Once More Into The Fray

[MechanicalMonster]

@James S Saint

It isn’t the fact that it is all just noise.
It is the question of what to do with the noise.

Yes.

Anything else and we’re just sitting around, beating a dead horse and congratulating ourselves for it.

[Stuart]

@Moreno

It seems like you are seeking betters - and it seems like this means better at areas of your interest, say, philosophy. Just laying out my assumptions to put my question in context.

That is reasonably accurate, I have yet to understand many of the areas of study outside and within those defined as “philosophy”, but sometimes what may seem to be distinct subjects are not.

For the sake of argument, let’s say you had a motive that led you not to find what you were seeking.

1. what would that motive (or those motives be) and

The desire to relax for once, to stagnate.

2. what are some of the steps you could take to find people who are superior at least in certain areas and discuss X - the area you wanted to find betters in?

I’ve been in the midst of that for the last year. I write, I read what other active members have written, follow leads, ask them discerning questions, at times make friends in that, at times enemies. At times I push someone repeatedly as a last resort to find the hidden essence of the lost high humanity that I seek, and if upon a wall, I move on.

3. Now that you have written out those steps, is there anything about them that leads to insight about your motivations, potential avoidance, personality, etc, relevent to this topic?

I must play the game, start at the bottom, realize that little if nothing I’ve ever written qualifies me to jump ahead, and even though my collected works would doubtlessly prove such qualifications, there is no way I can expect anyone to take that time.

[Stuart]

@MM

Anything else and we’re just sitting around, beating a dead horse and congratulating ourselves for it.

Or beating a dead rat.

[Orbie]

@Stuartp523

@obe

Stuart: like all tests, well, the best way I can describe it is, in the good old 60’s it was literally the acid test. I passed, but not without consequences. One of these, from then on, I had to become completely honest with myself. Then I knew, maybe, just maybe, I can begin to be honest with others. For total intellectual integrity, I had to dig deep, and go to the source. And that place, was dangerous terrain, full of jagged edges, roundabout ways, inadvertent traps, and utter loneliness.
And this was a time when a friend could be hoped to be gotten the old traditional way of blood brotherhood, when one could expect nothing less then going with you to the limit, and if there was a limit, then beyond.

I do not want to make a cynical statement on the climate of the times, suffice it to say, I am always on the lookout for total honesty, toward those whom I think passed this litmus barrier.

I would not only die for such a friend, I would risk death to find one.

It’s interesting. I have been into the fray as you,years of nothing but the existentialistic quicksand as in becket’s endgame, trying to avoid the total nihilism bottom. Years and years and years and years. Then when I found that it had no bottom, as in a dream most everyone had of falling but waking up just before…
Then feeling there is none, and then seeing grey from I suppose the title of the OP came from, and strangely, and honestly strangely coincidentally saw the movie just about the time that I read these lines
(And in total honesty, my son showed it to me, and he could verify this fact) then it makes me think whether it’s wise to go back there or stay?

[MechanicalMonster]

Being a philosopher means you have no equals.

[Dan1 (Dan~)]

@Stuartp523

Let’s take honesty to its limit.

Why? Things like glass can break easy but that doesn’t mean glass is wrong or useless. We use it all the time.
Some ideas, philosophies, even morals, have weak limits, but that doesn’t mean they are wrong or useless.

I regretfully suspect that I’ve had a good sampling of the internet’s, and even world’s, most artistic/intelligent, in the last year

I consider certain kinds of benevolence in humans as supernatural.

[Stuart]

@obe

It’s interesting. I have been into the fray as you,years of nothing but the existentialistic quicksand as in becket’s endgame, trying to avoid the total nihilism bottom. Years and years and years and years. Then when I found that it had no bottom, as in a dream most everyone had of falling but waking up just before…
Then feeling there is none, and then seeing grey from I suppose the title of the OP came from, and strangely, and honestly strangely coincidentally saw the movie just about the time that I read these lines
(And in total honesty, my son showed it to me, and he could verify this fact) then it makes me think whether it’s wise to go back there or stay?

The movie Grey of course, let me write the poem from memory.

Once more into the fray
The last fight I’ll even know
Live and die on this day
Live and die on this day

Damnit, its not a question of should. Goddamn it.

[Stuart]

@Dan~

@Stuartp523

Let’s take honesty to its limit.

Why? Things like glass can break easy but that doesn’t mean glass is wrong or useless. We use it all the time.
Some ideas, philosophies, even morals, have weak limits, but that doesn’t mean they are wrong or useless.

Dan, corporeally speaking, we are all weak, but not useless. I can ask you why as well, why not take honesty to its limit and whatever must come with it?

I regretfully suspect that I’ve had a good sampling of the internet’s, and even world’s, most artistic/intelligent, in the last year

I consider certain kinds of benevolence in humans as supernatural.

[Stuart]

@MechanicalMonster

Being a philosopher means you have no equals.

Yes. Are you a philosopher?

[Dan1 (Dan~)]

@Stuartp523

@Dan~

@Stuartp523

Let’s take honesty to its limit.

Why? Things like glass can break easy but that doesn’t mean glass is wrong or useless. We use it all the time.
Some ideas, philosophies, even morals, have weak limits, but that doesn’t mean they are wrong or useless.

Dan, corporeally speaking, we are all weak, but not useless.

Ok, just wanted to clarify that point.

I can ask you why as well, why not take honesty to its limit and whatever must come with it?

Honesty doesn’t work for someone like a corrupt president. He’ll loose power if he doesn’t crank out crap.

But, to us, a philosopher who is honest is also more efficient and developed.

The limit of honesty in my mind has to do with truth and clarity of views.
This I to myself call “direct philosophy”. While dishonesty and cognitive disorders make us more crooked and indirect.

Honesty means people might attack you sometimes. Like if you say “im gay” and it’s in a catholic family or something, that’s just an example.

We have privacy for a reason. Some people hate things, or can’t handle them.

I guess that is what comes with the higher honesty, allot of crap, insults and hate.

[MechanicalMonster]

@Stuartp523

@MechanicalMonster

Being a philosopher means you have no equals.

Yes. Are you a philosopher?

Yes.

[Stuart]

Why shouldn’t I reveal myself? It seems I had read a good reason not to do so at one time, but I forgot what it was. I’ll potentially reveal all, if asked, though at times I may have to ask for a reason.

Many worthy people of potential will find shattered ruins and decay while a relatively few will actualize into high humanity. Why? I know the answer, but does anyone else?

How far must one go in appreciating that which is their natural state?

Is it an act of will to desperately cling to the side rails, or is it sadly a sign that one is only ballast?

[Stuart]

Philosopher, above, there are three questions for you.

[Stuart]

Dan, would you like me to question you? I have some. In fact this thread doesn’t have to be about me. Let it be about whomever, Dan better than anyone else, but whomever.

[fuse]

@Stuartp523

I regretfully suspect that I’ve had a good sampling of the internet’s, and even world’s, most artistic/intelligent, in the last year, and that I could find no better, easily. I’m not completely dissatisfied, but I feel a lack for the most part.

That’s such a curious statement. Why do you feel a lack, exactly?

[Stuart]

I’m sorry, I don’t quit understand the question. It seems that the reason for the lack was implicit; I’m not entirely satisfied with my prospects of meeting new people that will challenge me.

[MechanicalMonster]

@Stuartp523

Many worthy people of potential will find shattered ruins and decay while a relatively few will actualize into high humanity. Why? I know the answer, but does anyone else?

High humanity as you call it represents a state of less entropy compared to what is “lower humanity”. High entropy states tend to be more common. Basically this world does not tend to produce conflux of conditions needed to cause human potential to actualize. Partial actualizations will always be more common than full actualizations. There are many barriers, and rare is the mind that has the right combination of strengths, weaknesses, timing, and luck to reach the summit.

How far must one go in appreciating that which is their natural state?

As far as is needed to understand that “non-natural” state with respect to which the natural state is a barrier and limit, but no farther.

Is it an act of will to desperately cling to the side rails, or is it sadly a sign that one is only ballast?

Will is ballast. Inertia of the body. We do better seeking the epistemic subject rather than the merely ontological entity. In VO this is called “self-valuing”.

What balances ballast against the need to not sink? Fear and hope are tactics.

[finishedman]

@Stuartp523

I’m not entirely satisfied with my prospects of meeting new people that will challenge me.

There is no ‘me’ there, just an accumulation of knowledge that you got from other sources besides yourself. Take that away and you have no way of finding out what you’re left with. We have been using some instrument, that is, thinking or the mind or whatever to challenge or free ourselves from the whole of what you call the ‘I’ or the ‘self’, and all kinds of things. But once it dawns on you that there is nothing to be free from, then these questions don’t arise at all.

[Arcturus_Descending]

STUART,

What about the challenge of sitting down and beginning to write a philosophy book?

[Orbie]

@Pandora

I think you have to be careful if you plan on pushing yourself intellectually in barren places; not that I am saying that you should not seek out challenges to overcome. But a human mind has its limits. I see people go insane because they keep forcing themselves (analyzing) and end up caught up fighting with their own reflections. That’s how I see some of the people who get into conspiracy theories (ufos, aliens, mystical explanations of things, etc. And to some degree also, the modern avant guard art movements). Sometimes, there is nothing else left to really look at and that’s when you have to be careful because what happens then is likely to be of your own doing (projecting). And that is another challenge to overcome, but you must actually ‘see’ it first, and a lot of people don’t.

 I disagree here. The only limits the human mind has are self imposed or being told by others of them.

The way the mind is set up, it’s almost limitless, and it is the fear of limits, of what is on the other side that stops us in our tracks.

The thing with limits is like the horizon’s apparent drop off into the void. When we keep going we notice we never reach a limit, and finally we loose the fear of dropping off.

So those dark and barren places only seem that way because of the vantage point we think we are experiencing barenness. My feeling is, it is precisely the barren places which we project past the supposed limit, and as a result we freeze in our tracks, unable to move backward into more shady comforting areas, or forward into the unexplored.

Fearing insanity is a good thing, because that probably means you are sane enough to let the unknown set up your basic defensive postures. When we move forward, of course, we should do so with proper care taken and try to put in safeguard based on possible estimated risks involved. No body says we should push forward blindly, without a thought, or preparation.