Path of Least Resistance

[Meantime,]

Satyr: She’s trying to establish the significance of her own suffering and remain an "innocent" victim.

One isn't trying to establish significance when one is already undergoing a significant experience: to be in the now, as you so much honor, is to be perfectly aware of what has already been established. The significance is already apparent.

[perplexity]

Now tell me who the pampered martyr is here?

I like that phrase, pampered martyr.

Poor sport though, the question.

This is where the thread turns into a babbling, emotional wreck where invalids unload themselves and seek support and attention in others.

Let’s talk about how much we’ve been wronged by the world, how much we’ve suffered for our ‘goodness’.
Let us avoid the possibility that our disappointments might be due to our erroneous assessments and romantic idealisms.
Let us blame someone else for ourselves.
You start.

Please, no, no, not again. That would get me going as well, and then it is like World War III needs to happen.

A link or two to the previous rehearsal would suffice.

---- Ron.

[Meantime,]

Satyr: Only the awareness of it diminishes – if enough then we experience it as relief/pleasure

Depending on the type of suffering involved: one might also identify a group of people very well for qualities that that group might otherwise not have revealed, such as stupid misunderstandings, willful misrepresentations, spiteful accusations, ridiculous ridicule—all the typical shabbiness of character that ignobility has to offer but would otherwise camouflage.

[perplexity]

One isn't trying to establish significance when one is already undergoing a significant experience: to be in the now, as you so much honor, is to be perfectly aware of what has already been established. The significance is already apparent.

But there is no "one", no context-independent, finite and analytically definable self, is there?

That would require a sense of personal responsibility.

--- Ron.

[Meantime,]

Satyr: We never reach a final peak, we only climb onto heights or fall from them.

What about the moment?

[Meantime,]

Satyr: But I was hoping to keep this thread impersonal.

Oh you have, as far as I'm concerned. But on my side of the cliff, I'm very much involved because I speak from experience—not from dogma.

[Meantime,]

Satyr: Or, perhaps, I understand much better than you.
The “magnitude” of suffering is a matter of perspective.

One not used to hunger will find any prolonged period of fasting unbearable. The “magnitude” will be profound.
To one brought up in an environment where hunger was common, it will not seem so big a deal.

Now tell me who the pampered martyr is here?

Obviously you are because you have absolutely no idea man what I've gone through in life yet you have the gall, the gall to evaluate, judge, and condemn me without a shred of evidence. I, on the other hand, extrapolated from what you've said of yourself here and now—not from a life you haven't said.

[water]

But there is no "one", no context-independent, finite and analytically definable self, is there?

I don't know about that. However:

That would require a sense of personal responsibility.

Believing in the law of karma accounts for the same as personal responsibility.

[Satyr]

perplexity

Poor sport though, the question.

According to which moral standard?


Meantime,
I know you are loving this.

Depending on the type of suffering involved: one might also identify a group of people very well for qualities that that group might otherwise not have revealed, such as stupid misunderstandings, willful misrepresentations, spiteful accusations, ridiculous ridicule—all the typical shabbiness of character that ignobility has to offer but would otherwise camouflage.

“Ignobility” …..”…shabbiness of character”?!
What is “nobility” and according to which communal standard should someone’s character be judged as shabby?

What about the moment?

I’m becoming more and more convinced that you sort of skim through my posts or that you fail to comprehend them.

“Moment”?

There’s a moment to the extent that there is a Self or a place.
A generalization denoting a hypothetical point (absolute) and encompassed within ambiguity and the perceptible speeds of thinking.

When we pursue self or identity or an end we are, in essence, pursuing the elusive moment – the singularity.

The closer one comes to the concept the closer one becomes complete and timeless – God.

Oh you have, as far as I'm concerned. But on my side of the cliff, I'm very much involved because I speak from experience—not from dogma.

I speak from experience as well.
I just try to keep as much emotion out of it as possible.

Don’t hate me because I have organized my experiences into concise and organized systems.
Feeling yourself through life is a recipe for disaster. It keeps you in a state of self-victimization, even while you blame others for it.

Obviously you are because you have absolutely no idea man what I've gone through in life yet you have the gull, the gulle without a shred of evidence. I, on the other hand, extrapolated from what you've said of yourself here and now—not from a life you haven't said.

Obviously.

This is where we vie for communal pity.

“…you have no idea….maaaaaan!”
*boo hoo, hoo*

It would seem, from what we can “extrapolate” from your writings that you are forever trapped in your past experiences and that you have not gone beyond them….learned from them and grown because of them.
The wounds still bleed and have not hardened into beautiful scars.
Your body/mind hasn’t healed.

Your experiences still have an emotional impact upon your reason and you remain enslaved by suffering, like those you can relate to, within the role of eternal innocent victim.
You fail to learn from your past and overcome your past and its affects on you because they are still affecting you. There is no distance there.
You cannot analyze them objectively and so you do so emotionally.
You are stuck in a loop.

Doomed to repeat what you have failed to comprehend – abstract into accurate representations and create strategies (adaptations) in response.

Do you know the best way to “extrapolate” another’s past and what he’s suffered and how he’s responded to diversity?
You study his present.

I know a bodybuilder has suffered and worked and sweated and dieted because of his present physique.
He represents the sum of his past experiences projected forward into a hoped for ideal.
I may not know the details but I know his general history (racial, national, experiential etc.) which manifest themselves in his continuous becoming.

[perplexity]

because I speak from experience—not from dogma.
.... I, on the other hand, extrapolated from what you've said of yourself here and now—not from a life you haven't said.

Juvenile bickering, risible.

Either could say the same and either proves nothing.

If you have got a story to tell, tell it.

---- Ron.

[water]

I can hardly wait for the fireworks.

This is where the thread turns into a babbling, emotional wreck where invalids unload themselves and seek support and attention in others.

For a satyr, you have a dreadful lack of humour and playfulness.

* * *


You, too, had beef with me once as well.
I'm sorry.

[perplexity]

Believing in the law of karma accounts for the same as personal responsibility.

I am afraid not.

The belief assumes nothing more than that karma takes care of it.

Responsibility assumes the need to speak, to plead to account to those we deal with, hence identity.

--- Ron.

[superluminal]

And to think, I used to pay for this kind of therapy. Pffft.
Please Continue.

[perplexity]

For a satyr, you have a dreadful lack of humour and playfulness.
* * *
You, too, had beef with me once as well.
I'm sorry.

If it makes a difference, I am sorry too, but I'd rather play than be sorry.

Lighten up. Not yet the end of the World.

--- Ron.

[water]

I am afraid not.

The belief assumes nothing more than that karma takes care of it.

That has an important implication --
Believing in karma posits that *you* are doing things, and that what you do *matters*.

See the Five Subjects for Frequent Recollection:

I am the owner of my kamma,
heir to my kamma,
born of my kamma,
related to my kamma,
abide supported by my kamma.
Whatever kamma I shall do, whether good or evil, of that I shall be the heir.

Humans are driven to seek happiness, that is a given.
If one pays attention to one's actions, heeding that one will fall heir to their consequences, then this will inform one's course of action -- which then has the same practical effect as heeding "personal responsibility".

[perplexity]

That has an important implication --
Believing in karma posits that *you* are doing things, and that what you do *matters*.

.......
If one pays attention to one's actions, heeding that one will fall heir to their consequences, then this will inform one's course of action -- which then has the same practical effect as heeding "personal responsibility".

Responsibility per se is the need to answer for.

When somebody wants to know "why did you do that?" I am prepared to tell them because I mind what I do and I do what I mind.

I don't see how karma fullfils that practical effect. It may certainly help to, but a good deal more is required.

--- Ron.

[perplexity]

Poor sport though, the question.

According to which moral standard?

Mine. I call it the why bother standard.

---- Ron.

[water]

Responsibility per se is the need to answer for.

When somebody wants to know "why did you do that?" I am prepared to tell them because I mind what I do and I do what I mind.

I don't see how karma fullfils that practical effect. It may certainly help to, but a good deal more is required.

I put karma and responsibility under the same heading in the sense that both call for taking into account the consequences of one's actions.

As for the need to answer for -- I do not see how that is a need per se.

Whom one will answer for is a matter of one's own choosing, and not a need.
It can be considered a need within a certain interpersonal contract.
But if such a contract does not exist, then holding someone responsible, expecting them to answer for their actions, is merely unilaterally imposed.

If there is no contract, nobody owes nothing to anybody.

[nicholas1M7]

Humans are driven to seek happiness, that is a given.
If one pays attention to one's actions, heeding that one will fall heir to their consequences, then this will inform one's course of action -- which then has the same practical effect as heeding "personal responsibility".

Purpose implies reason. I suppose we could argue that the responsibility of living was given to us and this would justify the substance of purpose in regards to humans. This would give credit to identity. But whether it does or not, our condition appears to be permanent and possibly uncompromisable.

[water]

Responsibility assumes the need to speak, to plead to account to those we deal with, hence identity.

That is the Western understanding of responsibility, as far as I know.
It seems to be strongly influenced by Christianity and its concept of a soul -- an identity that is context-independent and absolute.



Also, if one has the need to speak, to plead to account to those one deals with --
that supposes others will indulge that need, satisfy it.

In my experience, people aren't all too happy to listen to the reasons why one did this or that.