Mason Riggle

"Chicks"

Its all so clear to me now. I'm the keeper of the cheese... and you're the lemon merchant ...

@Alfonsoo perhaps begin to notice the arbitrary/relative/dual nature of distinctions.. For examples... (arbitrariness)- at what point does a knife become a sword? isn't the distinction between the two arbitrary? isn't it whatever point we decide it is? (relativity/duality)- where is the distinction between the inside of a cup, and the outside of a cup? Isn't the outside relative to the inside, and the inside relative to the outside? You can't have 'just the inside' of a cup, or 'just the outside of a cup', you just have 'the whole cup', where 'inside/outside' are only relative distinctions. Inside is just 'not the outside' and Outside is just 'not the inside'. Then do this with your 'self'. Where is the line between 'you' and 'that which is not you'? isn't it arbitrary? Am I 'inside my body somewhere', and my body belongs 'to me'? Am I just my brain? I could cut off my arms and 'I' would remain... Am I just a thought an organism is having? Am I identical to 'my body'? Am I 'my hair'? When my skin cells flake off.. is that dandruff on my coat still 'me'? Am I the same me I was when I was 6? Where is the me from 5 minutes ago? 1 second ago? Am I 'the totality of my experience?' Why is it so hard to 'locate' my 'self'? You may begin to feel that 'you' do not exist 'separate' from everything that is 'not you', but rather, 'you' are defined relative to what you arbitrarily decide is 'not you', the same way that a whirlpool does not exist 'separate' from the river that contains it, but rather, the whirlpools is arbitrarily defined by (is a function of) the river (everything which isn't the whirlpool)... but you can't show me the edges of the whirlpool.. where does the river end and the whirlpool begin? Can you take a whirlpool out of a river and show it to me? Similarly, you can't really find (show yourself) the boundary of 'yourself', because it's only an arbitrary distinction. When I am sitting here at my desk, looking at a monitor, reading this forum.. I feel like all of that is 'what I am' in this moment. I am literally 'the experience of a body sitting at a desk, looking at a monitor, reading this forum' and NOT something separate from all that who is somewhere 'within' all of that, experiencing all of that.. it's all me. 'experiencing my desk' is no different than 'experiencing my hand', in that both are 'my experience', which is all I ever really am.

@StarStruck @Medhansh what the girls are attracted to is not 'you being a dick'.. it's just that they mistakenly perceive you being a dick as 'authenticity', which involves not allowing what others think of you affect you emotionally, and this often looks like 'being a dick'. When they discover that you are not authentic, and just 'acting like a dick', they are no longer attracted to you. The qualities you need to cultivate have nothing to do with 'being a dick', but rather, knowing yourself, knowing your boundaries and how to stand up for them, knowing your values and how to live them, etc..

@Sine ask yourself if you are your entire body, or just part of it. For example, are you 'your hair'? When you cut off your hair, and it falls to the floor.. is that you on the floor? What would happen to 'you', if you cut off your hand, would your hand still be 'you' also? Would there be two of you at that point? Are you 'your blood'.. or is 'your blood' inside of 'you'? If your blood leaks out a little.. have 'you' leaked out?

Notice that 'ceasing to exist' is not possible ('not experiencing' is not something that can be experienced). 'Not being' can never 'be'. You have never experienced 'no experience'. It Is Always Now.

@Rilles there is nothing you have to do which you're not already doing. 'Just be' is paradoxical advice, because you can't 'not be'. You're already 'being', and there's nothing else for you to do, because 'not being' isn't something you can 'do'. ??

@Fearless_Bum no need to apologize. As defined by Wikipedia- Solipsism (/ˈsɒlɪpsɪzəm/ (listen); from Latin solus 'alone', and ipse 'self')[1] is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. The only distinction that I am making, is between dual solipsism (mind/contents of mind) and non-dual Solipsism (Mind is all there is). I'm not asking you to believe Solipsism to be the case.

solipsism - there is only me, and everything else is a figment of my imagination. Solipsism - There is only me, there is no 'everything else'. Everything there IS, is 'what I am'.

@roopepa this is perhaps one of the simplest/most profound truths there is.. nothing to do, no one to do it. You couldn't 'not be who you are' even if you tried, because this would obviously just be more 'you being who you are', which you are always already effortlessly doing.

The discovery that there's nothing to do that isn't already 'being done'.

@mandyjw everywhere I go.. there I am.

@roopepa hide and seek.. What do you do when you find who's hiding? Hide and play again!

Perhaps the opposite is true... you've never met a plant or non-human animal that was so confused about what it was as humans sometimes are.

@Wijuu ?

@Wijuu another analogy which seems particularly fitting, is that of a whirlpool... Ego is like a whirlpool, in that it arises as a function of what the entire river is doing, and yet, there really is no 'whirlpool' which exists independent of 'what the entire river is doing'.. you can not take a whirlpool out of a river and show it to me. You can not show me your 'ego' independent (separate) from what 'that which is not ego' is doing.. it arises in each moment, when it does, as a function of what an organism is doing, and, like the whirlpool, doesn't actually 'do anything' other than 'be how it is'.. the whirlpool isn't 'swirling itself' or 'causing itself' or 'controlling itself'.. it just 'is itself'... same with ego. It arises when conditions are just so, and ceases when conditions are not just so, but there's nothing that the ego 'does', any more than there is 'what a whirlpool does'.. there is no 'whirlpool'.. only 'whirlpooling'. no 'doing'.. only 'being'.

@Wijuu I define ego as- the imaginary separation between 'you' and 'that which is not you'.. it's like 'the difference between a knife and a sword'.. is there really a difference? The difference seems arbitrary and made up. Same with 'you' and 'not you'.. where is the line drawn? Are you 'your thoughts'? Are you 'your brain'? Are you 'your blood'? Are you 'your body'? Are you 'your friends?' Are you 'your experiences'? You are none of those things, or all of them.. depending on where the imaginary line is drawn... the imaginary line is 'ego'.

I think the question is not worth responding to, although I stated my view. The solution to rioting, is to fix the systemic issues that lead to rioting. Rioters and Looters should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and if law enforcement is unable or unwilling to do so, then we reform law enforcement and those responsible for their performance. I don't need to answer 'what do shop owners do to protect their property from rioters and looters?', (for the same reason I can categorically say, 'kicking puppies in the face is not a good way to potty trian them' and I don't need to offer up a better way in order to emphatically say that.. ) but as has already been stated, the answer is not 'enlist an untrained 17 year old with an AR'.

Maybe we should be more concerned with how to prevent rioting than with how to defend business from rioters.

@Raptorsin7 if the looter agresses upon them they can defend themselves with lethal force. If their business is destroyed, they file an insurance claim.

@Raptorsin7 show me where I condone rioting? Legally, you can not protect property with deadly force. I don't make the laws.

I'm not condoning rioting. I'm saying you either believe in the rule of law, or you don't. If you're taking the law into your own hands, you forfieght any protection the law offers you.

To disarm him so he doesn't shoot any more people???

You ask, what is the alternative to citizens protecting private property when the government won't. Well, then answer is not a satisfactory one for many... there's no 'bandaid' fix to this problem. But, if you are person who believes in the rule of law, then you take action to make sure the law works the way it should. You look at fixing the systemic corruption of the US legal system which led to the riots in the first place with the shooting of George Floyd.

@Raptorsin7 basically, Rittenhouse had no business being there armed. He was impersonating an EMT, which is a misdemeanor, there was a city wide curfew, and by knowingly entering a violent situation armed, he effectively forfeighted any claim to self defense.