"The World As I See It" (page 3)

jgnat

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves

Me too! Even as a teen, I bucked the unspoken familial expectations of college, marriage, house in the ?burbs. It was expected, because I was so smart. That future was so wrong for me, but I could not articluate a different future. What followed was a wild spiral in to disaster then maturity. I think that internal restlessness is a divine discontent - my life must have meaning, dammit!

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants

I interpret the second want as ?need?, as in ?An man can do what he wants, but not want what he needs? . Am I reading too much in to this?

I am coming to realize how much of our civilization is built from language. Thanks to the written word, learned men long dead have passed their knowledge to the current generation. Our society has a common iconography, which helps us pass on complex ideas quickly. Who today does not understand the Snow White/Evil Stepmother conflict? How many of us redraft our conflicts in our minds to match this

The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through the medium of a language which others have created...The individual is what he is and has the significance...as a member of a great human community,

iconography? Who of us would admit that Snow White is a bit of a wimp and dumb, too? Or be able to commiserate with her Stepmother?s fears?

JW paintings of a parklike earth with all the accoutrements of civilization (violin, rubber soled sneakers, soda straw, soccer ball) is just not feasable. A few million people just don't have the mass of knowledge and talent required to keep such a system self-sustaining.

Farkel

onacruse

Of course, some of your statement is nonsense, but "feel good" nonsense, and you know it.

: To enquire after the meaning or object of one's own existence or that of other creatures has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view.

Yet you served ten years and Bethel and did nothing about that while living in that man-made hell. There is nothing "objective" about Bethel and you knew that and you know that. You carried on that party line and ostensibly didn't give a rat about the existence of those "other creatures" you preached would become toast real soon now(TM).

: And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavors and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves--this ethical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty.

Yet, that is is very ideal that the WTS promised you and I, the "Paradise Earth(tm)" with ease and happiness as ends in and of themselves. Certainly a "pigsty" in my current way of thinking (by virtue of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000++++ years of daily picnics and lion-petting) , but not in my dub way of thinking. Nor yours.

: The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.

My version of that is Health, Happiness and Full Self-Expression, but I think we are on the same page on this one.

Farkel

ApagaLaLuz

ahhh come on Farkel.... cant we just have ONE feel good and warm and tingly all over thread? :)

frankiespeakin

On,,

On the contrary! As I said above, we are responsible to ourselves.

So who are You that you can make that statement??? by what aurthority do you make it???.

Is that too much, or too little, to expect?

What the hell are you talking about???What are you claiming for us to expect???

If so, why?

Oh come off it! You are the one making these outlandish statements,,You need to answer why!

onacruse

Farkel:

Of course, some of your statement is nonsense, but "feel good" nonsense, and you know it.

My initial post was not my statement: it was Einstein's. We can't argue with a dead man (or can we?)

Yet you served ten years and Bethel

1.25 years (out of my "vowed before Jehovah" 4 year commitment)

and did nothing about that while living in that man-made hell.

Wrong. I took on Merton Campbell (the "highest ranking" Service Department fellow I knew), and resigned from Bethel shortly therafter; got a nice little letter from Nathan telling me that I was "persona non grata" for at least 6 months, and ended up in front of the draft board.

There is nothing "objective" about Bethel and you knew that and you know that.

Yes. I didn't know that when I went there, but soon found out, and now, yes, for some 30 years, I've known that, and have said the same to everyone I could, long before I was DFd.

You carried on that party line and ostensibly didn't give a rat about the existence of those "other creatures" you preached would become toast real soon now(TM).

Yes and no. My brain-washed condition continued on for a long time; you know it, I know it, we all know it. But my own struggles, including the nature of my expressions to others (in and out of the KH), show (as best I can sincerely reflect on my own behavior), a genuine concern for self-honesty, and social honesty. Not 100%, for sure.

Yet, that is is very ideal that the WTS promised you and I, the "Paradise Earth(tm)" with ease and happiness as ends in and of themselves. Certainly a "pigsty" in my current way of thinking (by virtue of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000++++ years of daily picnics and lion-petting) , but not in my dub way of thinking. Nor yours.

Ah, yes, the utopian ideal!

: The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.
My version of that is Health, Happiness and Full Self-Expression, but I think we are on the same page on this one.

Insofar as any of us can be on "the same page," well, then, yes..at least you and I are 'reading the same book.'

Now, back off! LOLOL

zen nudist

responsibility is not something we have to wonder about.... as individual players in this game, we are all held accountable by each other... if you harm me and mine, then me and mine will hunt you down and make you pay, etc... whether you wish to claim that you had no choice or not is another matter and irrelevant when we lynch or nail you to something.

reality is what you can get away with.

what makes us different from an adding machine or the most complicated computer is that we CARE about the consequences of our own and the actions of others... we give a $#!+ while no machine can...there is no one home, no one to care... win or lose its all the same to a machine, no worries...

Consciousness of pain and pleasure is the key... we ARE conscious and we do care because of that... freewill does not have to exist for this to remain true... after all we did not make ourselves and so had nothing to say about our true nature, about what makes us like A and hate B.....feel pain for C and pleasure for D... yet we are not closed systems, we can learn things which can modify our behaviors and find new things which become more important than old ones...and since there is predictibility of the future in any useful absolute sense, then our life will always be a continuous adventure.

Markfromcali

It may be worth noting here that responsiblity is thought based, that's all. You have this idea of what is responsible behavior for a person, whether that's in a particular relationship like parent-child or employer-employee or just as a member of humanity, it doesn't matter. If you are going to identify with thought structure, then yes it would be nice to have some responsiblity.

In contrast, the idea we have from the spiritual people in regards to self has interesting implications on the matter of responsibility. Buddhists says there is no self, the Advaitists say there is only the Self, and you got a guy like Chuang Tzu saying no-self is true self. Then we have Jesus who says love your neighbor as yourself, and that has more to say about responsibility. Of course it isn't a projection like everyone should become Christians, but it has more to do with your sense of self. Naturally, if you have no idea what that is, you would probably not trust it like people tend to do with unknowns. But just imagine if you actually consider someone as your self, which is pretty much the same as love, do you even need some idea of responsibility? You don't tend to harm yourself or do things you don't want to - although it has been known to happen. People even have divisions and conflicts within themselves, which is why this teaching often do not make sense. One thing that comes to mind is how Paul talked about beating himself into obedience and such. Still, we don't really think in terms of one part of us is responsible to another part, it's all one. So from this perspective you can see it is much simpler than all the conditions that are implied in responsibility. There is a natural harmony because there is re-spect, in the sense of seeing others as your self - the self nature that is free to express however it wants, which at the same time also re-spects others in the same way.