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leery11 said:
rogan and hicks and marx  seem to be a trap that at the end of the day its just judgment, but the thing is you have to have to have to have to have to have to have to imagine the world as you want it to be, you can't spend all your tim criticizing there is too much going on to just be a cynic,

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An ancient yogic principle suggests that the best way to change a deeply embedded habit is NOT to "pull it out by the
roots" (a nearly impossible task), but rather to plant, nurture and cultivate an opposing habit next to the old one-and to
give the new habit a lot of care, love and attention (like cultivating a mental rose bush). Very soon this new habit will grow
strong and beautiful, and, with hardly an effort, the old weed will wither and drop out of sight.

This was related to another microcosmic topic but I think applies just as well to the macrocosmic sphere of the body of human community and societal metabolism.

What I was trying to say with being pro freedom instead of anti war..

By being against something, fighting it, protesting it, screaming and yelling at it, it's like pushing against a brick wall. You are reinforcing the existence of the wall by exerting force against it. It's not going to crumble. The wall is too solid. It has been cemented thoroughly by its builders, built to withstand resistance. Pushing against it gives it more power. It only validates its existence even more (e.g. what the policy enforcers always argue, "we need this wall. without this wall, the resistance will be set loose. everything will become chaos") They can use our protest, our fight, against us, by claiming us a threat to the establishment.

Now pro freedom. Is the exact opposite. You aren't fighting against something. You are for something. You are promoting a value, stated in positive terms, creating a vision, instead of yelling at a vision of somebody else. You are living for something. There is no pushing. You are leaving the wall to rot away. Nature will take care of it. The elements will cause it to wither away and decompose.

We must walk away from the wall. Not try to destroy it. Leave it behind. Put it in the past. Band together and walk towards that which is true.

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AlteredAgain said:
An ancient yogic principle suggests that the best way to change a deeply embedded habit is NOT to "pull it out by the
roots" (a nearly impossible task), but rather to plant, nurture and cultivate an opposing habit next to the old one-and to
give the new habit a lot of care, love and attention (like cultivating a mental rose bush). Very soon this new habit will grow
strong and beautiful, and, with hardly an effort, the old weed will wither and drop out of sight.

This was related to another microcosmic topic but I think applies just as well to the macrocosmic sphere of the body of human community and societal metabolism.

What I was trying to say with being pro freedom instead of anti war..

By being against something, fighting it, protesting it, screaming and yelling at it, it's like pushing against a brick wall. You are reinforcing the existence of the wall by exerting force against it. It's not going to crumble. The wall is too solid. It has been cemented thoroughly by its builders, built to withstand resistance. Pushing against it gives it more power. It only validates its existence even more (e.g. what the policy enforcers always argue, "we need this wall. without this wall, the resistance will be set loose. everything will become chaos") They can use our protest, our fight, against us, by claiming us a threat to the establishment.

Now pro freedom. Is the exact opposite. You aren't fighting against something. You are for something. You are promoting a value, stated in positive terms, creating a vision, instead of yelling at a vision of somebody else. You are living for something. There is no pushing. You are leaving the wall to rot away. Nature will take care of it. The elements will cause it to wither away and decompose.

We must walk away from the wall. Not try to destroy it. Leave it behind. Put it in the past. Band together and walk towards that which is true.

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gerryjarcia said:
great post. i've had a similar conversation going with friends of mine for the last few years. apathy is not the answer. i've found an overwhelming amount of apathy spread through much of the populace in America.

we can all sit around and talk about how fucked up the gov is, war is, corporations, etc. but at the end of the day what does all that talking change?

seems to me we need some serious thinking about how we are each going to personally live our lives and then we need to get on with the living of that life. it's even better if you can find like-minded people to get on living that life with.

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Right on. I am convinced that community is the answer. Choices in one's personal life are of course fundamentally important because all communities are made of individuals with unique sets, talents, and emotional footprints (If we don't clean ourselves, how can we possibly clean the world?) I have not yet found these like-minded individuals however, so right now I am focusing on my personal sphere, transmuting my habits, turning my ideals into real life actions (e.g. the food i buy, who i buy it from, the mode of transportation i choose, avoiding one-way plastics, and overall minimizing and simplifying my daily life).

I have dreamed for a long time about the possibilities which could manifest themselves if we dismantled the atomic family model (i.e. single family home, working full-time to pay rent or mortgage) and replaced it with a community oriented model (e.g. get a bunch of life-time friends together, people you have shared meaningful experiences with for years, childhood friends, and rent out a big house, or if the means and courage is there, straight up buy a piece of land, everyone get part-time work to pay the bills, work 20 hours a week, and have an additional 20 hours free time, which can be used to take direct action, grow food, organize community activities, volunteer, start a side-business, the possibilities are endless.)

I feel that the amount of time people spend working at their jobs is a major obstacle to making concrete lifestyle changes. If we can find ways to reduce consumption, share spending across individuals to further a community cause (e.g sharing a big living space) while increasing our free time (the most valuable asset we have), I think we could get a lot done, and fast!

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AlteredAgain said:
Right on. I am convinced that community is the answer. Choices in one's personal life are of course fundamentally important because all communities are made of individuals with unique sets, talents, and emotional footprints (If we don't clean ourselves, how can we possibly clean the world?) I have not yet found these like-minded individuals however, so right now I am focusing on my personal sphere, transmuting my habits, turning my ideals into real life actions (e.g. the food i buy, who i buy it from, the mode of transportation i choose, avoiding one-way plastics, and overall minimizing and simplifying my daily life).

I have dreamed for a long time about the possibilities which could manifest themselves if we dismantled the atomic family model (i.e. single family home, working full-time to pay rent or mortgage) and replaced it with a community oriented model (e.g. get a bunch of life-time friends together, people you have shared meaningful experiences with for years, childhood friends, and rent out a big house, or if the means and courage is there, straight up buy a piece of land, everyone get part-time work to pay the bills, work 20 hours a week, and have an additional 20 hours free time, which can be used to take direct action, grow food, organize community activities, volunteer, start a side-business, the possibilities are endless.)

I feel that the amount of time people spend working at their jobs is a major obstacle to making concrete lifestyle changes. If we can find ways to reduce consumption, share spending across individuals to further a community cause (e.g sharing a big living space) while increasing our free time (the most valuable asset we have), I think we could get a lot done, and fast!

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i agree. i've been involved with various communities of people on and off over the last decade. a couple of the major obstacles i ran into in nearly every community situation were as follows:

inflated ego/insecurity: every group i was a part of displayed a lack of humility and a seeming inability to lay aside ones ego for the "greater good". i include myself in this observation. i've spent the last couple of years trying to learn more about myself, my ego and my own insecurities in an effort to not only "better" myself but to also help inject a healthy dose of humility into my interactions with others (still working on it).

the myth of the individual: i've worked with people from other cultures and with people from my culture (U.S.). the thing that i always ran into when dealing with people within my culture was the myth of the individual. this is a strong, deeply rooted myth for any American and a hard one to recognize. it infects most of our daily interactions and makes "community" work rather difficult at times.

those are just a couple observations. but neither of them are meant to be a deterrent to community, just somethings to think about as you engage in community with others.

"being in community" is difficult, one of the hardest things i've ever done. humans are complex animals with an entire range of emotions and reactions. but what can come out of community, the way it can make you more human, is infinitely worth it compared to a life lived in isolation.

least that's the way i've experienced it

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Parkseerf said:
Awesome guys! Ive been thinking about those things for a while. I sucks that we have built this wall around ourselves that we told ourselves was for security but now were trapped inside it it SEEMS. But i know there are like minded people out there, we just need to come together and build some momentum

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There's a lot of blind idealism and naivete in these last few posts, or at least it seems that way.

What do you guys have to say for the suffering of people around the world at our expense?

I mean, you're using a computer that has rare earths in it that were mined by people in atrocious conditions for pennies an hour... Cheap labor is the game of history and nearly 80-90 percent of humanity suffers as a result.

I think it is better to be aware of our polarity and act accordingly by making an honest attempt at being positive as much as possible. That doesn't mean that pointing out the negative is necessarily repugnant.

And that being said, trying to be "all good" usually leads to more evil.



"Since dogma holds that God is wholly present in each of the three Persons, He is also wholly present in each part of the outpoured Holy Spirit; thus every man can partake of the whole of God and hence of the filiation. The complexio oppositorum of the God-image thus enters into man, and not as a unity, but as conflict, the dark half of the image coming into opposition with the accepted view that God is "Light." This very process is taking place in our own times, albeit scarcely recognized by the official teachers of human whose task, supposedly, is to understand such matters. There is the general feeling, to be sure, that we have reached a significant turning point in the ages, but people imagine that the great change has to do with nuclear fission and fusion, or with space rockets. What is concurrently taking place in the human psyche is overlooked." Carl Jung, 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections'



"...the individual who wishes to have an answer to the problem of evil, as it is posed today, has need, first and foremost, of self-knowledge, that is, the utmost possible knowledge of his own wholeness. He must know relentlessly how much good he can do, and what crimes he is capable of, and must be beware of regarding the one as real and the other as illusion. Both are elements within his nature, and both are bound to come to light in him, should he wish – as he ought – to live without self-deception or self-delusion. In general, however, most people are hopelessly ill equipped for living on this level, although there are also many persons today who have the capacity for profounder insight into themselves. Such self-knowledge is of prime importance, because through it we approach that fundamental stratum or core of human nature where the instincts dwell. Here are those preexistent dynamic factors which ultimately govern the ethical decisions of our consciousness. The core is the unconscious and its contents, concerning which we cannot pass any final judgment. Our ideas about it are bound to be inadequate, for we are unable to comprehend its essence cognitively and set rational limits to it." Carl Jung, 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections'

"In so far as analytical treatment makes the "shadow" conscious, it causes a cleavage and a tension of opposites which in their turn seek compensation in unity. The adjustment is achieved through symbols. The conflict between the opposites can strain our psyche to the breaking point, if we take them seriously, or if they take us seriously. The tertium non datur  (there is no third) of logic proves its worth: no solution can be seen. If all goes well, the solution, seemingly of its own accord, appears out of nature. Then and then only is it convincing. It is felt as "grace." Since the solution proceeds out of the confrontation and clash of opposites, it is usually an unfathomable mixture of conscious and unconscious factors, and therefore a symbol, a coin split into two halves which fit together precisely. It represents the result of the joint labors of consciousness and the unconscious, and attains the likeness of the God-image in the form of a mandala, which is probably the simplest model of a concept of wholeness, and one which spontaneously arises in the mind as a representation of the struggle and the reconciliation of opposites. The clash, which is at first of a purely personal nature, is soon followed by the insight that the subjective conflict is only a single instance of the universal conflict of opposites. Our psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche. For that reason the God-image is always a projection of the inner experience of a powerful vis-a-vis (face to face)." Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections; Late Thoughts (Italics mine)

"...at the end of the second millenium the outlines of a universal catastrophe became apparent, at first in the form of a threat to consciousness. This threat consists in giantism – in other words, a hubris of consciousness – in the assertion: "Nothing is greater than man and his deeds"...

Light is followed by shadow, the other side of the Creator. This development reached its peak in the twentieth century. The Christian world is now truly confronted by the principle of evil, by naked injustice, tyranny, lies, slavery, and coercion of conscience... Evil has become a determinant reality. It can no longer be dismissed from the world by a circumlocution. We must learn how to handle it, since it is here to stay. How we can live with it without terrible consequences cannot for the present be conceived. In any case, we stand in need of a reorientation, a metanoia. Touching evil brings with it the grave peril of succumbing to it... We must be aware of thinking of good and evil as absolute opposites... Recognition of the reality of evil necessarily relativizes the good, and the evil likewise, converting both into halves of a paradoxical whole" Carl Jung, 'Memories Dreams, Reflections'

"It looks as if the attempt to secure an absolute and final victory for good is bound to lead to a dangerous accumulation of evil and hence to catastrophe." Carl Jung, 'Book of Job'

Unfortunately, my friends, evil is necessary.

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BrainFood said:

Rogan is a moron.

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akira_akuma said:

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I AM SWIM said:
that's the nature of doin' thangs [image]

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i really hate you badly for making up that phrase... or whoever did... FUCK.

your thangs suck major wang!

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BrainFood said:

There's a lot of blind idealism and naivete in these last few posts, or at least it seems that way.

What do you guys have to say for the suffering of people around the world at our expense?

I mean, you're using a computer that has rare earths in it that were mined by people in atrocious conditions for pennies an hour... Cheap labor is the game of history and nearly 80-90 percent of humanity suffers as a result.

I think it is better to be aware of our polarity and act accordingly by making an honest attempt at being positive as much as possible. That doesn't mean that pointing out the negative is necessarily repugnant.

And that being said, trying to be "all good" usually leads to more evil.

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BrainFood said:
There's a lot of blind idealism and naivete in these last few posts, or at least it seems that way.

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