The Problem With Women Today

[Alex Jacob]

Well, that was all pretty nice, except for the last paragraph which, in the course of time, you will rewrite. If I had more time I would rewrite it for you of course...

But let's go straight to the core now, no messing around:

What Alex is proposing is a group conversion. That's right, folks, a group conversion. Hysterical spiritual gymnastics, a backgrounf chorus, tears, writhing, rebirth! Who could refuse?

Alex wants all the members of Genius Forum to step forward---c'mon people!---to confess, to purify, and to accept Weisenheimer (Shekinah's Lightening Bolt and satguru for this age) as your personal Lord and Savior!.

For, after all, It Is Written:

"Weisenheimer will get you through times of no Jesus
Better than Jesus will get you through times of no Weisenheimer".

Let your mental chopping blades get to work on that.

[Carl G]

Diebert,

That was an interesting and I believe largely accurate analysis of Alex's approach here. What strikes me about Alex is the dreariness of the repetitiveness of his shtick. And the pathos of having his one-note game found out and still persisting in it. And the decreasing joy emanating from his diatribes; there is a desperation underneath that's sad to see. It's sad to see what Alex apparently does not see in himself. Look at his reply to you, it's all bombast.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

But I think your grasp of the qualities needed to see through 'BS' could be expanded.

No, I’m pretty well trained in thinking for myself.

BTW, do you like pistachio nuts (or any nuts) or do you just avoid them?

Red pistachios are fucking weird.




Diebert, Alex has found a cranny where nobody else competes, so he wins by default. His posts never fail. They can't. However, if he were to be honest, and say exactly what his posts are successfully doing, nobody else would care. But he does. Looking inward, I can best relate it to my own tendency toward passive-aggressiveness. But he takes it far beyond anything I could do, turning something I regret in myself into his greatest virtue.

I suppose a philosopher is allowed to do that. Living an exaggeration to make a point, because of its effect on others. Maybe that's why he's not banned. He's not trolling, but refusing to leave a barrel.

[Alex Jacob]

Admirable, very admirable, gentlemen! (Side note: If I were to wind up, someday, with a life-view that looked and felt like Carl G, you would certainly be done with me, I think I would walk out into the ocean!)

If it were true that 'no one cared' what I write or think, or what I try to express and have expressed---quite successfully---in the course of my Great Condescension here among you, there would simply be no issue about it. I would be a mere invisibility. But, I am clearly not an invisibility. I can arouse 'mortal hatred' and God knows what else.

Trevor is very right to note that I have carved out an unassailable territory---this is a by-product of having to confront this astounding, endlessly dreary, rehearsal of death-energy. I choose to rise above it. In that, I am unassailable! It is you'll admit a kind of freedom...

One of the problems (a logical problem I might add) in comparing what I do to the embodiment of the Shekhinah (Diebert, that is phenomenally grand, don't you think? A little overblown? You are, aren't you? setting me up for a Titanic fall?), is that the Shekhinah is, by definition, something beyond the grasp of the human mind. It is completely and absolutely 'other'. This 'Shekhinah' is that part of God that was said to dwell in the Tabernacle: "Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting, for the cloud rested upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle", so that if Alex (all bow) in his form of Mystical Cloud is akin to the Shekhinah, what this Shekhina is doing has very little to do with the 'feminine', it is only the word that has feminine gender, but not the presence of God, which is (by definition) utterly masculine. This according to the crazy example you've dreamed up!

From the Wikipedia page:

"The Talmud reports that the Shekhinah is what caused prophets to prophesy and King David to compose his Psalms. The Shekhinah manifests itself as a form of joy, connected with prophecy and creativity".

This is an incredible compliment, Brother Diebert and I will not ever forget it! If what I do has any relationship at all to what the Prophets did, then just in that I have had incredible success. And, if it happened that something of 'joy' in communicating, in living, in being, or thinking, has come through any of my posts, with that too I can only see success. Joy, creativity and prophecy! Yes!

"And now, bring me for a musician, and it happened that when the music played, God's hand rested upon him'"

This ain't bad either! See, I tend to believe that Art is one of the highest manifestations of divinity but also of divine aspiration expressed by man. I seem to differ quite a little bit with the QRS in this regard, for whom art, artist, creativity, etc. are naughty words, similar to 'muck' and 'filth' or 'half-dead cockroach'. I have no problem with the characterization therefor. You have in fact hit the nail on the head: I flutter down among the dead and the dying, some poor lost boys on a real fucking downer! (I am not just singling you out Carl), and I perform a little soft-shoe here, a little song and dance there. God's hand rests on me, and the Shekhinah (apparently) dwells in my heart. What, I should complain?

But it only gets better, people!

"After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines; and it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt meet a band of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a timbrel, and a pipe, and a harp, before them; and they will be prophesying. And the spirit of the LORD will come mightily upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man."

Oh God, a 'garrison of philistines', please, someone, pinch me, I'm dreaming, aren't I? Okay, I came to the 'garrison of philistines' and what happened then? These 'philistines', what do these philistines do? What does 'philistine' mean? The long and the short of it is that a 'philistine' is someone who, through a heavy-handed approach, or through sheer stupidity, a dullness of spirit, effectively ruin everything, in any and every field they place themselves! Pay heed to what Weisenheimer is TEACHING you wretched little fucks! It is all coming out now. You get hold of the best of the best (Nietzsche, the Buddha, Jesus---what-have-you) and by your spiritless dullness you effectively RUIN what you touch. Your activities CALL FORTH a response, a balancing out, and of course (of course!) 'the shekhinah' rushes in to save you.

(And, just for fun, to push on the metaphor: But (of course) you string him up on a tree, you do the dirty on him, you betray the Spirit in the name of 'reason'. It was, after all, the most reasonable choice to put Jesus to death.)

But, the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon me and I prophesied to the philistines, and am turned into another man (i.e. Weisenheimer). Diebert, you are really making progress in your seeing. My alternative, to escape a life among the Living Dead, is to disassociate! ;-)

Diebert has written:

"Now Alex could of course lay out his view in logical, point-for-point style but he understood that the core of his message would be lost: he wants people to meet, get exposed to the feminine aspect of reality - the aspect he sees as being dismissed and disregarded here too easily, too quickly."

In some sense, I agree with this, though I do not privilege 'femininity' as you must insist that I do. It is part of my existential understanding that people learn and assimilate not only through their minds, but through the totality of their 'cocoon of energy' to use a Castanedian term. Even in the context of, say, a Buddhist sanga, with the Blessed One there extolling the Dharma, when realization comes it comes in 'spiritual form' (in other words shekhinah, the Spirit, God, realization, knowledge). If I am defending anything, I am defending another and unique sort of 'opening' by which knowledge, or truth, or peace, or commitment, can come to us.

Carl wrote:

"What strikes me about Alex is the dreariness of the repetitiveness of his shtick. And the pathos of having his one-note game found out and still persisting in it. And the decreasing joy emanating from his diatribes; there is a desperation underneath that's sad to see. It's sad to see what Alex apparently does not see in himself. Look at his reply to you, it's all bombast."

Then why, Carl, do you bother to read? But you DO read. It is not impossible that you read me more regularly than anyone. But that is beside the point. In the above, what you are doing is wielding your own dreary, depressed spirit, and attempting to squelch something (you have no idea what it is, or why) that irks you. You discover a 'desperation' in what I do and say, but Carl there is no desperation! I engage with you because you are completely stuck in almost all parts of your life. All this flurry that you see is just a mirage that I present to you that you project upon. Then, with your attention engaged, I act on you in ways that you have not yet conceived! You have no organ to perceive what I mean when I say this. What I do here has little to do with what I write.

I promised Salvation. It begins as an effervescence bubbling up inside of you that has nothing at all to do with what you call your 'mind'.

Look upward, Carl! If you can, turn your eyes toward Heaven, there is a Star shining for you. Someday you'll see a glorious Macaw whose mystic body is the whole structure of the creation; that Macaw loves you! You will think of Savior Weisenheimer and the tears will come...

"By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night". (Exodus 13:21)

[Alex Jacob]

Trevor, it is a dye that they put on those pistachios. I agree, it's fucking wack. When I was a kid, in Istanbul, we used to get bags of fresh pistachios from street venders. They toasted them fresh in their shells, and they were HUGE, about an inch and a half.

What about pine nuts? Do you like pesto? (My shekhinahed intuition tells me you don't like raw garlic).

Here's a recipe:

Weisenheimer's 'Rise from the Dead' Pesto

2 cups olive oil
1-4 cloves garlic (I use just one).
1 cup fresh basil
1/2 cup pine nuts
salt
(blend the above in blender)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, fesh grated
1-8 cup romano cheese, fresh grated
1 tablespoon butter
(stir in the above, you might have to heat the butter slightly so it will melt).

Put that shit on some fresh boiled Italian pasta and say your prayers, Philosopher!

[Note: edit to add Shekhinah potency]

[Carl G]

If I were to wind up, someday, with a life-view that looked and felt like Carl G, you would certainly be done with me, I think I would walk out into the ocean!)

You have a highly inaccurate view of my life-view, due obviously to delusion concerning what you see and feel. I'm sorry.

I tend to believe that Art is one of the highest manifestations of divinity but also of divine aspiration expressed by man. I seem to differ quite a little bit with the QRS in this regard, for whom art, artist, creativity, etc. are naughty words, similar to 'muck' and 'filth' or 'half-dead cockroach'.

I am an artist in life, too. Art can be a good tool for communication. A great one, even, if it's great art. But your art isn't working here. Sad to say.

I have no problem with the characterization therefor. You have in fact hit the nail on the head: I flutter down among the dead and the dying, some poor lost boys on a real fucking downer! (I am not just singling you out Carl),

This is very delusional on your part. I can only regard this as projection of some "downer" part of yourself. That is why I call your writing dismal. Under the poppycock about Wiesenheimer and the fanfare about deeper and more creative ways to look at spirituality, there is a real straining for attention and a sense of deep denial of what is really in front of you in your life. You try to throw that onto me and others and it just doesn't stick. And when people try to point such things out to you, you deny it all further, and put on an even more gay persona. That's sad.

Carl wrote:

"What strikes me about Alex is the dreariness of the repetitiveness of his shtick. And the pathos of having his one-note game found out and still persisting in it. And the decreasing joy emanating from his diatribes; there is a desperation underneath that's sad to see. It's sad to see what Alex apparently does not see in himself. Look at his reply to you, it's all bombast."

Then why, Carl, do you bother to read? But you DO read. It is not impossible that you read me more regularly than anyone.

True to form you flatter yourself. I read parts of what you write.

But that is beside the point. In the above, what you are doing is wielding your own dreary, depressed spirit, and attempting to squelch something (you have no idea what it is, or why) that irks you. You discover a 'desperation' in what I do and say, but Carl there is no desperation! I engage with you because you are completely stuck in almost all parts of your life.

You imagine. And you are mistaken, therefore delusional. You prove that you do not know me.

All this flurry that you see is just a mirage that I present to you that you project upon. Then, with your attention engaged, I act on you in ways that you have not yet conceived! You have no organ to perceive what I mean when I say this. What I do here has little to do with what I write.

The length and rambling quality of your average post contradicts your implication that all is conscious and part of a plan of yours.

I promised Salvation. It begins as an effervescence bubbling up inside of you that has nothing at all to do with what you call your 'mind'.

You cannot promise such a thing, hence it is bullshit.

Look upward, Carl! If you can, turn your eyes toward Heaven, there is a Star shining for you. Someday you'll see a glorious Macaw whose mystic body is the whole structure of the creation; that Macaw loves you! You will think of Savior Weisenheimer and the tears will come...

And this bullshit is intended to do what? Your art is pathetic.

[Alex Jacob]

What sort of art do you do Carl?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Indeed, my last paragraph and perhaps my whole last post would have more effectively been summarized by:

• • • "His ideas would be more interesting if he wasn't such a coke head".

[Carl G]

What sort of art do you do Carl?

Drawn, sculptural, graphic, landscape, poetic, novel, mythic, culinary, and engineering.

[Alex Jacob]

Carl, have you attempted any stand-up? (A very poor joke of course.)

May I suggest that you cease taking me so seriously? You don't like what I say or the way I say it. So don't read it! Disengage. There are dozens of other people here for 'serious conversation'.

Can I go now?
______________________________________________

Diebert,

But you didn't make any comment about my response to your 'shekhinah' gag, which was really pretty inventive, I thought. I mean, it was a nice attempt to explain me, to neuter me, to put a muzzle on me, to get me to shut up. But, what you did is presented to me, like an incredible undeserved gift (caritas in the Greekest sense) some wonderful material to work with. And I took it and ran. And now, I'm a coke head? What kind of drugs are you on, man?!

You know how I love all this Jewish, down from the Judean hills prophetic romanticism! You know how I love the Prophets. Like Amos, like Hosea! And you know better than many how this 'spirit' informs Christianity. I suppose, I can only suppose, that you are 'beyond all that'. Now, it is the other Blessed One who speaks most clearly to you, and that is cool. But for god-sakes man! Think before you lay in my lap the kind of material that would only come in a dream! 'Alex attempts to embody Shekhinah...' (However, you did make a terrible, terrible error: you wanted this 'shekhinah' to be like some belly-dancing seductress, and you wanted to tie it to the GF contempt for the feminine, and to pin all that on me. You made a huge, a vast, mistake! The Shekhinah is a name that designates a vessel that holds something. But the living Spirit? The essence of Life? The Holy of Holies? Even if you---and I assume you don't (or maybe you in fact do...hmmmm)---but even if you simply viscerally hated all things Jewish and Christian, you could never turn the most sacred, the most mysterious, the most transforming symbol and content of each of them into a bubbly, silly, bounding, unfocused sensual female creature, and ally me with that. What, you want me to just roll over in the face of what is clearly a game on your part?

Do you think that I accept your characterizations of me, Diebert? Really. It is a genuine question. Here's the answer: I don't. Y'all (thanks Trevor, I needed that word) set up a group of characterizations that form the basis of your philosophy. Always a group of choices and exclusions. Your principal 'work', which is noble in so many ways, is just that: setting up dividing lines between things and placing yourselves in specific relationship (to things, to the world). I'm down with a good part of it, at least up to a point.

But, what you can't get, even though you are obviously very bright and have a good, analytical mind (which yet has some notable, and desirable, feminine characteristics: a softness, a kind of 'gentle penetration', the capacity to hold a delicate thing and examine it, thoughtfully)(for example), but what you don't seem to get is exactly what you yourself, of your own accord, pulled from out of a whole world of possibilities to pin on me! The spirit of the Prophets! The Spirit behind...everything. (from a Jewish theological perspective). Something that can only take the shape within a symbol, a burning bush, a Spirit that moves on the water, a holy power that comes out of a cloud. I think that in a significant way, I have always had this feeling, you guys, in your way, try to kill or even strangle something within your own selves, in the name of a grand quest for Truth.

But the people you hold up admiringly, as I understand them, did no such thing! You will allow for no innocence and little play, nor will you allow a fructifying spirit which you don't control in some way, that does not subscribe to rational principals, nor do you allow a kind of musing and relatedness to 'Muse' from which whole worlds of things come into existence. No. Cut. Stop. Focus on the breath. I will give that no life-energy. I have died to all that. Well, you are Buddhist Mountain Sages after all, I guess you can do that if you wish. But I think you make a very costly mistake. You certainly don't have to agree with me, and I know you don't. (I don't write for you or your benefit).

But I say this: The 'Spirit' that is Life and creates life (a way of describing it) does not hang back on the basis of your choices, your concept of sadhana! The Spirit exists and moves, through us, through the world, through Time, through the Universes, in being and in becoming. It is not contained or apprehended by your mind.

There is no place on this forum, and no writer on this forum, who ever expresses this majesty about life. IN THAT SENSE, I SAY, YOU ARE DEAD. You are also ignorant and foolish. But to say this to you, oh man, no, look out! You'd start a war to defend yourselves from that characterization.

How apt therefor! How (unconsciously) brilliant on your part! I salute you! You have revealed to me, independently of me, exactly what I wish to bring you your attention. About which, in truth, one can really say little, unless it were (indeed!) prophetic utterance.

And ALL THIS you did yourself, and all you can think to say is: 'You're a coke-head, Alex'.

[David Quinn]

Nick Treklis wrote about one of Alex's post: "It's like watching a gigantic white puffy cloud come at you, very menacing, disturbing even, but then it hits you, and theres no weight behind it, just a slight breeze."

One could look at Alex's attempt with slightly different eyes as well. Lets not underestimate him and assume he pretty well knows what he's doing. And what is it that I most generously assume he's doing? He's attempting to embody Shekhinah in the realm of this forum.

Most of Alex posts seem to embody willfully, intentionally the feminine aspects. They are lush, inexhaustible, detailed, embellished, well composed in a literate sense. At the same time they lack focus, are rather pointless, full of logical errors and assumption, lighthearted, smiling, winking and joking. The posts are oozing mystery and feminine psychology but never lets anyone to close to the mystery: they often try to inspire believe, awe, anger, any emotion really. Disgust would be good enough to start with.

Why would he do this? From some of his posts it seems rather clear he understands quite a bit of the basic attempts at masculinity on this forum. He's not really disagreeing with what is attempted, it's the how, the strategy where he has a strong deviant view on.

Now Alex could of course lay out his view in logical, point-for-point style but he understood that the core of his message would be lost: he wants people to meet, get exposed to the feminine aspect of reality - the aspect he sees as being dismissed and disregarded here too easily, too quickly.

So he introduces his thinking with the very elements that he believes are strengthening his writing and thinking, his being. No matter how illusive they fundamentally are: he attempts various types of humor, jest, stories, a little drama, a bit of emotional play, some references to different development, hinting strongly thereby at the plurality, the variety of the intellectual and philosophical landscape.

Oh, Alex does understand this forum deeply enough, he just does not agree with it being the best possible approach.

I was more or less agreeing with your observations here, until this last part.

If he truly understood this forum, or indeed had any inkling of what wisdom is about, then his framework of opposition would be very different. It would incorporate this wisdom such that his opposition would begin at a much higher level, dealing with issues that people have to face at the post-enlightenment stage. Instead, his level of opposition begins (and ends) at a pre-spiritual stage.

If we think of the spiritual path as the act of "going through that narrow gate", or as Ramakrishna describes it, "removing the extraneous fibres so that the thread can pass through the eye of the needle", then Alex is the thread that is frayed into a thousand different strands, sitting prettily some distance away.

He has no intention of passing through that eye, never has done. He might have read about it ("heard the words a thousand times"), and perhaps even given it a glance in his younger days, but any thought of him personally going through has long gone.

He has convinced himself that any movement in that direction is "dangerous", "mentally-imprisoning", "adolescent", "dissonant", "death", etc, etc. These aren't the words of a person who knows what it is like to go through that eye and out to the other side. They are the words of someone who has mentally shut himself off from it, and is glad to have done so.

So I see his "Shekhinah" schtick, as you put it, not as a conscious act designed for this particular forum, but rather as a habit of a lifetime, the purpose of which is to permanently shut down the path to understanding and stay safely cocooned within the fog of vagueness and uncertainty. That's his comfort zone. That's where he is at and nothing or no one is going to budge him from it.

Anyway, I've had my fill of him. He is feeding from our attention, getting off on it, becoming more bloated by the minute, and I for one don't have any desire to continue the farce.

-

[David Quinn]

To Diebert: You will allow for no innocence and little play, nor will you allow a fructifying spirit which you don't control in some way, that does not subscribe to rational principals, nor do you allow a kind of musing and relatedness to 'Muse' from which whole worlds of things come into existence. No. Cut. Stop. Focus on the breath. I will give that no life-energy. I have died to all that. Well, you are Buddhist Mountain Sages after all, I guess you can do that if you wish. But I think you make a very costly mistake. You certainly don't have to agree with me, and I know you don't. (I don't write for you or your benefit).

: But I say this: The 'Spirit' that is Life and creates life (a way of describing it) does not hang back on the basis of your choices, your concept of sadhana! The Spirit exists and moves, through us, through the world, through Time, through the Universes, in being and in becoming. It is not contained or apprehended by your mind.

There is no place on this forum, and no writer on this forum, who ever expresses this majesty about life. IN THAT SENSE, I SAY, YOU ARE DEAD. You are also ignorant and foolish. But to say this to you, oh man, no, look out! You'd start a war to defend yourselves from that characterization.

Don't let Alex try and straightjacket you like this, Diebert. If he can't see the passion, reverence (to the majesty of truth), openness, innocence, playfulness and joy in your own posts, and indeed in many of the posters here, then he is even more dull-witted and blinded by his own agenda than I gave him credit for.

-

[Shahrazad]

David said,

Anyway, I've had my fill of him. He is feeding from our attention, getting off on it, becoming more bloated by the minute, and I for one don't have any desire to continue the farce.

Yay!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Well, I gave my most positive interpretation of Alex and a more realistic one, knowing what a little coke habit can do with a good mind over time. The truth is probably in between somewhere. And all to show the futility of a debate some were calling for.

The problem with women today....

[Alex Jacob]

[Ingenius Post No. 659]

One, I don't do 'coke'. I don't use intoxicants, either physically, spiritually, or mentally. I am engaged every day---basically all the time---with philosophical and literary issues. I have confessed---I have interwoven my posts with direct confessions---that what I do in many of my posts is to take what 'you' throw at me, embellish it, and send it right back at you. Being none-too-bright and easily baitable, 'you' never seem to get it.

David writes:

"If he truly understood this forum, or indeed had any inkling of what wisdom is about, then his framework of opposition would be very different. It would incorporate this wisdom such that his opposition would begin at a much higher level, dealing with issues that people have to face at the post-enlightenment stage. Instead, his level of opposition begins (and ends) at a pre-spiritual stage."

I have also made myself very clear over the months: I do not accept your definition of 'enlightenment'. When you describe what this 'enlightenment' is, it does not sit well with me. One way to speak about that is to refer to Jewish sages who, in my opinion, are far more advanced than 'you' (as sort of paper sages, image-managed sages). They exist within a worldy context, and don't even use the word 'enlightenment' that I am aware of. Their concept of advancement, spiritually, takes place within a fullness of life, a relationship to life, love, freindliness, service, study, and the daily practice of ethics. The Jewish ideal, in this sense (as I have explained) is not vertical, it is rather horizontal. It expands from side to side.

Now, you could make reference within this division to a 'coke habit', and you could say that the quest for 'enlightenment' is the coke habit, but staying on the earth, with one's feet on the ground, engaged in study and service, but also within relationships---that is the opposite to the 'drug-habit'.

So, my framework of opposition is exactly what it needs to be to express what I understand about spirituality, and also about life. Actually, I would rephrase what you wrote: I would say you are unable to understand any part of what I say because you cannot understand the relevance and the importance of dealing with all the levels of a man's life, and not just this upper region that you possess.

"If we think of the spiritual path as the act of "going through that narrow gate", or as Ramakrishna describes it, "removing the extraneous fibres so that the thread can pass through the eye of the needle", then Alex is the thread that is frayed into a thousand different strands, sitting prettily some distance away."

I define both preparing the thread, the passing of the thread, and the needle's eye very differently than you. This is the precise core of our differences. In the sense that I am speaking about, Ramakrishna is a junkie. I would much rather spend my time with people who define and share values similar to the Jewish sages than I would with people attracted to a kind of 'leavibng the planet' in a space-ship of enlightenment. But, it is not at all that I would (on the basis of a characterization, a polarity establsihed within words) reject Ramakrishna.

"He has no intention of passing through that eye, never has done. He might have read about it ("heard the words a thousand times"), and perhaps even given it a glance in his younger days, but any thought of him personally going through has long gone."

If you are an example of 'passing through that eye', and the neurosis that is often expressed by practicants of your philosophy, then yes, I do not wish to pass through it. But, that does not mean that I dismiss you (what you think and do) in absolute terms. Or that I do not conceive of a 'needles' eye'. That would be foolish. Rather, I recommend a careful sifting through your ideas and your philosophy, and say that these ideas must be put to an 'acid test'. The question of what exactly is that 'acid test'---what are the elements of a critical position in respect to you---is a very large question. Much of what I have written has dealt with that. Much of it is good writing, clearly expressed. No flourishes, no embellishment, and no maddened Macaw biting on your noses.

When I say I have 'heard it a hundred times' what I mean is that I have seen the results in people who have launched themselves into paths similar to yours: those who unrealistically cut themselves off from the foundations, in more or less exactly the way I described above. It is a significant difference, therefor. If we are even going to speak of 'enlightenment' (or enlightened values, or what-have-you), it must take place within the structure of the 'complete person'. A complete, functional life. You seem to ask that people sacrifice too much (the Moloch I've mentioned a few times). My opposition to you has not been 'scortched earth' but has, in fact, been quite precise. To even mention opposition here, though, is to invite a collective stone-throwing festival at the hands of the adolescent males. (And to say this, to use these terms, is simply unacceptable to you!)

What I decide to 'go through', i.e. what I have decided is relevant and valid, which values I privelage and which trump the druggy highs you seem to recommend (cutting yourself off from your foundation), is beyond your reach. That is, the reach of your understanding. For that reason, I am an irritating, bothersome presence for you. I can't be left standing, I must be 'taken down', but no one of you can do it.

"He has convinced himself that any movement in that direction is "dangerous", "mentally-imprisoning", "adolescent", "dissonant", "death", etc, etc. These aren't the words of a person who knows what it is like to go through that eye and out to the other side. They are the words of someone who has mentally shut himself off from it, and is glad to have done so."

You cannot even understand what I am talking about, and what exactly I call 'dangerous' or 'dissonant'. You don't understand what I mean by 'death' because you don't understand what I mean by life. You are locked into a fixed way of understanding your defintion of enlightenment, and what sacrifice it requires, such that what I propose to you can only be received as the rambling of a lunatic. OTOH, I have an understanding of the Eastern traditions, and have, in my way, felt and integrated something about 'enlightenment'. And, what was recommended to me is that I return to my life and LIVE IT. That I seek ways to express enlightened values in the course of living, which includes: relationships, work, social activities, artistic activities. The main focus is and should always be spirit, knowledge, learning, etc. But it is folly to forget or cast aside love, feeling, relatedness, and relationship (in so many senses) within context.

In no sense have I 'mentally shut myself off'. I am here, completely present in this dialog. No part of it has slipped by me. I try, in this sense, to provide an example to confront what I consider, in you, megalomania. It is very important, I say, to have some skills to deal with the tendency to obsess, and it is a common psychological ailment that people launch themselves into their obsessions. I assert that this is some part of the case with you-all. Nevertheless, I qualify these harsh statements: I do not in any sense reject your views or accomplishments, not categorically. My critique is far finer than you let on. And, I am aware who my 'audience' is, and I try to speak to them as we both fix our eyes on 'you'. Capiche?

"So I see his "Shekhinah" schtick, as you put it, not as a conscious act designed for this particular forum, but rather as a habit of a lifetime, the purpose of which is to permanently shut down the path to understanding and stay safely cocooned within the fog of vagueness and uncertainty. That's his comfort zone. That's where he is at and nothing or no one is going to budge him from it."

No, the game I play on this forum is just a game. You are the perfect 'victims' of this game because so many of you are fundamentally lop-sided. You don't get the sarcasm, you cannot allow the ironical portrayals, and all on the sudden the game becomes very, very serious for you. It becomes one of 'mortal opposition'. (*laughs*) What is far more relevant here is your need and insistance, quite obsessive, to never actually register and process the criticisms I offer in simple, direct, discursive prose, and to focu only on the color and the flurry of a character I invented to deal with inflation and obsession. I don't think you can distinguish the two. You have, from the beginning (this must be understood) sought to portray me in certain ways, as you do all you oppose. My strategy, therefor, was to 'take it all on', and to show you that, in some ways, this was all your own stuff. I did it with GLEE!

The Spirirt came upon me mightily and I did prophecy before the garrison of the philistines!

"Anyway, I've had my fill of him. He is feeding from our attention, getting off on it, becoming more bloated by the minute, and I for one don't have any desire to continue the farce."

You are so funny! You put all this stuff on me, I take it and dance for you, then you get contemptuous of your own mutual creation, and then you cast me aside, a poor, rejected, downtrodden and unloved macaw!

You are a cruel man!

[Robert]

No, the game I play on this forum is just a game. You are the perfect 'victims' of this game because so many of you are fundamentally lop-sided. You don't get the sarcasm, you cannot allow the ironical portrayals, and all on the sudden the game becomes very, very serious for you. It becomes one of 'mortal opposition'.

Alex, your posts are temazepam for the eyes.

[Alex Jacob]

“Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew.”

---Guillaume Apollinaire

«Je suis partisan acharné d’exclure l’intervention de l’intelligence, c’est-à-dire de la philosophie et de la logique dans les manifestations de l’art. L’art doit avoir pour fondement la sincérité de l’émotion et la spontanéité de l’expression : l’une et l’autre sont en relation directe avec la vie qu’elles s’efforcent de magnifier esthétiquement»

M. Robert: Ne pas me mélanger avec d'autres médicaments ou d'autres produits.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

I have confessed---I have interwoven my posts with direct confessions---that what I do in many of my posts is to take what 'you' throw at me, embellish it, and send it right back at you. Being none-too-bright and easily baitable, 'you' never seem to get it.

It's called smoke and mirrors. Remember, back when I started paying attention to you, when I quoted one of your posts in its entirety and nothing else?

Well, I suppose nobody here ever gets what you're doing. We also don't get sarcasm.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Alex, your posts are temazepam for the eyes.

Ah, I see another person has read and seen through the eyes of some of the wisest men in history, and then read through the eyes of Alex.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Alex, I'll make this somewhat fair, since I did kind of figure out what you were doing immediately, and then told everyone as explicitly as I could without you -- the arrogant fool -- figuring it out. I was doing something called "playing possum". Next time you see it, don't be a fucking idiot.

Congratulations, wiseass, you are now wiser.

(Oh, and by the way, I'd be willing to bet you are the only person reading this thread that this comes as a shock to.)

[Alex Jacob]

He estado estafado!

I really do appreciate your 'somewhat fairness', given the circumstances. Embarrassing to say the least.

Trevor, you devil! I remember now you playing this lesson on someone else, and you emailed the other people about it, me included, and then just laughed and laughed. And now look: I thought I was being all clever and...I fell in the trap!

'Playing possum'. I'm gonna remember that.

[Carl G]

May I suggest that you cease taking me so seriously? You don't like what I say or the way I say it. So don't read it! Disengage. There are dozens of other people here for 'serious conversation'.

Or, I could continue my art critiquing as I see fit and you could choose to simply ignore me.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Alex, I wouldn't have said anything if you had a snowball's chance in hell of surviving it. Recall, I said what your own revelation would be three pages before you did to everyone but you. I did not have to email them. It was easy. Like everything that happens here, I said it in such a way that it went right over your head.

Since then, in mere days, I've figured out more about you -- good and bad -- than you have humbled yourself to learn in fifty fucking years. And, quite frankly, you have no fucking idea what I actually want to hear from you. If you dedicated yourself to wisdom right now, maybe starting with something simple like A=A, you might be able to figure it out before senility sets in.

Never mind all this. How about you just crawl in a hole and die.

[Loki]

Seriously guys, you are giving way too much attention to the clown. Why not start some interesting threads and just ignore the people you think suck?

You all look so small down there. Come on back up.

[Tomas]

Seriously guys, you are giving way too much attention to the clown. Why not start some interesting threads and just ignore the people you think suck?

You all look so small down there. Come on back up.

Perhaps you could point out why Alex is a clown/sucks. Care to take him on in The Crucible?