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...I think the quote that I added regarding people who are 'shit' is quite a useful tool to carry in this life.
When I think of someone as 'shit' - I simply mean when someone acts in a way which is offensive to me. I'm very open to the fact that it could always be me who has the problem, which is why I tend not to take the offensive, but rather withdraw to a space where I can effectively analyse the situation.

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While I generally agree with nearly all manners or means of finding distinction and value in the world, as opposed to what is commonly not attempting that, I would at least attempt to argue that negativity (whether you look for it in yourself, or others) can't be considered basically or essentially demonstrative of anything. The notion could be expressed, but in point I agree with Nietzsche that it just doesn't make much sense to base “values” on the bad or negative, even if it is possible. I also think there is more to this though. I think it would be more native to my own philosophical temperament in fact, and perhaps your own as well, to argue this another way.

From a “point” of withdrawal, as you suggest in the quote, it is interesting that there may be so much observation and emphasis on the phenomenal character of our impression of things, even the quality of an impression itself. Maybe it is all the more visceral in meditation. And yet I also observe the object or goal in many meditations, is to cease the said impression in some sense. "Yoga is ceasing the impressions of the mind". That impression is apparently given an immanent distinction in buddhist's pessimism, in a world of suffering: “This one (with right view)... has no perplexity or doubt that what arises is only suffering arising, what ceases is only suffering ceasing.”

If it were possible to suggest, and follow such notions as this, as points of dialogue, I would say I am less wondering how this negative impression is attributed to this or that, rightly or wrongly, but how consciousness or awareness deals with “shit”. 

Spontaneity, action, and distinction in the world, may be considered basic as Nietzsche well argues, which is also something many philosophers miss. Immersed in action, in the physical reflexes for instance, they will tend to blend with “reactions” of the sort I may consider hiccups or mistakes. In action I may see and observe this, but there is always something burning and flowing through action, and I am not stepping back from this and wondering how this or that happened, and I am not going to repeat something from the beginning to get it right necessarily. Maybe all I am is a being of neuro-muscular reflexes, and indeed that includes the more abrasive “reactions” in flow and unity of physical organism. It is all the same “stuff”, although I believe that is less to speak of the nature of “the physical body” (an easy association to make) as the nature of action.

If on the other hand, I have an ideal of peace or stillness as well, I am in this way also observing emotions and thought complexes, and presenting their phenomena to myself this way, and I am doing this perhaps all the more, in more subtlety and awareness, in relief from stillness. Any arising, any burning, is not what I am ultimately looking for in ideal stillness, and yet I am looking and observing like a cat watching a hole in the wall for a mouse. Or maybe the way I would observe is looking for something like a nervous tic or a “knee jerk” reaction that I can give awareness to.

While I find that acknowledging my attitude toward the nature of these impressions is important, and important to be consistent in, what I finally observe is that generally my impression can seem to change significantly. While I get that the impression is of something “there”, I wonder how I attribute this. How do I attribute things like suffering and the general shittiness of things to life? I guess all I have is these roundabout questions...? These considerations are touching and overlapping in some places, in a very complex way (even though that complex may be completely conditional, and simplified, as just awareness for instance).

What I was critical of in drawing an association, was originally, of whether it is possible to base distinctions or values on something bad (the Nietzschean argument), even if badness exists. But I think it must not just be a matter if it is appropriately or inappropriately attributed, and I still wonder where the general idea (the analogy itself) of pessimism towards life, the shit of it comes from. Is it based on some notion of “the lowness” of physical nature, and some notion of seperation of things?

Anyways, I am not saying I disagree with self responsible approaches, as you seem to have described. I think that you are able to examine that essential attribute, and change your opinion on it, has got to be something. I am curious about the "tool" you speak of. Resolving to put up with someone else's shit, or indeed being at any point able to reconsider a judgement that a person literally is shit, (and I mean still have something to do with him) is something I haven't been unlucky enough to grok, perhaps. I am not saying I don't have my own problems, and sense of responsibility, for sure, but I think they have been accidental problems, rather than so essentially based on the character of people.

I have gotten some good whiffs...I think our medical care system in the united states is shit, our people gaurding it, and focusing on pretentious methodological slants and objectification (symptoms) rather than care, and embodied health, is pretty shitty, and I think that politicians arguing for what is appropriate for us is shitty, but its all just kind of like this big giant vague shit, and mostly what I observe is a lack of consciousness, more than conscious evils. I could well be naive, but that is where I am coming from, anyway.

To be able to raise essential questions, and perhaps be wrong, or change my opinion, is something I'd consider to be well and appreciable...

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without creating a great deal of conflict?

How do you halt or handle a manipulator like this?

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1. Everybody is a manipulator
2.  Conflict is a very natural and normal human experience. I am under the impression that your perception of conflict may carry a negative view. Please, refer to some communication studies on what conflict is and how to deal best with both inter and intra personal conflict situations from a perspective that may fit you better. 

Jokeshopbeard said:

Thanks for saying Kurt. Do you think you could sum that up in a couple of sentences? I'm sorry to have to ask, but your intellect dazzles me sometimes!

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A tangle within,
a tangle without,
people are entangled in a tangle.
Gotama, I ask you this:
who can untangle this tangle?

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Human relationships, especially when conflict has recently been part of the environment, need time to grow slowly, to recover from stress, and to put down roots. We can "harvest" the fruits of careful labor (Kritek 1994, 275)

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Cognitive_Shift said:

Manipulating is what people do best and we all do it.  Some of us are just more blunt and non-discrete about hiding it.

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I think he is, at a lower level than the pros in the vid), is simply asking you to believe whatever he tells you, uncritically and without asking questions. Naturally, he expects that any lies and deceptions he comes out with will also be accepted uncritically.

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This is exactly what he was implying and why it disgusted me.
Since I've made this thread, I've had a couple opportunities to hack at the roots of his thinking with success all while encouraging him to plant in himself seeds of thought which if nurtured, lead to behavior and thinking healthier for himself and those around him.