What Do You See When You Look At The World

Chumly wrote:

Eorl's avatar looks like an out-of-focus dog's butt!

It is.....but look a little closer. Can you see Our Lord ??!!

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Haha! Jesus has returned in the form of a dog's anus.
Eorl, you're right. It's a great thing that we will always have, it can never leave. Even when I've had the shittest day ever, I know that I still have myself and all the things I like.

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Just shows that we see as much with our minds as with our eyes. "Seeing" is both conceptual and perceptual.

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Eorl wrote:

Chumly wrote:
Eorl's avatar looks like an out-of-focus dog's butt!
It is.....but look a little closer. Can you see Our Lord ??!!

Why yes, alas it appears our lord is afflicted with torsonic polarity syndrome

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Well, He is said to move in mysterious ways....

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Eorl wrote:

Treya wrote:
IThere's more crime, murder, rape, car accidents, cancer, fear, you name it, we've got it.

Can you back that up with per capita stats? Because I think you are wrong. The media just makes it look that way.

Nope sorry. I can't. However I can say that when I went to high school I didn't have to go through a metal detector to get in the door, or worry about pissing some classmate off and getting blown to smithereens. Nor did I have to worry about locking my doors at night. Riding my bike to a friends house in the middle of the night. Ummm.... lets see... We didn't worry much about driving on the "wrong" side of town. I was never asked to join any gangs, or even do any drugs actually. Except alcohol once my sophomore year. Though there was generally one drunk driving accident a year where someone in our school got killed. That's kind of sad.

How about you Eorl? Did you have to deal with any of this stuff back then?

:wink:

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Re: What Do You See When You Look At The World

Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

How do you view the world?

Physically, I view the world as a swirl of blue, green and white. I see it sparkle and change.

Emotionally, I see the world as an ocean. I'm on the beach, the ocean is vast and many good things are out there with the many bad things. I know there are safe ways to travel it as well as unsafe ways. And I know that no matter how safe you travel it, a random event can be disastrous.

Economically and politically and socially, I see the world as a fud up place. I feel that the rich are porking the poor, and that the governments are porking their people. I feel that most governments are short sighted and corrupt at best.

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LK, you said that "no matter how safe you travel it, a random event can be disastrous."
You might like the book by an english taoist scholar, Alan Watts: "The Wisdom of Insecurity."

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Treya, can i just say that I have never been asked to join any 'gangs' or asked to do drugs, and I don't even have a 'wrong side of town' where I live.
I do think that things are probably worse than when you were young, but not by that much.
I was born in the late 80's, and my abiding memories of my childhood are playing out in the street till dusk, and going off to a 'secret place' which was actually an army storage base that had a hole in the wall, to have an adventure.
Has the crime rate in places like London and new york actually gone up? I think it's probably the same as it was in the 17th centuary and whatnot, but we have better policing to catch the criminals, and the media so it spreads.

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Personally, today I don't see a whole lot of joy. But that could change with tomorrow's sun. Today I see with a bit a pessimism that is not usually like me. Today I have too many worries and a very heavy heart. One of these tomorrow's will surely be much brighter.

Damn....I really need to vent, but not here on your thread, Bear.

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Treya wrote:

Eorl wrote:
Treya wrote:
IThere's more crime, murder, rape, car accidents, cancer, fear, you name it, we've got it.

Can you back that up with per capita stats? Because I think you are wrong. The media just makes it look that way.

Nope sorry. I can't. However I can say that when I went to high school I didn't have to go through a metal detector to get in the door, or worry about pissing some classmate off and getting blown to smithereens. Nor did I have to worry about locking my doors at night. Riding my bike to a friends house in the middle of the night. Ummm.... lets see... We didn't worry much about driving on the "wrong" side of town. I was never asked to join any gangs, or even do any drugs actually. Except alcohol once my sophomore year. Though there was generally one drunk driving accident a year where someone in our school got killed. That's kind of sad.

How about you Eorl? Did you have to deal with any of this stuff back then?

:wink:

I was beaten up and had my lunch money taken almost every day my first year in middle school until I jammed a paring knife into my attackers throat and threatened to kill his sister. I then became the "crazy white boy" and was left alone.

My new Schwinn bicycle that I delivered papers for all summer was unable to be stolen because I locked it and the first week of school some people beat it to death, for the junkyard, just because they couldn't steal it. The assistant principal told my mother Imust have done something to someone to make them mad and that was that, no action attempted.

Because I was one of the first guys in school to start growing his hair and the first budding rock musician, the counselors and asst principal branded me a possible homosexual to me and my mother's face and wrote it on my transcripts.

I saw several people stabbed and one shot as a result of after school fights before I was 13.

I led a gang. Survival mechanism.

My school experiences were one horror story after another and if written down would be a textbook example of how adults f**k up children's attitudes for life. I hope hell is hot enough for the teachers and administrators in my junior high school. I will nver forgive them.

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Treya is correct. Here is a quote from that magnificent Historian-Barbara Tuchman in her classic--"A Distant Mirror"

"Disaster is rarely as persuasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitious whereas it is morte likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, powerfailures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdows, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis and rapists. This has led me to formulate Tuchman's law as follows: "The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development from five to tenfold"

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That doesn't make Treya correct, it only gives good reason to doubt her contention that disastrous events are more common now than in the past. One other significant factor is that in the past, we had less access to information, and things could have been as "bad" then as now, or even worse, but we'd have had no way of knowing it.

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Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

Treya wrote:
Eorl wrote:
Treya wrote:
IThere's more crime, murder, rape, car accidents, cancer, fear, you name it, we've got it.

Can you back that up with per capita stats? Because I think you are wrong. The media just makes it look that way.

Nope sorry. I can't. However I can say that when I went to high school I didn't have to go through a metal detector to get in the door, or worry about pissing some classmate off and getting blown to smithereens. Nor did I have to worry about locking my doors at night. Riding my bike to a friends house in the middle of the night. Ummm.... lets see... We didn't worry much about driving on the "wrong" side of town. I was never asked to join any gangs, or even do any drugs actually. Except alcohol once my sophomore year. Though there was generally one drunk driving accident a year where someone in our school got killed. That's kind of sad.

How about you Eorl? Did you have to deal with any of this stuff back then?

:wink:

I was beaten up and had my lunch money taken almost every day my first year in middle school until I jammed a paring knife into my attackers throat and threatened to kill his sister. I then became the "crazy white boy" and was left alone.

My new Schwinn bicycle that I delivered papers for all summer was unable to be stolen because I locked it and the first week of school some people beat it to death, for the junkyard, just because they couldn't steal it. The assistant principal told my mother Imust have done something to someone to make them mad and that was that, no action attempted.

Because I was one of the first guys in school to start growing his hair and the first budding rock musician, the counselors and asst principal branded me a possible homosexual to me and my mother's face and wrote it on my transcripts.

I saw several people stabbed and one shot as a result of after school fights before I was 13.

I led a gang. Survival mechanism.

My school experiences were one horror story after another and if written down would be a textbook example of how adults f**k up children's attitudes for life. I hope hell is hot enough for the teachers and administrators in my junior high school. I will nver forgive them.

Ok, fair enough. I realize that my experience is most certainly not the way it was for everyone. So, I guess I'm going to leave it at this then, unless someone feels they can disprove it of course. Comparing your story to mine, one thing is still clear... Violence, at the very least, is "evolving" with the passing years.

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Setanta wrote:

That doesn't make Treya correct, it only gives good reason to doubt her contention that disastrous events are more common now than in the past. One other significant factor is that in the past, we had less access to information, and things could have been as "bad" then as now, or even worse, but we'd have had no way of knowing it.

Setanta, while I understand your point here and almost agree, I am a little miffed by something. Looking at history, which I'm pretty sure that you've studied much more intensely than I, are you saying then that even as far back as the 50's the kids had to worry about someone bringing a gun to school and killing them? That they had to pick the colors they wore out playing correctly, lest some gang member think they're from a rival gang and shoot them.... That even back in the "Little House on the Prairie" days there was still that same threat and no one was aware of it simply because the means of communication were not then what they are now?

Come on Set... that sounds like a bit of a stretch to me.

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You are forgetting the homosexuals & blacks of the 1950's at the very least.

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LOL

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Treya: May I suggest that you read any good History of the USA in the nineteen century which details everyday life or any History of Western Europe? You will find that we are far far less violent, on the whole, than the persons who lived in those centuries. Life, especially in the Middle Ages, was, as Hobbes stated--"Nasty, VICIOUS, and short".

Again, the reason we may feel that our time is filled with violence is that we are immediately privy to every crime and or atrocity committed in the entire world--if it has news value.

May I suggest that you look at -"A Distant Mirror" by the brilliant Historian--Barbara Tauchman--to discover just how violent and barbaric Europeans( nominally Roman Catholics) were in the fourteenth century?

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What do I see when I look at the world?

I see opportunity within constant change and diversity. I've just got up to a sunny day. It's Saturday and I'm feeling good after working a long hard week. I feel happy to have found this site but a little troubled by some of posted comments. I think it is ironic that socially we understand ourselves but it's beautiful at the same time. I think it is beautiful that people still have the will to connect with others even when they describe so much pain.

I don't remember where I heard it but I believe in the concept (similar to 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder') that our appreciation of beauty is actually a recognition of our own beauty.

I think, therefore I am responcible to act - (to 'act'ualise myself). While reading people's comments I wondered about how much I would like to work with people less fortunate than I (which, I already do but I was thinking in another country). I think that no matter how bad one may think they have it, there is always someone worse off. I don't know how I came through it but I survived highschool as a gay guy and grew up surrounded by people that have a tendency to hate fags. As I learnt to love myself, I learnt to love others and appreciate their hate as fear and ignorance (I used to hate fags too). Now most of those people love me unconditionally. They come to me when they have problems as I go to them. They know me with conviction now as I am more able to give my honest opinion and hear it in others.

Am I getting too lovey-dovey?

Here are some ideas, quotes etc I am reminded of...

Nothing is good or bad but thinking that makes it so ...

If you want to change everything simply change your attitude ...

If you have a problem and you can fix it then you don't have to worry about it coz you can fix it! If you have a problem that you know you can't fix, then you shouldn't worry about it coz you know you can't fix it.
I guess the message here is to Know, and seek knowledge and be brave enough to admit when you don't know something coz nine times out of ten, many others are in the same boat too scared to ask for help or show their frailty.

"that is, to be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled form ourselves. It is a tormenting tension and it must be borne, but the choice is clear"
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Objective reality is an oximoron.

An eye for an eye and we are both blind - One of the Lamas

'Be the change you wish to see in the world' - Ghandi

A

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I see a sort of shattered symmetry. A natural world which creates life, but also destroys it. Dream worlds unfolding from physical bodies, crashing back against the reality which created them.

There are worlds within worlds here.

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What Do You See When You Look At The World

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