"Ten Challanges of a Liberated Woman"

[Talking Ass]

Poor Talking Ass does not know quite what to say. Talkig Ass notes that the extreme 'thinking types' often do not have a sense of humor, and most jokes fly over their heads. Or, their humor is very afflicted and heavy.

According to these same systems, one can become balanced within one's self over time, by developing one's least developed function. When one denies it's validity, instead of developing it, one does so at the expense of wholeness.

As you may have guessed by now, I started as a feeling/intuitional type and had to struggle like the Devil to achieve my thinking function. Mastering human language was an unbelievably difficult affair which I have written about in other places. It is true that I have a certain contempt for the lowly barnyard denizens, who never seem to capture my references to Shakespeare or the Hawthorn, still when they are poking around at my feet or doing all those silly yet delightful things that lowly animals are known to do, I remember that they exist in me, on some level or another. One looks down from a great height to the mechanical movements of unsophisticated protoplasm, as if peeking into a fishbowl, but in my case I try not to forget that this is my context, that I come from this.

[Talking Ass]

The emotional system is a bit different, and you are right, it puts things into a dichotomous good/bad framework, which is essentially flawed as QRS point out and I hope you agree. It is the fundamentally delusional aspect of mind. It can only say "this feels bad" or "this feels good". Our gustatory system evolved to favour fruits with high glucose concentrations, and thus we think it sugar tastes "good", but this is illusory in that candy also tastes "good", in fact it often tastes better than fruit. This makes sense because it has higher glucose rations. Point is that the emotional system is prone to gross error, and gives an illusion of duality, far more than reason does. Sure it is essentially based on a cause and ultimately the purpose is to present an organism with a crude value system. But that means it is only really useful insofar as we seek value. If we are trying to explain what value is, it serves as a root cause, but itself cannot explain itself.

I always refer back to children in order to remember context. If you have ever been around children---sometimes I think that the QRS crew has simply arisen off of the very Earth itself and has no connections whatever here---you see pretty readily that you have to approach children holistically. Our own geniuses, they go on the government dole, or forage through garbage cans, or live in caves on the far perimeters of our cities, but they don't really talk too much about the places where they connect to 'life', interface with it. While I do certainly agree that to exist in a pure emotional state is likely not the best option, I would be deeply concerned if someone gave evidence of attempting to divorce themselves of their own emotions, or who lost contact with the knowledge that we likely have to work with all parts of ourselves (if one accepts the outline of the 4 divisions).

One is forced, again, to point out that on this forum a number of the heavy mental types have active mental problems. If one were to say really the truth one would have to say that the forum has a strong, if unconscious, dysfunctional aspect. Why is this? Well, long ago I accepted all this and still find value here, but it has to be noted.

I suggest that attaining an individual 'wholeness' of personality is very likely a wise and sane goal. If one becomes unbalanced---I think many of us know this intuitionally---there is a danger to the whole system. I am reminded of the message in the top line of Hexagram No. 1 The Creative (i.e. the yang): "Arrogant Dragon will have cause to repent". It means that one can go too far with a good thing, and a parallel is drawn to the myth of Icarus who attempted to fly to the sun (the ultimate yang symbol). In the commentary on that line it says, "a precipitous fall will follow". Again, 'wisdom' is given privilege here, the term is used so often, but sometimes I am led to wonder if the youngsters who have co-opted the phrase are really, in the end, so wise.

It does seem very true to me, nonetheless, that men need to deeply consider what maleness is and how it differs from femaleness. Even in Chinese wisdom (the I-Ching for example) it says that it is vitally important for 'the man to be a man and the woman to be a woman'. Women shouldn't be men nor men women. But, we know how mixed-up is the culture that surrounds us and how so many of the wires are crossed. If I say that we cannot and should not lose connection with our 'feeling function' it does not mean that we should allow ourselves to be over-swamped by women, or the female, or taken over. It is interesting that Jung is acutely aware of something he calls 'anima possession'. If a man is not on some level 'conversant' with the feminine in himself, it can lead to a situation where, unwittingly, he is taken over and possessed by that which he resists, by that which he denies or does not know.

[syzygy]

Poor Talking Ass does not know quite what to say. Talkig Ass notes that the extreme 'thinking types' often do not have a sense of humor, and most jokes fly over their heads. Or, their humor is very afflicted and heavy.

According to these same systems, one can become balanced within one's self over time, by developing one's least developed function. When one denies it's validity, instead of developing it, one does so at the expense of wholeness.

As you may have guessed by now, I started as a feeling/intuitional type and had to struggle like the Devil to achieve my thinking function. Mastering human language was an unbelievably difficult affair which I have written about in other places. It is true that I have a certain contempt for the lowly barnyard denizens, who never seem to capture my references to Shakespeare or the Hawthorn, still when they are poking around at my feet or doing all those silly yet delightful things that lowly animals are known to do, I remember that they exist in me, on some level or another. One looks down from a great height to the mechanical movements of unsophisticated protoplasm, as if peeking into a fishbowl, but in my case I try not to forget that this is my context, that I come from this.

I also am a feeling/intuitional type. Such types are our natural mystics. It's my guess that many on this board are such. I began debating on message boards years ago, when I realized the value of developing my "thinking" function. I have consciously embraced doing so. And in doing so I have found the integration I sought.

At the same time, by achieving that integration and wholeness beyond denial/imbalance, it has enabled a synergistic leap in terms of my natural artistic gifts, which are my birthright coming from a family of musicians/songwriters/fine-artists, etc.

You mentioned Ken Wilber earlier in this thread. From him I learned that in order to go beyond anything, we must embrace what we are, and what came before. This definitely includes our reptilian and mammalian brain functions "beneath" logic. It is only through this integration that we experience whole brain functioning that is balanced. It's part of the integration/wholeness I speak to. When we reject such energy/influence, it operates outside of our conscious control and therefore undermines us through the guise of being "out there", as the other guy's problem. Projection.

[Animus]

Hey, some distinction there between the reptilian brain and the mammalian brain. You are still missing a vital piece of that picture though; the prefrontal cortex.

Its not as if the reptilian brain, the limbic system and the PFC serve the same function, or even serve equally valid functions. You have to realize, the "feeling function", that is; the function of the limbic system is very crude and egoic. It is a survival mechanism that places phenomena in the good/bad dichotomy, which is why "emotion" has been somewhat shunned by the wise. It is a fundamentally delusional system. Gautama relates:

When a tree is burning with fierce flames,
how can the birds congregate therein?
Truth cannot dwell where passion lives.
He who does not know this,
though he be a learned man
and be praised by others as a sage,
is beclouded with ignorance.

To him who has this knowledge true wisdom dawns,
and he will beware of hankering after pleasure.
To acquire this state of mind, wisdom is the one thing needful.
To neglect wisdom will lead to failure in life.

Of course Gautama recognizes that the emotional system is necessary for sustaining life:

Sensuality is enervating; the self-indulgent man is a slave to his passions,
and pleasure-seeking is degrading and vulgar.

But to satisfy the necessities of life is not evil.
To keep the body in good health is a duty,
for otherwise we shall not be able to trim the lamp of wisdom,
and keep our mind strong and clear.
Water surrounds the lotus-flower,
but does not wet its petals.

This is the middle path, O bhikkhus,
that keeps aloof from both extremes.


http://members.optushome.com.au/davidqu ... Gospel.htm


If you think someone is lacking in emotion, isn't it possible that you entertain emotion too much? Apart from the poetic waxing by sages like Gautama, there is a mountain of evidence from formal psychology that emotion is both a boon and a bane, it is a boon to survival, but a bane to the thinking mind. I get up and go to work every day, I eat and take showers, this is all based on emotion, without emotions I wouldn't perform these activities (see: Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio). However, I don't allow these emotions to interfere with the determination or proclamation of truth. Syzygy of all people knows this, she had witnessed me argue with my own mother over the truth.

You can claim that you are protecting others from your thoughts when you wish not to have your philosophy shared, but really you are protecting their image of you. Like I said to Syzygy yesterday, what I say on any medium is my philosophy and it doesn't change simply because someone I know is present, or someone I don't know. It is the truth and I know it regardless of the audience. You distort the truth you speak based on your emotional attachments and you think its good, I don't particularly like that approach. In fact I find it quite burdensome and unnecessary to have to change the story according to the company and pretend as if I don't know.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Some comments to counter some of the more gross yet popular misconceptions that are being exchanged in this thread like pheromone-rich bodily fluids.

It is the All that has divided into the equal and opposite (yin-yang, masculine/feminine) parts fundamental to all creation.

There are no two different fundamental parts of creation in this context - it's a completely misunderstood analogy. For example, if you'd assert two real polarities: plus and minus, then you imply also a neutral (lack of plus or minus or combination of plus and minus). So automatically one introduces a third fundamental state and so on. This type of duality is nothing but plurality and it goes on endlessly. This is why quite a few spiritual teaching vehicles contain a three-based counting systems (3-7-22).

Even while the number one, the first, undivided unity and unifier might be called masculine, it doesn't mean it opposes a number two. It doesn't somehow has a two-shaped whole that waits to be filled. It's a matter of having a fundamental different nature, it's a whole different category. The number one doesn't oppose the number two just as it doesn't oppose number nine, number nine, number nine.

Unity doesn't even oppose plurality as plurality contains unity and in a completely different sense unity contains plurality. But there is really no oppositional, countering or balancing situation at all: the two never meet, unless they are both feminine.

Let me summarize: there is no equal opposing division into masculine and feminine. Even considering it is largely a feminine attempt to wrestle with the notions involved. If there's a dividing it's because of the masculine and surely if there's any unifying it has to be a masculine act because here's a balance.

The minute we identify with the thought, we begin to create our own ego, separation, distortion and conflict/suffering.

Better yet: the minute there's identification, all forms of feel, thought, sense, awareness arises and with it comes automatically the possibility of distortion, like a healthy garden comes with its own supply of weed and pests.

Thinking and Feeling are both rational, in that they both require an act of Judgment. Sensation and Intuition are both irrational, in that they involve no reason, but simply result from stimullii (whether external or internal) acting upon the individual.

There's no distinct difference in quality between thinking and feeling. The very idea that there are two realms is in itself a product of unclear thinking, a schism in our minds. A thought is merely a special kind of feeling, one that is selected, crystallized: one that has drifted into awareness and connected through ritual, symbolic relating: something highly interconnected because of that.

This is why all great thinkers have to be great feelers from the start although not necessarily expressed outward much since also shame, discomfort, pride, uncertainty will likely be quite present. It's like any great tennis player who has to be a great athlete. There's no exception here unless one likes to count intellectuals or other freaks as actual thinkers. A mistake this forum tries to avoid with great effort.

Therefore the ones suggesting that thinkers miss something out in the feeling department have something coming to them: quite likely the ones suggesting are not feeling enough themselves, their senses seem rather mute, their reach limited, the dynamics mediocre. Can't they feel the truth of the nature of their own thoughts?

[Talking Ass]

This is why all great thinkers have to be great feelers from the start although not necessarily expressed outward much since also shame, discomfort, pride, uncertainty will likely be quite present. It's like any great tennis player who has to be a great athlete. There's no exception here unless one likes to count intellectuals or other freaks as actual thinkers. A mistake this forum tries to avoid with great effort.

Thank you. THANK YOU! Finally, a little recognition, though I wasn't going to bring it up myself. It is because I have such a deep, sensitive nature that when I catapult my fine self up into the intellectual layers, I go higher than many, and where I reach, I stick there longer.

Therefore the ones suggesting that thinkers miss something out in the feeling department have something coming to them: quite likely the ones suggesting are not feeling enough themselves, their senses seem rather mute, their reach limited, the dynamics mediocre. Can't they feel the truth of the nature of their own thoughts?

What I said, Mighty One, is that half of the 'thinkers' who post here seem like nutcases. They are men who use their 'thinking' to mask their neurosis. Only thing is, neurosis has a nasty habit of catching up to one later in life. Therefor, making peace with the inner portions of oneself, the feeling portion, is necessary so that one might be able to 'think' in the sense you imply.

See, I stick with what is immediately visible in front of my eyes, you start from abstractions. Who's misconceiving?

[Animus]

Sigh, so like Charles Manson is one of the most enlightened beings on the planet.

Here is a guy who managed to integrate his world-view with his emotional system.

[Talking Ass]

Sexual deviants, Charlie Manson---is there something I am missing here? Some essential piece???

[Diebert van Rhijn]

What I said, Mighty One, is that half of the 'thinkers' who post here seem like nutcases. They are men who use their 'thinking' to mask their neurosis. Only thing is, neurosis has a nasty habit of catching up to one later in life. Therefor, making peace with the inner portions of oneself, the feeling portion, is necessary so that one might be able to 'think' in the sense you imply.

Nah, every thinking being on this planet is in that situation. It's meaningless to assert it in this specific context, that is: of the supposed "over-thinkers". The real neurosis starts when the feeling-thought capacity as a whole is not developed enough, not strong enough to possibly overcome, coming to terms with the neurosis: this self-deceit that comes with the human existence.

Looking at it from this perspective, only a half looking like nutcases is a pretty amazing score. If you'd actually had a life you'd know it's at least 80% everywhere else!

[Talking Ass]

Oh no, it is meaningful to speak to and about the specific and not to romanticize anything. You speak from a position of abstractions, yet I want to examine the specific. Since I have been on this forum there have been people who come on to it, note a 'neurotic' element (for want of a better word), and go on. To put it in Jungian terms, I'd say there is some affliction of the 'thinking type' that most definitely requires balancing. It is a peculiar, masculine issue. It is only out of a certain concern that I mention this, not to be mean-spirited. If there is any statement I'd make about this place, this loka, this sphere, it is that. Now, along with that there are all sorts of good and positive traits, which is of course why I tend to remain and, insofar as I can, help people along. True, some of the nerds are hopeless, but others show definite signs of improvement.

[Animus]

lol Talking Ass is the saviour of Genius Forum.

Congratulations! I need your help. What I am struggling with is the usage of primitive and vague symbolism that distorts or obscures the truth. I tend to deal with neutral terminology, e.g. intuition vs light. Although "intuition" has positive connotations to some in the new-age sphere, from within the framework of cognitive psychology, it's a completely neutral term. Actually, with sufficiently neutral and descriptive terminology we can even explain how intuition works.

I won't go into that because, like I said it requires a broad set of neutral symbols to draw from. That of computational neuroscience and cognitive psychology.

I guess, here the symbolism never goes below "intuition" and "emotion" to what actually constitutes these things. I admit there are some acceptions to this on a conceptual level, but none here that speak of these things in terms of the biological correlates.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Oh no, it is meaningful to speak to and about the specific and not to romanticize anything. You speak from a position of abstractions, yet I want to examine the specific. Since I have been on this forum there have been people who come on to it, note a 'neurotic' element (for want of a better word), and go on.

Really, Alex, you're well known to be the most vague one around here, hiding behind your many names and forms while you're demonstrating all the textbook qualities of a neurotic personality. You fit right in here in the Genius zoo! A colorful animal pacing in his self-created cage and certainly one of my favorites, in small doses. I mean, you are the same Alex who loudly announced leaving and came back crawling in another disguise, secretly, posting up storms? And you are teaching people here who post consistently, sparingly and patiently under their real name and lecture them about disease and health? A reality check seems to be in need, old friend.

[syzygy]

Hey, some distinction there between the reptilian brain and the mammalian brain. You are still missing a vital piece of that picture though; the prefrontal cortex.

Its not as if the reptilian brain, the limbic system and the PFC serve the same function, or even serve equally valid functions.

reptilian brain lets us know whether something feels good or doesn't feel good, such as a reptile moving from a spot in the sun, because it gets too hot. Very fundamental survival mechanism.

The mammalian brain also known as the limbic system equips us with our emotional intelligence. Such a system provides us with all our possible emotions, and the information such emotions provide us. Our emotions are our direct feedback system as to how the environment is affecting us. Emotional intelligence is cited as being a determining factor in how successful one is in life.

You have to realize, the "feeling function", that is; the function of the limbic system is very crude and egoic.

If by egoic you mean that such feedback allows us to take care of the needs of the individual, you are absolutely correct.

Keep in mind that the self-actualization and unification with one's environment that people seek hinges on fundamental issues such as the emotional safety of the individual. Only when such needs are met can one get to the top of maslow's pyramid, where opposites come together in a melded, integrated, whole of Oneness.

A mere 2% of the population get to this point at this time. In the western world, we actively shun emotions, causing our life energy to become paralysed and stunted at rudimentary, childish levels, which the vast majority of people keep in place with addictions, disorders and imbalances.

In the original 10 challenges for a liberated woman, one of the challenges refers to being objectively emotional. This is part of being integrated and holistic.

When one does not accept and integrate their emotions, one's emotions will unconsciously distort one's thinking processes, which we see all over the place.

[syzygy]

It is the All that has divided into the equal and opposite (yin-yang, masculine/feminine) parts fundamental to all creation.

There are no two different fundamental parts of creation in this context - it's a completely misunderstood analogy. For example, if you'd assert two real polarities: plus and minus, then you imply also a neutral (lack of plus or minus or combination of plus and minus). So automatically one introduces a third fundamental state and so on. This type of duality is nothing but plurality and it goes on endlessly. This is why quite a few spiritual teaching vehicles contain a three-based counting systems (3-7-22).

You have missed the point: I made the comment you quoted when it the duality I created was mentioned. I did not create duality; the All created it. The opposing forces we see all around us are not created by myself. And besides that, I also fully appreciate all paradoxes, including that in the duality, there is One, and not-duality.

Yin yang are opposing:Yin yang describe opposing qualities in phenomena.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang

Even while the number one, the first, undivided unity and unifier might be called masculine, it doesn't mean it opposes a number two. It doesn't somehow has a two-shaped whole that waits to be filled. It's a matter of having a fundamental different nature, it's a whole different category. The number one doesn't oppose the number two just as it doesn't oppose number nine, number nine, number nine.

Unity doesn't even oppose plurality as plurality contains unity and in a completely different sense unity contains plurality. But there is really no oppositional, countering or balancing situation at all: the two never meet, unless they are both feminine.

when I talk of the two sides of a coin, to the interlocked energies, I am not talking about the All. The All could be likened to the coin that embraces both sides of itself.

The minute we identify with the thought, we begin to create our own ego, separation, distortion and conflict/suffering.

Better yet: the minute there's identification, all forms of feel, thought, sense, awareness arises and with it comes automatically the possibility of distortion, like a healthy garden comes with its own supply of weed and pests.

all thoughts and feelings are a product of 'nurture' and of our conditioning, rather than of the truth.

[Talking Ass]

Really, Alex, you're well known to be the most vague one around here, hiding behind your many names and forms while you're demonstrating all the textbook qualities of a neurotic personality. You fit right in here in the Genius zoo! A colorful animal pacing in his self-created cage and certainly one of my favorites, in small doses. I mean, you are the same Alex who loudly announced leaving and came back crawling in another disguise, secretly, posting up storms? And you are teaching people here who post consistently, sparingly and patiently under their real name and lecture them about disease and health? A reality check seems to be in need, old friend.

It is an interesting juncture and one it is worthwhile to linger over, to see what is there. First, it is important to remember context. The context, right now, is a conversation that turns on a description of or a map of the individual, and the different parts of individuals. Thinking type, feeling type, intuitive type, sensation type. Also---and this is actually unusual for this forum---we have a woman in the conversation. On a certain very real level, let's say, she is an 'emissary from the world'. Certainly though, she is not a member of the GF World or the QRS World. As you well know, as is evident, she is a stranger to that world, which is a world devoid of women (except women who toe the party line). No value judgments here, these are just some of the facts.

Then, you have The Talking Ass who is another incarnation of Alex Jacob (we assume, we can't be absolutely sure), and this AJ has always taken contrary stances 'against' the QRS road-show. You can't say that he constructed himself as a voice of opposition, because you could never quite be certain (or could never quite distinguish) what was humor and what was 'truth'. Talking Ass is also a construct, a persona, but it is not accurate to describe him as a product of neurosis, a pathology on 4 legs with ungainly gait and lopsided ears. Talking Ass, and to a certain lesser extent Alex Jacob, are works of art. You know l'art pour l'art, et cetera. Not only that but Talking Ass is a real, bona-fide ham who likely had a father who worked the borscht-belt circuit, a fallen Vaudeville star, a little hoarse of voice, in a shirt with green stripes and wearing white leather shoes, a gold ring on his pinky finger, now retired in Miami.

There is a chord of humor that runs through all Talking Ass says and does. Like Crusty the Clown, his father was a rabbi, his father's father was a rabbi, but he "just wants to make people laugh and make a lot of money". Here's the thing that is hilarious, HI-LAR-I-OUS: in a tragic sort of way: Y'all don't DO humor. When you laugh it is like a pained, rasping sound. You cannot see the funny side of the world. You've got no Buddha jokes! It is so fucking serious what you think about yourselves, all this mimicry of Buddhists and Taoists, and garbage pickers, and penniless mendicants! It is funny as all hell but you can't laugh at yourselves!

It is within this sad state of affairs that Talking Ass birthed himself, in a manger on the road back from exile in Egypt, with the Lord and the Lady nearby, all warmly lit-up in appropriate chiaroscuro, beaming, sending down golden rays of light through their hands, the Holy Spirit blowing around them with a warm, life-filled breeze, carrying laughter, sweet pine sap, the smell of jasmine flowers at midnight. (How Tiny Tim got in the picture with his gilded ukulele I don't know, so please don't ask, but there he is, for all eternity.)

"Oh, I'm sorry. This is not quite to your taste", laments Talking Ass. (Clears throat). (Quite seriously) "Well, let us proceed then..."

See, when I talk about 'neurosis' I am talking about something else completely. I am talking about an unnatural fortification within a personality construct (or a 'function') that, to all appearances, has some here trapped. That does not invalidate 'the Buddha', or Taoism, or masculinity, or anything. Now, this holing-up in the Thinking Function is something that can be talked about. Jung noted, and rightfully, that it was an unwholesome distortion. And since we have been talking about Jung, and the four functions, and Syzygy and Animus have this 'head-butting' going on, it is in that context that I mention the neurosis of this overdone tendency: too much Thinking Function and no sacrifice made to the other functions.

It's not even that big of a deal. Sometimes I feel you work against the discovery of 'truth', Diebert. Remeber too: Even with personas I reveal much more about who I am than is even possible for you. It is an interesting fact. Please, go on, quote me some Buddha, man!

[Animus]

Yo, I'm not head-butting anyone. My interaction with Syzygy was intended to be of the same nature of the letters David and Kevin sent back and forth over the years, "Letters between enemies" they called it, or as was described in the MenOfTheInfinite video entitled "Spiritual Friends".

Sure, Syzygy interprets it as being egoic, and that is why we are not pursuing that interaction anymore. She is caught up in the emotional content of her mind and asked me to tip-toe around it, which runs completely contrary to the whole exercise. So although it might appear to many as "head-butting" that was not my intention and clearly Syzygy misunderstood the basis of our interaction. A foundation which I though was rather obvious from the fact that I linked the video to her and harped on about that on Facebook for about a month.

[Animus]

To wit, there is no 'nice' way to tell someone you think they are delusional, it is the fact of the matter which they find offensive, not the way in which it is expressed, at least for the most part.

[syzygy]

Really, Alex, you're well known to be the most vague one around here, hiding behind your many names and forms while you're demonstrating all the textbook qualities of a neurotic personality. You fit right in here in the Genius zoo! A colorful animal pacing in his self-created cage and certainly one of my favorites, in small doses. I mean, you are the same Alex who loudly announced leaving and came back crawling in another disguise, secretly, posting up storms? And you are teaching people here who post consistently, sparingly and patiently under their real name and lecture them about disease and health? A reality check seems to be in need, old friend.

It is an interesting juncture and one it is worthwhile to linger over, to see what is there. First, it is important to remember context. The context, right now, is a conversation that turns on a description of or a map of the individual, and the different parts of individuals. Thinking type, feeling type, intuitive type, sensation type. Also---and this is actually unusual for this forum---we have a woman in the conversation. On a certain very real level, let's say, she is an 'emissary from the world'. Certainly though, she is not a member of the GF World or the QRS World. As you well know, as is evident, she is a stranger to that world, which is a world devoid of women (except women who toe the party line). No value judgments here, these are just some of the facts.

Then, you have The Talking Ass who is another incarnation of Alex Jacob (we assume, we can't be absolutely sure), and this AJ has always taken contrary stances 'against' the QRS road-show. You can't say that he constructed himself as a voice of opposition, because you could never quite be certain (or could never quite distinguish) what was humor and what was 'truth'. Talking Ass is also a construct, a persona, but it is not accurate to describe him as a product of neurosis, a pathology on 4 legs with ungainly gait and lopsided ears. Talking Ass, and to a certain lesser extent Alex Jacob, are works of art. You know l'art pour l'art, et cetera. Not only that but Talking Ass is a real, bona-fide ham who likely had a father who worked the borscht-belt circuit, a fallen Vaudeville star, a little hoarse of voice, in a shirt with green stripes and wearing white leather shoes, a gold ring on his pinky finger, now retired in Miami.

There is a chord of humor that runs through all Talking Ass says and does. Like Crusty the Clown, his father was a rabbi, his father's father was a rabbi, but he "just wants to make people laugh and make a lot of money". Here's the thing that is hilarious, HI-LAR-I-OUS: in a tragic sort of way: Y'all don't DO humor. When you laugh it is like a pained, rasping sound. You cannot see the funny side of the world. You've got no Buddha jokes! It is so fucking serious what you think about yourselves, all this mimicry of Buddhists and Taoists, and garbage pickers, and penniless mendicants! It is funny as all hell but you can't laugh at yourselves!

It is within this sad state of affairs that Talking Ass birthed himself, in a manger on the road back from exile in Egypt, with the Lord and the Lady nearby, all warmly lit-up in appropriate chiaroscuro, beaming, sending down golden rays of light through their hands, the Holy Spirit blowing around them with a warm, life-filled breeze, carrying laughter, sweet pine sap, the smell of jasmine flowers at midnight. (How Tiny Tim got in the picture with his gilded ukulele I don't know, so please don't ask, but there he is, for all eternity.)

"Oh, I'm sorry. This is not quite to your taste", laments Talking Ass. (Clears throat). (Quite seriously) "Well, let us proceed then..."

See, when I talk about 'neurosis' I am talking about something else completely. I am talking about an unnatural fortification within a personality construct (or a 'function') that, to all appearances, has some here trapped. That does not invalidate 'the Buddha', or Taoism, or masculinity, or anything. Now, this holing-up in the Thinking Function is something that can be talked about. Jung noted, and rightfully, that it was an unwholesome distortion. And since we have been talking about Jung, and the four functions, and Syzygy and Animus have this 'head-butting' going on, it is in that context that I mention the neurosis of this overdone tendency: too much Thinking Function and no sacrifice made to the other functions.

It's not even that big of a deal. Sometimes I feel you work against the discovery of 'truth', Diebert. Remeber too: Even with personas I reveal much more about who I am than is even possible for you. It is an interesting fact. Please, go on, quote me some Buddha, man!

oh man, you have outdone yourself....This is hysterical--from start to finish...

...Tiny Tim...lol... :D

[syzygy]

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words
may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

...there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place,
let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.

Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
when the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more.

~Kahlil Gibran

[Talking Ass]

Animus, syzygy, Diebert: The Talking Ass takes no side. His only goal is to win.

To wit, there is no 'nice' way to tell someone you think they are delusional, it is the fact of the matter which they find offensive, not the way in which it is expressed, at least for the most part.

It may be interesting for you to consider that I have often felt myself in much the same position, with so many, over the two years I've been on this forum. Funny, ain't it?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The opposing forces we see all around us are not created by myself. And besides that, I also fully appreciate all paradoxes, including that in the duality, there is One, and not-duality.

But the masculine in the context of this forum can never be an "opposing" force. What's there to oppose? The feminine? It's like saying "real" opposes "fake" or "god" opposes some "fallen angel". It's all pretty meaningless the moment one goes deeper yet not entering some imagined non-dual mode of thinking or being.

when I talk of the two sides of a coin, to the interlocked energies, I am not talking about the All. The All could be likened to the coin that embraces both sides of itself.

But then one could almost say that there's also opposition between what is coinage and what's not. This is the essential difference between masculine and feminine, completely transcending any gender roles. A hand flipping the coin is not the coin but there's no "opposition" or "equality" in any sense.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Y'all don't DO humor.

Your humor is rather average though, sorry to say. Just enough to impress smart chicks ;) But like most Jewish comedians it's mostly relying on the over-dramatic and the us-knows-us referential. To me it seems you haven't laughed hard enough yet. The type of laugh that makes most other jokes nearly tasteless; the "joke that killed all others". Like Cartman (in How to Eat with your Ass) who laughed so hard about an ass-joke that he lost his capacity to be impressed with the usual low-brow humor anymore.

And it's a matter of taste Alex, perhaps you're not even aware how it works with Canadian, Australian and Dutch humor. Many Americans have a hard time with that, while we are rather used to American and Jewish humor through TV and the movies, so much it has become rather worn out.

It's not even that big of a deal. Sometimes I feel you work against the discovery of 'truth', Diebert. Remeber too: Even with personas I reveal much more about who I am than is even possible for you. It is an interesting fact. Please, go on, quote me some Buddha, man!

It's true you keep on revealing yourself, it's all you do and want to do. That's not the kind of truth-telling I'm interested in anymore, as it's more some kind of indirect exhibitionism. As long as you can not go beyond that it will be same-old-same-old with your endless repeats here.

[syzygy]

The opposing forces we see all around us are not created by myself. And besides that, I also fully appreciate all paradoxes, including that in the duality, there is One, and not-duality.

But the masculine in the context of this forum can never be an "opposing" force. What's there to oppose? The feminine? It's like saying "real" opposes "fake" or "god" opposes some "fallen angel". It's all pretty meaningless the moment one goes deeper yet not entering some imagined non-dual mode of thinking or being.

I'm not speaking to the masculine in the context of this forum. I was speaking to the masculine in terms of the opposing forces in nature, as per the yin-yang symbol, in the context of the previously linked yin-yang Wikipedia article.

There are many ways to chart reality. I'm comfortable knowing the map is not the territory, and is rather relative to the context.

when I talk of the two sides of a coin, to the interlocked energies, I am not talking about the All. The All could be likened to the coin that embraces both sides of itself.

But then one could almost say that there's also opposition between what is coinage and what's not. This is the essential difference between masculine and feminine, completely transcending any gender roles. A hand flipping the coin is not the coin but there's no "opposition" or "equality" in any sense.

[Talking Ass]

Diebert, comrade,

Let's go through this just one, final time so we don't have to do it again, alright? I've said to you before, I repeat it again: I don't write to please you. I write for my own purposes. If you like it, praise Jesus, if you don't, don't waste your time reading it. It seems stupid to veer this conversation away from those parts of it that are interesting and pertinent to the values and interests of the GF-Group, and dead-end it into your personal criticism of Alex or The Talking Ass. I don't have a 'hard time' with Canadian, Dutch or Australian humor, I don't really give a flying holy fuck about it. I write what I want. when I want. You can make any judgments you want, but why waste my time with it?

When I speak of 'revealing myself' I don't mean it like you take it. This fits in with what we have been talking about on this thread: the notion of a balanced individual. I suggest that it is an attainment, though I don't mean to crow about specialness but more as a general fact about people, to have a balanced attitude, balanced behavior. Many 'geniuses'---you perhaps? or Animus? (I don't know and I likely never will: you'll never talk about it because of cowardice) seem to have some notable sexual squeamishness. We know that you don't have relationships with women, and some part of that is understandable, at least you have spelled out your reasons. But, I suggest that it is a defective stance. Not just because you eschew the personality of women or the delights of the vagina and sexual pleasures, but because you seem to negate what I have been calling 'context': the physicalness of life. It is much larger than just being celibates.

One senses, I won't say specifically with you, but in some, a kind of 'cutting off' from a vital part of their own selves, as they name 'woman' as the thing they have cut off from (for a host of 'good' reasons of course that they explain with greater of lesser conviction). I would also suggest that in this privileging of this 'thinking function' that the so-called intuitive, feeling and sensory 'functions' are also suppressed (this is only a language to express the idea, don't get too hung up in lingo). I think that a great argument could be made as to why it is not a wholesome idea to sever oneself off from these other 'functions' and these parts of life and living. Obviously, we have been going back and forth on this. Obviously we differ.

But when I speak of revealing, what I mean is that I seek in my person, and in my creativity (which is also an aspect of my writing) to the sort of wholesomeness where I am not afraid to speak about myself, what I think and what I feel. You take it as a desire to become a spectacle (you ridicule it of course, and I take this in stride) because that is one part of my multi-layered wizardry as I juggle persona (a joke, Diebert, a joke). Personally, I am only interested in full people, complete people who know themselves well, whose words are commensurate with the totality of themselves. The people who do that here (I won't name names, it is vulgar), are the ones who seem to be success and whose wisdom is viable. The fakes, the adolescents, who play at a game of posing, don't fool anyone except themselves.

I would like to end with the following, and I hope you will then excuse me, for it is Wednesday and that means a quarter bag of oats for yours-truly, and to be frank, I'm famished. But permit me to say that 75-85% of what I write, and have written on this thread and on this forum, is serious, clear prose, no jokes. Why don't you spend some time talking about or commenting on that instead of bogging me down in nonsense, Diebert? It would be far more interesting to hear you engage with the topic.

[Animus]

The opposing forces we see all around us are not created by myself. And besides that, I also fully appreciate all paradoxes, including that in the duality, there is One, and not-duality.

But the masculine in the context of this forum can never be an "opposing" force. What's there to oppose? The feminine? It's like saying "real" opposes "fake" or "god" opposes some "fallen angel". It's all pretty meaningless the moment one goes deeper yet not entering some imagined non-dual mode of thinking or being.

I'm not speaking to the masculine in the context of this forum. I was speaking to the masculine in terms of the opposing forces in nature, as per the yin-yang symbol, in the context of the previously linked yin-yang Wikipedia article.

There are many ways to chart reality. I'm comfortable knowing the map is not the territory, and is rather relative to the context.

when I talk of the two sides of a coin, to the interlocked energies, I am not talking about the All. The All could be likened to the coin that embraces both sides of itself.

But then one could almost say that there's also opposition between what is coinage and what's not. This is the essential difference between masculine and feminine, completely transcending any gender roles. A hand flipping the coin is not the coin but there's no "opposition" or "equality" in any sense.

Ja jetzt wird in die Haende gespuckt!

In laborantum cordis suo, non es deus. Non es ni une cum deum, non es usque ad unum. Et excomunicatus, ex unionus e deum.

The map doesn't matter, right?

Ja ja, kopfnicker! Willst du radikal sein?