Wisdom
There is no harmony when fair reasonings have their habitation in the soul, yet, do no good, but, rather worse. Because reason fails to rule or be obeyed when the soul is opposed to knowledge or opinion or reason, which are her natural lords just as when multitudes refuse to obey their rulers or the laws.
Aquinas says the supernatural gift of wisdom is not just speculative, but practical. From the gift of wisdom to not only contemplate divine things, but to regulate human acts, as well. Such infused wisdom not only extends to the hidden mysteries of divine things, which are beyond the greatest wisdom man can acquire on his own. This wisdom directs men’s actions to the sovereign good, which is the last end, by knowing, he is said to be wise.
Unattributed
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Uncanny
The uncanny is a Freudian concept where something can be familiar and foreign, at the same time, coming to be uncomfortably strange.
The uncanny brings about the paradox of being attracted to, while repulsed, as a cognitive dissonance. This dissonance leads to an outright rejection as one would rather reject than rationalize.
Ernst Jentsch defines uncanny as “doubts whether an apparently animate object is really alive, or conversely, whether a lifeless object may indeed be animate.
In a story of one of the most successful uncanny effects is to leave the reader guessing whether a figure is a mannequin, or just another pretty face. But to do it in a way that his attention is not focused on his uncertainty so that he doesn't investigate and clear up the uncertainty, immediately.
Of the same story Freud describes the effect of “robbing one's eyes” as the more striking evidence of the uncanny. He goes on to describe uncanny effects that come from repetition of the same thing, where one gets lost and accidentally retraces his steps. This refers to Carl Jung's synchronicity where random number occur and to Otto Rank's the “doppleganger”, or evil twin.
Freud contrasts the German concept “unheimlich”, the secret and hidden as in a social taboo that yields not only a pious reverence but horror and and even disgust as that hidden from the public eye must be a dangerous threat or even abomination, especially if the threat is presumably sexual in nature.
A further breakdown of”unheimlich”, the secret and hidden is with one opposite meaning, “heimlich”, the agreeable and familiar. Schelling takes it further saying everything “unheimlich” that ought to have remained secret and hidden has come to light.
Wikipedia
The uncanny is a Freudian concept where something can be familiar and foreign, at the same time, coming to be uncomfortably strange.
The uncanny brings about the paradox of being attracted to, while repulsed, as a cognitive dissonance. This dissonance leads to an outright rejection as one would rather reject than rationalize.
Ernst Jentsch defines uncanny as “doubts whether an apparently animate object is really alive, or conversely, whether a lifeless object may indeed be animate.
In a story of one of the most successful uncanny effects is to leave the reader guessing whether a figure is a mannequin, or just another pretty face. But to do it in a way that his attention is not focused on his uncertainty so that he doesn't investigate and clear up the uncertainty, immediately.
Of the same story Freud describes the effect of “robbing one's eyes” as the more striking evidence of the uncanny. He goes on to describe uncanny effects that come from repetition of the same thing, where one gets lost and accidentally retraces his steps. This refers to Carl Jung's synchronicity where random number occur and to Otto Rank's the “doppleganger”, or evil twin.
Freud contrasts the German concept “unheimlich”, the secret and hidden as in a social taboo that yields not only a pious reverence but horror and and even disgust as that hidden from the public eye must be a dangerous threat or even abomination, especially if the threat is presumably sexual in nature.
A further breakdown of”unheimlich”, the secret and hidden is with one opposite meaning, “heimlich”, the agreeable and familiar. Schelling takes it further saying everything “unheimlich” that ought to have remained secret and hidden has come to light.
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Dark Nights of the Soul
Religion tends to sentimentalize the light and demonize the darkness. If you turn to spirituality to find only a positive and wholesome attitude, you are using spirituality to avoid life’s dark beauty. Religion easily becomes a defense and avoidance. Of course, this is not the real purpose of religion, and the religious traditions of the world, full of beautifully stated wisdom, are your best source of guidance in the dark.
Depression is a mood you endure and try to get through, while a dark night of the soul is a process in which your coarse soul is refined and your intelligence is deepened.
In many segments of culture today, having a lively intellectual life is considered “nerdy.” It’s “cool” not to know anything about history and not to have a thought in your head. The meaning of life is often reduced to cruising with the popular culture. It doesn’t take a course in psychoanalysis to glimpse severe anxiety behind this posture of know-nothingness. If you had ideas and took yourself seriously, you would have to be constantly awake, educating yourself, and getting involved in your community. It’s safer to hide out in a pretense of ignorance. For that is what “cool” mindedness is, a way to sleep through life and not feel the sting and challenge of being engaged.
One of the most striking weaknesses of television is its lack of wit. Generally you have to go to independent films and out-of-the-way literature to find brilliant, imaginative alternatives to formulaic storytelling and low-brow entertainment. Yet the sentimentality and anti-intellectualism that has come to be expected in television educates, or “de-educates”, masses of people on a daily basis.
Part of the problem with money is that it bears such a weight of meaning. It may give you a sense of worth and may mark progress in your life plans and hopes. The making of it, the spending of it, and the sheer possession of it may give you a rush of pleasure- and in that way act like a drug- or extreme anxiety. The pleasure may be so strong that it comes to stand for all other pleasures, and financial concerns may dwarf all other values.
What we really have to do is restore money to the deep soul. The point is not to try to make a life free of the dark nights it brings, but to enter those financial dramas that afflict you with confusion and emotion. The lesson here is simple: Don’t try to avoid the emotions of money in fantasies of purity and control. Enter the fray, but keep your sensibilities intact. Don’t let money serve only your ego, propping you up and giving you control. Let it take you down into fantasy and memory. Find a part of yourself in your financial dark nights. Keep talking about the place of money in your life. Be creative with it. Don’t moralize against it, but let it offer you the dramas that, in the end, define who you are.
In sickness, the soul comes into the foreground. It asks for attention. If its wounds are addressed, then, perhaps, the physical manifestations will no longer be necessary. But care of the soul is not a surface activity; nor is it easy. It demands that you fully confront yourself and decide to live fully rather than half-heartedly. It asks that you learn to love with your whole heart and get over any self-pity or cynicism that may still remain in your heart. It asks that you transcend yourself in genuine concern for others and in a feeling of community that knows no boundaries. This is not an easy task, but it is the only way, finally, to health.
As you age, you sink more into the earthiness of your identity. You don’t have to understand this deep level of your existence, but you do have to trust it. You may discover over time that the deep self has a wisdom that you could never muster on the surface. It seems to take in experience and ruminate on it even as you go about your business. Insights arrive from that deep place, and you can trust it to offer help in making decisions.
Something highly spiritual in you may wish for wondrous success, but the deep soul longs for ordinary connection and engagement. It wants friendship, family and community. It longs for the simple pleasures, and from its perspective, the idea of justifying your existence is a dangerous distraction. Self-justification is an image, a narrative and a fantasy that gets a hold of you. The torment from such a preoccupation qualifies as a genuine dark night of the soul. It is beyond reason and can’t be argued away. People get attached to the idea and don’t want it taken from them. Evidently, it has something to give them, but that gift may be hidden for years before the torture diminishes and a satisfying way of life shows itself.
What is mediocrity in life? It is the failure to let the inner brilliance shine. The Latin word ‘scintilla’ means the spark that lives at the heart of a person. When that inner genius shows itself in personality, way of life, values and expression, mediocrity disappears. It is the cloud that prevents the spark from being seen. Mediocrity is the attitude of “do only what is necessary and sufficient,” the feeling of not having an essence worth showing. It involves giving up on the possibility of living an outstanding life.
Saint John of the Cross
Religion tends to sentimentalize the light and demonize the darkness. If you turn to spirituality to find only a positive and wholesome attitude, you are using spirituality to avoid life’s dark beauty. Religion easily becomes a defense and avoidance. Of course, this is not the real purpose of religion, and the religious traditions of the world, full of beautifully stated wisdom, are your best source of guidance in the dark.
Depression is a mood you endure and try to get through, while a dark night of the soul is a process in which your coarse soul is refined and your intelligence is deepened.
In many segments of culture today, having a lively intellectual life is considered “nerdy.” It’s “cool” not to know anything about history and not to have a thought in your head. The meaning of life is often reduced to cruising with the popular culture. It doesn’t take a course in psychoanalysis to glimpse severe anxiety behind this posture of know-nothingness. If you had ideas and took yourself seriously, you would have to be constantly awake, educating yourself, and getting involved in your community. It’s safer to hide out in a pretense of ignorance. For that is what “cool” mindedness is, a way to sleep through life and not feel the sting and challenge of being engaged.
One of the most striking weaknesses of television is its lack of wit. Generally you have to go to independent films and out-of-the-way literature to find brilliant, imaginative alternatives to formulaic storytelling and low-brow entertainment. Yet the sentimentality and anti-intellectualism that has come to be expected in television educates, or “de-educates”, masses of people on a daily basis.
Part of the problem with money is that it bears such a weight of meaning. It may give you a sense of worth and may mark progress in your life plans and hopes. The making of it, the spending of it, and the sheer possession of it may give you a rush of pleasure- and in that way act like a drug- or extreme anxiety. The pleasure may be so strong that it comes to stand for all other pleasures, and financial concerns may dwarf all other values.
What we really have to do is restore money to the deep soul. The point is not to try to make a life free of the dark nights it brings, but to enter those financial dramas that afflict you with confusion and emotion. The lesson here is simple: Don’t try to avoid the emotions of money in fantasies of purity and control. Enter the fray, but keep your sensibilities intact. Don’t let money serve only your ego, propping you up and giving you control. Let it take you down into fantasy and memory. Find a part of yourself in your financial dark nights. Keep talking about the place of money in your life. Be creative with it. Don’t moralize against it, but let it offer you the dramas that, in the end, define who you are.
In sickness, the soul comes into the foreground. It asks for attention. If its wounds are addressed, then, perhaps, the physical manifestations will no longer be necessary. But care of the soul is not a surface activity; nor is it easy. It demands that you fully confront yourself and decide to live fully rather than half-heartedly. It asks that you learn to love with your whole heart and get over any self-pity or cynicism that may still remain in your heart. It asks that you transcend yourself in genuine concern for others and in a feeling of community that knows no boundaries. This is not an easy task, but it is the only way, finally, to health.
As you age, you sink more into the earthiness of your identity. You don’t have to understand this deep level of your existence, but you do have to trust it. You may discover over time that the deep self has a wisdom that you could never muster on the surface. It seems to take in experience and ruminate on it even as you go about your business. Insights arrive from that deep place, and you can trust it to offer help in making decisions.
Something highly spiritual in you may wish for wondrous success, but the deep soul longs for ordinary connection and engagement. It wants friendship, family and community. It longs for the simple pleasures, and from its perspective, the idea of justifying your existence is a dangerous distraction. Self-justification is an image, a narrative and a fantasy that gets a hold of you. The torment from such a preoccupation qualifies as a genuine dark night of the soul. It is beyond reason and can’t be argued away. People get attached to the idea and don’t want it taken from them. Evidently, it has something to give them, but that gift may be hidden for years before the torture diminishes and a satisfying way of life shows itself.
What is mediocrity in life? It is the failure to let the inner brilliance shine. The Latin word ‘scintilla’ means the spark that lives at the heart of a person. When that inner genius shows itself in personality, way of life, values and expression, mediocrity disappears. It is the cloud that prevents the spark from being seen. Mediocrity is the attitude of “do only what is necessary and sufficient,” the feeling of not having an essence worth showing. It involves giving up on the possibility of living an outstanding life.
Saint John of the Cross
Monday, November 29, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Preparation
Imagine a reporter on the eleven o'clock news interviewing a firefighter who has just ran into a burning building and saved someone's life. Where did they find the courage to walk in the building, then to find and bring the person out of the building?
You never seem to see the hero in such stories gloat. The response is always something along the lines, “It was just my job”.
These high hazard jobs require deep personal courage, but some of the most effective preparation programs in the world. They undergo rigorous training. They read, study, attend lectures and take test after test. They spend weeks and months in physical drills. They practice the same moves, reactions and procedures over and over again until their reactions are automatic and instinctive.
Even after qualification, they work with veterans who observe, counsel and refine as the rookies prepare to face life-and-death situations.
Through this training and experience they develop inner gyroscopes to keep them balanced and give them a clear understanding of what and what not to do in emergencies, all of which opens luck's window that much wider.
Maverick Mindset- Hall and Wecker
Imagine a reporter on the eleven o'clock news interviewing a firefighter who has just ran into a burning building and saved someone's life. Where did they find the courage to walk in the building, then to find and bring the person out of the building?
You never seem to see the hero in such stories gloat. The response is always something along the lines, “It was just my job”.
These high hazard jobs require deep personal courage, but some of the most effective preparation programs in the world. They undergo rigorous training. They read, study, attend lectures and take test after test. They spend weeks and months in physical drills. They practice the same moves, reactions and procedures over and over again until their reactions are automatic and instinctive.
Even after qualification, they work with veterans who observe, counsel and refine as the rookies prepare to face life-and-death situations.
Through this training and experience they develop inner gyroscopes to keep them balanced and give them a clear understanding of what and what not to do in emergencies, all of which opens luck's window that much wider.
Maverick Mindset- Hall and Wecker
Sunday, November 28, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Doublespeak
Defined as a language that attempts to communicate, but, really, doesn't. Its a language that makes the bad seem good, the negative seem positive, the unpleasant seem attractive, or at least tolerable. Doublespeak is a language that avoids or shifts responsibility, language at a variance with its real or purported meaning. Its a language that conceals or prevents thought. Rather than extending thought doublespeak limits it.
William Lutz, Committee Chair
National Council of Teachers of English- Committee on Doublespeak
Defined as a language that attempts to communicate, but, really, doesn't. Its a language that makes the bad seem good, the negative seem positive, the unpleasant seem attractive, or at least tolerable. Doublespeak is a language that avoids or shifts responsibility, language at a variance with its real or purported meaning. Its a language that conceals or prevents thought. Rather than extending thought doublespeak limits it.
William Lutz, Committee Chair
National Council of Teachers of English- Committee on Doublespeak
God forbade...must reading!
Red Flags
Sometimes we fall for the wrong person because we believe that old adage opposites attract. It could be our friends and family caution us against it and we want to prove them wrong. Or, simply, because its been such a long time since we’ve felt connected to someone. Little red flags often go overlooked when romance is overdue.
Flannel Pajamas- Chicago
Sometimes we fall for the wrong person because we believe that old adage opposites attract. It could be our friends and family caution us against it and we want to prove them wrong. Or, simply, because its been such a long time since we’ve felt connected to someone. Little red flags often go overlooked when romance is overdue.
Flannel Pajamas- Chicago
Saturday, November 27, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Child Prodigy
One of life's fanatasies is to have a gifted child, all the steering, maneuvering and encouragement. Despite it all, we will love the child as he is. The following are obervations and the result of study on the subject.
-extreme precocity
-domain specific abilities
-single mindedness of purpose
-seeming wisdom
-uncanny maturity
The prodigy is pretuned to an already existing body of knowledge, one that countless others had spent time and energy developing and refining. A remarkable intersection of person and field as if the two had been made for each other.
In addition to the natural capacities of the child prodigy a set of responsive and interested parents must be there to recognize and support the early signs of extreme talent. A domain must be introduced early enough to appropriately engage the energy, ability and enthusiasm of the child. Domains themselves evolve and change with time. Skills and abilities in one domain may not be duplicated by the demands of another domain.
When a climate of receptivity exists for certain fields, a set of cultural rewards, practices and values chrystalizes uniquely.
One too involved with achieving external goals outside of the activity, whose main concern is winning, can’t pay undivided attention to what they’re doing. Creative achievements depend on single-minded immersion in the domain.
unattributed
One of life's fanatasies is to have a gifted child, all the steering, maneuvering and encouragement. Despite it all, we will love the child as he is. The following are obervations and the result of study on the subject.
-extreme precocity
-domain specific abilities
-single mindedness of purpose
-seeming wisdom
-uncanny maturity
The prodigy is pretuned to an already existing body of knowledge, one that countless others had spent time and energy developing and refining. A remarkable intersection of person and field as if the two had been made for each other.
In addition to the natural capacities of the child prodigy a set of responsive and interested parents must be there to recognize and support the early signs of extreme talent. A domain must be introduced early enough to appropriately engage the energy, ability and enthusiasm of the child. Domains themselves evolve and change with time. Skills and abilities in one domain may not be duplicated by the demands of another domain.
When a climate of receptivity exists for certain fields, a set of cultural rewards, practices and values chrystalizes uniquely.
One too involved with achieving external goals outside of the activity, whose main concern is winning, can’t pay undivided attention to what they’re doing. Creative achievements depend on single-minded immersion in the domain.
unattributed
Friday, November 26, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Habits
Without habits of action neither the individual nor society can avoid chaos. Habits bind day to day in a continuity that would be lost if the recurring problems in conduct or thought had to be solved anew each time they arose. Without habits life would become unbearably burdensome, it would bog down under the weight of decision making. Habits are the flywheel of society, says William James.
Without habits of action neither the individual nor society can avoid chaos. Habits bind day to day in a continuity that would be lost if the recurring problems in conduct or thought had to be solved anew each time they arose. Without habits life would become unbearably burdensome, it would bog down under the weight of decision making. Habits are the flywheel of society, says William James.
God forbade...must reading!
Deception
Analogy- others could feel just the way we do.
Deception- known by the way we’ve deceived and others have deceived us.
Skeptics say we never have any good reason to believe anyone else is experiencing anything whatsoever. Deception implies there is something to hide, like our true intentions, because the point of deception is usually to get others to believe that we intend, what, in fact, we do not.
Why believe in the existence of other minds? Because we do and can’t stop doing so. We believe in other minds because even the most skeptical objections fail to generate a living doubt in us, just as some believers accept the existence of God even after hearing all the proofs knocked down.
A pessimistic fundamental principle of society, a will to the denial of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one thinks profoundly to the very basis and resists all sentimental weakness; life itself is essential appropriation injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, infringement of peculiar forms, incorporation, and, at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation, life is will to power.
The noble man separates from the opposite of the exalted proud, disposition displays itself, he despises them. The cowardly, the timid, the insignificant and those thinking merely of narrow utility are despised. Moreover the distrustful with uneasy glances, the self-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused, the begging, apple polishing flatterers, the weasles and, above all, the liars.
Supposing, the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemancipated, the weary, those uncertain of themselves should moralize. They will probably find a pessimistic suspicion toward the human situation, maybe a condemnation of man together with his situation.
On the other hand those qualities that alleviate sufferers existence are brought into prominence and are flooded with light. Here, sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, humility and friendliness attain to honor. Here these are the most useful qualities and almost any means of supporting the burden of existence.
Fred Nietzke-
The Nihilist
Morality
Analogy- others could feel just the way we do.
Deception- known by the way we’ve deceived and others have deceived us.
Skeptics say we never have any good reason to believe anyone else is experiencing anything whatsoever. Deception implies there is something to hide, like our true intentions, because the point of deception is usually to get others to believe that we intend, what, in fact, we do not.
Why believe in the existence of other minds? Because we do and can’t stop doing so. We believe in other minds because even the most skeptical objections fail to generate a living doubt in us, just as some believers accept the existence of God even after hearing all the proofs knocked down.
A pessimistic fundamental principle of society, a will to the denial of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one thinks profoundly to the very basis and resists all sentimental weakness; life itself is essential appropriation injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, infringement of peculiar forms, incorporation, and, at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation, life is will to power.
The noble man separates from the opposite of the exalted proud, disposition displays itself, he despises them. The cowardly, the timid, the insignificant and those thinking merely of narrow utility are despised. Moreover the distrustful with uneasy glances, the self-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused, the begging, apple polishing flatterers, the weasles and, above all, the liars.
Supposing, the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemancipated, the weary, those uncertain of themselves should moralize. They will probably find a pessimistic suspicion toward the human situation, maybe a condemnation of man together with his situation.
On the other hand those qualities that alleviate sufferers existence are brought into prominence and are flooded with light. Here, sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, humility and friendliness attain to honor. Here these are the most useful qualities and almost any means of supporting the burden of existence.
Fred Nietzke-
The Nihilist
Morality
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Procrastination
The only problem with long-term procrastination is that, sometimes, it becomes progressively more difficult to pull ourselves up out of the ruts. This is partly because we tend to define ourselves in terms of the work we do. We tie our egos and sense of self-esteem to our careers. And the corporate world reinforces the process. As our career journeys continue, we become comfortable in our supposed field of expertise and spend less time exploring new skills. We become addicted to our bonuses, our company cars and our regular paychecks- to the point where we lose ourselves. We forget that, once upon a time, we got along quite nicely without perks.
Maverick Mindset- Hall and Wicker
The only problem with long-term procrastination is that, sometimes, it becomes progressively more difficult to pull ourselves up out of the ruts. This is partly because we tend to define ourselves in terms of the work we do. We tie our egos and sense of self-esteem to our careers. And the corporate world reinforces the process. As our career journeys continue, we become comfortable in our supposed field of expertise and spend less time exploring new skills. We become addicted to our bonuses, our company cars and our regular paychecks- to the point where we lose ourselves. We forget that, once upon a time, we got along quite nicely without perks.
Maverick Mindset- Hall and Wicker
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Derealization
Derealization is an alteration or the perception or experience of the external world so that it appears strange or unreal. Other feelings include one's environment lacks spontaneity, emotional coloring and depth. It is not a stand alone disorder, but is a dissociative symptom of many psychiatric and neurological disorders.
Derealization is a subjective experience of unreality outside of the world. Depersonalization is an unreality in one's sense of self.
Many authors do not delineate the two as are seen as one construct, these symptoms often co-occur and the phenomenological experience of the self, others and world is one continuous whole. So, feelings of unreality may blend in and the person may puzzle over deciding whether it is himself or the world that feels unreal to them.
unattributed
Derealization is an alteration or the perception or experience of the external world so that it appears strange or unreal. Other feelings include one's environment lacks spontaneity, emotional coloring and depth. It is not a stand alone disorder, but is a dissociative symptom of many psychiatric and neurological disorders.
Derealization is a subjective experience of unreality outside of the world. Depersonalization is an unreality in one's sense of self.
Many authors do not delineate the two as are seen as one construct, these symptoms often co-occur and the phenomenological experience of the self, others and world is one continuous whole. So, feelings of unreality may blend in and the person may puzzle over deciding whether it is himself or the world that feels unreal to them.
unattributed
God forbade...must reading!
Corporate psychology
Sometimes, when we align ourselves with a collection of people, our individual values become blurred. At worst, we get caught up in what historians call “mob mentality”. Mobs aren't always sinister. A mob could be a group of friends or a project team in a corporate setting. Whatever, the mere act of being part of one can wear away your identity. The natural tendency is to blend in, to run with the pack.
Corporate psychology is the more successful a company is, the more its employees take on the company's mindset and values, while forsaking their own. In the process they can lose a sense of self-worth.
You are you; the sum of your personality, your upbringing, everything that ever happened to you, they ways you've reacted.
As a result of inevitable waves of downsizing and reengineering and people get pink slips, they fall deeper into depression, wrapping themselves more tightly in self-pity than those with values and identities apart from their careers.
Maverick Mindset- Doug Hall, David Wecker
Sometimes, when we align ourselves with a collection of people, our individual values become blurred. At worst, we get caught up in what historians call “mob mentality”. Mobs aren't always sinister. A mob could be a group of friends or a project team in a corporate setting. Whatever, the mere act of being part of one can wear away your identity. The natural tendency is to blend in, to run with the pack.
Corporate psychology is the more successful a company is, the more its employees take on the company's mindset and values, while forsaking their own. In the process they can lose a sense of self-worth.
You are you; the sum of your personality, your upbringing, everything that ever happened to you, they ways you've reacted.
As a result of inevitable waves of downsizing and reengineering and people get pink slips, they fall deeper into depression, wrapping themselves more tightly in self-pity than those with values and identities apart from their careers.
Maverick Mindset- Doug Hall, David Wecker
Sunday, November 21, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Ruling principle- Marcus Aurelius, 30 AD- Meditations
You are able to recover your life. Look at the things the way you used to, for in this is the recovery of your life.
I continually ask myself. What am I doing about my soul. What is this they call the ruling principle? Whose soul do I have now? A child’s, a young man’, an old woman’s, a tyrant’s or wild beast’s?
Examine other men’s ruling principles, even wise men, what kind of things they avoid and what kinds they pursue.
Don’t waste the rest of your life wondering what others do, when you don’t refer your own thoughts to some object of common use. When you have such thoughts you lose the opportunity to do something else; what is so and so doing, why, what’s he saying, what’s he thinking of, what’s he planning..and so on making us wander away from the observation of our own ruling power.
Value the part of your mind that forms opinion. By this faculty, you will isolate inconsistencies with nature and the constitution of the rational human animal. To form opinion you will be free from hasty judgment, offer friendship toward men and obedience to the gods.
No longer wander by chance. You don’t read your own memoirs nor the acts of the ancient Romans, nor selections from books you keep for your old age. Throw away idle hopes and come to your own aid. If you care for yourself, hasten to the end before you while it’s in your power.
The ruling principle rouses and turns itself. While it makes itself as it is and as it wills to be, it makes everything that happens appear to itself as it wills.
The ruling principle doesn’t disturb itself. It doesn’t frighten itself or cause it self pain. The leading principle itself wants nothing, unless it makes a want for itself and is so free from agitation and is unimpeded.
The ruling part, consider this: You are an old man, no longer be a slave, no longer pulled by the strings like a puppet to unsocial movements, no longer dissatisfied with what you have, don’t shrink from the future.
Retire into yourself. The ruling principle has this nature. When it does what is just, it is content with itself and so secures tranquility.
You are able to recover your life. Look at the things the way you used to, for in this is the recovery of your life.
I continually ask myself. What am I doing about my soul. What is this they call the ruling principle? Whose soul do I have now? A child’s, a young man’, an old woman’s, a tyrant’s or wild beast’s?
Examine other men’s ruling principles, even wise men, what kind of things they avoid and what kinds they pursue.
Don’t waste the rest of your life wondering what others do, when you don’t refer your own thoughts to some object of common use. When you have such thoughts you lose the opportunity to do something else; what is so and so doing, why, what’s he saying, what’s he thinking of, what’s he planning..and so on making us wander away from the observation of our own ruling power.
Value the part of your mind that forms opinion. By this faculty, you will isolate inconsistencies with nature and the constitution of the rational human animal. To form opinion you will be free from hasty judgment, offer friendship toward men and obedience to the gods.
No longer wander by chance. You don’t read your own memoirs nor the acts of the ancient Romans, nor selections from books you keep for your old age. Throw away idle hopes and come to your own aid. If you care for yourself, hasten to the end before you while it’s in your power.
The ruling principle rouses and turns itself. While it makes itself as it is and as it wills to be, it makes everything that happens appear to itself as it wills.
The ruling principle doesn’t disturb itself. It doesn’t frighten itself or cause it self pain. The leading principle itself wants nothing, unless it makes a want for itself and is so free from agitation and is unimpeded.
The ruling part, consider this: You are an old man, no longer be a slave, no longer pulled by the strings like a puppet to unsocial movements, no longer dissatisfied with what you have, don’t shrink from the future.
Retire into yourself. The ruling principle has this nature. When it does what is just, it is content with itself and so secures tranquility.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Beyond Means
Comedian Will Rogers said,
“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”
Comedian Will Rogers said,
“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”
God forbade...must reading!
Fallacy of Distribution
A fallacy of distribution is a logical fallacy when an argument assumes there is no difference between a term in the distributive sense, referring to every member of a class, and the collective sense, referring to the class, itself, as a whole.
There are two variations of the fallacy.
Fallacy of Composition- assumes what is true of the parts is true of the whole, also known as arguing from the specific to the general.
“Since Judy is so diligent, the entire company must have an amazing work ethic.”
Fallacy of Division- assumes what is true of the whole is true of the parts, or some subset of parts.
“Because this company is so corrupt, so must every employee within be corrupt.”
Wikipedia
A fallacy of distribution is a logical fallacy when an argument assumes there is no difference between a term in the distributive sense, referring to every member of a class, and the collective sense, referring to the class, itself, as a whole.
There are two variations of the fallacy.
Fallacy of Composition- assumes what is true of the parts is true of the whole, also known as arguing from the specific to the general.
“Since Judy is so diligent, the entire company must have an amazing work ethic.”
Fallacy of Division- assumes what is true of the whole is true of the parts, or some subset of parts.
“Because this company is so corrupt, so must every employee within be corrupt.”
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Altruism
The only way life can be meaningful for all is if we were all involved in helping each other, in some kind of perpetual cycle of altruism. Its purpose is not to engage in the activity of helping, but to give real help. Help is only help if it has a desirable outcome. We need to remember the purpose of helping others is to bring them benefits, not to engage in charity for charity's sake.
Whats it All About- Julian Baggini
The only way life can be meaningful for all is if we were all involved in helping each other, in some kind of perpetual cycle of altruism. Its purpose is not to engage in the activity of helping, but to give real help. Help is only help if it has a desirable outcome. We need to remember the purpose of helping others is to bring them benefits, not to engage in charity for charity's sake.
Whats it All About- Julian Baggini
God forbade...must reading!
Hidden Agendas
There is no simple cause and effect. No two people travel the exact path from the day they are born until the day they die. All of us have different experiences with different people at different times in our lives. We interpreted those experiences differently, coped with stressful situations differently, attributed great significance to events someone else might have deemed unimportant, and so on.
Though we may have vowed to never become violent, the hostile feelings we try so desperately to suppress leak out anyway. We might be violent in more subtle ways- with disapproving looks, silent rebuffs, sarcasm, humiliation, love withdrawn or passive-aggressive behavior.
A psychological contract is an unspoken bargain that serves as the foundation of any relationship. Most of the rules we play by or the norms we live up to are completely unconscious.
Most relationships are held together by invisible connections for all to meet pivotal needs that they don’t even know they have. The unconscious elements of our psychological contracts are by far the greatest in number and often the most important to us. Though they are always unspecified and frequently unrealistic or unattainable, we, none the less, expect these unacknowledged needs, wants and wishes to be fulfilled.
Your self concept is composed of your self-image, who you believe yourself to be now, your ego ideal, who you wish you were and are striving to become and your self-esteem, importantly, how you feel about yourself and how you measure up to the standards you set for yourself.
Hidden Agendas- Dr. Marlin S. Potash
There is no simple cause and effect. No two people travel the exact path from the day they are born until the day they die. All of us have different experiences with different people at different times in our lives. We interpreted those experiences differently, coped with stressful situations differently, attributed great significance to events someone else might have deemed unimportant, and so on.
Though we may have vowed to never become violent, the hostile feelings we try so desperately to suppress leak out anyway. We might be violent in more subtle ways- with disapproving looks, silent rebuffs, sarcasm, humiliation, love withdrawn or passive-aggressive behavior.
A psychological contract is an unspoken bargain that serves as the foundation of any relationship. Most of the rules we play by or the norms we live up to are completely unconscious.
Most relationships are held together by invisible connections for all to meet pivotal needs that they don’t even know they have. The unconscious elements of our psychological contracts are by far the greatest in number and often the most important to us. Though they are always unspecified and frequently unrealistic or unattainable, we, none the less, expect these unacknowledged needs, wants and wishes to be fulfilled.
Your self concept is composed of your self-image, who you believe yourself to be now, your ego ideal, who you wish you were and are striving to become and your self-esteem, importantly, how you feel about yourself and how you measure up to the standards you set for yourself.
Hidden Agendas- Dr. Marlin S. Potash
God forbade...must reading!
Imagination
Crucial to thinking is the imagination, because even where there is a crisis in understanding, where old categories of thought collapse, people can judge and understand what is happening. Imagination allows us to view things in their proper perspective and judge them without the benefit of a pre-given rule or universal.
Imagination puts close what is at a distance so we can see and understand it without bias and prejudice, to bridge the abysses of remoteness to understand what is far as it were our own affair.
Without this understanding we would never be able to take our bearings in the world.
It’s the only ‘inner compass’ we have.
With the use of imagination we can come to terms with a reality that may, initially, defy human comprehension.
D’Entreves
Hannah Arendt
The Myth of Evil- Philip Cole
Crucial to thinking is the imagination, because even where there is a crisis in understanding, where old categories of thought collapse, people can judge and understand what is happening. Imagination allows us to view things in their proper perspective and judge them without the benefit of a pre-given rule or universal.
Imagination puts close what is at a distance so we can see and understand it without bias and prejudice, to bridge the abysses of remoteness to understand what is far as it were our own affair.
Without this understanding we would never be able to take our bearings in the world.
It’s the only ‘inner compass’ we have.
With the use of imagination we can come to terms with a reality that may, initially, defy human comprehension.
D’Entreves
Hannah Arendt
The Myth of Evil- Philip Cole
God forbade...must reading!
Luke warmness
Fight against the softness that makes you lazy and careless in your spiritual life.
Remember that it might well be the beginning of half-heartedness…and, in the words of the scripture, God will vomit out the lukewarm.
unattributed
Fight against the softness that makes you lazy and careless in your spiritual life.
Remember that it might well be the beginning of half-heartedness…and, in the words of the scripture, God will vomit out the lukewarm.
unattributed
God forbade...must reading!
Mysticism
Professor Scholem explains the untying of knots of the soul means the liberation from the fetters of finitude so that they return to their origin, the Infinite One. Scholem says there are certain barriers which separate the personal existence of the soul from the stream of cosmic life…there is a dam that keeps the soul confined and protects it against the divine stream that flows all around it. What shuts up the soul in its finite personality? Sensible forms and images produce finite consciousness. They disappear in introvertive experience.
Professor Broad says God, in the popular sense, is a person. To be a person he thinks, he feels and he wills. These states of consciousness must, as they are simultaneous, possess the unity of a single mind. In so far as they are successive, they must possess personal identity. Broad defines a person in the sense in which Tom, Dick and Harry are persons.
Tennyson suggests the popular idea of God as a clergyman. God is a temporal being. In spite of being called unchangeable, he is angry with us today, pleased with us tomorrow. He entertains, at different times, different ideas. He makes plans for the universe in the same sense as a human makes plans for building a house. With the exception God needs no materials to work with and made the universe out of nothing.
The only solution to the problem of the status of nirvana is that there is no solution. All attempts of the logical intellect to comprehend these mystical ultimates lead only to insoluble paradox. He who asks for a solution is unaware of the inherent paradoxicality of all mysticism. He who is dissatisfied with the negatives, “not this, not that”, and who seeks positive solution must, himself, climb beyond space and time and experience that unity. Doubtless, he will not find a solution, if by that is meant a theoretical understanding. What will he find? That is what cannot be said, but only experienced.
Mysticism has come to be opposed to the rational and institutional aspects of religious life. It is very frequently regarded as a form of experience common to all religious traditions. It represents a level of unity in the religious apprehension of reality deeper than the merely historical and linguistic diversities between faiths.
The ‘mystic’ is not only a potential critic, but a potential destroyer; religions with a highly developed sense of orthodoxy and its limits, of the boundaries of acceptable diversity, normally have a rich literature of ‘anti-mystical’ reaction and technique. The uncontrolled and the unpredictable elements in the vocation to this kind of holiness are both the most valuable and the most suspect of its contributions. For a religious tradition to foster and sustain the forms of non-ritual access to the sacred is for it to take a necessary and calculated, but, still quite genuine risk.
Theresa of Avila- Rowan Williams
Professor Scholem explains the untying of knots of the soul means the liberation from the fetters of finitude so that they return to their origin, the Infinite One. Scholem says there are certain barriers which separate the personal existence of the soul from the stream of cosmic life…there is a dam that keeps the soul confined and protects it against the divine stream that flows all around it. What shuts up the soul in its finite personality? Sensible forms and images produce finite consciousness. They disappear in introvertive experience.
Professor Broad says God, in the popular sense, is a person. To be a person he thinks, he feels and he wills. These states of consciousness must, as they are simultaneous, possess the unity of a single mind. In so far as they are successive, they must possess personal identity. Broad defines a person in the sense in which Tom, Dick and Harry are persons.
Tennyson suggests the popular idea of God as a clergyman. God is a temporal being. In spite of being called unchangeable, he is angry with us today, pleased with us tomorrow. He entertains, at different times, different ideas. He makes plans for the universe in the same sense as a human makes plans for building a house. With the exception God needs no materials to work with and made the universe out of nothing.
The only solution to the problem of the status of nirvana is that there is no solution. All attempts of the logical intellect to comprehend these mystical ultimates lead only to insoluble paradox. He who asks for a solution is unaware of the inherent paradoxicality of all mysticism. He who is dissatisfied with the negatives, “not this, not that”, and who seeks positive solution must, himself, climb beyond space and time and experience that unity. Doubtless, he will not find a solution, if by that is meant a theoretical understanding. What will he find? That is what cannot be said, but only experienced.
Mysticism has come to be opposed to the rational and institutional aspects of religious life. It is very frequently regarded as a form of experience common to all religious traditions. It represents a level of unity in the religious apprehension of reality deeper than the merely historical and linguistic diversities between faiths.
The ‘mystic’ is not only a potential critic, but a potential destroyer; religions with a highly developed sense of orthodoxy and its limits, of the boundaries of acceptable diversity, normally have a rich literature of ‘anti-mystical’ reaction and technique. The uncontrolled and the unpredictable elements in the vocation to this kind of holiness are both the most valuable and the most suspect of its contributions. For a religious tradition to foster and sustain the forms of non-ritual access to the sacred is for it to take a necessary and calculated, but, still quite genuine risk.
Theresa of Avila- Rowan Williams
God forbade...must reading!
Deception
Analogy- others could feel just the way we do.
Deception- known by the way we’ve deceived and others have deceived us.
Skeptics say we never have any good reason to believe anyone else is experiencing anything whatsoever. Deception implies there is something to hide, like our true intentions, because the point of deception is usually to get others to believe that we intend, what, in fact, we do not.
Why believe in the existence of other minds? Because we do and can’t stop doing so. We believe in other minds because even the most skeptical objections fail to generate a living doubt in us, just as some believers accept the existence of God even after hearing all the proofs knocked down.
A pessimistic fundamental principle of society, a will to the denial of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one thinks profoundly to the very basis and resists all sentimental weakness; life itself is essential appropriation injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, infringement of peculiar forms, incorporation, and, at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation, life is will to power.
The noble man separates from the opposite of the exalted proud, disposition displays itself, he despises them. The cowardly, the timid, the insignificant and those thinking merely of narrow utility are despised. Moreover the distrustful with uneasy glances, the self-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused, the begging, apple polishing flatterers, the weasles and, above all, the liars.
Supposing, the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemancipated, the weary, those uncertain of themselves should moralize. They will probably find a pessimistic suspicion toward the human situation, maybe a condemnation of man together with his situation.
On the other hand those qualities that alleviate sufferers existence are brought into prominence and are flooded with light. Here, sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, humility and friendliness attain to honor. Here these are the most useful qualities and almost any means of supporting the burden of existence.
Fred Nietzke-
The Nihilist
Morality
Analogy- others could feel just the way we do.
Deception- known by the way we’ve deceived and others have deceived us.
Skeptics say we never have any good reason to believe anyone else is experiencing anything whatsoever. Deception implies there is something to hide, like our true intentions, because the point of deception is usually to get others to believe that we intend, what, in fact, we do not.
Why believe in the existence of other minds? Because we do and can’t stop doing so. We believe in other minds because even the most skeptical objections fail to generate a living doubt in us, just as some believers accept the existence of God even after hearing all the proofs knocked down.
A pessimistic fundamental principle of society, a will to the denial of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one thinks profoundly to the very basis and resists all sentimental weakness; life itself is essential appropriation injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, infringement of peculiar forms, incorporation, and, at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation, life is will to power.
The noble man separates from the opposite of the exalted proud, disposition displays itself, he despises them. The cowardly, the timid, the insignificant and those thinking merely of narrow utility are despised. Moreover the distrustful with uneasy glances, the self-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused, the begging, apple polishing flatterers, the weasles and, above all, the liars.
Supposing, the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemancipated, the weary, those uncertain of themselves should moralize. They will probably find a pessimistic suspicion toward the human situation, maybe a condemnation of man together with his situation.
On the other hand those qualities that alleviate sufferers existence are brought into prominence and are flooded with light. Here, sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, humility and friendliness attain to honor. Here these are the most useful qualities and almost any means of supporting the burden of existence.
Fred Nietzke-
The Nihilist
Morality
Friday, November 19, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Machiavelli
His name and its ‘savvy’ are common. From ‘getting even’ at all costs to using people to their best ability, here are his own exerpts.
Niccollo Machiavelli , the name a synonym for political artfulness and ruthless conspiracy. But he has been applauded for having an exact and worldly sense of political realities and for understanding the actual and operative forces in political life.
The Prince
He who is the cause of another’s greatness is, himself, undone, since he must work either by address or force, each of which excites distrust in the person raised to power.
Men for the most part follow in the footsteps and imitate the actions of others, and yet are unable to adhere exactly to those paths which others have taken, or attain to the virtues of those whom they would resemble, the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled. If he cannot reach their perfection, he may, at least, acquire something of its savour.
Those princes who acquire by mere good fortune, do so with little trouble, but have trouble keeping it. They lack the knowledge and power that would enable them to maintain. Unless they have great parts and force of character, they are not expected to have learned to command, having always lived in a private station. States suddenly acquired, like all else produced and grown rapidly can never have such root or hold as the first storm which strikes them shall not overthrow them. Unless Princes have a capacity for learning quickly how to defend what Fortune has put in their lap and can lay the foundations after they rise which by others are laid before.
To slaughter fellow citizens, to betray friends, to be devoid of honor, pity and religion cannot be counted as merits, for these are the means which may lead to power, but which confer no glory.
While it was their opportunities that made these men fortunate, it was their own merit that enabled them to recognize these opportunities and turn them to account, to the glory and prosperity of their country.
But, before all things, a Prince should so live with his subjects that no sudden change of good or evil fortune shall oblige him to alter his behavior; because, if a need to change come through adversity, it is then too late to resort to severity; while any leniency you may use will be thrown away, for it will be seen to be compulsory and gain you no thanks.
Mercenaries are disunited, ambitious, insubordinate, treacherous, disrespectful among friends, cowardly before foes and without fear of God or faith with man. Whenever they are attacked defeat follows; so that in peace you are plundered by them, in war by your enemies. And this because they have no tie or motive to keep them in the field beyond their paltry pay, in return for which it would be too much to expect them to give their lives. They are ready enough, therefore, to be your soldiers while you are at peace, but when war is declared they make off and disappear.
For the gains resulting from mercenary arms are slow, late and inconsiderable, but the losses sudden and astounding.
The ruler is not truly wise who cannot discern evils before they develop themselves and this is a faculty given to few.
A Prince should have no care or thought but for war, and for the regulations and training it requires and should apply himself exclusively to this as his peculiar province; for war is the one art looked for in one who rules. It not only maintains those born Princes, but allows men to rise to that eminence from a private station. On the other hand we often see that when Princes devote themselves rather to pleasure than to arms, they lose their dominions. And as neglect of this art is the prime cause of such calamities, so to be proficient in it is the surest way to acquire power.
A Prince ought never to allow his attention to be diverted from warlike pursuits and should occupy himself with them even more in peace than in war, by practice or study.
Know the terrain, learn how it can be defended.
A good Prince should strive as other great men have so that he may derive strength from them in the hour of danger and find himself ready should Fortune turn against him to resist her blows.
Many Republics and Princedoms have been imagined that were never seen or known to exist in reality. And the manner in which we live, and that in which we ought to live, are things so wide asunder, that he who quits one to betake himself to the other is more likely to destroy than to save himself; since anyone who would act up to a perfect standard of goodness in everything, must be ruined among so many who are not good. It is essential for a Prince who desires to maintain his position, to have learned how to be other than good and to use or not use his goodness as necessity requires. There may be a line of conduct having the appearance of virtue to follow would be his ruin and that there may be another course having the appearance of vice, by following his safety and well-being are secured.
It is an unerring rule and of universal application that a Prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised by others, unless by chance he surrender himself to be wholly governed by someone adviser who happens to be supremely prudent; in which case he may, indeed, be well advised; but not for long, since such an adviser will soon deprive him of his government.
The Prince who rests wholly on Fortune is ruined when she changes. For if to one who conducts himself with caution and patience, time and circumstances are favorably disposed, so that his method of acting is good, he goes on prospering; but if these change, he is ruined, because he does not change his method of acting.
Fortune is a woman who to be kept under must be beaten and roughly handled; and we see that she suffers herself to be more readily mastered by those that so treat her than by those who are more timid in their approaches. And, always, like a woman, she favors the young, because they are less scrupulous and fiercer, and command her with greater audacity.
We see here the extraordinary and unexampled proofs of Divine favor. The sea has been divided; the cloud has attended you on your way; the rock has flowed with water; the manna has rained from heaven; everything has concurred to promote your greatness. What remains to be done must be done by you; since in order not to deprive us of our free will and such glory as belongs to us, God will not do everything himself!
His name and its ‘savvy’ are common. From ‘getting even’ at all costs to using people to their best ability, here are his own exerpts.
Niccollo Machiavelli , the name a synonym for political artfulness and ruthless conspiracy. But he has been applauded for having an exact and worldly sense of political realities and for understanding the actual and operative forces in political life.
The Prince
He who is the cause of another’s greatness is, himself, undone, since he must work either by address or force, each of which excites distrust in the person raised to power.
Men for the most part follow in the footsteps and imitate the actions of others, and yet are unable to adhere exactly to those paths which others have taken, or attain to the virtues of those whom they would resemble, the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled. If he cannot reach their perfection, he may, at least, acquire something of its savour.
Those princes who acquire by mere good fortune, do so with little trouble, but have trouble keeping it. They lack the knowledge and power that would enable them to maintain. Unless they have great parts and force of character, they are not expected to have learned to command, having always lived in a private station. States suddenly acquired, like all else produced and grown rapidly can never have such root or hold as the first storm which strikes them shall not overthrow them. Unless Princes have a capacity for learning quickly how to defend what Fortune has put in their lap and can lay the foundations after they rise which by others are laid before.
To slaughter fellow citizens, to betray friends, to be devoid of honor, pity and religion cannot be counted as merits, for these are the means which may lead to power, but which confer no glory.
While it was their opportunities that made these men fortunate, it was their own merit that enabled them to recognize these opportunities and turn them to account, to the glory and prosperity of their country.
But, before all things, a Prince should so live with his subjects that no sudden change of good or evil fortune shall oblige him to alter his behavior; because, if a need to change come through adversity, it is then too late to resort to severity; while any leniency you may use will be thrown away, for it will be seen to be compulsory and gain you no thanks.
Mercenaries are disunited, ambitious, insubordinate, treacherous, disrespectful among friends, cowardly before foes and without fear of God or faith with man. Whenever they are attacked defeat follows; so that in peace you are plundered by them, in war by your enemies. And this because they have no tie or motive to keep them in the field beyond their paltry pay, in return for which it would be too much to expect them to give their lives. They are ready enough, therefore, to be your soldiers while you are at peace, but when war is declared they make off and disappear.
For the gains resulting from mercenary arms are slow, late and inconsiderable, but the losses sudden and astounding.
The ruler is not truly wise who cannot discern evils before they develop themselves and this is a faculty given to few.
A Prince should have no care or thought but for war, and for the regulations and training it requires and should apply himself exclusively to this as his peculiar province; for war is the one art looked for in one who rules. It not only maintains those born Princes, but allows men to rise to that eminence from a private station. On the other hand we often see that when Princes devote themselves rather to pleasure than to arms, they lose their dominions. And as neglect of this art is the prime cause of such calamities, so to be proficient in it is the surest way to acquire power.
A Prince ought never to allow his attention to be diverted from warlike pursuits and should occupy himself with them even more in peace than in war, by practice or study.
Know the terrain, learn how it can be defended.
A good Prince should strive as other great men have so that he may derive strength from them in the hour of danger and find himself ready should Fortune turn against him to resist her blows.
Many Republics and Princedoms have been imagined that were never seen or known to exist in reality. And the manner in which we live, and that in which we ought to live, are things so wide asunder, that he who quits one to betake himself to the other is more likely to destroy than to save himself; since anyone who would act up to a perfect standard of goodness in everything, must be ruined among so many who are not good. It is essential for a Prince who desires to maintain his position, to have learned how to be other than good and to use or not use his goodness as necessity requires. There may be a line of conduct having the appearance of virtue to follow would be his ruin and that there may be another course having the appearance of vice, by following his safety and well-being are secured.
It is an unerring rule and of universal application that a Prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised by others, unless by chance he surrender himself to be wholly governed by someone adviser who happens to be supremely prudent; in which case he may, indeed, be well advised; but not for long, since such an adviser will soon deprive him of his government.
The Prince who rests wholly on Fortune is ruined when she changes. For if to one who conducts himself with caution and patience, time and circumstances are favorably disposed, so that his method of acting is good, he goes on prospering; but if these change, he is ruined, because he does not change his method of acting.
Fortune is a woman who to be kept under must be beaten and roughly handled; and we see that she suffers herself to be more readily mastered by those that so treat her than by those who are more timid in their approaches. And, always, like a woman, she favors the young, because they are less scrupulous and fiercer, and command her with greater audacity.
We see here the extraordinary and unexampled proofs of Divine favor. The sea has been divided; the cloud has attended you on your way; the rock has flowed with water; the manna has rained from heaven; everything has concurred to promote your greatness. What remains to be done must be done by you; since in order not to deprive us of our free will and such glory as belongs to us, God will not do everything himself!
God forbade...must reading!
Affairs
You probably didn’t go out looking for an affair, but the option of an affair is always possible. Some other wandering soul is just waiting to fill the void. You are vulnerable when things are off-track at home. When you feel needy you want to know that someone thinks you’re special. When you suppress feelings of discomfort you disable your ‘internal warning system’ that could tell you that you’re heading for trouble.
Affairs can begin without your noticing. You may confide in a friend of the opposite sex, or let a friend pamper you, without being honest with yourself about the sexual overtones. You justify the friendship to yourself while continuing to suppress your uncomfortable feelings. You stop mentioning your friend to your spouse. The relationship begins to take on a life of its own. It feels good and it’s compelling. It’s been a long time since you’ve talked to anyone so easily. Next thing you know, you’re involved sexually.
Most serious affairs begin as good friendships. You already have rapport. When you add loneliness and a case of boundary drift, you’ve got an affair. Early in a serious affair, the romance and excitement run high for both of you. Forgotten dreams spring to life, the promise of feeling alive is in the air and the fantasy of being whole and complete with your married lover seems within reach. It’s your secret- just the two of you- and its delicious!
There are marriages that succeed, individuals that succeed and affairs that succeed. They are those that are vital, dwell on the present, thrive on the joys and challenges and address the losses and mistakes that happen. They delight in intimacy, keep problems in perspective to resolve differences, to invest in themselves and others.
An affair is a collision for those close by. To some degree it’s unexpected. The more so, and the closer the family and friends, the greater the threat. At the same time it is titillating, like a good soap opera or a romance novel but friends and family have a front row seat.
Or maybe you avoid your discomfort at home by fantasizing about your ideal partner. Along comes a person who fits your fantasy and whose visions of being loved and cherished mesh with your own. You attach your dreams to this person and soon the two of you begin living a secret, secluded second life.
The purpose of the affair is to avoid taking responsibility for ending the marriage. Exiters are people who can’t say no without giving reasons and justifications, who are so afraid of offending or provoking conflict that they procrastinate, eventually acting out what they’re afraid to say in words, and thereby creating even greater conflict. They have difficulties with endings of all sorts.
The wife finds charges on the VISA bill,
"How could you? You’ve been lying to me all this time. You’re not the person I thought you were. You’re a cheat. You’re just like all the other men who cheat on their wives. And to think I trusted you! “Just what did you have in your mind? Wasn’t I good enough? What makes her so special? Is she better in bed? How could you do this to me? "
Boundary drift happens when you get into the habit of letting yourself or your partner slide across a boundary without comment, i.e. coming home an hour later than you said you would, so is spending more than the agreed amount for a new winter coat. Hiding the amount is another.
Boundary drift is a combination of the violation and the absence of attempts by either spouse to address it. You drift along not taking responsibility for yourself and not holding your partner accountable. The dead space between the two of you when you don’t act responsibly or talk honestly is cause for boundary drift.
Split selves are rational and responsible – overly so. Early in life they learned their job was to attend to the needs of others and not to their own needs and feelings. They approached life using only their rational self- a self not informed by the emotional self. Much of spousal work is devoted to getting acquainted with the emotional self.
Sometimes children will not resolve their parent’s affair until they are grown. The children reported difficulty with secrets, their ability to trust, unresolved anger and pain, disregard for their own feelings, family schisms, relationship problems and confused boundaries.
Affairs- Emily Brown
You probably didn’t go out looking for an affair, but the option of an affair is always possible. Some other wandering soul is just waiting to fill the void. You are vulnerable when things are off-track at home. When you feel needy you want to know that someone thinks you’re special. When you suppress feelings of discomfort you disable your ‘internal warning system’ that could tell you that you’re heading for trouble.
Affairs can begin without your noticing. You may confide in a friend of the opposite sex, or let a friend pamper you, without being honest with yourself about the sexual overtones. You justify the friendship to yourself while continuing to suppress your uncomfortable feelings. You stop mentioning your friend to your spouse. The relationship begins to take on a life of its own. It feels good and it’s compelling. It’s been a long time since you’ve talked to anyone so easily. Next thing you know, you’re involved sexually.
Most serious affairs begin as good friendships. You already have rapport. When you add loneliness and a case of boundary drift, you’ve got an affair. Early in a serious affair, the romance and excitement run high for both of you. Forgotten dreams spring to life, the promise of feeling alive is in the air and the fantasy of being whole and complete with your married lover seems within reach. It’s your secret- just the two of you- and its delicious!
There are marriages that succeed, individuals that succeed and affairs that succeed. They are those that are vital, dwell on the present, thrive on the joys and challenges and address the losses and mistakes that happen. They delight in intimacy, keep problems in perspective to resolve differences, to invest in themselves and others.
An affair is a collision for those close by. To some degree it’s unexpected. The more so, and the closer the family and friends, the greater the threat. At the same time it is titillating, like a good soap opera or a romance novel but friends and family have a front row seat.
Or maybe you avoid your discomfort at home by fantasizing about your ideal partner. Along comes a person who fits your fantasy and whose visions of being loved and cherished mesh with your own. You attach your dreams to this person and soon the two of you begin living a secret, secluded second life.
The purpose of the affair is to avoid taking responsibility for ending the marriage. Exiters are people who can’t say no without giving reasons and justifications, who are so afraid of offending or provoking conflict that they procrastinate, eventually acting out what they’re afraid to say in words, and thereby creating even greater conflict. They have difficulties with endings of all sorts.
The wife finds charges on the VISA bill,
"How could you? You’ve been lying to me all this time. You’re not the person I thought you were. You’re a cheat. You’re just like all the other men who cheat on their wives. And to think I trusted you! “Just what did you have in your mind? Wasn’t I good enough? What makes her so special? Is she better in bed? How could you do this to me? "
Boundary drift happens when you get into the habit of letting yourself or your partner slide across a boundary without comment, i.e. coming home an hour later than you said you would, so is spending more than the agreed amount for a new winter coat. Hiding the amount is another.
Boundary drift is a combination of the violation and the absence of attempts by either spouse to address it. You drift along not taking responsibility for yourself and not holding your partner accountable. The dead space between the two of you when you don’t act responsibly or talk honestly is cause for boundary drift.
Split selves are rational and responsible – overly so. Early in life they learned their job was to attend to the needs of others and not to their own needs and feelings. They approached life using only their rational self- a self not informed by the emotional self. Much of spousal work is devoted to getting acquainted with the emotional self.
Sometimes children will not resolve their parent’s affair until they are grown. The children reported difficulty with secrets, their ability to trust, unresolved anger and pain, disregard for their own feelings, family schisms, relationship problems and confused boundaries.
Affairs- Emily Brown
God forbade...must reading!
World Waiting to be Born
“A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally”
Oliver Hereford
In other words, civility might have much more to do with conscious intention- awareness- than with not hurting feelings. In fact, on occasion, it might actually be civil to hurt someone’s feelings as long as you know what you are doing.
Many with a “personal sense of destiny” when fulfilled their greatest joy was not their fame, but their relief. Their destinies had finally, finally begun to catch up with them.
All of us are actors in a marvelous, complex, cosmic drama. The most we can hope for is to get little glimpses of what the drama is about and little glimpses of how best to play our role.
But we say we don’t want to only be the best actor, we want to be the best scriptwriter.
God calls all of us- and always- to spiritual power, including the power to surrender.
We are all narcissistic to a degree, we all have a tendency to be remarkably unaware of the differentness, the separateness and uniqueness of our fellow human beings. Narcissists can have very little regard for others on many levels.
Many live in a narcissistic fantasy world and, would rather, than grow out of it by facing the friction of a “reality check”.
For most of us, if there is evidence around us that might point to our own sin and imperfection, if that evidence pushes us up against the wall, we usually come to recognize that something is wrong and we make some kind of self-correction.
Those who do not are ‘people of the lie’, because one of their distinguishing characteristics is their ability to lie to themselves, as well as to others, and to insist on being ignorant of their own faults or wrongdoing. Their guiding motive is to feel good about themselves, at all costs, at all times, no matter what evidence there may be that points to their sin or imperfection.
M Scott-Peck
“A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally”
Oliver Hereford
In other words, civility might have much more to do with conscious intention- awareness- than with not hurting feelings. In fact, on occasion, it might actually be civil to hurt someone’s feelings as long as you know what you are doing.
Many with a “personal sense of destiny” when fulfilled their greatest joy was not their fame, but their relief. Their destinies had finally, finally begun to catch up with them.
All of us are actors in a marvelous, complex, cosmic drama. The most we can hope for is to get little glimpses of what the drama is about and little glimpses of how best to play our role.
But we say we don’t want to only be the best actor, we want to be the best scriptwriter.
God calls all of us- and always- to spiritual power, including the power to surrender.
We are all narcissistic to a degree, we all have a tendency to be remarkably unaware of the differentness, the separateness and uniqueness of our fellow human beings. Narcissists can have very little regard for others on many levels.
Many live in a narcissistic fantasy world and, would rather, than grow out of it by facing the friction of a “reality check”.
For most of us, if there is evidence around us that might point to our own sin and imperfection, if that evidence pushes us up against the wall, we usually come to recognize that something is wrong and we make some kind of self-correction.
Those who do not are ‘people of the lie’, because one of their distinguishing characteristics is their ability to lie to themselves, as well as to others, and to insist on being ignorant of their own faults or wrongdoing. Their guiding motive is to feel good about themselves, at all costs, at all times, no matter what evidence there may be that points to their sin or imperfection.
M Scott-Peck
God forbade...must reading!
Dark Nights of the Soul
Religion tends to sentimentalize the light and demonize the darkness. If you turn to spirituality to find only a positive and wholesome attitude, you are using spirituality to avoid life’s dark beauty. Religion easily becomes a defense and avoidance. Of course, this is not the real purpose of religion, and the religious traditions of the world, full of beautifully stated wisdom, are your best source of guidance in the dark.
Depression is a mood you endure and try to get through, while a dark night of the soul is a process in which your coarse soul is refined and your intelligence is deepened.
In many segments of culture today, having a lively intellectual life is considered “nerdy.” It’s “cool” not to know anything about history and not to have a thought in your head. The meaning of life is often reduced to cruising with the popular culture. It doesn’t take a course in psychoanalysis to glimpse severe anxiety behind this posture of know-nothingness. If you had ideas and took yourself seriously, you would have to be constantly awake, educating yourself, and getting involved in your community. It’s safer to hide out in a pretense of ignorance. For that is what “cool” mindedness is, a way to sleep through life and not feel the sting and challenge of being engaged.
One of the most striking weaknesses of television is its lack of wit. Generally you have to go to independent films and out-of-the-way literature to find brilliant, imaginative alternatives to formulaic storytelling and low-brow entertainment. Yet the sentimentality and anti-intellectualism that has come to be expected in television educates, or “de-educates”, masses of people on a daily basis.
In sickness, the soul comes into the foreground. It asks for attention. If its wounds are addressed, then, perhaps, the physical manifestations will no longer be necessary. But care of the soul is not a surface activity; nor is it easy. It demands that you fully confront yourself and decide to live fully rather than half-heartedly. It asks that you learn to love with your whole heart and get over any self-pity or cynicism that may still remain in your heart. It asks that you transcend yourself in genuine concern for others and in a feeling of community that knows no boundaries. This is not an easy task, but it is the only way, finally, to health.
As you age, you sink more into the earthiness of your identity. You don’t have to understand this deep level of your existence, but you do have to trust it. You may discover over time that the deep self has a wisdom that you could never muster on the surface. It seems to take in experience and ruminate on it even as you go about your business. Insights arrive from that deep place, and you can trust it to offer help in making decisions.
Something highly spiritual in you may wish for wondrous success, but the deep soul longs for ordinary connection and engagement. It wants friendship, family and community. It longs for the simple pleasures, and from its perspective, the idea of justifying your existence is a dangerous distraction. Self-justification is an image, a narrative and a fantasy that gets a hold of you. The torment from such a preoccupation qualifies as a genuine dark night of the soul. It is beyond reason and can’t be argued away. People get attached to the idea and don’t want it taken from them. Evidently, it has something to give them, but that gift may be hidden for years before the torture diminishes and a satisfying way of life shows itself.
What is mediocrity in life? It is the failure to let the inner brilliance shine. The Latin word ‘scintilla’ means the spark that lives at the heart of a person. When that inner genius shows itself in personality, way of life, values and expression, mediocrity disappears. It is the cloud that prevents the spark from being seen. Mediocrity is the attitude of “do only what is necessary and sufficient,” the feeling of not having an essence worth showing. It involves giving up on the possibility of living an outstanding life.
Saint John of the Cross
Religion tends to sentimentalize the light and demonize the darkness. If you turn to spirituality to find only a positive and wholesome attitude, you are using spirituality to avoid life’s dark beauty. Religion easily becomes a defense and avoidance. Of course, this is not the real purpose of religion, and the religious traditions of the world, full of beautifully stated wisdom, are your best source of guidance in the dark.
Depression is a mood you endure and try to get through, while a dark night of the soul is a process in which your coarse soul is refined and your intelligence is deepened.
In many segments of culture today, having a lively intellectual life is considered “nerdy.” It’s “cool” not to know anything about history and not to have a thought in your head. The meaning of life is often reduced to cruising with the popular culture. It doesn’t take a course in psychoanalysis to glimpse severe anxiety behind this posture of know-nothingness. If you had ideas and took yourself seriously, you would have to be constantly awake, educating yourself, and getting involved in your community. It’s safer to hide out in a pretense of ignorance. For that is what “cool” mindedness is, a way to sleep through life and not feel the sting and challenge of being engaged.
One of the most striking weaknesses of television is its lack of wit. Generally you have to go to independent films and out-of-the-way literature to find brilliant, imaginative alternatives to formulaic storytelling and low-brow entertainment. Yet the sentimentality and anti-intellectualism that has come to be expected in television educates, or “de-educates”, masses of people on a daily basis.
In sickness, the soul comes into the foreground. It asks for attention. If its wounds are addressed, then, perhaps, the physical manifestations will no longer be necessary. But care of the soul is not a surface activity; nor is it easy. It demands that you fully confront yourself and decide to live fully rather than half-heartedly. It asks that you learn to love with your whole heart and get over any self-pity or cynicism that may still remain in your heart. It asks that you transcend yourself in genuine concern for others and in a feeling of community that knows no boundaries. This is not an easy task, but it is the only way, finally, to health.
As you age, you sink more into the earthiness of your identity. You don’t have to understand this deep level of your existence, but you do have to trust it. You may discover over time that the deep self has a wisdom that you could never muster on the surface. It seems to take in experience and ruminate on it even as you go about your business. Insights arrive from that deep place, and you can trust it to offer help in making decisions.
Something highly spiritual in you may wish for wondrous success, but the deep soul longs for ordinary connection and engagement. It wants friendship, family and community. It longs for the simple pleasures, and from its perspective, the idea of justifying your existence is a dangerous distraction. Self-justification is an image, a narrative and a fantasy that gets a hold of you. The torment from such a preoccupation qualifies as a genuine dark night of the soul. It is beyond reason and can’t be argued away. People get attached to the idea and don’t want it taken from them. Evidently, it has something to give them, but that gift may be hidden for years before the torture diminishes and a satisfying way of life shows itself.
What is mediocrity in life? It is the failure to let the inner brilliance shine. The Latin word ‘scintilla’ means the spark that lives at the heart of a person. When that inner genius shows itself in personality, way of life, values and expression, mediocrity disappears. It is the cloud that prevents the spark from being seen. Mediocrity is the attitude of “do only what is necessary and sufficient,” the feeling of not having an essence worth showing. It involves giving up on the possibility of living an outstanding life.
Saint John of the Cross
Thursday, November 18, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Love and Depression
Although love and melancholy are closely related, to construe love solely as a form of depression is clearly inaccurate. Separation and rejection might well provoke the same symptoms of depression, but is much more than yearning, pining and sadness. It is also joy, euphoria and ecstacy. When such positive emotions are felt very intensensly, they, too, can cause problems: for example overconfidence, boastfulness, recklessness and a failure to recognize realistic limits.
In human societies, mate selection is not usually followed immediately by marriage. Typically there is a delay or period of engagement. Again, this tradition of extended courtship may have been evolutionary. It does not always follow that a man with resources will also be willing to share them. A period of delay might provide further opportunities to assess whether crude signs of fitness (such as health, strength and wealth) are complimented by other important attributes such as warmth and, more importantly, generosity.
Frank Tallis- Love Sick
Although love and melancholy are closely related, to construe love solely as a form of depression is clearly inaccurate. Separation and rejection might well provoke the same symptoms of depression, but is much more than yearning, pining and sadness. It is also joy, euphoria and ecstacy. When such positive emotions are felt very intensensly, they, too, can cause problems: for example overconfidence, boastfulness, recklessness and a failure to recognize realistic limits.
In human societies, mate selection is not usually followed immediately by marriage. Typically there is a delay or period of engagement. Again, this tradition of extended courtship may have been evolutionary. It does not always follow that a man with resources will also be willing to share them. A period of delay might provide further opportunities to assess whether crude signs of fitness (such as health, strength and wealth) are complimented by other important attributes such as warmth and, more importantly, generosity.
Frank Tallis- Love Sick
God forbade...must reading!
Will to Believe
William James says we stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses, now and then, of paths that could be deceptive. If we stand still we will be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we’ll be dashed to pieces. We don’t know for sure if there is a right one. What should we do? Be strong and of good courage. Act for the best and take what comes…if death ends all, we couldn’t have met death better.
William James says we stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses, now and then, of paths that could be deceptive. If we stand still we will be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we’ll be dashed to pieces. We don’t know for sure if there is a right one. What should we do? Be strong and of good courage. Act for the best and take what comes…if death ends all, we couldn’t have met death better.
God forbade...must reading!
Marriage views
In a study of newlyweds Mansfield and Collard found, though couples accepted marriage should be a partnership of equals, they also concurred, for circumstantial reasons their marriage could not be entirely equal.
The researchers found the wife’s agenda covered a desire for a ‘common life’; the sharing of interests and spending time together, especially talking. His desire is more for a ‘life in common’; for the sharing of similar goals, yet the retention of some degree of separation.
The biggest difficulty for married couples is accepting the gulf between the modern notion of marriage as an experience of ‘one-ness’, and the reality of marriage as a relationship requiring constant negotiations between two different people.
Just Cohabiting- Duncan Dormoor
In a study of newlyweds Mansfield and Collard found, though couples accepted marriage should be a partnership of equals, they also concurred, for circumstantial reasons their marriage could not be entirely equal.
The researchers found the wife’s agenda covered a desire for a ‘common life’; the sharing of interests and spending time together, especially talking. His desire is more for a ‘life in common’; for the sharing of similar goals, yet the retention of some degree of separation.
The biggest difficulty for married couples is accepting the gulf between the modern notion of marriage as an experience of ‘one-ness’, and the reality of marriage as a relationship requiring constant negotiations between two different people.
Just Cohabiting- Duncan Dormoor
God forbade...must reading!
Courtship
They are different ends, but in some way compatible. Marriage has utility, justice, honor and constancy for its share, a flat, but more universal pleasure. Love is found on pleasure and so is more full, lively and sharp, a pleasure inflamed by difficulty, there must be sting and smart in it. Its no longer love without fire and darts. Women are not to blame, at all, when they refuse the rules of life that are introduced in the world for as much as men made them without their consent. There is naturally contention and brawling between us. The strictest friendship we have with them is mixed with tempest and tumult. We deal with them inconsiderately after we’ve found that they are, without comparison, more able and ardent in the practice of love than we.
Socrates said Athens was pleased as ladies do when men court for love, everyone loved to come there to take a turn and pass time. But no one liked it so much to live by code, to live there and make it his permanent home.
When asked of Socrates, Which is better to take a wife or not?, replied,
Choose the course he will repent!
There is a fatality about the hidden parts, let nature endow you, however liberally. Its of no use if your good star fails you in the nick of time.
Three Commerces
They are different ends, but in some way compatible. Marriage has utility, justice, honor and constancy for its share, a flat, but more universal pleasure. Love is found on pleasure and so is more full, lively and sharp, a pleasure inflamed by difficulty, there must be sting and smart in it. Its no longer love without fire and darts. Women are not to blame, at all, when they refuse the rules of life that are introduced in the world for as much as men made them without their consent. There is naturally contention and brawling between us. The strictest friendship we have with them is mixed with tempest and tumult. We deal with them inconsiderately after we’ve found that they are, without comparison, more able and ardent in the practice of love than we.
Socrates said Athens was pleased as ladies do when men court for love, everyone loved to come there to take a turn and pass time. But no one liked it so much to live by code, to live there and make it his permanent home.
When asked of Socrates, Which is better to take a wife or not?, replied,
Choose the course he will repent!
There is a fatality about the hidden parts, let nature endow you, however liberally. Its of no use if your good star fails you in the nick of time.
Three Commerces
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Mother Theresa
The poor are, somehow or other- we ourselves.
If we really want to pray we must first listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. And to be able to see that silence, to be able to hear God, we need a clean heart, for a clean heart can see God, can hear God, can listen to God.
Bhagavad Gita
We need to find God and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. See how nature, the trees, the flowers, the grass grow in perfect silence- see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence.
The spirit pours love, peace, joy into our hearts proportionally to our emptying ourselves of self indulgence, vanity, anger and ambition, and our willingness to shoulder the cross of Christ. Without our suffering our work would just be social work. Only by being one with us has he redeemed us.
Our lives to be fruitful must be full of Christ. To be able to bring his peace, joy, and love we must have it ourselves for we cannot give what we have not got, like the blind leading the blind.
Faith, unless it has works, is dead in itself.
Mother Theresa
The poor are, somehow or other- we ourselves.
If we really want to pray we must first listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. And to be able to see that silence, to be able to hear God, we need a clean heart, for a clean heart can see God, can hear God, can listen to God.
Bhagavad Gita
We need to find God and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. See how nature, the trees, the flowers, the grass grow in perfect silence- see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence.
The spirit pours love, peace, joy into our hearts proportionally to our emptying ourselves of self indulgence, vanity, anger and ambition, and our willingness to shoulder the cross of Christ. Without our suffering our work would just be social work. Only by being one with us has he redeemed us.
Our lives to be fruitful must be full of Christ. To be able to bring his peace, joy, and love we must have it ourselves for we cannot give what we have not got, like the blind leading the blind.
Faith, unless it has works, is dead in itself.
Mother Theresa
God forbade...must reading!
Happiness/depression
You could be drowning in a depression, if you live virtuously and are true to yourself, you can be axiomatically happy.
unattributed
You could be drowning in a depression, if you live virtuously and are true to yourself, you can be axiomatically happy.
unattributed
God forbade...must reading!
Bad Seeds
Children are seen as the center of attention, innocent, helpless victims in constant need of protection. In their pursuit of indisputable individuality they turn rebels against any form of rules and order, mischievious for its own sake. They reflect the childish element that takes delight from disorder, not so much a childish innocence, but malevolence. Children are seen as innocent victims, yet untrustworthy mischief makers.
Sabine Bussing says this display is new, defining angst laden children once seen solely as objects of compassion. Against this, adulthood is a fall from grace with fortitude. Precisely through this ‘other-worldliness’ children become sinister. Bussing says the child dramatically attends their victimization with aggression. In the ensuing horror the child is not only feared for but is exposed to a sense of evil and danger. A developing ‘monster’; sweet and angelic, hides the ‘brute’.
How a child could harbor hideous intentions against loving parents goes against the very laws of nature. Bussing says what we have here is a ‘generational’ conflict. The child represents their whole generation, with an insurmountable gap between them and their parents.
Both see each other as perfect strangers, a true reconciliation is hard to come by. The child is deeply ambiguous; an innocent and helpless ‘clean slate’ that we, as adults, can shape as we please. Or develops a mysterious, mischievous rebel who rarely confronts us directly and honestly, but works behind the scenes to undermine our power in hidden ways.
Dani Cavallaro describes children as ‘strangers’ untrustworthy due to their connection with alternative fantasy worlds. As aliens, children must be closely supervised and controlled.
The Myth of Evil- Philip Cole
Children are seen as the center of attention, innocent, helpless victims in constant need of protection. In their pursuit of indisputable individuality they turn rebels against any form of rules and order, mischievious for its own sake. They reflect the childish element that takes delight from disorder, not so much a childish innocence, but malevolence. Children are seen as innocent victims, yet untrustworthy mischief makers.
Sabine Bussing says this display is new, defining angst laden children once seen solely as objects of compassion. Against this, adulthood is a fall from grace with fortitude. Precisely through this ‘other-worldliness’ children become sinister. Bussing says the child dramatically attends their victimization with aggression. In the ensuing horror the child is not only feared for but is exposed to a sense of evil and danger. A developing ‘monster’; sweet and angelic, hides the ‘brute’.
How a child could harbor hideous intentions against loving parents goes against the very laws of nature. Bussing says what we have here is a ‘generational’ conflict. The child represents their whole generation, with an insurmountable gap between them and their parents.
Both see each other as perfect strangers, a true reconciliation is hard to come by. The child is deeply ambiguous; an innocent and helpless ‘clean slate’ that we, as adults, can shape as we please. Or develops a mysterious, mischievous rebel who rarely confronts us directly and honestly, but works behind the scenes to undermine our power in hidden ways.
Dani Cavallaro describes children as ‘strangers’ untrustworthy due to their connection with alternative fantasy worlds. As aliens, children must be closely supervised and controlled.
The Myth of Evil- Philip Cole
God forbade...must reading!
The Good Life
One of the chief causes of unhappiness is when society tells us one thing but our true nature dictates something else. In these instances we are, in the fullest sense of the word, dysfunctional. The important thing is to find the natural order, not just in our work, but in every area of life. Then, taking no thought for society’s myths, conform our lives to that order.
True happiness is found fulfilling our higher nature, shaping our lives and our circumstances to reflect the way we are hard-wired.
We are not only truth seekers, but truth-avoiders, when our appetites, desires and survival instincts make the truth inconvenient or threatening.
Integrity is vital because any breach of our integrity pits us against reality and that’s a war no one has ever won.
We know what is true and right, but we can not or will not do it. This is one of the greatest paradoxes of life and is crucial to understand. It fools us because its in our very nature to be blind to it. Sin.
Original sin or our fallen nature causes us to do wrong even if we know better. It can distort our vision to the point we no longer see the truth. We become vulnerable to pervasive cultural lies. Fleeing the truth hardens our hearts. We deliberately chose alienation and take evil within ourselves. When you know the truth and give yourself to a lie you can not live a good life or die a good death. Even when they know they should, people can not get by their rebellious will. They are doomed, at the very least to dysfunctional lives. Its definition: to know one thing to be true, yet doing something else. We live in denial of the truth.
Furthermore we stop resisting sin and give ourselves over to it, searing and hardening consciences, living wretched lives.
The Good Life- Colson and Fickett
One of the chief causes of unhappiness is when society tells us one thing but our true nature dictates something else. In these instances we are, in the fullest sense of the word, dysfunctional. The important thing is to find the natural order, not just in our work, but in every area of life. Then, taking no thought for society’s myths, conform our lives to that order.
True happiness is found fulfilling our higher nature, shaping our lives and our circumstances to reflect the way we are hard-wired.
We are not only truth seekers, but truth-avoiders, when our appetites, desires and survival instincts make the truth inconvenient or threatening.
Integrity is vital because any breach of our integrity pits us against reality and that’s a war no one has ever won.
We know what is true and right, but we can not or will not do it. This is one of the greatest paradoxes of life and is crucial to understand. It fools us because its in our very nature to be blind to it. Sin.
Original sin or our fallen nature causes us to do wrong even if we know better. It can distort our vision to the point we no longer see the truth. We become vulnerable to pervasive cultural lies. Fleeing the truth hardens our hearts. We deliberately chose alienation and take evil within ourselves. When you know the truth and give yourself to a lie you can not live a good life or die a good death. Even when they know they should, people can not get by their rebellious will. They are doomed, at the very least to dysfunctional lives. Its definition: to know one thing to be true, yet doing something else. We live in denial of the truth.
Furthermore we stop resisting sin and give ourselves over to it, searing and hardening consciences, living wretched lives.
The Good Life- Colson and Fickett
God forbade...must reading!
Awe
Many in our society navigate within a shrunken sphere; rarely do they stray too far from home and when they do its almost entirely encapsulated, contrived or vicarious.
There is scant room for soul-searching in our culture, seek out the nearest pharmacy, devour the handiest self-help book. Time alone is a diminishing commodity. People who formerly ministered with these concepts are also dwindling. Where are the life philosophers of today? Where are the thinkers, elders and the caretakers of myth? How does a culture foster mentors, healers and artists of life?
unattributed
Many in our society navigate within a shrunken sphere; rarely do they stray too far from home and when they do its almost entirely encapsulated, contrived or vicarious.
There is scant room for soul-searching in our culture, seek out the nearest pharmacy, devour the handiest self-help book. Time alone is a diminishing commodity. People who formerly ministered with these concepts are also dwindling. Where are the life philosophers of today? Where are the thinkers, elders and the caretakers of myth? How does a culture foster mentors, healers and artists of life?
unattributed
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Robot Ethics
Near the end of the book Levy alludes to a set of vexing questions. If robots become utterly humanlike, must we not treat them as more than machines? So if you marry a robot, can it inherit your estate? If you catch it boffing the mail carrier, can you toss it out with heavy trash? If your robot pops your neighbor in the mouth, who does your neighbor sue?
Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, David Levy
Near the end of the book Levy alludes to a set of vexing questions. If robots become utterly humanlike, must we not treat them as more than machines? So if you marry a robot, can it inherit your estate? If you catch it boffing the mail carrier, can you toss it out with heavy trash? If your robot pops your neighbor in the mouth, who does your neighbor sue?
Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, David Levy
God forbade...must reading!
SafeGod
The holy wild is wilderness. But, if you walk and don’t faint, you find what Job did:
Though he slay me. Yet I will praise him.
You find that the God who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death is infinitely better than the dull, safe god who lulls us into borderland, seducing us with false comforts, spinning a cocoon around us that doesn’t protect, only entraps, and from which we emerge wingless.
Jesus life was one whose life is completely his own possession. He was free to give whoever he pleases, however he pleases, whenever he pleases. Or not to give it.
“I lay down my life, only to take it up again. No one takes it from me- I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
(John 10:17-18)
The all-too-easy thing to do is to take up residence in borderland, adopt some hybrid philosophy that:
crossbreeds stoicism - just grit your teeth and take it like a man.
with hedonism- you only go around once, get it while the getting’s hot.
with epicureanism- leave me to my patch of sunlight, I’ll leave you to yours.
with nihilism- nothing matters anyway, so just do what you want.
Thinking like this there’s nothing to give real pleasure or deep meaning to an activity. There’s nothing to ground opinions into truth and shape them into convictions, nothing to translate busyness into fruitfulness, nothing to convert selfish ambition into holy purpose.
Unceasing prayer is a constant awareness. It’s a continual, though usually silent dialogue. It’s a fixed habit of mind, a constant and deliberate gesturing toward and response to God that after long practice becomes unconscious and instinctive. Praying without ceasing is the fruit and sap of all prayer: what keeps it alive and what makes it worthwhile. Because, above all, its what makes God’s presence real to us.
Mark Buchanan
The holy wild is wilderness. But, if you walk and don’t faint, you find what Job did:
Though he slay me. Yet I will praise him.
You find that the God who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death is infinitely better than the dull, safe god who lulls us into borderland, seducing us with false comforts, spinning a cocoon around us that doesn’t protect, only entraps, and from which we emerge wingless.
Jesus life was one whose life is completely his own possession. He was free to give whoever he pleases, however he pleases, whenever he pleases. Or not to give it.
“I lay down my life, only to take it up again. No one takes it from me- I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
(John 10:17-18)
The all-too-easy thing to do is to take up residence in borderland, adopt some hybrid philosophy that:
crossbreeds stoicism - just grit your teeth and take it like a man.
with hedonism- you only go around once, get it while the getting’s hot.
with epicureanism- leave me to my patch of sunlight, I’ll leave you to yours.
with nihilism- nothing matters anyway, so just do what you want.
Thinking like this there’s nothing to give real pleasure or deep meaning to an activity. There’s nothing to ground opinions into truth and shape them into convictions, nothing to translate busyness into fruitfulness, nothing to convert selfish ambition into holy purpose.
Unceasing prayer is a constant awareness. It’s a continual, though usually silent dialogue. It’s a fixed habit of mind, a constant and deliberate gesturing toward and response to God that after long practice becomes unconscious and instinctive. Praying without ceasing is the fruit and sap of all prayer: what keeps it alive and what makes it worthwhile. Because, above all, its what makes God’s presence real to us.
Mark Buchanan
God forbade...must reading!
Success
Success is only the beginning of a new set of challenges and life lessons. When success enters the picture a new reality is created and the game board shifts. The challenge is to keep your balance rearranging the pieces of your life to make space for your new reality. Dealing with such changes is the unexpected fine print at the bottom of every dream realized and as every new level of success comes about. You will need to make your way through the happy rewards, the new responsibilities and the surprising and unfamiliar landscape that success brings.
Success merely changes the game. Old concerns, monetary restrictions, cramped living or work space, freedom concerns, doubts, fears or insecurities may vanish. New concerns appear and present challenges you may never have imagined under other circumstances. Regardless of how you feel about them, these changes require your attention to ensure your new found success is not undermined by your own hands or by other's reactions.
Your identity gets slightly altered with expansion to new levels of success. It can happen slowly, annual raises or suddenly when your company goes public, your team wins the national championship, your invention is patented and sold, you win the Nobel prize or you break the land speed record. Your are no longer the person who lived from hand to mouth, no longer average or normal, no longer a 'nobody', no longer the one who looks up to others in awe.
Cherie Carter-Scott- If Success is a Game, These are the Rules
With your vision of your future self or circumstances to guide you, you will generate options, evaluate them and consciously choose the path you want to take to reach your goal. You will do this, not just once, but many times over. This conscious decision making- process- once you learn it- will serve you whenever you encounter one of the countless baffling situations in everyday life.
Hidden Agendas- Dr. Marlin S. Potash
Success is only the beginning of a new set of challenges and life lessons. When success enters the picture a new reality is created and the game board shifts. The challenge is to keep your balance rearranging the pieces of your life to make space for your new reality. Dealing with such changes is the unexpected fine print at the bottom of every dream realized and as every new level of success comes about. You will need to make your way through the happy rewards, the new responsibilities and the surprising and unfamiliar landscape that success brings.
Success merely changes the game. Old concerns, monetary restrictions, cramped living or work space, freedom concerns, doubts, fears or insecurities may vanish. New concerns appear and present challenges you may never have imagined under other circumstances. Regardless of how you feel about them, these changes require your attention to ensure your new found success is not undermined by your own hands or by other's reactions.
Your identity gets slightly altered with expansion to new levels of success. It can happen slowly, annual raises or suddenly when your company goes public, your team wins the national championship, your invention is patented and sold, you win the Nobel prize or you break the land speed record. Your are no longer the person who lived from hand to mouth, no longer average or normal, no longer a 'nobody', no longer the one who looks up to others in awe.
Cherie Carter-Scott- If Success is a Game, These are the Rules
With your vision of your future self or circumstances to guide you, you will generate options, evaluate them and consciously choose the path you want to take to reach your goal. You will do this, not just once, but many times over. This conscious decision making- process- once you learn it- will serve you whenever you encounter one of the countless baffling situations in everyday life.
Hidden Agendas- Dr. Marlin S. Potash
God forbade...must reading!
Money
As money has presented us with an abstract of everything, its image is unexcelled in the public’s mind because they can hardly imagine any kind of joy other than that of money as its cause. Money is a vice only in those who seek it not out of poverty or necessity, but because they have learned the arts of gain, by which they keep up a grand appearance. Those who know the true use of money and regulate the measure of wealth according to their needs live contented with few things.
Saint Paul said the ‘love of money is the root of all evil’. In Sophocles Antigone, Creon declares “Nothing so evil as money ever grew to be current among men. This lays cities low, drives men from their homes, this trains and warps honest souls ‘til they set themselves to works of shame; this still teaches folk to practice villainies and to know every godless deed”.
unattributed
As money has presented us with an abstract of everything, its image is unexcelled in the public’s mind because they can hardly imagine any kind of joy other than that of money as its cause. Money is a vice only in those who seek it not out of poverty or necessity, but because they have learned the arts of gain, by which they keep up a grand appearance. Those who know the true use of money and regulate the measure of wealth according to their needs live contented with few things.
Saint Paul said the ‘love of money is the root of all evil’. In Sophocles Antigone, Creon declares “Nothing so evil as money ever grew to be current among men. This lays cities low, drives men from their homes, this trains and warps honest souls ‘til they set themselves to works of shame; this still teaches folk to practice villainies and to know every godless deed”.
unattributed
God forbade...must reading!
Stinters
Quran Surah 83
Woe to the stinters who when others measure for them, exact in full, but who, when they measure for others defraud them. Do such men not think that they will be raised to life on a great day, the day when all mankind shall stand before the Lord of all creation?
No indeed; the record of the transgressors is in the Sijjeen. Would that you knew what Sijjeen is? It is a sealed book Woe on that day to the disbelievers who deny the day of Judgment. None denies it but the guilty aggressors, the evil doers, who when our revelations are recited to them, cry, “Fables of the ancients!” No, indeed; their own deeds have cast a layer of rust over their hearts. No, indeed; on that day they shall be shut out from their Lord, they shall roast in Hell, and a voice will say to them “This is the reality which you denied!”
But the record of the righteous is in the Illiyun. Would you knew what Illiyun is? It is a sealed book, witnessed only by those only closest to Allah. The righteous shall surely dwell in bliss. Reclining upon soft couches they will look around them. In their faces you shall mark the glow of joy. They shall be given to drink of a pure –drink, securely seded, with a seal of musk, for this let the strivers emulously strive. It is a drink mixed with the waters of Tassneem a fountain at which the favored will drink.
The evil-doers scoff at the faithful and wink at one another as they pass by them. When they go back to their folk they speak of them with jests, and when they see them they say:”These are erring men!” Yet, they have not been assigned the mission of being their guardians. So on that day the faithful shall mock the disbelievers, as they recline upon their couches and look around them. Shall not the disbelievers be rewarded according to their deeds.
Quran Surah 83
Woe to the stinters who when others measure for them, exact in full, but who, when they measure for others defraud them. Do such men not think that they will be raised to life on a great day, the day when all mankind shall stand before the Lord of all creation?
No indeed; the record of the transgressors is in the Sijjeen. Would that you knew what Sijjeen is? It is a sealed book Woe on that day to the disbelievers who deny the day of Judgment. None denies it but the guilty aggressors, the evil doers, who when our revelations are recited to them, cry, “Fables of the ancients!” No, indeed; their own deeds have cast a layer of rust over their hearts. No, indeed; on that day they shall be shut out from their Lord, they shall roast in Hell, and a voice will say to them “This is the reality which you denied!”
But the record of the righteous is in the Illiyun. Would you knew what Illiyun is? It is a sealed book, witnessed only by those only closest to Allah. The righteous shall surely dwell in bliss. Reclining upon soft couches they will look around them. In their faces you shall mark the glow of joy. They shall be given to drink of a pure –drink, securely seded, with a seal of musk, for this let the strivers emulously strive. It is a drink mixed with the waters of Tassneem a fountain at which the favored will drink.
The evil-doers scoff at the faithful and wink at one another as they pass by them. When they go back to their folk they speak of them with jests, and when they see them they say:”These are erring men!” Yet, they have not been assigned the mission of being their guardians. So on that day the faithful shall mock the disbelievers, as they recline upon their couches and look around them. Shall not the disbelievers be rewarded according to their deeds.
God forbade...must reading!
Hatred
Hatred, defined in two ways, says 19th century writer, William Hazlitt. Bad hatred fuels fear of strangers, defeats love, disregards forgiveness, seeks revenge, suffocates the soul and destroys the self. Negative hatred is the self-righteousness that eats into the heart of religion causing it to sanction bigotry, hypocrisy and heinous crimes. It’s the hatred that poisons national pride and makes ‘patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence and famine into other lands’. It lacks the facility for self-criticism. It begrudges the abilities of others, cannot share in the success of a friend and for twisted and ill-defined reasons repays kindness with malignancy. What seems in such festering spirits is a hatred directed at themselves that has been transferred to the world around them. An uncritical hatred is irresponsible in the sense it leads to a habit of blame. Hatred is unforgivable when it revels in violence and cruelty.
Hatred can be a positive force. This hatred loathes indulgent calculations about the rights and wrongs of a situation and leapfrogs equivocation with action. It abhors injustice and would fight for something to be done rather than nothing. It has the virtue of empowering the individual to punch above their weight; it takes away fear.
Mark Vernon- What Not To Say
The seeds of hatred are planted slowly, in small increments of cruelty, devaluation and abuse. Their tiny tendrils thrive in an environment of control, humiliation and blame.
Letting Go of the Narcissist in your Life- Linda Martinez- Lewi Ph.D.
Hatred, defined in two ways, says 19th century writer, William Hazlitt. Bad hatred fuels fear of strangers, defeats love, disregards forgiveness, seeks revenge, suffocates the soul and destroys the self. Negative hatred is the self-righteousness that eats into the heart of religion causing it to sanction bigotry, hypocrisy and heinous crimes. It’s the hatred that poisons national pride and makes ‘patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence and famine into other lands’. It lacks the facility for self-criticism. It begrudges the abilities of others, cannot share in the success of a friend and for twisted and ill-defined reasons repays kindness with malignancy. What seems in such festering spirits is a hatred directed at themselves that has been transferred to the world around them. An uncritical hatred is irresponsible in the sense it leads to a habit of blame. Hatred is unforgivable when it revels in violence and cruelty.
Hatred can be a positive force. This hatred loathes indulgent calculations about the rights and wrongs of a situation and leapfrogs equivocation with action. It abhors injustice and would fight for something to be done rather than nothing. It has the virtue of empowering the individual to punch above their weight; it takes away fear.
Mark Vernon- What Not To Say
The seeds of hatred are planted slowly, in small increments of cruelty, devaluation and abuse. Their tiny tendrils thrive in an environment of control, humiliation and blame.
Letting Go of the Narcissist in your Life- Linda Martinez- Lewi Ph.D.
God forbade...must reading!
Snobs
A tendency to look down on others and treat them with condescension. It’s about how you view other people. At its extreme snobbery can be a symptom of narcissistic personality disorder, a condition marked by grandiosity, a need for admiration and a preoccupation with power and prestige. Narcissists have impaired relationships because they’re unable to enter anyone else’s world.
Snobs are actively malevolent, albeit usually in minor ways.
Far from insecure, they genuinely believe they are better than others, though they’re unusually sensitive to criticism and rejection. Snobs may exhibit ‘high social dominance orientation’- a belief that some groups of people are innately superior to others and should, therefore, hold more power in society.
Genetics can have an influence on what parents instill in their children. Though being superior isn’t the same as acting superior, it can be a first step toward condescension.
Someone who is unable to relate to people unless they share identical tastes in books, film, music, wine and art may have a hard time finding a partner who meets their exacting qualifications. Shared tastes can enhance relationships. A mate doesn’t have to have the same judgments.
Psychology Today, June, 2009.
A tendency to look down on others and treat them with condescension. It’s about how you view other people. At its extreme snobbery can be a symptom of narcissistic personality disorder, a condition marked by grandiosity, a need for admiration and a preoccupation with power and prestige. Narcissists have impaired relationships because they’re unable to enter anyone else’s world.
Snobs are actively malevolent, albeit usually in minor ways.
Far from insecure, they genuinely believe they are better than others, though they’re unusually sensitive to criticism and rejection. Snobs may exhibit ‘high social dominance orientation’- a belief that some groups of people are innately superior to others and should, therefore, hold more power in society.
Genetics can have an influence on what parents instill in their children. Though being superior isn’t the same as acting superior, it can be a first step toward condescension.
Someone who is unable to relate to people unless they share identical tastes in books, film, music, wine and art may have a hard time finding a partner who meets their exacting qualifications. Shared tastes can enhance relationships. A mate doesn’t have to have the same judgments.
Psychology Today, June, 2009.
God forbade...must reading!
Why We Lie
Life is full of tough decisions. Animals are constantly having to choose between how to avoid being someone else’s dinner, with whom to mate, with whom to fight, from whom to flee and so on. Making the right choice means assessing the likely outcome. Animals must be able to predict other’s behavior.
The power to deceive is our main weapon in the struggle for social survival. Like it or not, without it, we are sheep in the company of wolves.
In a treacherous social world- one rife with deceit and double-dealing- someone good at detecting dishonesty will be far less likely to be exploited than less skeptical people.
Mind reading facilitates deception and deception encourages mind reading.
Lying can be conscious or unconscious, verbal or non-verbal, stated or unstated. Lying is obliged by its very nature to cover its traces; to lie effectively, we must lie about lying!
Gossip has a ‘catch-22’ quality; it demands give-and take. In order to make gold, you must first have gold; in order to receive information about others, you must first have information to exchange. Obvious reserve is counterproductive: it makes you seem suspicious and isolates you from networks essential for social survival. One must appear to be open and trusting to encourage the flow of information, while, at the same time, carefully observing others for signs giving away their covert agendas. This is ‘social poker’ with a vengeance. Just like virtuoso card players, conversational partners must rely on small, subtle clues to genuine motives that seep through the cracks in consciously calculated displays of sincerity.
Nomadic hunter-gatherers tend to be moralistic and have similar concepts of deviant behavior, including rape, theft, murder, deception and the failure to cooperate. All use gossip to circulate information about transgressors. They have methods for identifying and punishing deviants such as shunning, ‘outing’ others, ridicule, desertion and, in extreme cases, execution. They disapprove of and have found ways to suppress the urge to dominate and control others. They tolerate only minimal levels of leadership. They regard dominance as anti-social, the whole group opposing anyone who tries to be a ‘big-shot’. They have not transcended the urge for power, they found an efficient way to police it. Counterdomination is domination by the majority of group members rather than by one individual or a small clique.
Life is full of tough decisions. Animals are constantly having to choose between how to avoid being someone else’s dinner, with whom to mate, with whom to fight, from whom to flee and so on. Making the right choice means assessing the likely outcome. Animals must be able to predict other’s behavior.
The power to deceive is our main weapon in the struggle for social survival. Like it or not, without it, we are sheep in the company of wolves.
In a treacherous social world- one rife with deceit and double-dealing- someone good at detecting dishonesty will be far less likely to be exploited than less skeptical people.
Mind reading facilitates deception and deception encourages mind reading.
Lying can be conscious or unconscious, verbal or non-verbal, stated or unstated. Lying is obliged by its very nature to cover its traces; to lie effectively, we must lie about lying!
Gossip has a ‘catch-22’ quality; it demands give-and take. In order to make gold, you must first have gold; in order to receive information about others, you must first have information to exchange. Obvious reserve is counterproductive: it makes you seem suspicious and isolates you from networks essential for social survival. One must appear to be open and trusting to encourage the flow of information, while, at the same time, carefully observing others for signs giving away their covert agendas. This is ‘social poker’ with a vengeance. Just like virtuoso card players, conversational partners must rely on small, subtle clues to genuine motives that seep through the cracks in consciously calculated displays of sincerity.
Nomadic hunter-gatherers tend to be moralistic and have similar concepts of deviant behavior, including rape, theft, murder, deception and the failure to cooperate. All use gossip to circulate information about transgressors. They have methods for identifying and punishing deviants such as shunning, ‘outing’ others, ridicule, desertion and, in extreme cases, execution. They disapprove of and have found ways to suppress the urge to dominate and control others. They tolerate only minimal levels of leadership. They regard dominance as anti-social, the whole group opposing anyone who tries to be a ‘big-shot’. They have not transcended the urge for power, they found an efficient way to police it. Counterdomination is domination by the majority of group members rather than by one individual or a small clique.
David Livingstone Smith- Why We Lie
Monday, November 15, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Tao Poetry
We in Western civilization have a lingering need to look to Eastern philosophy for their views of the world. We look for that something that we have not seen, yet, stands the test of time. What is the drive for fame and what is lost, what remains?
Tao- a moral force of order
The highest form of government
Is what people hardly even realize is there.
Next is that of sage
Who is seen, and loved, and respected.
Next down is the dictatorship
That thrives on oppression and terror—
And last is that of those who lie
And end up despised and rejected.
Those who act piously soon achieve a name
But fame makes people behave differently
They have become driven by worldly ambitions
This makes them inflated and defined by what they do.
People like this can never achieve Peace and Happiness.
The All-Knowing Essence speaks through me, and what it says is:
Those who don’t act piously and don’t seek a name
Trust in their own heart’s guidance.
They can go beyond wanting, and trust
In direct spiritual communication.
Understanding what is true, they know
That this is the way to Peace and Happiness.
We in Western civilization have a lingering need to look to Eastern philosophy for their views of the world. We look for that something that we have not seen, yet, stands the test of time. What is the drive for fame and what is lost, what remains?
Tao- a moral force of order
The highest form of government
Is what people hardly even realize is there.
Next is that of sage
Who is seen, and loved, and respected.
Next down is the dictatorship
That thrives on oppression and terror—
And last is that of those who lie
And end up despised and rejected.
Those who act piously soon achieve a name
But fame makes people behave differently
They have become driven by worldly ambitions
This makes them inflated and defined by what they do.
People like this can never achieve Peace and Happiness.
The All-Knowing Essence speaks through me, and what it says is:
Those who don’t act piously and don’t seek a name
Trust in their own heart’s guidance.
They can go beyond wanting, and trust
In direct spiritual communication.
Understanding what is true, they know
That this is the way to Peace and Happiness.
God forbade...must reading!
Cry of Love
The features of radical compassion include spontaneity and judgment that seem to appear almost self-evidently, without any deliberation. The manifestation is the extreme and concrete realization of a call, or summons a person hears when he feels the pain of another. The call represents the cry of the reality, the context of the distress and the inclination to change that reality.
Radical compassion takes a unique stance, not founded on judgment and categorizing the other, but rather his situation. Not focusing on a causal analysis, but a purposeful stance on a future where the distress disappears, independent of its cause.
Radical compassion is the refusal to come to terms with a given state of affairs regarding the other, translated into intentional action to change that reality.
On a spontaneous level the imperative appears as an impulse.
K. Lampert- Traditions of Compassion
The features of radical compassion include spontaneity and judgment that seem to appear almost self-evidently, without any deliberation. The manifestation is the extreme and concrete realization of a call, or summons a person hears when he feels the pain of another. The call represents the cry of the reality, the context of the distress and the inclination to change that reality.
Radical compassion takes a unique stance, not founded on judgment and categorizing the other, but rather his situation. Not focusing on a causal analysis, but a purposeful stance on a future where the distress disappears, independent of its cause.
Radical compassion is the refusal to come to terms with a given state of affairs regarding the other, translated into intentional action to change that reality.
On a spontaneous level the imperative appears as an impulse.
K. Lampert- Traditions of Compassion
God forbade...must reading!
Education
Ernest Baker says the biggest problem with traditional education and culture is that it fetishes. That is, the narrowing down and confinement of thoughts, feelings and sensations. It’s the cosmetic or anxiety-riddled solution that promotes elitism, scapegoating and atrophy.
On the other hand, the embrace of meaningful questions in rich and complex reflection , who we are, what deeply matters to us and where we’re headed …are the making of a liberating curriculum.
We have the need to adore, to kneel, to bow, to join hands, to keep silence in the presence of the Holy One. The simple, quiet gestures, the humbling of the body, listening to the ancient words, withdrawing from everything that constitutes our busy world and our many cares. All are a condition of knowing our God and allowing him to enter our lives and claim us for our own.
Awe brings zest, angst and passion to the inquiring process, it brings the capacity to be moved. With this capacity experimentation becomes an excursion and verification a touchstone.
Time and emotional availability would be integral aspects of a doctor’s approach with clients as would an inquiring spirit tempered by concreteness and practicality.
Depth therapy is holistic and realistic, it acknowledges our daunting thresholds, impotencies and fragilities along with our breathtaking possibilities. Its depth therapy’s refusal to shortchange life-experience- its integrity- that is so needed today. Depth therapy teaches its participants to square-off with themselves, to get down and dirty and to contend with their conflicting lives. There is too little contending today. Too many are gliding through or stumbling past or simply missing their lives. As a result there is a derangement; denial and displacement have become the norms whereas passion and struggle have become deviations. Society is set to bypass human pathos and angst. Are the tranquillized results what we prefer?
The solace of amazement is what the free aspire to. Others experience solace in salvation. The free find it in astonishment, mystery and unfolding. While others find salvation in the literal, local or ready-at-hand, the free find hope in the implicit, the vast and farthest reaching.
Liberal arts represent a certain type of human experience, denied only by those who see no difference between the quality of a racehorse and the skill of his rider.
unattributed
Ernest Baker says the biggest problem with traditional education and culture is that it fetishes. That is, the narrowing down and confinement of thoughts, feelings and sensations. It’s the cosmetic or anxiety-riddled solution that promotes elitism, scapegoating and atrophy.
On the other hand, the embrace of meaningful questions in rich and complex reflection , who we are, what deeply matters to us and where we’re headed …are the making of a liberating curriculum.
We have the need to adore, to kneel, to bow, to join hands, to keep silence in the presence of the Holy One. The simple, quiet gestures, the humbling of the body, listening to the ancient words, withdrawing from everything that constitutes our busy world and our many cares. All are a condition of knowing our God and allowing him to enter our lives and claim us for our own.
Awe brings zest, angst and passion to the inquiring process, it brings the capacity to be moved. With this capacity experimentation becomes an excursion and verification a touchstone.
Time and emotional availability would be integral aspects of a doctor’s approach with clients as would an inquiring spirit tempered by concreteness and practicality.
Depth therapy is holistic and realistic, it acknowledges our daunting thresholds, impotencies and fragilities along with our breathtaking possibilities. Its depth therapy’s refusal to shortchange life-experience- its integrity- that is so needed today. Depth therapy teaches its participants to square-off with themselves, to get down and dirty and to contend with their conflicting lives. There is too little contending today. Too many are gliding through or stumbling past or simply missing their lives. As a result there is a derangement; denial and displacement have become the norms whereas passion and struggle have become deviations. Society is set to bypass human pathos and angst. Are the tranquillized results what we prefer?
The solace of amazement is what the free aspire to. Others experience solace in salvation. The free find it in astonishment, mystery and unfolding. While others find salvation in the literal, local or ready-at-hand, the free find hope in the implicit, the vast and farthest reaching.
Liberal arts represent a certain type of human experience, denied only by those who see no difference between the quality of a racehorse and the skill of his rider.
unattributed
God forbade...must reading!
Change the World- Creativity
Three basic subsystems; individual, domain and field. Each interacts with the others. Individuals acquire knowledge of challenging domains. They eventually propose new knowledge for those domains. They have the potential new knowledge considered and evaluated by the field. If the proposed new knowledge is accepted by the field, it becomes part of it and is added to the domain. It will contain the new element contributed by individuals who have acquired the knowledge of the domain at an earlier point.
Human environments favorable to cultural evolution are characterized by surplus attention, by a social organization that encourages novelty, by social arrangements that easily make the retention and transmission of new variants and by informational skills far enough developed to recognize and integrate the variation within their symbol systems.
Every year 50,000 new books are published in the United States. Of these one-million manuscripts are submitted and many that don’t get published. How many are remembered in ten years? How many in one hundred years? The same is true for scholarly articles, inventions, popular songs or new products. The environment of consciousness that allows artifacts to exist is restricted and provides a severe selective process on their survival.
unattributed
Three basic subsystems; individual, domain and field. Each interacts with the others. Individuals acquire knowledge of challenging domains. They eventually propose new knowledge for those domains. They have the potential new knowledge considered and evaluated by the field. If the proposed new knowledge is accepted by the field, it becomes part of it and is added to the domain. It will contain the new element contributed by individuals who have acquired the knowledge of the domain at an earlier point.
Human environments favorable to cultural evolution are characterized by surplus attention, by a social organization that encourages novelty, by social arrangements that easily make the retention and transmission of new variants and by informational skills far enough developed to recognize and integrate the variation within their symbol systems.
Every year 50,000 new books are published in the United States. Of these one-million manuscripts are submitted and many that don’t get published. How many are remembered in ten years? How many in one hundred years? The same is true for scholarly articles, inventions, popular songs or new products. The environment of consciousness that allows artifacts to exist is restricted and provides a severe selective process on their survival.
unattributed
Sunday, November 14, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Six Degrees
Dynamics seem to be the key. People may know who they know because of what they do, but people also try new things because of who they know. Your friends invite you to parties or drag you along on their favorite activities. Your colleagues involve you in new projects or suggest contacts who might be able to help you with a problem. And bosses suggest new opportunities within or outside the firm. In other words, its through your current social contracts that you often get the information to expand your horizons and, so, changing the social structure within which you move and generating the next round of acquaintances with whom you will share it.
Individuals in social networks have their own ideas about what makes them who they are. In other words each individual in a social network comes with a social identity. By driving both the creation of the network and the notions of distance that enable individuals to navigate through it, social identity is what leads networks to be searchable.
Talk about goals, effort and the like can lead to an oversimplified idea of the nature of the learning experience. The notions the critics bring up; ‘inner skiing’ and ‘superlearning’ are supposed counterexamples. Both a sort of passive ‘going with the flow’. Inner skiing and other ‘inner’ approaches to motor skills is that your body can do the learning better if your mind doesn’t get in the way with analysis and rules. ‘Superlearning’ applies to learning a foreign language, mental relaxation intending to allow information to go straight to the unconscious mind without being fussed over and interpreted by the conscious intellect.
In a world spanned by only six degrees, what goes round comes around faster than you think. Just because something happens in another language, far away, doesn’t make it irrelevant. In contagions; epidemics of disease, financial crisi, political revolutions, social movements and dangerous ideas, we’re all connected by short chains of influence. It doesn’t matter if you know or care about them, they’ll have their effect, anyway. Don’t misunderstand the first great lesson of the connected age, we all have our own burdens, but, like it or not, we must bear each other’s burdens, as well.
Six Degrees- Duncan Watts
Dynamics seem to be the key. People may know who they know because of what they do, but people also try new things because of who they know. Your friends invite you to parties or drag you along on their favorite activities. Your colleagues involve you in new projects or suggest contacts who might be able to help you with a problem. And bosses suggest new opportunities within or outside the firm. In other words, its through your current social contracts that you often get the information to expand your horizons and, so, changing the social structure within which you move and generating the next round of acquaintances with whom you will share it.
Individuals in social networks have their own ideas about what makes them who they are. In other words each individual in a social network comes with a social identity. By driving both the creation of the network and the notions of distance that enable individuals to navigate through it, social identity is what leads networks to be searchable.
Talk about goals, effort and the like can lead to an oversimplified idea of the nature of the learning experience. The notions the critics bring up; ‘inner skiing’ and ‘superlearning’ are supposed counterexamples. Both a sort of passive ‘going with the flow’. Inner skiing and other ‘inner’ approaches to motor skills is that your body can do the learning better if your mind doesn’t get in the way with analysis and rules. ‘Superlearning’ applies to learning a foreign language, mental relaxation intending to allow information to go straight to the unconscious mind without being fussed over and interpreted by the conscious intellect.
In a world spanned by only six degrees, what goes round comes around faster than you think. Just because something happens in another language, far away, doesn’t make it irrelevant. In contagions; epidemics of disease, financial crisi, political revolutions, social movements and dangerous ideas, we’re all connected by short chains of influence. It doesn’t matter if you know or care about them, they’ll have their effect, anyway. Don’t misunderstand the first great lesson of the connected age, we all have our own burdens, but, like it or not, we must bear each other’s burdens, as well.
Six Degrees- Duncan Watts
God forbade...must reading!
Successful Intelligence
The further you go in school, the more money you make. Education works, in part, by transmitting the effects of earlier experiences. How much education people get depends, in part, on the affluence and education of their parents.
In relationships, we tolerate dissatisfactions, so severe that, had we known, we would never have entered the relationship in the first place. People who stay in unhealthy relationships may be smart enough to know the relationship isn’t working and may know even why, but they are not smart enough to know what to do about it. Successfully intelligent people can make mistakes and get into bad situations in business or in relationships, but they have judgment and the courage to know when and how to get out.
Many problems are hard to solve, people bring a particular mental set to them (entrenchment) that works in solving many problems, but does not solve the problem at hand. Functional fixedness is to find a solution with multiple uses.
Incubation involves putting a problem aside for a while, then coming back to it later. You do not consciously think about the problem, but it is processed subconsciously. As time passes, new stimuli, both external and internal may activate new perspectives on the problem, weakening mental set effects.
Overconfidence in our judgments is not clear. It could be that we prefer not to think about being wrong. Another is a belief that we have not been wrong in the past, so we have demonstrated our invulnerability in making bad judgments.
Another common error is the gambler’s fallacy, a belief that just by the nature of things a person’s luck is bound to change. The gambler who loses five successive bets, believes the winner is the sixth bet. Another error is fallacy of composition, when we believe what is true of the parts of a whole must be true of the whole.
Successful Intelligence- Robert Sternberg.
The further you go in school, the more money you make. Education works, in part, by transmitting the effects of earlier experiences. How much education people get depends, in part, on the affluence and education of their parents.
In relationships, we tolerate dissatisfactions, so severe that, had we known, we would never have entered the relationship in the first place. People who stay in unhealthy relationships may be smart enough to know the relationship isn’t working and may know even why, but they are not smart enough to know what to do about it. Successfully intelligent people can make mistakes and get into bad situations in business or in relationships, but they have judgment and the courage to know when and how to get out.
Many problems are hard to solve, people bring a particular mental set to them (entrenchment) that works in solving many problems, but does not solve the problem at hand. Functional fixedness is to find a solution with multiple uses.
Incubation involves putting a problem aside for a while, then coming back to it later. You do not consciously think about the problem, but it is processed subconsciously. As time passes, new stimuli, both external and internal may activate new perspectives on the problem, weakening mental set effects.
Overconfidence in our judgments is not clear. It could be that we prefer not to think about being wrong. Another is a belief that we have not been wrong in the past, so we have demonstrated our invulnerability in making bad judgments.
Another common error is the gambler’s fallacy, a belief that just by the nature of things a person’s luck is bound to change. The gambler who loses five successive bets, believes the winner is the sixth bet. Another error is fallacy of composition, when we believe what is true of the parts of a whole must be true of the whole.
Successful Intelligence- Robert Sternberg.
God forbade...must reading!
Trade-offs
What design-to-cost allows is a series of trade-offs built on future expectations. The person who wants to have the best trade-off six months from now envisions his activity now and builds his trade-offs for now on his faith that the process he is involved in will become less time-consuming. That useful step function will occur even if he can’t yet envision them.
Design-to-cost trade-offs means being committed to a reasonable future of learning and creativity rather than shying away from trade-offs that make those opportunities possible.
To take advantage of the learning curve you must know the activity will be repeated. Believe, based on past experience that time for the activity will decrease. Design in any step functions you know about beforehand. Have faith that step functions will happen. Commit yourself to being there. No excuses.
Cost , quality and time are at stake in every trading situation. Trade-offs begin with trading with yourself. Your trade-off inclination tells you which trade-off is better than another. Knowing other’s trade-off inclinations helps resolve conflicts. Seeing larger galaxies of trade-offs and recognizing impact areas helps you avoid being traded off. Getting out of trade-off traps helps you grasp opportunities. Asking ‘what-if’ opens new trade-off opportunities for you. Believing in the learning curve and designing- to- cost for the future provides the greatest opportunities of all. When managing people, you manage other traders and will always have to consider whether your striking for balance or lean in your trade-offs.
unattributed
What design-to-cost allows is a series of trade-offs built on future expectations. The person who wants to have the best trade-off six months from now envisions his activity now and builds his trade-offs for now on his faith that the process he is involved in will become less time-consuming. That useful step function will occur even if he can’t yet envision them.
Design-to-cost trade-offs means being committed to a reasonable future of learning and creativity rather than shying away from trade-offs that make those opportunities possible.
To take advantage of the learning curve you must know the activity will be repeated. Believe, based on past experience that time for the activity will decrease. Design in any step functions you know about beforehand. Have faith that step functions will happen. Commit yourself to being there. No excuses.
Cost , quality and time are at stake in every trading situation. Trade-offs begin with trading with yourself. Your trade-off inclination tells you which trade-off is better than another. Knowing other’s trade-off inclinations helps resolve conflicts. Seeing larger galaxies of trade-offs and recognizing impact areas helps you avoid being traded off. Getting out of trade-off traps helps you grasp opportunities. Asking ‘what-if’ opens new trade-off opportunities for you. Believing in the learning curve and designing- to- cost for the future provides the greatest opportunities of all. When managing people, you manage other traders and will always have to consider whether your striking for balance or lean in your trade-offs.
unattributed
Saturday, November 13, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Limmerence
Limmerence is the concept of falling in love, to date. Though it has many features we can identify with, there is a flip-side that before this day is done, I will get to.
It’s revealed by the work of psychologist Dorothy Tennov and reads like this.
Limmerence is an involuntary emotional state of intense romantic desire for another person. It’s sometimes referred to as an infatuation, or crush.
It’s often what’s meant having intense feelings of attachment and preoccupations with the love object. It can be felt as extreme joy or despair depending on whether the feelings are reciprocated.
Limmerence develops with a balance of hope and uncertainty. The base is in perception, not so much in reality, stinkers, you know! They comb through everything that was said, little things are noticed and analyzed for meaning.
In this same balance is hope for reciprocation with accompanied joy and chrystalization, everyone loves this part. Under the appropriate conditions, limmerence intensifies.
To become the limmerent partner one must be a potential sex object. Limmerence grows with a greater desire for sex, but where sex usually meant the end of uncertainty, its not always so; sex is not the glue you might have thought it was.
Limmerence accounts for the lack of return, prepared for the fear of rejection. Considerable self-doubt and uncertainty causes pain, but enhances desire to a certain extent.
It’s characterized by intrusive thinking, budinski, if you will. And is jealous of anything that affects the love object’s disposition to them. Its being carried away by unreasoned passion or love, exhibiting signs of immaturity; drawing conclusions from insufficient evidence.
Tennov finds limmerence features obsession, irrational idealization and pursuit of inappropriate partners, unable to learn from experience, trapped in a repeating cycle of unhappy relationships, emotional distress and a sense of futility, and is short-lived.
Were it not for the uncanny, Heimlich, the agreeable and familiar, and its opposite, what is secret and hidden, together, as in... nice and promising.
Limmerence is the concept of falling in love, to date. Though it has many features we can identify with, there is a flip-side that before this day is done, I will get to.
It’s revealed by the work of psychologist Dorothy Tennov and reads like this.
Limmerence is an involuntary emotional state of intense romantic desire for another person. It’s sometimes referred to as an infatuation, or crush.
It’s often what’s meant having intense feelings of attachment and preoccupations with the love object. It can be felt as extreme joy or despair depending on whether the feelings are reciprocated.
Limmerence develops with a balance of hope and uncertainty. The base is in perception, not so much in reality, stinkers, you know! They comb through everything that was said, little things are noticed and analyzed for meaning.
In this same balance is hope for reciprocation with accompanied joy and chrystalization, everyone loves this part. Under the appropriate conditions, limmerence intensifies.
To become the limmerent partner one must be a potential sex object. Limmerence grows with a greater desire for sex, but where sex usually meant the end of uncertainty, its not always so; sex is not the glue you might have thought it was.
Limmerence accounts for the lack of return, prepared for the fear of rejection. Considerable self-doubt and uncertainty causes pain, but enhances desire to a certain extent.
It’s characterized by intrusive thinking, budinski, if you will. And is jealous of anything that affects the love object’s disposition to them. Its being carried away by unreasoned passion or love, exhibiting signs of immaturity; drawing conclusions from insufficient evidence.
Tennov finds limmerence features obsession, irrational idealization and pursuit of inappropriate partners, unable to learn from experience, trapped in a repeating cycle of unhappy relationships, emotional distress and a sense of futility, and is short-lived.
Were it not for the uncanny, Heimlich, the agreeable and familiar, and its opposite, what is secret and hidden, together, as in... nice and promising.
God forbade...must reading!
Courage
Even in the case of bluffing, when you are trying to get out of a violent confrontation by feigning aggressiveness or fearlessness, when you intend no courageous deeds whatsoever, fakery and courage converge. You must make the other believe you will deliver, and that raises the level of risk in your own world: the risk you will further provoke the other to run you down when you turn and run or, worse, the risk that you will have to deliver if your threat fails to work. Thus to increase your risks is itself a kind of courage. It takes guts to fake it in a rough world.
see matthew 10:16
William Ian Miller- Faking It
Even in the case of bluffing, when you are trying to get out of a violent confrontation by feigning aggressiveness or fearlessness, when you intend no courageous deeds whatsoever, fakery and courage converge. You must make the other believe you will deliver, and that raises the level of risk in your own world: the risk you will further provoke the other to run you down when you turn and run or, worse, the risk that you will have to deliver if your threat fails to work. Thus to increase your risks is itself a kind of courage. It takes guts to fake it in a rough world.
see matthew 10:16
William Ian Miller- Faking It
Friday, November 12, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Hypocricy
We can be hypocrites and know we are. Judith Shklar describes a naïve hypocrite one who hides acts and beliefs he knows to be wrong and may even suffer a guilty conscience.
The new hypocrite thinks himself a paragon of virtue. He doesn’t think he’s faking anything, he may be blithely or smugly delighted with the role he has assumed, experiencing himself as sincerely what he is purporting to be, but be culpably deluded as to the sincerity of his sincerity. Shklar says he simply adjusts his conscience by ascribing noble, disinterested and altruistic intentions to all his behavior.
The naïve hypocrite a conscious deceiver, the new hypocrite a seamless self-deceiver.
Faking It- William Ian Miller
We can be hypocrites and know we are. Judith Shklar describes a naïve hypocrite one who hides acts and beliefs he knows to be wrong and may even suffer a guilty conscience.
The new hypocrite thinks himself a paragon of virtue. He doesn’t think he’s faking anything, he may be blithely or smugly delighted with the role he has assumed, experiencing himself as sincerely what he is purporting to be, but be culpably deluded as to the sincerity of his sincerity. Shklar says he simply adjusts his conscience by ascribing noble, disinterested and altruistic intentions to all his behavior.
The naïve hypocrite a conscious deceiver, the new hypocrite a seamless self-deceiver.
Faking It- William Ian Miller
God forbade...must reading!
Arrogance
Arrogance happens in people who've achieved something and believe they, independently, caused their own success with no assistance, support or input from others. Arrogance presumes you are invincible, above everyone else and beyond reproach. You assume the rules apply to others but not to you. You feel you have earned the right to behave anyway you want without adverse consequences. Arrogance is having an attitude of superiority, delighting in your own significance and thriving on other's feelings of inferiority.
Cherie Carter-Scott If Success is a Game, These Are the Rules
Arrogance happens in people who've achieved something and believe they, independently, caused their own success with no assistance, support or input from others. Arrogance presumes you are invincible, above everyone else and beyond reproach. You assume the rules apply to others but not to you. You feel you have earned the right to behave anyway you want without adverse consequences. Arrogance is having an attitude of superiority, delighting in your own significance and thriving on other's feelings of inferiority.
Cherie Carter-Scott If Success is a Game, These Are the Rules
God forbade...must reading!
Cruelty
It could be the capacity to suspend and set aside our knowledge that others are human beings and are so entitled to our protection and respect but, to see them as objects for pleasure, subjects of power- is human evil in the absolute sense. This is only the appearance of a solution to the problems of evil, because the question now is why anybody would seek to set aside this knowledge, to take part in such a knowing self-deception.
The Myth of Evil- Philip Cole
It could be the capacity to suspend and set aside our knowledge that others are human beings and are so entitled to our protection and respect but, to see them as objects for pleasure, subjects of power- is human evil in the absolute sense. This is only the appearance of a solution to the problems of evil, because the question now is why anybody would seek to set aside this knowledge, to take part in such a knowing self-deception.
The Myth of Evil- Philip Cole
God forbade...must reading!
Rationalism
On rationalism Fosdick said, “that we call sin in others is experiment for us. Where others lie, we are clever; where others cheat, we are shrewd and canny; where others are bad-tempered, we are righteously indignant; judging others, we would call their conduct selfish; judging ourselves, we call it practical. Nowhere is the manipulation of names to avoid self-blame more frequent than in the sexual realm. Many a woman who judging others would call what she is doing downright adultery, when judging herself calls it idealistic romance. All of us are tempted to act on emotion or self-interest and then call what we have done by the best name possible.”
Harry Emerson Fosdick
God forbade...must reading!
Self-Deception
Can a self-deceiver be fully autonomous while lacking important information about the world? Is the possession of true beliefs a necessary condition for autonomous decisions and action?
If self deception is structurally similar to interpersonal deception it seems the self-deceiver must A- intentionally bring about the self-deception and B- hold a pair of contradictory beliefs.
Bishop Joseph Butler suspects self-deception can influence our conscience. He warns that self-partiality “will carry a man to almost any lengths of wickedness, in the way of oppression, hard usage of others, and even to plain injustice; apparently without his having any real sense at all of it”.
Adam Smith says it’s our capacity for self-deception that allows us to think well of ourselves and to cast our gaze away from our less than perfect moral history. In so, we preserve a desirable, though, inaccurate conception of our own character.
W.K. Clifford was concerned of the effect that belief on insufficient evidence had on an individual or society’s ability to test for truth. He believed such evidence would make human beings ready to believe. A lack of reverence for the truth can penetrate an individual, and can be spread among individuals.
Jose Luis Bermudez says desires and corresponding “cost errors” influence the way we test for truth. When the cost of falsely believing that p is true is low, and the cost of falsely believing p is false is high, it will take less evidence to convince p is true than p is false.
Mike Martin has argued that not all cases of self-deception (or believing on insufficient evidence) lead to being too ready to believe, or a general disregard for truth.
Did self-deception serve to reduce a crippling spell of anxiety? And does the self-deceiver care more about his own self-esteem or “happiness” than about truth or the “real world”?
Annette Barnes examines the way “anxious” desires affect what we believe and cause us to become self-deceived. Barnes contends self-deceptive beliefs are functional and serve to reduce the self-deceiver’s anxiety.
Alfred Mele describes self-deception as best described wishful thinking or a kind of motivated believing.
Jean Paul-Sartre treats ‘bad faith’, decisions and actions based upon an “error”; he mistakenly denies his freedom and his ability to invent himself.
Herbert Fingarette describes one who cannot, or will not spell-out an engagement to himself; the engagement in question challenges his conception of himself. Moreover, the success of his project demands he avoid spelling-out that he is not spelling-out a particular engagement. In this way the deceiver adopts a strategy that covers himself.
Sometimes a person’s ignorance endures and shapes the way he perceives himself and his situation.
We are often self-deceived into thinking the world is worse than it is.
Emmanuel Kant says self-deception is a problem in that it allows a person to disguise his motives, yet act like Mr. Clean. The deceiver comforts himself with his actions and with what he sees in the world and avoids the morally crucial thoughts and questions about his motives.
Ronald de Sousa claims we can be deceived by our beliefs, but our emotions, as well.
For example, a man can become angry, while the same seen in a woman is as a “b----”. He says we cannot account for this on socialization or external social forces, alone, the stereotypes have also been internalized. He says we can counter this by “conscious-raising” talk of gender roles.
Self-deception, clearly, goes up against Socrates maxim, “Know Thyself”. History shows ignorance has caused horrendous moral consequences.
For any standard that exists, no matter how rigid or precise, there is always the possibility it will be misapplied by self-deception. John Stuart Mills says the cause of the misapplication is not the standard, itself, but the complexity of human affairs and our great capacity for self-deception.
Some philosophers say self-deception can decrease a person’s autonomy, by interfering with our reasoning. Marcia Baron says this deceived one is working with a “warped view of the circumstances”.
Self-deception, practiced regularly, can serve as a global anesthetic that immunizes us from the maladies of life. Less so, the wrongfulness of mild and localized self-deception that simply boosts the ego or adds a touch of love to a cold and loveless world.
Steve Pena
Summaries from
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Can a self-deceiver be fully autonomous while lacking important information about the world? Is the possession of true beliefs a necessary condition for autonomous decisions and action?
If self deception is structurally similar to interpersonal deception it seems the self-deceiver must A- intentionally bring about the self-deception and B- hold a pair of contradictory beliefs.
Bishop Joseph Butler suspects self-deception can influence our conscience. He warns that self-partiality “will carry a man to almost any lengths of wickedness, in the way of oppression, hard usage of others, and even to plain injustice; apparently without his having any real sense at all of it”.
Adam Smith says it’s our capacity for self-deception that allows us to think well of ourselves and to cast our gaze away from our less than perfect moral history. In so, we preserve a desirable, though, inaccurate conception of our own character.
W.K. Clifford was concerned of the effect that belief on insufficient evidence had on an individual or society’s ability to test for truth. He believed such evidence would make human beings ready to believe. A lack of reverence for the truth can penetrate an individual, and can be spread among individuals.
Jose Luis Bermudez says desires and corresponding “cost errors” influence the way we test for truth. When the cost of falsely believing that p is true is low, and the cost of falsely believing p is false is high, it will take less evidence to convince p is true than p is false.
Mike Martin has argued that not all cases of self-deception (or believing on insufficient evidence) lead to being too ready to believe, or a general disregard for truth.
Did self-deception serve to reduce a crippling spell of anxiety? And does the self-deceiver care more about his own self-esteem or “happiness” than about truth or the “real world”?
Annette Barnes examines the way “anxious” desires affect what we believe and cause us to become self-deceived. Barnes contends self-deceptive beliefs are functional and serve to reduce the self-deceiver’s anxiety.
Alfred Mele describes self-deception as best described wishful thinking or a kind of motivated believing.
Jean Paul-Sartre treats ‘bad faith’, decisions and actions based upon an “error”; he mistakenly denies his freedom and his ability to invent himself.
Herbert Fingarette describes one who cannot, or will not spell-out an engagement to himself; the engagement in question challenges his conception of himself. Moreover, the success of his project demands he avoid spelling-out that he is not spelling-out a particular engagement. In this way the deceiver adopts a strategy that covers himself.
Sometimes a person’s ignorance endures and shapes the way he perceives himself and his situation.
We are often self-deceived into thinking the world is worse than it is.
Emmanuel Kant says self-deception is a problem in that it allows a person to disguise his motives, yet act like Mr. Clean. The deceiver comforts himself with his actions and with what he sees in the world and avoids the morally crucial thoughts and questions about his motives.
Ronald de Sousa claims we can be deceived by our beliefs, but our emotions, as well.
For example, a man can become angry, while the same seen in a woman is as a “b----”. He says we cannot account for this on socialization or external social forces, alone, the stereotypes have also been internalized. He says we can counter this by “conscious-raising” talk of gender roles.
Self-deception, clearly, goes up against Socrates maxim, “Know Thyself”. History shows ignorance has caused horrendous moral consequences.
For any standard that exists, no matter how rigid or precise, there is always the possibility it will be misapplied by self-deception. John Stuart Mills says the cause of the misapplication is not the standard, itself, but the complexity of human affairs and our great capacity for self-deception.
Some philosophers say self-deception can decrease a person’s autonomy, by interfering with our reasoning. Marcia Baron says this deceived one is working with a “warped view of the circumstances”.
Self-deception, practiced regularly, can serve as a global anesthetic that immunizes us from the maladies of life. Less so, the wrongfulness of mild and localized self-deception that simply boosts the ego or adds a touch of love to a cold and loveless world.
Steve Pena
Summaries from
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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