--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@...> wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robert <babajii_99@> wrote: > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMkFjYRWM4M&feature=related > > > > Great video, Robert. One of my favorite Stones songs, and > > a lovely version of it. To some, it might remind them of > > various stages of the spiritual development process. Others > > may hear only a rock song. > > See? "I'm special because the song reminds me of the > spiritual development process. Other people who aren't > as special as I am just hear it as a rock song."
If life is a spiritual development process, then theoretically anything might be able to remind one of some aspect or stage of this process. It is easy to read things into what people say. This is what happens when people have shifts in their 'state of consciousness'. It is especially easy to read things into poetry for example. I do it all the time. The mind has a certain flexibility of interpretation and this flexibility increases with 'spiritual development'. I see this battle between Judy and Barry as a lopsided emotional contest, at least for now (and recall I have not been on this forum for very long). It is my observation that women respond more socially and emotionally to situations than men. I do not know why this is so, but there are neurological differences between men and women. The idea of political equality does not work when one is doing science. Barry shows more emotional detachment than Judy, and his writing does have a style that seems to me to be posturing at times. Whether it is an inherent part of his personality, or a deliberate ruse to stir up discussions I cannot say, but I believe the matter seems settled with Judy -- Barry is an extremely annoying, presumptuous writer, who breathes an atmosphere of know-it-all-ness into every paragraph. And not only that, he does not really engage with most of the posters on the forum but remains tormentingly aloof, and bows out of discussions if they go much beyond the point he is trying to put across. This of course happened to me too. I found Barry's writing engaging, but in a more extended discussion, he bowed out. Barry does not send out brownie points for friendship cues. He just leaves you where you are. If you are uncomfortable where you are, guess what? I don't know how he is with friends (you know, real people currently in his life), or what he may have been like long ago. (Who knew Barry personally years ago, what was he like?) In other words, on the forum, he is not typically socially engaging, and my experience with women indicates they usually require some socially engaging etiquette to feel comfortable, and Barry does not provide this. I am not saying I would know how to provide this either. Many years ago, my sister introduced me to a female friend of hers. Later on that day my sister said her friend was very distressed because she could not read any social prompts from me, so she could not determine whether I liked her or not. Barry seems to be deliberate in keeping people off balance, and maybe he always likes to win an argument. Polemics does not bring a lot of insight into one's life, but there is sometimes a satisfaction in clobbering an opponent, or simply vanishing when they think they have just got you. There are other ways to keep one off balance, and in the case of maskedzebra, we have a prodigious intellect that kind of ensnares others by its complexity, but Barry's compact summaries seem pretty dead on in showing that MZs complex presentations are mostly without substance. Barry is very good at seeing through things, but not willing to have people see through him, at least on this forum. Maybe elsewhere he is different. How would I know? But it is his stand-offishness with regard to feelings and an unwillingness to engage that drives many to distraction here, and it bothers me too, but it is in letting one's feelings knocking one off balance that destroys the ability to do battle, either in words or on the field of war. I think that may affect a woman more because they see nuance and feeling in what people say more than a guy. They do it among themselves. We guys trade in data and tend to be more superficial in those finer feelings in discourse. Our simpler nature perhaps results in what we say and do to be over-interpreted by a woman beyond what we really are thinking and feeling. Here is an illustration. About a quarter of a century ago I read a very funny story in a Washington D.C. free newspaper. I do not know who wrote it but I just searched and found it on the Internet; it seems to be intact, a story about a class assignment between a guy and a gal who were to write a story in tandem in the very early days of email (this was about the time I started thinking of buying my first computer), or perhaps the part about email was added more recently: The professor told his class one day: "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached." The following was actually turned in by two of his English students: Rebecca and Gary. THE STORY: (first paragraph by Rebecca) At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favourite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question. (second paragraph by Gary) Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit. (Rebecca) He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully. (Gary) Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Laurie. (Rebecca) This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent. (Gary) Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F--KING TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels!" (Rebecca) Asshole. (Gary) Bitch (Rebecca) F__K YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL! (Gary) Go drink some tea - whore. [END] ========== As for Judy and Turq (Barry) I enjoy interacting with them or as it more usually is, almost interacting with Barry. As I said sometime before in another post, I probably would not travel in the same circles as Barry, and I also think after reflecting on this I would get along better with Judy than Barry. At one time in the past I had some written discussions with a TM teacher. My attempts to get this person to come up with an independent thought almost always ended in a null. I would get quotes by MMY back sometimes, or just silence. Nothing would work to get this person to come up with independent thinking that strayed from the party line, or showed a glimmer of original content (creative intelligence). Perhaps there was a fear that if something was set down in writing, the TMO thought police might come across it somehow, sometime. So Judy and Barry are far more engaging in spite of differences I may have with them. Whatever voice I or anyone on this forum has, if I or we are overly concerned with what we interpret what the others on this platform think of us, it has the effect of stifling our voice and our reason. If anyone remains on this forum, they are obviously getting some kicks out of it one way or another. By the way, I have never heard the Stones' song mentioned at the beginning of this post. I looked up the lyrics though, and guess what, I can kind of see why Barry likes it. It is not my cup of tea. If he can see spiritual development stages in it, fine. I do not. Oh, I am soooo not special. I flunked the test. Take pity upon my wretched mundane soul*. *This statement does not imply that there is something that is called a soul, or that I have such an entity, and is included here primarily for affective purposes.
