moment

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

-----Lao Tzu

To be more childlike, you don't have to give up being an adult. The fully integrated person is capable of being both an adult and a child simultaneously. Recapture the childlike feelings of wide-eyed excitement, spontaneous appreciation, cutting loose, and being full of awe and wonder at this magnificent universe.

------Wayne Dyer

6 hours ago, virtue said:

 

@ilumairen It seems you are completely ignoring the actual and very serious issue about the Ausar debacle in favor of grasping straw man arguments in that thread which Rene started and which had an entirely flawed and biased premise. Now it's time to take three steps backwards and start seeing the entire big picture.

 

I will try to be clear, but acknowledging the Ausar's scam and associated malice has been a consistent issue with this mod squad.

 

Before Sean took over there were or had been three big issues that were rocking the board, from more global problems to more localized:

 

1. toxic alt-right friendly atmosphere
2. a freaky astral sex cult
3. Ausar's scam and attempted character assassination of Terry Dunn

 

Listing the same items in terms of acute seriousness and predatory behavior:

 

1. Ausar's scam and attempted character assassination of Terry Dunn
2. a freaky astral sex cult
3. toxic alt-right friendly atmosphere

 

The problem then is that there was a reverse relation between the danger and its visibility on the board like in real life true criminal activity thrives under neglect and the lack of watchfulness. It's furthermore explained explained by the fact that Sifu Terry, Earl Grey, and even myself, we all spent a lot of hours in countering both the orchestrated and spontaneous disinformation and malice initiated by Ausar. There were many people who were unwittingly playing to Ausar's fiddle and for a while it seemed like every bitter voice suddenly came out of the woods to have unfair jabs at Sifu Terry, Grandmaster Doo Wai, the Bak Fu Pai family arts, or the Flying Phoenix system. You have to realize that Ausar was asking a lot of money ($10,000) from TDB members and had actually been successful in duping some gullible people by selling fabricated and dangerous meditations. It was reported that the duped individuals would "see entities" after those meditations, which suggests that the inauthentic meditations caused some degree of neurological damage.

 

In this context Rene's initial post was seriously mistaken and misleading:

 

 

She simply didn't have much clue what was going on.

 

Amusingly, it wasn't too long ago that I again had to write a rebuke against Ausar when his "meditations" were offered around here without any precautions, but thelerner, in his moderator capability, was really lenient and clearly not understanding the issue in its heart. It took a lot bitching from me before he and Trunk reacted at all. Do the mods exist to enforce polite rules and social etiquette, or are the policies and mods here to keep this place actually safe from all types of predators and disinformation that could lead to people getting hurt? I have seen few of the mods and some other people opine that even this type of mistakes can be good for wisdom, but I find such sentiments disheartening and alarming in the context of overall wisdom and ethical integrity.

 

tl;dr: Some people did a huge work for busting the nuts of a crazy scammer and his ignorant puppets, but in the end they get no recognition but misunderstanding and disdain.

" Do the mods exist to enforce polite rules and social etiquette, or are the policies and mods here to keep this place actually safe from all types of predators and disinformation that could lead to people getting hurt?"

1 hour ago, ilumairen said:

Thank you for sharing pertinent information @virtue.

 

Thank you for sharing the pertinent thread @Earl Grey.

 

I saw the following in the thread:

 

 

And now, after being characterized as grasping at straws (not sure how much time you guys believe I have free in a day, or how much of that time you believe I should spend tracking down the lengthy complaints EG has about things which occurred before I was a mod, but it certainly isn’t as much as presumed), I am done.

 

If present concerns arise, please bring them to my attention. Otherwise, I am sorry for all the myriad ways individuals felt wronged before I became a mod, but I cannot do a damn thing about any of it.

 

Be good to each other; don’t be good to each other - whatever. Just follow the rules.

"Be good to each other; don’t be good to each other - whatever. Just follow the rules."--Exactly!  No enforcement beyond the rules.  No complete thread shutdowns, no stretching of the rules, to loosely cover tenuous perceptions of PC violations. That is what is needed to keep this a vibrant open forum.

“Instead of resisting to changes, surrender. Let life be with you, not against you. If you think ‘My life will be upside down’ don’t worry. How do you know down is not better than upside?”
― Shams Of Tabriz

“A life without love is of no account. Don't ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, eastern or western…divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”
― Shams Of Tabriz

12 hours ago, neti neti said:

As a child Shams-e Tabrizied was different. His own parents thought he was retarded. 

Then one day Shams told them the story of the duck’s egg that was found by the hen and hatched. The hen raised the duckling with her other chicks. One day they walked to a lake. The duck went right in the water, Shams said to his parents, “Now, father and mother, I have found my place. I have learned to swim in the ocean, even if you must remain on the shore.”

Shams was Rumi's teacher.  Shams was a great sage.

We need to honestly evaluate ourselves constantly, because our balance is a moving target. 

2 hours ago, Earl Grey said:

 

Apologies for the late reply, my brief time here in the past week has really been diminished to passing comments that I have posted and responding to Steve in the private message he has sent, which I will send a follow-up to his response later.

 

 

Yes, the issue here with Spotless is a lingering one because it was what I had mentioned to Steve (who is free to share my own PM to him just as he had said in our conversation that I can share it as well if need be) that I was made to be a caricature, and Spotless, who not only was extremely passive-aggressive with me, but he also never denied that he was talking about me when I called him out in the moderation thread, and worse, not once did anyone ever talk with me as a fellow person, instead making me to be caricature by associating me with a "frat club of the childish lower sewer mind". This stigma has remained persistent since then. 

 

This harkens me back to my high school freshman year when I was the new American kid in the international school. Everyone assumed I was all sorts of things from sounding like a cowboy (because they all assumed Americans were Texans) to being a serial killer because America has lots of serial killers like Charles Manson. These were stereotypes the international community's kids had of Americans, who were in the minority in our school. Yet for the first year, nobody actually approached me except for a few people who either didn't care about rumors or didn't believe them, and those who did believe the rumors were surprised when they actually were forced to work with me for class projects that I was nothing like these ideas of whom I should be. Likewise, people had parallel assumptions about me because I am of Asian heritage, and that I should know certain things and act in a certain manner, which I didn't because I was fresh off the plane from the states, so I was being held up to two contradicting stereotypes when convenient, saying more about the people observing than me as an individual, even if it is based off of shallow observations and personal histories. 

 

So really, the people who made me to be a frat boy of the childish lower sewer mind were also individuals who told me not to take it seriously, and then get surprised that I respond in a manner that displays my disdain for them? At the very least, I am Sir Kettle, and they are the Teapot family. 

 

 

 

This part here is where I have spent the bulk of my time drafting my response as best as I can to not sound like this is a defense statement or said with hostility, but now all I can do is hope that these points are considered. 

 

First off, let's be clear that there has been a lot of passive-aggression from silent thunder towards me (and others), and a lot of two-faced behavior, and in the moderation thread when it was announced that I was banned, he was the most vocal criticizing me, yet freeform had a comment that is suddenly no longer there about how friends don't speak in a manner of raising a glass and addressing everyone and nobody at the same time, they speak directly to them, or call them in, which silent thunder refused to do and justified his approach. It is a highly ineffective way of dealing with people and actually creates the caricature as opposed to dialogue and engagement that recognizes a fellow man. 

 

This passive-aggression from people like him is consistent and somehow it is just cunning enough to overlook and consider not passive-aggressive, but the behavior pattern is evident and aligned with his values. His behavior is somehow tolerated because it follows the egalitarian principle, but the odd thing is, the egalitarian principle here seems to enjoy the amateur over the craftsman when it comes to following a conversation. 

 

One way to address passive-aggression from a member's point of view is to directly call out the behavior and say, "Stop beating around the bush and speaking in riddles: what are you saying and who are you talking about?" and the dialogue can potentially continue, but if a moderator steps in, there should be a compelling encouragement to coax the answer out (coax, not force), but instead, we see dialogue completely shut down because of fear of hurt feelings or personal attacks, real or perceived. 

 

So in regards to my forum, let's observe how I've not mentioned or described silent thunder in either of the two threads in question. He may have the same opinion as one statement I made generally about idiots who think New Age is a valid framework, but the point I make is not to portray him or anyone in particular as something ad hominem, but the argument itself that is absurd and frankly common here, a view that I make no effort to hide all of my disdain for due to the problems of the average SNAGG (Sensitive New Age Guy/Gal) being someone who increasingly shares a lot in common with the alternative healing promoted by the Alt-Right now for coronavirus, and even before then, were saying things like "Reiki cures cancer" and "The Law of Attraction will give you what you want!" or "Be positive, because negative is terrible, no good, very bad stuff" (font and font color intentional) and putting themselves as a false equivalents to the Mohammeds (PBUH), Siddarthas, and Jesuses of history.  

 

While I can see how it can be perceived as an ad hominem, it is more a criticism of the view than the individual--hence me saying idiots. Now the next thing you'll say is that "Then how do we have dialogue when your forum is closed off?" and I say "How do we have dialogue if the people already showed they don't want to have dialogue because they're set in their views and see me as the same way, and then go on acting passive-aggressive to show they will never engage me?"

 

A pity that forum dialogue is voluntary and a moderator does not have the ability to encourage or order discussion in an online forum rather than an actual in-person forum. If people were ordered to talk and hash things out instead of being told to shut up or be shown the door, imagine how other potential for dialogue could turn out. 

 

 

The comparison to joeblast is to me and others laughable because it posits that I am a bully who enjoys humiliating others for the sake of my own entertainment. Judging by the likes on the comment that Steve made in my moderation thread that I have a "history of abuse and bullying" (which I hope is now clear in our PM that it was a lot of mis-reading), I will address several of the individuals there and a couple more to show that it's a false comparison. 

 

Let's start with freeform, who, in response to waterdrop on the same thread, made a very pertinent observation:

 

 

Let us also look at flowing hands then, who I will not deny that I have had hostile interactions with, but in my own defense, I've simple defended myself against him and found him to be unable to have direct dialogue with or correct any wrong assumptions, which began on his part as we can see I said on this thread, which he summarily rejected:

 

 

 

And since then, flowing hands has seen me as a joeblast, but his premise was on strawman arguments, especially alleging I said things I never said initially, and overreacting rather than taking me for what I meant and tried to explain, in addition to escalating it and then insulting me. He was defending himself when I never said anything.

 

The other two in more recent times don't need quotes--one was Mskied, whom both Ralis and Nungali can confirm that Mskied saw me as a troll, but the guy was already assuming a personal attack when what was initially given from Nungali was a fact check on Crowley and me later on saying Nungali was not trolling him. As the behavior and stubbornness increased, so did the fucks given about what he thought because everything challenging him was considered trolling, until he revealed himself to be dialoguing with himself and an alt-right troll who praised Hitler, which was why Sean banned him. 

 

The other was Heartbreak, and me being "mean" to him was because the guy was posting ridiculous things about Asian women and aliens, conspiracies, and how reddit and YouTube were his teachers. The misogyny and conspiracy theories go against what Sean himself said were not acceptable on the forum:

 

 

And in addition, in Sean's own words: 

 

 

Would Sean be considered another joeblast? I ask considering how in the Marblehead remembrance party, he in his own words also said:

 

 

I don't even know if Sean would be here long as a member if he were not the owner. 

 

Anyway, now that I mention Mskied and his disdain for Crowley above, I suppose the more appropriate comparison to me is not a troll, but an iconoclast. Aleister Crowley, Marilyn Manson, and many others used notoriety to play with the images the world projects onto them, which only a few can see is deliberate hyperbole (much like my wall) to act as gadflies, and yet that humor (also inspired by some bitterness with personal experiences to an extent) is lost and taken to make them literal demons to their critics, especially those who only go off of arguments based on hearsay. 

 

 

Sadly, the wisdom has already proven to be subject to personal bias, as evident in my recent suspension, which was based off of personal disdain rather than facts or existing rules, and worse, lack of clarity and direct dialogue. 

 

Wisdom is not a personal thing, by the way, it is a shared collective of knowledge and experiences. The need for fact checking is essential even if it gets in the way of discussion, but the killing of discussion via locking threads or suspensions is a quick way to create resentment. 

 

I hate to bring this up, but this is where facts and jumping to conclusions is really evident on the thread that we first interacted in. 

 

A thread started by Rene lamented about bullying of a member who got suspended, and when I jumped in and said that the facts were incomplete based on what she's saying, because she had no context of what went on or what posts and threads were hidden or deleted in the Flying Phoenix thread, or what was going on. She had lamented what she saw as bullying, but did not see the threats and trolling from the member DSCB57 in support of a known scammer, Ausar, and his many sock puppet accounts here. Instead, it led to her insulting me, and me getting into verbal jiujitsu with her, beginning with her getting mad that I said "Knock yourself out, lady". 

 

This is where you stepped in and asked about my misogynistic BS and Pilgrim explained that it encourages violence against women. For the record, the past couple years I have asked how "Knock yourself out, lady" is misogynistic or encourages violence against women to various ages and nationalities, and nobody can see either the misogyny or the call for violence in that sentence. Rene was acting based off of a perceived attack (the only one was the toenail comment because at that point she was being ridiculous to me and refusing any fact checking or context). 

 

And yet: I apologized for the sake of getting along, but in hindsight, I wish I stuck to my guns based on the pattern of everything going on here with the extreme aversion to not having a Cheers-like atmosphere where everyone gets along.

 

So our Flying Phoenix community, who had fended off a major scammer and then a troll who was defending the scammer, were never asked anything when the general forum who had no idea jumped to conclusions. This is worse because the posts supporting this were deleted or hidden.

 

I'm going to stop here and say that the PPJ was inevitably going to reopen once the message has been made, and it's been made. Now the dialogue needs to eventually find a new path forward and I need to decide what I'm doing.

 

The zeitgeist of this forum now is that you all want an egalitarian place that to me reads more like a SNAGG-friendly environment, which I see as dangerous for both physical and mental health and have direct experience with people doing that, such as poisoning themselves with alternative therapies and merely calling it healing crisis. 

 

Where does Earl Grey fit into all this?

 

For one option, I have less time to be here and contribute much to the general area due to this current paradigm, and can make sparse statements here and there while focusing on both my PPJ and managing the FP thread of Terry Dunn.

 

Another option, I can just pack up and delete my entire PPJ, disable my personal messenger, and say goodbye, but that is the nuclear option and it's not a very good one either. 

 

The next one posits that if I am banned at some point to request that the PPJ and all its contents be deleted from history.

 

What is likely going to happen as this dialogue continues if it hasn't ended yet is to figure out not what I do, but what the entirety of the forum does, not just Earl Grey, not just the moderators, but everyone. 

 

My suggestion: you know those comment boxes in some restaurants? Have a dialogue there and let people say things even if abrupt, allow people to vent and don't insta-ban or suspend unless someone is really being a jerk. So create a thread and let people speak, even those most critical of you and don't use suspensions and bans as the band-aid--be members first and look to other solutions.

 

I mentioned Judge Chick to Steve and to others before. If interested, we can discuss him as a potential inspiration for future moderation. 

Your loss to this forum would be a grave mistake for all, including yourself! Few have have contributed as much to this forum as you have and possibly no one has in such a short period of time.  Yet, you would also lose much, not having contact here, with people like myself, who truly care for you.  Then there is the fresh blood coming in, that needs strong direction and you give that with the knowledge to back it up.

I am impressed with your growth lately, in that, you are moderating yourself, while growing stronger in your own defense.  That is one hell of a balancing act!  

The mods have a very tough job and they are trying hard to make connections (this continuing and improving dialogue shows that).

I think that in the future though, some types of PMs, (that MAY have led to unnecessary scrutiny and actions by mods) should be scrutinized more closely, as indirect attacks that have nothing to do with actual rule-breaking.

General Chiune Sugihara

The Nazi regime began tightening its chokehold on Europe, Japanese Consul-General Chiune Sugihara and his wife Yukiko watched with increasing concern as Lithuanian Jews were persecuted, driven out of their businesses, and forced away to "labor camps." Finally, Sugihara decided enough was enough, and set out to bring the Jews of Europe onto Japanese soil and out of Hitler's reach. The Japanese government, however, didn't approve of the idea, and shut down Chiune's request to issue visas for the fleeing Jews. In response — and in true Liam Neeson fashion — Sugihara essentially told them to shove it, and began to write the visas by hand.

He and his wife ended up writing what some estimate to be around 6,000 visas for Lithuanian Jews, an incredible feat that's even more unbelievable when you compare it to Oskar Schindler's record of 1,200 saved through his work program. The last foreign officials to remain in Kuanas, Lithuania, save for a Dutch consul, Sugihara and his wife worked round the clock, issuing close to 300 visas a day and distributing them to the refugees who gathered outside of the Japanese consulate gates.

When Sugihara was finally ordered to leave, he continued to write visas and throw them from the train as he departed, and left his official visa stamp with one of the refugees so they could continue his work in his absence. It is estimated that he saved nearly all of the people who received visas, and after arriving in Japan, the Jewish refugees called themselves the Sugihara Survivors in honor of his bravery.

So why hasn't his story been broadcasted like Schindler's? Unfortunately, Japan was still operating under the samurai code of honor during this time, and to defy a superior was considered unforgivable. So rather than award their comrade for his contributions to the war, he was removed from his government position and forced to live in dishonor until his death in 1986.

Witold Pilecki

 

Witold Pilecki Photo: Wiki Commons

Nazi concentration camps were one of the most hideous and disturbing tragedies to arise out of the second world war, but few countries were aware of their existence before the Allied liberation in 1945. Fewer still had any idea what atrocities were taking place within their gates — which is exactly why Wittold Pilecki, a Polish resistance agent, decided to see the inside for himself. How'd he do it? By getting himself arrested and sent to the worst death camp of them all: Auschwitz.

He gathered intelligence inside Auschwitz and sent it to the underground Polish army for two years, enduring brutal conditions and near-starvation to detail Nazi execution and interrogation methods. When the Allies continued to put off any aid (some even accused him of exaggerating his reports, according to NPR) he broke out of the camp and escaped. Pilecki continued to gather intelligence throughout the war, and didn't let up afterwards either, though now it was against a different government — the Soviet regime in Poland.  Sadly, Pilecki was later captured by the communists, arrested for espionage in 1948, and issued not one, but three death sentences. The communists also wiped his name from the public record after his execution, and no accounts of Pilecki's bravery were known until after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Thomas Clarkson

The activist who was edited out

The name William Wilberforce is synonymous with the abolition of British slavery, but it was Thomas Clarkson who instigated the cause. In the years before the slave trade was outlawed, Clarkson gathered evidence to show the inhumanity of conditions by sneaking onboard slave ships. He became a target for rich slave owners who tried to assassinate him and shut down his campaign, way before Wilberforce even heard of it. It was only when Clarkson realised he needed someone in government to help him that the young MP got involved, and the men became great friends. But after Wilberforce’s death, the politician’s sons wrote a biography claiming Clarkson was just a hired hand who carried out errands for their father. Their book became a key source for historians and the myth that Wilberforce acted singlehandedly was soon settled as fact.

Standing alone and unchanging,

one can observe every mystery,

present at every moment and ceaselessly continuing--

This is the gateway to indescribable marvels.

                                                   Lao Tzu

35 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

I love how the editor merged 'unrelated' activities into one unified process through their rhythms...

 

there is no movement without rhythm...

 

while all motion seemingly arises from

revolves about... and returns to

a point of stillness

 

.

Absolutely! Good continuation. Thank you!

55 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

Nah, just a Germanism inspired by Weltschmerz.   

 

I forgot most of my German over the years, so I always appreciate it when I encounter a German word borrowed into English --it stimulates some of that memory, so when I see one, I can seldom resist using another. 

 

Also sprach Taomeow.   

I feel peace, I feel love, I feel joy, I feel the tears well up in my eyes every single day, in the oddest places and times.  It sometimes happens in front of strangers and I am no longer embarrassed or try to wipe them away and damn; it feels good!

It is all around us; "tap" into its' joy!

I

10 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

Looks more like schadenfreude to me.      

Good god! from cynicism to sadism! 

11 hours ago, Apech said:

 

Perhaps we could say a kind of Weltschmerz brought on by that fin de siècle sense of the jejune nature of discourse itself?

 

 

Too much cynicism there for me.

On 9/3/2020 at 4:49 AM, Apech said:

 

now I feel existential angst - and it ain't pretty.

Wear the outer robe of the law; but wear the inner robe of the mystic.

2 minutes ago, Cleansox said:

But does he know how to make a buck out of them? 

Not likely

46 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

If there were no incels Mantak Chia would be out of business.

 

 

Yep, Mantak knows his audience and how to make a buck off them (a hell of a lot of bucks).