Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

[DHodges]

Matthew 10:34
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Luke 12:51
Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Luke 22:36
He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

[Animus]

The Meaning of the Cross?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcF8D-5XYcE

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Matthew 10:34
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. (...)

Of course the same literature provides: "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." Matthew 5:38-42, NIV

Just to say, Hodges. Are you actually planning for a more militant lifestyle? I'd only wonder what you're actually trying to uphold or protect with such activist leanings.

By the way Luke 22:36 and context probably speaks of usual very minimal travel equipment of those days: bags, pouches, knives and so on. When the disciples show him two knives or swords Jesus exclaims "enough!". To protect a whole group against a hostile environment with two weapons would be insane so be careful how to interpret such text. The division, the double-edged sword of truth is a whole different thing. It cuts both ways, imprison or set free. And the same book also writes: "for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." (Mat 26:52).

While you can cherry pick texts all you want of course, it might be interesting to try to understand possible consistency here, if any. Or just toss the whole thing.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Question: What message, Delbert, would you wish to inscribe into my flesh-consciousness? I am here learning something, to be sure, but I can't quite put it into words...

Didn't Tomhargen ask the same thing basically, in the other thread? Or is he's just one of your dozens of masks you're using in your own private Greek tragedy? Whatever, it only serves further exposition.

As for the inscribing, the right question would be: "what would you wish to take away from my flesh-consciousness?". If I could I'd take away quite a lot, like a thief in the night but I don't have that power. And even if I could, you appear to be so married with your richness, your accomplishments in certain intellectual or psychological arenas that any removal would cause instant death or decline. This is obviously not the goal here.

[paco]

I think I just violated myself being in this forum!

God is something we look at as eternal. Once the gods were created then there was time. Our solar systems still cannot comprehend that.

[Bob Michael]

To mention a few men that I've long and carefully studied: J. Krishnamurti, U. G. Krishnamurti, Osho, Eckhart Tolle, Franklin Jones, Bill Wilson, Nietzsche, and Gopi Krishna have all gone through radical transformative experiences that rendered them for a time quite dysfunctional (while often suffering various physical and emotional problems and difficulties much like Paul did) so far as normal daily living was concerned.

I failed to mention Gurdjieff in my list here. Not so much for having had a radical tranformative or rebirth experience (as I've never ran across anything in this regard), but for having had an exceptional childhood and surely being in that rare state of mind, heart, and being. Perhaps he was a once-born type. Though in any case he seemed to have come to the end of his days with his hands pretty much up in the air, much like the rest of them.

Bob M.

[Bob Michael]

Matthew 10:34
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

He who lives by the sword, shall die by the sword (or perhaps even worse yet)???

"We have ceased fighting anything or anyone."
(Alcoholics Anonymous 'Big Book' - Page 84)

Bob M.

[Talking Ass]

Diebert, the message you would inscribe into my flesh-consciousness, the punishment you would inflict, therefor, is Become Less of What You Are! Or, Cut Away What Others Regard as Superfluous!
____________________________________________________

Mr Michael,

Thanks for your response. Will try to get back to it soon.

[Bob Michael]

Mr Michael,

Thanks for your response. Will try to get back to it soon.

You're quite welcome TA. I've enjoyed the exercise. Such activity helps me continue to learn and grow along spiritual lines. Meanwhile I shall remain busy re-examining the life of St. Paul some more. As he once alluded to, I find that 'renewing' the long and wrongly-conditioned heart and mind takes lots of study and relearning. Self-discovery and re-creation is surely not an overnight nor an unending matter. Even after the radical shift in conscience or consciousness takes place, there's much work to be done. At least this has been and continues to be my experience.

Bob M.

[skipair]

Diebert, the message you would inscribe into my flesh-consciousness, the punishment you would inflict, therefor, is Become Less of What You Are! Or, Cut Away What Others Regard as Superfluous!

My life was very easy before I started this, but the punishment I now inflict upon myself is Question More of What You Are, and Critically Consider What Others Regard as Superfluous. The punishment is in a lack of freedom to be myself, because questioning myself usually leads to more questions, not answers. At the same time, I do feel that I'm growing.

[dysfunctionalgenius]

Comfort is instinctive thus justified, it is the dogma thats negates it

[DHodges]

Just to say, Hodges. Are you actually planning for a more militant lifestyle? I'd only wonder what you're actually trying to uphold or protect with such activist leanings.

No, I was indeed cherry-picking some quotes that present Jesus as not being the pacifist presented in other texts. You really can not say much from the Bible that isn't contradicted some where else. Thinking you know the "true Jesus" is dumb. The Bible CANNOT be read without interpretation.

While you can cherry pick texts all you want of course, it might be interesting to try to understand possible consistency here, if any. Or just toss the whole thing.

My preference is to toss the whole thing. I don't understand why the Bible is treated with the high regard it is. It's just not that good, as history, as philosophy, as morality...
I understand the view of people in other countries is different, because they are not surrounded by nitwits who take the whole thing as literal truth, specifying the King James Version as somehow coming directly from the mouth of God. They probably don't have several TV channels devoted to it. Maybe they don't have snake handlers, speaking in tongues and faith healing (all supported by Bible passages, of course).

That's the Christianity I see. I don't even see how anyone could get comfort out of it.

[paco]

The way I see it, religion is just a "teddy-bear" for adults. People believe blindly without questioning, which is exactly how movements like Nazi-ism began. Believe what you are told, ask no questions. Religion is just something to give people comfort, so that they can sleep every night. Because the idea that there is no "great, omnipotent being" is just too much of a mental burden for some people, and they can't live with the fact knowing that everything is up to them. I believe religion was invented by several of the social elite centuries ago, to make people behave the way the elite want them to. What better way to make people behave than to make them believe if they live good lives, they get a false reward and at the same time if they do not choose to follow it, there will be dire consequences in the form of "eternal torture in the depths of hell". Just think about how many human accomplishments have been credited to "God". Wrong, that was all you, the human who started and finished the great accomplishment, stop giving some invisible man credit for everything you do. Also, more people have been tortured and killed in the name of religion than anything else. Assuming for a second that religion wasn't made for that purpose, even if there was a "God" his message has been greatly skewed and corrupted many times over due to "organized Christianity". Even if at first it had noble beginnings, the Vatican and other similarly led groups, ruined it even more.

Logic can be totally discomforting for the individual. Religion makes it comfortable.

[paco]

Comfort is instinctive thus justified, it is the dogma thats negates it

I totally agree with this.

[paco]

Bob Marley wrote,

" Buffallo soldier,
In the heart of america!!! Buffallo soldier
From the heart of the carribbeans."

It is more practical to listen to the music then to endulge in the infiinite.

[Talking Ass]

My life was very easy before I started this, but the punishment I now inflict upon myself is Question More of What You Are, and Critically Consider What Others Regard as Superfluous. The punishment is in a lack of freedom to be myself, because questioning myself usually leads to more questions, not answers. At the same time, I do feel that I'm growing.

On forums like this, when one comes into an authentic one, if such a thing is possible, one comes into contact with others and one can receive feedback on one's ideas and attitudes that lead to changes. All well and good as far as it goes. There is no doubt that in my own case I have received benefit from the process and that is why I consider this a worthy site, overall. When we enter into genuine conversations with others we have a chance to look at ourselves, see ourselves objectively. But there is another aspect too, and that is where we grow or make changes despite what others say or recommend. It is the same process of seeing ourselves relationally but instead of emulating others we see the need to avoid choices they have made. This site has been and still is very valuable to me, but not for reasons that the Founders would be happy for. The benefits have been extraordinary for me.

[Talking Ass]

Yes, many have ears to hear, but the key here again is to have a mind/heart that can deeply feel. A finely-formed mind/brain and sensory system. Intuitive mechanism, if you will. Which is either developed or destroyed in us in the early and critical formative years of life, and I'll address further further along.

You seem to equate "ears to hear" with a kind of naturalism. It seems to have a Rousseauesque feel to it. I get the impression you are longing for the "natural man" who is capable of hearing the Divine correctly. One problem is that, if we believe the stories and their context, and even considering Saul-Paul as one of the first Christians, the Christian message is received by 'the sick' and the unwell, on all levels. Those who need a doctor. One possible meaning is that especially when one has been battered and beaten up by life, or is in a downward spiral, only then can one 'hear' what 'God' is 'saying'. It is not a conversation with a Nietzschean Superman.

Paul was a fine man. He experienced a revolutionary awakening/enlightenment experience on the road to Damascus, which rendered him blind and without thirst or appetite for three days. Which unfortunately he, like Christ, never thoroughly investigated, understood, and prioritized, as was the case with nearly all the heretofore 'masters'.

It is hard to say what he did and didn't do, really. When I read his letters I am always impressed by how much of a person is there, and how much of it comes through. Based on that, I would say quite the opposite of you. He may indeed have done substantial work on himself in relation to his visions. But, according to his time period and his capabilities. It seems you want to revise him or retrofit him, which cannot be done. You have to limit yourself to his context, his time, his capabilities, his limitations.

In respect to Jesus Christ, it is completely impossible to know much about him, what he thought, what he did or didn't do. Aside from a few quotes everything is anecdotal and dependant on other people. Jesus Christ (the historical Yeshua) is rather unknowable, but what about the "Christ of Experience"? Just like Paul, any Christian can have and does have a direct experience of Christ in the inner, emotional-psychic-psychological-visionary plane. That has been going on for ages and still goes on. How can one even talk about it? What is happening there?

He also got far too hung up on the resurrection business and never quite had Christ rightly pegged. He was however surely courageous (and foolish) enough to preach to the multitudes. Though sooner or later he got thrown out of every church or town he spoke in. Yet he never quite got the message. That being that a 'saint' or a genuine self-overcomer is never welcomed in another man's church, town, or organization. Rather he should focus on building his own Ark, so to speak. One wherein the power of Truth alone runs the show and it also keeps its mind/focus pretty much on its own business. Though back then there wasn't enough truth and wisdom yet available for such a successful enterprise or undertaking. So sooner or later, and usually sooner, 'the gates of hell' successfully prevailed against all such attempts. Nor was there yet the necessary means of cleansing the planet of the huge multitude of the neurologically malformed.

With all respects, this is a group of knotty ideas you bring up, and all of it is debatable. If Christianity is not about 'resurrection' in all those possible connotations, I don't know what it is. To die to an old shell and come alive in a new body, with new possibilities, is the very essence of the Christian message. It is one reason why the 'story' is so vital, so powerful, so replicating: it touches on very old death and rebirth myths, but also hinges in a psychological 'fact': regeneration.

Christianity is 'preaching to the masses'. That is what it started as and what it remained. It has to do with extending a message, and the message can take different forms but still remains 'energetically cohesive'. In its best form it is like a life-raft to people who are submerged in non-productive living. It is an opportunity to shift awareness, to integrate oneself with people who are living more purely and sanely, and to work in common toward certain goals. Truthfully, you seem unaware or unconcerned with the 'spirit' of the Biblical God: always deeply concerned for the poor, the outsider. Again, not your Nietzschean Superman. Apparently (if there is a personal God) this cultivator of persons has a different agenda than what we might suppose. The basic message is: serve my purposes and not your own vain purposes. True, there is no good reason why a Christian cannot work toward the Higher Purposes of civilized life, but I don't think he can abandon his 'context' and dismiss it. There is a very delicate balance here, for a "God" that is very demanding.

Isaiah 55:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,
declares the LORD.

As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

So is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

It is a very interesting idea: that the power or potency of "God" is a force and a will that is distinct from human will. That something has been set in motion in human life and consciousness that is independent if not incomprehensible to man. We can participate in it but we cannot decide what it is, or direct it, or control it, or dole it out to others.

Also, Paul was amazingly successful. A whole movement was set in motion, with undeniable results. We can go back and try to retro-fit it, or revise it, or critique it, but it was 'successful' insofar as it caught on. True, the later Church can be criticized for many reasons, but even then it was still very successful for a wide group of reasons. Our whole civilized world has originated in the work of the early Church and the governmental structure of Rome.

Nor was there yet the necessary means of cleansing the planet of the huge multitude of the neurologically malformed.

No comment. ;-)

Though reading it caused me to again ponder on the matter. Christ really never said all that much on the subject, nor did he seem to truly understand it either. Though his line that unless a man is born again he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven is definitely right on. The Kingdom of Heaven being right here - right now. And just as Nietzsche rightly said, it's a state of the heart - not something to come beyond the world or after death. And personally I know very well the experience of being in that Kingdom of Heaven. That new and wonderful manner of seeing, hearing, feeling, and experiencing things when the mind is still and the heart is pure ('like a little child'). Wherein the old world of fear, doubt, insecurity, anger, resentments, etc. falls away and a new world of Love, harmony, peace of mind, perfection, and right or conflict-free action comes into being. And this is the goal and the reward of a genuine rebirth.

Well, there is that one quote: "Thou Shalt cleanse the planet of the huge multitude of the neurologically malformed", which fits here nicely. If we get rd of them we will finally have love, harmony, peace of mind and perfection. Yay! Can't wait!

Probably many of us have a sense of being in an elevated state of consciousness and we can well understand what Jesus may have meant (if and when) he said it. But that is only one part of things. Even if you have some dramatic experience you are still going to have to live your life, in your body, make a living, do this and do that, make choices, live and die in a terrestrial frame. Having the vision does not change at all the problem.
_______________________________________________________

You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.

Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the LORD's renown,
for an everlasting sign,
which will not be destroyed.

[Bob Michael]

Well, there is that one quote: "Thou Shalt cleanse the planet of the huge multitude of the neurologically malformed", which fits here nicely. If we get rid of them we will finally have love, harmony, peace of mind and perfection. Yay! Can't wait!

I wouldn't be too anxious here, my friend. If we can't or won't fully tune in and follow the Master Plan, we may very well perish with them.

More to come later upon reflection.

Bob M.

[Blair]

We must do what we are here to do. Ugly as it may seem, we must do it.

We are brothers.

[Bob Michael]

It seems to have a Rousseauesque feel to it. I get the impression you are longing for the "natural man" who is capable of hearing the Divine correctly. One problem is that, if we believe the stories and their context, and even considering Saul-Paul as one of the first Christians, the Christian message is received by 'the sick' and the unwell, on all levels. Those who need a doctor. One possible meaning is that especially when one has been battered and beaten up by life, or is in a downward spiral, only then can one 'hear' what 'God' is 'saying'. It is not a conversation with a Nietzschean Superman.

Rousseau? 'Men are born free, yet everywhere they're in chains'. Much like 'the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation' as per Thoreau. Yet I wonder how many men fully realize this is their present fallen 'human, all-too-human' condition? Didn't Kierkegaard say most men live in despair yet don't realize or sense this at all? I didn't really know any of these things in all absoluteness (though I definitely smelled a rat in it all, much like Nietzsche, since my earliest days) until my conversion or awakening experiences began to take place at mid-life (having plunged to a bottom on that 'downward spiral') and was then well along the path of self-abandonment. Which took time. Since the universally insane, violent, and chaotic human growing soil (society) in time had this extraordinarliy finely-formed and sensitive soul quite sick or unwell, in need of a 'doctor', as you say.

A sick soul who needed to begin to hear what 'God' was saying, as you also say. But putting God aside here, I might also say I needed to begin to hear what my true innermost heart, human instincts, or authentic self were trying to say, what direction they were trying to lead me in. Reminding me here of the old line that no man has known God who has not first known himself. Making (authentic) self and God realization one and the same thing. And making life's only goal of any value that of being true to thine own self. Which is the greatest of challenges for one, like myself, who rather innocently and choicelessly fell into the role of being a sheep, a conformist to the everywhere fallen scheme of things. The journey being one of letting the long encultured inner sheep die while letting the innately developed and preserved inner lion be fully reborn. And doing WHATEVER it takes to accomplish this end. BTW, Nietzsche spoke of the need for doctors and nurses who were once sick themselves, and then went on to become victorious self-overcomers. Remembering here too that if one were to be a man he must surely be a non-conformist, as per Emerson.

Interestingly the book of Revelation too speaks of "he that overcometh." That he "shall inherit ALL things" including gaining residency in the "Holy City". Which I find is the same as being in the kingdom of Heaven, or that "New and Wonderful World" Bill W. spoke of in the AA 'Big Book' - page 100. And obtainable right here and now. Indeed the truth is virtually everywhere for those few who are able to develop the 'feel' for it. And what a joy life can be when all the pieces of the puzzle finally fit together. Save for the accompanying heart-wrenching realization that virtually no one else has their puzzle together, nor are they at all well along the way either. Not to mention that many unfortunately are not gifted with possessing all the pieces.

Actually there were many times over the years that I thought for certain that I had all the pieces of life's puzzle together, only to find out in time that this wasn't the case. But rather there was more footwork to be done. More need for soul-searching and more deeply understanding my fellows and the human condition along with more hard knocks, change, and further testing of my spiritual growth and development in relationship. Though for the past two years, since retiring fully, getting rid of my car, and thereby having absolutely no worldly obligations or entanglements of any significance whatsoever, and having spent endless hours and hours writing, speaking and listening to others, and reading and studying all sorts of books (many for dozens of times), I feel as though I'm finally a fit servant of God, Life, or Evolution (take your pick). Though personally and generally I do acknowledge and give the glory to God.

I shall dump Paul here, since, just as with Christ, without having a genuine conversion experience take place and then embarking on the journey of self-discovery all one will have at best is mere ideas or opinions about them and others with no true understanding of them. Which may make good food for endless debate or argument, but will help little, if anything, in regards to gaining Kingdom entry or becoming fully human, fully alive, fully man, fully spirit. Which is where I must too remember to keep the focus, as I can still fall into unfruitful grandstanding and petty and self-serving games of one-upsmanship at times. Especially since I'm definitely 'there' (on that other shore - or in the Kingdom). Not that I'm perfect in my every word, thought, and deed, but that my mind has been transformed and renewed, meaning it's no longer operating largely via self-protective/self-aggrandizing (fear-based) thought, but rather that its operating intuitively, rightly, or spontaneously and without conflict, fear, or self-seeking. Along with it possessing a capacity for all-knowingness and all-feelingness (all perceivingness).

So summing it up, the goal, the challenge, the ideal is to perfectly do the will of God ("Thy will be done") as you and Christ allude to, or the will of evolution, if you will. However in order to fully do this one must be void of all self-will, or self-centeredness. And this is the necessary footwork. Being or becoming evermore self-critically aware of what words and actions of ours spring from self will and what words and actions manifest from the greater will or the will of Love.

You end your post by say "having the vision does not change at all the problem." This is so, however, LIVING the vision (or actually aligning oneself with the greater will or the master plan) solves everything. And there does exist for a few the possibility of fully overcoming both the inauthentic self and the world and all its violent and self-centered (dog-eat-dog) activity. And if this should ever take place perfectly in one person, he will save the species, or again let's say a small portion thereof. As surely Christ nor innumerable other 'enlightened' beings didn't succeed in this task, as history clearly reveals. So as Aurobindo's sidekick (The Mother) said, "It is not a crucified but a glorified body that will save the world."

And speaking of Aurobindo (who also envisioned the coming 'Superman'), or better yet letting him speak: "If mankind only caught a glimpse of what infinite enjoyments, what perfect forces, what luminous reaches of spontaneous knowledge, what wide calms of being lie waiting for us in the tract which animal evolution has not yet conquered, they would leave all behind and never rest till they had gained these treasures." Though he, like the rest of the 'masters', didn't fully realize that most of humankind were constitutionally incapable of attaining to the state of liberation and new being that he did.

Bob M.

[Bob Michael]

We must do what we are here to do. Ugly as it may seem, we must do it.
We are brothers.

Yes indeed! The Brethren of Free Spirits!

And 'the higher we free spirits soar, the smaller we appear to the herd, the multitude, below.'

Thus spaketh brother Friedrich and I.

Bob M.

[Bob Michael]

For MANY are called, but FEW are chosen.....

"The man who is completely "me", there is no awakening in him.....He probably makes up eighty percent of the world, more perhaps, ninety percent."

"A mind that is simple will understand perfection because it is part of perfection itself. A mind that is crooked cannot understand the Truth."

"We have our roots in the earth, which we have and must have, but we cling or crawl on the earth; only a *few* soar into the skies. They are the only creative and happy people. The rest spoil and destroy each other on this lovely earth, by hurt and likewise gossip."

"A man who loves is dangerous, and we do not want to live dangerously; we want to live efficiently, we want to live merely in the framework of organization because we think organizations are going to bring order and peace in the world."

(A few 'enlightening' goodies by brother J. Krishnamurti)

Bob M.

[Bob Michael]

For MANY are called, but FEW are chosen.....

Brothers Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard on the subject:

"Everyone who has awakened from the first dream of youth will realize, if his judgement is not paralyzed, that this world is the kingdom of chance and error, of folly and wickedness. Hence everything better only struggles through with difficulty. What is noble and wise seldom attains to expression. The absurd and perverse in thought, the dull and tasteless in art, the wicked and deceitful in action, assert a real supremacy broken only by brief interuptions. In vain the sufferer calls on his gods for help. This irremediable evil is only the mirror of the will, of which himself is the objectification. To me, optimism, when it is not merely the thoughtless verbalizing of those who have nothing but words under their low foreheads, is not merely absurd; it is wicked. It is a bitter mockery of the unspeakable misery of mankind. To me, as to the writers of the Gospels, the 'world' and 'evil' are almost synonymous terms." [Arthur Schopenhauer]


"Most people never attain to faith. For a long time they live on in immediateness and finally they attain to a certain amount of reflection, and so they die. The exceptions begin the other way round, from childhood up dialectical, i.e., without immediateness, they begin with dialectics, with reflection and in that way live on year after year (just about as long as others live in the immediate) and then, at a ripe age, the possibility of faith shows itself to them. For faith is immediateness after reflection. The exceptions, naturally, have a very unhappy childhood and youth; for to be essentially reflective at an age which is naturally immediate, is the depths of melancholy. But they are recompensed; for most people do not succeed in becoming spirit, and all of their fortunate years of their immediateness are, where spirit is concerned, a loss and therefore they never attain to spirit. But the unhappy childhood and youth of the exception is transfigured into spirit." [Soren Kierkegaard]

Bob M.

[brokenhead]

The exceptions, naturally, have a very unhappy childhood and youth; for to be essentially reflective at an age which is naturally immediate, is the depths of melancholy. But they are recompensed; for most people do not succeed in becoming spirit, and all of their fortunate years of their immediateness are, where spirit is concerned, a loss and therefore they never attain to spirit. But the unhappy childhood and youth of the exception is transfigured into spirit." [Soren Kierkegaard]

And yet as parents, most people strive to make the childhood of their young as happy as possible.

I think SK is oversimplifying things, possibly because he saw himself as one of the "exceptions." It seems to me in this world a happy childhood stands one in good stead in later years. I agree a fully developed person will have had periods where life seems to bring on those "depths of melancholy," but I don't think you can take this quote as being any kind of recipe for what kind of environment you want to provide for your children. "Yes, I deliberately make my kids' life as miserable as I can. They'll thank me for it later, once they have had time to reflect."

[Diebert van Rhijn]

It's obviously more a matter of those very unhappy environments being created by caretakers who themselves miss the reflectiveness and live in immediacy or perhaps even willful ignorance.

At the same time, this statement of Kierkegaard cannot help ignoring the common tendency to escape in protective shells like literature or inner worlds which is easier to do in the hyper-child friendly 20th century Ameuropalia than it was in early 19th century Denmark. Still, hiding in a safe 'bomb shelter' would still count as a form of melancholy although a more happy form of it.

The times are changing again though and the uniformity and confrontation with adult idiocy is introduced at an increasingly younger age, in my observation.