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Kickle
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Are Elders important?
#14047121 - 03/01/11 06:44 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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To a large degree I feel as though the emergence of Elders in my life has been very limited. I mean, there is no tribal circle with an Elder telling stories to the youth. There really is no means in our world that I'm aware of for passing down the wisdom that years of living can cultivate. The internet is of course an ideal place, but often it's so full of bull headed youth that the Elder's congregate together instead of deal with the BS. And that leaves the youth to speak amongst themselves and to push forward making the same mistakes as the Elders already did and could have provided advice about. I dunno... I just feel like we do not value our Elders and often want only to hear what we want to hear and personally I think it's sad. But what about you? Do you think Elder's are to be valued, or are they stuck in the past and need to be moved beyond?
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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teknix
𓂀⟁𓅢𓍝𓅃𓊰𓉡 𓁼𓆗⨻


Registered: 09/16/08
Posts: 11,953
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle]
#14047132 - 03/01/11 06:50 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think some are, not just someone who is old.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle] 2
#14047533 - 03/01/11 09:19 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: To a large degree I feel as though the emergence of Elders in my life has been very limited. I mean, there is no tribal circle with an Elder telling stories to the youth. There really is no means in our world that I'm aware of for passing down the wisdom that years of living can cultivate. The internet is of course an ideal place, but often it's so full of bull headed youth that the Elder's congregate together instead of deal with the BS. And that leaves the youth to speak amongst themselves and to push forward making the same mistakes as the Elders already did and could have provided advice about. I dunno... I just feel like we do not value our Elders and often want only to hear what we want to hear and personally I think it's sad. But what about you? Do you think Elder's are to be valued, or are they stuck in the past and need to be moved beyond?
I'm the only elder you'll ever need.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Tony
Stranger

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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: teknix]
#14047563 - 03/01/11 09:27 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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We need all kinds of different age groups to maintain an evolving identity, the false notion of superior material and wisdom and thus happiness at greater age. It gives us something to strive for, or perhaps something to avoid. It's all part of maya, but at the same time it's innocent like the wind.
So, I might say all age groups are equally important, and none are really that important.
Is there anything that is not a paradox when you think about it?
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Kickle
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Tony]
#14047947 - 03/01/11 11:02 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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To be honest, right after I made this post I realized that there is a gaping hole in the thought. We have elders that teach from the very basics of morality, e.g., sharing is caring, all the way up to a specific discipline that requires unique perspective. We just call it the education system. A classroom is our tribal circle and the teacher the elder. The stories selected when we are young are designed to give us a social foundation and as we age we learn other skills for interacting with the world.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest


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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle]
#14048039 - 03/01/11 11:29 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Just more cattle.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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Kickle
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Grapefruit]
#14048269 - 03/01/11 12:31 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Depends on how specific you get with the education. Most specialist positions require a great deal of independent thinking and the education received revolves around developing that independence. At least IME.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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HeartAndMind



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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle]
#14048281 - 03/01/11 12:34 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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The elementary school is teaching more about what you must know and must do in someones opinion, it's really lacking wisdom. Although, there are wise teachers, but still most are doing their job. I would love to sit in company of national americans while wise elder is teaching.
Imo, up to college, most part of what is taught is bs. All that I needed til 9Th grade was reading, writing, math and foreign language. And physics, just because my profession involves it.
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Asante
Mage


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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle]
#14048818 - 03/01/11 02:29 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Take one look in the Psychedelic Experience forum and tell me it wouldnt benefit from more elders visiting there and actually being listened to.
It exists in the Shroomery too. What are Trusted Cultivators, Trusted Identifiers and Moderators other than a sort of elders?
-------------------- Omnicyclion.org higher knowledge starts here
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Kickle
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Asante]
#14048837 - 03/01/11 02:33 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Yeah that's true. Seems the role of elder gets filled one way or another.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle] 1
#14049718 - 03/01/11 04:59 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I don't think anyone is important.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Kickle
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Icelander]
#14049726 - 03/01/11 05:00 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Why's that?
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest


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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle]
#14050046 - 03/01/11 05:55 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Sometimes moos make microwaves but them's still mooin.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle]
#14050110 - 03/01/11 06:05 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: Why's that?
Cause they all disappear without a trace.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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deCypher



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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Icelander]
#14050608 - 03/01/11 07:26 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think elders can give good advice but few of us young 'uns listen to it. Then again, the best lesson is experience IMO; sometimes words just aren't enough to let wisdom sink in.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle]
#14050658 - 03/01/11 07:35 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: To a large degree I feel as though the emergence of Elders in my life has been very limited. I mean, there is no tribal circle with an Elder telling stories to the youth. There really is no means in our world that I'm aware of for passing down the wisdom that years of living can cultivate. The internet is of course an ideal place, but often it's so full of bull headed youth that the Elder's congregate together instead of deal with the BS. And that leaves the youth to speak amongst themselves and to push forward making the same mistakes as the Elders already did and could have provided advice about. I dunno... I just feel like we do not value our Elders and often want only to hear what we want to hear and personally I think it's sad. But what about you? Do you think Elder's are to be valued, or are they stuck in the past and need to be moved beyond?
I have had very few Elders that I felt offered guidance. By and large, they have been university professors who were into things that I thought were cool. But notice, "professors" and "thought" are both intellectual foci, and an Elder in the sense of a trusted, more experienced mentor really needs to have an affective (affectionate) component. Not to be confused with the mentor-mentee relationships of ancient Sparta, mind you I'm thinking more of a guru-chela relationship which should not contain power or sexual dynamics. Ideally, it should be a heart-mind relationship - at least, that was always my ideal, and one only able to be acquired abstractly by extrapolating from the lives of Masters and learning to cultivate certain motives within myself. I can only compare any progress I've made to younger versions of myself. If I had not had a radical shift in my youth, then I'd be an older version of who I was before that shift. I'd still be materialist, greedy for experiences, focused on instinctual and social life and status, money, sex, progeny, and property. The usuals. The games that people take so seriously. I'm playing The Master Game (DeRopp) instead within a common life of work and insurance, taxes and grocery shopping. Maybe I'll be playing Gandalf the Grey instead of Grandpa, over bubbling retorts instead of burbling rug rats.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
Edited by MarkostheGnostic (03/01/11 08:05 PM)
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Icelander
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: deCypher]
#14050694 - 03/01/11 07:42 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
deCypher said: I think elders can give good advice but few of us young 'uns listen to it. Then again, the best lesson is experience IMO; sometimes words just aren't enough to let wisdom sink in.
True dat. It is a rare human that can learn from the experience of others. That's why vets against war can't make a dent.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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g00ru
lit pants tit licker



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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: I'm thinking more of a guru-chela relationship which should not contain power or sexual dynamics. Ideally, it should be a heart-mind relationship - at least, that was always my ideal, and one only able to be acquired abstractly by extrapolating from the lives of Masters and learning to cultivate certain motives within myself. I can only compare any progress I've made to younger versions of myself. If I had not had a radical shift in my youth, then I'd be an older version of who I was before that shift. I'd still be materialist, greedy for experiences, focused on instinctual and social life and status, money, sex, progeny, and property. The usuals. The games that people take so seriously. I'm playing The Master Game (DeRopp) instead within a common life of work and insurance, taxes and grocery shopping. Maybe I'll be playing Gandalf the Grey instead of Grandpa, over bubbling retorts instead of burbling rug rats. 
Well I don't think there are any rules to the guru-chela relationship, other than that it is bound to be aesthetically appealing and therefor probably won't involve any weird sex or power dynamics. What I got from your post is that you moved beyond the first three chakras, which is where 90% of society resides all the time, but in day to day life that's how you're going to have to interact. For me, I feel like I was born with very well functioning higher energetic centers and am working now to develop the lower ones so that i can actually move about in the world and effect change upon it. Just an interesting comparison across generations...I often think that the idea of indigo children is valid, that some young people now incarnated on this planet aren't coming from the same cosmic direction other generations have been. Maybe that's just every new generation though. Still interesting. Anywho, cool post as always
to answer the OP, I think elders are important but our society is bankrupt in that department because, having not developed higher states of consciousness, many people upon aging sink into creature comforts and stagnation. That will happen to all of us to some degree I'm sure, but an awareness of the energetic passage of life (thanks LSD!) can prepare you to handle old age in the best way possible. And do it all even better next time around.
Personally, I think i'm gonna be a dope elder
-------------------- check out my music! drowse in prison and your waking will be but loss
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Grapefruit
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: g00ru] 1
#14054857 - 03/02/11 02:05 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Icelander was a great elder but eventually I had to kill him.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: g00ru]
#14055278 - 03/02/11 03:25 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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As Wilber says, 'transcend and include.' I am a composite of the centers (7 or 5 depending on whether you combine the upper two and lower two, as in Vajrayana Yoga). I have had a radical shift, and like the symbol for Sufism, my Heart has wings. I am not submerged in the lower centers, but try to remain in the Heart Center as a witness of my lower needs. I often deny the motivations of those centers (not the physical operations of the centers: defecation, urination/ejaculation, digestion). I need to maintain the motivational balance of the lower centers for essential life in the world, but I look 'upward' so-to-speak to motivations for meaning, insight, enlightenment, communication of any enlightenment gleaned and a realization of all the centers as the facets of one Diamond Body.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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gnrm23
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(hiya markos) well, some of "us" are in our late 50s to early 60s (hey, stephen & ina may gaskin gotta be in their early 70s, maybe...) one thing age may be able to confer (if yr lucky & maybe observant)is a bit of perspective... fwiw... namaste
-------------------- old enough to know better not old enough to care
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: gnrm23]
#14056738 - 03/02/11 08:00 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Hi gnrm23! Always nice to see you're still about! You were well established in the old S&P forum when I joined in '99, and we were elders even then. Yes perspective. I wonder if there are any others here who know the hippies you're referring to. We're all on the conveyor belt of time, like the last page of BE HERE NOW (sacred # 108): "You're Standing On A Bridge Watching Yourself Go By. (Wow! Look at that!)"
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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g00ru
lit pants tit licker



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that page freaked me out the first time i read it but really it's beautiful. Everything is just happening.
-------------------- check out my music! drowse in prison and your waking will be but loss
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The_Ghost
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle]
#14072026 - 03/05/11 05:43 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: To a large degree I feel as though the emergence of Elders in my life has been very limited. I mean, there is no tribal circle with an Elder telling stories to the youth. There really is no means in our world that I'm aware of for passing down the wisdom that years of living can cultivate. The internet is of course an ideal place, but often it's so full of bull headed youth that the Elder's congregate together instead of deal with the BS. And that leaves the youth to speak amongst themselves and to push forward making the same mistakes as the Elders already did and could have provided advice about. I dunno... I just feel like we do not value our Elders and often want only to hear what we want to hear and personally I think it's sad. But what about you? Do you think Elder's are to be valued, or are they stuck in the past and need to be moved beyond?
They were more important in small tribal communities. With the rise of globalization our elders have become the Einsteins and the Buddhas. Time and distance doesn't really matter when we can access that information in other ways than stories exchanged over a campfire.
-------------------- / / / / / / / LISTEN TO MY MUSIC: E X E D / / / / / / / The universe gives no fucks. And takes no fucks. May His Circuits Ever Function
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daytripper23
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Kickle]
#14075426 - 03/06/11 12:32 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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As people get older they tend to "perceive" the thing-in-itself, as opposed to the phenomenal object.
The manner that these general intuitions relate to the thing in itself, is either the wisdom of the guru-type, or the prejudice of the crotchety-type.
There you have it.
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Lion
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Quote:
I think elders can give good advice but few of us young 'uns listen to it.
Indeed, young people will always repeat the mistakes of the previous generations. Learning the hard way seems inevitable with many aspects of human life.
I have people in my life who I consider to be 'wise elders' whose words I listen to and whose attitudes I try to understand and often adopt. Maybe the foremost example of these people is my uncle. MarkostheGnostic here at the Shroomery would be another such example.
In Romani culture, it is considered a much greater tragedy when a very old person dies than when a very young person dies, because the former takes away so many years worth of unique life experience and wisdom that will never be seen again in the world. I think it's pretty neat.
-------------------- “Strengthened by contemplation and study, I will not fear my passions like a coward. My body I will give to pleasures, to diversions that I’ve dreamed of, to the most daring erotic desires, to the lustful impulses of my blood, without any fear at all, for whenever I will— and I will have the will, strengthened as I’ll be with contemplation and study— at the crucial moments I’ll recover my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Are Elders important? [Re: Lion]
#14082869 - 03/07/11 06:33 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Lion said:
Quote:
I think elders can give good advice but few of us young 'uns listen to it.
Indeed, young people will always repeat the mistakes of the previous generations. Learning the hard way seems inevitable with many aspects of human life.
I have people in my life who I consider to be 'wise elders' whose words I listen to and whose attitudes I try to understand and often adopt. Maybe the foremost example of these people is my uncle. MarkostheGnostic here at the Shroomery would be another such example.
In Romani culture, it is considered a much greater tragedy when a very old person dies than when a very young person dies, because the former takes away so many years worth of unique life experience and wisdom that will never be seen again in the world. I think it's pretty neat.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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