progress

[stilltrucking]

Do I believe in it anymore?

I used to believe it was all heading somewhere, that there was a purpose to our evolution. As if we were evolving into some kind of higher being.

Who has courage enough to live without meaning?

Meaning leaks from the molecules

Mystic

Quantum Mysticism

[mtmynd]

truck: "I used to believe it was all heading somewhere, that there was a purpose to our evolution. As if we were evolving into some kind of higher being."

Belief is a bitch when doubt creeps in on all fours and challenges that which we once held high, like a flag to be saluted for the honor of representation of this 'higher' you speak of. But nothing remains as it was for the moments rasp takes it's toll on every thing, beliefs included. Our dilemma lies in the 'next'... how to become part of the next, that which follows, and perhaps find a belief in what ever that may hold for us, temporal as it all is, just like 'I'... Is not quantum simply another 'next' in the continuum that we call life as we know it? Quantum this, quantum that... new catch words to suggest something even bigger, something larger than what preceded it, not unlike 'super' and 'mega' to describe a shopper's paradise, quantum is another leap into much grander and more suggestive thought that never ceases, never ends... universal why's, what's, when's, where's and who's that keep afloat the idea of infinity... the largest we can comprehend without end before we ourselves end.

[stilltrucking]

I am way over my head Cecil. I know not of what I speak. I been thinking about the people I meet on the phone at work. Deep thinkiers, they are Sarah Palin supporters. The world makes so much sense to them.

You know I don't mind the calls I get for wild party girls dvd's or for the prayer crosses as much as the ones I get for Sarah's new book "Going Rogue"

I read an interesting tid bit this morning.

Wondering why your man wasn’t interested in sex after McCain’s defeat in the 2008 U.S. presidential election?

A new study from researchers at Duke University and the University of Michigan found that young men who voted for the Republican candidate John McCain suffered from an immediate drop in testosterone when the election results were announced.

Men who also voted for Libertarian candidate Robert Barr in the 2008 presidential election suffered from a similar drop, while men who voted for the winner, Democrat Barack Obama, had stable testosterone levels immediately after the outcome.

“This is a pretty powerful result,” said Duke neuroscientist Kevin LaBar. “Voters are physiologically affected by having their candidate win or lose an election.”

Female study participants showed no significant change in their testosterone levels before and after the returns came in.

McCain’s Male Voters Suffered Testosterone Drop

[mtmynd]

I recently heard the figure, 1.25M, being said the upfront offer for Palin to write her book. I'll never read it, which is about worth 2 cents right there.

Funny article you posted here. Who would've thunk something like that?? We men are a peculiar species, eh? Something about them X and Y things that we grapple with, while the female of our species has only the Y's (why's or wise??).

It's good to stop thinking besides when you're sleeping. When the mind rests during sleep it reinvigorates the body.. gives it time alone to take care of itself. (but i could be full of shit )

[stilltrucking]

The nasty people I talk to, I want to put a condom over my telephone, I feel such revulsion. Am I being judgemental?
So I ask her how did you hear about Sarah's new book and she says the Glen Beck show. And I hear it in her voice. She has such moral clarity.

This is the bit that I have to act my best neutral voice reading.

"Sarah Paylin and the new feminism, how Sarah is changing the politics of womanhood."

I used to have a friend in Atascadero California who was a great song writer. She was also a waitress at Sambo's restuarant which she said was like being a social whore. That is how I feel about my job. As right a livlihood as I can manage these days.

She wrote

"They say I was a rebel till I reached the age of five
it was then that I got caught up in the struggle to survive."

and

"I spent sometime wondering what it is to be alive
but I am finding our it really doesn't matter"

"It came to me one rainy August morning like a flash
we might all wake up tomorrow in a pile of smoke and ash"


all jumbled up lyrics from geezer memory
"So pick up your guitar and play along cause music is the key
but don't come by with out some cash
and if your broke go down and get rebate"

[mtmynd]

I'm puzzled, as many are, by the "Palin Admiration Society" and would like to hear from anyone of them why and what it is they really see in this woman to bring about their 'faint' whenever her name pops up. Soo and all her female friends that I know of seem to be as puzzled about her as we do. If there is a large segment of women in our society that truly believe Palin is some god-sent persona to save our country I feel very sorry for them.

[stilltrucking]

If there is a large segment of women in our society that truly believe Palin is some god-sent persona to save our country I feel very sorry for them.

I don't know women Cecil. Not at all.
But there is a segment of people in this country of men and women who are looking for Jesus to come back and kick some ass. Not sure how big a segment. But they sure make a lot of noise.




Paylin reminds me of Phyllis Schlafly for some reason. Nietzsche said the most basic human instinct is the will to power. Women want power too I suppose.

[mtmynd]

Nietzsche said the most basic human instinct is the will to power.

That's not putting any value judgment on it, is it? Human instinct also strives to both qualify and quantify judgments... makes the judgment more palatable, or not.

[Non Sum]

Do I believe in it anymore?

I used to believe it was all heading somewhere, that there was a purpose to our evolution. As if we were evolving into some kind of higher being.

Who has courage enough to live without meaning?

Hello Stilltrucking,
I wouldn't take disillusionment as necessarily a bad thing. I recall someone once saying that, 'the road to Reality went from disillusion to disillusion, until there were no more illusions left.' Perhaps, the greatest self-delusion is to try to justify one's self by setting up some external "meaning" to prop you up.

I find it much more honest to live from your own core, needing nothing more. As the Vedantists say, "Self alone IS, nothing else is." (Upanishad) As the Buddhists say, "Dwell having Self for your island, Self for your refuge, and having no other refuge." (Samyutta-nikaya V)

Politics are just the jostling that occurs with groups and crowds. I don't put much significance in it. Reading Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' (not a quick read) gives one a lot of insight into the warp-woof, yin-yang, of human affairs. Good emperors are followed by bad, by mediocre, etc, etc.; all 'much ado about nothing.'

I wish I had some insight into Ms Palin to share, but no one is more baffled than I about the Sarah phenom.

(Hi Cecil)
NS (Not Sarah)

[stilltrucking]

The down side of Nietzsche
Back in the sixties it all seemed like it was going somewhere.
Then the word "co-opt" came into fashion.
Madison Avenue co-opted the counter culture..
It amazes me how many Buddhist web sites I have seen that "co-opt" Nietzsche. I hardly understand Nietzsche, I only read him because the acid scared me and I needed something to do while I was tripping to keep my mind off of it.

"Man would sooner have the void for a purpose than be void of purpose."

I don't know for sure if Nietzsche said the most basic instinct of man is the will to power." It could be something I made up.

I have only read a thousand pages of The Decline and Fall and that was forty six years ago. I ahve been curious how it turns out.

I understand Sarah because she has nice knees. She is Ann Ryand with lip gloss. Joe McCarthy with a skirt.

John Waters that cynical son of bitch had it right. When all the hippies running around speaking of love and understanding. He saw what was slouching towards Washington. Oh Ronnie baby.

[Non Sum]

Yes, Nietzsche certainly has his "down sides." "Will to Power" is his alright. But, it is usually taken wrongly as some sort of political, or personal power over others. It can, and should, be taken as 'power over one's self.' N. sees using power socially, or interpersonally as "weakness" seeking to avoid having to fight where the real challenge lies.

ST: I only read him because the acid scared me and I needed something to do while I was tripping to keep my mind off of it.

NS: Did it work?
I used to favor looking at the mirror, and watching my face morph into monsters. I must have taken too many trips, because one of the mirror monsters stuck and has yet to leave.

N. quote: ""Man would sooner have the void for a purpose than be void of purpose."

NS: I believe he is fault-finding here, rather than making recommendations.
Speaking for my own self, people go out seeking a purpose when they are afraid of the void they find within. But, I always took an abyss as something to jump into, rather than to run from.

ST: I have only read a thousand pages of The Decline and Fall and that was forty six years ago. I ahve been curious how it turns out.

NS: Actually, Rome keeps getting reborn; so that we may never live to see if, or how, it may end. But, I do agree with Gibbon (and Nietzsche) that Christianity has kept Rome in free-fall through it all.

ST: I understand Sarah because she has nice knees. She is Ann Ryand with lip gloss. Joe McCarthy with a skirt.

NS: I never caught the "knees." But, you got her right with "Joe." As regards "Ayn," you'd need to put as much effort on glossing the intellect as you have with the lips.

[stilltrucking]

Hello NS, yes it worked. I am claustrophobic as hell, so instead of seeing the walls closing in on me I watched the words crawl across the pages like thick black worms. They seemed to morph into Hebrew letters. The Genealogy of Morals and The Birth of Tragedy. The only books by Nietzsche I have read cover to cover. I have re read it several times, his words acid etched on my brain.

I liked looking in the mirror too, looking at the reflection of myself on the surface of my eye.

Of course you are right, the power is over our selves.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply
I accidentally deleted a reply to you and have not had the heart to try and reconstruct it till now.

The deleted post was about a book called "The Faith of A Heretic" by Walter Kaufmann. I have read more about Nietzsche than I have read by him. I have a half a bookshelf of Kaufmann's books.

I am re reading chapter 8 of Faith of A Heretic, I have a tendency to read certain books over and over. I been doing that with Faith of A Heretic for years.

Also re-reading Kaufmann's "Religion from Tolstoy to Camus"

If not for Nietzsche I would still be a Jesus freak today. Nothing wrong with that but through an accident of birth, "simple twist of fate", I would have wound up as a Jew for Jesus. Attending prayer meetings and singing the Israeli national anthem. Nothing wrong with that either. But my favorite national anthem these days is from The Two Thousand Year Old Man by Mel Brooks

Reiner: At that second recording we had Brendan Behan, the famous Irish playwright, and Mel didn't know he was there. I'll never forget this. I'd asked Mel, "Did you have a national anthem?" He said, "Yeah, every cave had a national anthem"--he didn't know I was going to ask him that, and he sang . . .

Brooks: [Sings] "Let them all go to hell, except Cave 17."

Reiner: And Behan came up after the session and said, "You know, I've got a new motto now," and he said something to me in Gaelic. I asked, "What does that mean?" He'd translated Mel's anthem. Now, that is exactly what flags, what nationalism does. Everybody should go to hell as long as we're OK. That's what I mean--Mel hits the absolute truths.

http://ysos.sammigirl.com/interviews/latimes1997.html

I think the Nazi's viewed Christianity as a Jewish plot to enslave the superman.



I still can't figure out why so many Buddhist websites try to coopt Nietzsche. I don't hardly understand Nietzsche, I wish I could read him in German, Freud too. Freud said no man ever knew himself as well as Nietzsche. I don't trust translations anymore. But I have some confidence in Kaufmann. German is such a precise language. When I was in college a half a century ago it was considered the best choice for anyone going to medical school. So many bad translations of Freud too I have heard.

I took German I three times. I was doing okay the first semester till the instructor told me I spoke it with a yiddish accent. After that I had a mental block and could not learn the language.

Comparing Nietzsche with Buddhism has become something of a cottage industry, and for good reason: there seems to be a deep resonance between them.
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/loy.htm

[mtmynd]

I took German I three times. I was doing okay the first semester till the instructor told me I spoke it with a yiddish accent. After that I had a mental block and could not learn the language.

damn funny, truck. do you still speak with a yiddish accent? i seem to hear you speak like Kinky Friedman.

[Non Sum]

Hi Stilltrucking,
I appreciate your getting back to me, especially twice (this, and the one frustratingly lost to cyber-oblivion). I can see by this, and your ‘3’ abortive forays into 1st semester Deutshland, that you are not one easily deterred by setbacks. While I, OTOH, took just one semester of German (c. 40 years ago), taught by the very attractive Fraulein Shumann, and never returned again.

So, you were a “Jesus freak” Jew, who found salvation by undergoing “Hebraic brain acid etchings” of Freddy Nietzsche’s inspired words. No doubt, a common enough occurrence.


I’ve not had the pleasure of reading Kaufmann’s ‘The Faith of a Heretic,’ nor his ‘Religion from Tolstoy to Camus.’ I’ve read enough of Kaufmann to know that he is a fine writer, translator, and clarifies the abstruse like no other. Isn’t Camus an atheist?

What is it, do you think, that keeps drawing you back to rereading his “Heretic”? It certainly seems to be speaking to something in you that needs a repetitive hearing of it. I did the same thing with the Bhagavad Gita back nearly thirty years ago. I credit that effort, and the insight it brought, to literally saving me from self-destructing.

Brooks: [Sings] "Let them all go to hell, except Cave 17."

Excellent! That would certainly be the gist of any nationalism, or most any ‘ism.’ For myself, I’m still at the primordial “cave 17” stage. My patriotism extends no further than ‘me and mine.’ When I think of all the foolish young men dying for countless forgotten flags strewn across the ages, all signifying nothing, I have to shake my ‘cave 17’ head, and agree with the saying that: “All we learn from history is that we never learn from history.”

ST: I think the Nazi's viewed Christianity as a Jewish plot to enslave the superman.

NS: I’ve long thought that the Nazi view, like most any political view, was to advance the cause by the most expeditious means. Finding a convenient insidious enemy, like Jews, Commies, or Islamic Terrorists, succeeds well in striking fear into the hearts of the sheeple, who then gladly surrender their: rights, wealth, and lives to those who promise to protect them. I’ve no doubt that you are right regarding the published Nazi “view” of just such “plots,” but that is all chiefly for public consumption. ‘Power’ is the actual game.

Thanks for the Buddhist-Nietzsche link. It made for fascinating reading. I passed it on to my wife, who also enjoyed it, as she has much more affinity for Buddhism than I.

It’s interesting how Morrison associates N’s ‘will to power’ with Buddhism’s ‘craving.’ It made me think of Keirkegaard’s ‘despair,’ which I just happened to be trying to get a handle on in my present rereading of “Sickness Unto Death.’ All 3 (will to power, craving, despair) are taken by their authors as largely positive, albeit painful, spiritual drives back to spirit. The ultimate ‘homesickness,’ so to speak. Another term the Buddhists use for it, is ‘the Buddha Urge,’ which aligns even better with ‘Will.’ (Whose ‘will’? Surely, not ‘ours.’)

Though, I still see much more Buddhism in Schopenhauer than in Freddy.

Question: Why would a boychick with a good ‘Yiddisher accent’ be discouraged from German language studies by that good fact?

Auf Wedersehen, NS (Neural Sedative)

[stilltrucking]

Isn’t Camus an atheist?

What does that matter?

They say Einstein was an atheist too.
I find more spirituality in Camus and Einstein than I do in most preachers.

I can’t do Keirkegaard lord knows I have tried. Nietzsche is so easy for me, the voice of an Old Testament prophet.

Keirkegaard spider is too subtle for me I suppose.
I am stupid that way.
But I hope one day I will be able to read him. He asks such good questions. Why do we need preachers in Christendom? I suppose that is what drew me to the Quakers, no preachers.

Moo Moo Camus
Yes he is the moo for me

Thanks for taking the time to reply
I don't expect my white friends to understand the Jew Nietzsche thing. Nietzsche thing. Nietzsche the laxative for my racism.

_________________________________


My obsession with Faith of a Heretic is nothing, I have been reading Life Against Death by N.O. Brown for over thirty years. And I have read The Bell Jar so many times I lost count. 9 or 10 times at least. Maybe 15. I was on a Husserl binge for thirty years too. This book which I gave up on last year Got about 140 pages into it but I don't think I will ever finish it, not in this lifetime anyway. The cover of the book is what caught my eye. The snake




Yes compulsions are me.

Walter Kaufmann is an interesting dude. He converted to Judaism in the thirties when he was still living in Germany. Only to find out later that all four of his grandparents were Jews who had converted to Christianity.
For me being a Jew is a blood thing not a religion, a family thing. It is something that I am. But I no longer feel superior about it. Just something I got from my mothers before me and fathers too.