Sympathy versus Empathy.

Bianca and I got into an argument about whether or not one could 'walk in another person's shoes'. Her problem is akin to mine, if not the same one: She can empathise, but not sympathise as well. To sympathise is to walk around in another's shoes. It is not the same as to wear another's wardrobe; that is, to sympathise is never to become another individual entirely, for that is impossible.
Regardless, if one can feel what it is to 'be someone else' for a few minutes, then one may be able to write with that person's voice. If, however, one can only empathise but maintain one's usual comfortable position, any such attempt on the writer's part would be akin to a poorly played solo by someone who just picked up the saxophone and did not bother to learn theory.


Regardless, sympathy is a dangerous thing. To open that channel may be to open a floodgate of uncontainable emotion that one is unprepared for. Empathy may be equally dangeous, although both are necessary.

dm.A.A.

Sitting on the porch.

Sitting on the porch of Peter's home was akin to feeling myself not to exist. It was as though I were trapped between two warring brain lobes.
The chickens gave me little solace, appearing perturbed behind their majestic fence.
The entire air of the back yard to Peter's trailer was one of another dimension.
It wasn't so much a departure from one's own dimension, however as, sitting in the blindingly blue invisible aura of the trees, amidst the discomforting flies, and with the trees offering little solace, one felt as though one had walked through a door and turned back to find that there was no door. In that burning Present, the world outside appeared to be a mirage, and I felt myself to be a wisp of wind in a desert.

Vivik.

Vivik

 

            I had met Vivik in my eighth grade year. I saw him again on the eve of my Sophomore Year. ‘Hey, Vivik. Do you remember me?’ I said to him with adolescent slavishness on the ramp to a restroom door.

           

His eyes widened.

            ‘I’m going to torture you!’ he exclaimed with zeal, but quickly falling into ‘No, I’m just kidding’, with a tone of reserve and clarity that, having known him in eighth grade, caught me by surprise.

 

Vivik’s mother died during a heat spell in his sophomore year.

 

            Vivik had a probing gaze that threatened to humiliate all at the first sign of miseducation on a statistical topic, usually unwittingly, although, upon realising that he could do so wittingly, he would without hesitation use it in his own favour. He would devour Carne Asada fries with a ravenous and unscrupulous absence of etiquette, and loved to emulate the delightful (to his eyes) jiggling motion of the belly of his side-kick, Robert Tagalog.

Luxuries.

Luxuries.

 

Surely, sir, you’re

Sitting at the bottle

Yet again

 

As a part of your

Crusade

You are dying

For them

In your house’s shade

 

Prying open a bottle

Of merlot

Sighing as you go

 

So they won’t have

To feel your

Pain.

 

Surely, madam, you powder

Your face

To empower those

Disgraced

 

Every hour

‘fore the mirror

makes your dire

mission dearer.

 

Surely. Young man

When you play

With girls your age

It’s only to dissuade

Their future

Children from

The horror of an

Adolescent rage.

 

Certainly, stranger

It concerns you

Very greatly

 

The state of the world

How it’s been

Doing lately.

 

All these nuances in your private plans

Comprise a great conspiracy

That alligns to serve both all of man

And to dissuade every heresy.

 

The fools will call these tools

Pretensions

But I know this to be false

And my only contension

Is that everyone exalts

 

Little things while big things loom

Yet I’ll preserve my sanity

That you seek to assuage this doom

Secretly, with vanity.

 

Dm.A.A.

Children Know Better.

Belonging to a collective ego does not render one any less narcissistic than the innocent, awe-struck and unindoctrinated child.
This prejudice is merely a reflection of the thought of one man: Voltaire, who postulated the 'Tabula Rasa' ('Blank Slate') to describe the innocent mind as a 'mere' blank, necessitating that it be written upon by society to be rendered 'mature'.
Yet his thought was merely endemic of his culture's Zeitgeist, which envisioned an objective world independent of individual subjectivity and that revered the masculine (though this is not to be mistaken for 'male') faculty of logic over the feminine principle of feeling. This, furthermore, goes back to the masculine one-sidedness characteristic of Western culture, which postulated 'Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit' (in Latin: 'Out of nothing comes nothing'). This suggests that the negative principle -- the blank slate -- Needs the positive, or masculine, conditioning to be rendered valuable. For this reason, Voltaire's contemporaries idealised the 'social contract'.
Contrast tabula rasa with the Taoist ideal of the 'Uncarved Block'.
In ancient Chinese mysticism, the mind of the child was revered, precisely For its receptive emptiness.

dm.A.A.

A confident self-assurance.

Dmitry is speculating confidently that, apart from when the tempting spectre of extraversion is concerned, he is not much worse than Huxley in regards to responding to the present in terms of the present, all though he is faced with the frightening prospect that a majority of humans are oblivious to this basic sanity.

dm.A.A.

Sampson.

Sampson

 

Sampson was set apart from other hipsters by magnitude alone. His eyes were protuberant and locked in the incessant, methodical gaze characteristic of the persona, and yet he lent it an almost alarming degree of intensity that suggested that the probe went deeper, both ways, than the confines of casual conversation.

I must have supposed, as I still do, that it was commonplace for hipsters, maybe even by definition, to mistake their mask for truth.

 

I don’t recall how, but somehow I found him sitting across a table in the Community College cafeteria that had probably been deserted when I arrived.

 

Inexplicably, I now found myself a witness of the kind of flirtation typical of a college boy and girl intent on rubbing egos before any thing could ensue.

Apparently, nothing is so effective a tool to boost one’s ego as an ego-transcending experience. He began to brag about all of the psychedelics that he had done, and there was a familiarity between the boy and girl that transcended their anonymity.

 

The girl’s eyes had a sad but assured look in them, and she smiled a rabbit smile with a timidity rivaled only by her self-assurance.

 

When she departed, I asked him about drugs.

 

‘Go straight to DMT,’ he said without blinking.

Deicide in retrospect.

Campbell said that one must depart from one's God to join the Godhead. He used the analogy of a moth beating against glass, trying to reach the flame. The intent is to break through and to ignite.
I am watching a moth buzz about my fan-lamp.
It was nice poetry on Joe's part, but I think he had just found a way of trapping the moth.

- - - - - - - - -

Moth

A man dreamt of a flame
behind a glass
A moth, proclaimed he,
buzzed about it
I'm watching a moth this
moment pass
Thinking of what he's said, I
start to doubt it

He said your God's your
utmost barrier
Break through to the flare,
he quoth
But I think we should be
much warier
He managed only to
ensnare the moth.

dm.A.A.

Peter Lasagna.

Peter Lasagna had the makings of a good cultist. His house was located atop an obscure mountain in the midst of a range that seemed to border and lend relief to a wide expanse of fields set aside particularly for vague farmers that never emerged. Only ten minutes of driving past the woods lining the outskirts of these ranches would bring one into the relative shelter of the city of Vista, which was one place that one never wanted to be in after a certain hour. If all California cities had a density in the air that gave the very atmosphere the character of a hangover, Vista’s was an angry drunk, and there was a nervous texture that seemed to sprout from its cement floor, fueled by cocaine.

 

            Peter Lasagna was a smart kid.

            He had even made it to the University of California at Santa Cruz.

            In his second year, I think, he got expelled. I heard the story recounted from Alan the guitarist.

            Purportedly, Peter had left his dorm building that day with a camera in his hand, actively having begun filming, already, everything in sight.

            I know not what had become of the footage.

            One of the topics, however, that had particularly pleased Peter was, apparently, a particular woman whom he had met that day on the campus. She had been sitting innocently on a bench.

            According to Peter, (according to Alan) he had not done anything overtly inappropriate to upset her and to thus warrant the sex offense charge that she would go on to file against him in the aftermath of the events. Suffice to say, however, as Alan recounted groggily in a placid, darkened kitchen nearing midnight, Peter’s footage would, if it was still existent, a fact that Alan almost laughingly expressed uncertainty towards, show a greater interest in the girl’s bottom than in her personality.

 

            If that encounter alone had sealed the doom of Peter’s academic career at UCSC, however, he had made ample use of his remaining hours of freedom, if not sanctity, on campus.

            Encountering another woman of apparently equal attractiveness but surpassing familiarity, Peter invited her back to accompany him in his dormitory. His room mate, by his fortuitous absence, did not interfere with the sexual encounter that ensued.

            As Peter explored her, he found himself, to his infinite alarm, unaffected by the experience. Distant and stunted, he withdrew.

            This had been the moment that the lady entered into a catatonic state, as Alan speculated. In great disrepair and thoroughly unprepared, Peter hid her under the bed in his dormitory, for her protection.

 

As night deepened, young men tapered off into sleep, attention surrendering consciousness. Either the lack of attention or the loneliness, as Alan told me whilst I took a confident sip of Tecate, upset Peter, and it added to his discontentment at having returned to the dorm room, some indefinite time later, to find it deserted.

            He sought to remedy this, first, by throwing open the window by virtue of which his chamber looked out over the courtyard and onto the skyline. His room mate, he must have surmised, had yet to pay a visit to the room.

            It was at that approximate time of extreme morning that students at the University of California at Santa Cruz reported having been awoken by the screaming of a mad young man threatening to throw himself out of the –th story window.

It had taken several people to fetch him from his precarious station.

They had succeeded in pinning Peter Lasagna to the floor of his dorm temporarily before he riggled, aggressively, to a kind of freedom that led him straight down the stairs, where he met police officers looking for him.

 

His room mate had, upon returning to the dorm room, found the girl, with terrifyingly withdrawn eyes, lying hidden under his roommate’s bed.

Horrified, he called the police.

 

Two men were arrested and expelled that night from the University of California at Santa Cruz: Peter Lasagna and his room mate. The latter had supplied, earlier that day, the mushrooms.

The only two mature

The only two mature

Adults I knew

My second pop

And second Mama

 

Reckoning the world

From seeing it

Visiting

The Dalai Lama

 

They made it a point

To learn as much

From their students

As they taught

 

Imprudent in delivery

And unrestrained

in thought.

 

 

Only adolescents strive

To not be adolescents

Only those deprived

Of sensitivity put down

The youth.

 

Jocks and preps

Seek false security

In their pretensions

To maturity

 

Only the Rowans

Knew that they knew only

Half the truth.

Let Them Go.

 

This have I done for thee

Now what dost thou for me?

 

And do you feel down on yourself

For being unable to see

Into the heart of Elliott’s pain?

 

Nine Inch Nails running through his elbow veins

 

And was Kurt’s sacrifice in vain?

 

Only the ones who have it worst

Complain.

 

But don’t you know?

Not all is lost

The holocaust survivors say

 

It never matters what the cost

It will get to you anyway

 

However small the hole,

The gas will get through to you, so know

 

You suffer just as much as they

 

So for the Christ Within You,

Let them go.

I'm siding with the galaxy

If you admit something
embarassing, I'll admit
something embarassing.

My heart has been
bleeding
since the day it started
beating

If you want to know what
dogs me
it is my own sincerity

Trying to keep an open eye
to the Universe's clarity

If you want to know what
scares me
it's the unbearable burden
wondering, 'Are they aware
of me?'
and never being certain.

And if you want to know the cold
hard truth
I'll parrot your own frankness
I can't bear it should I ever see
the world in your own blankness.

For a mind that's been refined
Like a lens in the galaxy
seems never to mind
when the brain commits a fallacy

If you want to know how callously
I overestimate this Universe
in every human gesture
Everything
as though it's been rehearsed.

If you want me to make clear
The girl that sat down right
beside me
with only you so near
it seemed to coincide so

that I wondered if you had been so
sincere

as to inform her
-- in passing, as she'd come
to me in passing --
I had feelings for her.

But that I would admit
only embarassedly
and in verse
that seems, as people seem
to agree
Much better and not worse

than writing a letter
for a poem even as a lie
is so rehearsed that all the words
together
could make anybody cry.

How many see a child is harmed
but wouldn't think to change it?
Despite being wholly alarmed
And yet I find it strange that

To be immersed in such a fantasy
and of such adolescent zeal
although the very galaxy
seemed to make it appear so real

It is embarassing only
this life that we've selected

Although we sing at night, lonely
we never once respect it.

At least sing for the dying child
it is no more or less a fallacy
Although the sentiment seems wild,
I'm siding with the galaxy.


And also I'll say in post-scriptum
Though I originally thought
that I had fallen victim
to your optimistic plot

Although I'm standing by my theory
I will append that it was flawed
Although you, too were sitting near me
All the credit goes to God.

Science overstepping itself.

Forcing anything when it comes to emotional matters is effectively corrupting the evidence.

I am not opposed to science in favour of feeling, but one would not measure density with a microscope, so why measure feeling with logic?

It is unscientific.

If you are staging an experiment, you would measure each variable separately.

Logic where logical matters are concerned. Emotion where emotional matters are concerned.

One does not learn, scientifically, about the dark side of the moon by only noting the light side's characteristics.

Psychology is the study of subjectivity. Anecdotal evidence is overwhelming; objective evidence is secondary.

Where is the line between science and pseudo-science? Is it the line between what we know and do not?

In observing a phenomenon, we alter it. This, unless I am mistaken, was Heisenberg's finding.

Careful not to murder the object you are studying by pressing the probe too hard.

Soft facts are as much a constant in nature as hard facts. Where humanity is concerned, it is a matter of knowing when to stop.

dm.A.A.

Y&*Y&*(Y&*Y&*)

1. Sometimes it's a matter of knowing when to stop; others of knowing when to keep going.
2. Don't be afraid to make a mistake. Keep making them!
3. The wise man can pick the right blade of grass in a field because he doesn't care. The unwise will try too hard to because he does care.

Dmitry's Modern Taoist wisdom. Night.

Freud fucked us all in the ass. True story.

post scriptum I've surmised the Electra complex does not exist. Freud just used to to compensate the Oedipus complex, which he based his theory of upon one dream that he had of his mother, involving parrots. Since there was a German slang term for a blowjob that involved parrots, he presumed that he had been attracted to his mother, who was dead. Yes, we tend to develop attachents for our parents and to project them onto lovers, but this does not mean we are attracted to our parents.


dm.A.A.

Mitchell Freedman and Stephen Foster.

Although Mitchell Freedman asserts the necessity of education and information in writing a novel, I will assert that the most inspiring art by my personal standards is the artless kind: Simple, mostly ripped off, but with its characteristic quirks.

This may not make for a good living, but it is necessary, I think, for every true artist to at one point jump off the cliff upon which the fortification that is "public opinion" is built, loving the fall.

Stephen Foster died broke, John told me today. The lead singer of the Melvins tried once, for comedic effect, to buy a mansion of off street cred, using a lunchbox that contained a newspaper clipping citing Kurt Cobain's indebtedness to the Melvins. He failed with spectacular miserableness.

Tom Waits made a living off of being a "bum", or at least impersonating one for decades.

I admire poverty like the Taoists did. The scholar learns something new everyday; the wise man unlearns something.

And Kurt ripped off a lot of bands. Including Stephen Foster.

dm.A.A.

?((((0*0))))+

The ego does not exist. (complete.)

It is not uncommon for people who become involved in mysticism, usually imported from a culture foreign to them or made readily accessible through the advent of drugs, to speak of this vague ontological entity regarded as the “ego”.

What is it?

From my experience, it is not so much a physical phenomenon as a catch-all phrase including but not limited to the following definitions:

1. Conscious intent.
2. The sum of one’s conscious processes.
3. Self-image.
4. Aggression.
5. Ignorance.
6. Fear.
7. Social tact.
8. Restraint.
9. Ambition. (See 1)
10. Integrity.
11. Introversion.
12. Extraversion.
13. Self-respect.

Clearly, the phrase may be dispensed with entirely, and social communication would not suffer. Not only are these and others such disparate definitions that one phrase should be absurd and inadequate to apply to them, but also the definitions themselves stand: If I want to call someone ignorant, fearful, or well-mannered, I can use the words “ignorant”, “fearful”, or “well-mannered”. I need not reference some spooky, non-existent entity to criticize the other’s action, delivering the utmost ad hominem and personal attack, summing that individual in that moment up by my “informed” disapproval of his/her action or thought.

“Conscious intent” seems the most appropriate definition, at any rate. In this regard, should we use “ego” in that context solely, it should represent connotatively a Glorious phenomenon: Free Will, fortitude, and the temerity to break with tradition and find one’s own voice in the midst of a crowd of imitation. It is, at its most precious and most vulnerable, the focus of attention upon something so particular to one’s own being that it almost becomes one’s duty to the world, should one Choose it, to bring it to fruition.

Yes, we are all beautiful and unique snow flakes. Some might say this marginalizes the point of being beautiful and unique. Others agree with me that we are all unique, but that few of us realize it. Many of them, however, seem to feel that, should we all become Aware of ourselves as snow flakes and choose to make our unique patterns shine, we should lead to even greater trouble.

But I disagree, simply by virtue of my introversion.

Everyone I meet is inescapably a strange and stunning specimen, if you will. Not one person does not surprise me, even if it is by being totally ordinary. I have no problems with individuals, for I encounter each one at a time, and at the end of the day individual #1 is myself.

This seems to invert the prejudice that introverts are more self-absorbed (definition #14) than extraverts. We are concerned for people’s growth, and find no threat to our Worldview (or to the world) in people following their bliss and taking a Hero’s (ie Ego’s) Journey.

I compel all I encounter, gently or hardly, to take that long and painful road.

At the end of the day, I stand by my feeling that the word “ego” is merely one used, predominantly in a spirit of laziness and resolve in one’s own pompousness (#15), to attack those whose motives one does not fully understand, but may claim to. Disapproving of others’ motives is often misguided, if it involves the necessity to attack the person personally.

Conversely, godliness is attributed towards those whose motives we overestimate, to whom we attribute reverence that is not reciprocated. Cultists are good at this. They also tend to condemn people who do not agree with them as “egoists”. They do not reciprocate love, respect, or compassion. They are parasites.

But God is that entity which one experiences whilst encountering another human being. It is the feeling of freshness and overwhelming insight that novelty and true listening always yield, and it cannot be emulated, despite having the potential to be perfected.

And God is always between two people in a reciprocal way. If you see God, (as an experience, not a belief or a personified diety towards which one attributes the experience) in another, then, given that it is in fact God and not Godliness, you can bet, as difficult as it may be to believe, that the other is seeing God, not ego, in the unique and novel entity that you are.

There is nothing that is inherently egotistical. There are intelligent things and ignorant things, but all things are better understood than misunderstood.

Dm.A.A.

The Sixteen Planets: Part of the Jungian apologetics series.

I had had my moments of doubt about the validity of the Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator, but it seems that this is one of those profound matters that cannot be marginalised either by skepticism or blind faith, at least not alone.

If one is to follow the MBTI blindly, one should have a superficial grasp of it. If one is to merely cast it aside as unscientific, it should be equally superficial.

My stance is simple:

1. That human beings live in at least sixteen different worlds of experience according to their personality type, which in turn shape their civilisation. These are, as it were, such markedly profound differences that it is as though we lived on sixteen different planets.

2. That to presume that there are no such distinctions (such as the dichotomies between feeling and thought, introversion and extraversion, et cetera) is akin to being skeptical about the existence of other planets. If one presumes that the MBTI is "hogwash", one is bound to continue seeing things through his or her own personal lens, presuming that all "decent" (by his or her own standards) people are "this way".

To clarify:

An INFP will presume that all people are motivated by goodwill and will, offhand, bet that everyone has markedly "poetic" and "mystical" moments in his or her life, and that the operations of people are motivated by a greater understanding of this, or are otherwise motivated by a selfish perpetuation of one's ignorance.

An ISTJ, on the other hand, will presume that all "decent", "intelligent" people are motivated by logic and simple, incontrovertible facts and practicality, dismissing others as superstitious when he or she lacks insight into their psychology. This may be a shortcoming or weakness on the ISTJ's part, but it is not tragic because it is appropriate to the ISTJ's value system: The way that ISTJ interfaces with the world does not leave much space for the clarity of the "revelation", and should ISTJ become too intent upon his or her causes he/she should dismiss this phenomenon as wishy-washy bull.

The INFP, of course, is not without his or her weaknesses. Logical matters involving "brute facts" may be disregarded where feelings are challenged, putting the INFP into difficult situations.

If the MBTI is bull, either individual's shortcomings should be a tragic scenario. If the world followed strictly the logical, immediate accessible principles that the ISTJ is aware of, then all fallacious and unscientific nonsense should be totally unpardonable. If, conversely, people lived only on the INFP planet, anyone with a lack of Wonder in his or her life should be deprived and his or her life would have little meaning.

Presuming the MBTI is bull and the ISTJ is Right, this sense of Wonder should be merely on par with a drug-induced hallucination. Being illogical, it is pointless recreation and offers no insight. The "reality" of the world is Work and the enjoyment of friends and pleasures within reason.

Presuming the MBTI is bull and the INFP is right, the world has no consistent, observable patterns that can be mapped by the logical mind, and all people who fail to recognise Beauty and Glory suffer from the same problem. If this problem is not easily curable, it is entirely incurable.

Thankfully, this is not the case if the MBTI is true.


Reconsider the two men I had illustrated previously.
Now, these two individuals may agree with one another in polite matters and strike an uneasy and unspoken truce, keeping quiet about their qualms with the other. This would be a superficial peace; I can attest from personal experience that longstanding friendships can be very problematic, although worthwhile, between these types. Problems are good, though, if addressed appropriately.

Let's suppose that my relationship with an ISTJ remains on the superficial level. In this case, we develop no longstanding friendship; this is more akin to the respect that conservatives and liberals show one another whilst sober at a cocktail party.

At the end of my day, I'll go back to my books, to my friends who are like me, usually intuitives, predominantly feelers, for they perpetuate my comfort zone. He, conversely, would gravitate towards people who share his view, SJs.

Presuming that the MBTI is bull, which is, effectively, equal to an ignorance of its existence entirely, we should never acknowledge this division as being significant. His group is his group; mine is mine. We are equal, but we feel justified in hating each other. The in-group, out-group dynamic, defying reason, works under our very noses, needing no further justification to our eyes.

Now consider that as an allegory and not just a probable situation. If I go on a date with an ISTJ girl, what'll happen? I can think of two scenarios: I will try to involve her in Deep matters, sharing my internal psychology with her, or I can gravitate towards Superficial matters which I Know Will Fly (usually).

Most will take the general advice and choose option two, because it makes the other more comfortable, across the table. Presuming either that the MBTI is bull or that I am ignorant of it, I should have little but my own past experience to go off by virtue of which I may "guess" what she is feeling and thinking here, what she may feel and think throughout the day, et cetera. If, however, I can note that she is an ISTJ, I may be more educated in leading the conversation in a direction that we would both enjoy.

Presuming the worst, or perhaps second worst -- that I keep the convo on a shallow level -- we may agree on silly topics: the weather, bands, politics if I'm lucky.

You know the story: Two people end up living together and find they had less in common than they thought they did. J.D. Salinger even wrote a short story about it exclusively.

The problem is that, even if we find that we both like the Beatles, her experience of their music will be different from mine, and thus our whole intellectual lives may be entirely perpendicular where we might assume them to be parallel. I don't "really know her", nor does she know me. Disaster.

This is not a matter of astrology, where we look up to the skies to explain what happens to us. This is a description of her actual psychology and mine, no metaphysics necessary. If the relationship is to be anything but sexual, I need to know Where She is Coming From, not what her "sign" is.

If I acknowledge the MBTI as B.S. ("Bad Science"), I should presume that our agreement is not superficial but profound: That she too is motivated by a search for Truth. The notion that she feels herself to already "have" the truth by virtue of her senses, as an incontrovertible figure rather than a vague but powerful limit to be approached, would be alien to me. We wouldn't ever mention it in words, for each of us would take his or her own frame of reference for fact. I would probably find her drive to help people to be noble, but I might even be awkward in seeing the "clearly dysfunctional ways" in which she implements it, overlooking critical details. She, in turn, would find my attributing value to intellect to be overblown and pretentious (this is, incidentally, an entirely imagined scenario).

There could only be so long that we could ignore our cognitive dissonances without the relationship rupturing and flattening. If I "keep the company of my friends" and treat her as though she were one of my intuitive buddies, I would be doing her a disservice. If she were to insist on driving me around from meaningless encounter to meaningless encounter with the solemn resolve that life is good if she can find at least one person to help through the day today, she would probably do well to know that it is not out of an Obvious, Incontrovertible Selfishness that I would probably do well to stay home and focus on my writing instead.

If, however, we both acknowledge that the MBTI holds validity -- that, rather than being a self-fulfilling prophecy and a testament to "what the thinker thinks the prover proves", it is a mirror by which we may more clearly See Patterns that EXIST REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT WE RECOGNISE AND ACKNOWLEDGE THEM -- then our relationship should be nourished.

As a fact, I cannot guarantee that it Will be nourished, but I Can say that you do not know until you experiment, and it is Bad Science ("B.S.") not to try. Two people may be equally logical but, based upon incredibly disparate lifestyles, have different premises going into their logic.

If our relationship is to be superficial, I'll stay on my planet, presuming that it is the only one, and that she is here as well. She will remain on hers, with the same presumptions, or otherwise we shall both presume that the other is entirely ungrounded, floating in space and beyond help.

If it is to be deep, We should see that we live on two of at least sixteen unique planets, with their own atmospheres and gravity, and perhaps, in that recognition, interplanetary travel should be possible.

dm.A.A.

there is no ego.

I can think of no single human activity that is objectively "egotistical". From my observation and study of people, both first-hand and second-hand, it seems incontrovertible that "ego" is what we attribute merely to one whose motives we do not understand, and that, conversely, Godliness (although by no means God) is what we attribute to one whose motives we overestimate.
 

The ego as a menace
is a blade that cuts a schism in the heart
But if your crusade
is to keep the chasm wide

if your aim is to persuade
me to keep the parts apart

Shame on you for your parade
of heartlessness and foolish pride.

 dm.A.A.

How Salinger killed Lennon and why he should not be blamed.

Jerome David Salinger, a writer with a flair for Eastern philosophy who was reputed for creating characters reflecting his own idealism, spent ten years writing The Catcher in the Rye. It was precise to the word, as befit the philosophy of writing that he ardently espoused in later work. It was also effective at touching the hearts of millions, across generation gaps, rendering him a celebrity against his intent. It followed that he became a recluse, refusing to comment on it.

Almost two decades later, another man known for his idealism and his interest in Eastern philosophy, John Lennon, was shot to death by Mark David Chapman. The killer cited The Catcher in the Rye as the main influence upon his thought.

I can think of two possible themes here:

1. No matter how perfectly one phrases one's message, and perhaps to the extent that one does, it will be misinterpreted as lunacy, probably by someone of questionable sanity.
2. Refusing to shed light on one's message, despite the conviction that, if it could be summarised in an interview, two-hundred and seventy-seven pages would not have been necessary, can be fatal.

dm.A.A.

My response to Brian Dunning's criticism of the MBTI:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4221

A friend of mine in high school, long before I had heard of Jung, once said that she could never imagine me as an extravert. I kept my inner world quiet with almost a paranoid fear of others, shielding the intensity of my incredible emotions, towards which I attributed the closest thing to Godliness that an atheist can conceive. Part of my disconnect from people came from their lack of interest in "profound" matters. I found it fascinating and unbelievable that, despite the invisible Essence pervading the world, a unitive entity that I perceived that pervaded all things, like an Oversoul, revealing itself in glorious moments of spontaneous clarity, went entirely unmentioned by people, and some would even insist on using logic where this Presence would, by virtue of logic, hide itself.

I just talked to one of my friends from high school, and elementary school, in fact. It was the first time in my life that I fully fathomed that he, and perhaps most people, would not discern any meaning in the above paragraph. Considering the depictions of Bradbury, of Poe, of Salinger, of Rowling, of Shakespeare of this phenomenon, -- Of Meaning as an incontrovertible phenomenon Presenting itself serendipitously -- it was boggling to discover that my friend had only experienced this whilst using psychedelics.

Could it be that, in fact, these writers are on a different planet? The MBTI helped me to see that and understand why friends had called me Hamlet and Holden Caulfield.

- INFP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scwcnXRtVt4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzeAD70_oRo

My Roadmap.

I. Every act by any human being and any sentient (and maybe nonsentient) being is motivated, whether with or without conscious intent, by Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
II. Everything that anyone ever tells you is true.
III. It is ignorance that would obscure facts I and II.
IV. Because ignorance does not exist, it may be overcome by Wisdom.
V. The wise individual is one who has, to the... best of his or her ability, synthesized the truths of everyone and everything with whom or which he or she has interacted, measured against his or her own logic and experience, into a perfected whole.
VI. The process described in fact V may or may not involve conscious intent.
VII. The perfected truth of the wise individual is neither superior nor inferior to the truth of the conventional person.
VIII. A preference for the perfected truth over the conventional truth is not necessarily misguided or ignorant.
IX. There is no evidence to disprive facts I through X.
X. If any one of facts I through X should be untrue, moral behaviour would be entirely impossible.
 
This is, of course, not to be taken literally, but hyperbolically. The intent is to stress and strain a particular emotional attitude to an extreme so as to illustrate a particular quality of character which tends more or less to dominate my personality.

If I could have any feedback, it is: to which extent is the manifestation (although not dominion by, as in this example) this archetype (if it is one) 1. constructive/tragic, 2. pervasive and 3. the manifestation of truth?

Comment back.

dm.A.A.

Finding the method in my madness.

I see the logic in my prior work where before I only saw the emotionalism. This would suggest that it was emotionalism itself that prompted me to reflect upon my prior work with harsh judgement in mind. Perhaps my greatest impediment was the emotionalism of logical people: People abusing logic when they have not thoroughly developed emotionally, attacking sensitive people, calling them "irrational" when, in fact, the sensitive people were either as rational, as logical, but with a wider frame of reference, or they have so many variables to work with -- so many premises to assess -- that they have not yet had the time to apply the logical method, still immersed in the process of finding the truth or falsehood of incredibly subtle and vague premises.

 

dm.A.A.

I'm supposed to slash John with a long Japanese sword...

   John says that my experience of 'beauty' is merely a feedback loop: The projection of my own prejudices onto the world, obscuring its objectivity.
   By the same token, isn't logic a feedback loop? After all, to say, 'this is true because it is logical and it agrees with my existing philosophical and cognitive prejudices' seems to be merely the masculine equivalent of 'this is true because it is beautiful, thus affirming my existing aesthetic and emotional biases'.
   I also contest him on his assertion, still, of the superficiality of Personality distinctions. I have always, in mature life as well as my most memorable childhood moments and Eternities, gravitated towards the temperament of the emotive poet over that of the intellectual, despite brief visits to the latter. Had I stayed as a Thinker rather than a Feeler, my choice would have been probably advantageous to me, sparing me many uncomfortable conflicts that, nonetheless, for the sake of sheer Truth, I chose to endure.
   As a poet who did not always know it, I universally felt that it was a matter of the deepest, most incontrovertible wisdom that what was Beautiful was revelation: That those moments in Life when I experienced a splendor of utmost novelty were when the Universe was looking me straight in the face, almost scoffing at the petty attempts of my logical mind to map it.
   It was not a feedback-loop: It was contact with an alien Other that was nonetheless the very Ground of Being, and thus all other truly beautiful things seemed a part of the same energy, to be revered. And it always came unexpectedly and spontaneously, never by virtue of my adherence to a doctrine. 'Anatman' is a tantalising state of ambivalence when regarded intellectually, but what really discerns it from any other form of intellectual stuffiness that my spoiled mind could cling to?
   I saw Dan Faughnder today. His very presence, however momentary and fleeting, in my day left an imprint that mere memory could not recall. Had I been less preoccupied with contemplating Anatman and trying to make the external world conform to my logical prejudice, maybe I should have seen his soul without hesitation, but it was delayed until I reached Starbucks.
   Here was a Beautiful man, and should I have forgotten that I would not have Seen him. Is any beauty a falsehood?
   Do we not arrive at truth by stressing our most gorgeous extremes, rather than conforming to a sterile balance?

  dm.A.A.