I agree. We are audience and extra and actor but never the director or producer with the flood of information drowning us in pixels and images and type as well as the TV. Or Podcast. When I was 17 and 18 and in college as a very serious young man reading Plato I encountered an idea from Socrates that I think really sank in. "What a lot of things there are a man can do without." And "I have not sought during my life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but I have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty."
I think this reading and the culture combined to have me prefer freedom to full time but I will work full time and put my heart in it and my head and know I am disposable as another Stakhanovite. Good when needed, now needed no more. Adieu and here the Chinese watch of fools gold and a letter of recommendation and a check of thanks equal to the highest two weeks earnings since you began service. Godspeed and you know the door.
I suggest that you certainly have the morning tea (or afternoon tea) with your sad case friend and see how you can work the conversation around to what he is worried about.
If he's a hopeless brainwashed nut then you will have trouble having meaningful dialogue with him and after talking about the good old days, and how's the family, you will run out of things in common and it will be "good bye" not "au revoir".
I happened to meet an old (masked) friend up town the other day and she suggested that we have a coffee. I tested her reaction to a few obvious truths and when she failed the test I told her that I was in a rush but that it was lovely seeing her again.
If I can't speak the truth to people then their friendship is a very thin thing.
He and I do differ greatly in politics after all is said and done as he is a liberal Democrat. On the other hand, during the Gulf War he was a lone protestor sitting Zen in protest by the Federal building in full Zen robes. His wife is Asian. He is a man with antiwar statements in his shop window, a placard on the Constitution as well. Yet way back in time when John Boy Kerry was lusting for the Purple he was an ardent Kerrycrat.
I believe in assuming the adult body form the human being also acquires protective immunity from truth. In adult life forms we scientists of the soul, philosophers of the you think what? school of thought, detect a remarkable agreeability and conformity unseen in younger life forms.
The image I have in mind is from a National Lampoon cover for the 10th year of the magazine existence. Naturally it will not paste. Here is url. Url has several magazine covers. The one I have in mind Tenth Anniversary Anthology Vol 1 - 1980--http://rwinters.com/lampoon/LampoonX2.htm. 4th image down on Left.
Carlyle wrote on this topic. Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books is an 1831 novel serialized in Fraser's in 1833 and 1834. Times change and people rarely realize the changing times are merely a new fad and soon, maybe a generation or two later, return to a fresh old world.
Cairn I share your fascinating insight but I think to reverse it and still keep it as true. You are correct. Zen did not fill his needs. The needs it did fill though were not related to critical thinking despite practice of koan and breathing and spinal posture and ritual. The needs it filled were merely bourgeoise ego needs for the authentic. Though it is a lived life and like a religious person one is bound by spiritual precepts, the un-critical precepts of Zen fit the highest positive in corporate culture as we see today 50 years out.
I looked. I saw a couple but not wishing to drop $40 or even $20 as I had just used the last credit I had with Amazon returning items Judith no longer required to buy books I had wished for some time. My next book task is organizing my online books into one folder and all my online photographs in one folder. I might have over 1,000 ebooks over 10 years.
I enjoy listening to Clif High and his latest post is on the lines of meditation being to focus the mind for brain/machine interface.
That space aliens bred humans, with one task being for humans to work the space aliens' machines by brain interface, and the Talmud and Vedas were instruction manuals, not religion.
Meditation never did anything for me other than putting my feet to sleep, and I used to wonder if everyone was just kidding themselves that they were reaching another plane. So I like Cliff's idea. He's also into saying that the space aliens liked to eat baby fat, and other human parts, and thus anointings and purification rituals were to appeal to alien tastebuds or food requirements.
Signs of our times really that the day I decided to call the phone was busy four times I rang the store and so I emotionally respond thinking carefully how the times have summoned souls to reveal aspects unseen in mirrors. We can talk of many things and it will not be superficial nor intellectual nor Zen even though I would ask him about practice of sitting Zen during lockdown-what stayed the same, what changed, how is this today with your practice-in fact I do not know truly what can be spoken across the river bank where rapids run not far upstream and not far down. Would I say to him, say there is this book, I do not know if you have had it in your store-
Improper Life: Technology and Biopolitics from Heidegger to Agamben 🔍
Univ Of Minnesota Press, Posthumanities, 2011
Timothy C. Campbell 🔍
“Has biopolitics actually become thanatopolitics, a field of study obsessed with death? Is there something about the nature of biopolitical thought today that makes it impossible to deploy affirmatively? If this is true, what can life-minded thinkers put forward as the merits of biopolitical reflection? These questions drive Improper Life , Timothy C. Campbell’s dexterous inquiry-as-intervention.
Campbell argues that a “crypto-thanatopolitics” can be teased out of Heidegger’s critique of technology and that some of the leading scholars of biopolitics—including Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk—have been substantively influenced by Heidegger’s thought, particularly his reading of proper and improper writing. In fact, Campbell shows how all of these philosophers have pointed toward a tragic, thanatopolitical destination as somehow an inevitable result of technology. But in Improper Life he articulates a corrective biopolitics that can begin with rereadings of Foucault (especially his late work regarding the care and technologies of the self), Freud (notably his writings on the drives and negation), and Gilles Deleuze (particularly in the relation of attention to aesthetics).
Throughout Improper Life , Campbell insists that biopolitics can become more positive and productively asserts an affirmative technē not thought through thanatos but rather practiced through bíos .
I worked for him 23 years ago and would not today. No I will not mask for a job. Yes employees mask. He has 1 employee. He can barely afford that but does so. I know I won't convince him but I am curious.
There lies insight in this contemplation. The illogical logicality of structured unfreedom from fear. Pop psychology maybe but I wonder if spiritual practice is truly the machine to banish fear by obedience to rules. The child grown up likes being obedient even in civic practice. Why not in Zen or Judaism or Christianity for adherents. The activity provides purpose and obedience does as well.
The bigger decision actually is are you willing to wear one in order to work there? You won’t convince him in one conversation , nor should you try to or expect to imo.
For employment you may need to suck it up for a while until you break him in easy...just the tip and give it to him easy.
You might benefit from learning NLP because if he is wearing a mask in July ‘23 he will not go down easy.
I agree. We are audience and extra and actor but never the director or producer with the flood of information drowning us in pixels and images and type as well as the TV. Or Podcast. When I was 17 and 18 and in college as a very serious young man reading Plato I encountered an idea from Socrates that I think really sank in. "What a lot of things there are a man can do without." And "I have not sought during my life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but I have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty."
I think this reading and the culture combined to have me prefer freedom to full time but I will work full time and put my heart in it and my head and know I am disposable as another Stakhanovite. Good when needed, now needed no more. Adieu and here the Chinese watch of fools gold and a letter of recommendation and a check of thanks equal to the highest two weeks earnings since you began service. Godspeed and you know the door.
I hope that you get the job; sounds like it's one with a legitimate purpose and not morally corrupting.
( Other than the whole battery thing.)
Even more ironic, I think with your friend being Zen teacher and all that.
Oh the mystery of human mind. Best wishes :-))
Yes, indeed.
I suggest that you certainly have the morning tea (or afternoon tea) with your sad case friend and see how you can work the conversation around to what he is worried about.
If he's a hopeless brainwashed nut then you will have trouble having meaningful dialogue with him and after talking about the good old days, and how's the family, you will run out of things in common and it will be "good bye" not "au revoir".
I happened to meet an old (masked) friend up town the other day and she suggested that we have a coffee. I tested her reaction to a few obvious truths and when she failed the test I told her that I was in a rush but that it was lovely seeing her again.
If I can't speak the truth to people then their friendship is a very thin thing.
He and I do differ greatly in politics after all is said and done as he is a liberal Democrat. On the other hand, during the Gulf War he was a lone protestor sitting Zen in protest by the Federal building in full Zen robes. His wife is Asian. He is a man with antiwar statements in his shop window, a placard on the Constitution as well. Yet way back in time when John Boy Kerry was lusting for the Purple he was an ardent Kerrycrat.
I believe in assuming the adult body form the human being also acquires protective immunity from truth. In adult life forms we scientists of the soul, philosophers of the you think what? school of thought, detect a remarkable agreeability and conformity unseen in younger life forms.
The image I have in mind is from a National Lampoon cover for the 10th year of the magazine existence. Naturally it will not paste. Here is url. Url has several magazine covers. The one I have in mind Tenth Anniversary Anthology Vol 1 - 1980--http://rwinters.com/lampoon/LampoonX2.htm. 4th image down on Left.
Good Lampoon cover.
A lot to be said for the power of dress up.
You are what you wear.
That's how one is viewed and it is reflected back.
Carlyle wrote on this topic. Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books is an 1831 novel serialized in Fraser's in 1833 and 1834. Times change and people rarely realize the changing times are merely a new fad and soon, maybe a generation or two later, return to a fresh old world.
It's like keeping up with the news.(TV)
A weakness as it turns out.
It's like keeping up with the news.(TV)
A weakness as it turns out.
It has taken four years for our dog to settle down and conform to rules.
Zen didn't fill your friend's needs sufficiently so he was susceptible to a new belief system.
Cairn I share your fascinating insight but I think to reverse it and still keep it as true. You are correct. Zen did not fill his needs. The needs it did fill though were not related to critical thinking despite practice of koan and breathing and spinal posture and ritual. The needs it filled were merely bourgeoise ego needs for the authentic. Though it is a lived life and like a religious person one is bound by spiritual precepts, the un-critical precepts of Zen fit the highest positive in corporate culture as we see today 50 years out.
The good news is that his business must be doing okay to be taking on new staff.
Did you buy any more books? LOL
I looked. I saw a couple but not wishing to drop $40 or even $20 as I had just used the last credit I had with Amazon returning items Judith no longer required to buy books I had wished for some time. My next book task is organizing my online books into one folder and all my online photographs in one folder. I might have over 1,000 ebooks over 10 years.
If you get the ebike job you might need to ask your friend if he has a copy of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".
( Beware those batteries though as they burst into flames.)
I know I have the article on corporate zen. I think I need to organize all my text, pdf non book documents as well.
A blessed rage for order.
I enjoy listening to Clif High and his latest post is on the lines of meditation being to focus the mind for brain/machine interface.
That space aliens bred humans, with one task being for humans to work the space aliens' machines by brain interface, and the Talmud and Vedas were instruction manuals, not religion.
Meditation never did anything for me other than putting my feet to sleep, and I used to wonder if everyone was just kidding themselves that they were reaching another plane. So I like Cliff's idea. He's also into saying that the space aliens liked to eat baby fat, and other human parts, and thus anointings and purification rituals were to appeal to alien tastebuds or food requirements.
https://clifhigh.substack.com/p/hidden-space-aliens?publication_id=681568&play_audio=true#details
Clif has a fun explanation of circumcision, that the circumcised were not allowed to *fly* the virmana.
Signs of our times really that the day I decided to call the phone was busy four times I rang the store and so I emotionally respond thinking carefully how the times have summoned souls to reveal aspects unseen in mirrors. We can talk of many things and it will not be superficial nor intellectual nor Zen even though I would ask him about practice of sitting Zen during lockdown-what stayed the same, what changed, how is this today with your practice-in fact I do not know truly what can be spoken across the river bank where rapids run not far upstream and not far down. Would I say to him, say there is this book, I do not know if you have had it in your store-
Improper Life: Technology and Biopolitics from Heidegger to Agamben 🔍
Univ Of Minnesota Press, Posthumanities, 2011
Timothy C. Campbell 🔍
“Has biopolitics actually become thanatopolitics, a field of study obsessed with death? Is there something about the nature of biopolitical thought today that makes it impossible to deploy affirmatively? If this is true, what can life-minded thinkers put forward as the merits of biopolitical reflection? These questions drive Improper Life , Timothy C. Campbell’s dexterous inquiry-as-intervention.
Campbell argues that a “crypto-thanatopolitics” can be teased out of Heidegger’s critique of technology and that some of the leading scholars of biopolitics—including Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk—have been substantively influenced by Heidegger’s thought, particularly his reading of proper and improper writing. In fact, Campbell shows how all of these philosophers have pointed toward a tragic, thanatopolitical destination as somehow an inevitable result of technology. But in Improper Life he articulates a corrective biopolitics that can begin with rereadings of Foucault (especially his late work regarding the care and technologies of the self), Freud (notably his writings on the drives and negation), and Gilles Deleuze (particularly in the relation of attention to aesthetics).
Throughout Improper Life , Campbell insists that biopolitics can become more positive and productively asserts an affirmative technē not thought through thanatos but rather practiced through bíos .
https://annas-archive.org/md5/bb17d4d6564a6ddb9ee80ba1850815bb
I worked for him 23 years ago and would not today. No I will not mask for a job. Yes employees mask. He has 1 employee. He can barely afford that but does so. I know I won't convince him but I am curious.
There lies insight in this contemplation. The illogical logicality of structured unfreedom from fear. Pop psychology maybe but I wonder if spiritual practice is truly the machine to banish fear by obedience to rules. The child grown up likes being obedient even in civic practice. Why not in Zen or Judaism or Christianity for adherents. The activity provides purpose and obedience does as well.
The bigger decision actually is are you willing to wear one in order to work there? You won’t convince him in one conversation , nor should you try to or expect to imo.
For employment you may need to suck it up for a while until you break him in easy...just the tip and give it to him easy.
You might benefit from learning NLP because if he is wearing a mask in July ‘23 he will not go down easy.