UnbornTao

Conform to my nonconformity!™

Does that require the activity commonly thought of as "thinking"? It seems like it's a physiological reaction or stimulus, something that applies to other animal species as well. No language needed for that. I think you're conflating language with words, sounds, and symbols here. More like a communication. What do you specifically mean by "my experience of being alive"? If you will, avoid using vagueness and abstraction to avoid confronting the fact that it isn't entirely clear - to either of us. If we were to delve into that, we'd likely find that a lot of what gets taken for granted as "life" isn't actually inherent to it. Examine what you assume about what it means to be alive. For example, language may be tacitly considered an integral part of life, but is it? What about, say, emotions? I hear that. Still, what is language, really? We keep taking it for granted. Without it, there isn't even the notion of another entity 'getting something across' for you to interpret and make sense of in the first place. So we can see that the notion of "feeling others' vibes" actually rests on this very language-possibility.

How so? It was clear to me, by the way you wrote, that you're taking conformity as a negative thing to be avoided, placing yourself as a sort of special outsider who doesn't conform to the "sheep." And I pointed out that this very dynamic - wanting to appear special in our own eyes and in the eyes of others - seems to be virtually universal in our culture. I suspect that, deep down, everyone is profoundly conformist. How could it be otherwise? Ask yourself how much of your life is lived in accordance with past inventions and in relation to a society. "What is original in my experience, generated by me, or consciously taken up?" What, in my experience, isn't programming or is not influenced by the "other"? We could save time by simply asking what is not conformity. It's like the appearance of multiple apps in an app store: on paper they can look alike or be infinitely varied, but most software exists on, or is founded upon, a common ground - namely, the operating system. The examples of noncomformity that might come to mind usually belong to the "different app" category.

Are you asking us to tell you what to value, or what a value is? To me, it sounds like emotional awareness or mastery would count as values, so go with it if that's your choice - it's a good value. Try to get clear on what it actually entails so that it doesn't just become an abstraction.

Okay, that is fair.

@Daniel Balan Being the nonconformist lone wolf is ironically a more common cultural role than being part of the flock. The comformity of reactivity. @Daniel Balan For example, wearing clothes is mostly comformity, too. And so is wanting to feel special, which we all seem to do to varying degrees.

Now, bring up some positive examples of conformity that you engage in or benefit from, even if unknowingly: wearing clothes, using the metric system, updating your mobile apps, or checking expiry labels. Or, hey, using language and participating in cultural customs. It seems to me we are more comformists than we're willing to admit, both individually and collectively. And, again, that's not necessarily bad - or good, either. It's part of being a social animal, deeply embedded in our biology and psychology.

Eye see. Sorry, just issued us two warning points for the joke.

Goool!

That may be.

Yeah. Like the kernel of an operating system.

You might want to look into Vipassana programs.

This would require a much more involved effort on our part. Some food for thought: Okay. And what's that? Notice it's mostly taken for granted. You seem to think that language is just a "commentary" or side note layered on top of your personal experience of reality - as if they were distinctly and unequivocally separate. Try to remove the invention of language from your experience. Imagine what life was like prior to its invention. This is a significant meditation. For example, would your experience of thinking and taking to yourself be the same? Could you even think without language? Then again, how could communication exist without having language as a possibility or context? What makes a symbol possible? How can something like a sound come to represent something that is not itself that sound? Can you unpack what you mean by energy and "language is energy"? If your claim is that language is universal and not invented, I'll have to disagree with that.

And yet, the profundity of this principle continues to elude us.

Based on that, your claim should be more like: life is occurring, rather than "existence is." We could say that existence comes prior to life, this being a process enabled by the former. You seem to want to claim that the canvas shares the quality of invention of the painting - as if the canvas were also a result of the painting or of the act of painting.