[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Man In Paris, v1.07
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: To believe, or not to believe: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to believe in the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of beliefs in support of nature, and disbelieving, benefit from it anyway? That's my Shakespearean riff on the things that two types of people here might choose to believe about my latest Parisian rap. The simple backstory of this rap is that my desire -- or intent, in a Castanedan sense -- was to find a relatively inexpensive place to stay when I'm first there, in one of the more expensive cities on Earth. It's difficult to find hotel rooms for under 100 Euros ($130) a night, especially in nice areas. The cheap hotel I'd stayed in before, a discovery passed along to me by Robert Crumb, is totally booked up, which is understandable because it's a clean (if spartan) hotel in an acceptable (if uninteresting) quartier for more like 50 Euros a night. But even if that place had been available, all of those hotel bills add up, and sadly come out of my own pocket, since I'm a consultant on this gig, not an employee. So I went looking for the proverbial Better Deal. I tried the big short-term rental agencies, but they couldn't do any better than L'Hotel du Mister Natural (not its real name), and wanted huge deposits when renting for less than a year. Then a friend recommended Airbnb.com, which had some reasonable places with no huge deposits, and Craigslist. Bingo on the latter. I was perusing its lists of available short-term apartments, and stumbled upon one that looked from the headline as if it were a misprint. The weekly rate was simply too low, especially for the neighborhood. My disbelief only expanded when I clicked on the link and saw photos of the place. It was small but clean, impeccably maintained, and featuring everything I wanted. So I wrote to the owners, expecting them to come back to me saying that the price in the Craigslist ad was a typo, and instead they wrote back saying that the place was mine through March (which gives me time to search for something more permanent), and for 26 Euros a night. In Paris you can pay more than that to share a room in a youth hostel with eight hippies from Morocco and Eastern Europe who will steal your underwear during the night if you don't sleep with one eye open. And for that price I get a beautifully decorated studio in a historic building in the Marais, a neighborhood I know well, so well that I wasn't even looking for places there because I assumed I'd never be able to afford them. Go figure. Now, back to the Shakespearean aside above. Some folks here, if such as stroke of outrageous fortune happened to them, would call it support of nature, and chalk it up to their minds being 10,000X more powerful than lesser humans' minds, and to having not skipped a butt-bouncing session in years. Heck, they'd chalk up hitting two green lights in a row to those Woo Woo causes. :-) But none of that applies to me. I'm Off The Program. So WTF? Don't get me wrong. I *don't* believe in support of nature, because that would imply either benevolence on the part of sentient beings I don't believe exist or the non-sentient intervention of non-personal but inviolable laws of nature that I suspect -- if they even exist -- are FAR too busy running nature to bother with my sorry ass. But I *do* believe in being on a roll, or being in tune, or, more simply, Just Being Lucky. I suspect that this apartment is a combination of all three. I would *not* have checked Craigslist if a friend hadn't reminded me of it, so that was Just Being Lucky, as was stumbling across that ad an hour after it was posted. As for being on a roll, that's been happening a LOT lately, ever since the song Free Man In Paris got stuck in my head a few days ago. So what do you guys think? After all, the hardcore TBs here *can't* admit that I had support of nature on my side, because I'm so...so...evil and Off The Program and all. So that's right out. They also can't admit that I in any way deserve it, because some of them believe (and at least one has even said) that what I deserve is a long stretch in hell for all the things I've said about TM and the TMO and Maharishi. So I'm curious as to what they ascribe my good fortune *TO*. Me, I'll stick with Just Good Luck. I've had that going for me all my life, and in spades. By rights, given the dice-roll of chance, I should have been dead twenty times over or living under a bridge somewhere, but n. Instead I've had a remarkably fortunate life. No complaints. NONE. So what do you think is UP with that? It pretty much can't be the benevolence of gods or goddesses or Woo Woo Wiseguys looking after me from on high, because I bloody well don't believe in them. It's not a growing integration of mind and body from TM or the
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Man In Paris, v1.07
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: turq wrote: But I *do* believe in being on a roll, or being in tune, or, more simply, Just Being Lucky. Curious, share asks: what does turq think he's in tune with? Clearly, Share, you have never surfed. :-) Surfing (the little I did of it...I'm not like Marek) is about two things -- balance, and reading the waves. One does not have to believe that the waves either have sentience or a purpose to ride them. All that is necessary is to be able to read them well enough to catch a good one, and then use your own balance to stay up on the board long enough to catch a good ride. I *understand* that many are not comfortable with this level of acceptance of the randomness of life. I *under- stand* that many want to believe either that there is a purpose to everything or a Plan behind it. I don't. Shit just happens. But that doesn't mean that one can't surf a good wave, even if it's a wave of shit. :-) I surf *trends* the same way some people surf waves. When I look at things, I don't tend to focus *only* on the moment, but on a succession of moments, and what that reveals about the general direction those moments are taking. Then I take action, based on what my per- ception of the prevalent trends tell me is most likely to happen next. This does *not*, at least in my mind, imply any kind of belief in a Plan of any kind. Shit still just happens. But often it happens in waves, and if one is paying attention, one can surf those waves. Does that answer your question? From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 9:35 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Free Man In Paris, v1.07 To believe, or not to believe: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to believe in the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of beliefs in support of nature, and disbelieving, benefit from it anyway? That's my Shakespearean riff on the things that two types of people here might choose to believe about my latest Parisian rap. The simple backstory of this rap is that my desire -- or intent, in a Castanedan sense -- was to find a relatively inexpensive place to stay when I'm first there, in one of the more expensive cities on Earth. It's difficult to find hotel rooms for under 100 Euros ($130) a night, especially in nice areas. The cheap hotel I'd stayed in before, a discovery passed along to me by Robert Crumb, is totally booked up, which is understandable because it's a clean (if spartan) hotel in an acceptable (if uninteresting) quartier for more like 50 Euros a night. But even if that place had been available, all of those hotel bills add up, and sadly come out of my own pocket, since I'm a consultant on this gig, not an employee. So I went looking for the proverbial Better Deal. I tried the big short-term rental agencies, but they couldn't do any better than L'Hotel du Mister Natural (not its real name), and wanted huge deposits when renting for less than a year. Then a friend recommended Airbnb.com, which had some reasonable places with no huge deposits, and Craigslist. Bingo on the latter. I was perusing its lists of available short-term apartments, and stumbled upon one that looked from the headline as if it were a misprint. The weekly rate was simply too low, especially for the neighborhood. My disbelief only expanded when I clicked on the link and saw photos of the place. It was small but clean, impeccably maintained, and featuring everything I wanted. So I wrote to the owners, expecting them to come back to me saying that the price in the Craigslist ad was a typo, and instead they wrote back saying that the place was mine through March (which gives me time to search for something more permanent), and for 26 Euros a night. In Paris you can pay more than that to share a room in a youth hostel with eight hippies from Morocco and Eastern Europe who will steal your underwear during the night if you don't sleep with one eye open. And for that price I get a beautifully decorated studio in a historic building in the Marais, a neighborhood I know well, so well that I wasn't even looking for places there because I assumed I'd never be able to afford them. Go figure. Now, back to the Shakespearean aside above. Some folks here, if such as stroke of outrageous fortune happened to them, would call it support of nature, and chalk it up to their minds being 10,000X more powerful than lesser humans' minds, and to having not skipped a butt-bouncing session in years. Heck, they'd chalk up hitting two green lights in a row to those Woo Woo causes. :-) But none of that applies to me. I'm Off The Program. So WTF? Don't get me wrong. I *don't* believe in support of nature, because that would imply either benevolence on the part of sentient beings I don't believe
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Man In Paris, v1.07
Although we disagree on a hell of a lot, this is the clearest explanation of the way you live your life, you have *ever* posted. I have a lot of experience boogie boarding in Winter surf, my wife getting a concussion and black eye after being body slammed by a wave. I nearly broke my back another time, caught in a tightening curl. Couldn't go out more than thigh high water in the worst of it - gales blowing down the beach at 50 mph. Yeah, the ocean and interacting with surf is the closest, immediate practice of life that I know of. Days spent diving under double overhead waves, or spearing the face, diving through it. Used to go to several beaches, mostly Sea Cliff, a beach near Capitola, backed by a cliff about 80 feet up. Also has a pier leading out to the remains of a cement ship (yep, it floats), once used as a casino. Harbor seals, sharks and dolphins are in the area. Surf is strong enough in Winter that I was hit on the heel by *two* inches of water, traveling up the beach at a speed fast enough to knock me down. Keep surfing life. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: turq wrote: But I *do* believe in being on a roll, or being in tune, or, more simply, Just Being Lucky. Curious, share asks: what does turq think he's in tune with? Clearly, Share, you have never surfed. :-) Surfing (the little I did of it...I'm not like Marek) is about two things -- balance, and reading the waves. One does not have to believe that the waves either have sentience or a purpose to ride them. All that is necessary is to be able to read them well enough to catch a good one, and then use your own balance to stay up on the board long enough to catch a good ride. I *understand* that many are not comfortable with this level of acceptance of the randomness of life. I *under- stand* that many want to believe either that there is a purpose to everything or a Plan behind it. I don't. Shit just happens. But that doesn't mean that one can't surf a good wave, even if it's a wave of shit. :-) I surf *trends* the same way some people surf waves. When I look at things, I don't tend to focus *only* on the moment, but on a succession of moments, and what that reveals about the general direction those moments are taking. Then I take action, based on what my per- ception of the prevalent trends tell me is most likely to happen next. This does *not*, at least in my mind, imply any kind of belief in a Plan of any kind. Shit still just happens. But often it happens in waves, and if one is paying attention, one can surf those waves. Does that answer your question? From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 9:35 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Free Man In Paris, v1.07 To believe, or not to believe: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to believe in the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of beliefs in support of nature, and disbelieving, benefit from it anyway? That's my Shakespearean riff on the things that two types of people here might choose to believe about my latest Parisian rap. The simple backstory of this rap is that my desire -- or intent, in a Castanedan sense -- was to find a relatively inexpensive place to stay when I'm first there, in one of the more expensive cities on Earth. It's difficult to find hotel rooms for under 100 Euros ($130) a night, especially in nice areas. The cheap hotel I'd stayed in before, a discovery passed along to me by Robert Crumb, is totally booked up, which is understandable because it's a clean (if spartan) hotel in an acceptable (if uninteresting) quartier for more like 50 Euros a night. But even if that place had been available, all of those hotel bills add up, and sadly come out of my own pocket, since I'm a consultant on this gig, not an employee. So I went looking for the proverbial Better Deal. I tried the big short-term rental agencies, but they couldn't do any better than L'Hotel du Mister Natural (not its real name), and wanted huge deposits when renting for less than a year. Then a friend recommended Airbnb.com, which had some reasonable places with no huge deposits, and Craigslist. Bingo on the latter. I was perusing its lists of available short-term apartments, and stumbled upon one that looked from the headline as if it were a misprint. The weekly rate was simply too low, especially for the neighborhood. My disbelief only expanded when I clicked on the link and saw photos of the place. It was small but clean, impeccably maintained, and featuring everything I wanted. So I wrote to the owners, expecting them to come back to me saying that the price in the Craigslist ad was a typo, and
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Free Man In Paris, v1.07
I grew up body surfing in the Atlantic Ocean. Does that count? And that was mentioned in my very first posts on FFL to Marek. Anyway, thanks for this. It makes a lot of visceral sense to me. I really like the idea of surfing trends. I'd probably use the word energies. I wasn't expecting you to answer so I was thinking about it in the shower and decided that you're simply in tune with life. And with the human potential that you were born with. And with the fullest unfoldment of that potential from the perspective of thinkers like Maslow and Piaget. As such you benefit us all. Plus it's just joyful to see a fellow human surfing so well. From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 10:27 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Free Man In Paris, v1.07 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: turq wrote: But I *do* believe in being on a roll, or being in tune, or, more simply, Just Being Lucky. Curious, share asks: what does turq think he's in tune with? Clearly, Share, you have never surfed. :-) Surfing (the little I did of it...I'm not like Marek) is about two things -- balance, and reading the waves. One does not have to believe that the waves either have sentience or a purpose to ride them. All that is necessary is to be able to read them well enough to catch a good one, and then use your own balance to stay up on the board long enough to catch a good ride. I *understand* that many are not comfortable with this level of acceptance of the randomness of life. I *under- stand* that many want to believe either that there is a purpose to everything or a Plan behind it. I don't. Shit just happens. But that doesn't mean that one can't surf a good wave, even if it's a wave of shit. :-) I surf *trends* the same way some people surf waves. When I look at things, I don't tend to focus *only* on the moment, but on a succession of moments, and what that reveals about the general direction those moments are taking. Then I take action, based on what my per- ception of the prevalent trends tell me is most likely to happen next. This does *not*, at least in my mind, imply any kind of belief in a Plan of any kind. Shit still just happens. But often it happens in waves, and if one is paying attention, one can surf those waves. Does that answer your question? From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 9:35 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Free Man In Paris, v1.07 To believe, or not to believe: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to believe in the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of beliefs in support of nature, and disbelieving, benefit from it anyway? That's my Shakespearean riff on the things that two types of people here might choose to believe about my latest Parisian rap. The simple backstory of this rap is that my desire -- or intent, in a Castanedan sense -- was to find a relatively inexpensive place to stay when I'm first there, in one of the more expensive cities on Earth. It's difficult to find hotel rooms for under 100 Euros ($130) a night, especially in nice areas. The cheap hotel I'd stayed in before, a discovery passed along to me by Robert Crumb, is totally booked up, which is understandable because it's a clean (if spartan) hotel in an acceptable (if uninteresting) quartier for more like 50 Euros a night. But even if that place had been available, all of those hotel bills add up, and sadly come out of my own pocket, since I'm a consultant on this gig, not an employee. So I went looking for the proverbial Better Deal. I tried the big short-term rental agencies, but they couldn't do any better than L'Hotel du Mister Natural (not its real name), and wanted huge deposits when renting for less than a year. Then a friend recommended Airbnb.com, which had some reasonable places with no huge deposits, and Craigslist. Bingo on the latter. I was perusing its lists of available short-term apartments, and stumbled upon one that looked from the headline as if it were a misprint. The weekly rate was simply too low, especially for the neighborhood. My disbelief only expanded when I clicked on the link and saw photos of the place. It was small but clean, impeccably maintained, and featuring everything I wanted. So I wrote to the owners, expecting them to come back to me saying that the price in the Craigslist ad was a typo, and instead they wrote back saying that the place was mine through March (which gives me time to search for something more permanent), and for 26 Euros a night. In Paris you can pay more than that to share a room in a youth hostel with eight hippies from Morocco and Eastern Europe who will steal your underwear during the night if you don't
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Man In Paris, v1.07
I really don't think it matters what you call it. I mean, in some way, by some means, you got what you deserved. And I do believe that, to be a law of nature, or a law of karma, which I do believe in. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: So what do you guys think? After all, the hardcore TBs here *can't* admit that I had support of nature on my side, because I'm so...so...evil and Off The Program and all. So that's right out. They also can't admit that I in any way deserve it, because some of them believe (and at least one has even said) that what I deserve is a long stretch in hell for all the things I've said about TM and the TMO and Maharishi. So I'm curious as to what they ascribe my good fortune *TO*. Me, I'll stick with Just Good Luck. I've had that going for me all my life, and in spades. By rights, given the dice-roll of chance, I should have been dead twenty times over or living under a bridge somewhere, but n. Instead I've had a remarkably fortunate life. No complaints. NONE. So what do you think is UP with that? It pretty much can't be the benevolence of gods or goddesses or Woo Woo Wiseguys looking after me from on high, because I bloody well don't believe in them. It's not a growing integration of mind and body from TM or the TMSP, because I don't believe in that, either, and don't practice either. I'm gonna go with Dumb Luck, and enjoy my time in the Marais. It's a vibrant, lively scene, with lots of wonderful cafes and restaurants and clubs, and close to a lot of evening entertainment. Some here of the homophobic persuasion might not like it because it's also a big gay area, but that never bothered me in Sitges (40% gay) and won't in the Marais, either. It'll be a bit longer of a commute to work than I wanted, but on a straight Metro line -- no changes -- so that's OK with me. All in all, I'm jazzed. And suspect that I will continue to be while there, literally, because I'll be down the street from one of Paris' oldest jazz clubs, where Miles and Coltrane and others played. I'm still, in fact, a little incredulous, hardly believing in my own Dumb Luck, but it does seem to be happening, so cool. Even if some of you manage to convince me that this is all really due to support of nature, that won't make it any cooler. Dumb Luck seems to work just as well for me as TMers' support of nature does for them, and it certainly costs less, both in terms of cash and the amount of belief-baggage one has to carry around.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Man In Paris, v1.07
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, seventhray27 steve.sundur@... wrote: I really don't think it matters what you call it. I mean, in some way, by some means, you got what you deserved. And I do believe that, to be a law of nature, or a law of karma, which I do believe in. Here is the thing: what can look fortuitous in the moment, what appears to be the fulfillment of our current desires and which comes about, much to our delight, could end up being extremely disastrous in the end. We might be thrilled we won a Ferrari in the lottery but we end up dying in a fiery crash in it, whereas if we had bought the 15 year old beat up VW Beetle we would still be alive today. Life is very complex, and it stretches off in time, into a future that we can't predict or know. But we may be crowing like happy little roosters in the meantime. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: So what do you guys think? After all, the hardcore TBs here *can't* admit that I had support of nature on my side, because I'm so...so...evil and Off The Program and all. So that's right out. They also can't admit that I in any way deserve it, because some of them believe (and at least one has even said) that what I deserve is a long stretch in hell for all the things I've said about TM and the TMO and Maharishi. So I'm curious as to what they ascribe my good fortune *TO*. Me, I'll stick with Just Good Luck. I've had that going for me all my life, and in spades. By rights, given the dice-roll of chance, I should have been dead twenty times over or living under a bridge somewhere, but n. Instead I've had a remarkably fortunate life. No complaints. NONE. So what do you think is UP with that? It pretty much can't be the benevolence of gods or goddesses or Woo Woo Wiseguys looking after me from on high, because I bloody well don't believe in them. It's not a growing integration of mind and body from TM or the TMSP, because I don't believe in that, either, and don't practice either. I'm gonna go with Dumb Luck, and enjoy my time in the Marais. It's a vibrant, lively scene, with lots of wonderful cafes and restaurants and clubs, and close to a lot of evening entertainment. Some here of the homophobic persuasion might not like it because it's also a big gay area, but that never bothered me in Sitges (40% gay) and won't in the Marais, either. It'll be a bit longer of a commute to work than I wanted, but on a straight Metro line -- no changes -- so that's OK with me. All in all, I'm jazzed. And suspect that I will continue to be while there, literally, because I'll be down the street from one of Paris' oldest jazz clubs, where Miles and Coltrane and others played. I'm still, in fact, a little incredulous, hardly believing in my own Dumb Luck, but it does seem to be happening, so cool. Even if some of you manage to convince me that this is all really due to support of nature, that won't make it any cooler. Dumb Luck seems to work just as well for me as TMers' support of nature does for them, and it certainly costs less, both in terms of cash and the amount of belief-baggage one has to carry around.
