LastThursday

My god. I think this combines all my fetishes into one: Notes for future self: talk about Fetish don't be shy.

Dont encourage us!!! Stick to the thread topic. I'm a very bad example. Sigh.

--> This is exactly the sort of thing I complained about in another thread. Mindless thread derailing. Sorry folks I'm a devilish hypochrite. What's my forfeit? Anyway... <-- So much "projecting" on this forum. But hey why not, I look forward to it. Shall we synchonise midnights?

How much influence do you have on other people? It's easy to think that the answer is: very little. Maybe we're just mostly self-centred selfish narcisisstic creatures? We want and feel that all influence flows inwards from the "out there", to our particular centre of the universe. The reality is a little different. Our very makeup is one of accretion and disorganisation. Bits and pieces of stuff from the out there stick to us and over time build us up to be who we are now. We are never a unified whole but a constantly shifting shimmering mirage of sand dunes and heat. We are built this way from nothing at all. Our complex selfs are then completely made of others. There's nothing original about us, other than the novel constant interplay of our stolen parts. We are all then made 100% of influences outside our control. The flipside of the Frankenstein is that we constantly influence everyone we meet, whether we want to or not. Every interaction not only changes you, but changes them too. And in their turn they will pass your influence to more, until those six degrees of separation are saturated with your influence. The irony is that we're mostly too dumb to realise our immense power and influence, we can't wrap out feeble cobbled minds around it. But there is something other than mind that can impress your influence on you. That thing is pure awareness. An awareness that you don't just exist here and now in this one body, but you are spread and diffused into the 7 billion. Use that influence with responsibility and awareness.

Yikes! I'll wear the heels then? Do you like red? But to be really serious now - must concentrate... What do I really really want? I want complete mental calm, all the time. I want to flow with life instead of feeling constant friction. And I want to break out of my repetitive mundane inhumane "adult" existence. And I want reality to be magical and liberating.

@Mikael89 ditto. There's definitely a market for an app that combines those two things: 5'7" or under (in heels), hair preference: 1.blonde, 2.brunette (jet black), 3.redhead, 4.mousy, can make babies, multilingual (speaks the language of love), at least SD Green or above, within 50 miles, sense of humour optional, must be enlightened or at least have seen the Ox's tail. That's probably why I don't have a girlfriend... And I'll also stop trolling. Sorry. My bad. Carry on.

@integral I agree it's a good idea. That would probably go some way to stopping mindless comments. I think the wording you gave would need to be made very brief and concise - otherwise people won't bother to read it (and it may not work well on mobile devices). However, self policing won't work all the time, the rowdy ones will just ignore it.

My own pet theory is that it's to do with reading. When we're children we don't have brain chatter. Instead, we just talk out loud in an uninhibited way. Our parents hear us and respond to us. Then we learn to read and we are progressively encouraged to read to "ourselves" as we get older. We are also discouraged from just blurting out everything that comes to mind. So our external dialogue slowly gets turned into hallucinatory internal monologue. The problem with internal monologue is that we never get a response to it - so there's never any natural resolution. We go to therapy so that we can externalise our dialogue again and get some resolution.

Some system or other for stopping interesting topics degenerating into two people arguing or chatting about uninteresting crap. It's so boring and uninteresting. Or at least a way to keep topics on track - but I know that's like herding cats. EDIT Programmer head on: let the poster have the option to limit replies from each individual to say, three comments. That will focus minds. The topic has some icon or other indicating "limited replies in force".

It seems odd to me that there was a time when I only knew Spanish. At the age of six I had to learn a new language: English. But I already had an ear for it as my dad would sometimes talk in English to me and my sister. But there's not much to think about when you're six, just food and play. I can't say I think in Spanish at all. But I have a love of words and languages because of it - I'm trying to pick up Swedish. Sadly, the only inkling of my Spanishness now is when my name trips people up and I suddenly switch into a different tongue.

There's no "i" in "me". Please, please, dear god never use that on this forum.

These are just some of my favourite things: Open fires The first sip of a pint of beer on a hot day Restaurant food The sea and the beach Making people laugh Being a little drunk at parties Walking, walking, walking Symbols and signs and maths and computers Showing off Sarcasm and irony Playing music, making music, listening to music Electronic music 80's music Unplanned days on holiday The first time I unbutton my lover's top That first kiss Thinking about hard complicated nitty gritty things Finding an answer Being the smartest one in the room Beautiful people Beautiful faces Talented people Going above and beyond for people I love Being non-judgemental Leading by example Good tasty food Being carefree Coca-Cola (I don't drink it anymore) Smoking (I don't anymore) A quiet peaceful mind Playing stupid games with kids (I'm a big kid really) Being a decent respectful guy Giving people my attention The Sound of Music (maybe I'm gay, no it can't be????)

Comparing is a source of suffering, because when you compare you only do so in a very specific way. You collapse your whole being into one dimension: better grades, better house, better partner, better hair etc. The other dimensions of your being get ignored and stay underdeveloped. To suffer less you have to pay attention to all facets of your being and let them work cohesively instead. You also need to enable this in others - lead by example rather than by comparison. Easier said than done though!

@Elisabeth I'd be super pragmatic. Careerwise, I'd make a list of what you want in a career. I see you already have: Make a bigger list! And put a bit more specific detail in. Then rank the points in the list according to how important they are to you. Which of the points in the list are non-negotiable, which are you flexible on? Use the list as a kind of compass to guide you when researching jobs. Whilst researching I would be completely free about what sort of jobs to go for, anything goes: herbal medicine salesperson, airline pilot, zookeeper - the sky's the limit. You will soon get a good feel about what would match you and excite you and what wouldn't. Obviously the internet is your friend. I would spend a month researching until you get sick and tired of it. Once ready start approaching companies directly through their HR departments, by then you'll have a very good idea about what you what from them and what you can give them. They will love the confidence. It could also be that you do all that research and find that working for someone else is not for you. In which case work for yourself. This is the ideal as you can tailor your work exactly to what's important to you - and you can fit it around your lifestyle. And lastly, I'll say that when you work for someone else it's never going to be perfect, don't expect that. You will have to compromise.

That's really appropriate for the whole of self actualization. Having the whole spectrum to choose from in all situations is being actualized. And not just for the feminine/masculine dimension. Great nugget there.

I have a kind of meta view, which may or may not be useful. I don't have children but most of my close friends do, and know that at least the first few years will require full time attention from you. That will be limiting but not impossible to do other things with. Also, most of my friends had their children in their late thirties. There were complications in some cases and miscarriage, most probably due to age. Some have even required IVF. But the children that survived are all happy an healthy. Children can wait at least a few years. Having children is a huge lifelong commitment - start when you're ready, not before. I guess if you go for option 1 then how much time is the postdoc going to take? If a year or two, then it is probably worth doing even for its own sake and interest even if not for improving employment chances. Living abroad will also give you new experiences which is always beneficial to your own development. For option 2 it seems as though you're not that invested in it, other than it may be lucrative and stable. I would say that you could find other jobs what give the same benefits and that you would find more interesting. It just requires more research and investigation on your part - take time to do it. Of course there is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing all of 1, 2 and 3 - probably in that order. And lastly, are these options real or just apparent? Do you have to do any of them? And if not, then what other choices could you make?

What I wrote a bit later above ^^^ again for reference: Nothing enforces it except awareness itself. Awareness cherry picks order out of chaos.

What is life? Scientifically, there are a number of observations which help in understanding it. Firstly, all life is made is made of the same components: proteins and DNA or RNA. Secondly, life copies itself through reproduction. Lastly, life evolves and changes over time. The first observation is profound. What it says is that all life is connected. You are somehow related to a plant or an octopus or a fly. That is truly astonishing. Why is it connected that way? Why is a plant or a fly so different yet uses the same chemical components? The second observation supplies the inductive step needed to answer the why of the first one. If life keeps ever copying itself over and over then there is an unbroken chain of generations of life stretching back into the past. That explains why all Sycamore trees look alike, they are all related through their distant ancestors. The third observation is no less profound than the first. In the act of reproduction the copying process is not perfect. Imperfections or mutations build up over time and this causes the organism to change its form and function over successive generations. Mutations affect the survival chances of the organism and in turn that affects the chances of reproduction. The net effect is that beneficial mutations are more likely to be copied. What is "beneficial" can be extremely subtle indeed, but mostly the environment the organism finds itself in dictates this. Evolution is the solution to why all life is connected through proteins and DNA. The wide variety of organisms alive now, evolved from a slightly smaller variety of organisms in the past. Each successive generation increases the chances of divergent evolution. One type of single celled organism eventually gave rise to the plant kingdom and the same cell the animal kingdom. All life arose from a single source. It's right to take a moment to appreciate that idea. If life is simply chemistry and physics then one chemical reaction started billions of years ago has produced all life on Earth. In essence that single first chemical reaction has never stopped; it's still going on in you and me and my spider plant. When you eat a chicken that same chemical reaction is devouring itself, even Vegans are guilty of this. It's like a single spark that caught the whole planet ablaze. Life is like a throwing a pebble into a pond and watching the ripple as it expands out. It is one ripple through all time. It is all the same ripple. When you sit on a wooden bench in a park, you are not just related to the bench and grass, but in a sense you are the same thing as them. You are them. Looked at this way, a bacterium is no less advanced than a human: they a simply just different aspects of the same chemical reaction. There aren't a trillion organisms there is only one. The copying aspect of reproduction is very much like the self-similarity of fractals. Fractals can be infinitely detailed and absolutely unique spacially and temporaly. This is what life is really like: The equations which governs the fractal of life is made of atomic forces and the elements: Carbon, Oxygen and Hydrogen. They are much more complicated than those for the Mandelbrot set. But the mechanism is the same, life sits on the boundary between order and chaos. Because life is a chaotic system it's infinitely sensitive to initial conditions. This high sensitivity allows the copying process and evolution to use everything at its disposal. This is because anything that confers an increase in reproductive chance will be selected for. This includes not only the makeup of the organism, but in turn the effect the organism has in the makeup of the environment it finds itself in. In other words the organism will evolve its environment if it confers reproductive success. This is exactly what humans do. This is why the Earth itself could be seen as a giant organism, its environment is not at all "natural" - just look at Mars or Venus for natural. No, life has changed it drastically for its own benefit. Life is suited to its environment and the environment is suited to life. Other effects that evolution co-opts may be quantum ones. For example the capture of photons in photosynthesis. And ultimately consciousness itself. If consciousness confers reproductive advantage then life somewhere will have used it. Humans anyone? It is food for materialist thought: consciousness is a property that mutations affect (but note that mutations don't produce consciousness). It is no accident that you are both conscious and a living organism. Life is intelligent, not in a designed by a god sense, but because it is infinitely sensitive to both itself and its environment. Given enough time life will intelligently take over the whole universe. Perhaps by starting on Venus.

@Mu_ ?

@Meta-Man your relativity has worn me down. I tap out. I cannot define a man any more than I can define being smart. They are both as relative as each other. Sometimes you're a man, sometimes not, it all depends on who knows what. I have learned one thing though: not to argue with a relativist. Anyway I re-iterate:

Consistency? Ok I'm teasing. There's definitely a fine balance between order and chaos in our universe. Which might be labelled as "time" or even "consistency". The world of asleep dreaming is less consistent and more chaotic. But can appearances actually be infinitely chaotic? Is it possible for awareness to operate in an infinitely chaotic universe? If not then there must be a finite limit somewhere on chaos - so its brother Order must always be present in some way. And if there is always some sort of order, then not everything is possible.

For the benefit of the other less smart people reading this thread. Would you like to clarify even further?

I think I smell a relativist argument in the air. Would you like to qualify the comment further?

It is daft to think that anything is possible in absolute infinity. There are rules and regulations to duality you know.

There's a world of difference between saying something like "I'm a man" and "I'm smart". You can be smart in many different areas but very dense in others. Whereas you are man in all contexts (if you are one). Basically smartness is relative and multidimensional, and as such can't be mapped to a one dimensional datum. IQ is bollocks. There's also the question of being able to regurgitate facts, is that really smartness? Is a virtuoso pianist smart? Or just well practiced? It's not so obvious what smart means. Also, using fancy words ^^^ doesn't make you smart