J: Philosophically, I'd say I'm trying to remember and have a more continuous and deep realization that "things are just as they are".

Do you ever think about the fact that things lack intrinsic existence?


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