13 Responses

1. This post inspired me at just the right time as I’ve felt a bit battered by others as of late.

   That being said, I think we feel the influence of others because they actually have influence on us at a level we cannot detect. I think that you can choose to explain this anyway you like (unconscious communication, strings vibrating in ways that influence the behavior of other strings, particles bouncing off of one another affecting those they hit). The reason it is stressful is that we have to resist this influence when we are being interacted with.

   Sometimes that resistance is just a mental adjustment which is quick and easy and sometimes it’s hard to manage because we haven’t yet learned to stand our ground when such pressure is exerted. Once we grow accustomed to making the adjustment, it gets easier.

   I believe there is intelligence behind all life and matter but we aren’t the spawn of that intelligence but we are the cells of it. We are it. In essence, we are God. So, of course others have a connection to use because we are all cells of one greater entity which makes up all of existence. How could we be anything but unified?

   Of course, this is just the way I see it. I could just as easily be wrong. 😉

2. Sorry to hear that you have felt a little battered by others recently.

   “I believe there is intelligence behind all life and matter but we aren’t the spawn of that intelligence but we are the cells of it.”

   That’s just how I have come to see things too. It feels very ‘right’, and helps me feel that I understand why there is such an abundance of Synchronicity.

   I like your take on the influence of others too. I’m curious as to what extent we can have control over feelings such as pressure-induced stress.

   I used to think that the best thing for a stressed-by-others Joseph to do was, when I first recognised that I was feeling stressed, to identify the cause, and then work to reduce the stress by dealing with that.

   Now, I’m more inclined to believe that the best thing to do is to put myself in the frame of mind where I do not turn things like pressure into stress in the first place, by, for example, receiving criticism and attaching to it a label reading “This is only their opinion, their personal perception of this reality, it is not Law”.

   Easier said than done! As you say, it does seem that the influence of others reaches us on a deeper level, a place perhaps that is unreachable through conscious thought processes.

   And of course, there is the danger of allowing Ego to use such ideas to excuse behavior that has a negative impact upon others. I think for me, a healthy dose of humility can help to guard against that.

3. I think it’s far more unrealistic to put down to ‘coincidence’ those events where just the right person enters your life at the right time than it is to put them down to some kind of intentional timing by some force.

   I’m quite sure those happy events are more than balanced out by the times they don’t occur. Of course you’re rather more likely to remember the times they do, and attribute rather more weight to them, because that’s how your brain is wired.

   How your brain isn’t wired, is to make it easy to understand probability, nor is it wired to accurately measure reality. A few anecdotes should be utterly insufficient to be convinced about anything, certainly when it comes to the nature of base reality.

   Perhaps there’s some guiding intelligence which takes a deep personal interest in your life; I’d wonder why it doesn’t much care for those of many others, though. You can’t be that blinded by oxytocin to fail to notice how much suffering there is next to all your wonderfulness?

   Personally I’d be inclined to suggest you try attributing more to the intelligences that you can actually prove exist. Humans do tend to have some limited capacity for self-direction. If there is something smrt out there that’s out to make your life more wonderful, I’d say you’ve found her/them, why would you want to diminish that by thinking “${UniversalGuidingIntelligence} does it!”, and why should you even find comfort in that when it’s clearly so fickle and awful at the same time?

   Of course, if you do have some influence up there, could you perhaps mention to the UGI that I’m just slightly overdue for a girlfriend? It would save me a lot of effort if it made it Just Happen for me 😉

4. Gah…another giddy, woolly-brained musing on God/existence…I was trying to summon up the energy to write a response (mainly about the limitations/weaknesses of the human mind…and how religion and unoriginal ideas such as your own are spawned directly from these) and then I realised ‘thomas hurst’ has more or less said everything I wanted to say on the matter…aside from that bit at the end about wanting a girlfriend…

   You know Joseph, I know it may be less than “wiggy” of me to say so, but I much preferred your blog when you were wracked with self-doubt, endearingly self-depreciating and relentlessly single. As happy as I am that you and *twinkle* “found” each other and all that jazz it does makes your blog fairly one-dimensional these day…bloated on motivational tapes and books I’ve found your views to have become stagnant and blinkered (despite believing you are “enlightened” in some way) and the general tone to have become…dare I say…smug?

   Well, to be fair, you’re engaged to the woman you love so I suppose that does entitle you to some level of smugness ; )

5. Thanks for providing the other side to the coin Thomas.

   I don’t agree wholly with your interpretation of my interpretation of a UGI. I don’t feel it is something that can be externalised. It’s in us all, it is us. Thus, it’s all about self-direction, thayt self being (a part of) the whole.

   Blind to the suffering? Perhaps I come across as being blind due to being so happy with my personal circumstances. But no, I see the suffering too. My personal belief is that that suffering too is brought on by ourselves, perhaps as individual souls, perhaps as a larger collective, perhaps as a whole.

   Why do we need it? Not a clue. Does it fulfill some vital balancing role in the greater energy field? maybe. Maybe it has no reason. I don’t think it’s punishment, because that would suggest that there is some ‘God’ out there making judgments, and personally I think that’s a silly idea, and a good excuse to give up taking responsibility for your own actions.

   Why would there be a punishing ‘God’? Perhaps to keep the Catholic church in business? I don’t know.

   Anyway, the conclusion to this is a bit of bummer as it means it’s up to us to attract girlfriends ourselves.

   I reckon you could manifest one pretty easily though. There’s a magic place you can go: herehere.

6. Anonymous, good to hear from you, thanks for the investment of energy into giving me some feedback, I hope you’re not too tired. If you are let me know, I might have something for you…

   I don’t feel smug in the slightest, smugness is not a nice thing to feel. If you feel smug, does it really make you feel good? I know it doesn’t with me, it makes me feel guilty, which is a dark dark energy best avoided by not doing anything to cause it. At least for me it is anyway. although I may come across as being smug. (Well, I guess it’s all a case of what you choose to be your reality, so if I am smug in your reality, then I guess I am, especially for you. 😉

   I think you need to be careful of your use of ‘wiggy’ – one cannot BE wiggy. Unless you’re me, or unless you have your own ‘wiggy’ which differs from mine, but I get the impression that it was my ‘wiggy’ that your were attempting to use. Just a word of caution. The power of ‘wiggy’ should be treated with respect, it is not to banded about lightly.

   Ah, the good old days of attempting to get laid at every alcohol-blurred party, desperately wanting to be wanted! Don’t we wish we were all back there! I remember when *Twinkle* and I first got together, we considered turning TDM into even more of a work of fiction than it currently is, by making up this story of me constantly pining for this lovely exchange student who constantly rejected me. I’ll save that for my other blog.

   Stagnant and blinkered? Once again, I suppose this is just down to how you choose to interpret what you read.

   I mean, when I was reading on your blog the other day about your 24-hour You Tube marathon in which you put that video of the German guy miming to the Spice Girls “Wannabe” on repeat play, whilst writing a campaign speech for George Bush’s election as the head of UNEP, for a second, I did think that your life had become a bit stagnant and blinkered. But then I caught myself, and remembered that everyone places different values on different things, so whilst the Spice Girls “Wannabe” is not my idea of stimulation, I appreciate that you obviously have found some meaning in it, and I’m happy for you, and I encourage you to continue doing that that you most enjoy. I’m also grateful that unlike myself you do love that song, and that you do have such faith in Bush’s emerging Green Side – without people like you there would be too few challenges in the world, and we might as well all go to sleep. (I must admit though, that entry did cause me to delete your blog’s RSS feed from Google Reader).

   Whilst being smug about being with *Twinkle* sounds like it might be fun, I think being so would be a deathwish for our relationship.

7. “I mean, when I was reading on your blog the other day (…) I must admit though, that entry did cause me to delete your blog’s RSS feed from Google Reader).”

   OK…you’ve completely lost me here. I’m guessing this is a joke (?) but if it is…errrrr…the humour has gone right over my head I’m afraid. If I have a blog, it’s news to me!

8. Dear Anon,

   Thank you for helping to fulfill category two in the Bonuses of Blogging top 10.

   If you really don’t have a blog, and thus if the one that I have been reading for the past few years which has your name on is not actually yours, then I bet, after reading the article mentioned above you will be so revved up and ready to go with your new Blog Career that the Blogger servers will crash under the weight of your words.

9. I think that the comments you are getting are steeped in the Judeo-Christian concepts of “God” which you mentioned you no longer relate to. Such concepts place the locus of control for one’s life outside of oneself and place a parental image on “God”. It’s an image I haven’t embraced since I was 17 as it makes no sense considering that, if there were a God, he’d care about everyone, not just the cultures that embrace “him”.

   I think that the suffering we endure is of our own choosing (though we do not make this choice in this manifestation of reality) as a means of experiencing something which “re-tunes” the bit of energy which is us to a different frequency (notice I don’t say “higher” or “lower” as I don’t believe that we advance to a state of happiness but rather that we simply change in state).

   Life is all about controlling yourself and your destiny though I believe we get pretty confused about it because our lives are like driving a car and being totally unaware of what happens outside of the seat and immediate control area in front of us. We think all there is are the pedals, gearshift and the steering steering wheel, but what is really important is what is under the hood. Our emotions and actions influence life on a molecular (and lower) level but we can’t witness it so we assume all there is is what we witness and this lack of ability to see the immediate consequences of our actions at the deepest level makes us presume that nothing happens (when clearly that is not correct and can be measured scientifically).

   The fact that having a different outlook changes your life is an indication of this control at work. People don’t believe this because they despair when the “car” (their lives) seems to be going places they don’t want to go, but the truth is sometimes we’ve intentionally put ourselves on a highway to hell because it’s a road we haven’t traveled before. This makes them cynical and they give up on any notion of existence other than that which can be perceived by our limited senses, but in doing so, they forfeit the ability to “learn to drive” a bit more comfortably and with more finesse and control.

   What you don’t learn now, you’ll learn eventually though. There’s no hurry, but there’s also no point in not trying. After all, what else are you going to do with your time here?

   Keep trying Joseph, it’s the best thing to do.

10. Now I am REALLY confused…

    First of all, I will be extremely surprised if you know who I am (thus the whole “mysterious” Anonymous mumbler thingy)

    Second, I certainly do not have a blog. I am too paranoid and guarded for that. There is absolutely no part of me which wishes to “share” on the world wide web…I’m afraid the humble comments section on your fine blog will have to suffice as my soap-box.

    Utterly, utterly bizarre…I am very curious to see “my” blog if you could post the link?

11. Shari,

    Thank you. I really appreciate your input / advice.

    I think it’s only natural that there is a such a strong tendency to externalise “God”, even (or perhaps especially) by those who prefer to use scientific theory to explain the workings of the world. The traditional image of ‘God Almighty’ is so much a part of our (Western) socialised collective thinking, that even if one has never stepped inside a church, when the subject of ‘God’ (source) comes up it is only natural to cast ‘him’ in that Terry Gilliam light.

    Also, it is of course a lot easier to dismiss worrying thoughts of a greater energy source if it comes in the form of an external being. Make it an amorphous energy that is all around us, indeed IS us, and it becomes a lot more tricky to use reason / science to argue for or against its existence.

    Your ideas on suffering feel ‘right’. I know that I will probably experience a healthy dose of suffering at some point (thus perhaps my full indulgence in my current state that is somewhat lacking in suffering), but knowing that this is necessary and ultimately a positive thing, I am not too concerned. Of course, at the time I will probably cry out and ask ‘why?!’, but will hopefully come to work to accept it as a necessary part of the whole.

    What I am a little perplexed by though, is suffering on a mass-scale. I’m thinking natural disasters, or casualties of conflict. Would this be in answer to a need for a mass-‘re-tune’?

    This is where I come to feel that perhaps there is no reason – yet this goes against my belief that everything has manifested as a result of being needed in some way.

    I like the car analogy a lot. Very helpful, that kind of thing helps me organise my thoughts 🙂

12. Anon,

    I was of course pulling your leg 😉

13. I can’t explain suffering on a mass scale though I have read that it occurs not to cause suffering but as a result of certain mass mindsets. If you accept that we act on the world and the world acts on us at a level we cannot yet measure or detect *and* that includes nature and inanimate objects (which I believe it does as we are all made up of atoms and basically held together in similar fashion), then the focus of a particular mass mindset acts on nature and nature acts back as a resisting force. The suffering is the result, but not an intended result. It’s no more a wish for suffering than a vase that breaks on the floor when dropped has a wish to shatter. It’s an unavoidable consequence of a force being applied.

    I don’t think suffering is inevitable. You may spend the rest of your life in peace and happiness, but that would be what you needed to shape your “spirit” in this current reality. You may have already suffered or have yet to suffer greatly. It’s a decision you will make/have made on another level, but not because you “need” to suffer per se, but rather because you want to have an experience. It’s a decision everyone gets to make at another level to get the experiences they need or want. They are in control of making the choices, though we are also influencing their lives by not intervening in their suffering or giving up our own comfort to mitigate their suffering since we are all part of the same thing.

    There very likely is a need for a mass “re-tuning” of our energy so that we work with our environment rather than against it, but that doesn’t mean we all become granola-eating vegans in solar-powered homes. I think our relationship with materials, other animals, and nature is not a simplistic one, nor is it one where two-way communication is even a possibility. It’s more of a need to eliminate disharmony on a level we are incapable of perceiving for now. Considering that we can’t even manage to live in harmony with other humans when we have a much greater capacity to do so, this is no surprise.

    I honestly believe science will one day develop the tools to measure these interactions much as it has developed tools to measure and view interactions on levels people couldn’t have even imagined 500 years ago. For instance, if you press hard on a tabletop with your finger, you see no change but if you could measure the force your finger exerted on a molecular level (assuming it’s a fairly average table), you could perceive some infinitesimal “give” in the table to the force of your finger. I believe things are “giving” all the time in relation to the energy of our thoughts and bodies in similarly imperceptible manner (and we are also being pushed by other forces in this manner). Science just hasn’t built its machines for this yet (part of the reason is it doesn’t really want to do so because this is of no interest to it yet – first someone has to even imagine the relationship I speak of is possible before considering measuring it). I think when the devices that can prove such a relationship exists between all matter, it will be discovered as an aside to something else which is being measured rather than as the direct target of the instrumentation.