posted November 09, 2009 11:41 AM         

Judgment is sometimes discernment, sometimes condemnation. A difficult tightrope to walk.

and Xodian for the win ...

Lucifer: "God! I will not bow down to humans! They are inferior to me! They can't possibly be regarded as greater beings!"

posted November 09, 2009 12:55 PM         

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The solution is to have more appreciation for various strengths and more tolerance for various weaknesses, and, for God's sake, let people be who they are.

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Does that only apply to others?

posted November 09, 2009 01:21 PM         

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The problem I have, Valus, is that you worry me. I don’t think you are well. Your posts are rambling mixtures of quotes, complaints and self-justification. The style I find near unreadable, the content lacking clarity. I really hope you are getting proper help and I mean that sincerely.

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I appreciate your concern, blue moon. As far as I can tell from the reactions I'm getting, my posts tend to be fairly polarizing. Some people see sickness and all the rest of it, like you, and some people, like mir, say, "Valus, you let me breathe again." I don't mind if some people think I'm just crazy, because the reactions I get from others are so profoundly validating. I know there are people who understand me and see logic, insight, and passion in my posts, and that makes it all worthwhile. Also, it helps that the people who tell me I make a lot of sense to them tend to make a lot of sense to me and to strike me as some of the most intelligent and soulful people around. I know I'm different, and I expect to meet more conventional people who tell me I'm crazy and who can't appreciate the raw humanity of my rants or the icy objectivity of my arguments. I think, if I ever do really lose it, it will be under the influence of these people; their fears and doubts.

"There is, in every madman, a misunderstood genius, whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation life had prepared for him." ~ Antonin Artaud

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As for this Forum, you can lean a little towards upsetting people by dissecting their posts and prohibiting others from expressing their thoughts.

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I can't prohibit others from expressing their thoughts, and I don't try to, although plenty of people seem intent on shutting me up. I agree that many people get upset when they're challenged, and that the sincerity of my interest, the force of my intellect, and my attention to detail can all contribute to scaring them away. That's not my fault. The problem is that, rather than rise to the occassion and debate the issue, point by point, until we reach the heart of our disagreement, most people would rather just look for underhanded ways to tear me down. I think it also upsets them that I don't fit easily into any of the categories they've set up in their minds for the purpose of classifying people. I do sympathize with their frustration.

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Maybe you think they aren’t as evolved or intelligent as you, but is that really your place to say? Let them speak, and just flick by if you think what they say is irritating and a load of rubbish. I take the effort to treat you with this courtesy.

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LOL. You've also taken the effort to call me crazy, and to make a number of tasteless jokes at my expense, and at the expense of my most heartfelt beliefs, haven't you, blue moon? I tell you, I don't enjoy hurting people's feelings, but its very hard not to tell these folks what I think of them. And when they're reading my words so carelessly, and then accusing me of saying the exact opposite of what I took the time to say, and doing it in a nasty, know-it-all sort of way -- can you imagine how difficult it is not to give them a stern piece of my mind? And not to think that they deserve no better from me?

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They would not have asserted one as being more evolved than the other; this is a warped interpretation that has nothing to do with astrological or philosophical thought.

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Indeed, it is. I couldn't agree more, and if you ever assumed that I disagreed with this, it would be a warped interpretation having nothing to do with anything I've written about the subject, and everything to do with your own foolishness.

posted November 09, 2009 01:30 PM         

I hear you. And I do recognize the complexity of the vegan issue, despite my choice to take a stand on the side of compassion. I've reflected on the words of Christ, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do," which is why it isn't difficult for me to hold in my mind, at one and the same time, the notion of a meat-eater who is simultaneously a murderer and a good person. I realize the difficulty in coming to consciousness and in manifesting one's conscious wisdom. Whether or not you see it my way, and go vegan, I'll still be able to understand and care for you, whoever you are. But I'll do everything I can to shake you out of that unconsciousness and urge you onto the higher path. As I have tried to explain, there is nothing wrong with having a bottom line, or saying "the buck stops here", once in a while, and particularly when it comes to the question of mass murder. What I objected to is the imbalanced way in which so many people draw the bottom line. It is excessive, but not evil in itself. I hope you understand where I'm coming from now.

posted November 09, 2009 01:43 PM         

Thank you.

That means a lot to me.

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"""....Dane Rudhyar once explained to me that the twelfth house is the one house that represents not just the unconscious, but the essential person who is not taking his identity from relationships or family, career or friends. He speculated that perhaps the negative interpretation of the 12th house came during the middle ages from the fact that being true to yourself and to your own beliefs could get you burned at the stake or imprisoned if you did not conform to church and state. In the 20th century the study of depth psychology brought a different attitude toward the contents of the unconscious. The first house is concerned with the appearance of the individual, his persona, whereas the twelfth is the real inner person not defined by family, relationships or career. If the first house and the twelfth are in conflict, then real pathology can be the result. One significant trait of the persons born with Sun in the 12th is that they are not easily influenced by other people and will stay committed to their own convictions. If early childhood experiences have squashed the person's self-confidence, he will usually withdraw inside himself and become introverted or shy...."""

from this link; http://www.weathersage.com/vs/mcevoy/12thhouse.htm

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This is so perfect.

Rudhyar was such a genius.

Speaking of geniuses...

Nietzsche is my favorite 12th house Sun.
(I use Whole Sign Houses)

I don't know, this is kind of long,
but I think it might interest you:

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The contemporary philosophical situation is determined by the fact that two philosophers, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, who did not count in their times and, for a long time, remained without influence in the history of philosophy, have continually grown in significance. Philosophers after Hegel have increasingly returned to face them, and they stand today unquestioned as the authentically great thinkers of their age. Both their influence and the opposition to them prove it...

In the situation of philosophizing, as well as in the real life of men, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche appear as the expression of destinies, destinies which nobody noticed then, with the exception of some ephemeral and immediately forgotten presentiments, but which they themselves already comprehended.

As to what this destiny really is, the question remains open even today. It is not answered by a comparison of the two thinkers, but is clarified and made more urgent. This comparison is all the more important since there could have been no influence of one upon the other, and because their very differences make their common features so much more impressive. Their affinity is so compelling, from the whole course of their lives down to the individual details of their thought, that their nature seems to have been elicited by the necessities of the spiritual situation of their times. With them a shock occurred to Western philosophizing whose final meaning cannot yet be estimated...

Their thinking created a new atmosphere. They passed beyond all the limits then regarded as obvious. It is as if they no longer shrank back from anything in thought... This questioning is never simply hostility to reason; rather, both sought to appropriate limitlessly all modes of rationality. It was no philosophy of feeling, for both pushed unremittingly toward the concept for expression. It is certainly not dogmatic skepticism; rather their whole thought strove toward the genuine truth.

In a magnificent way, penetrating a whole life with the earnestness of philosophizing, they brought forth not some doctrines, not any basic proposition, not some picture of the world, but rather a new total intellectual attitude for men. This attitude was in the medium of infinite reflection, a reflection which is conscious of being unable to attain any real ground by itself. No single thing characterizes their nature; no fixed doctrine or requirement is to be drawn out of them as something independent and permanent.

Out of the consciousness of their truth, both suspect truth in the naive form of scientific knowledge. They do not doubt the methodological correctness of scientific thought. But Kierkegaard was astonished at the learned professors; they live, for the most part, with science, and die with the idea that it will continue, and would like to live longer that they might, in a line of direct progress, always understand more and more. They do not experience the maturity of that critical point where everything turns upside down, where one understands more and more that there is something which one cannot understand. Kierkegaard thought the most frightful way to live was to bewitch the whole world through one's discoveries and cleverness -- to explain the whole of nature and not understand oneself. Nietzsche is inexhaustible in destructive analyses of types of scholars, who have no genuine sense of their own activity, who cannot be themselves, and who, with their ultimately futile knowledge, aspire to grasp Being itself.

Against the System

The questioning of every self-enclosed rationality which tries to make the whole truth communicable made both radical opponents of the "system", that is, the form which philosophy had had for centuries and which had achieved its final polish in German idealism. The system is for them a detour from reality and is, therefor, lies and deception. Kierkegaard granted that empirical existence could be a system for God, but never for an existing spirit; system corresponds with what is closed and settled, but existence is precisely the contrary. The philosopher of systems is, as a man, like someone who builds a castle and lives in a hovel next door. Such a fantastical being does not himself live within what he thinks; but the thought of a man must be the house in which he lives or it will become perverted. The basic question of philosophy, what it is, and what science is, is posed in a new and unavoidable form. Nietzsche wanted to doubt better than Descartes, and saw in Hegel's miscarried attempt to make reason evolve nothing but Gothic heaven-storming. The will-to-system is, for him, a lack of honesty.

Being as Interpretation

What authentic knowing is, was expressed by both in the same way. It is, for them, nothing but interpretation. They also understood their own thought as interpretation.

Interpretation, however, reaches no end. Existence, for Nietzsche, is capable of infinite interpretation. What has happened and what was done is, for Kierkegaard, always capable of being understood in a new way. As it is interpreted anew, it becomes a new reality which yet is hidden; temporal life can therefor never be correctly understood by men; no man can absolutely penetrate through his own consciousness.

Both apply the image of interpretation to knowledge of Being, but in such a fashion that Being is as if deciphered in the interpretation of the interpretation. Nietzsche wanted to uncover the basic text, homo natura, from its overpaintings and read it in its reality. Kierkegaard gave his own writings no other meaning then that they should interpret again the original text of individual, human existential relations.

Masks

With this basic idea is connected the fact that both, the most open and candid of thinkers, had a misleading aptitude for concealment and masks. For them, masks necessarily belong to the truth. Indirect communication becomes for them the sole way of communicating genuine truth; indirect communication, as expression, is appropriate to the ambiguity of genuine truth in temporal existence, in which process it must be grasped through sources in every Existenz.

Being Itself

Both, in their thinking, push toward that basis which would be Being itself in man. In opposition to the philosophy which, from Parmenides through Descartes to Hegel said, Thought is Being, Kierkegaard asserted the proposition that Faith is Being. Nietzsche saw the Will to Power. But Faith and Will to Power are mere signa, which do not connote what is meant but are themselves capable of endless explication.

Honesty

With both there is a decisive drive toward honesty. This word for them both is the expression of the ultimate virtue to which they subject themselves. It remains for them the minimum of the absolute which is still possible although everything else becomes involved in a bewildering questioning. It becomes for them also the dizzying demand for a verasity which, however, brings even itself into question, and which is the opposite of that violence which would like to grasp the truth in a literal and barbaric certitude.

Their Readers

One can question whether in general any thing is said in such thought. In fact, both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were aware that the comprehension of their thought was not possible to the man who only thinks. It is important who it is that understands. They turn to the individuals who must bring with them and bring forth from themselves what can only be said indirectly. The epigram of Lichtenberg applies to Kierkegaard, and he himself cites it: "such works are like mirrors; if an ape peeks in, no apostle will look out." Nietzsche says one must have earned for oneself the distinction necessary to understand him. He held it impossible to teach the truth where the mode of thought is based. Both seek the reader who belongs to them.

~ karl jaspers

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posted November 09, 2009 01:43 PM         

"DIG"

posted November 09, 2009 01:48 PM         

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What have we done with innocence
It disappeared with time,
it never made much sense...

All this time to make amends
What do you do when all
your enemies are friends?

Now and then I'll try to bend
Under pressure wind up
snapping in the end

One in ten...
One in ten...
One in ten...

Don't want to be your monkey wrench
One more indecent accident
I'd rather leave than suffer this
I'll never be your monkey wrench

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posted November 09, 2009 02:14 PM         

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I'm a thinking person. I don't think that much of what was writ in here constitutes icy objectivity. Rather it looks like you're offended that some people just get on with life not concerning themselves with justifying their position.

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I dont think there's much icy objectivity in this thread, either, but its just one thread. I'd say what offends me is that they have no justifications, not that they won't take the time to share them with me. The lives they get on with are unconscious, and that frustrates me, too. Maybe it wouldnt bother me so much if the conclusions they're always arriving at (without thinking) weren't so judgemental of folks like me.

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If they say, "Just do it," you want to find a reason not to. You could think outside the box, and try doing it (you have an open mind, right?).

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Wrong. I have reasons not to, I dont have to go looking for them. If somebody says, "Jump off this bridge. Just do it," I'm not going to jump, no matter how open-minded I am. Is it so hard to suppose, AG, that I really may be correct in keeping my own counsel and turning away these people who think they can tell me how to live? Is it so difficult to imagine that not listening can be a wiser course of action, in some circumstances, than listening? Might it not be possible that I know myself better than anybody else knows me? And that I need to find a way that works for me, as the individual I am? And that this will be a path I carve out for myself, and not the wide road that everyone else is self-righteously indicating for me? Yes, I think its possible.

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There are always more ways of thinking about things, and just because your volume of thought is a lot doesn't mean that it yields greater results necessarily.

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posted November 09, 2009 02:14 PM         

"is it the purpose of an intelligent man to be continually pouring water through a sieve?"

posted November 09, 2009 02:24 PM         

I'm not in an ivory tower over here, you know. If I struggle in that direction its only to emerge from the sea of the collective in which I've been treading for too long. I need to honor my differentness. And I'm much more receptive to reminders of our commonality when they come from people who can recognize and appreciate how different I am. Being more evolved isnt what makes me different -- or, its not the main thing. I'm really not that evolved. My uniqueness has more to do with the anomolous and marginal nature of my position, and not with the height of it. ... From some points of view, yes, the differences down here don't amount to much. But, from down here, they are considerable. Still, you're right: we stand before Christ, not before each other, and the most important comparisons we make are with Christ, and not with others. Thanks for the reminder.

posted November 09, 2009 02:25 PM         

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But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?

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posted November 09, 2009 02:27 PM         

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Is it so hard to suppose, AG, that I really may be correct in keeping my own counsel and turning away these people who think they can tell me how to live? Is it so difficult to imagine that not listening can be a wiser course of action, in some circumstances, than listening?

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In some circumstances, yes.

I would just advise against taking a wide view offense at people suggesting you could be a different way without entertaining that you could, in fact, be a different way. We all have things within us that we don't realize.

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Might it not be possible that I know myself better than anybody else knows me?

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Perhaps, but I'll point out that you spend a lot of time defining yourself for people. How much defining do you have to do before people start glimpsing things?

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And that I need to find a way that works for me, as the individual I am? And that this will be a path I carve out for myself, and not the wide road that everyone else is self-righteously indicating for me?

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I wholeheartedly agree that what works for one won't necessarily work for another, but there is value in learning other people's approaches to things (and even here I would qualify that it's not useful to listen to everyone's ideas as many people aren't successful in the ways we want to be successful).

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Sometimes you're just learning how to trust and listen to yourself. I think we can agree on that.

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posted November 09, 2009 02:39 PM         

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I would just advise against taking a wide view offense at people suggesting you could be a different way without entertaining that you could, in fact, be a different way. We all have things within us that we don't realize.

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Of course. But the situations I'm refering to involve parts of myself which I love and and understand, and which I have no desire to change just to make somebody else more comfortable with me.

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Perhaps, but I'll point out that you spend a lot of time defining yourself for people. How much defining do you have to do before people start glimpsing things?

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Many people have glimpsed things, and I've been appreciative of their input. But most people just don't understand me, and the more I show of myself, the more they misunderstand. That's how it works sometimes. In the end, it begins to look like there is just one thing (ME) with a million facets all reflecting the same light. If you don't like the nature of the light, you aren't going to appreciate or understand it any better, no matter how many facets you see it reflected in.

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I wholeheartedly agree that what works for one won't necessarily work for another, but there is value in learning other people's approaches to things (and even here I would qualify that it's not useful to listen to everyone's ideas as many people aren't successful in the ways we want to be successful).

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Yup. And I've even said that I believe the methods I'm rejecting may be very helpful for somebody else. I'm always interested in other's approaches, I just wish they'd allow me my own. Thanks for trying to understand.

posted November 09, 2009 02:52 PM         

This is what it all looks like to me:

You put your all in trying to debate and educate on this forum and then most people just glance over the stuff you have to say and say something inconsequential in passing... (Not all of them, but most posts are just one misunderstanding after another. People probably cannot devote enough time to this.)

This is not the right medium for you - you need a different type of audience. You need an audience that will be there for you, an audience whose sole purpose would be to sit tight and listen to what you have to say and then debate your points.

Would they agree with you? It doesn't matter. They will give your topics the time and attention they deserve.

posted November 09, 2009 03:07 PM         

(See, AG, I can take advice.)

posted November 09, 2009 03:25 PM         

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I'm not in an ivory tower over here, you know. If I struggle in that direction its only to emerge from the sea of the collective in which I've been treading for too long. I need to honor my differentness.

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Yes, yes of course! That's the first. "I am somehow fundementally different from these people". Everyone feels this a bit from time to time but you've felt this with a profoundly greater intensity, yes? I might personally feel more comfortable saying 'acknowledge' rather than 'honor'. Semantics perhaps, but, if not, I think the difference is esential. The first denotes a certin pride, which isn't recommended, the second implies mere acceptance.

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And I'm much more receptive to reminders of our commonality when they come from people who can recognize and appreciate how different I am.

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yes, its easier this way. human nature.

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Being more evolved isnt what makes me different -- or, its not the main thing. I'm really not that evolved. My uniqueness has more to do with the anomolous and marginal nature of my position, and not with the height of it. ...

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Agreed. Your uniqueness is not dependent on your level of spiritual refinment. Your uniqueness lies in your immediate potential. If I might be so bold, I would further say that your uniqueness is that you will walk the Path consciously and willingly, with an ever increasing awarness. We once had a small exchange regarding the basic human need for God and Truth and such. Do you remember? You claimed then that everyone feels this desire, that everyone is looking for respite from pain. I countered that many are, quite understandably, attached to their sorrows and unwilling to offer themselves up to the long arduous journey towards God. This is what seperates us. It has nothing to do with intellect or refinement. It is what you have been given ... and what is expected. Do you see?

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From some points of view, yes, the differences down here don't amount to much. But, from down here, they are considerable.

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"From down here" ok. Where is your chosen perspective?

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... the situations I'm refering to involve parts of myself which I love and and understand, and which I have no desire to change just to make somebody else more comfortable with me.

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These things about yourself that you love and understand ... is there anything you would sacrifice them for? Would you sacrifice them to help others? Would you sacrifice them to find Christ?

We stand before Christ.

Yes ... thank you for the reminder.

posted November 09, 2009 03:33 PM         

my cancer/scorp rising mate looked at me and said "join the club! wouldn't we ALL like a little comprehension!?"

in other words most of us believe we are deeper than we are given credit for. it might be wise to remember that depth is in the eye of the beholder/listener.

posted November 09, 2009 04:11 PM         

A major part of His teaching is that you and I have no authority to condemn. We're often reminded that Jesus rubbed shoulders with prostitutes and tax collectors and the like, that he didn't stone the adulteress. What is not so often mentioned is that he told her to "go and sin no more". He did *gasp* judge her actions as sin.

posted November 09, 2009 05:07 PM         

Sure, many people think they're deeper than they're given credit for, and many people think they're deeper than they are. Depth is an independent reality, regardless of our perceptions of it. The appearance of depth, though, is in the eye of the beholder. This is an important distinction. Even if we are never able to objectively and independently confirm our perceptions, or "judgements", they will be more or less valid on the basis, not of our personal tastes, but of actual, natural, and universal laws. As for the question of judgement. In order to live, we are obligated to make seemingly endless judgements at every turn. In order to evaluate and choose, we must judge. So, its clear that a distinction needs to be made here, between two different kinds of judging. In the first instance, we have the act of discerning or discriminating (another word with dubious connotations), and the verdict may be in favor or against, but the second instance is prejorative and denotes an attitude of condemnation toward the person, place, or thing being "judged". Countless misunderstandings arise when we mistake one sense of this word for the other. We understand that, when making certain distinctions, it is virtually impossible to prevent the ego from involving itself, so, one sense of judging quickly leads to the other; its dark twin. But I believe part of our work here, or, at least, part of my work here, is learning how to practice the good kind of judging without falling prey to the temptation of the bad. I need to hone my powers of perception and my understanding of what is perceived, without the contamination of ego. I think many people "pluck out their eyes" in order not to see the objects of temptation, and I don't think that's any better than falling. It's a cop-out. The problem is that, the more we see, the more we're tempted to use the things we've seen for the purposes of the ego; and the greater our powers of perception, the more opportunities the ego has to pat its own back. In addition to being a "sin" against nature, falling prey to narcissism or self-righteousness leaves you open to public disapproval, and I would say it is the latter consequence which most people fear, and which motivates them to close their eyes to temptation (and to the world), and to put on the appearances and affectations of being humble. For most, though, humility is nothing to boast of (if I may be forgiven for putting it thusly). If they are humble, and humility is the only thing they ever boast of, it is because they have nothing much to boast of besides. Imagine, though, what it must be like for people who come bearing the rarest and most noble gifts; for whom life has been nothing but a long series of confirmations of their genius. The temptation must be great. At the same time, their brilliance affords them a perspective which enables them to perceive with rare clarity the distinction between judging and judging. So, if they do fall prey to the latter, it will be relatively consciously, and not on account of dimwittedness. This is, of course, a much more serious sin. I believe that every highly perceptive individual understands that it is his or her right, and rightful destiny, to stand before the masses and preach, as Jesus did. To unite the Jew and the Gentile (that is, the insider, or the initiated, and the outsider, or the uninitiated), and to boldly indicate the corruption of the Pharisees (that is, the authority figures who manipulate the truth, misleading and exploiting the people). In other words, not to shrink from practicing the first form of judgment, and distinguishing it from the second. All the while, not sacrificing a healthy pride in oneself, or the freedom to playfully and provocatively promote the values and ideals with which nature has particularly familiarized you. We should love our parts. And it is only natural, only human, if not entirely fair, that we should love and understand our own parts more than we love and understand the parts played by our brothers and sisters. But this is a great mystery. I'll let you know when I've figured it out.