I am the epitome of arrogance. I live in a world in which I generally feel that it is my right to have this house, this car, these bookshelves full of books, this TV, this xbox, this hp pavillion that I use to write this blog. I feel that because I work 9 hours a day for a large multi-national company, I am somehow entitled to these strange exotic luxuries. I take for granted many, many, things. It is very sad.
The Universe is pretty darn big. The number of building blocks available to make up all the infinite realities is surprisingly small compared to the amount of things that I experience in this reality.
Who am I? I am the experiencer of this reality. Which reality? My reality. A funny irony is that in an infinite universe, I truly am the center...if that is how I choose to calculate it.
Albert Einstein once said that the universe is like a pocket watch that is sealed shut so that we cannot see its internal workings...all we can see is the movement of the hands. He said that all of our science and all our mathematics was simply us trying to understand what makes the hands move around the clock...with out really knowing what's going on inside. We can create many different models to explain it beautifully, but we will never really know how it truly works...only God knows how it works. Are you arrogant? Do you take for granted the things of this reality? Yes, you do. Would you please be so kind as to acknowledge that for yourself? Thank you. Then thank anybody who has helped you see beyond the arrogant you. Then thank yourself, and be arrogant again, because hell, that's what we're good at...
Well said...
I have tried to get over myself, by realizing that THERE IS YOU AND THERE IS THE OTHER.
I have learned that this experience of being here in Time/Space is happening for all of us at the very same time. We are multifaceted elementals of the One. Why? Look into the eyes of another and see your reflection. The you that you are is amplifying the one outside of yourself. Their understanding of the Other is being expanded by your information to them. In a way, they are becoming you. Without information from the OTHER, we do not have information and are not in existence. We need feedback and depend upon the OTHER for amplification of our mentality. We are all of us...a multifaceted entity that must realize that we must do unto others as we would have them do unto us...because we are THE OTHER.
We are killing ourselves because we are selfish due to our flesh.
Not that one is, but that whereby Is, is.
Cheers,
You are of course
speaking for yourselves, you two, aren't you?
Because I am not filled with that same self-loathing as you seem to be.
Maybe you could become Catholics and join Opus Dei.Then you could self-flagellate to your hearts' content.
I, and a lot like me, appreciate the world we live in.On a daily basis I give thanks for the love of those who love me, and whom I can love in return.
If you work hard I believe you are entitled to the benefits of it.I also think that you should give back to the community for the good luck you receive.
Do either of you do anything for the communities you live in?
On a personal basis, do you actually contribute to those less fortunate than yourself?
Because believe me, it makes you feel a darn sight better about yourself if you do.
I take pleasure in the glories of the animal world and see heaven in the eyes of my parrot who sleeps spreadeagled on his tummy on my chest.
Stop looking out,and start looking in.Only you can make you happy.When others see you finding the glory in yourself they will follow.
shadows
shadows ..
You are so right. Unfortunately our world has become a very selfish place obsessed with the artificial. My greatest pleasures in life are the company of my friends, the 'being-there' for them when it is needed, and the beauties of nature. These things are free and I am grateful for them every day.
Love, Kathrinn
Gimme some luvvin'
I give thanks for the love of those who love me, and whom I can love in return.
Hey Shadows,
Your thanks are gratefully received. I've got some luvvin' for you in return. Where would you like me to post it?
heh heh,
yer ol' pal,
Xibalba
(This post was brought to you by "Realm of the Dead")
C/- TDG thanks X
And make it snappy.I need all the luvvin' I can get.
heh heh yourself.
love shadows
yikes!
I often forget how negative I can get. So to all I apologize. I am truly a happy man. I have a wife who is my best friend, and my second half. I have two brilliant children who love their daddy as much as he loves them...and as far as seeing heaven, friend it's in the eyes of your family and friends too. Working in a bank, I am often inundated with the money grubbing, self inflating, egoist lifestyles of much of corporate America. The people here at The Daily Grail are different than the people I have to be around. TDG people are generally open minded and eclectic. I did not mean to offend and say that you were somehow a selfish, arrogant, ass...I don't even know you. I simply wished to take a closer look at our shadow...a part that we all have, regardless of how good life is.
Looking on the inside is what I do. I often spend too much time there analyzing the good and the bad, and not enough time interacting with the loved ones around me. So again I apologize for offending...I'm kinda new to this whole blogging thing.
a dream..........
many people have had a dream with a common theme, that of standing naked in a busy street.
I am arrogant so I make myself it humble pie. I am selfish so I am generous every chance I get. I am what I am so I understand this and counter what I can when I can.
Appologies are not nesseccary Dustin, An explaination to gain understanding is all.
Realise what you have with your family and don't lose it!
I'm pleased your happy....stay happy.
"While contemplating on their life, anyone who says they have no regrets and would do it all the same again, have not learn't anything."
LRF.
You're not all negative Dustin
I have read some of your comments on other blogs and I started to worry about you.
You are very sensitive to what is happening to the world,and want to make things better for everyone and of course the children you brought into it.
You are right about those to whom the world is just a place they can take from without replacing anything,and I don't just mean the earth's goodies like trees and coal etc.
We all take from society around us the security that living in a society provides.
I loved living in the country where we did a lot for ourselves, but now I am back in the city I love the cafes, the libraries,the sea.
I am also a person who looks on the inside and analyses the good and the bad but as I got older and mellowed a lot, I was able to see far more shades of grey than I ever knew existed.
With people like us I think it is important to focus on what makes us happy and limit the bad stuff to what we can actually do something about.
Over the years I absorbed bad stuff from AI like a sponge and felt easily defeated by it, until I realised that I could only do what I could do from where I was.And if we all do that, what a difference it will make!
Dude
Stop smoking that herb if it's screwing with your brain like that.
I can see where you're coming with some of your statements, but, like Shadows says, it does come across as a little self-loathing / self-pitying.
I too, on an almost daily basis, consider myself lucky that I was born in the UK (despite the rest of the whingeing poms), rather than, say, in Darfur, or Ethiopia.
Not necessarily that I think those people can't be as happy as me - but simply because we here in the developed nations benefit from things like low child mortality rates (for example) - something that surely cannot be said for those living in the wilds of Central Africa, some of who must live a constant battle for survival on a daily basis.
I don't take these things for granted - neither do I dwell constantly on it on a daily basis - but I do recognise and rejoice in the sheer luck of me being born in a developed nation, in the latter half of the 20th century, with all the bangles and baubles that accompany that luck.
Cheer up - I'm sure you'll feel less isolated tomorrow.
yer ol' pal,
Xibalba
(This post was brought to you by "Realm of the Dead")
I did not see it that way
Self loathing or self pitying.
At one point, and I guess this is the crucial center hub of the current psychological paradigm, we know that what we don't know does not hurt. Not yet anyway.
Realizing the inadequacy of our paradigm is the absolute necessary step to the realization that one must puncture the bubble of his existential shell.
Patting ourselves on the back is fine, it is a balm for the soul, but it does not drive evolution because no need is born to move forward when your belly is full, where it your physical belly or your psychical one.
It's more like
Hey, youre hurtin? well smile and shut up 'cause we don't want to know about it. It just muddies the smell of our incensed ether and it might clear the room so that suddenly we are forced to see the floor is dirty and have to do something about it.
I don't agree, Richard
I always agree with you Richard so this is a surprise for me.
People on this website seem to understand that others suffer pain of whatever cause.
That's why I come here and not to other websites to write.
However one feels, and I can tell you that there are lots of reasons for me to feel pretty bad right now, I concentrate on the positive for those who read my posts.
My friends are the ones who cop the weight of my pain but only if I feel they can cope with it.
I don't agree with dumping negative stuff on anyone.If I write about negative issues it is with the idea of finding a solution or of asking a fellow member of the forum to help me find a solution.
If you write or say negative things to people it puts the burden on them to try and make you happy when it just can't be done.
Dustin admits that he has so much reason for happiness but let his negative side write the blog.
But I believe that no one in this world can truly make you happy.Only you can do that.
Kind regards,
shadows
Shadows & TDG
That's why I come here and not to other websites to write.
...and this site is richer for it. Long may it continue.
yer ol' pal,
Xibalba
(This post was brought to you by "Realm of the Dead")
You are right Shadow
I personally don't mind the negative because it hides far more secrets than the balmy positive although the positive is much more subtle in how it hides its own secrets.
Spirituality is a stinking example.
But that's only me.
darn right
Unfortunately for me(and my friends and relatives)I'm with you on that point, Richard. The negative is filled to the brim with possible change, where as the positive seems to only reflect whats good and NOT in need of change. It's nice to reflect on the good stuff, and it's great to enjoy all of the positive, happy, parts of life, but things only seem to get done when I focus on the negative...THAT is what needs worked on, reshaped, moulded, and redirected...the negative energy...the positive energy seems to take care of itself.
I'm a fixer-upper, and because the happy, shiny, positive doesn't need much work, I get bored with it after a while.
The down side is that I often get WAY to caught up in it. So much that I bring my loved ones down...they're not all as interested in fixing things as I am.
...it's often difficult for me to find a comfortable middle ground...
who benefits from this type of an attitude?
What comes around goes around, so a saying goes. Yer good luck today could be yer cancer diagnosis tomorrow. Shadows is the only bright lite on this thread, she sounds like she experienced the barbs of life and then some. She bounces back and sees the value of bearing her cross in life. Better to suffer a little inconvenience in this life than sufffer for eternity in the next.
My funny bone always underwhelms me in this situation, the following is for pontificators out there. I'll set the scene, yer in a bind, yer hemrrhoids are humming Cash's burning ring of fire melody, by its built in throbs of pain. You reach for yer life preserver, yer supposition eradicator, a suppository, You crawl to the most precious eminent domain in yer house, yer thinking chamber, the porcelain throne. What you don't know is that there is an arcing short in a light fixture, you release a methane cloud that sends a shockwave across yer house, the neighbors smell trouble brewing, then comes the flash and there you go sailing thru the roof of yer house.
You land in yer neighbors yard, yer butt look barbecued, you manage to say something---this part I leave to the readership, cuz' I have my own punch line.
What is so funny you ask? Just put yerself in this situation, what went wrong in yer life you so proudly feel so arrogant about?
Are you a pain in the butt to folk around you-what comes around, etc
Do you think yer farts smell like roses?- what comes around,etc
Are you glad the neighbors' grass is greener than yers? softer to land on too.
Why are you so full of shit you squeak when you walk, in the first place?
Who really wants to be around you at all-what comes around, etc
There is a litany of human foibles here to reflect on, isn't there. When you die can you take yer arrogance with you, who are ya gonna impress, the angels?When you die is anybody gonna miss ya?
The punch line is count yer blessings, it could have been worse--a very ironic point of view from an arrogant somebody, no?