On May 1, 2005, at 2:59 AM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
At 02:31 AM Sunday 5/1/2005, Warren Ockrassa wrote:On Apr 30, 2005, at 11:27 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
Out of curiosity, why is it that Erik and a few others are able to get away with incessant windbaggery and insulting behavior?
"Cuz others find _that_ as funny as the Three Stooges? :D
Could be, could be ... the thought occurs, though, that comments such as "religion-addled brain" are really marks of prejudice, or at least arrogance; in my experience arrogance is usually little more than vastly undeserved pride.
You realize, I trust, that the above was just another smart-aleck one-liner . . .
Yes, but it was far too good an opportunity for soapboxery to let go by.
"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
Yeah, I call that Lucasian Zen. By Yoda's argument, I was *afraid* of SWII.
A better formulation is that attachment leads to fear and/or anger. Attachment also leads to suffering.
As for the fear -> anger thing, I don't think so -- in our lovely modern American society, for instance, men are supposed to show two or possibly three really strong emotions: Anger, horniness and (possibly) jocularity. Nothing else. No sadness, and certainly no fear.
Men aren't taught how to probe their emotions, are not encouraged to introspect and name their feelings, and when ambivalent or complex or subtle emotions arise, particularly if they're unpleasant, the typical male response is just anger. (Which might be partly rooted in frustration.) So anger is often a masking emotion for something else, and often that something else is fear. At least in my experience that's the case.
"While we cannot agree with others on certain matters, we must never be disagreeable. We must be friendly, soft-spoken, neighborly, and understanding."
— President Gordon B. Hinckley, October 2003
Ah, screw 'em. ;)
But this does lead to another question: How does one reconcile this injunction with Orin Hatch (example) and his push for certain amendments? The bludgeon of law is hardly soft-spoken, and prejudice is *never* understanding.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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