Posts by Zachary Cook2

mellowfalcon11 said:Zachary Cook2:

Joseph Cook7 Asks: Work is happening all over the globe today. Even here in the States, you've got several different groups out there pushing these movements. They usually operate under specific names...Tensegrity. A curious concept, isn't it? It’s one of those things that seems to defy the very logic of how we perceive structural integrity. We think of strength as something heavy, something grounded, something massive—like a skyscraper in Chicago or a bridge spanning the Mississippi. But tensegrity? It’s about tension and compression working in such a delicate, almost impossible balance that the whole thing feels like it’s floating. Is it stability? Or is it just a highly organized state of chaos? I find myself thinking about it often. Most people look at these structures and see a trick. They see something that shouldn't stand, yet there it is, suspended by nothing but thin wires and sheer mathematical willpower. It makes you wonder about the foundations we build our own lives on. Are we built on solid ground, or are we just a collection of opposing forces holding each other up? How much tension can a system take before the entire illusion collapses? It’s a strange way to view the world. Most would call it a gimmick. I call it a lesson in equilibrium. What’s the point? It’s all about redirecting energy toward our overall objective. There isn't some grand mystery or mystical layer to them; they aren't going to cause any harm, nor will they trigger any side effects. Honestly, if you just type their name into Google, you'll find everything you need right there on the web. I’ve been practicing these movements for ten years now. Ten years. And because of them? I’m out there jogging, swimming, and staying active in my sixties. Is that even possible? For me, it is.

Silence is Golden

Joseph Cook7 Asks: Work is happening all over the globe today. Even here in the States, there are several different groups out there pushing these movements. These movements go by the name...Tensegrity. A concept that keeps popping up lately. It’s one of those ideas that feels almost too simple until you actually try to wrap your head around the mechanics of it. You have these components—struts and cables—that somehow create a structure that looks like it’s defying gravity. It shouldn't work, right? But it does. There's a tension here, a balance between compression and tension that holds everything in place without any heavy, clunky foundations. Is it just a structural trick, or is there something deeper at play? I find myself wondering if we apply this logic elsewhere. We look for stability in our lives, usually by adding more weight, more "stuff," more rigid structures to hold us up. But maybe true stability comes from that internal tension. From being pulled in different directions but finding that sweet spot where nothing collapses. Is that too much of a stretch? Perhaps. But then again, isn't that the point of questioning things? To see if the structure holds when you start pulling on the wires? What’s the point? It’s all about redirecting energy toward our collective fight. There isn't any mystery to them, no mysticism, nothing. They can't hurt anyone, and frankly, they don't come with any side effects either. You can find them online easily enough—just type their name into Google and see for yourself. I’ve been practicing these movements for ten years now. Ten years. And because of them? I'm out there jogging, swimming, and staying active through my sixties. Is that even possible? For me, it's reality.

Don Juan absolutely loathed pointless running. Why bother?
The body just craves a good walk. It’s one of those simple truths we tend to overlook in this frantic, sedentary culture, isn't it? We spend our lives hunched over desks or staring at screens, forgetting that our very biology was designed for movement. There's a rhythm to it. A necessity. Why do we fight against it?
Even the scientists have landed on a similar conclusion. They’re claiming that running just isn't natural for the human body. It’s about the magic passing through, not the movements themselves. Just a poorly translated algorithm.

wearyhawk83 said:😂😁

But what exactly "works" for the body? Who gets to decide what our systems actually need?
And what does evolution even have to do with this?

It seems pretty obvious what we should be doing to take care of ourselves. Why overcomplicate it with all this mystery?

wearyhawk83 said:Haha, okay! So if I go out and buy a starving tiger and lock it in a fenced-in field just to "tease" it a little bit, would that be stressing its body? Because I'm pretty sure that tiger's body would be screaming to run at light speed right then!

Or are you just looking for an excuse to totally let yourself go so that by the time you hit your eighties, someone else can take care of you without feeling guilty?

Joseph Cook7 said:People are doing this all over the globe now—even here in the States, there are a few groups practicing it. They call the movement tensegrity. Basically, the whole point is to optimize energy flow through your body. There’s zero mysticism or secret cult stuff involved, and honestly, it can’t hurt anyone—no side effects to speak of. You can just Google the name if you want to fall down a rabbit hole..
I’ve been doing them for ten years now—helps me stay active with jogging and swimming even in my sixties...

mellowfalcon11 said:As for this whole bilocation thing... I honestly don't know how much irony we should squeeze out of such an occurrence. Every single person experiences bilocation when they dream. We dream within our own energetic bodies. And that body? It actually has the potential to manifest visibly in the everyday world. There’s plenty of material on the subject if you look at the link provided above. Castaneda.
The lineage whose wisdom I'm referencing understood a conscious, cohesive, vibrating force—intent. It responds to the abstract. Profit has no place in that realm, obviously. In that space, it is just the individual, and because of that, man is inherently violent.

mistyscout2 said:So, you actually pulled it off? Well, if that’s true, I really do have to hand it to you. Congrats. 🙂
If you didn't, then we're all just indulging in a little bit of wishful thinking...

I'm not saying it's strictly impossible, but based on everything that is known—and everything I personally know—it just doesn't seem feasible. I’m not ruling out the possibility entirely, I’m just saying that according to the laws of physics that we can constantly verify through empirical evidence, and according to what modern science tells us, something like that is impossible, unless we're talking about the quantum level. It might be possible, but honestly, I don't know. That's why I'm asking you for more than just a "trust me, it's possible." If you won't explain how you know or give me a bit more detail, then it just feels like that old playground routine of "I know, but I'm not telling you." It comes across more like a bluff than a principled silence. 😁

Besides, the burden of proof always falls on the person making the claim. That's just the basic rule of the game. You can't really "prove" that something isn't there; something simply doesn't exist until someone proves or demonstrates that it does, one way or another.

mistyscout2 said:I don't think that would work.

Where's the proof?

How can you be so sure?

Nancy Harris6 said:Please, give us a few pointers on what you actually mean.

Are you referring to shamans, Hermeticism, or perhaps...🤔

dustyskipper3 said:The issue, I think, is that creating a physical body in another location would require an absolutely unimaginable amount of energy. I could perhaps accept that someone could be mentally in another place, or even in a way where it merely SEEMS to others that the person is physically there—like a sort of long-distance hypnosis. Or maybe some kind of quantum-tunneling holographic projection...?😕🤷

mistyscout2 said:For the most part, it’s just not possible. That’s basically why humans went through the trouble of inventing the television, and later on, the internet. Before all that tech existed—and really, only in certain other civilizations at the time—some people would eat all sorts of strange mushrooms and plants, and then they’d claim they were somehow in two places at once. Then again, you also had all those storytellers and bards who loved to "show" people different lands through their tales and folklore, essentially using the magic of language to guide them into entirely different worlds...

wearyowl29 said:Ha... whether we're "binding" ourselves or not... any creation of ours, whatever its nature might be—whether it flew out from some corner of our mind, heart, or soul and landed on sheet music, canvas, paper, wood, clay, or whatever else—is inherently a PART of us.
Maybe it’s also that neglected, unconscious part of us—that byproduct of the creative process we don't immediately notice or even care about. I truly believe that we become aware of our power to create, perhaps not right in the heat of the moment, but certainly once it's done. We see new matter, new content, a new perspective, or even just new and changed versions of ourselves emerging through the act. All of this can bind us to the creation, sometimes strongly, sometimes weakly.

So, how on earth do you separate a creation from its creator when the very act of creating, that spark of existence, is our natural way of binding ourselves together... how are we supposed to avoid being tied down???

You can't.

Because let's not forget: we aren't just shaping the material world around us; we are, in a sense, our own creators too. We tweak ourselves, remodel ourselves whenever we feel like it. We're constantly fine-tuning who we are. So, if we're so deeply attached to ourselves, how could we possibly not be attached to what we've built?

Chris Lopez59 said:Actually, not quite. I’d honestly love to gift one of my creations to someone, provided there comes a day when I no longer have a practical use for it. Speaking of things I've made, take this living space, for instance—I built the interior from the studs up. Eventually, I'll leave it to someone else to call home, because the heart and soul I poured into building it doesn't just vanish into thin air once I walk away.

But don't get it twisted; that doesn't mean I'm some detached person who doesn't get attached or feel the sting of losing—or destroying—things. When I look back at everything beautiful I've bought and subsequently lost, it isn't the loss itself that hurts, but rather the realization that it's damn hard to find something that lovely or high-quality again when you actually want it. Every valuable thing I've lost feels like a genuine setback because you can never reinvest enough money to recreate that level of quality, and let's be real, there's never enough cash to fund your ambitions. Not to mention, I wasn't exactly raised to be a fan of throwing things away for nothing.🙂Is that materialism? Personally, I don't think so, though I'm certain plenty of people will jump down my throat and disagree.

money is never enough to cover big plans.

personally, I don't think so.

jademarlin26 said:

Jeremy Davis7 said:hiddenhound3 says;

...Circling one's own life's work would be circling the traces of one's own self.

Basically, that lines up perfectly with what N'Dug noticed.
At some point, that pursuit becomes its own purpose; it starts feeding itself...
When I take a step back and look "inside," trying to get some perspective, that initial spark that drove me toward SF was just this kid-like fascination with the infinite scale of space...that one moment of realization, this deep, aching hunger for something I couldn't even put into words...

As a kid, on clear nights, I’d spend hours alone just lying in the grass, staring up at the stars (especially when I could make out the shape of our galaxy—the Milky Way)...just totally spontaneous, no reason for it.
I’d recommend everyone try it once in a while... just "stare" into it.

After a while, that incomprehensible, massive grandeur of the void you’re standing before... the thing you’re staring into, trying to pierce through... it just swallows you whole. And for a split second—one you can't possibly "hold onto"—you realize it with this intense, piercing lucidity... a flash of deep, pure, ecstatic "understanding" of something you won't ever be able to explain.

Then, suddenly, it hits you: everything was right there, on the tip of your tongue, within reach, but no matter how hard you try, you just can't grasp what it actually was...

Those moments echo deep inside anyone capable of triggering them, fueling this constant longing for something... mmm!
That longing (as I see it... that realization) is really all we have.
It's the only thing that pushes us forward... like a distant call, a lighthouse flashing for a second to remind us which way to head...

For someone who can keep the "echo" of that moment alive in their soul—who can remember that ecstatic state—nothing in this world can shake them.

Without that blessing, that internal drive, we're just walking corpses wandering around aimlessly.

Anything can trigger those "flashes" of understanding (honestly, I'd say everything around us does)... everything in our environment has that potential; it's soaked in it.
For some, it might be a specific tone... music that hits them hard, a breathtaking view... a situation they find themselves in, or even a gentle touch from someone—literally anything.

For me, it was that childhood obsession with space... it branded me, leaving this overwhelming ache for something I only managed to glimpse for a heartbeat.
And then, almost frantically, we try to recreate those moments (that "ecstatic understanding" that hits some people more clearly than others)—recycling, repeating the exact scenario where that "lucidity" caught us off guard.
I'd go so far as to say most people can't even detect that impulse on a conscious level... but regardless, we all react to it in much the same way.

The problem is, the memory of those moments—for those lucky enough to experience them—fades away... it slips away unnoticed, and all that's left is an obsession with the outward form.
So, someone who felt that deep, unutterable surge of emotion from a certain tone or piece of music... they become obsessed with music. They start collecting albums, learning instruments, obsessing over high-end audio gear... I won't bore you with the details.

The initial spark happened deep in the soul, but unfortunately, all that remains is a desperate attempt to "relive" it, which eventually gets forgotten entirely.

Someone else gets swept away by a sight and dives into painting... a third wants to be an astronaut... a fourth gets hooked on a book or an author... a fifth loses themselves in science, etc. Everyone is just trying to dig through whatever they do to find the seed of the obsession they got stuck in.
From a certain "grounded" perspective, this stuff isn't necessarily bad... it can actually result in some beautiful breakthroughs in science or art... but you have to remember that these "works," these achievements, aren't the end goal themselves.
What really matters is the inspiration—that raw impulse that forces us to act through whatever form or shape it takes on the material or intellectual level...

My own obsession, the specific shape I’ve buried myself in, was SF.
Just frantically collecting everything under the sun related to it.
All while ignoring the fact that I'm basically using it as a way to cling to that initial spark that inspired me at the very beginning...

I consider one of the most defining moments of my life to be exactly what I described a few posts back... that moment when, deep in my soul, I finally became aware.

Even though I’m neck-deep in the daily grind that makes up a life... taking care of the kids, struggling with work just like anyone else—look, I KNOW WHERE MY HEART IS!
I count that as my greatest achievement in life!

No matter what I'm doing, where I am, or what I'm facing... deep down, I know what I want. I listen to that inner voice—clear as a child's—and thank God that every once in a while, I still hear it loud and clear, feeling ecstatic and moved.

In those moments, everything makes sense. Everything gets saturated with an emotion so heavy it catches in your throat and brings spontaneous tears to your eyes... suddenly, any stranger you run into feels like a brother or sister you'd give the shirt off your back to, just because.
And from experience, I know these moments don't last long; they fade over time... but I never forget them.
Every single time, the feeling lasts longer and carries more weight with His presence.

I'm a patient guy now. Nothing really shakes me anymore... nothing really charms me.

None of that garbage... the stories, the marketing, or the cheap sexiness that permeates everything we touch and that we stick to like flies.

I know what I'm waiting for. Unwavering as a rock, I know that everything and everyone in this beautiful world we inherited has the potential to surprise me... to wake that emotion up again.

Without that realization, life is just a desert, and everything we do is just mindless wandering...

🙂

😂😂😂
Some people might interpret that differently 😂😂😂

But then again, that's just how it feels when you realize you're smaller than a grain of sand! 👍😉

Every single time, it gets heavier—that weight of His presence. I'm a patient guy; nothing really shakes me anymore... or even charms me.

You have a pure connection with Him. The SPIRIT is present with anyone willing to open up, and from what I can see, you definitely are! 👍

I know exactly what I'm waiting for. I'm steady as a rock, knowing that everything and everyone in this incredible world we inherited has the potential to surprise me...

Hmm, technically you don't actually know what you're waiting for. If you set your intention that firmly, though, you'll eventually run right into whatever it is.

Without that realization, life is just a desert, and everything we do is mindless wandering...

👍

boldsailor32 said:Maybe you misinterpreted the detail about how Europeans don't all own houses like some smuggler in the States does... Most people live in rentals.

And someone who spent a long time picking out $1,000 high-fidelity speakers? They'd sooner give up their seat on the couch than hand that audio pleasure over to a neighbor. 😉

boldsailor32 said:

This text comes from my archives. Unfortunately, I can't recall the author's name or the original source:

Michael Landy (41) is an artist from South New York City. His most famous project to date is 'Breakdown', where he destroyed every single material possession he ever owned. It is a brilliant idea. It is also incredibly radical. If you asked the average person on the street to do that, you would see how they react. I must admit, even I could not part with everything I own. Some things carry such emotional weight that they simply become part of who I am.

But what Michael accomplished deserves respect. It took him two weeks to dispose of all 7,006 items.

First, he spent three years systematically cataloging every little thing: assigning numbers and sorting them into various categories. Then, along with assistants dressed in industrial uniforms, he broke everything down into its core components. Finally, those dismantled pieces were packed into trash bags. This systematic destruction included Michael's Saab and his other artworks.

Passersby could watch the whole process in an empty department store located in the heart of New York City, right on Fifth Avenue. They could stare in amazement at such an unusual undertaking.

People are territorial creatures, naturally. When you see everything you have ever owned stuffed into plastic bags—shattered and stripped of their purpose—you have to wonder: what actually matters in life? What provides a real advantage? Are material goods truly the alpha and omega of human achievement? A house with a yard, nice furniture, a car in the garage, unique pieces of art, closets full of trendy clothes, family photos, or even mundane objects we have imbued with sentimental meaning... Could anyone act as radically as Michael? I admit, I could not. But I have never even tried or thought about it. So, who knows?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Landy

Breakdown, the work that brought him public recognition, was held in February 2001 AT an Old branch of The clothes Store C & in New York City on Fifth Avenue (C&A had recently closed, leaving the shop empty).

Landy collected all his belongings, from postage stamps to his car, including his clothing and both his own and others' artwork. He painstakingly cataloged all 7,227 items before destroying them all in public. The process of destruction was Dona on something resembling an assembly Lin in a mass production factory, where ten workers reduced each item to its basic materials and shredded them.

Nowadays, many of us live as if we are playing a game: "Whoever dies with the most toys wins!!!"

Let someone else throw the first stone... 😁

Susan Diaz3 said:Yes, I understand that part. But maybe one has to take that first step and force oneself at the start... then, once I "warm up," I guess everything just flows naturally. 🙂

I suppose I manage to pull it off occasionally, though it's much harder because those intrusive thoughts are just so difficult to shake... It really is a discipline that people have to work incredibly hard to master. 😉 It seems to come naturally to some people, I guess. For me, I really have to put in the work.

I guess I have to admit... I haven't heard that one before. 🙏 I feel for you. I really do. 🙂

Sure, the ego. It loves praise, but it gets wounded by criticism..
but that's exactly what I was emphasizing. If people didn't take their own work so personally, they wouldn't feel this way.
For instance, a friend of mine who writes. She rarely writes, but when she finally does, I just lose my mind because it's so good. And she says herself that she isn't trying to write, it just happens—afterward, she feels as if she didn't write the story, but rather the story wrote itself. Like she doesn't even deserve it. That way, she stays distanced from the work itself.
I guess the problem is that I perceive my ideas as "mine," instead of divine inspiration.

Susan Diaz3 said:I like to think of myself as a non-materialistic person, but if I’m being honest, there’s one thing standing in my way. I suppose as long as that desire exists, I’m not truly a "non-materialist"—it's my attachment to things I've actually created myself.

Not letting go of things I've bought isn't really my issue. Over the last decade, I've lost so many phones, jewelry, accessories (gloves, scarves, umbrellas...), even pricier items like MP3 players and cameras... I don't think I've ever heard anyone else admit to being quite this clumsy when it comes to losing stuff. 😲
So, I've decided that maybe all this was meant to teach me not to get attached to things, and I am working on it; I believe I'm on the right track.

But when it involves products of my own mind and hands, it’s a bit harder. I have this ability to make aesthetically pleasing things—clothing, jewelry... I draw, I design, I just love it. If someone were to ask me "Why?", my answer would be—because I can. It frustrates me when people have talents they don't use, and I get frustrated with myself when I hit those long "dry" spells. During those times, I feel like an incomplete person, and as soon as I get back to work—everything feels right again. Anyone who has ever poured their entire mind and body into a task for hours upon hours knows how much it resembles meditation; plus, in the end, we aren't just rewarded with clear, focused thoughts, but with a tangible object that came into existence through the process.

The problem—though I'm not even sure if it's a problem—is that the item becomes deeply important later on. It gets to a point where I'd only ever gift it to my closest people, and if I thought about selling it, I don't think I could ever bring myself to part with it for any amount of money.
At this stage of my life, the feeling is perhaps the closest thing to motherhood I can experience.
I realize these are just "things," so I don't want to delude myself into thinking it's anything different from being attached to a car or a new pair of shoes.

Do you have similar experiences? Have you overcome this, and if so, how? 🙂