Unpopular Opinions

[Nungali]

"  Carrots are good for you . " 

 

 

 

Well ... unpopular opinion  for some  ; 

 

 

 

 

[whocoulditbe?]

Opinion:

People who strive day and night for some kind of breakthrough, spiritual or otherwise, put twice as much effort into avoiding and ignoring the confrontation that would be needed to bring it about. Or worse, the effort to find it might itself be a disguised form of the avoidance. And this disguise can be doubled over itself countless times, so that we repeatedly find that the feeling of getting past it only entangles us further.

[Daniel]

12 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

 

Which one is you?  Kitty, bunny, or flamingo?

 

Also a fun ice breaker at parties... depending on the crowd.

 

The unpopular opinion is.... Sooner or later, everyone's a flamingo!

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Daniel

[Taomeow]

15 minutes ago, whocoulditbe? said:

Opinion:

People who strive day and night for some kind of breakthrough, spiritual or otherwise, put twice as much effort into avoiding and ignoring the confrontation that would be needed to bring it about. Or worse, the effort to find it might itself be a disguised form of the avoidance. And this disguise can be doubled over itself countless times, so that we repeatedly find that the feeling of getting past it only entangles us further.

 

Also don't forget the The Four Ignoble Arrows, which sources preoccupied with the Four Noble Truths prefer not to tackle.  To wit, Suffering; suffering through practice aimed at ending Suffering; suffering from inadequacy feelings over the suffering through practice not ending Suffering; and suffering over attachment to inadequacy feelings over the suffering through practice not ending Suffering.

 

The most advanced practitioners who survive the wounds of the Four Ignoble Arrows are hit with the Fifth and Ultimate Ignoble Arrow.  

[liminal_luke]

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

 

The most advanced practitioners who survive the wounds of the Four Ignoble Arrows are hit with the Fifth and Ultimate Ignoble Arrow.  

 

In your earlier accounting of "unpopular acts" within your repetoire you neglected to mention the crafting of literary suspense.  Pray tell, what is the Fifth and Ultimate Ignobel Arrow?

 

(I'm guesssing death?  That seems to me like the ultimate take-the-cake unpopular act.)

Edited July 30, 2023 by liminal_luke

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

 

In your earlier accounting of "unpopular acts" within your repetoire you neglected to mention the crafting of literary suspense.  Pray tell, what is the Fifth and Ultimate Ignobel Arrow?

 

(I'm guesssing death?  That seems to me like the ultimate take-the-cake unpopular act.)

 

You may be right, but I have a most unpopular response: sheesh, I honestly don't remember.  I came across the Four Arrows in the latest novel by one of my favorite contemporary authors, who is interesting among other things in that he tackles, drags into his plots, or otherwise pays homage to, Buddhism in nearly all of his books.  His earlier ones did it in a somewhat missionary fashion, sort of like Buddhism 101 for those who don't have the foggiest, while his later ones run a spectrum from rather iconoclastic to a tad preachy to mind-blowingly insightful toward that subject.  So one of his protagonists was talking about, actually, the Four Arrows of Buddhism (I changed the name of the phenomenon in my post out of deference to our resident buddhists), and then busted out the Fifth...  but I forget what it was.  That protagonist was very eloquent and quite verbose. 

 

Meow.  

Edited July 30, 2023 by Taomeow

[Apech]

11 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

... more than one ingress into  Americas ..... the Aboriginals didnt like the USA so kept going .  North American tribes  came later from elsewhere .

 

OR ... if you like , a bunch of 'our guys' paddled over there in paperbark canoes  

 

( they become 'our guys' when we feel a false sense of past achievement that has nothing to do with us anyway, even if they where our grandparents    )

 

Good vid on DNA evidence:

 

 

[kakapo]

On 7/28/2023 at 7:25 AM, Shadow_self said:

 

Have you a measure of this, or any evidence that doesnt involve a nonverifiable verbal handmedown/personal testimony?

 

 

 

 

 

My buddy from Zeta-2 Reticuli lent me his scouter, xe double checked the readings.

 

Xe told me we are mostly just a bunch of empty containers, and the last full container they found was crucified several millennia ago.

[steve]

Unpopular opinion #37:

 

Nearly everything everyone says here is an expression of their own personal condition and experience and has relatively little to do with the outside world. 

[Indiken]

Everyone post here for themselves, not for others - that is they try to refine their opinions, but not opinions of others

Edited July 30, 2023 by Indiken

[whocoulditbe?]

6 minutes ago, steve said:

Unpopular opinion #37:

 

Nearly everything everyone says here is an expression of their own personal condition and experience and has relatively little to do with the outside world. 

This is predictable. In the Chinese context, Confucianism has generally focussed more on the external, and Daoism on the internal. If we wanted to talk empirically about the world economy, ecology, etc., we could do that here. But yeah, there might be better places on the interwebs for that kind of discussion.

[steve]

13 minutes ago, Indiken said:

Everyone post here for themselves, not for others - that is they try to refine their opinions, but not opinions of others

 

The question is how many are aware of this?

[old3bob]

57 minutes ago, Indiken said:

Everyone post here for themselves, not for others - that is they try to refine their opinions, but not opinions of others

 

no man or woman is an island, thus our realities are a process of refinement

[liminal_luke]

2 hours ago, steve said:

Unpopular opinion #37:

 

Nearly everything everyone says here is an expression of their own personal condition and experience and has relatively little to do with the outside world. 

 

That is an unpopular opinion, so unpopular that I find myself wanting to disagree with it.  It's bitter medicine, the idea that my own opinions are not rooted in reality. So yeah, I disagree.  And yet, once I get over my initial discomfort with the idea, there's something freeing, opening, loosening that happens when I lean my mind in this direction.  

................................................................................................

 

When I was young and bold and stong, The right was right, the wrong was wrong.  With plume on high and flag unfurled, I rode away to right the world.  But now I'm old -- and good and bad, Are woven in a crazy plaid.  I sit and say the world is so, And wise is s/he who let's it go.

 

- Dorothy Parker

Edited July 30, 2023 by liminal_luke

[Taomeow]

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. -- (attributed to) Eleanor Roosevelt (who may have been quoting someone else.)  

Edited July 30, 2023 by Taomeow

[liminal_luke]

28 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

... small minds discuss people. -- (attributed to) Eleanor Roosevelt (who may have been quoting someone else.)

 

If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me.

 

- Dorothy Parker

[Taomeow]

I do not care which language I'm misunderstood in, or by whom. -- Marina Tsvetaeva　

[silent thunder]

ok how bout this one?

 

The notion of 'choice' is illusory, thus there is no free will.

[old3bob]

It is foolish to sink your boat before you've completed the crossing,  it is foolish to renounce will before will has completed its task...(like in paddling)

Edited July 30, 2023 by old3bob

[liminal_luke]

Steve doesn't believe in objectively true opinion, silent thunder doesn't believe in free will, Taomeow is threatening to perform unpopular acts with Nungali -- what a thread!

Edited July 30, 2023 by liminal_luke

[old3bob]

 

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" and or 

 

 

Never in the field of human history is there so much owed by so many to so few.

[Daniel]

38 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Steve doesn't believe in objectively true opinion, silent thunder doesn't believe in free will, Taomeow is threatening to perform unpopular acts with Nungali -- what a thread!

 

You forgot about your spanking.  

[Daniel]

Unpopular opinion:

 

To be enlightened is a burden.

[whocoulditbe?]

Messing with rich text isn^'t cool.

[old3bob]

opinions are a dime a dozen, but dozens of abstractions may only go for 2 cents...

Edited July 30, 2023 by old3bob