Posts by Sandra Murphy33

So you told the boss to just hand everything over to the janitor, and suddenly you're the "good guy"?! 🤦

The truth is, you just wanted the clutter out of your sight.

And not even on your own dime or effort—you wanted someone else to deal with the heavy lifting for you.
Basically, you want other people to move your stuff from point A to point B while you sit back.
And then you expect to walk away looking like some kind of saint.
Give me a break. 😉

I’d be just as pissed if someone ordered me to haul my own junk from one place to another as if I were their personal errand boy or some low-rent delivery service...

Joseph Bailey41 said:To be honest, I don't really have a clue what "spiritual growth and development" even means. 🕺

Of course it's possible. If you head out to the Himalayas and rent one of those meditation caves that comes with a private bathroom, while a Sherpa brings you water and chops your firewood. 😁

Walking around the streets without an ego isn't exactly recommended. It's dangerous.

Nothing. It's still as full of holes as a block of Swiss cheese. At least that's what a psychic told me—right after some clairvoyants at an esoteric fair gave me similar vibes back when they used to set up near the Farmers Market. Honestly, they were talking about holes in my aura, but I think it's the same thing.

It's that sense of self-importance, that feeling of being separate. Spiritualists often just develop a "spiritualized ego"—they stay just as self-centered, but they learn all the right jargon to repackage their flaws as virtues.

👍

Quincy:

It’s still just as full of holes as Swiss cheese. At least that’s what my shrink told me, and before that, some psychics at the Esoteric Fair while I was hanging around Pike Place Market. Honestly, they were rambling on about holes in my aura, but if you ask me, it’s the exact same thing.

🤣

Betty Chavez2 said:Humility should first be an internal state where we submit to God's will—a state where our own will becomes God's will, where there is zero resistance and everything flows naturally within an inner current of bliss where two become one in Unity.

Elizabeth Castillo87 said:Yeah, but honestly, every single religious leader I’ve ever come across—and I mean everyone from the local preacher to those high-priced gurus out in California—doesn't actually promote that sense of Unity. Instead, they just sit there letting people shower them with gold and expensive gifts.

We owe our humility to that greater force we can't always wrap our heads around—call it God, the Universe, or simply Life itself—but we certainly don't owe it to other people.
That’s how I see it, at least.

Michael Gonzalez77 said:Dak, I’m not suggesting that human life itself is just some "psychological phenomenon." What I am saying is that an individual's subjective experience is so skewed that they spend most of their existence trapped within their own mental constructs. They tend to obsess over a memory of how life *should* be, all while neglecting the physical reality they didn't create—merely sustaining their bodies with nonsense born from a distorted perception. They see almost nothing of actual life; they only see the shadows they've cast themselves.

Look, I never said you were claiming LIFE is a "psychological phenomenon"; I said you were applying that logic to HUMANITY. Isn't that the point?

The fact remains that you misunderstood my position. Go back, read my previous post again, and actually address my questions. Please. PP thanks.

Michael Gonzalez77 said:... which is why an individual—whether they consider themselves pious or not—has to seek "inner peace." They exist in a half-world composed entirely of their own thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. From actual life, all they have ever truly known are the thoughts they think and the emotions they experience based on those internal impressions, memories, and mental snapshots—mostly unpleasant ones. Consequently, they suffer, feeling as though they aren't actually living, but merely sleeping atop a landfill of accumulated impressions gathered at random, haunted by self-created ghosts they no longer know how to manage.

I'm with you on this.

Are you familiar with the work of Katie Byron?
Her story is quite compelling.
I’m curious to hear your take on her liberation from everything you just described as "impressions, thoughts, and memory"...
Katie refers to all of that as "the story." She poses a question to everyone: Who would you be without your story?

Anyway, since you claim to be at the edge of the path, how do you interpret the idea of a human becoming a mere "psychological machine"?
Is that inevitable, and was there ever actually an alternative?
And finally—how much longer is this cycle going to continue?
(How much longer, for God's sake?!!?! 🤣)

Amanda Jackson5 said:Spot on 👍

Nea-- says:

"The wholeness in any given whole can echo the wholeness found in any other whole. However, the specific shape—the mental consciousness—that this resonance takes within the mind of the listener is really just a projection of what’s already baked into that mind. And because we define anything as a 'whole' based on its boundaries, that mind remains inherently finite."

If you ask me, this version flows a bit more naturally:
"Wholeness in one whole can resonate with the wholeness in any other whole. But the form (the mental consciousness) that this resonance takes in the mind of the person experiencing it is essentially a projection of what is already inherent in that mind—which is always a finite mind, seeing as all wholes are finite by definition."

Well, that’s great. Even I find this translation easier to wrap my head around than my own original thoughts. 🙂

Anyway, you've convinced me to go ahead and paste the rest of the text. 😁 This time, let's skip the mediocre translations. 😉

All concepts of absolutes are nothing more than escapes. We cling to them because we cannot stomach the messiness of existence. By creating rigid categories—good versus evil, right versus wrong, success versus failure—we attempt to build a fortress against the chaos of the actual world. It is a psychological defense mechanism designed to provide a sense of order where none truly exists. We crave these certainties because they offer the illusion of control, shielding us from the terrifying realization that most things exist in a gray area. To believe in an absolute is to admit you lack the stamina to face the nuance of life.
Stagnation is nothing more than a desperate attempt to outrun the inevitable. By refusing to move, we aren't actually stopping time; we are just building a fortress against the friction of progress. We cling to immobility because we fear the cost of evolution, hoping that if we stay perfectly still, the tides of transformation will pass us by without notice. But staying put isn't safety—it's just a slow way of hiding from life.
The concept of the "eternal Now"—that trendy mainstay of modern pop-mysticism—is little more than a convenient exit ramp used to dodge the actual labor of dharma. True dharma cannot be illuminated through passive presence alone; it requires the heavy lifting of uncovering genuine meaning and purpose. If there is one spiritual directive that holds any weight, it is this: keep moving. Just walk on.

It is entirely possible that there is an inherent order hidden within constant flux. Within this continuous stream of transformation, the idea of enduring, quasi-permanent structures—patterns that remain relatively stable for a stretch of time—is more than just a theoretical concept; it is a fundamental part of the human experience.
Change isn't just chaos; there is an inherent order within it—a fundamental cyclicity. To understand this, one must recognize that reality is The cycle of being , The foundation of The complex interplay of elements and ceaseless. We often struggle against the shifting tides of existence, yet we fail to see that movement is not random. It follows a pattern. Even what human beings call death is simply The transition fra The day state to The Night state. Everything moves through these phases, returning to itself in a constant, predictable loop. When you stop fighting the flux and start observing the patterns, you realize that stability isn't found in standing still, but in understanding the rhythm of the shift.
To exist is, fundamentally, to be woven into a continuous stream of transformation.
reality is The cycle of being , The foundation of The complex interplay of elements and ceaseless transformations of which what we call bodily existence is but a phase.

Every single unit of activity carries within it some level of consciousness. There is no such thing as absolute non-consciousness, just as there is no such thing as true nonexistence or total stillness.
Change is constant. However, the consciousness within any given whole reacts to this continuous flow by interpreting it through its own specific lens—filtering everything through its unique nature and its inherent capacity to assign meaning and understanding to the chaos.

When human consciousness remains tethered to—and is essentially a byproduct of—biological functions, then birth and death serve merely as the boundaries of a singular, unified state of physical existence on this earth.
Physical, measurable, and tangible existence represents only one half of The cycle of being. It is merely one side of a larger equation. The other half consists of a period where consciousness and activity are almost entirely subjective—just as they are overwhelmingly objective during the phase humans perceive as their physical life.
In the alternative phase—that symbolic nocturnal period—we see the principle of unity take hold, driving everything toward a singular oneness. The material world essentially falls away, yet "being" remains constant. It is a state defined by an overwhelming sense of subjectivity, much like the profound internal shifts we experience during deep sleep or periods of intense meditation.
What human beings call death is simply The transition fra The day state to The Night state. Every individual element within this realm eventually follows its own trajectory; they become scattered, yet they are never truly annihilated. It is my belief that certain components will inevitably resurface, reintegrating themselves under the rule of a new—and perhaps more deserving—king from within the same dynasty.

The person aware of The totality of The spectrum of its being , actually becomes Wholeness in operation. When consciousness identifies itself with that inherent Wholeness, it gains the capacity to accept the entirety of existence through a total affirmation of all-inclusive being.
Every instance of negation is rooted in fear. The real struggle for anyone living with a self-conscious, individual identity is finding the strength to push past that fear—to let the movement of wholeness flow through their entire being, even when the logical mind can’t quite grasp where that path is leading.
Spiritual living isn't some abstract concept; it is the deliberate, affirmative choice to accept your place within the grandest whole you can possibly sense yourself belonging to. It means letting that driving force of wholeness guide you, one step at a time.
Of course, every single step is a struggle. You are essentially trading a shallow, fragile kind of stability for a much deeper realization of wholeness. To get there, you have to face a period of total instability head-on, meeting it with nothing but raw courage and steady faith.

"The completeness found within any single entity can vibrate in harmony with the completeness of any other. However, the specific shape—the conscious perception—that this resonance takes within an individual’s mind is merely a projection of what is already embedded there. And because every individual mind is inherently limited, the perception remains limited; after all, any entity we define as a 'whole' is, by its very nature, finite." (D. Rudhyar)

"The totality within one whole can resonate with the totality of another. Yet, the form—the mental awareness—this resonance adopts in the observer's mind is fundamentally just a projection of what is already present within that mind. Since all minds are finite, and all defined wholes are finite, the resulting perception will always reflect that inherent limitation."

Other people as the essence of humanity? It’s complicated....

"Hell is other people," according to Sartre.
(Essentially, we are defined by the gaze of others.)

But there is also this:
"All the world's troubles stem from man's inability to sit quietly in his room," as Pascal put it. Though, back then, you couldn't just broadcast your entire life from your bedroom like we do now... which makes the internet the ultimate intrusion into our private space. 😉

There are plenty of other perspectives, but those were the first ones to come to mind.

swifttiger75 said:I'll stop there. So, your point is that it’s impossible to integrate a personally realized spiritual truth into society without hitting a wall of conflict?

Beyond that, I think this "individual insight"—as you put it—necessarily shifts how a person views death, which essentially means facing the same fate as Jesus or Socrates. It naturally gives an individual the grit to stand up against the collective.

Great topic. 👍

In my view, social ethics (Sittlichkeit 🙂) cannot actually evolve without the catalyst of radical individualism.
Both Jesus and Socrates underwent what could be described as heroic deaths—there have certainly been others like them—only to be "rehabilitated" by history. Eventually, society integrated their truths, and those very principles became foundational elements of our modern social fabric, much like the men themselves served as archetypes of radical individualism.

"When I scan the news, listen to the radio, or overhear conversations in a coffee shop, I feel an increasing sense of revulsion—even disgust—at how repetitive our language has become. It’s always the same tired phrases, the same empty platitudes, and the same recycled metaphors being written and spoken. The worst part is when I catch myself doing it too, realizing that my own speech has fallen into those exact same patterns. These words have been used so many millions of times that they feel utterly worn out and neglected. Do they even hold any actual meaning anymore? Of course, the exchange of words still functions; people react to them, laugh, cry, change their political allegiances, or a waiter brings over your coffee. But that isn't the point. The real question is: Are these words still expressions of thought? Or are they merely functional vocalizations designed to nudge people back and forth because the etched grooves of habit are constantly being reinforced?" /.../
Words ought to be flawless, like polished marble or as pure as the tones in a Bachian partita, which reduces everything that is not itself into perfect silence."
(From "Night Train to Lisbon", P. Mercier)

Oh, please, by all means, continue performing your duties with such unwavering gravity and honor. Keep guarding the sanctity of those PDF threads you oversee so diligently... scrubbing away anything that doesn't strictly adhere to the topic, ensuring not a single misplaced comma disrupts the perfection 😉 ..... and if a particular post strikes you as being too personal or lacking the necessary level of expertise—given how profoundly specialized and riveting these discussions are, of course—feel free to toss it straight into the trash where everything else belongs.

I completely grasp how deeply invested you moderators are in this vital mission. You clearly feel the heavy burden of preserving this prestigious forum—this supposed fountain of wisdom and profound insight—to ensure it never devolves into a lively marketplace that might actually become interesting to someone.

"Troller in this forum's history"... please, don't tell me 😉 that every single moderator in this forum's history was born with an innate ability to spot a troll, or perhaps they all completed advanced degrees in trollology before stepping into such an honorable role?

You essentially invented the concept of "trolling" just so you have a convenient excuse to delete anything you don't personally like.
While you might be under the impression that your "expert" identification of trolls actually maintains some sort of academic or pseudo-intellectual standard for this forum—the very idea would be laughable if it weren't so tragicomic.
(...that’s how much "messianic fervor"—or rather, "academic megalomania"—exists here... by the way, my remark was clearly sarcastic, but you'd need a sense of humor to catch that; those lacking it will simply see "messianism" and similar projections in anyone who doesn't take themselves quite as seriously as you do)

The second part of your argument is completely irrelevant and, as Sandra Murphy33 once pointed out in a similar situation, doesn't even warrant a response. Not to mention how difficult it is to read; it's just a rambling, incoherent mess. It reminds me of those texts you claim are "philosophical," when in reality, the only ones truly engaging in that specific academic style of philosophy on this forum are Sigmund and Jednostavko. They are the only ones capable of stimulating thought in others. This can't be said for you, nor for any of the naturalists, Darwinists, or atheists you mistake for philosophers—people who turn this Philosophy PDF into a "natural science number 2" PDF (or: "philosophy according to bluemason3").
True philosophy under these conditions can be nothing more than "dive bar chatter."

* You only mention Plato's Academy when it serves your narrative, going so far as to distance yourself from it even within your own parentheses... This creates an impression of randomness, incompleteness, and utter chaos; it's purely subjective. Is that supposed to be a prime example of trolling...?

On threads where the titles lean heavily toward natural science number 2 discussions and have zero connection to philosophy—which mostly just draws in users with those specific interests (partly because you’re the moderator over there)—my tendency to drift off-topic and just chat is actually the only genuine philosophizing happening.

Is there any actual hope that the Philosophy subreddit will finally get a moderator who actually knows what they're doing? 🙄

(Or are they even attempting to fix this...?)

Over on the Philosophy forum, under the Existence thread, my post from last night has completely vanished.

I’m saying it "disappeared" rather than saying it was "deleted," because I find it hard to believe anyone actually hit delete. Several other posts with similar content have been added since then, and none of them have gone anywhere—yet mine, which is actually shorter than the rest, is just gone.

Thanks

Paul Bailey95 said:2.

Take some world-class athletes we all know—like Ivica Kostelić or Blanka Vlašić. Now, obviously, Ivica and Janica are incredible skiers. But let’s be real: they became that way simply because their father basically used them as little training dummies from the time they were toddlers. He projected his own ambitions onto them, molding them into versions of himself—which, honestly, is a massive failure for both the parent and the kids. That whole "this-ness" of sensory certainty was everything to Janica and Ivica’s development. Their consciousness got stuck right there in that loop of immediate, sensory experience. It means the only thing they ever knew, the only thing they know now, and the only thing they’ll ever truly grasp is that raw, sensory "this-ness." And frankly, that’s the tragedy of most people—they are defined by that exact limitation. That's just what it means to be a Man, in the broadest sense. A buddy of mine actually mentioned seeing something in a diary where Ivica Kostelić says his greatest love is skiing. Look, I don't sit around watching TV, but I stay in the loop through friends, family, and actual conversations. You can see how deep this madness goes just by looking at that one statement. It’s not really that he loves skiing more than anything else; it’s that he exists entirely within that realm of sensory certainty. He lives at that level. And get this—according to Hegel, that is the absolute lowest level of existence. Seriously, think about it. At that stage, you might as well be a dog, a pig, or a goat. It doesn't matter if the dog or the pig has a massive inheritance, plenty of food, or is literally rolling in money—it changes absolutely nothing. We aren't even talking about a Man in the philosophical sense here; we're talking about someone existing purely on an animalistic level.

Just like Ivica, Janica, and Blanka Vlašić—our other absolute legends on the track—they’re basically stuck at this baseline level of consciousness. It's that raw, purely sensory certainty where you're just existing in the "now." They haven't even scratched the surface of true self-awareness yet—which, honestly, is still just the starting line of real longing. That sensory certainty has pretty much just morphed into a primitive craving for that first spark of self-consciousness. There isn't anything lower than that state, unless you count those blonde characters from those tired old jokes—but I guess you'd have to dig even deeper to find something more mindless than that. Jokes aside, though, why is it that they can't get past it?

Their skiing and track careers? Honestly, that’s just their father’s project—his vision, his dream. They aren't exactly "individuals" in the way we usually think about it; they're more like products of their dad. Their whole athletic life didn't really stem from some deep sense of self or a conscious choice to pursue greatness. Instead, it was essentially handed down to them—shown to them by their father through Blanka, Ivica, and Janica—by projecting this specific, sensory certainty onto them. They basically adopted his reality rather than forging their own. I won't get into the "why" behind all this because, frankly, it’s irrelevant to the point. It’s almost as if—and I mean this with all due respect to their actual trophies—they were programmed. Their entire lives have been marked by their father’s desires being projected onto children who just... accepted it. Almost without any input from their own consciousness. And here's the kicker: people actually admire this. It's tragic, really. People look at them and say, "That's what a real Man does," or "I wish I could do that," even though it isn't truly "Manly" and it certainly isn't smart to live that way. None of them were ever really asked what *they* wanted. They were trained to become exactly what they became—trained, or better yet, rendered into these featureless shells. It’s like a dog that’s been broken in; a trained dog absolutely adores its owner, listens to every command, eats whatever is put in the bowl, and just follows the script. It’s a total loss for Ivica, Janica, and Blanka. And honestly, you see this with pretty much any elite athlete who is just a vessel for a parent's ambition.

We’ve all been there—somehow, growing up, someone was always drilling something into our heads. It’s like this endless loop of repetition. I remember knowing this one guy whose dad used to drone on about nothing but "football, football, football" until you just wanted to tune him out completely. Then you had the other type, the dad constantly pushing "ballet, ballet, ballet" on his kids, also to that same point of total exhaustion. If we're being honest, most of us have dealt with some version of that mindless, infinite loop from one parent or the other. You see it all the time—a father who thinks the only real "value" he can pass down is handing his kid a Ball and telling them to kick it around the yard until they inevitably smash a neighbor's window, rather than actually sitting down to teach them something meaningful. Or maybe it's a different kind of distraction, but the result is the same: they aren't really raising or educating their kids. The thing is—and this happens way too often—most parents are just stuck in this cycle. Because they weren't properly taught or given a real education themselves, they lack the tools to actually teach their own children anything substantive. So, instead of passing on wisdom, they just hand them a Ball to kick around and call it a day.

When people say parents aren't "self-educated," they aren't just talking about whether someone grabbed a degree or not—it’s way deeper than that. You can have a PhD and still be totally unlearned in the ways that actually matter, though I guess that’s a bit less common than stumbling upon those certain K-12 teachers who—let's be honest—really haven't done the work to actually learn anything (not everyone, obviously, don't come for me). Unfortunately, you see this pattern in a lot of homes. You get these folks stuck in a provincial, traditional mindset who honestly don't even know how to teach their own kids—and get this—it's because they never actually learned how to teach themselves. They’re essentially living as copies of something else, kind of alienated from their own souls... just these hollowed-out, characterless shells of people.

Look, when you run into this kind of situation in a family—this total regression where parents haven't actually bothered to educate themselves—you end up with them trying to raise kids, and we all know exactly how that plays out. It’s right there in front of us. Honestly, if you just take a quick walk around any local elementary school, a high school, or even just hang out near a coffee shop or a club one night, you’ll see it. You look at kids anywhere from ten to twenty-five years old and you’re basically looking at a mirror image of their own parents. It’s wild. It’s like what Vanja Sutlić says—we didn't even see this level of dysfunction back at the fall of the Roman Empire. We're talking about a specific mindset here, a kind of idiocy and backwardness where you don't really encounter a true Man anymore. Instead of actual people, you find these... I don't know, semi-humans? Or maybe just creatures that look like people but aren't. It's like Gajo would put it—a "Man who isn't a Man." They lack any sense of self or character. You step outside your front door and that's the reality hitting you in the face. I won't beat around the bush: fathers, and parents in general, just aren't teaching their kids anything. And even though they aren't doing the work, the fallout is absolutely devastating for the kids. But hey, that's just the specific example. Let's get back to the bigger picture.

When we say things like "this" tree exists, or "now" is the day, or "there" stands a building—well, that little word "this" becomes this broad, general concept. But here’s the kicker: we aren't actually grasping that universal essence itself; we're just using it to express it. We aren't really touching the raw, absolute "thisness" of it all. No, not quite. The thing is, through language, we end up contradicting our own perceptions of that "this." Language basically points out that our immediate sensory certainty isn't quite hitting the mark of what "this" truly represents. Since the truth of those sensory certainties is found in the general concept—and since language is what carries that truth—it turns out we can never actually put the raw, sensory essence of what we're thinking into words. It's a bit of a paradox, honestly.

We were talking earlier about those examples—the tree, the building, the skyscraper—that just seem to vanish the second you turn your back. Whatever was "over there" (the tree, the building, that massive skyscraper) simply ceases to exist the moment we look away. It’s like things disappear from "over there" or "there," whereas "here"—this immediate "here"—doesn't actually vanish. Instead, "here" is basically the permanent stage where all that vanishing happens. Take a city like Washington, D.C., for instance. It exists; it is "here," right in front of us, as the city of Washington, D.C. And within it, right this very second, at this exact hour while I'm typing this out, people are being born and passing away, laughing and grieving, gossiping and sitting around, lying down and whatnot. All of that stuff happening in "here" stays true regardless of what exactly is going on (whether it's a birth, a death, or someone dropping a glass vase). Basically, "here" remains "here," no matter what happens within it.
It’s all the same around here.

So, what we’re looking at here is this kind of mediated simplicity—you know, that version of "general" that feels a bit processed.
Look, when we talk about that sensory certainty—the kind that presents itself as the absolute truth of an object—we’re really just looking at its pure essence. But here’s the kicker: that essence isn't some immediate, obvious thing. It’s actually defined by negation and mediation. It’s not what we typically think of when we say "essence," but rather a specific type of being that functions as the pure universal—even though our actual thoughts aren't truly universal. For our own reasoning, that sensory certainty doesn't feel universal at all. Take something like "this" tree, "that" building, or "this" guy right here. We group them all under the label of "this," treating it as if it's almost a given, but for our conscious minds, it isn't actually universal. That specific tree standing "here" isn't the universal truth of sensory certainty. Our brains accept it as true, sure, but in reality? This thing right here isn't actually *this* thing right here.

So, basically, what we’re saying is that for our own sense of truth—that raw, sensory certainty we all lean on—it isn't actually "purely general" at all. To that specific feeling, all you’ve really got left is this empty, hollow sense of "this" and "here." If we take the relationship between the self (the one doing the knowing) and "this" (the object itself) and compare it to how they stand once you reach a result, things get weird. You can see that the whole relationship has flipped on its head. That object—which was supposed to be the central, essential thing—suddenly becomes irrelevant to our sensory certainty because it has transformed into something purely general. It’s become secondary. Now, that sensory certainty exists entirely within the knowledge (the "I") which, if you think about it—and really, do think about it—was the part that used to be considered unimportant in the first place.

So, we’ve reached this point where truth is basically just sensory certainty within my specific subject—my subject, mind you. Right now, that object (this "thing") is defined by what I know about it. We're already seeing that first transition, moving from the "this" of sensory certainty into the "I." Now, me knowing "this" doesn't mean the sensory certainty itself just vanishes—not at all. It just means that even though it's been pushed out of the object, it's still right there; it's just migrated into the "I." Hegel argues that it gets repressed back into that "I." It isn't annihilated, which is a crucial distinction to make here. The truth of sensory certainty now resides within the "I." Within the immediacy of that "I," everything that usually disappears into a single "this" or "here" is preserved—because since the "I" is holding onto it, it doesn't vanish anymore.
Take a tree, for example. A tree is "here," I see it, but by tomorrow, that tree isn't "here" anymore. It has vanished from the "here," yet the "I" has retained it. In this "this/here" scenario, let's say someone—let's call him Mark—looks at a cathedral. Mark sees it and confirms, "Yes, this cathedral is right here." On the flip side, let's look at Mary, whose "I" perceives some lingerie shop. Mary, just like Mark, sees it and confirms (in her case) the existence of the lingerie shop, regardless of whether Mark might find lingerie somewhat irrelevant to Mary. But anyway, where am I going with this?

(I'll get to that next time)

🤣
Amanda Jackson5, I think they've finally found someone to "popularize" Hegel 😉
Just determine if this is actually a discussion about Hegel, given that other names seem to pop up more frequently (Mark, Mary, Blanka, Janica, and Ivica—not to mention their ambitious father, who acts like some kind of wicked witch 😁)

hiddenpuma75 said:Regardless, Chesterton acts as a mirror!
Everyone sees in him whatever they carry within themselves. 😉

Many great figures respected Chesterton far more than Paul Bailey95 does.

So now, does Paul Bailey95 disrespect Chesterton because almost nobody respects him? 🤔

Or do great men respect Chesterton simply because they are great men themselves? I'll leave that for you to judge, but for your own enlightenment, I'll point out just how much these absolute legends actually admired Chesterton. 😉
===========

1.
The 1. famous philosopher (and atheist) Ernst Bloch stated that Chesterton "was the wisest man in the world." 😲

2.
Even Mahatma Gandhi admitted he was significantly influenced by one Chestertonian essay, applying its ideas to his political struggle for India's independence. Gandhi remarked that reading that essay felt like being struck by lightning. 😲

3.
Michael Collins claimed that a certain Chestertonian novel influenced his way of fighting for a free Ireland.

4. Ingmar Bergman claimed his favorite drama was a Chestertonian one, and he actually filmed a movie based on it in 1958.

5. Chesterton is, by any measure, the most cited 😲 writer in his home country, despite never finishing college. (For what it's worth, he wrote 80 books, about 200 short stories, roughly 4,000 essays, and several plays.

6. He stood 6'5" and weighed 310 lbs, so people affectionately called him a colossal genius or a genial colossus.

7. He used to unnerve Miroslav Krleža when they discussed Chesterton's main work during gatherings among Krleža's circle of friends.
Krleža once remarked that he "stands bewildered before Chesterton as if before a Sphinx, testing my old age and my illumination."

8.
Jorge Luis Borges admired Chesterton's detective novels, which feature a Catholic priest as the protagonist. In a film, this priest-detective was immortalized by sir Alec Guiness, who wrote in his autobiography that this fictional priest-detective influenced him so deeply that he left atheism and converted to Catholicism. 😲
While filming and playing the role of the Catholic priest-detective, sir Alec Guiness's eleven-year-old son fell ill with polio and was paralyzed from the waist down. Guiness writes that during a shoot in France, while dressed in his priest costume, he went to a nearby church and began to pray, vowing not to object if his son became a Catholic, provided God healed him.
It looks like his prayers were answered; his son recovered, and interestingly enough, at just 15 years old, the boy decided to become Catholic. sir Alec Guiness didn't put up a fight and held up his end of the bargain.
Later on, Alec Guiness himself converted to the Catholic faith.

9.
In 1922 (when he was 48), Chesterton was received into the Catholic Church, calling it "the most important event of my life."
He remarked that it was "the only church that actually dared to go down into the depths of my own being."
------------------------

A few of Chesterton's thoughts include:

-If there were no God, there wouldn't even be any atheists.

- When it comes to miracles, the most staggering part is that they actually happen.

- Love means loving what is unlovable; otherwise, it isn't really a virtue at all.

-"People who start fighting against the Church in the name of freedom and humanity end up discarding both freedom and humanity just so they can keep fighting the Church. Their enemies will use every weapon imaginable against her—swords that cut their own fingers and torches that burn down their own homes...
They burned their own grain just to light a fire under the Church; they destroyed their own resources just to destroy her. Every club was good enough to strike at the Church, even if it was just the last scrap of wood left from their own shattered furniture."

... everything is a mirror 😉 ....

hiddenpuma75 said:Regardless, Chesterton acts as a mirror!
Everyone sees in him whatever they carry within themselves. 😉

Many great figures respected Chesterton far more than Paul Bailey95 does.

So now, does Paul Bailey95 disrespect Chesterton because almost nobody respects him? 🤔

Or do great men respect Chesterton simply because they are great men themselves? I'll leave that for you to judge, but for your own enlightenment, I'll point out just how much these absolute legends actually admired Chesterton. 😉
===========

1.
The 1. famous philosopher (and atheist) Ernst Bloch stated that Chesterton "was the wisest man in the world." 😲

2.
Even Mahatma Gandhi admitted he was significantly influenced by one Chestertonian essay, applying its ideas to his political struggle for India's independence. Gandhi remarked that reading that essay felt like being struck by lightning. 😲

3.
Michael Collins claimed that a certain Chestertonian novel influenced his way of fighting for a free Ireland.

4. Ingmar Bergman claimed his favorite drama was a Chestertonian one, and he actually filmed a movie based on it in 1958.

5. Chesterton is, by any measure, the most cited 😲 writer in his home country, despite never finishing college. (For what it's worth, he wrote 80 books, about 200 short stories, roughly 4,000 essays, and several plays.

6. He stood 6'5" and weighed 310 lbs, so people affectionately called him a colossal genius or a genial colossus.

7. He used to unnerve Miroslav Krleža when they discussed Chesterton's main work during gatherings among Krleža's circle of friends.
Krleža once remarked that he "stands bewildered before Chesterton as if before a Sphinx, testing my old age and my illumination."

8.
Jorge Luis Borges admired Chesterton's detective novels, which feature a Catholic priest as the protagonist. In a film, this priest-detective was immortalized by sir Alec Guiness, who wrote in his autobiography that this fictional priest-detective influenced him so deeply that he left atheism and converted to Catholicism. 😲
While filming and playing the role of the Catholic priest-detective, sir Alec Guiness's eleven-year-old son fell ill with polio and was paralyzed from the waist down. Guiness writes that during a shoot in France, while dressed in his priest costume, he went to a nearby church and began to pray, vowing not to object if his son became a Catholic, provided God healed him.
It looks like his prayers were answered; his son recovered, and interestingly enough, at just 15 years old, the boy decided to become Catholic. sir Alec Guiness didn't put up a fight and held up his end of the bargain.
Later on, Alec Guiness himself converted to the Catholic faith.

9.
In 1922 (when he was 48), Chesterton was received into the Catholic Church, calling it "the most important event of my life."
He remarked that it was "the only church that actually dared to go down into the depths of my own being."
------------------------

A few of Chesterton's thoughts include:

-If there were no God, there wouldn't even be any atheists.

- When it comes to miracles, the most staggering part is that they actually happen.

- Love means loving what is unlovable; otherwise, it isn't really a virtue at all.

-"People who start fighting against the Church in the name of freedom and humanity end up discarding both freedom and humanity just so they can keep fighting the Church. Their enemies will use every weapon imaginable against her—swords that cut their own fingers and torches that burn down their own homes...
They burned their own grain just to light a fire under the Church; they destroyed their own resources just to destroy her. Every club was good enough to strike at the Church, even if it was just the last scrap of wood left from their own shattered furniture."

... or rather, "Love your enemy" (because loving your friends is natural, easy, and nothing special—the whole world does that)
This is also the core principle behind the method known as Ho'oponopono; for Martinus, "loving the unlovable" is the prerequisite for the so-called "second birth," through which Man attains cosmic consciousness. Campbell, meanwhile, noted regarding this "second birth" that myths most often depict it as a "virgin birth"—a spiritual rebirth, an emergence of the spirit, the transition from animal to Man... In concrete terms, this would involve opening the fourth heart chakra, which is the first truly "human" chakra, whereas the lower three are considered "animalistic" since they serve as the seats for instincts shared with the animal kingdom (the survival instinct, the sexual instinct, and the instinct for power, or the assertion of will)
There you have it... it all aligns perfectly. 😉

Let's hear what Hegel—or rather, Paul Bailey95—has to say next...
(we left off with Mark, Mary, and the lingerie trade)

Quincy:

Paul Bailey95 As specified by: Chesterton is nothing more than some overweight jokester, a man possessed by a deeply troubled consciousness. You know, he actually attempted suicide in his youth. Yes, that’s exactly what a fractured consciousness looks like.

When a young person contemplates suicide, it isn't particularly surprising. Youth is a period defined by questioning, yet it often leads straight into a dead end. If one possesses any semblance of logical reasoning, they inevitably find themselves staring down that age-old dilemma: To be, or not to be.
Contemplating death or suicide during one's youth is, if you ask me, more an indicator of a healthy consciousness than an unhappy one. It’s a tension that simply has to be navigated. What really interests me, though, is where that process eventually leads you. And while we're on the subject, I’d pose this question to you: what exactly would a "happy consciousness" even look like?

Paul Bailey95 said:

"I read 'The Man Who Was Thursday'"

Well, I'm the kind of guy who read "The Man Who Was Thursday" on a Friday—totally on purpose. Maybe a little "wicked," but I actually enjoyed tackling it on a Friday, haha, just kidding.

Regarding Orthodoxy—after my first pass and being totally swept up by his style—I actually set it aside. Once the initial hype died down, I thought about writing my own "anti-orthodoxy," basically a counter-belief, using that same Chestertonian style to write a parody from the opposite perspective. But I gave up on that pretty quickly for a bunch of reasons I won't get into here. Honestly? Chesterton is just one jolly, chubby little jokester with a rather unfortunate psyche. Yeah, really. Did you know he actually tried to take his own life when he was younger? That’s what I mean by an unfortunate psyche. Those paradoxes of his? They're just his style. It’s all fun and games, but for me, it feels a bit like watching kids playing marbles in a park—how do I put this?—kind of silly. And look, I'm not a creep, for crying out loud; I don't want the cops chasing me through the streets like they did during my wilder days back in the day—and no, that wasn't because of anything weird like that. Chesterton himself is a parody to anyone who isn't Christian, and in his head, it all makes perfect sense. I respect the intent, but I can't respect the headspace. To me, it feels two-fold: hollow and empty. Just... hollow-empty. And there's one glaring issue with his logic that anyone with half a brain can see. The thing is, it isn't even about philosophy—and mind you, philosophy is something that still needs to be overcome, so there we have it.

His books deal in—as Hegel would say—abstractions. And that's the truth; everything he writes is pure abstraction. Everything he puts down is just "common sense." Personally, I'm more of a "psychiatric case"—that common sense stuff doesn't really do much for me, which is probably why I'm labeled as such. Knowing what abstractions actually are (not going to dive into that here, though Hegel is incredibly fascinating when you realize what he was actually doing), I just can't bring myself to read stuff like that anymore without feeling like I'm regressing to playing marbles in a park. Chesterton used his style to arrive at Christianity, but get this: you could use that exact same style to arrive at atheism or anything else non-religious. His writing isn't an argument for faith; it's just abstraction. I shouldn't have to write two forum posts about things handled by "common sense," yet you have these Chestertonians calling him the "Apostle of Common Sense," which, if you ask me, is the height of irony. I can only laugh at that, and I'm apparently the only one who gets why it's so ironic and funny. Anyway.

From a philosophical standpoint (which is the most important part here), Chesterton is a populist. Just as Hitler was a populist to Junger, that's how Chesterton is to me. You aren't going to learn anything intellectually from him, even if he technically "philosophizes" in his works. Aside from the style—which you could mimic if you have "that certain something"—he mostly just plays with abstractions. But that's just common sense, or rather, reactionary thinking. What Chesterton does is operate within a binary, an "either-or" framework. He toys with logic in a way that makes it easy to build a parody once you learn how to flip his specific perspective. If they declare him a saint in the Church (and they surely will), there's nothing left to say. They know he walks hand-in-hand with them. An apologist is an apologist, and those are the types they canonize. On the other hand, if someone isn't in their camp, even if they're just as "saintly" as the others, they won't be called a saint. Why? Because they aren't *theirs*. You have to exist within their dogmas and their entire hierarchy just to be considered for sainthood. They can't canonize someone outside their circle; they only recognize their own. It's logical, really—it stays within their framework, much like what Nietzsche discussed in 'On Truth and Lie in a Moral Aspect.'

Look, if you’re looking for high-level philosophical depth from the Czechs, you’re barking up the wrong tree—specifically when it comes to Chesterton. If someone actually expects serious philosophy out of him, they're going to leave hungry. That’s my point, anyway, and I think it’s pretty obvious here. It brings up that classic dilemma: "Is it better to spend a month or two devouring all of Chesterton's translated works, or should I dive into Aristotle—even if it means grinding through just two pages a month while really chewing on the ideas?" I don't know about you, but I know my own answer. I know what I want to do. If you're the type who lives for wandering through thoughts, pure reasoning, entertainment, or some sort of "complete" education, then hey, do your thing. I’m tolerant of all that—I wouldn't say I'm as strict as Amanda Jackson5 made it out to be—I’m just pointing it out. Though, knowing this place, I doubt anyone "gets" the point of pointing things out. Honestly, pointing stuff out on a forum feels almost as pointless as reading these ancient posts. Since this is just a forum and everyone just posts whatever random junk comes to mind, you might stumble upon something smart once in a while, but at its core? This whole forum—and most others, really—is just one big, inflated bubble of nonsense. If I had a match, I’d love to see this forum like a giant round balloon, where the air inside is heated so intensely by the words being written that the whole thing just pops. I’d probably laugh, too—not like some villain, but more like those monks warming themselves by Buddha statues. Anyway, enough with the metaphors.

It really just comes down to what interests you: deep philosophy, something else entirely, or maybe a bit of both. You can't have everything—you can't have this and that at the same time. I mean, I’d love to grab both if I could, if you catch my drift, but since I can't, well, life goes on. They aren't exactly willing to accommodate my brand of tolerance for this or that. The Czech (that's my little nickname for him, kind of like how a dog named Lassie might be "Czech" to me) in his search for God—and indeed, like all unhappy consciousnesses—was basically just trying to end it all. If I had been alive back then and knew him personally, I would have handed him a rope and said, "Listen, you apostle of common sense, this pear tree has branches strong enough to hold your weight." He probably would have replied in his usual style: "I think I'll pass; the branch might snap."
As for why it's so ironic to call Chesterton the "apostle of common sense," I'll keep that joke to myself.

Anyway, excuse me, I've got to go finish my coffee and rejoin reality.

Wait, isn't all philosophy—whether it's Hegelian or anyone else's—just pure abstraction? Unless you're actually writing instructions on how to open a tin of soup or quoting Muhammadian rules for living a clean, pious life, you’re just lost in abstraction.
I might not stumble upon anything groundbreaking in Chesterton, but I’m not exactly hunting for "novelty" to begin with. Chasing the new is really just another symptom of youth. 😉 What I’ll find there, primarily, are mere diversions—wordplay, visual trickery, games played in a million subtle ways. This approach resonates with me; there is a certain part of my nature that finds genuine joy in it. Boris Vian worked with similar tools, though his style strikes me as far more pretentious and heavy-handed, always striving to hammer home a specific message. Chesterton might also be aiming to convey a point, but I get the impression that the "message" is secondary to him. It feels as though his true preoccupation is his own relationship with himself. He seems to be perpetually engaged in a dialogue with his own internal landscape, debating his inner contradictions and attempting to resolve them. He simply performs this entire process in front of an audience, likely as a way to hold himself to a higher standard of seriousness while performing such vital internal work. 😉
So, he possesses these internal contradictions and is actively working to reconcile them. The mere fact that they exist suggests an inner richness—and in my view, that is the only true wealth anyone can possess, the kind that no one can ever strip away from you. Furthermore, the way he strives to organize those riches, attempting to imbue them with some semblance of order, meaning, and beauty—even if that meaning ultimately manifests only through laughter or a sense of profound emotion—is proof that he has chosen the right path. At least, as far as I'm concerned.

Paul Bailey95 said:

"I read 'The Man Who Was Thursday'"

Well, I'm the kind of guy who read "The Man Who Was Thursday" on a Friday—totally on purpose. Maybe a little "wicked," but I actually enjoyed tackling it on a Friday, haha, just kidding.

Regarding Orthodoxy—after my first pass and being totally swept up by his style—I actually set it aside. Once the initial hype died down, I thought about writing my own "anti-orthodoxy," basically a counter-belief, using that same Chestertonian style to write a parody from the opposite perspective. But I gave up on that pretty quickly for a bunch of reasons I won't get into here. Honestly? Chesterton is just one jolly, chubby little jokester with a rather unfortunate psyche. Yeah, really. Did you know he actually tried to take his own life when he was younger? That’s what I mean by an unfortunate psyche. Those paradoxes of his? They're just his style. It’s all fun and games, but for me, it feels a bit like watching kids playing marbles in a park—how do I put this?—kind of silly. And look, I'm not a creep, for crying out loud; I don't want the cops chasing me through the streets like they did during my wilder days back in the day—and no, that wasn't because of anything weird like that. Chesterton himself is a parody to anyone who isn't Christian, and in his head, it all makes perfect sense. I respect the intent, but I can't respect the headspace. To me, it feels two-fold: hollow and empty. Just... hollow-empty. And there's one glaring issue with his logic that anyone with half a brain can see. The thing is, it isn't even about philosophy—and mind you, philosophy is something that still needs to be overcome, so there we have it.

His books deal in—as Hegel would say—abstractions. And that's the truth; everything he writes is pure abstraction. Everything he puts down is just "common sense." Personally, I'm more of a "psychiatric case"—that common sense stuff doesn't really do much for me, which is probably why I'm labeled as such. Knowing what abstractions actually are (not going to dive into that here, though Hegel is incredibly fascinating when you realize what he was actually doing), I just can't bring myself to read stuff like that anymore without feeling like I'm regressing to playing marbles in a park. Chesterton used his style to arrive at Christianity, but get this: you could use that exact same style to arrive at atheism or anything else non-religious. His writing isn't an argument for faith; it's just abstraction. I shouldn't have to write two forum posts about things handled by "common sense," yet you have these Chestertonians calling him the "Apostle of Common Sense," which, if you ask me, is the height of irony. I can only laugh at that, and I'm apparently the only one who gets why it's so ironic and funny. Anyway.

From a philosophical standpoint (which is the most important part here), Chesterton is a populist. Just as Hitler was a populist to Junger, that's how Chesterton is to me. You aren't going to learn anything intellectually from him, even if he technically "philosophizes" in his works. Aside from the style—which you could mimic if you have "that certain something"—he mostly just plays with abstractions. But that's just common sense, or rather, reactionary thinking. What Chesterton does is operate within a binary, an "either-or" framework. He toys with logic in a way that makes it easy to build a parody once you learn how to flip his specific perspective. If they declare him a saint in the Church (and they surely will), there's nothing left to say. They know he walks hand-in-hand with them. An apologist is an apologist, and those are the types they canonize. On the other hand, if someone isn't in their camp, even if they're just as "saintly" as the others, they won't be called a saint. Why? Because they aren't *theirs*. You have to exist within their dogmas and their entire hierarchy just to be considered for sainthood. They can't canonize someone outside their circle; they only recognize their own. It's logical, really—it stays within their framework, much like what Nietzsche discussed in 'On Truth and Lie in a Moral Aspect.'

Look, if you’re looking for high-level philosophical depth from the Czechs, you’re barking up the wrong tree—specifically when it comes to Chesterton. If someone actually expects serious philosophy out of him, they're going to leave hungry. That’s my point, anyway, and I think it’s pretty obvious here. It brings up that classic dilemma: "Is it better to spend a month or two devouring all of Chesterton's translated works, or should I dive into Aristotle—even if it means grinding through just two pages a month while really chewing on the ideas?" I don't know about you, but I know my own answer. I know what I want to do. If you're the type who lives for wandering through thoughts, pure reasoning, entertainment, or some sort of "complete" education, then hey, do your thing. I’m tolerant of all that—I wouldn't say I'm as strict as Amanda Jackson5 made it out to be—I’m just pointing it out. Though, knowing this place, I doubt anyone "gets" the point of pointing things out. Honestly, pointing stuff out on a forum feels almost as pointless as reading these ancient posts. Since this is just a forum and everyone just posts whatever random junk comes to mind, you might stumble upon something smart once in a while, but at its core? This whole forum—and most others, really—is just one big, inflated bubble of nonsense. If I had a match, I’d love to see this forum like a giant round balloon, where the air inside is heated so intensely by the words being written that the whole thing just pops. I’d probably laugh, too—not like some villain, but more like those monks warming themselves by Buddha statues. Anyway, enough with the metaphors.

It really just comes down to what interests you: deep philosophy, something else entirely, or maybe a bit of both. You can't have everything—you can't have this and that at the same time. I mean, I’d love to grab both if I could, if you catch my drift, but since I can't, well, life goes on. They aren't exactly willing to accommodate my brand of tolerance for this or that. The Czech (that's my little nickname for him, kind of like how a dog named Lassie might be "Czech" to me) in his search for God—and indeed, like all unhappy consciousnesses—was basically just trying to end it all. If I had been alive back then and knew him personally, I would have handed him a rope and said, "Listen, you apostle of common sense, this pear tree has branches strong enough to hold your weight." He probably would have replied in his usual style: "I think I'll pass; the branch might snap."
As for why it's so ironic to call Chesterton the "apostle of common sense," I'll keep that joke to myself.

Anyway, excuse me, I've got to go finish my coffee and rejoin reality.

You claim you aren't being strict, yet you follow up with all this talk about "popping balloons" and "offering ropes"... Fine, perhaps you don't see it as strictness, but rather as "consistency," "seriousness," or some other quality you happen to admire. 😉
Searching for God—or for meaning, for an explanation of what isn't clear at first glance (or second, third, fourth, fifth...)—is so deeply ingrained in every Man that I can't fathom how anyone could speak of "searching for God" as something inferior or cowardly, as if one were searching for comfort when, in reality, one is searching for logic the entire time. That will never make sense to me... Perhaps the only possible explanation is that those who speak of this search condescendingly actually imagine that "seekers" are looking for some external authority, a father figure to help them out and make life easier, and so on. In truth, searching for God = searching for oneself = searching for meaning, for the complete picture, for an answer to the questions: Who are we, where did we come from, and where are we going? In other words: the most basic search for the still-unknown cause-and-effect relationships between things, phenomena, and events. One day, science will deal with "God" itself, and I wonder where philosophy will be then...

And regarding the "apostle of common sense"—to be honest, I don't really know why they call Chesterton that either. He left me with the impression of someone slightly eccentric but piercing, an archetypal Fool forced to speak the truth through absurdity so that it might actually reach anyone. As for whether people understand him, it brings to mind Jesus's words: "He who has ears, let him hear..." Besides, Jesus himself was a sort of Fool during his lifetime, who later became a Hero, but that's a different story. I must tell you, that is my favorite archetype. 😉
That is what remains: while seriousness, serious study, and the serious adoption of something new eventually devolve into a kind of comedy, such a comedy carries nothing serious or true within it, because it is the exact opposite of those things, stripped of all its supposedly praiseworthy original intentions.
So, here’s the thing: outward madness often conceals a deep, underlying wisdom, whereas an outward display of seriousness almost always carries a seed of ridicule within it.
Now you tell me—is it better to be ridiculous on the surface, or to be ridiculous at your very core? 😉

Gerald Hill said:It is possible, though I would argue it constitutes a surrender to futility.

If finding purpose in total hopelessness is your one true passion, then I suppose there isn't much I can say... "There is no accounting for taste."🤣
(English translation of Latin "There is no accounting for taste")

Gerald Hill said:I am alive, yet I feel utterly lifeless.

If you actually enjoy that state—if you’ve convinced yourself it’s the peak of logic and the only viable path forward—then you must be satisfied with it, right? (Meaning you believe you made the right call). 🙄

And if you truly find contentment in that choice, in this perpetual "going through the motions," then I suppose existing in a state of stagnation is your ultimate life goal...

Gerald Hill said:There is plenty of literature on this subject, and you can easily find more information online.

Well, well, Gerald Hill, look who finally decided to show up. What's the word? 😁

You still breathing?

:klap: