Ponderous man, really ponderous

[termite]

I have been pondering many things of late, it must be a consequence of hitting 40, or perhaps seeing my son nearing the age of 18 or maybe it is a result of being in a happy stable relationship with my wife for 23 years (20 as husband & wife and 3 as young lovers). More likely than all this is the fact I caught up with a very dear friend from before I was married and after realizing how much we had missed each other we discussed many things and despite her still being a vibrant, intelligent and quite beautiful woman I was shocked to learn that she has been born again as bible thumping, Jesus loving, hymn singing Christian. It was and still is, so out-of-character that I am waiting for the "Huh, had you going there!"

Whatever the reason though, tonight I found myself punching the keyboard and was a little surprised by what sprang forth - here it is for pondering, ignoring, amusement or disdain. I care not, but after hammering the following text I could think of nothing else to do with it than to dump it here for y'all to peruse - or not.

First of all, I always try to subscribe to the doctrine of "To each, their own" and do not wish to be seen as preaching to others nor am I asking to be preached to - quite the opposite in fact. I have views and beliefs that have been formed by life experiences (like everyone else), I have at times studied various religious, philosophical and spiritual beliefs without ever finding myself convinced that any were for me. Believe it or not I have gained some of my beliefs (or at least tuned them) through the exchange of ideas on the internet (it's not just for Porn folks). Essentially most of my personal beliefs have come from three important and uniquely human pursuits - Reading, Discussion & Questioning (questioning that which is presented as fact or law or necessary rather than questioning the individual as that would be covered by discussion).

I am not offering answers to anyone be they simpletons or theologians and I am quick to agree that there have been a great many wise men and women throughout history (wiser than me no doubt), some of whom have appeared in the well known and accepted historical or religious texts such the Torah, Qur'an, The Art of War, Old & New Testament (whichever revision suits). In my opinion the people represented in these texts have all been just that, people (real or mythical it makes no real difference) each of them was "blessed" with one or more useful abilities. They possessed what was at the time considered great wisdom, had a great presence often as charismatic and convincing orators, some were powerful warlords with sharp minds and sharper swords (the victor writes the history books) and many made great sacrifices which were subsequently represented as being for the good of others (the greater good?), no doubt some were clever grafters that took advantage of other peoples radical ideas. All of them brought about some significant change (actual or mythical) - by questioning (usually challenging the status-quo) and as a consequence of this questioning of accepted ideas they encouraged (forced?) the contemporary thinking mind to reconsider its previously solid beliefs and perhaps even consider an alternative (or many alternatives).

Of course there is wisdom not just in the "Religious Tomes" but also in scientific research, in text books, memoirs of great leaders and thinkers and even in works of fiction (yes fiction , good fiction can be a powerful conduit for change through ideas not yet proven or technology not yet possible, concepts not yet challenged). The fictional invisible Pink Unicorn has as much likelihood of existing here and now as any other conceivable Omnipotent being if you question the "beliefs" the majority have long considered "true".

In my humble opinion none of these characters portrayed in the texts, scrolls and tablets of the past were God or his representative, anymore more than the Invisible Pink Unicorn is God or his representative and just as importantly no more than you and I are God or his representative. So God the creator is one thing, which is not the focus of my attention at this time, we can leave that to the Creationist V Evolution debate which is so laborious and repetitive it tends to bring on bouts of nausea. My thoughts this evening were focused more on the idea of the Soul, that unknown, unseen yet broadly accepted phenomenon that gives us life, and most likely if it exists it is the power source for all life (or not?)...

I believe that the existence of what we call the Soul is plausible, we do live and we do die and when we die we are never again seen on this Earth (Sorry but I'm not buying the "I saw Jesus rise from the dead" claim any more than I believe my father will rise from the dead to give me next weeks lotto numbers). The Soul however is a central concept (belief?) to what a lot of this theological stuff is all about, without it there is no point to any of the other stuff about God (except maybe creation but that's another topic remember).

Think of the soul as a power source for the existence of life and like all power sources it requires energy, I am inclined to believe that the soul IS energy. I once discussed this topic with my Dad while he had cancer not long before he died, he knew he was dying and he shared with me the idea (belief?) that our souls are Energy and that this has a tangible (if not measurable) connection to our existence (all existence?).

After this short philosophical discussion with my father I asked some questions of myself and my beliefs and it seemed not just logical but "likely" that this idea meant something. So over the last decade or so it grew to also be my opinion that the Soul (energy) is the source of who and what we really are but it is not a phenomenon limited just to people, it is in all life and is perhaps linked the existence of all life on Earth (and in the Universe). I know this isn't an entirely new idea but after looking into the "facts" about energy I found it very powerful to find out that energy cannot be destroyed, according to the "law of conservation of energy" there is exactly the same amount of energy in the universe as there ever was and ever will be. This was powerful stuff to me and it made me question more about who and what we are and what our place is in the universe, it also made me question the Law of Conservation of Energy but that is also another topic.

Without energy there is no life, no Earth, no Galaxy and of course no Universe - Yes energy can be stored, released, manipulated and utilized in a seemingly endless number of ways but it does not leave us, it does not increase or decrease regardless of how many power stations we build, how many Nuclear weapons we detonate or (if we could) how many galaxies we destroy (destruction is misleading anyway, it is more like "Deconstruction" we do not ever truly destroy the matter or energy we simply alter its configuration. You could blow up the Himalayas but all the matter and energy will not be gone (destroyed) it will simply be altered, displaced and redistributed but it is all still there.

Just as the Soul (Energy) is still there when living things die.

When our body dies, energy leaves our bodies (or whatever mortal vessel it may be, a tree lives and dies as does a jelly fish - they cannot live without energy any more than we can) and this dissipating energy becomes a part of the world around us - is that heaven? Is it hell? Is it enough? Do we need to question further? Of course we do...

Do we need a Heaven and a Hell for our souls or do we only need it for our living conscious minds (our conscience?) in order to shape our behavior in a way that will allow us to exist in a complex society without "trespassing against" each other? Ultimately is Heaven and Hell just a carrot and a stick for the proverbial donkey (heaven being the carrot and hell being the stick) and if so we have built the societies we have using this method so why question it now? It got us this far so why abandon this somewhat successful method of keeping order within our societies?

We must question these things, all things in fact - please do not confuse my meaning, to question is not to doubt or deny, rather it is to confirm or eliminate and most likely to lead to another question.

The difference between people and the other known living creatures is not the "use of tools" or being "self aware" or realizing our "unavoidable mortality" no no no - the critical difference is that we CAN and WILL question ourselves, each other and our beliefs for if we had not done this we would never have advanced so far (or as some may believe, sunk so low).

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, this idea is as close to fact as an idea can be so is it also true that Absolute Belief corrupts absolutely? If you believe in something, have faith in something so rigidly that you cease to question or consider the fallibility of said belief then you cease to advance, cease to develop and inevitably deny that simple but beautiful truth that sets us apart from all other known lifeforms - the desire for knowledge, which in its purest form can only be gained by asking a question?

[Aimless]

I'm about to start reading that, just wanted to say i really love that song love the whole album

[Nessus]

I hope this isn't offensive, but your ideas on energy kind of remind me of new age people What I'd like to point out, and this need not be considered an argument against your energy idea, is that based on our best observations the energy density of the kosmos is decreasing. Mass is being burned into photons in processes of varying efficiency. (And there's also that pesky manichean dichotomy between flesh and pure energy, but eh.)

All that said, I wish to offer as counter something I personally believe in, and find...Comforting, in some way.

But what, really, do these remarks signify? What do I know of the secret fears, ideas, and hopes of those who were my colleagues for a time? I was never able to conquer the distance between persons. An animal is fixed to its here-and-now by the senses, but man manages to detach himself, to remember, to sympathize with others, to visualize their states of mind and feelings: this, fortunately, is not true. In such attempts at pseudo merging and transferral we are only able, imperfectly, darkly, to visualize ourselves. What would happen to us if we could truly sympathize with others, feel with them, suffer for them? The fact that human anguish, fear, and suffering melt away with the death of the individual, that nothing remains of the ascents, the declines, the orgasms, and the agonies, is a praiseworthy gift of evolution, which made us like the animals. If from every unfortunate, from every victim, there remained even a single atom of his feelings, if thus grew the inheritance of the generations, if even a spark could pass from man to man, the world would be full of raw, bowel-torn howling.

[Illusions]

I hope this isn't offensive, but your ideas on energy kind of remind me of new age people

I find that once you point out to people that what they identify as themselves, either their mind or a combination of their mind and body, is merely an emergent personality being simulated inside of a hunk of meat, and this emergent personality has no independent energy of its own, only that which was used to generate it via chemical processes and neural connections in this meat, they find the thought wholly depressing. With the cessation of either the meat (death), the chemical processes (brain death), or significant damage to this meat - say for instance a railway spike through the head (brain damage)* the personality that everyone knows as you or I will cease to exist, living on only in the memories of the people and things that experienced this personality, or in the works they have accomplished. This is pretty much the point at which people inject either religion or spirituality, because, going back to the original sentence, the thought that everyone you've ever known and loved is either gone or will one day be gone, and that you will as well, can be depressing, and they are looking for some abstract way to alleviate this. Science does not provide comforting answers. At least not to regular people.


*On another different topic, I find it strange that society as a whole considers someone who has suffered significant enough brain damage to be rendered a different individual/personality to be the same person. For instance, if friendly, smart, personable, happy-go-lucky Jack takes a railway spike through the head and due to brain damage emerges an angry, pessimistic, asshole of a person, they still consider them Jack, as if the original person they knew is still in there, rendered different similarly through other life experiences like getting married, having kids, etc. which do not produce permanent brain damage.

[Nessus]

Oh, sure, but that's something I've personally internalized long ago. (The whole ghost in the machine thing, I mean) And I dunno if it benefits termite to go over the usual tired routines of the whole thing.

Ask me again after a couple of drinks, I guess

[Illusions]

Oh, sure, but that's something I've personally internalized long ago. (The whole ghost in the machine thing, I mean) And I dunno if it benefits termite to go over the usual tired routines of the whole thing.

I'm more suggesting this as the answer to why a person who seems rather intelligent can wind up going the spiritual or religious route. They aren't accepting it as a rote ideology like others may be. They are smart enough to have come to some pretty depressing conclusions about life in general, and comforting answers aren't provided by logic, science, or other forms of empirical reasoning (again, at least to regular people), but they are provided by things like philosophy, religion, and spirituality. This is pretty much like Alber from the old forum. He was an intelligent person. His fear of personal death drove him into a cult-like following of technology allowing man to one day ascend to another form of being. Others clutch onto the idea of a culturally pleasing afterlife, or superior being ascribing meaning or purpose to life.

Or more to point, addressing why the ideas they hold are wrong isn't going to solve anything, you're going to have to address why they decided to adopt this belief in the first place.

[termite]

Hehe it is bizarre how the whole thing just fell out of my head onto the keyboard - even I'm not sure I really agree with what I typed (I did say I would continue to question my beliefs right?). It is more like a collection of snapshots of my thoughts (some deeper than others) that seemed to come gushing out after this conversation with my old friend - I was close to tears just thinking of her as a fucking Jesus freak and then a more serene mood took me, along with 3/4 of a litre of vodka...

I also understand what you're saying Ness, and my experiences also give weight to the idea of never really knowing another and never having anything of yourself remain in any recognizable or useful form. The conversation I had with my dying father still regularly bounces back into my conscious thought...

... have you ever seen the movie Powder? Sentimental stuff of the same kind but there was nothing in what my dad said that suggested anything like hope for an afterlife, rather a return to simple energy with no consciousness or memories preserved.

None of it was hopeful for something better or deeper than essentially when we die, the small amount of energy within us dissipates into the surrounding environment and we are no more.

Heaven and Hell and all that stuff was more about controlling the masses than any real hope for eternal life.

*shrug* It's nearly 3am and I;m really drunk now...

[Dreadnaught]

Thanks for posting.

Though I have the ask the obvious-but-crass questions:

1) Is this meant to be read by her? Or expressed to her in any way)
2) Was this person ever a lover or object of attraction at all? I just see a decent amount of passion in that writing...

[termite]

Thanks for posting.

Though I have the ask the obvious-but-crass questions:

1) Is this meant to be read by her? Or expressed to her in any way)
2) Was this person ever a lover or object of attraction at all? I just see a decent amount of passion in that writing...

I hadn't really thought about her reading it, I'd be a bit of a prick to shove it in her face so soon after reconnecting though. Maybe sometime down the track we will discuss the meaning of life the universe and everything but at this point she has not preached to me so I won't be antagonizing her just yet.

We were never lovers, her parents were good friends with my parents when we were all kids and our relationship was something like close cousins - I am 18 months older so I tended to look out for her and she liked to confide in me, you know, all that stuff that seemed important when you were 12 that you can't even remember now....

Ironically, her mum had the mother of all mid-life crises and not only went all religious but she packed them up (mum & 2 daughters) and dragged them all into a creepy commune in the mountains on the east coast (4,500km away from us) - my friend hated everything about it and was emotionally abused by the pastor that ran the place like every other tinpot messiah. She really resented being told by this so called communal leader (David Koresh anyone?) that she was the spawn of satan for not accepting Jesus and she was made to live in a small tent away from the chosen ones. Her mother, like all brainwashed morons could not see what these people were doing to her daughter, and if she did see it she chose to go along with it - I'll never forgive or forget that betrayal. She was just 13 then...

Eventually she wrote my Dad a letter and told us just some of what was going on and after a "family meeting" we unanimously agreed that we had to intervene. So that winter we sort of rescued her, she came and lived with my family for 4 or 5 years and became the little sister I never had. Its hard to relate to a third party how much we meant to each other back then... Put simply, I love her and she loves me but in the way that siblings should love each other, we teased each other, rolled our eyes at each others lameness and held each other when things got all fucked up. She also loved my Dad dearly (they had always shared a cooky sens of humour) and when my dad died of cancer she was devastated, she just couldn't find a way to cope and while I was out of town for a few weeks she took off back to the East coast, eventually back to her family where the mistreatment began all over again and much to my dismay she eventually ended up an addict in a sordid little town called Nimbin. I had no idea where she was back then or what was happening and it still shits me that she didn't think she could call me but I guess that at the time the downward spiral was overwhelming her and she couldn't find a way to reach out.

For good or ill it was finding Jesus that saved her, at least that's how she tells it - I would prefer to think that she saved herself and Jesus was a means to an end but I guess that's semantics. She turned her life around, married a genuinely nice guy (a high school teacher!) and now has a beautiful young family and I can tell from talking to her that she is back to her hilarious old self - she should have been a comedian or a circus performer or something because she just makes everyone laugh and smile and feel good. Her smile was always so infectious I used to tell her to get a gig going to old peoples homes to raise their spirits, I was actually half serious, she just makes you feel better after blessing you with a smile.

Surely everyone has someone from their past that they miss, and it would make them feel good just to know they are alive, well and happy?

Maybe I'm just lucky.

[Dreadnaught]

Whoa, okay not the kind of relationship I expected.

Does any part of you wonder if the cult rubbed-off on her at least a little bit?

[GGT]

I'm taking the opportunity of the internet....to warn everyone of the alluring power of the internet. Especially when it comes to linking up with "old friends" from our passed past. It sounds pretty simple and easy to sign up with Facebook, classmates.com or other social web sites, but it comes with unknown unknowns.

Maybe I'm the odd man out, but these newfangled internet "connections" can open up cans of worms. Some things from our passed past should be just that---and not resurrected via the ease of the internet. My personal metric is who I'd call on the phone, or send a snail-mail letter. Both of those behaviors require some "skin in the game". The internet has let us 'interact' with more people than we'd actually want to 'interact' with. And blurs the boundaries of real life vs virtual life.

Termite, this is the duality of real life, when our computers, internet access, cell phones or smart phones all play a part in our interpersonal interactions. Very ponderous, indeed.

[termite]

Whoa, okay not the kind of relationship I expected.

Well to be honest with you the relationship with her (friendship) at the time seemed perfectly sensible, reading back what I posted here the other night (and its all true) I must say it seemed like I was reading about someone else...
... some naive bunch of folks that got caught up in shit they could have and should have avoided.

But at the time, knowing what we did about the mother and how she had changed from a happy woman (that was down on her luck) to a complete whacko that was willingly putting her vulnerable teenage daughters into a situation that blind Freddy could see was all wrong. And knowing what we did about the friend and how she wanted out (her older sister had become a disciple), at the time we could see no alternative but to "get involved" although we did do everything we could to get "uninvolved" (with the nutters) as quickly and cleanly as possible.

Does any part of you wonder if the cult rubbed-off on her at least a little bit?

No, after talking to her quite a lot recently I would say the "rubbing off" from the cult is what sent her into the abyss of drug use, living rough and most importantly the self loathing that was at the centre of her problems. It is patently obvious that the seed for her self loathing was planted in that place and reinforced in her mind by all of her close family members while she remained there and again when she eventually returned years later.

We, her foster family (as we were officially referred to during her time with us) did all we could to refute and dispel and destroy all those ideas planted in her then 13 year old mind by these nutters. It seemed that while she remained with us we had succeeded in freeing her from the influence of the nutters. During those years with us she was for the first time in her life a model student at school, she was also a contributor around the home and a delightful guest at gatherings and social events of all kinds and to me she was a fun-loving and likeable friend (but not a troublemaker or a drama queen like so many other girls her age because she knew of a different life the other girls couldn't imagine).

In our small family group of my mum and dad, me (my oldest brother had moved 500km away) and the friend it was my mum that struggled to connect with her most of all, there were abundant reasons for this which were obvious to all of us even then but despite this they did quite quickly learn to be ok with each other. Central to my mums issues was not the friend at all but the fact that my brother, her middle son, had committed suicide a year earlier and she was still grieving for him, she found it hard to fit a new "love" into her life and she had (and still has) a somewhat broken heart. My Dad and I also dealt with this particular demon in our own way at the time and I don't doubt that my dead brother loomed large in the background the whole time for the friend too... this is just how it was and nothing could change it. That story is also a whole different topic...

So Dread I think that the "cult" version of Christianity she had experienced did not in any way encourage her to look for God but quite the opposite. I also know from our recent discussions that having that "comparison" to the type of people she now knows through her Church they are not two sides of one coin as many would picture (me included), they are completely different coins. While both groups may praise Jesus, one is a dark hidden thing that preys on peoples fears and destroys families while this "other" group for her has been a bright, welcoming thing that brought her happiness, eventually love, it offered an opportunity for a better life and also important to her is forgiveness of those in that dark group (I struggle with that part...).

The contrast between the two groups could not be more stark, where one treated her as a devils spawn when she was an innocent young girl, the other group treated her as an innocent young girl when she was a drug addict living in the street.

I'm taking the opportunity of the internet....to warn everyone of the alluring power of the internet. Especially when it comes to linking up with "old friends" from our passed past. It sounds pretty simple and easy to sign up with Facebook, classmates.com or other social web sites, but it comes with unknown unknowns.

Maybe I'm the odd man out, but these newfangled internet "connections" can open up cans of worms. Some things from our passed past should be just that---and not resurrected via the ease of the internet. My personal metric is who I'd call on the phone, or send a snail-mail letter. Both of those behaviors require some "skin in the game". The internet has let us 'interact' with more people than we'd actually want to 'interact' with. And blurs the boundaries of real life vs virtual life.

Termite, this is the duality of real life, when our computers, internet access, cell phones or smart phones all play a part in our interpersonal interactions. Very ponderous, indeed.

Yeah well, you can cling to your Alexander Graham Bell ideology of the past GGT and I really don't blame you for feeling the way you do because I once agreed with you but...

...However if you are sensible about how you use them, social media like Facebook can provide very positive experiences the obvious being catching up with not only old friends but old work colleagues, alumni, distant or estranged family members and if you're brave perhaps even old flames. But a more common and less recognised benefit is that even the people you do still socialise with (or you see occasionally but not as often as you would like) can still share experiences with each other without actually being "there".

Here's a good recent example: My brother and I are not very close and do not talk often, for a million reasons, and I know without a doubt he would not have called me to tell me it was his daughters prom, but because my niece posted a photo on FB, we then quickly called her on skype and were able to share her excitement and enthusiasm for an important night in her young life.

With my brother living with his family in another state thousands of km away from here we simply don't see each other often so without these internet tools (Facebook+Skype) I would have either not even known about the prom or seen a few dusty pictures months or years later.

As for the can of worms you refer to - isn't life a can of worms? And if you specifically meant people you don't like contacting you, I have had a few people attempt to add me as friends that I simply decided I would rather not welcome back into my life and guess what? It's easy - you simply block them - done - and if you take the time to go through the privacy options properly you can ensure they see nothing you wouldn't want them to see (through "mutual" friends).

The biggest danger with social media is using them when you are ignorant, if you don't learn how to set the account up in a way that gives you control of what other people see then the can of worms will be wide open rather than simply cracked ajar enough for you to share your life and have others share right back at you.

How often does the phone ring?