Right, wrong, I just can't stop it

[oldernow]

From https://anantasatsang.org/book/are-you-aware-now/,
this seemed particularly meaningful this morning:

"So if this is clear in the heart that 'I am not a
person’ then all effort can be dropped simply. But not
as a denial. Many neo Advaitins today are using this just
as denial to say 'There is no person here anyway’
and going along with their lives suffering every day;
but refusing to actually see it is only a concept. They
have replaced one concept 'I am this person’ with
another concept that 'I am not this person’ while
continuing to live the life of only this person. So if
it is purely an intellectual exercise, then suffering
will continue. But if we see, really in our heart, that
it was just imagination, this person was just an idea,
if this is simply understood, then at that point effort
can be dropped as well. The seeking can be dropped as well."

I see the suffering in the alleged life of the alleged person that
says "I/me/mine", and that of alleged others. So much woe is me.
One that came across my screen today was some poor soul describing
the misery of the whole "transgender" thang, and I honestly couldn't
help but thing "Just who is putting who through what?" It just all
seemed like such ridiculous unnecessary mental/emotional overhead.

But it's really woe is me-HOOD.

So, Daniel, eastern Europe?

I'm embarrassingly unknowledgeable about that general region. I'd
have to dig around online just to be re-mind-ed what countries are
considered located therein.

Is that where perestroika comes from? <KIDDING>

In related cluelessnes, I'm *still* waiting for the Ukraine girls
to really knock me out.... ;-)

> True. I grew up under a soft kind of socialism with
> everything grey, 2 public TV-channels, 2 kinds of beer
> and horrible food. Over the decades my native country
> opened up and moved away _slightly_ from socialism, and
> things improved.

Reminds me about how a lot of Geminauts seemed to take issue
with capitalism, as though the devil incarnate. Disagreeing
opinions seemed to be met with never being spoken/written to
again. Shun/cancel culture seemed alive and well.

And now I'm remembering someone having major issues with me for
playfully poking fun at what to me is climate change hysteria.

--
oldernow
xyz001 at nym.hush.com

[D]

On Tue, 6 Feb 2024, oldernow wrote:

> So, Daniel, eastern Europe?
>
> I'm embarrassingly unknowledgeable about that general region. I'd
> have to dig around online just to be re-mind-ed what countries are
> considered located therein.

Just draw a line from north to south that starts between finland (west) and
russia (east), continue down to all the baltic countries, estonia,
latvia, lithuania (east), then you have poland (east), czechia,
slovakia, hungary and continue on the east side of the adriatic sea, and
you have eastern europe to the east and western to the west of that
line.

Traditional, conservative values seem to be still alive in the east, and
relativist and "woke:ism" seem to live happily in the west. Lately
though, there have been some shocks to the system in italy
(nationalist) and the netherlands in recent elections, and in june there
is the election to the non-democratic and authoritarian EU parliament
and woke politicians are deadly afraid that nationalists will get the
power to block anything EU related for the next 5 years (let's hope so).

My theory is that the woke politicians rhetoric about how "we" have to
"sacrifice" our standard of living to "save" the environment, while said
politicians travel in private jets and enjoy luxury dinners, not having
to pay taxes, legal immunity and other goodies the EU-parliament has
decided for itself, is starting to anger people. It was all fine as long
as the standard of living was not impacted, but now they are talking
about banning gasoline cars and other rubbish, and many are waking up.

Sadly I think there is a big risk of an overreaction. I'm not a
nationalist myself, although I do sympathize with a lot of what
nationalists want to do, but nationalism that spirals out of control can
get nasty very quickly and I'm afraid that we'll see this in europe if
woke:ism continues long enough and if quality of life drops far enough.
The established politicians are playing with fire. =(

> Is that where perestroika comes from? <KIDDING>

That was USSR during the last phase of it before the collapse.

> In related cluelessnes, I'm *still* waiting for the Ukraine girls
> to really knock me out.... ;-)

I feel sorry for you... the women in eastern europe, in my opinion, are
the most beautiful in the world. Naturally my wife is one. ;)

>> True. I grew up under a soft kind of socialism with
>> everything grey, 2 public TV-channels, 2 kinds of beer
>> and horrible food. Over the decades my native country
>> opened up and moved away _slightly_ from socialism, and
>> things improved.
>
> Reminds me about how a lot of Geminauts seemed to take issue
> with capitalism, as though the devil incarnate. Disagreeing
> opinions seemed to be met with never being spoken/written to
> again. Shun/cancel culture seemed alive and well.

Sigh... I think their view of capitalism is warped. I'm a capitalist,
but I freely admit that no country has free markets. I also believe that
the main reason (or at least a _huge_ reason) for the massive wealth of
Bill Gates and Jess Besos that these people loathe, is that they make
billions of _the government_. And thanks to the government they manage
to entrench their companies and protect them from competition.

So when I speak about capitalism that would be a system where they would
have less, and others more because they would not be protected by the
government and fed by the government.

> And now I'm remembering someone having major issues with me for
> playfully poking fun at what to me is climate change hysteria.

Oh, this is another one of my hobbies! Show me the climate hysteric and
I'll take it as a challenge to see how quickly I can drive him mad. ;)

Best regards,
Daniel