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Author Topic:   Your idols
Faith
Knowflake

Posts: 21731
From: Bella's Hair Salon
Registered: Jul 2011

posted February 22, 2013 10:44 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Faith        Reply w/Quote
I've been doing a lot of intensive spring cleaning lately, ie scrubbing under the stove and throwing out older beans, grains, and spices. Decommissioning this ugly fruit bowl that I bought while apparently suffering a serious lapse of taste.

As I'm cleaning, I keep having this line from my German Cap friend running though my head. She said a few weeks ago: "I couldn't live without German efficiency and cleanliness."

This morning as I was working on my ongoing project to scrub down the entire kitchen, inside and out, I realized how often my mind kept returning to my German friend, and it clicked with me that I was kind of idolizing her.

I mean, I've seen pictures of her immaculate kitchen (with a live jasmine plant offering its fragrance from one bright corner, no less) and it's easy to focus on that as an example. So I ask myself, "What Would My German Friend Do?"

Then I realized I've been doing the same thing with my diet: I have a little cast of dieticians, vegans, raw foodists, Ayurvedic gurus in my head, commenting on everything I prepare and put in my mouth.

And I do the same thing with just about every aspect of my life. There is even a "patron saint" of how I bathe (my one friend is on fire with religion about epsom salts, I can't get her out of my head, so I buy epsom salts.)

What I'm wondering, and offering for commentary is, do you think this is anything like the thoughts processes of polytheists, holding certain gods in their minds to spur on certain kinds of actions, to attain various goals?

If, whenever I think about kindness, the first thing that comes to mind is one of my childhood friends...and I put a picture of her up in my room and smile at it, and that reminds me to be nice....doesn't that correspond a little bit to having a shrine to a certain god or goddess??

I think it does. I think I unofficially have had real people as idols, and it is probably very similar to how people with actual gods in their heads go through life.

Just saying this because I'm in a fearlessly eccentric mood.

Comments welcome.

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Padre35
Knowflake

Posts: 3996
From: Asheville, NC, US
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posted February 22, 2013 02:03 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Padre35        Reply w/Quote

Ruthless Self Discipline-author named Michael Janke who teaches a sort of Discipline Time Management

Frugal Style-author named Ed Romney and another one named Bill Kaysing

Philosophy-To many to list, atm an author named Robert Greene who expounds on what it takes to really master a subject, all of the work that goes into really learning something

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Faith
Knowflake

Posts: 21731
From: Bella's Hair Salon
Registered: Jul 2011

posted February 22, 2013 08:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Faith        Reply w/Quote
Oh yeah I spent a night at the bookstore reading The 48 Laws of Power. That's why I'm so powerful now....

jk

I hadn't heard of the book before, I just saw it displayed. The number 48 in the title caught my attention because I like Gary Goldschneider & Joost Elffers' Secret Language books, based on 48 sun signs. Turns out that Elffers was the producer of Greene's 48 Laws of Power.

So naturally, I've been wondering if there's an astrological backstory to the Power book.

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Padre35
Knowflake

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From: Asheville, NC, US
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posted February 22, 2013 09:21 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Padre35        Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Faith:
Oh yeah I spent a night at the bookstore reading The 48 Laws of Power. That's why I'm so powerful now....

jk

I hadn't heard of the book before, I just saw it displayed. The number 48 in the title caught my attention because I like Gary Goldschneider & Joost Elffers' Secret Language books, based on 48 sun signs. Turns out that Elffers was the producer of Greene's 48 Laws of Power.

So naturally, I've been wondering if there's an astrological backstory to the Power book.


Nice, do wonder if some on this forum would be better served reading "The Art of Seduction" though

Most issues that seem to crop up on Lindaland seem to center around Sex, Romance and Attraction.

Same here, all I know about Robert Greene is he is a Taurus.

Smart man, in some ways, a idealistic man, his concept behind 48 laws of power was not to make present day Machiavelli's better, it was to arm average everyday people with knowledge about how those Machiavelli's do things.

As an aside, Greene's current effort is about Mastery, and the 10,000 hours it takes to really, deeply, connect with a subject.

Found the concept fascinating in terms of Astrology, just how hard and difficult it is to both read a chart and really intuit a chart, however when I posted the idea in the Astrology forum..was pretty much ridiculed for it.

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Faith
Knowflake

Posts: 21731
From: Bella's Hair Salon
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posted February 22, 2013 10:36 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Faith        Reply w/Quote
Art of Seduction

10,000 hours to Mastery, that was Malcolm Gladwell's brainchild idea wasn't it? Outliers?

The interplay between the clear-cut "rules" of astrology (such as maximum orbs for asteroids, and which aspects to asteroids matter and which don't) with the intuitive side, is something I can't reconcile in my head.

I just feel that the good astrologers know how to read a chart and read you and put it all together...and the crummy ones don't.

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mockingbird
Knowflake

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posted February 22, 2013 10:41 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mockingbird        Reply w/Quote
*reading thread with interest*

------------------
If I've included this sig, it's because I'm posting from a mobile device.
Please excuse all outrageous typos and confusing auto-corrects.

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Padre35
Knowflake

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From: Asheville, NC, US
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posted February 23, 2013 04:54 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Padre35        Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Faith:
Art of Seduction

10,000 hours to Mastery, that was Malcolm Gladwell's brainchild idea wasn't it? Outliers?

The interplay between the clear-cut "rules" of astrology (such as maximum orbs for asteroids, and which aspects to asteroids matter and which don't) with the intuitive side, is something I can't reconcile in my head.

I just feel that the good astrologers know how to read a chart and read you and put it all together...and the crummy ones don't.


Well even a crummy astrologer can learn to improve if they are serious about their craft

I'm tired, it's late


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mirage29
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Posts: 7153
From: us
Registered: May 2012

posted February 23, 2013 07:13 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mirage29        Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Faith:
...This morning as I was working on my ongoing project to scrub down the entire kitchen, inside and out, I realized how often my mind kept returning to my German friend, and it clicked with me that I was kind of idolizing her.
. . .
If, whenever I think about kindness, the first thing that comes to mind is one of my childhood friends...and I put a picture of her up in my room and smile at it, and that reminds me to be nice....doesn't that correspond a little bit to having a shrine to a certain god or goddess??

I think it does. I think I unofficially have had real people as idols, and it is probably very similar to how people with actual gods in their heads go through life.

Just saying this because I'm in a fearlessly eccentric mood. ...


Hi Faith, great writing...!

. . . .

Ever experiment with sunglasses? Different shades? Blues, greens, rose, yellow? Colors you look at in the environment are still identifiable, right? But somehow the greens are 'greener', some colors have added vividness.
edit

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Padre35
Knowflake

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From: Asheville, NC, US
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posted February 23, 2013 07:33 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Padre35        Reply w/Quote

Have to add, Greene's "Art of Seduction" is not so much about sex, it is more about discovering what sort of style one has when it comes to relations with other people of both genders

It's sort of a mirror

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PixieJane
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posted February 23, 2013 07:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane        Reply w/Quote
I don't think I do this. But I used to...

I think one lucky break I got was spending most of my first 4 years with Granny so even though it was traumatic when Mom took me away (to spite Granny, not because she wanted me) I wasn't as damaged as I might've been. And once (early on at age 5) I realized I couldn't go to the 'rents for help when they were sleeping it off so I made my own breakfast for the first time without supervision (an elaborate affair in which I used a chair, spatula, and wooden spoon to pry a box of Cheerios out of the cereal cabinet) a feeling went through me of me doing it for myself, and I thought that no matter how fickle, unpleasant & unpredictable, and even potentially dangerous adults were that I could count on myself and I never wanted to lose that feeling.

Later that year I realized I could read (still not sure how that exactly happened) and by 1st grade I made a lot of use out of the library (both school and public). My favorite characters were Pippi (which I'd seen a movie on by then) and also Dorrie the Little Witch, both very independent girls who took care of themselves (and other people), and I wanted to be like them. I was especially envious of Pippi living in her own home (and perhaps as for Dorrie living with Big Witch, perhaps that reminded me of when I lived with Granny). I even started to rewrite stories and fairy tales so that girls rescued themselves rather than being rescued, because I knew deep down she had to, to depend on the adults was to be betrayed, so I had to believe she could do it or give in to despair.

In retrospect I think this is why Buffy appealed to me so much when I was exposed to it.

Life happened, and history repeated itself when I was again living with Granny until Mom took me away for the child support she'd get and the courts backed Mom's custody of me. And one rainy afternoon I watched TV as there was nothing better to do right then and caught The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane right from the beginning and got into it pretty fast (having been a runaway on the streets and exposed to perverts by then I recognized the guy who harassed her pretty fast for being what he was, too). In a way it was Pippi all over again, but instead of using luck & strength she used her wits, and I was at awe with her and wanting to live on my own as well. Within a week of seeing it I'd checked out the book (very much like the movie, but better) to read and also got into classical music and Emily Dickinson because of her (one Dickinson poem I believe saved my life later working much like a prayer keeping me from giving up).

And then Columbine happened and my school freaked with an instant "geek hunt" and because of a fic I helped create in a zine I was one of those slated to be put into an extremely abusive mental ward & teen gulag. So I thought, "What would Rynn do?" I did what she did in verifying threats (but unlike her I found that the teacher who threatened me was NOT bluffing about the ability to have me locked away even against my mom's will) and then altered my appearance and assumed an alias, one that could be explained later if I accidentally slipped and called myself by the name I went by then (my middle name at the time). And in that assumed name where I made my middle name first and altered it slightly (so "Jane" became "Janet") I made my new middle name into "Rynn" from that movie in the hopes I could be as brilliant, strong-willed, and ruthless if necessary as she was in maintaining her independence...and I did (not exactly as she would've, but she was an inspiration rather than a persona). And I did think of her a lot until I was about 20, so I suppose you could think of her as an icon (but if I had an actual IDOL it would be more Freya, but then She chose me in a manner of speaking, not the other way around, so it wasn't like I TRIED to live up to that as I just had to remember I was one of Freya's songs, but the idea did affect me and my actions back then).

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teasel
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posted February 23, 2013 10:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for teasel        Reply w/Quote
I know what you mean about dietitians running through your head, telling you what you should and should not eat. i can't keep up with the super foods that are out there now, and just when I think I'm using what I should be, there's something else that's apparently better. I get overwhelmed in the fruit and veg aisle in the store now, because I'm thinking, "lemons have 200 enzymes, cucumber is good for the skin and digestion, celery is good for the kidneys," and so on. I used to know much of this, but I forgot a lot of it. I'm afraid to say, when I should have been building on what I knew.

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mirage29
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posted February 24, 2013 01:32 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for mirage29        Reply w/Quote
PixieJane... wow! you ARE an amazing woman. Cheers to you! One beautiful touching tough wonderful woman!!

Loads of {{{{hugs}}}}

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Faith
Knowflake

Posts: 21731
From: Bella's Hair Salon
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posted February 25, 2013 11:29 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Faith        Reply w/Quote
--

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mirage29
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posted February 25, 2013 02:19 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mirage29        Reply w/Quote
That picture is awesome

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mirage29
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posted February 25, 2013 02:51 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mirage29        Reply w/Quote
. . .

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PixieJane
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From: CA
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posted February 25, 2013 06:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane        Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Faith:
I'm seething because the school had PJ locked away

Clarification: they didn't lock me away THAT time, because after I assumed the alias and changed my appearance I ran away to California before they could.

But another school HAD convinced my parents to send me there once for kicking a boy in the face who wouldn't stop goosing me (it was close to my 13th birthday). It was actually the school psychologist who got bounties to get insured kids into the program (and was fired after a PI hired by an insurance company busted him for it), and though the hospital got shut down over the insurance scam with many fired (unfortunately the most evil doctor I ever encountered ended up skipping the country for New Zealand), it reopened and I learned from other kids in my ABC (Adaptive Behavior Class) program that it was just as abusive as before...and it was extreme abuse, I feel wholly justified in calling it a teen gulag. I'm 30 now and I can still get upset thinking too much on what happened to me during the months I was incarcerated there. So at 16 when I was facing being put back there I freaked really bad (I'd literally rather suicide or be raped to death than go back, and that's NOT hyperbole) I did what I did and fled.

And that, btw, is why I don't thank soldiers for our freedoms. Soldiers and cops defend the system, freedom is something individuals have to grab for themselves (technically that would be true even in an anarchist society). When I was an underage runaway I had to avoid the state who'd have sent me back...and then put me in that gulag.

When I was 17 I met some Russians who escaped Soviet Russia and when I described what I fled from they said I was right to run and described a school girl in Communist Moscow (probably about 70s as it seemed all their jokes about Russia's government were about Brezhnev) who was locked up for writing stories offensive to the Communist line who was "never the same when she came out." The only real difference is that in America they're moneymakers rather than guardians of ideological purity.

The reason the school could send me even against Mom's say so had something to do with a law Gov. Bush got passed there. I recall how frustrated I felt at 18 when Gov. Bush got elected (more or less) POTUS in 2000 as it felt like Bush saying I wasn't going to get away so easily.

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Faith
Knowflake

Posts: 21731
From: Bella's Hair Salon
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posted February 26, 2013 08:04 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Faith        Reply w/Quote
@ Padre:

Because of Elffers' involvement with Greene before, I had just assumed that he was using "Seduction" in a broad sense, as Elffers & Goldschneider (mentioned above) typically do. It's like charm.

So for example, in their Secret Language of Destiny, people whose NN is third decan Cancer are said to be on The Way of Seduction, ie learning how to get their way by charm instead of the brute force of third decan Cap.

@mirage:

Why the deletions? I guess it's none of my business, but I skimmed them, thought, "Interesting!" and planned to read more fully last night & reply. But I didn't make it back on the computer.

@teasel:

Yes, it's so hard to figure out what the "right" thing to eat is! After I got out of college, I bought a lot of health books and stressed myself out trying to follow all the conflicting advice. Then one day I was reading a book and the author was condemning watercress as always polluted and dangerous. That was a turning point for me. I was completely fed up, and always took health authors with a big grain of salt after that.

@PJ

So it was the school that made you run away, basically?

Dubya is such a monstrous idiot. It's amazing how politicians can wreck so many lives with an easy stroke of a pen.

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katatonic
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posted February 27, 2013 03:34 PM              Reply w/Quote
if i'm remembering right the Art of Seduction was basically Machiavelli meets Romance...i came across it indirectly through a young man who was into POWER OVER women, so maybe my reading was a bit jaundiced by that...i found it creepy although the basic tenets are harmless enough. went on to read the 48 laws of power and felt it was v. similar to the ART...except the power motif was out in the open, and in the right arena. still, more machiavelli really.

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katatonic
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posted February 27, 2013 03:36 PM              Reply w/Quote
but i love the thought this post starts with! role models as idols, it's an interesting connection.

but i think IDOLS are created by those who get confused and put the POWER in the role model, which is easy to do! in fact this is very close to how i see most religion functioning, you start out with a role model/principle, and sooner or later (usually sooner) all the power is vested THERE instead of in the student/disciple where it really lives.?

so i would say your consciousness of this dynamic prevents them from being true idols, faith...

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Padre35
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posted February 27, 2013 07:16 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Padre35        Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by katatonic:
if i'm remembering right the Art of Seduction was basically Machiavelli meets Romance...i came across it indirectly through a young man who was into POWER OVER women, so maybe my reading was a bit jaundiced by that...i found it creepy although the basic tenets are harmless enough. went on to read the [b]48 laws of power and felt it was v. similar to the ART...except the power motif was out in the open, and in the right arena. still, more machiavelli really.[/B]

Not so much, what it was designed to do was to cause readers to look inward to discover who they are in the romance/relationship part of life.

For myself, I found that Charm is very much "me", as for the 48 laws, found it a bit laborious, liked the stories but a bit geeky.

I do feel the higher one rises up in a power structure, the more applicable it becomes.
For example there were female power figurines mentioned ( the Siren, the Coquette, the Charmer)

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Padre35
Knowflake

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From: Asheville, NC, US
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posted February 27, 2013 07:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Padre35        Reply w/Quote
quote:
@ Padre:
Because of Elffers' involvement with Greene before, I had just assumed that he was using "Seduction" in a broad sense, as Elffers & Goldschneider (mentioned above) typically do. It's like charm.

So for example, in their Secret Language of Destiny, people whose NN is third decan Cancer are said to be on The Way of Seduction, ie learning how to get their way by charm instead of the brute force of third decan Cap.


It is a very broad sense and not a sort of power manual for life or love.

The interesting thing about Greene is he is a Taurus, and sort of carried that sort of Taurian resentment for being mistreated in Hollywood, it really comes through in his earlier books.

I really enjoyed Mastery and the 50th law, moreso than the 48 laws and the Art of Seduction.

Those two works are really more about finding oneself in a very hostile world that tries to pretend it is a "nice" world. They are more about finding both courage and a path to unique greatness by being oneself.

This the Saggie in me really enjoys, don't be a pale copy..be an original..but also don't be a tool.

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Faith
Knowflake

Posts: 21731
From: Bella's Hair Salon
Registered: Jul 2011

posted February 27, 2013 07:42 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Faith        Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by katatonic:

but i think IDOLS are created by those who get confused and put the POWER in the role model, which is easy to do! .....

Oh! Good point. Now that you mention it, I agree.

quote:
Originally posted by katatonic:
so i would say your consciousness of this dynamic prevents them from being true idols, faith...

Yes, it's not like I am saying that y'all should worship my German friend who is the goddess of super cleanliness. (Wouldn't be a bad idea, though...especially if you send ME the money for intercessory prayers...just kidding! )

All I'm saying is, it's almost like I've got little inner temples for different ideals, with someone's image there, just to remind me to stay on the ball.

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somethingexcellent
Knowflake

Posts: 4122
From: vodka fine, I'm so divine
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posted February 28, 2013 02:19 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for somethingexcellent        Reply w/Quote
I don't particularly have idols which I base myself around, or my actions, or so I think...

But, I do have this penchant for flocking towards strong female figures, say a woman in a position of power or a woman with an air of authority/leadership. I dunno, it's nothing odd or sexual, but I feel like being much more obedient and maybe even acting more prim and good, to butter them up, than I would with a male.

quote:
Faith: Decommissioning this ugly fruit bowl that I bought while apparently suffering a serious lapse of taste.

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