An interesting idea, Xeno, but if I were you I wouldn't count on me being surprised if someone comes of with more concise or shorter ways of expressing that or any of my "cafe posts." The one you mention took me less than 15 minutes to write. I started at the beginning and whipped through it non-stop to the end, no cut-and-pasting to change the order of things, no editing. It's literally a reflection of my train of thought during that 15 minute period. Then I walked home from the cafe, did a short, cursory pass to check for spelling errors, and sent it off.
As someone said recently about writing, "I'm sorry this was so long; I didn't have time to make it shorter." But seeing a shorter or more concise version of one of my posts will have zero effect on future ones. I get off on the "flow" of such writing, just sitting there and allowing ideas to come through me, with as little "me" in the way as possible. That is not likely to ever change for anything I write to the Internet, because I do that kind of writing for FUN. For something I'm writing for publication, I would and do take a very different approach. But thanks for, in a post mainly talking about me, reminding folks that Hitler had his good qualities, too. I'm sure that'll help. :-) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@...> wrote: > > I think Barry's writing is more nuanced than you give him credit for. He does have a definite style, but within that style there is a lot of variety. Sometimes I find Barry's mode of expression really annoying, but he is not the cause of that annoyance, it is a projection of my own mind. We all have depth and we all have shallow pools where we fall short of greatness, which probably far more often than we realise because when we create something, even a post here, we see what is most like us and that is a kind of faux unity, and it is natural be enamoured of what we have done and skip over faults to which we are blind. > > Your reaction to Barry has a large emotional component, you are trying set something right, which is your prerogative. I am not an actor, but the glory of acting is subtext, expressing what is between the lines, giving life to what otherwise would be a kind of dull repetition. Reading between the lines of a post has certain dangers because we might just be projecting unconsciously something in us, some unconscious pattern that is not in the post. Some of Barry's posts are really clean, and some have deliberate emotional land-mines woven in that can trigger our projections. This is not unique to Barry, politicians attempt to exploit emotional patterns and unconscious behaviour all the time. If this is done 'right' it can serve to wake us up to our own hidden shallow pools. For me, sometimes Barry's writing works this way, sometimes not. But I do not have a distinctly emotional reaction pulled back on the bow and ready to shoot before I start to read. > > As I live with more extended members of my family, being somewhat aged, I see these preformed emotional reactions all the time. > > Even Adoph Hitler had some decent qualities, in old films of more personal moments, he seems almost like a regular guy. I am not implying he was a regular guy, he was one of the most destructive personalities in history, but he did have some of the humanity we all have in certain situations. > > Barry is not an idiot. What do you think is his strongest most positive point? What do you think is his weakest most negative characteristic? > > I think you are bright too. You have brought up many interesting things in these discussions. What if you were to analyse some of Barry's posts less from an emotional point of view of his intent (or your supposition of his intent) but rather from an analytical point of view about the ideas expressed, and how you could spin on those ideas. I have had the misfortune to watch some American soap operas for a few days. The people in these programs seem to be in comatose consciousness, wandering around in a world of personal interaction that has no purpose or structure, each person's world a plethora of dull emotional responses to all the others' emotional hangups. That is probably what prompted this post. > > For example I enjoyed Barry's post 'Sucking Others into One's Obsession'. I did not reply to it. I do not think all spiritual teachers are obsessed with what they do. For example, Adyashanti seems totally laid back, though by his own account, when younger, he was obsessed with what he now does. > > Suppose you took this post of Barry's (#283921) and edit it, removing what you feel is objectionable and reworking it so that the ideas expressed reflect what you think about those subjects? Edit it as if you had never heard of Barry and all that has gone on in this forum for years, as if you had gotten an assignment to rework this from a publisher or something. > > For some really insightful descriptions of other people, there is the fairly newly released unexpurgated version of Mark Twain's autobiography (the first third of it), 100 years after his death. A rather amazing piece of writing, with an unusual structure that seems to work in spite of its jumping all over in time and place. > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" jstein@ wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > <snip> > > > I'm "for" trying to occasionally self-monitor, and when you > > > find that the self has slipped into a lower mindstate, one > > > involving outrage or anger or a feeling of defensiveness or > > > strong attachment, coming back to more balanced mindstates, > > > just as easily as one comes back to the mantra in TM. To do > > > so doth not require a whole *lot* of effort. You just learn > > > to recognize when the emotions are in control and you are > > > not, and "reverse the flow." Shift polarity and, instead of > > > focusing on the minus, refocus on the plus. > > > > > > It can make all the difference in a conversation, and in a > > > life. After all my years walking a spiritual path, I find > > > that there are very few things that I can recommend to newbs > > > on that path. I wish that there were more. But one of the > > > things that I can wholeheartedly recommend is that the > > > minimal effort expended to prefer Self to self-importance > > > in activity might be worth the expense. > > > > Ya know, you're constantly urging "lurkers" to watch the > > TMers here and ask themselves whether the practice of TM > > produces the kind of behavior they would want to emulate > > (a rhetorical question to which the expected answer is > > "No"). > > > > Here you're recommending to seekers a technique that you > > claim will hasten their evolution. > > > > As a practitioner of this technique, do you really think > > that the behavior you exhibit, presumably as a result of > > the practice, would encourage anybody to take it up > > themselves? Is the way you conduct yourself here something > > you believe they would want to emulate? > > >
