WHERE ARE all the reflective folks who SHOULD be following your sub-stack? I just don't understand why masses of people are not flocking here to absorb your introspective insights. Maybe my (dare I say 'our'?) perception of reality has become too alien to what a former quasi-religious community of mine used to call the 'modern material world', the infrastructure of materialism?
Could our unconscious drowning in the unrelenting tsunami of (im)material changes (you call it "PTSD") have so completely distracted the minds of westerners from the proven wisdom patterns of past shamans, e.g., sustenance communities; indigenous peoples; contemplatives and monastics both traditional and modern; artists, musicians, writers, craftspeople; even ecumenical spiritualists, et al? I so much appreciate you re-orienting yourself and trying to "cry out in the wilderness" and be a "light on a hilltop", for others. Just as you stated herein that 'academia' is missing the forest for examining the veins in the leaves, are we too missing the City for looking at the forest too much, for maybe trying to be too philosophically vs. organically 'woke', to the point of isolationism or irrelevancy?
I'm sorry for rambling, Frank. I just don't know what it would take to shift the worlds' paradigm of anthropogenic exceptionalism, toward a more original and fundamental vision of humanity, befitting the relatively simple organisms and consciousnesses that we are in reality. None of the recent generations and civilizations preceding us have been able to turn the tide of technological progress away from ultimate social desertification, to prevent it over-running our most primary human need: life in cooperative community.
Once our 'monkey pack' thinks it owns The Magic Wand of Exceptionalism, will we mis-use the Magic Wand to beat other packs and each other back into irrelevancy? I fear this is the immutable trend of our previous relatively short human epochs. Maybe this is why your sub-stack feels like the Book of Lamentations, and I feel like a friendless loner.
Best regards,
Andy Wang
P.S. No worries, I'm not a depressed, friendless loner... I am very grateful, and love my family and my life immensely, as it appears you do also. It's just isolating to make basic statements such as above which do not appear to convey any useful meaning, EVEN to my most loved ones. This is somewhat disturbing, but as 'evangelicals' in the neutral sense of the word, you know we become inured to being ignored. :D BR, AW
Thích Nhất Hạnh was asked by a journalist in an airport what is humanities biggest problem. He replied you do not no who you are.
Find out by starting to identify where or what you are through self inquiry.
Here's a hint, you won't because what you believe yourself to be is a conditioned thought.
Consider this: you are not your thoughts or emotions which in part form the illusion of you. Your thoughts and emotions are the footings your ideologies are built upon not dis similar to a foundation. Our individual lives are lived from these perspectives. What folks need to contemplate is what is there to recognize within the moment steeped in ideological beliefs is separate from those ideologies, beliefs, thoughts, opinions...
In short backing up a bit there is manifestation and where it comes from which is unspeakable. You're awareness is born out of non being. Non being to being is akin to up defining down or hot defining cold etc. One cannot exist without the other. The Tao Te Ching speaks directly to this.
PS. If you cannot discern yourself from thoughts, words, emotions, ideologies...then you are subject to influence/propaganda. This is why people vote against their interests let alone the citizens interest. This is true for all of us by some measure at one time or another.
You should probably find a different name than "the woke generation." The word is toxic and inextricably linked to all the leftist silliness you are upset with. Let them have the word. Call a generation by its universal appellation (X, millennial, z,...) Avoid defining a "movement." There isn't any. You can proudly lump concepts together like so many fish and put them in a barrel labeled "woke" and all you have done is make easy shooting for your detractors.
TY again, Dr. Schaeffer.
WHERE ARE all the reflective folks who SHOULD be following your sub-stack? I just don't understand why masses of people are not flocking here to absorb your introspective insights. Maybe my (dare I say 'our'?) perception of reality has become too alien to what a former quasi-religious community of mine used to call the 'modern material world', the infrastructure of materialism?
Could our unconscious drowning in the unrelenting tsunami of (im)material changes (you call it "PTSD") have so completely distracted the minds of westerners from the proven wisdom patterns of past shamans, e.g., sustenance communities; indigenous peoples; contemplatives and monastics both traditional and modern; artists, musicians, writers, craftspeople; even ecumenical spiritualists, et al? I so much appreciate you re-orienting yourself and trying to "cry out in the wilderness" and be a "light on a hilltop", for others. Just as you stated herein that 'academia' is missing the forest for examining the veins in the leaves, are we too missing the City for looking at the forest too much, for maybe trying to be too philosophically vs. organically 'woke', to the point of isolationism or irrelevancy?
I'm sorry for rambling, Frank. I just don't know what it would take to shift the worlds' paradigm of anthropogenic exceptionalism, toward a more original and fundamental vision of humanity, befitting the relatively simple organisms and consciousnesses that we are in reality. None of the recent generations and civilizations preceding us have been able to turn the tide of technological progress away from ultimate social desertification, to prevent it over-running our most primary human need: life in cooperative community.
Once our 'monkey pack' thinks it owns The Magic Wand of Exceptionalism, will we mis-use the Magic Wand to beat other packs and each other back into irrelevancy? I fear this is the immutable trend of our previous relatively short human epochs. Maybe this is why your sub-stack feels like the Book of Lamentations, and I feel like a friendless loner.
Best regards,
Andy Wang
P.S. No worries, I'm not a depressed, friendless loner... I am very grateful, and love my family and my life immensely, as it appears you do also. It's just isolating to make basic statements such as above which do not appear to convey any useful meaning, EVEN to my most loved ones. This is somewhat disturbing, but as 'evangelicals' in the neutral sense of the word, you know we become inured to being ignored. :D BR, AW
Thích Nhất Hạnh was asked by a journalist in an airport what is humanities biggest problem. He replied you do not no who you are.
Find out by starting to identify where or what you are through self inquiry.
Here's a hint, you won't because what you believe yourself to be is a conditioned thought.
Consider this: you are not your thoughts or emotions which in part form the illusion of you. Your thoughts and emotions are the footings your ideologies are built upon not dis similar to a foundation. Our individual lives are lived from these perspectives. What folks need to contemplate is what is there to recognize within the moment steeped in ideological beliefs is separate from those ideologies, beliefs, thoughts, opinions...
In short backing up a bit there is manifestation and where it comes from which is unspeakable. You're awareness is born out of non being. Non being to being is akin to up defining down or hot defining cold etc. One cannot exist without the other. The Tao Te Ching speaks directly to this.
PS. If you cannot discern yourself from thoughts, words, emotions, ideologies...then you are subject to influence/propaganda. This is why people vote against their interests let alone the citizens interest. This is true for all of us by some measure at one time or another.
You should probably find a different name than "the woke generation." The word is toxic and inextricably linked to all the leftist silliness you are upset with. Let them have the word. Call a generation by its universal appellation (X, millennial, z,...) Avoid defining a "movement." There isn't any. You can proudly lump concepts together like so many fish and put them in a barrel labeled "woke" and all you have done is make easy shooting for your detractors.