Perhaps, we all should take a few minutes and relax.
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Ten Minutes of Raging Calm with Alan Watts
Perhaps, we all should take a few minutes and relax.
finally, something of yours i can comment on because it requires none of that crap thinking you do
this was a nice start to valentines day
otto sends kisses
Okay, no complaints. Glad you enjoyed it. Try some of the others.
Otto can have any of them that survive (it is frigid here today) except that one. I’ve already named it Stinky.
Guess what…two of them froze last night. I got some more bedding in there around the others. This silver rabbit is the worst dam ever. Ever.
Does Otto want a grown rabbit?
I didn’t think so. Am plopping this here for anyone interested in hearing the most beautiful version of this song I’ve ever heard. I thought Simon & Garfunkel invented this song.
Reality.
What a concept!
Mankind has been pondering this for thousands of years. Philosophy. Religion. Science. All are constructs to explain the world around us. All are “models”, if you will. Since no model is ever 100% correct, one can say that no model is right, but some are more useful than others.
It is ten minutes well spent. I listen to Alan Watts quite a bit. My son, the rocket scientist, likes him. I came across a new piece I’m summarizing now about what modern reality is, conceptually. I hope to submit it later today.
My son told me he is coming to take me to a movie and dinner for Valentine’s Day. That tells me at least two things:
He’s forgiven me for pushing him into software success instead of letting him study psychology.
He’s going to make me pay for it because he always does.
Yes, it was time well spent watching the video. Enjoy your time with your son today. Hats off to your son for being successful in the software field. Here is what I discovered when I was going through EE (in the mid 70’s(undergrad) / early ’80’s (grad school) – programming was ok at first, but then I got annoyed that as soon as I knew a language, then when the next software rev came out, I had to re-learn it again (or learn a whole NEW language), just because some mere mortal decided that he/she wanted to change what was reality. I fundamentally didn’t like that. So, I ended up studying semiconductor device physics, which, although is mathematically difficult, once you understood it, it was invariant. As dimensions get smaller, the models have to be refined to take into account other effects, but that’s ok, the fundamentals never change. With respect to HSF (he made disparaging comments regarding those dealing with quantum mechanics in another thread), it IS ALL based on quantum mechanics (Schrodinger’s wave equation) applied to a periodic structure like silicon. If not for QM and the resulting math models of what is going on inside semiconductors, we wouldn’t be typing on that little box in front of us (or use that cell phone, or the electronics in the cars we drive, or the “smart” appliances in our houses, or …..). So, I have a different view of reality than most (probably an understatement). As I said, all models are wrong (strictly speaking), but some are more useful than others. So, back to your son – hats off to him being able to adapt to a continuing changing reality. I think people that live in the world of software are a slightly different breed for that reason; they’re more adaptable, maybe.
Well, my son is what I’ve called a One-Of-A-Kinder, Break-The-Mold kid. He and I have engaged in weird discussions about the world of math since he was in kindergarten and told the teacher he was not paying attention to her lecture on 1 plus 1 because he was looking at the picture of Elijah on the wall (Private Christian School… the one of Elijah’s Chariot of Fire Taxi? … a good portrait by an unknown artist.)
He told her that he was thinking about Zero and Alpha, but they really weren’t the beginning. So, maybe, he said, if you add Omega to Infinity, you get back to zero.
I’d been punishing him for letting his mind wander off into oblivion in class and she told me maybe he had better things to think about than one plus one.
The young man lucked out having Elizabeth Lester as his kindergarten teacher. She also gave him ALL of her son’s old Nintendo games and let him play with them in class if his work was done.
He could do his work faster than any kid she ever saw. I blame her. I hated Nintendo, but figured if she allowed it, it was okay.
He learned to think and read in code while learning to add and subtract. He started laddering his calculations in this really weird way I later realized was a matrix. The way he thinks is a little spooky, but it serves the cyberkingdom and that serves him, for now.
I don’t know why I’m asking this, I don’t even want to know, was he conceived aboard an AWAKS, a mile high in the sky?
We flew surveillance orbits at between 32K and 36K, which was optimum for the BTH (Beyond-the-Horizon) coverage. The PD radar could operate at both higher and lower altitude without the backsplatter BTH causes. (They said it had to do with the curvature of the earth, but we know that was just cover story.)
So, if you do the math, you will see we flew much higher than a mile and no, he was NOT.
After laughing my ass off and wiping the tears from my cheeks, I’ll reply sometime. You got a unique one.. I’ve known a few myself so can appreciate this. I spent my time in high school calculus class playing Euchre with others (and the teacher) during class, getting held after school because some kid on our chem 2 class had spent the day leaving ammonium tri-iodide (or maybe nitrogen triiodide), stable when wet, unstable when dried, around the school and in door locks and the school figured that it HAD to be one of the kids in the chem2 class (it was, but it wasn’t me) – we just pulled out our Euchre decks and played cards until the teacher just shook his head at us at 5pm and told us to get out (he wanted to go home too). So, yea, they’re out there….
Alan Watts drank himself to death . Enough said.
He did make some good meditation lectures on addiction, too.
I know a lot of really smart people who just decided that was the way they wanted to go.
Hemingway killed himself.
Marilyn Monroe killed herself.
Robyn Williams.
Hitler
https://allthatsinteresting.com/famous-suicides
11 Of History’s Most Famous Suicides, From Artists To Politicians
By Caroline Redmond
Published November 8, 2018
Updated July 19, 2019
NOT Jeffrey Epstein, though.
Smart is not wise and dead by drink is now way to go.
no way, not now way
flash, he’s got some good lectures available and a lot of people get valuable mediation and insight by listening to them
Now, why don’t you just take a long steamy piss on him and move along
I’m not a stranger to Alan Watts . He was the old Jordan Peterson . Only difference was crazy bullshit artist Watt’s self medication of choice was alcohol whilst Peterson’s was anti-psychotics. Watts killed himself with booze. Peterson OD on prescription crazy pills and then went to the nuthouse.
You see, bullshit has no staying power. Even those that spew it, don’t believe it. The only ones who do are narcissistic idiots looking for confirmation that the dark path they’re on somehow, in the end, leads to the light.
Your grasp of Jordan Peterson is very fickle. (I don’t know Alan Watts.)
On a side note, isn’t it funny that “The Russians” now seem to have saved JBP. Medically, not psychologically.
Take your antidepressants Mikey, Jordan Peterson is all nonsense, which says even less about the easily lead morons that swallowed the load of disjointed jizz he was spewing all over global media… dark web, they called it… ha ha ha and all da sucka fish went to suckin’ because thats what sucka fish do .
BTW, I called it even before Day. Jordan is a fraud and those that follow him are non-discerning dumbasses.
– ad hominem
– factfree assertion
– ad hominems
– cannot discern dark web and intellectual dark web
– ad hominem
Keep at it, you’re on a roll!
Jordan: “What am I, the guru (i.e. leader) of the individualists/existentialists?”
But you likely won’t even get the sarcasm…
another fag fan boy… but aren’t they all..
This one might help you work some things out, flash. I’m sorry I touched on a nerve, apparently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CXqgLIPjwg
Alan Watts was an interesting character. It sounds like he spent his life asking “what IS reality”, viewed from our very constrained (x,y,z,t) world) much more seriously than most of us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts
I would say that a good 90 – 95% of my day is spent quiet and calm, in the same manner. After the life I have led, it is priceless.
So, do the two become inseparable? I will continue to NOT look but am curious which dominates.
I’ve come come to the conclusion that most geniuses are also insane, by the definitions provided by society. It is difficult to reconcile the world that one sees outside one’s self with the world that exists inside your head. Music helps, I think.
I have found that practically everyone assumes that intelligence and emotional stability are the same thing, or at least dependent on each other. They are most definitely not.
Mag. actually the quiet is literal, as in an absence of noise. It is very serene here.
I got that too.
Love that song
Put this above, but it is worth a repeat. My heavens how beautiful is this?
TS – ok, so the other 5-10% is listening to Rage Against the Machine and the like. Yea, i get it.. Really, I do.
LOL. Sometimes you just have to get the blood pumping. Doesn’t mean you have to let the ‘message’ get to you.
Maggie, TS,
Interesting thread…I enjoyed reading the back and forth, needed a break from the scary shit.
My daughter had sent me the novel ‘The Overstory by Richard Powers (She knows I love trees)…last night I sent her my review, and reflections…and some of my comments fits TS’s comment like an old hand in a well-worn work glove.
“I would say that a good 90 – 95% of my day is spent quiet and calm, in the same manner. After the life I have led, it is priceless.”
I couldn’t have said it more concise.
Here is the close to the letter to my daughter I thought I’d share:
The book left me thinking of the generational sweep of our own family, past, present, and future. Novels like that always have that effect on me. My life is a wonderful play…so may acts…so many juicy roles…and I’m still playing the leading man!
Every season and decade of life has its own perspectives…and I find winter and the 7th decade different of course then the previous ones, much more mellow, and comfortable, confidant and actually often joyful on my land and the farm I have built…but in one way similar to the last 6 decades…juicy sweet, as I have always been one to celebrate the gift of the core of life…a common, uneventful day. I think starting off as a warrior, then all those years as a corporate then private investigator, interrogator, ass kicker, finally aging/maturing into a farmer (who has planted about 160 trees in 7 years while tilling the land) is the reason I so treasure the reclusive solitude of my 14 acres.
I have eased into the ease of sleeping late and smiling when the sun hits my face, and all I have to do is work my land, take care of my animals, and love your Mother…now that’s easy peasy.
This house we are building will be the icing on the aging cake…and I want your Mother to have it as a reward for all the shit she says I have given her…then she tries to kiss me! (I still have that woman hypnotized.)
I love you Sweet Girl…Kiss Leo for me and hug Steven.
Thanks for the book, I really enjoyed it.
Love,
Dad
XXXOOO
Thanks for that.
Awesome, my little possum!
What a great diversion from the beer flu doom porn.
Thanks, M G
Thanks for the two change of pace articles, Mags. Now I’m off to enjoy a day of busy serenity. I’m sure I’ll be popping back in one time or another today, or at least tonight.
Comme toujours, vivant au jour le jour.
His books are far better than just short videos….though they are nice. He played a great role in my spiritual journey.