Author Topic: Serious Discussions about Life  (Read 24413 times)

injest

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Serious Discussions about Life
« on: September 28, 2007, 12:39:16 am »
Ok...first off


Mean vs Nice

now I know that you hear about Holocaust survivors that are kind and have come thru with their faith and belief intact....

and I know what we were all taught about how good always triumphs...but does it really?

There was a Nazi that said "Here I stand with my guns and swords...there YOU stand with your laws. We shall see who wins" (paraphrased...don't have the quote in front of me.) but you get the drift. and I know the Nazis lost in the long run. that is small comfort to the small child being gassed.

It seems good and nice is so fragile. and mean and cruel so overwhelming...

I think Mean wins.

Offline Daniel

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Re: Serious Discussions about Life
« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2007, 12:52:00 am »
Hmm, if I may replace your "meanness" with "cruelty" - which is the psychologically addictive control and powerful influence to harm another - I would actually say that the cruel ones are the ones who are losing out.

In their mad rush for power, their eagerness to bring pain to others, they do not realize how much pain they are causing to themselves. The Golden Rule works; even if no one stands up to the cruel, or comes into open conflict with them, those whom would do much to see a little harm come to others will suffer in their spirits and their psyche for their own actions. Those whom are kind, on the other hand, nourish themselves psychically by their own activities, and generate an infinite amount of caring energy that effects both their own lives and the lives of those around them.

If you do not believe me, look at the lives of those whom we know to have been cruel. They are often paranoid, void of friends or emotional companionship, they take no pleasure in the good-natured things of life and can only be humored by the destruction of the noble. One wonders if this is even truly humorous, or if the soul has become so twisted that it measures not the nature of benign behavior.

Cruelty has its price, and kindness is filled with infinite promise.
Why do we consume what we consume?
Why do we believe what we believe?
Why do we accept what we accept?
You have a body, a mind, and a soul.... You have a responsibility.

injest

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Re: Serious Discussions about Life
« Reply #2 on: September 28, 2007, 01:06:14 am »
it takes months to build a beautiful temple. Two seconds to bomb it into nothing.

a flower takes weeks to grow and bloom. Takes seconds to crush it.

innocence is fragile as that flower. It can't be given back.

So to me the one who bombs. who crushes, who steals the innocence has won.

yes, I think mean people are unhappy. but they still get their way while innocents suffer.

Offline Daniel

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Re: Serious Discussions about Life
« Reply #3 on: September 28, 2007, 01:10:33 am »
The innocents who built the temple, who watched the flower bloom and grow: They are the true winners. They observed the creation of true beauty, and in those instances of true creation, created beauty in their hearts that no cruelty could take away. Even if the temple is destroyed.... Even if the flower is crushed... Those who observed them, and registered their beauty in their hearts can maintain their beauty infinitely. And even if no fragment of memory remains, they will still have the ideal that allowed that beauty to be remembered.
Why do we consume what we consume?
Why do we believe what we believe?
Why do we accept what we accept?
You have a body, a mind, and a soul.... You have a responsibility.

moremojo

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Re: Serious Discussions about Life
« Reply #4 on: September 28, 2007, 08:49:16 pm »
I believe that each moment is inscribed in Eternity. So, while it is true that the fragile flower can be stomped to bits in seconds flat, the essence of that flower's beauty and vitality remains enshrined in a Memory that transcends our human limitations of understanding. And this is part of the mystery...the stomping and the shredding, by being part of the Story, becomes part of the Beauty and Vitality. There is no polarity in the realm of the Transcendent; such exists only in this contextual field that we call earthly life.

A perennial challenge in this earthly life: How do the meek, the innocent, and the noble find love for the overbearing, the corrupt, and the craven? For the latter are as deserving of Love as the former, though they do not cultivate it in their own lives. To know this is to begin to live this, and that is all we can ask of the vulnerable creature that is the human being.

injest

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Re: Serious Discussions about Life
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2007, 08:55:42 pm »
those are very noble sentiments...but to the person who built only to see it ruined...well I don't see them being able to see the beauty thru the pain of loss and bitterness.

moremojo

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Re: Serious Discussions about Life
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2007, 09:09:48 pm »
I hear you, Jess, and I do know how painful the feeling of loss can be. But I would like to suggest that feelings aren't necessarily the best gauge of reality.  I speculate on a reality where the loss never really occurred at all...we just pretended that it did because it made for a more compelling Story. In the fullness of Eternity, our Story will merge with the Storyteller, and the Storyteller will welcome us all home, congratulating us, both "good" and "bad", on a job well done.

Offline Daniel

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Re: Serious Discussions about Life
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2007, 09:10:33 pm »
If one chooses to focus on the pain and bitterness, then there is no doubt in my mind that the experience of loss will be infinitely painful. At the death of a beloved, do we not nurture sorrow's pain in our hearts when we focus upon the loss of that person in our own lives rather than focusing on the creative and productive measures that filled theirs. Hmm, that reminds me of a poem I wrote. Its included in my book Mystic Madness in the Night (shameless plug: http://www.xlibris.com/mysticmadnessinthenight )

Eulogy

Standing on the silence of the sepulchral stage,
a silver-gilt sarcophagus summons several starry-eyed.
Each enjoys an enchanting effect:
effort enlivened in enlightenment.
A single seed, sparingly sorrowful, so still yet
stirring somewhere  - seated at its center,
a love of life, a living lapse in the
'lorn luminosity of laboring lungs.
Planted peacefully, perhaps plucked
perchance, posing as a part, petals
caress the cadaver's core, caring
for the crying and concerned.
The wind whispers willfully of wishes
that once went by, wandered by one
who in the name of them had died.
Death dealt desired dangers. Daring
dreams and darkness drum the dauntless.
Hopes held haughtily heralded honing of the heart,
high heaven's holy hiccup happens to agree,
stifling this somber soliloquy.
What wonders were lost when weary flesh wore out?
What worldly wealth of wisdom winked away?
The mortified moment of mortality
mummed the mumbling majority.
And in the autumn of anger and unridden angst,
among the aftereffects, awry and aired,
friends and family finicky felt the frost forlorn,
following the fading fortitude of the fellow death had born.
Memories magnified via mortal majesty
maneuver moments into malcontent.
Does this honor life or even death,
which so easily changes the face of everything?

When something beautiful in our lives is suddenly not there, should we focus upon that loss and grieve for moments striken from us, or with that beauty still within our heart, begin to build again? That is the question of how to respond to the destruction of the beautiful.
Why do we consume what we consume?
Why do we believe what we believe?
Why do we accept what we accept?
You have a body, a mind, and a soul.... You have a responsibility.

injest

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Re: Serious Discussions about Life
« Reply #8 on: October 05, 2007, 12:38:28 am »
second off.

What is it about sex that makes people give up everything? I read in the paper about women drowning their children...for a man...

I hear about men that abandon their families, give up careers (Craig), betray everything...for what? A few minutes of physical pleasure?

I don't understand it.

I like to think I have a reg sex life...I am happy with it. But if I had to choose my child or sex...I would pick my child. If I am working I don't think about sex...when I have sex I don't think about work. I don't understand how people can't control themselves..

It is only ONE part of life...but people let it become their ENTIRE life...


Offline Daniel

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Re: Serious Discussions about Life
« Reply #9 on: October 05, 2007, 01:03:07 am »
For women, I think it is different than for a man. In our western culture, women are sometimes raised to believe that men will take care of them for the rest of their lives. In some eastern cultures, a woman has no say in her own life, she always belongs to the closest male relative, whether it be father, uncle, brother, or son. There is no choice for the people in these cultures: this is the way life has been and probably always will unless someone introduces dramatic changes to fight this notion of imprisonment thought.

We have our own modes of imprisonment thought, specific ideas that we enslave ourselves too. Part of the benefit of a good education is the recognition that we are not slaves to ideas, but that we can create our own ideas and work beyond the boundaries that others establish for us. This is sometimes a difficult concept to take into hand, the complete independence of the primordial self. We become comfortable with ways of life that are not healthy for us. We eat fatty fried foods, for example, and foods loaded with butter fat to bring comfort to ourselves, when in reality we are enslaving our bodies to addictive food additives, high fructose corn syrup, and any number of manmade chemicals designed to keep you using a product. Free the body, free the mind, free the heart, free the soul. Freedom is the essence of our human existence, if we can but realize it. How many times have we stayed in a job we hated because it was more uncomfortable to go out and find one that we liked. Sometimes we can even delude ourselves that we like our job, or our status in life, and continue to remain where we are.  We are comfortable and secure, and thus have no need for liberty and freedom. We can give up our hopes and dreams to maintain this comfort, and more often than not, we do.

So it is no surprise to me that we can become comforted by our relationships with specific individuals, become used to their presence and willing to do anything to maintain it. The insecurity and discomfort that might arise in that relationship can easily be defeated by sacrificing our true desires to give ourselves completely to another person. This is the great poison that infiltrates the human soul, the idea that romantic sacrifice is a true and noble goal and that our ability to give up everything that is a part of ourselves, everything for another, will ensure that we maintain that relationship forever, as the songs tell us. The arts sometimes do not do enough to battle this idea, and instead enforce it. Dreamy romantic music, romantic comedies, everything that focuses upon the permanence of a relationship imbalances the human ability to maintain their own unique identity, and creates a very unhealthy view of the romantic relationship.

For men, much of the western ideal of masculinity has included a type of machoism, an intense superiority of the male, even including a sexual superiority. A healthy individual can realize that this idea is not at all productive at an individual level of consciousness. But all too often, our society has duped men into not thinking about his place in life and not questioning the nature of his romantic liaisons. The jovian man is certain that his sexual prowess is part of his being, and the proof of such a matter can be paramount. This has been part of western male society since the middle ages, and probably before then as well. But in this enlightened age, what can cause a man to act in the same primeval ways?

There can only be one answer, he has been culturally brought up to believe that this is the only way. He is a victim of familial and diseducational circumstances, never learning to question those things that have always been taken for granted. Further, his sexual pride becoming tantamount to all other forces of his daily existence might indicate a desperate sexual imbalance. He was coddled too frequently in one relationship or another, given everything he wanted and desired without question, and virtually completely spoiled by spouse or significant other, on whom he became completely dependent. Given the prior consideration of women who are victims to the cognitive perception of their social existence, this type of behavior is unfortunately popular.

In almost every way of the word, a man's sexual partner becomes his "bitch". She (or he in some cases) is responsible not only for his sexual needs, but also for his comfort and physical needs, and for the relative security of his personal life. She must chase out all newcomers which might threaten his superiority. A man can become all too comfortable in this type of relationship, and he will give up much to maintain it. Slavery has been outlawed, but that does not mean that there are not still some ways in which it is practiced.
Why do we consume what we consume?
Why do we believe what we believe?
Why do we accept what we accept?
You have a body, a mind, and a soul.... You have a responsibility.