BlueOak

War is a huge contraction of life, and all the things we experience yes. Its literally ending pieces of you right now on mass in the most violent horrific way that can be experienced. While we can dispassionately argue in some far flung future it might lead to expansion, right now is all that exists, that pain and suffering and loss is all that is. We've been contracting in western nations since 9/11, which really kicked in for me about 2005 when the change started to feel palpable. The wish to extend authority over others was magnified everywhere, for understandable reasons and this was globally reflected soon enough. I often wish I could bottle up the feeling, the energy, and life in the 80's and 90's to let you experience them. It was expansion not contraction. Sure it was filled with things we wanted to change (and these decades are too), but that was the experience we had in developed nations, yes while the rest of the world suffered in lack. Even energetically it feels harder, more compressed, it's pretty hard to live with empathy in these times. To feel even feel a fraction of pain being inflicted, or even reflect that god is calling for the deaths of millions of pieces of themselves on a regular basis. Hell, we've got pieces of ourselves now saying yeah that's a rational course. Above we've got people saying its all in your head, your head doesn't exist in that rationale. It's the totality of existence, thoughts are a concept you invented. There is just this what's here now. Just what's going on. Allow yourself to feel everything even for a moment. Then go do something positive with the day and have a better one. Be better to yourselves.

Your values are not superior to theirs. Their values are not superior to yours. Even for your goals, on balance that would be counterproductive. The Western person doing the protesting would become the focus, and given how many people in the Middle East hate western people, their ideologies or their symbolisms etc, it would not go well. The only way to do what you propose would be to find people in those countries, who know how to operate in them, or as leo says survive in those climates making gradual positive changes and financing them. If they are too radical they will likely be imprisoned or killed. This is what Western countries have done in the past, but it leaves the obvious response: Stop interfering in our countries. Which is correct, it is the shadow we have causing many conflicts all over the world, because your values are not superior to theirs. There is no hierarchy here, there is what best fits the situation, and there can be a gradual adaptation to changing it for the better, but that's unlikely to be from an outside source. It's the same when Saudi Arabia finances western elections (which they do), or Russians try to directly bribe an official. They are trying to impose a perspective over others, which we can all see the fallout, instability, and chaos from both of these actions. Here let me try to equate you to a country: Imagine I tell you a truth about you, that you don't want to change. Even if I say it nicely. Are you going to do it? Why? What's your motivation? Because I said so? - Okay so i'll PAY someone to impose that view on you, how did that feel? It doesn't feel nice, I feel it daily, corporations do it all the time. I will say people who want to get out of that environment should be given every tool to do so, but then we hit the problem of immigration and population problems. Definitely an imperfect world with no easy answer.

Yes because they would both define their identity by their culture. I'll repeat if you want to escape that, do it less. If you are asking how do we limit what you just said from being a problem at all, its a different conversation. It would be about respecting others' culture, and not imposing your own values onto them. Also valuing your own. Teaching that to children. Laws being created to allow for both. It would be about celebrating the differences rather than your own view of multiculturalism, an often problematic integration that seeks to blend both cultures. Your dismissal of food as a core principle of culture is itself flawed, as food is a huge part of many countries' cultures. It's not just the bits you find problematic to coexist with, its also the easily appreciated parts of culture such as festivals, art, food, language, and a diversity of ideas, and solutions to common problems. The finer points of law can be difficult to govern by, but the more complicated a law, often the less just it is because it imposes too many limiting self-biases over a large population. In short for a multicultural society to function, you let people live their lives according to their own beliefs and value systems. Legislate as best and broadly as possible for both groups and allow those cultures to be the genesis of what comes next, a natural acceptance or at least tolerance in children of both viewpoints. Of course, we soften the extreme ends of a problem, we always do with everything. Yet it has come around again in modern times that people have decided the extreme end of something is a tool to govern or address it, and that creates the viewpoint you've given me here. That there is something inherently wrong with two different beliefs about what someone should wear at a beach. Control is the shadow most expressed in the current (two) decades. Lack of control or controlling others. There is no need, there is only a need for both to be allowed to exist together. *Additionally, to reinforce this concept: The celebration of each culture, and the maintaining of it, can help remove fears of people losing theirs.

If you genuinely want to let it go: Stop making your identity your culture. Or if you want an easier step Stop making your cultural identity as important in your life. If it's race, insert race, if its skin color insert that. Then you've just got personality, behaviors and things like economic pressures to consider. Personality and behaviors, I treat their interactions universally so I don't care where someone came from or what their culture is. I've never cared about skin color, I was just brought up that way. I actually like interacting with a variety of things, so more cultures for me were always a benefit, even if social cohesion is less as a result. There is less social cohesion because more people make cultural identity an important part of their lives. Then we hit economic reasons, or things like traffic, pollution, crime, landfills, public services etc - For me, population is the magnifier of every issue on the planet, apart from the economy. Population is certainly in my country a benefit to the economy, and one of the reasons for a looming recession is the lack of younger working-age people, relative to the older population not working. So I am, and always will be (till AI) eternally conflicted on population, but leaning in the direction of less is more. When you've considered things like that, you can go back and celebrate your local culture, you just won't identify with it as much,

@Danioover9000 The emotion I experienced was curiosity, interest, and a bit of laughter at the end. Just me being me, sorry if I came across as too intense. Thank you for the discussion and your clarification. Charisma goes a long way yes, at least in setting you up as a leader. Margaret Thatcher isn't the average feminine leader, she wasn't called the Iron Lady for nothing. There are plenty of good feminine speakers that I listen to daily on youtube, maybe they just excel in different topics to personal development. I still can't get my head around the nazi example. Maybe you just mean good leadership not world peace? So putting aside their horrific ambitions, they were terrible leaders. They fought two opponents at once, ran purely on ideology over substance, overextended themselves in winter, tried to rush things, and didn't listen to the experts they had in the field. Fascism as a whole is a losing strategy for everyone, as it constantly needs a war and external threat to continue itself. That and it relies on a cult of personality which elevates one man to the point he ignores everyone around him who doesn't fit this pinpoint narrow vision he has, eventually turning everyone else into an opponent as fuel for the fire.

How are you expecting me, you or any single individual to accurately conceptualize or model 8.1 billion people into this kind of question? You said female leaders would cause chaos because of feminism destroying patriarchy. So I said this would only apply to militant feminists. I could go further and say militant feminists who encounter a defined enough patriarchy to oppose, and who have enough people that also share this view. Reducing the number of leaders you are referring to further. Especially given the backlash against overt feminism, meaning they would have trouble getting into a position of leadership with a strong following. Most people are not militant extremists, despite what modern media would have us believe. Even politicians who act that way in the public spotlight are often not ideologically driven, many do it these days because it gets them noticed, funded, or a certain amount of external power or anger to use. Have you never seen a feminine public speaker? I certainly have. Do you believe only men can display passion publicly? Yes, we do benefit from adjusting ourselves to the roles we fulfill in life, for any number of reasons. I've never considered it defined gender, but I can see the perception you could have of that if you believe that job or personality = gender. I see it as the role, and when you are doing that job that's how you are day to day. Your bizarre examples of the Third Reich are odd stereotypes to say the least. When I next see a career advertised for some cartoonish trenchcoat-wearing third Reich extremists looking to achieve world piece, i'll let you know

'Handling many tasks concurrently' or 'Focusing on one task' If you prefer.

I would like to see a woman playing five chess games at once. I think then you'd see the scales tip the opposite way. Women tend toward being better at multi-tasking, while men often tend toward being better at a singular focus. I do watch a fair amount of chess and conversation during the game tends to help women quite a lot. Apparently, biologically this is down to the different roles we evolved within. Multi-tasking being very useful for keeping track of children, and in early communities being very useful for managing food, or assigning resources and tasks. While the man's singular focus was a bonus in hunting, handling threats, or combat. I would assume the people who were better at these roles were more successful, and so had more children and so on.

This forms several generalized assumptions about such a wide range of countries, conditions or challenges, as well as individuals and personalities that I can't agree, disagree or really answer effectively. Answering: Some people are better suited to different situations is about the best I can do. Further to form this conclusion you've assumed the woman running the show is a feminist, and a specific type of militant feminist as well. As a more simple counterpoint, when you step into a career or position, you inherently have to adjust your personality to that role to do it effectively. You are what you do, is true, on many levels.

Them vs Us. That's what's holding the US back significantly as well, your entire political and media system is designed to heighten, incentivize, and reflect an exaggerated duality as much as possible. Where the loudest and the most polarizing gain the most benefits from the least work. Social media and even internet searches have only reinforced this method of operating, pushing the most dramatic, most controversial, or most eye-catching thing to the top of people's notice.

What we experience is the entirety of existence.

I don't know how much the other OPEC countries influence Saudi Arabia. Because it would be easier and from the outside observer more likely for them to just pull back entirely to further neutrality. They could even further align with Iran and Russia, something they did over Ukraine. How much it would hurt their primary export is a question, which they've already hurt during the recent Russia - Ukraine crisis. When OPEC tried to pressure Western economies and profit from higher oil prices, something they are still doing. This done during a crisis, generated a want to move more away from oil where possible or at least Middle Eastern OPEC oil for security reasons, something I heard other OPEC members apparently were less happy about than the Saudis themselves. It also depends as you probably infer if this is a wider push from Iran, with Russian backing, to exert their influence over more of the Middle East or just destabilize Israel, the former would be less palatable to the Saudis I imagine.

Receptivity is a key for a spiritual path. Seeking then allowing. Surrender needs to come to the outcome, not the act of seeking or doing in the first place. Surrendering while also expecting just sets you up for a conflicting failure. If we are talking about seeking spiritual experiences, you have to cultivate a state of being receptive but not expecting or being passive. A deeper understanding is that all things are spiritual experiences as there is no separation from mind/body/spirit but what we define. I want to thank you for bringing this up, as i've been asking myself how I head back towards seeking a turquoise state again and focus less on method or systems. Gratitude

I think so far it was a wide split of perspectives.

Yeah I agree with Leo here, I don't think you highlighting this person venting emotion is a good representation of leadership. Leadership of something as large as a country is a balancing act of all kinds of internal pressures, internal groups, external factors, and political theater, with hopefully plenty of good advisors and experts there to assist with this huge job. This is why it's so inherently flawed any single person even tries to represent this monumentally complex task as the face of it, but I digress.

I keep updating what I think about this as I type. I'll leave a message then probably have a different view later thank you for that. I see loneliness as a separation from a piece of myself, and how far I am separated from those pieces, is how lonely I am. I don't define me, as being any bigger than what you are interacting with. The full me doesn't have an identity, it has no details, it is everything.

You are not. You are the universe. Every single facet and detail. Why would you separate a concept of 'you' out of the whole, to then invent a concept of loneliness or separation, to then feel bad about?

We are still firmly in: How do I extend my control over X. This is everywhere at the moment. Biggest collective shadow i've seen in a while.

What is the difference between one apple and the other. Whatever you want to focus on and name. We tend to exercise a lot more control over ourselves here in this one, whereas when we sleep we let go and integrate more with everything else. Though those who lucid dream control that too :D, with even more direction. Its a good opportunity to reflect and receive without beliefs, identity, and patterns getting in the way so much.

I don't know how long you've been alive @Nabd but this sort of violence while I was growing up was common, and it continued for a long period. I think Iran just want to return to that tit-for-tat exchanges of decades gone by. To increase the pressure on who they perceive to be their enemies, using a proxy state, a convenient distraction for others also. Strategically, they want any way possible to isolate Saudi Arabia from the US more, which is certainly possible depending on how far Israel goes in response. The US and Saudi relations were splitting quite far during the Russian-Ukraine war, oil prices, and over Yemen. Then they patched them up, but they are shakey enough that this could split them again. The Syrian point was interesting, thanks for the map and detail. One result of the Russian/Iran actions in Ukraine, or Russia's actions in Africa against French interests, is there is so much political capital to act against these countries that what you are describing is just the tip of the iceberg. The general population in the US is just going to say so what, to anything the US or the EU do against Russia or especially Iran for the next decade or more. I would definitely expect some very quiet French reprisals that we won't even hear about, I was trying to tell people to stop call France weak, but nobody listens.

Do you look at the bright light close to you, or the dim one in the distance? Too philosophical? Do you watch the entertaining story with all the players, all their different perspectives in unexpect twists? Or do you watch the man in his shop quietly serving the local community? Which one has more to see? More to understand? The level of theater and fantasy in movies/books/stories/song has reduced greatly because of a hyperfocus on realism. So that need for theater, fantasy, and imagination is now sort out elsewhere, like politics or the news. Go watch a popular 50's or 60's movie (popular at the time) and you'll see what I mean.

Iran can shift the attention way from Russia and/or China, tying up media attention, and military attention etc . Its the perfect proxy war, from a coalition of powers, trying to shift the global dynamic in their favor. Even more so when Iran gets nukes, they can do this indefinitely every 5-10 years.

A country having a nuke changes everything leo. 1, It increases nuclear profileration in their enemies. Bringing us closer to armageddon or at least the after-effects of large doses of radiation in the air and water, with all the hundreds of millions of refugees and chaos that would generate. 2, It means they can wage conventional war, making them more likely to do so. Because people will not attack them back. 3, It completely shifts a power dynamic in the region, destabilizing what little order exists in that region. *4, It means people are more likely to strike them preemptively to stop it, meaning more war and all the fallout that brings.

You, and everyone else reading this. The entire shift of the last two decades in every individual here. You are disconnecting pieces and not seeing the whole. Iran will have nukes in the next years, if you believe their claims they are close now.

With the authoritarian global shift over the last two decades, we now have two of the more dangerous governments facing off, both soon to have nukes. Are we done shifting authoritarian yet? Have we seen enough and validated that part of ourselves enough? Can we start trying to balance ourselves? How many wars do we need before we mediate and moderate? This only continues to get worse if we keep unbalancing ourselves. The constant need for our authority to extend over others is a black hole. Who am I speaking about? You reading this.