Kelley White

@TariqWhat do you think? You did walk away, so you thought walking away was the thing to do at that time yes? What at that time made you want to not interfere?

@TheFrown, that is a nice track. Thank you for sharing.

@AHappyTeddyBear I believe you are speaking about moral relativism? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism By observation it appears we each have the potential for both; I am reading Jonathon Haidt's, "The Righteous Mind," you might find that of interest. Kant, "Theories of the Good, the Right, and the Approvable." If you really have an interest in forensic psychology related to good and evil and thought process Stanton Samenow has stunning research. I think about this topic quite a bit, and the more I ponder it, the more I don't know. LOL You might enjoy looking at the chemical/scientific aspect as well. (Better video...)

I think this might be of interest here.

@Tariq Hi. I'm sorry you experienced this. It had to have been disturbing. Thank you for your question. I'm not certain I would advocate anyone reacting how I might react....I have law enforcement training and I live in the US. I'm not certain how you handle that situation in Morocco or what the legalities and support would be? I think each situation is different and you have to weigh your ability to bring resolution versus escalate or become a part of the problem. If you called the police would they be supportive of the woman? If you said something to the man, would he hear you and acknowledge you, or would he ignore you or potentially harm you? (I don't know, I wasn't there. Why I'm asking.) Could he harm her worse if you interfered? Would the woman's family be grateful for your interference? These are all unknowns for me. I only know what I've read or heard from other woman living in Morocco and the struggles they face. It sounds to me like there was what you wish you could have done and what you did? What do you feel you would have liked to have done? Would that have made a difference or could it have made things worse?

@AHappyTeddyBear Thank you so much for responding to my question. It really allowed me to understand the space you are coming from. Thank you. I agree with you about the treatment of women in certain third world countries and under certain religious belief systems. I have studied many of the religions from around the world, I have a son who is now Jewish that was at one time a practicing Muslim. (That was after his pagan phase and his Christan phase. LOL) I suspect fundamentalism of any flavor is an extremism which can be divisive and abusive. It sounds to me like you have a righteous anger about how women are treated in your country? It also sounds as if you are of the opinion that if the right to practice Islam is protected this means all people of that faith are abusive and that supporting their right to freedom of religion is abusive? I don't know I'm trying to clarify what you really are thinking versus assuming. As someone who tries to work with what is? I am aware that my anger over injustice may motivate me intrinsically to act, but it may not motivate others. I am aware there is injustice, but does my rage change that injustice? By my observation if I focus that rage on a positive action from within the system I dislike to promote positive change? I get farther than if I rage at the machine so to speak. Although, many of my poems are just that, rants against the machine. (Machines, as in, institutions) When I find something I really feel great injustice over, I try to channel my anger into being being a positive force for change. Its okay to be enraged. How do we affect lasting change? We have culture mores, world view, we have language barriers where things are lost in the translation; how do we change what we can without become that which we do not honor, the violent? @ebrink06 that is huge. I am very happy for you. My default is self anger, so I have been working on this very thing same thing just with a different application. This is a really good discussion. I would love to hear both of your ideas for changing this paradigm of thought with a positive act(s)?

@Pyrrhocorax graculus I would observe the sunburn has sunsation? I thought you guys would get a laugh from the definition of real.

(I broke the rules and used all my likes being the like fairy. ) I'll have to be stingier tomorrow.

@Pyrrhocorax graculus as in appropriate tense usage for the sentence. Even viewing the universe as stories assumes universe and stories both are made up. I actually find this a humorous reminder when I forget.... I've used it for about five years; I think when someone from Germany sent it to me.... http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Real

@Pyrrhocorax graculus I adore John Nash. As to therapists, they are great for reality checks during periods when one might require them from reliable objective sources. However finding a good one? Feels like playing a slot machine? Might be a winner? Might be bust. I now interview therapists. LOL The I go for the period I need, then if I don't, I stop. I look at it more like going to the mechanic for a tune up after a traumatic accident. LOL

@abrakamowse HAHAHAH I am so aware! I am VERY grateful. LOL

I appreciated your humor. @abrakamowse

I really appreciated this thread! Thank you so much @OWL and @abrakamowse.

Familiar with both. Ultimately all of that? Its made up. When I say its made up? Who created the word human? Who made that thought into a word. Lewiss Carroll, Douglas Adams, Seuss, one of many who create the "others' of story. Long before I stumbled upon Leo I viewed the Universe as stories. Even spacetime? Who created that word? That concept? We made it all up. I'm energy. Even that is a story, energy is a word, its made up.

So all this time I'm thinking, I don't feel human, I know I'm not human, that's not crazy? I keep asking my therapist that same question every week. You are sure I'm not crazy I see all these patterns and things? He says the same thing you do. Nope, you are not crazy. That's been a real fear of mine, that I'm crazy because i have these kind of experiences @Sarah_Flagg describes only I feel things. I can go into social situations and just feel what the people around me are feeling. I don't charge for reiki because we have no evidence to back it, but I can seem to feel where people are having issues. It always surprises me. LOL I'm a huge skeptic. LOL Thank you. Interesting thread and it makes me feel a bit better.

@OceanJjb you are very welcome for the information. I'm not sure what science will have next, but there are new technologies developing every day! Science is not THE answer, but it can be a great tool for solutions.

Here's the story I like to use as a metaphor for what you are observing and writing about above; time travel. You are now a being (I like to say artificial intelligence carbon unit) at a desk. A thought comes from this dimension" we label "past." We can choose to say what an (?) thought? Let it go... OR? We can use to chase that rabbit by giving it our focus. That focus? Can evoke sensation which appears to stimulate emotion which prompts observation, processing, and assimilation of the stimulus as experience into a framework for organizing, making sense, understanding. (Our preconceived notions, worldview.) Now this dimension of "the past?" It just became your "now." You time traveled while at your desk to a past dimension and made it real in your present dimension. Make sense so far? At that moment you are a shape-shifter time-traveling, shifting emotion, form of thought, action; based upon being in the past dimension while attempting to function in the present dimension. Want to time travel to the future? Just do the same process only focus on the "future" dimension. Time travel is never linear. Sometimes you may find yourself in multiple dimensions in one now. When time traveling, one rarely travels alone, so one might include an entire cast of characters on one's internal journey and then react to them in the now based upon past or future virtual adventures which only occurred in your own awareness. Isn't that fun? When you add the virtual online realities to the reality of physical reality, you are now a time traveler within multiple dimensions of space-time. You are now capable of being in more than one space-time continuum at the same time! Congratulations! You are a master time traveler. Of course we made all of this up? So I am wholly just creating a different let's pretend to explain this to you. Really? We are everywhere and nowhere all at once, one, now. The art of science, life unfolding. Or not?

@OceanJjb Re: Ketamine in the USA? They are doing clinical trails, I'm considering one at University of Washington. They are best done under the care and supervision of a doctor but they definitely seem to get positive results in the 5% of trauma patients who do not seem to get relief from traditional medications. https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00088699 Here is a link to another trail http://sklad.cumc.columbia.edu/psychiatry/clinical_trials/View_Trial.php?ID=383&type=simple A starting point for those interested.

@JeffR1 Rather than avoid the topics, I like to challenge folks to examine their fundamental beliefs which underlie such paradigms. I like your key. I use it in crafting my work. I like to imagine life in a game theory virtual reality construct. Its still story, but is a story with metaphors which lend themselves quite well to certain concepts pointing to losing all stories. So imagine a game with players whom are all unique in skills and attributes, all playing with different contexts, goals, skill sets, frameworks of understanding, all simultaneously in play. If actualization is a evolutionary progression in part, then each individual has to actualize within their contextual framework of understanding. @AHappyTeddyBear, Were you upset that your classmates disagreed with you or that they disrespected your right to your own views and be your authentic self? Some of my best poems are created from a space of anger about what my story construct perceives as injustice. Art is a great way to channel anger in a non harmful way. I love poetry because its like writing in code. I alone know what I am really writing about. Its not the emotion of anger that has a moral negativity...it is perhaps the entertainment of negative thought to the point of action which becomes self defeating and problematic? I hear you feel an emotion, you feel a reaction, you visualize a negative to not act on the negative? Can you take it a step further to the turnaround? I welcome others being upset with me expressing my truth because it means I exposed their point of resistance? Was I successful because I provoked emotions in a person who might fail to feel or even think beyond the end of their "knows?" Once I observed we are playing at different levels within the same "game?" I could accept and observe and evolutionary process to actualization itself across religious/spiritual/political patterns. (Or I could just be bat shit crazy. LOL I remain open to both options. LOL) It allowed me to be more inclusive, more tolerant, more accepting of others walking the path they are on, it seems Plank would be correct with his spoke and wheel theory, all spokes are still a apart of the same wheel merely experiencing the wave-field of the wheel from their vantage point from within a different wave-field? Just some thoughts. Great thread everyone.

@Hira Athar THIS is huge! Thank you for sharing a critical key to success on the path.

I find that an interesting story about "enlightenment." Its like the minute you try to describe enlightenment you create a story about it?

Poet. Guilty as charged. LOL Hey you get great peak experience. Hahahahaha I have been back at writing every day this week. A first after the past six to eight months. This has been a very helpful space for re centering and focusing me. Thank you @ModernSage. I appreciate your observation as well. A favorite lecture of mine you might enjoy....

Safety has been a huge issue for me. Not feeling safe. I liked how he re framed this. Thank you for sharing it. @A way to Actualize

I understand this @Aman We tend to have four basic responses to fear/anxiety: Fright, Flight, freeze, fawn. These are coping mechanisms. So it sounds to me like what you are describing is a mental framework where you internally fear you are not really a part of the family? So it sounds like you default to freeze and flight which then leaves you feeling left out and unworthy? I agree with @Ayla, inquiry is the place to start. I am just allowing the thoughts to come, watching them, asking if they are really true? For me I realized? I did not like me, so often I assumed others did not like me and it skewed how I listened to/processed what they had to say. In other words they said A, I heard z. Why? I felt z about me, so they said A, but my mind filled in the gaps to support the underlying belief I had, z. I've also realized, just because someone is related to you? It doesn't mean you like them or want/need to be fitting in with them. It doesn't mean they feel safe and like family for you. Do you feel worthy independent of anything or anyone? That was the question I had to work with first. What is worth? Is it innate? Is it earned? What does worth mean? Is worth a value or an emotion? If you feel worthless what are you really feeling? Fear? Frustration? Pain? Anger? If you want to make it very real? Who are you? Who is the "I" observed?