January 29, 2022

My 85 yr old cousin posed a spiritual challenge to me. - my answer:

He sent the daily meditation type thing, quoted below, and added, "This reflection explains why and how I can belong to the fellowship. See whether you can also identify."

He sounded patronizing without meaning to, the way the quoted author uses judgmental labels while advocating the opposite.

I'm a mass of contradictions. I entertain being intellectual yet look at the horoscope. Not because I believe it but because I take signs from wherever, high and low, tea leaves and entrails. So I poke here and there, not profoundly, just the gist as a diletantte - Catholicism, existentialism, Taoism, Buddhism, pop psychology, anthropology, whatever.

But what I don't do is to "belong." Whatever the intellectual construct, as long as I'm living in a world with other people I have to live with all those other people's "primitive" beliefs and customs.

I can say that nobody has to live with depression, PTSD, whatever - the cure and solution being Existentialism or Buddhism: The answer to emotional pain is that it doesn't matter, the universe doesn't care, ignore/deaden the pain, it's gone. But so long as you're living, someone or something will remind you and it is back. I can say that, as an Existentialist, nothing matters, rituals and customs don't matter, but then the logical outcome is, well then commit suicide, but if not then you are still in society, which means you still have to kowtow to rituals and customs. Anthropology still reigns when there is more than one person involved.

So as for your proposition of "fellowship," yes I want it, know it, and sometimes feel it, but also am in contact with rudeness, negativity, arrogance and judgment, snobbery, absence of validation, and everything else that people, including me, dish out.

Yes, I know this thought of fellowship. I'll take it when it happens, like I do a daily horoscope. How's this for my meditation? The one you sent is wonderfully expressed by that author. (Well, he sometimes uses old pejorative language, like "gumption." ) Bottom line: I don't commit, am confused, don't belong anywhere but am stuck everywhere - which adds up to: Am a Pisces.

*******QUOTE*******

https://email.cac.org/t/ViewEmail/d/B57F7D39815ED6EE2540EF23F30FEDED/7FE390F0A0CC346A33C48669A65BFAC1?alternativeLink=False

.... Fellowship is a kind of belonging that isn’t based on status, achievement, or gender, but instead is based on a deep belief that everyone matters, everyone is welcome, and everyone is loved, no conditions, no exceptions. It’s not the kind of belonging you find at the top of the ladder among those who think they are the best, but at the bottom among all the rest, with all the other failures and losers who have either climbed the ladder and fallen, or never gotten up enough gumption to climb in the first place.

Whatever else this uprising will become, from that night we’ve known it is an uprising of fellowship, a community where anyone who wants to be part of us will be welcome. Jesus showed us his scars, and we’re starting to realize we don’t have to hide ours.

So fellowship is for scarred people, and for scared people, and for people who want to believe but aren’t sure what or how to believe. When we come together just as we are, we begin to rise again, to believe again, to hope again, to live again. ....

*******UNQUOTE******

January 7, 2022

I've figured out what specific period America was "great (again)" that Drumpf hooked zombies with

Ever since Drumpf inflicted himself on the national psyche with the MAGA marketing slogan, somebody or other has asked occasionally what specific period he was referring to during which the greatness was being referred to.

Forget about NATO, the Marshall Plan, the New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society. That's not what the Drumpf zombies care about, that he tapped into.

What they wanted was the "simpler" things: Basically when they were carefree and not regulated or reminded of the finite resources we live with and are exhausting:: When commodes blasted full flushing, light bulbs incandescent, shower heads blasted water pressure, smoking was classy, no seat belts meant freedom, open cans while driving, and no P.C.isms, burning fuel without a thought or care.


*** And WHEN was that? ---- The answer has one word: ********CHILDHOOD*******

Yes, THAT is when America was great (for them), when they were the center of their parents' universe with no thoughts.

It's not a specific historical period. It's a moveable childhood period depending upon the generation of the Deplorables audience being pandered to.


*** The ambiguity is the key for a snake oil flim flammer in marketing like Drumpf, vague enough for the suckers to plug in whatever they think it means.

January 2, 2022

For DUers in remission

I had close relatives who didn't reach remission, but am touched by the bell ceremony at the end of treatment. Have just ordered 2 of these bells for friends.

https://www.hallmark.com/ornaments/keepsake-ornaments/cancer-survivors-bell-metal-ornament-benefitting-cancer-research-at-mayo-clinic-1999QHX4102.html