chaos

Fuse … your post is such an inspiration … like a breath of fresh … clean … air. A rare enough incident these days … both figuratively and literally!

Let me start with your last comment:

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Agreed … and this post is my first baby step beyond hope.

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We both joined ILP in 2006 … you joined about 6 months earlier than me. Since 2006, I’ve popped in and out of ILP … always found it to be a hostile arena … always left more vexed than when I entered.

For me, there are only two possible answers:

  1. The hostility is by design … attract some serious thinkers and proceed to squash them like a cockroach that has entered one’s personal space.

  2. An open … liberal … no holds barred … project with virtually no attempt to steer … control … manipulate … simply let the forum go wherever it goes.

I prefer to believe the latter. If right … ILP has become a microcosm of humanity … the mix is likely about right … the proportion of vexatious bullhorns about right and so on. A wonderful circumstance … with this as a backdrop and with conscious effort … we may figure out where humanity is headed.

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I prefer to believe your first alternative … [b]

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Why?

  1. Information overload from exploding technologies for the past 70 years. Our brains are inundated with information … overwhelming our ability to integrate … synthesize all this shit into a coherent whole.

  2. The natural inclination to believe that we are doing the “right thing” … we are living the “right way”. No one wants to believe they have been deceived.

  3. We are in fact living the “right way” for reasons we don’t know or understand. Our life choices have brought humanity to where it is today … we are not yet on our knees … we may well be on the threshold of a very positive transformation … metamorphosis. Does the caterpillar know that it is on route to become a butterfly?

  4. The “desperation” … the “feeling of being trapped” will disappear when the clouds are rolled back and the light shines through … figuratively speaking.

Enough for a baby step. :slight_smile:

hey pilgrim,

That’s right, I think it was always kind of a free for all here at ILP, but there used to be a better mix of high level discussion and levity circa 2002 - 2006. People were cordial for the most part. Alongside the forum, there were hopes of implementing a semi-academic journal called the “Symposium.” It never really took off, and the core membership went through a few upheavals. To tell the truth, things aren’t half bad at the moment. But we’re usually just short of the critical mass to make this a respectable forum.

My personal opinion is that the well-oiled machines of state and economy, and the day to day business and transactions that sustain them, hum ruthlessly and incessantly so that they suck up all the oxygen. It’s not easy to step outside of their matrix, catch one’s breath, and take control of one’s life.

Life is hard. Even with our basic needs met, life is still challenging and daunting and sometimes quite horrible. I can’t imagine life any other way. But I think one has to respect how far we’ve come from square one and the power of our communities and collaboration.

An adult-size step, for sure.

Fuse … another post that oozes intelligence and optimism … let’s hope it becomes contagious. :slight_smile:

ILP has the potential to grow into a world changing platform … when the core of it’s current members embrace the idiom … “honey attracts more flies than vinegar”.

Absolutely agree … and the untapped potential is enormous.

Exquisite analogy … so few words … such an enormous statement of fact.

The ‘machine’ you describe has been on artificial life support for more than a century … the effectiveness of this artificial life support is slipping daily.

The paradox is that the world’s population has more than tripled while the ‘machine’ has been on artificial life support … go figure eh!

The desperation you mentioned in an earlier post permeates all classes of peoples …

  1. The people with privilege have never lost anything … there only concern is the anarchy … chaos … that will surely result if the natives get too restless.

  2. The people with something fear they may lose the little they have.

  3. The people with nothing fear they may get hungry.

Insecurity reigns supreme these days …

Just spitballin’ here, pilgrim. Trying to see what sticks.

I’ll settle for consistently cordial and riveting discourse.

I’ve just thought a lot about it. It’s been said much better, many times before.

I think there are emerging systems that will render “the machine” as we know it obsolete. For better or worse, I don’t know. But I decline to speculate at the moment.

Fuse … your posts are getting more and more interesting … exciting.

I’ll try to describe my reactions to your last post as they unfolded.

  1. After reading your post I went out to help my wife take care of her chickens, ducks and geese … 14 in total.

  2. While helping my wife my mind focused on your words … “emerging systems” and “speculate”

  3. I tend to ‘see’ self evident direction … versus speculation … and ‘emerging systems’ are simply a continuation of the battle … man versus nature … since time immemorial.

  4. Nature will obviously triumph … though I’m not clear yet what the triumph will look like.

  5. Back home … listened to a bit of Terrence McKenna … he hit a nerve … brought back a memory … reworked the thoughts I mentioned above.

  6. You likely know I’ve spent most of the past 11+ years in China. Language has not hindered my contemplation … experience … of human life. I don’t understand a word of Chinese … there is no local English speaking community … and for some reason I’ve refused to use a telephone for almost 11 years. The exception being a couple of years teaching conversational English to a handful of Chinese people … some of whom were very interesting and helpful.

  7. I only know … recognize … two or three Chinese characters … person and … jail. You will note the character for ‘jail’ is a person inside a box.

When chatting with Chinese people … at the schools where I taught conversational English … I would often write the Chinese character for jail on the white board and translate it as “culture” … ergo: I ‘see’ culture as a jail.

  1. McKenna mentioned the same thought … he suggests habit … culture … is a retardant to ‘novelty’.

  2. I ‘see’ habit a bit differently … for me ‘habit’ … retardation imposed by culture … is a necessary stage to prepare a critical mass of people for the next phase of ‘novelty’ … without ‘habit’ to stall … slow down … the process … humanity would go crazy in no time.

  3. Today is one of those days where I acknowledge my almost 25 year odyssey with God (Nature) … as both an interesting and exciting adventure.

I think that’s right. McKenna has a phrase, “culture is not your friend.” Culture embeds us with an operating system, but the OS isn’t for us, we aren’t the users of it, we are being operated on to further the survival of institutions, the machines of state and economy.

Culture is cute, it shows us objects of desire, it makes us feel social and connected, but it isn’t ultimately meant to serve us.
The goal in developing one’s own culture is not novelty for novelty’s sake, but reclaiming your headspace, your life and experience, for yourself.

I just want to appreciate that we are of nature - and bound to fold back into the whole.

[size=85]The spirit of man honors the fecund bubble of void from which it originated through an offering of sweat, blood, and tears - the fluids of life and effort. There is only being in nature, a projection of the world, harking back to itself, breath of the void.[/size]

There is Being essence and existence after the folding in, there is a new renewed progression into the essential nature of being through its excogenic existential unfolding3. The spirit of man vaporizes from its fluid manifestAtions.

The spiritual vapor of the essence of man then goes through a metaphysicAl compression in situ, due to the gravity2 collapse of Its refolding clearing permanent inscriptions, assuring an eternal recycling.

No Meno, I don’t buy that “clearing of permanent inscriptions.” One’s essence remains or mine did for some disturbing reason. Who we are doesn’t change, only where we are.

Most of the above refers to scholastic philosophy, the last to alchemical consequences of the forum
preceding mine.

Scholasticism is of great interest, since it is the predecessor of real ontological deliberation, imbued
with pure transcendentalism, before the renaissance.

Given the view of the incredible denial of ontology, beginning with Kant, and the consequential method,
by which it’s method has come to a very doubtful
past-future, the conclusion doesn’t seem as far fetched at all.

To predicate Being before the Essence of its contextual ramifications,do to its post modern significations, does support the idea of a changing
soul, in the sense of a qualifying principle, not one,
where it is a question of numbers, vis, how large are the numbers in a set of souls, whether be counted in real or virtual numbers.

Let’s say, Wendy, we were to identify a personal characteristic by overwhelming like qualities as racial
profiles. Here, the soul may, because of like qualities
shared, may vastly outnumber those, which aren’t, could not differentiate a very large group in terms of other than most relevant characteristics.

The idea is, that the soul, considered in terms of quantifiable aggregates, may not singly be
separated singularly, since there are no two perfectly unique individuals in the world, other then notable ones, and even they have commonly shared characteristics.

Those who become singular induviduals, composed of
either the self deluding ones, the ones who are not so
different, will not find themselves in a unique sense of self regardless where they are or who they are, or who they think they are.

The truly evolved, or the truly unevolved, notable or not, are either absolutely complete, and good, or, the truly uninvolved and truly unique with opposite characteristics.

The truly evolved have no fear of becoming part of an
indistinguishable soul, and their evolution does not
fear a rebirth , or a lack of it, knowing that the souk, the spirit, is really wholly, one, or consisting of infinitely many.

On the other hand , the unenlightened’s relationship with non unique mass characteristics, always take the form of imposing control on them, with hidden motives.

This is why I fail to see, how a whole-ly, connection
with a partial manifestation can form an unholy
alliance, either in a transcendental, or an imminent sense.

A real participation based on fear of being different, creates a mistique that such separation is dangerous.
The mystique of participation, breaking bods is tantamount of loosing their sole.

The only real way to avoid chaos, is through a reintegration based on a mediated and tested patterns, seen in the protection of territory. Only through many trials and long passages of time can souls gain the liberating binding force which results in less protection of territory.

Until this is achieved, freedom from chaos can not come about.

The enlightened Buddhist proclaim that Satori may take millions of rebirths, or it may happen in only one.

One qualification is, to be able fearlessly to loose one’s self, with the thought of never ever having to re-incarnate.

This is why Jesus said, those who love their life will loose it, but Those who hate their life will gain Eternity.

Wendy, its late, and suffering from jet lag, and on re-reading and editing, find my narrative arduously long , tediously so at times. But the concept of chaos is severe nowadays, and your critique deserved a shorter, snappier reply. However, I am sticking with this one, in spite of its shortcomings, because the topic is so profound, that it could not be encapsulated.

But the simple conclusion is, yes, the soul can be changeless regardless of context, or it may not, but the malleability of the soul is what determines the level of freedom from fear.

That this is no easy task, not to mention, even possible, is known, but it has been written so eloquently by but , masters and aspirants, is well documented.

My soul identifies with an emotion based home, a specific emotion, on a specific plane of existence. I am not part of a soul group so if that’s what you are referring to, I have no idea.

How do you figure?

Go to bed…geez.

I wonder how Pinocchio would feel? Anyway thanks for the suggestion…

Shhhhhhhhhs…shhhhhhhhs…shhhhhs…

How to figure?

If there were two identical souls a third one had to ascertain whether he perceived the same soul doubly or, if he perceived two souls which were in fact identical.

Remember, even if the two souls’s congruency , and their degree of overlap was off by an infinitesimally small degree, they would still be considered as separate.

First off, there is no such idea as perfectly unique for being unique is the perfect aspect already. Secondly, all souls are unique individuals with unique experiences and memories, even with unique energy signatures. Sure there are some similarities qua being but what isn’t similar or identical (which is not possible) is unique. Thirdly, this discussion is bizarre. :-"

Ok, bizarre or not, is not the idea that a thousand angels can dance at the top of a needle is no less so?
And that thought has been entertained for a very long time.

Now, I am no angel, but the idea of angels have come to about the closest to perfection as can be imagined, and I would argue for a relative perfection, not an absolute one, if I may be permitted.

Your middle point is well taken and makes sense, but that supports the relative paradigmn of relative identity.

What makes a soul absolutely unique if, relatively speaking they share common characteristics? Even if so, how could such uniqueness be defined, when the very definitions themselves seek usually to tipify identity in terms of an outstanding characteristic, subsuming all other, less significant ones?

I do agree that in the world of common sense in the here and now, stereotyping seems to work, but in an absolute world of the individual soul, such sensibility may not.

That’s a nice, erm, bike you got there. Is that you motoring around the farm?

Yeah … it’s me but no farm … reclaimed land across the street from our apartment building … reserved for future development. My wife started the project 3 years ago … when nobody was interested … and now neighbors are fighting for a small plot.

We started hauling water in pails from the apartment … too difficult … bought a hose and hung it out the window … easier yet still tiring … finally bought the “donkey cart” in the picture, a water pump and portable battery … now I go to the river for water … just stand there and let the water pump do the work. :slight_smile:

Very cool, what are you and your wife growing there?