--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@...> wrote:
Judy: Robin, I'm snipping all the Vaj is-he-or-is-he-not stuff. I think most everything that needs to be said on that score this time around (it's come up on a regular basis for many years) has been said, at least to my satisfaction. Maybe something new and different will crop up next time, and we'll take it for another spin... Robin2: Agreed. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, maskedzebra <no_reply@...> wrote: <snip> Robin: I was a little concerned about learning that I am a > "perplexing critter" and that "it is not surprising that > you throw people for a loop sometimes". I would hope that > if this is so, it does not occur when I am obviously > attempting to be the opposite of this. That would be my > fault clear and simple. Judy: Cheese, Robin, that wasn't intended as a criticism. You're a very unusual, complicated dude with a very unusual, complicated history. And from what you've said, you haven't been in communication with the TMer/former-TMer community for many years while you were putting yourself back together. Robin2: I understand perfectly now the context within which you were addressing my Perplexing Critterness. And I admit to having a high level of PC. Judy: You're not like anybody we've had on this group, at least since I joined it in 2005. TM apostates are a dime a dozen around here, but former cult leaders who used to be in Unity Consciousness just don't tend to drop by FFL too often, you know? Many of us have never encountered anybody with anything like your resume, so to speak, in our lives. Robin2: I am glad, Judy, you have taken notice of my very impressive resume :-) You should see me in person. I am even more fascinating than my resume. But as Mrs Bob Price says [about her husband]: a little long in the tooth. Judy: No matter how much effort you put into making yourself transparently clear, at times it's going to go over/under/ to one side of some folks' heads. I've followed your posts as closely as, if not more closely than, anyone here, and *I'm* not always sure where you're at. (I've been wildly curious about you ever since I first saw you discussed on alt.meditation.transcendental back in the late '90s, so I was tickled when you showed up on FFL.) Robin2: Don't worry: I know the close-reading you give to all my posts. And I appreciate this. Knowing there is an intelligence such as yours at FFL is something I compute each time I post there. As in: Judy is going to read this, Robin: is it up to snuff? I also realize that I am not from time to time understood quite the way I would wish to be understood. And certainly if you want to really get at what I am saying you have to go through (sometimes) a rather dense, convoluted and labyrinthine processbut it's worth it when you put the effort in, right! :-) I have a certain experience while I am articulating my own thoughts about something; that experience is the context within which I make my arguments or narrate my story. And for me, Judy, that experience means staying as near to reality as I can at all times, never losing this contact point with what is most real for me. Never separating myself out from reality such that what I am saying is mere opinion (or at least felt by *me* to be just opining). I may be wrong; but for me posting at FFL does carry with it this responsibility to be always alert to the ontological context within which I believe I exist. In this sense you could say that all my posts at FFL are 100% existential. Interesting that I got your attention even before I came onto FFL. I will try my best not to disappoint your original experience of being "wildly curious"although I don't think those who know me in person necessarily believe I live up to the hypethe hype based on those turbulent, terrible, violent, beautiful, extraordinary, and in the endindefensibleten years when I was in Unity Consciousness. Judy: There are some big gaps in your story as you've recounted it as well, which you may or may not end up filling in (some of them came up in your earlier discussions with Curtis, and you said then you'd try to get around to them, hint hint). Robin2: Sure enough. I expect that if I continue to post at FFL I will get to filling in some of those "big gaps in [my] story". But I never want to just write for the sake of presenting information [about myself and my philosophy] without there being the kind of tension and focus that precipitates and therefore in some sense justifies such disclosures: I like, Judy, to write into a *context*; not arbitrarily. And I certainly try as best I can to answer whatever specific questions are addressed to me at FFL. But, as I say, there has to be some dynamic [overused word, I realizepsychology has sucked the life out of it) which makes revealing more about my philosophy and my past [for those not living in Amsterdam and who are genuinely interested in hearing something more from me] a kind of natural autobiographical or expository event. Judy: In this instance, I had in mind zarzari's perplexity concerning what he considers contradictions between what he sees as your "TB" view of Maharishi and your conviction that it was all a cosmic deception. We all know about the TB view, but the cosmic deception part is pretty much a WTF?? for most of us, TMers and TM critics alike. (I don't really get that part either, but it doesn't seem to me to be a contradiction.) You might want to take a gander at zarzari's response to me, and my reply, and see if there's anything you want to try to clear up. Robin2: This reflection of yours prompted me to write a post to zarzar; to which he responded surprisingly graciously. So, you can take credit for me having addressed the paradox of Romance and Deceit in the context of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Judy: Anyway, that's what I meant about throwing people for a loop. It may be distressing to you not to be perfectly understood, but it comes with the territory; you really can't expect it 100 percent, even from those with the best will in the world toward you. You're doing well if you can convey glimpses here and there. Maybe with enough glimpses, it'll begin to come together as a whole. Robin2: I am aware that some of my posts are provocative, ironic, and even in a certain sense abstruse: so I am bound to lose a fewmaybe more than a fewreaders. After all, there are the Alexes as well as the Barrys of this world; and with Alex I am an acquired taste that he knows he will never have. With Barry, well, you know in what consists his aversion to my posts. There is a difference. What concerns me in posting at FFL, Judy, is to meet every challenge head-on; and to test out my philosophy, my understanding, my experience as I go to express myself. I am here for self-metatherapeutic reasons. I am not here to make FFL readers believe in what I believe in. Of course you know this. But the way I write is a kind of performance, and I am going to confuse, lose, alienate, and even repulse certain readers. But there will be those readers and posters such as yourself who will give me the very fairest of opportunities to make my case, and for this I find myself satisfied in general with the response I expect I am getting at FFL. I do envisage a time (again: assuming that I continue to post at FFL: something could happen which would persuade me to stop posting, given the volatility and biasses and hostility that is rife at FFL) when "maybe with enough glimpses, it'll begin to come together as a whole". It certainly is lived out these days as a whole, even though of course the process of understanding myself and becoming more intelligent about myself continues, and will continue into my death. Judy: Who really understands any other person anyway? Ain't nobody here omnisubjective! Robin: True enough. Although just knowing there must be a consciousness somewhere outside of the universe which is omnisubjective means that the first person ontology of every human being, living or dead, is a matter of perfect and objectified knowledge; therefore in some theoretical sense the subjectivity of a given individual can at least be meaningfully probed. But your general point is of course indisputable. Robin: But if in the course of attempting to meet the challenge of > one of my critics, I resort to irony, well that just might > cause disorientationbut in this case, this would be my > intention. There are no Queensberry Rules for the boxing > that goes on here at FFL. Judy: Right, I wasn't referring to your use of irony, although that *does* confuse some people (most of whom had it coming, as you suggest). It can be quite delicious for those of us who tune in to it, so don't hold back. Robin2: I understand, Judy: you meant that, just in the normal course of the way I write, I am not understood by a number of FFL readers. I get this. I appreciate your awareness of my irony, and I know you are the one person at FFL who never misses it. That can be quite a consolation for me, as you must realize. I won't go into one of my: Irony Is The New and Necessary Religion discourses here; but certainly in the 21st Century, anyone who does not exercise their irony muscles will miss out on probably the sharpest and most piercing forms of communication between persons. Or at least irony must be part of the armamentarium of every civilized, educated, intelligent adult in the world. I think of what level of irony I possessed when I was in, say, grade 10. It is my observation that children at 6 years old are much more irony-savy than I was at 16. So, then, if you are as mature chronologically as you and I are, it behoves us to be acutely aware of all the forms of irony (think of commercials nowadays) that exist to make things lively in the absence of any consensus about ultimate truth. And, don't worry: I won't hold back. I can't. I have no choice if I am going to say anything of moment. Think of how irony-challenged some expatriate Americans are. Jesus wept. Robin: Look at what has happened today: Bob Price writes a review > which is major league; Barry writes a review subsequent to > the Price review which, in comparison to the Price one, is > very much minor league. And yet Barry would have us believe > he has been brought up to The Show. Bob hits at about a 400 > average [in that review]; Barry, about 240. This difference > is noticeable to menot so much to Steve, though. He would > have Barry and Bob hit for the same average. Probably 280. Judy: Haven't seen any of the films or read any of the books, so I can't judge the quality. Bob's was certainly more intriguing, though. (I tried reading Spy Who Came In from the Cold many years ago and found it boring; saw the film and found it depressing. I should try tackling the Karla trilogy, perhaps, now that I'm older and presumably wiser.) Robin2: Of course this makes perfect sense to me. Robin: I will leave it there, Judyperhaps Steve would say the > percussion section. I hate to say this, but I think he needs > that 8th degree sometimes :-) Judy: We could all use another degree or three, I suspect. Robin2: You are aware of course that I am referring (8th degree) to a particular comment Steve made to Bob Price: viz, that if Bob thought he had been subjected to criticism by you, he didn't know nothing compared to what heStevenhad been subjected to. 2 our of 9 I think was the calibration of takedown intensity that Steve assigned to Bob versus himself. Robin: Honesty, sincerity and intelligence: it's nice when they > all go together. This is my impression of your posts, Judy, > and they are a kind of necessary countervailing force at FFL. Judy: Gee, maybe Curtis was right. Maybe you and I *should* get a room. ;-) Robin2: No more romances for me! :-)
