Posts by steelridge58

William Williams27 said:We usually group hope with the good stuff, unlike anger or sadness... but doesn't hope actually trigger those negative feelings in the first place?
Isn't hope just what keeps us constantly looking toward the future instead of staying put?
Sure, there are those rough patches where hope feels like your only lifeline, but maybe that's a trap. Shouldn't we be focusing on living in the moment?
I honestly think a single genuine smile right now is worth way more than any amount of hope. We tend to miss all the little blessings because we’re too busy chasing "what if."
So, where does hope even come from? Is it just pure desire?

If we look at those four fundamental truths about suffering, wouldn't it make more sense to just let go of hope entirely?

Yeah, I also wanted to add that having hope doesn't inherently mean you're missing out on life—it's not like you're hoping for one thing while your actual life just sits on pause waiting for it to happen...

No, because even when things are at their absolute worst, people can still live fully—whether they have hope or not—and they can still experience everything you call "the present" and find joy in those tiny details, including the value of a simple smile which, honestly, feels like it breathes life back into you even when your world has been stripped down to nothing but pure survival.
To hold onto hope while just sitting there with your hands folded, totally oblivious to everything around you, that's something else entirely... but that isn't really about hope or what hope does, it's mostly just about the person themselves.

William Williams27 said:We usually group hope with the good stuff, unlike anger or sadness... but doesn't hope actually trigger those negative feelings in the first place?
Isn't hope just what keeps us constantly looking toward the future instead of staying put?
Sure, there are those rough patches where hope feels like your only lifeline, but maybe that's a trap. Shouldn't we be focusing on living in the moment?
I honestly think a single genuine smile right now is worth way more than any amount of hope. We tend to miss all the little blessings because we’re too busy chasing "what if."
So, where does hope even come from? Is it just pure desire?

If we look at those four fundamental truths about suffering, wouldn't it make more sense to just let go of hope entirely?

I don't think sadness always has to be this terrifying, overwhelming thing... 🙂 there’s a certain beautiful melancholy in it sometimes, a sense of depth or even a quiet longing, a warmth that can feel like a low, glowing ember deep inside you...
and I feel the same way about anger, because not all anger is blinding or destructive or harmful... occasionally, it carries a spark that helps you pinpoint exactly what the problem is and gives you the courage to speak up more freely.
Hope, on the other hand, is always tied to the things we truly care about, and it shows up within that uncertainty, perhaps representing a perspective where everything remains open, reaching out toward that light which keeps our energy alive.
While I tend to view expectations as something more directed and passive—like a pre-set stage waiting to be filled, which is why failing to meet them hurts so much—hope is that thing that constantly reinvents itself as a raw intensity and just keeps going...

Maybe I’d rather describe it as a kind of beam that draws directly from our hearts (especially when it takes over 🙂) and projects that intensity outward... which might be why people say that hope is the very last thing to flicker out.

It really isn't any surprise to me that the social scientists and the natural scientists can't seem to find any common ground whenever they run headfirst into such deeply entrenched viewpoints. 🙂

Sandra Wilson68 said:So, people love to debate whether there’s stuff out there we just can't perceive. But honestly? Here's some proof that even the stuff we *can* perceive isn't really "there"—I'm talking about the entire material universe.

I already touched on this in one of my earlier posts: the entire material universe is nothing more than the physical and mental activity of consciousness. As an independent "action," the universe doesn't actually exist—it’s just consciousness acting as the engine behind everything. Now, I want to get specific about what that actually means in practice when we say the material world is just physical and mental activity, rather than its own thing.

Take lightning striking across the sky as a starting point: does lightning actually exist? Honestly, no. It’s just a physical discharge of electrons happening in a split second while those electrons strain and snap. The electrons are what truly exist before and after the flash. In this scenario, we perceive the lightning—which doesn't really exist—while we don't perceive the electrons, even though they're the only things that actually do.

It’s the exact same deal with the entire material universe. It’s just one massive lightning bolt—a "Big Bang"—that struck and hasn't stopped surging yet. We’re sitting here perceiving this flash we call the "material universe" through our senses, even though it doesn't truly exist. Meanwhile, we can't even sense its universal shaver, and we're still stuck wondering if that thing even exists at all.

I’ve already laid out my position on this: the universal shaver is real. You don't "hear" it or sense it with your physical ears; you perceive it non-physically, deep within yourself. It exists as the force we call "consciousness"—that core survival instinct that governs everything from our physical grit to how we think, feel, remember, and understand. We need these abilities just to function as servants, turning darkness into light. When you add it all up, proving to yourself that you exist as a servant capable of serving is the ultimate proof that the Universal Sevač exists. We are essentially just one point within that Universal Sevač—one part of the material universe itself.

Look, if you want anyone to actually wrap their head around the idea that the material universe doesn't mean squat for existence, we need to flip the script. We have to explain it differently and use a better example to show that this whole thing is nothing more than the "shaving" action of some universal Sevač.

Let’s start with a basic fact: the material universe is nothing more than a complex organization of movement and labor by some unknown CREATOR. We only assume this being exists because our senses aren't wired to actually perceive it. Take a country, for example—a massive economic machine driven by people moving and working. Now, ask yourself: does the state actually exist? The answer is NO. It doesn't exist. All that exists are individuals whose actions and labor create what we call a "national economy." No one has ever actually perceived "the state" itself; they only ever perceive people. If you wiped every single person out of an American system, there wouldn't be a "state" left behind. There would be nothing. People are the fundamental elements that build the economic community we call a nation.

If we follow that same logic and start questioning whether people even exist, we’ll end up at the exact same conclusion: we don't. It’s a wash. Think about it—the human body is basically just an organized economic community. It's a system of moving parts and labor where cells act as the individual elements making up the larger "community" of the body. If you strip away every single cell, there’s nothing left. They are the only things that actually exist in relation to the body.

But that only works if you assume cells aren't basically just little economic systems—organized networks of movement and action. And we already know they are. If you follow that logic, cells don't even really "exist" in the way people think. It’s just atoms and molecules making up the foundation. You strip those elements away from the cell, and there's nothing left. Period.

We’re probably going to end up realizing that even atoms don't actually exist. They're just economic collectives—basically just organized clusters of energy and matter particles moving around together.

Which elementary particles have scientists actually proven don't exist? Because even those are just some kind of VIBRATIONS—basically just movement or work being done by some unknown creator we can't even wrap our heads around. It’s like those particles only "exist" while that creator is actively exerting force and moving, and once they stop, everything just vanishes back into nothingness. Just like lightning in the sky disappears the second it stops flashing.

If you've actually had the patience to stick with me this far, I think it’s pretty obvious now that asking "is there anything we can't perceive?" is a total waste of time. It’s way more logical to ask: "Does everything we *can* perceive actually exist?" Obviously, both questions only apply to sensory perception, because nothing we sense through our physical senses ACTUALLY EXISTS. This doesn't apply to non-sensory perception—the way we perceive ourselves, our immaterial, sensorially unknowable CONSCIOUS SELF (THE EGO). That is the only thing we can be absolutely certain truly EXISTS. It's the force behind all the effort, movement, and action that we observe with our senses—things we merely *think* exist, but they DON'T. All our struggles, movements, and actions aren't about "existence"; they're just "states." Movement and action aren't "being," they're just a specific "state" of what exists, which can start, persist, and end. In total, we have "THREE states" of existence, or rather, THREE STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 1. A state of rest where nothing energetic or material exists. 2. A state of effort, movement, action, strengthening, and evolution—the rise that we call energy, matter, and physical form. And 3. A state of gradual slowing down, weakening, aging, decline, leading to final decay and a return to that initial state of rest—a state without energy, matter, or physical form. These three states repeat eternally, which is what we call "vibration" or "biological rhythms." Or in Hinduism, "reincarnation."

Based on these states, CONSCIOUSNESS—acting as the force known as the "instinct for self-preservation"—isn't ONE, but TRIPLE.

It's worth noting that up until today, the six major world religions—Babylonian, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Ancient Roman, Hindu, and finally Christian—have all taught that the power that creates and maintains everything through work, thought, and skill is TRIPLE.

Later.

Hannah Barnes said:Oh, God.

Hannah Barnes said:At the dawn of the 20th century, researchers hit a wall because
certain phenomena simply couldn't be "seen"—they were beyond direct measurement.
This creates a fundamental friction with the traditional scientific mindset:
"If I can't see it, touch it, or measure it, it doesn't exist."
The fallback, predictably, is mathematics; if visual confirmation fails, one must rely on calculation and

everything seems fine on paper...
Yet, even within the mind of a scientist, basic human psychology takes its toll.
Centuries of established scientific dogma, particularly those rigid principles from the 19th century...
Materialism—the old-school, reliable, scientific kind—demands physical proof.
Then there is Schrödinger's cat.
Are we meant to believe it is neither alive nor dead until someone decides to look?

The implication is that only what we measure (and only at the moment of measurement) earns the right to exist!

This is an old philosophical dilemma...
Our senses are inherently deceptive.
What truth can actually be gleaned from such flawed perceptions?
Cogito...

Consider this thought experiment:
An air traffic controller looks at a radar screen and sees a Boeing 747 flying from Chicago to New York...
carrying 300 passengers at an altitude of 33,000 feet.

But what does the controller actually see? Just a tiny blip on a glowing screen.
Is that blip the plane? Or is it just a blip?

If the controller makes a mistake and that blip vanishes from the display...
has he effectively killed 300 people?

Did they even truly exist, given that all he ever perceived was a single dot?

Do things persist when they fall outside our perception?

A brick falling toward my head certainly doesn't look the way I

perceive it. Under ultraviolet light, X-rays, or at a subatomic

level, its appearance would be entirely different.
Its trajectory, viewed from the sun, would look completely different; it moves at roughly

some 19 miles/s along a tangent to Earth's orbit, while the velocity toward

my head is almost
negligible. My perception of that brick is fundamentally wrong...
But it is the only reality I have.

One could conclude that perception is purely relative.

Can I then conclude that through my very act of perceiving, I am either creating or

deconstructing—that I am actively influencing reality?

It reminds me of how small children cover their eyes and insist:
"You can't see me!"

Hannah, 🙂 that sounds like an absolute ultraviolet catastrophe to me.

🙂

Laura Johnson4 said:Is there anything you believe simply doesn't exist?

Or perhaps it’s just that you aren't able to perceive it?

Or maybe it's a bit of both?

I suppose by even asking if something can be non-existent, you're implying that it's actually possible for something to NOT EXIST in this world (which sounds like a pretty wild claim 😁). In other words, you're leaving the door open to the idea that there might be things out there that are just beyond our sensory reach.

It seems logical, really—everything exists. Or rather, everything that you are aware of exists. Anything you don't know about, and that doesn't concern you or occupy your thoughts because it hasn't even crossed your mind... well, for all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist to you.

There are things that suddenly "become" part of our reality, and then there are things that have always been there, depending on how you look at it.

But what about the things we will never truly know or encounter? Who knows what might be happening all around us right now that we lack the necessary tools to actually detect. 😁

Do aliens exist? 😲

And then there's the whole issue of the stuff we *do* manage to pick up, which feels just as much of a mystery if you think about it.

I mean, once we actually grab hold of all that overwhelming data, what on earth are we supposed to do with it? 🙂

rustymaker5 said:Desire is really just a signal of lack. It’s an admission that there's a void, something we don't possess but think we need (at least, that's my take on it). And honestly, I doubt it's a reflection of the soul, except perhaps in the sense that the soul wants to be understood and recognized... which, if you think about it, just brings us right back to that first point about missing something.

Following along with what you wrote, rustymaker5, I can't help but wonder about another side to desire—that it's actually this one singular point where there is absolutely no conscious knowledge involved, which makes desire something almost irrational 🙂 that acts like these little bursts of light emanating from within us, casting beams that eventually allow us to catch a glimpse of our own hidden wants and understand ourselves better.

So, when you say it's about lack, I think you've hit on something really profound. 🙂 Whether we choose to acknowledge them or not, these desires that operate entirely behind our backs will keep doing their thing—they keep giving us information. 🙂

Well, now...

Elizabeth Ruiz65 said:Desire is just a roadmap leading straight to suffering. If we actually want to escape the pain, we have to let go of our desires entirely.

(c) Buddha

=)

I suppose you could definitely become numb from all that wanting, but honestly, I could never bring myself to want that; I wouldn't want to just snuff them out like a candle flame—and I don't believe our desires have to be that destructive light that draws moths to a fire until they perish. Maybe there's a more beautiful kind of light we can use to guide our lives through our desires instead, but I don't know... I'm certainly no expert on Eastern philosophy.

There’s this blind photographer, Armagan, and I remember reading in an interview that when things come down to the actual colors, he’ll sometimes just ask one of his visitors what color a specific object is, and then he'll take over and get to work based entirely on his own inner vision...

The same article mentions that his abilities are actually going to be tested and analyzed at an American university, where they'll show him a picture of a certain object—which he perceives through the sensation of strawberries on his fingertips—and then they'll run an MRI on Armagan's brain to see what's really happening.

feralviper22 said:He didn't mention scent... I remember seeing a movie once where they said smell is the easiest way to explain it, but that's just a movie, so who knows if there's any truth to it?
Christian Parker2 brought up dreams, which got me thinking: what do blind people dream about? Do they even dream (I mean those who have been blind their whole lives)? And if they do, are those dreams black and white? Maybe someone here knows...

👍 It’s such a massive reservoir of colorful experiences that we could probably try to convey through smell, which sounds incredible. 🙂 ( though I should probably add that since there are people out there who can't experience scent at all, you'd end up facing the exact same dilemma—how on earth do you describe a smell to someone who can't sense it? )

Christian Parker2 said:Reading what you all write here... I've been thinking. It brings something to mind. People with sight dream in color—at least, I do. Maybe it's possible that blind people can dream in color too, if they could just find a way to depict it. I don't know what you think about that... but maybe there's some way to actually make use of it.

I honestly feel like the only way to truly grasp that would be through deep conversation with a blind person—just using pure communication to try and bridge the gap into that "color" world they see or dream about. It makes me wonder if we should actually be trying to visualize the world through their eyes instead. How can we claim to know anything about that reality if we don't try to experience it firsthand? Or, at the very least, combine direct engagement with as much verified research as possible to get a clearer picture. And regarding what you mentioned about dreams... before we dive into whether a blind person dreams in color, wouldn't it be vital to first understand what and how they dream in general? To be honest, I can't even remember if I dream in color myself; I certainly don't recall specific colors when I look back on my dreams, but that doesn't make them any less rich or beautiful when they are.

p.s. I remember reading something once about a blind painter, so if I can track it down online...

Christian Parker2 said:That's quite a description... but there’s one catch... if that person suddenly gained their sight, how would they actually know something is orange-red if the peach wasn't right there? Even with the peach nearby, I'm not sure a blind person could truly recognize the color, since they only know the peach through touch alone.

To be honest, even before I read your response, I found myself thinking that she might actually feel quite disappointed if she ever saw the actual colors, seeing as her entire imagination had built them from completely different elements and experienced them in such a unique way. I don't know, I'm just speculating, but maybe... As for whether she could recognize something like orange-red—even if the object she usually associates with that "color" were right in front of her, assuming she couldn't identify it by sight without help—I truly believe she wouldn't. It's possible that some scientific insights regarding this already exist and would be worth knowing, but I find what analogsurfer15 wrote to be absolutely fascinating: the idea that colors can emit specific vibrations that allow them to be distinguished.

Christian Parker2 said:Hey everyone,😎 this is my first time posting here. I figured I'd start things off by throwing a question out there that I can't seem to wrap my head around. I've been stuck on this for a few hours now and I'm still coming up empty. The question is... How would you explain the concept of color to someone who is blind?

I think I'd try using music and sound... I'd put on some pieces and describe the tones of the colors to them, almost like saying a specific musical movement might evoke the exact shade of the desert sand they already know through touch—it would be the "color" of the sound we're listening to together. Or, you could just let them describe how they "see" the desert themselves... It reminds me of that beautiful literary description regarding Bach's suites (you'd play the suites for them), where the first is described as a spring green, the second carries the hues of first tears, the third paints with the colors of honey and ripe fruit, while the fourth captures the azure blue of the sky... and so on. Sound possesses this richness of color that is essentially the color of emotions, which you could even attempt to convey through taste... if the person happens to be someone you love (someone we all 🙂), you could have them bite into a slice of peach and tell them it’s a vibrant orange-red, and then give them a kiss and ask them to guess the difference in color. 🙂 Anyway, I hope you don't mind my getting a little playful with these colorful metaphors... 🙂

casualfox2 said:Back in the day, philosophers used intense contemplation and theory-building to reach genuine insights, which they then put into words so they could pass that wisdom down through the generations. But as time moved on, people started ignoring those core theories or, at best, just memorizing them without ever actually grasping the point—the actual INSIGHT. Since we study philosophy today as if it doesn't require real insight, you could almost say we aren't even practicing philosophy anymore; instead, we’re teaching a "thought-based" science that is completely SUBORDINATED to economics and the various side effects of modern science. On top of that, philosophy doesn't even encompass much science anymore because almost every discipline has broken away to become its own thing. It used to be all under one umbrella, meaning a philosopher had a much better grasp of the total reality. Honestly, I think it’s pretty humbling that a field which birthed almost every other science now spends its time just studying the morality of scientific phenomena and stuff like that. Modern philosophy DOESN'T EXIST, and therefore, NEITHER DOES THE MODERN PHILOSOPHER. What’s left of philosophy is just a tiny fragment that barely deserves to carry the name. I mean, what kind of "love of wisdom" are we talking about when wisdom itself is so incredibly limited here? To create a truly modern philosophy, we need a much stronger connection between science and philosophy. This indirectly means a real philosopher has to master both fields to make any progress. Just look at QUANTUM PHYSICS, for example. That’s an area where a science perfectly suited for modern philosophy could really flourish. As we’ve seen, at the microscopic level, an atom isn't just matter anymore—it's concentrated thought! Questions regarding morality and a creator become fascinating there. Plus, there are parts of quantum physics that are inherently philosophical, but we need something fresh in philosophy, something a bit more MODERN. In short, philosophy is the science that built this world; it possessed that missing piece that allows all other sciences to feel complete: INSIGHT. Today, that insight has been drained from philosophy. I truly believe that only if we bring that back can a philosopher armed with today's insights create a modern philosophy. Until then, what we call philosophy will remain nothing more than a fragment, totally subservient to the offspring of ancient philosophy. Cheers!

👍 When you really start diving deep into how physics and philosophy intertwine, it opens up this incredibly fascinating landscape for both thinking and acting, especially when you let them bleed into one another and truly immerse yourself in that shared space. 🙂 I’m saying this because I just can’t get over how much I love that specific possibility—the idea of treating a thought as a genuine, soul-stirring challenge, something so deeply provocative that no physicist or philosopher who feels even a flicker of intellectual passion wouldn't find it impossible to resist. 🙂

Jonathan Brooks8 said:As long as there are questions to be asked—the deep, philosophical kind—there will always be answers to be found through science...😉

🙂 Honestly, I feel like everything starts with how you frame a question, because the way you choose to pinpoint exactly what you’re trying to say really dictates the whole trajectory of your thought process—it basically maps out whether you're going to stumble toward an answer or just end up spiraling into a whole new set of questions. 🙂 I honestly feel like it’s absolutely vital for philosophy to turn a much more critical eye toward the relationships we fall into almost reflexively—you know, those unconscious loops between our language and our actual thought processes. There are so many inherent limitations and mental traps tucked away in there, but at the end of the day, I truly believe the most important thing is that whatever question we decide to pose has to actually stem from within us. It shouldn't be some academic exercise, but rather an outgrowth of this deep, internal necessity to express something that feels like a genuine problem, a nagging question, or just a desperate craving to bring a little more clarity and light into something that currently feels totally murky.

Mark Anderson9 said:...certain areas where she was more expert or actually pulled it off better?

Do you guys honestly think philosophy is just some narrow little niche?
What is there left for modern philosophers to even tackle? 🙂

The current era is basically hostile to philosophy—the golden age is dead and gone. I mean, can any philosopher today actually drop an original thought without just rehashing what someone else said decades ago? Besides, if you want to study society, call it sociology; don't pretend it's philosophy.

The current era is basically hostile to philosophy—the golden age is dead and gone. I mean, can any philosopher today actually drop an original thought without just rehashing what someone else said decades ago? Besides, if you want to study society, call it sociology; don't pretend it's philosophy.

The current era is basically hostile to philosophy—the golden age is dead and gone. I mean, can any philosopher today actually drop an original thought without just rehashing what someone else said decades ago? Besides, if you want to study society, call it sociology; don't pretend it's philosophy.
Why not? Every single interpretation carries its own subjective weight, because even if you’re just trying to provide a pure, faithful transcription of a performance, you’re still projecting your own subjectivity onto how that work relates to the original—it becomes this personal negotiation, a way of finding yourself within something someone else created or said. It’s funny because people constantly bring this up as a criticism in the art world, too, but honestly, I don't think we should be running away from that reality at all. 🙂 Everything that springs from within us—even when it’s just our own interpretation of an idea someone else once voiced or shaped as an original thought—is actually quite original in its own way, much like how a single universal concept constantly affirms itself through countless different forms.

Thoughts from Lajos Kesegi

I sometimes find myself wishing I could just be a tree. Not really noticing anything, just existing. To exist in this kind of unconscious state where there isn’t even the concept of waking up or falling asleep. Just growing through the night, sending roots deep into the earth and branches high into the sky, blooming and flowering without ever needing to say a single word about it. Honestly, maybe trees are the last true apostles left among us.

The core idea remains the same. By just observing, you start drawing these conclusions and making comparisons, much like the way > so beautifully put it in his own post. The things we witness give us this profound insight that everything we are, and everything they are—like those trees out there—all stem from the exact same point of existence, a single origin where everything branches out, a point that reveals the fundamental principle of life itself.

As I find myself staring into that principle, I can't help but wonder where I might fail it, or if I could somehow cheat my way into something fundamentally different—perhaps something more meaningful, an extraordinary existence or purpose specifically assigned to me as a human being, rather than just being part of this cycle where the Earth eternally renews the spring just as it does with everything else in Nature.

We are all one, really, yet in our restless drive to uncover everything laid out before us within that singular, unspoken law of Nature—to realize that we are the root, the body, the seeds meant for propagation, and the very transience that sits so nakedly before our eyes in everything we gaze upon—we are actually completely different.

A tree doesn't have a gender, or rather, any dualities within it are merged into one, so it can't truly understand the kind of love humans know, where two people can become one while still remaining two distinct individuals joined by affection.

Beyond that, I can vividly imagine myself growing upward from the soil with my head reaching toward the clouds 🙂 while my feet take root deep into the sky. It makes me wonder, is that even possible? Is it perhaps the case that the actual order of things is entirely different from how we perceive it?

A Woman's true greatness shows up in life's massive milestones, though in those tiny, trivial moments, she might seem small.

But really, she’s always enough.

It's rare to find a Woman who wants to win someone over through intellect, let alone through her soul or her kindness.
She’ll talk about romance with Alcibiades or dive into deep philosophy with the charming Lysander, but she won't spare a single word on love or wisdom for an old, unattractive Socrates.

Instead, she’ll discuss the concept of aging or the majesty of a human spirit that transcends time—speaking from some timeless peak where his essence shines through the light of her own love and beauty.

A Woman will forgive a man for even his most terrible vices, yet she finds it nearly impossible to forgive another Woman, even for her greatest virtues.

In those moments, she fails to see any virtue at all; she only finds the capacity to forgive when she recognizes her own weaknesses reflected in another woman. That's when true virtue actually surfaces—in the act of forgiving—assuming there was ever a reason to forgive in the first place.
She’ll overlook a man's darkest flaws, with one major exception: if he simply doesn't care about her forgiveness.

A Woman loves you most when she is the one doing the forgiving, rather than the other way around.

I can see everything I just said above. 🙂

No one thinks more poorly of Women than a man who is already hopelessly, blindly in love with one.

And honestly, plenty of Women would love to be the partner of such a madly devoted man (provided, of course, that she is the one he's crazy about). 🙂

( to be continued... )

You put that so beautifully...

bluebison70 said:So, what would immortality actually look like?
Would it be this endless process of changing while somehow managing to hold onto who you really are?
Or, if we assume there’s a core part of a being—an actual "me"—that stays constant while all these changes are just things that essence observes, like watching a play unfold, then maybe chasing immortality is just the desire to keep watching those plays forever, even as they constantly change.

If that core is what remains unchangeable and defines our very essence, then all these shifts and performances stemming from it could be seen as a way for that essence to "shed" everything that isn't truly itself. Basically, all our different versions and life stages might just be this "excess"—a byproduct of the essence releasing everything else to keep its true center untouched. But here’s the thing: if all these changes are just "excess," my entire being is nothing more than an attempt to grasp that excess, trying to use it to get closer to the essence itself—to that thing that discarded everything that wasn't an integral part of it.
But why would it work like that in the first place?
Why would I feel this drive to reach my own essence when I'm perfectly fine with my current versions, especially if every change reveals something born from that essence—even if the change itself is just a manifestation of that "excess"?
Maybe it’s because I’m just not okay with how things are.
Maybe it's because these changes have become so overwhelming that I'm getting lost in all this "extra stuff" and I honestly don't know where to put it all.
I don't even know who I am anymore.
What is my essence telling me? It feels like pain.
Its version of immortality, if such a thing exists, suggests a "place" where death began—a place the essence can no longer sustain because it keeps rejecting it as something foreign. So, death, or the fading away of a certain part of a person, becomes a kind of "release" for the being, bringing it closer to the essence by freeing it from one specific persona.

Based on how I'm looking at it, 🙂 the pursuit of immortality wouldn't be about the essence wanting to watch infinite shows; if only the essence is immortal, then maybe its true desire is to end the shows altogether—or rather, to strip away everything that isn't an essential part of it.
Think about it: if love is the fundamental core of every being, perhaps it *is* the essence itself. Everything that doesn't belong to that love would just be a temporary performance, lasting only as long as the essence continues to reject it as something that isn't true love.
The essence simply refuses to be fooled.

So what's left, if every single performance is ultimately destined to die?
I guess all that's left is to hunt for your own essence. To let the various versions of yourself die off while you're still living. To maybe, just maybe, find oneself face-to-face with that which has no face, no age, and no name. To stay as close to that—to oneself—as possible, breathing in rhythm with the universe.

I don't know. All I know is that dying isn't anything new, and neither is living.

p.s. Or is it actually the exact opposite?

Actually, looking back at what I just wrote, it feels like this whole thought process is just another form of an essence that is constantly shifting. Just like life reshapes itself into death, and death back into life (?). I suppose nothing can exist without the other.

The mandala is everywhere, really.

And I think I actually managed to figure something out while I was at it. 🙂

Harold James9 said:Besides, don't you think communication becomes impossible without some level of uniformity? A watch loses its purpose if the hands aren't in the same positions across an agreed-upon part of the world. Words without shared meanings are just as useless. Concepts like happiness, love, or freedom are hard to fit into universal templates. Next year marks the 60th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's being violated everywhere without hesitation or consequence. That's an example of a pattern that holds all possibilities. Communication in this case happens while someone's hand is in their pocket, so naturally, it leads nowhere.

I am not afraid of patterns—I honestly can't imagine life without them (like a clock)—but I am afraid of having no choice in which patterns to follow.

P.S. Jonathan Brooks8, I really dig the fractal in your selection.🙂

🙂 🙂 🙂

I felt like I could actually see the core of it, that brilliant little spark right at the very center.

Harold James9 said:Well, steelridge58, that poet was pointing out how impossible it is to reduce segments of a whole into mere patterns. Every individual—you, Jonathan Brooks8, myself—is on a separate track, sharing nothing but a single point of origin. We belong to the same whole, yet our histories, presents, and futures are distinct. Our tracks don't touch; they have nothing in common. Understanding this is the foundation of friendship. Every attempt to force uniformity has only led to hostility and tragedy.

It reminds me of when we talked about reading the Antichrist together. Instead of actually grasping Nietzsche—a true genius—everyone tried to squeeze his ideas into pre-existing patterns they already accepted. I stepped away from it.

🙂 🙂 🙂

Well, I went quiet too, though I promise I’ll be a little tedious here, Harold James9. 🙂 Maybe that’s actually the whole point of it all. You can't force these things into neat little boxes because trying to do so always ends up creating friction, but if that's the case, what does it actually tell us? What kind of "pattern" reveals itself when we see that one brilliant idea—and feel free to draw parallels to any major historical movement or concept here, please 🙂—simply cannot be implemented or brought to life within the very environment that birthed it? Is there even a pattern to be found there? If we look at this through the lens of our group reading, the hidden "pattern" might be that the idea never stood a chance to begin with, precisely because the social structures required to support such an idea were already working against it. But then again, should we even call it a pattern? Because if we do, it feels almost pessimistic, as if suggesting that progressive ideas, which are supposed to drive collective growth, are destined to just wither away.

Even so, what kind of conditional "pattern" are we left with when people fail to unite freely around a single vision?

Harold James9 said:Well, steelridge58, that poet was pointing out how impossible it is to reduce segments of a whole into mere patterns. Every individual—you, Jonathan Brooks8, myself—is on a separate track, sharing nothing but a single point of origin. We belong to the same whole, yet our histories, presents, and futures are distinct. Our tracks don't touch; they have nothing in common. Understanding this is the foundation of friendship. Every attempt to force uniformity has only led to hostility and tragedy.

It reminds me of when we talked about reading the Antichrist together. Instead of actually grasping Nietzsche—a true genius—everyone tried to squeeze his ideas into pre-existing patterns they already accepted. I stepped away from it.

🙂 🙂 🙂

I suppose only those who are being shaped by others, through their own lack of understanding, would try to change that.

p.s. and I have a feeling Jonathan Brooks8 will immediately start digging through his pockets for his scented salt the moment he sees how his little patterns have fallen apart. 🙂

Maybe we missed the mark here, Harold James9, specifically regarding which patterns Jonathan Brooks8 was actually talking about. I realized last night that I might have misinterpreted things; it isn't really about forcing everything into neat little boxes, but rather about uncovering the patterns that are already there, which feels like a totally different concept altogether. I suppose once we manage to unearth those underlying laws or models—if you want to call them patterns—we might finally get a clearer sense of the currents we're caught in, the ones that sometimes sweep us off toward places we never intended to go (and I’m thinking specifically of what Jonathan Brooks8 wrote: " that pattern can be seen in every variable we observe—in life, in history, in nature... and it serves as the fixed point from which all change originates, that singular explosion from the essence. ") so perhaps the act of discovery itself is what leads to understanding why things behave the way they do, why we are somehow predestined to see a pattern begin to show its face through certain external manifestations and reflections, and why things shift the way they do, or why the current just carries us away...

It just occurred to me that I should mention something I've heard a thousand times before: "The only constant is change." But if everything is shifting, what exactly is the constant that remains steady through all that flux? Or, as a famous poet once put it: "The whole stood in its place, while the details moved along their designated tracks."

Looking out from the plane window, I saw this winding river frozen in time, until you reach the end where it hits the bank—all those tiny, restless ripples and rapids splashing up in little droplets against the rocks.

What if I just dove in and opened my eyes?

Jonathan Brooks8 said:🙂
Consider this little mental exercise; you find yourself staring at a mountain stream in the Rockies—just one specific stretch of it—where the water rushes over smooth river stones, always following that same rhythmic dance, perhaps with just a slight variation in how the surface ripples... a pattern that repeats itself in an eternal loop. Naturally, your mind recognizes—based on its own internal archives, of course—that the water is actually in motion, that the stream is nothing more than a collection of passing droplets, and that at any given microsecond, you are actually looking at entirely different, unified drops emerging and vanishing from sight. But the eye? The eye is tricked; it is "forced" to perceive the flow of the stream as a single, static entity, even though the mind isn't fooled by the illusion.

Now, using that same imagery, you can imagine the exact opposite scenario—one where the eye tracks the movement, that multitude of shifting, jumping images, in such a way that the underlying stillness becomes invisible. In this case, it’s a deception played upon the mind, which is constantly being stirred up, failing to notice the immobility beneath. To truly perceive that stillness, the mind must essentially trick the deceived mind. Only then, when the mind is no longer distracted by the constant motion, can it see a single pattern of movement—much like seeing the pattern of the stream itself.

That pattern can be found in everything we observe as changing—in life, in history, in nature... and that point of stillness is the origin of all change; it is the explosion emanating from the essence.

But how does one actually get there? How do we find those patterns—those points of absolute stillness that act as the anchor for everything else we’re watching change right before our eyes?