Livin Your Best Life

First topic message reminder :

“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”

—Robert Frost - “Nothing Gold Can Stay”

"The sense of not being free comes from trying to do things which are impossible and even meaningless. You are not “free” to draw a square circle, to live without a head, or to stop certain reflex actions. These are not obstacles to freedom; they are the conditions of freedom. I am not free to draw a circle if perchance it should turn out to be a square circle. I am not, thank heaven, free to walk out of doors and leave my head at home. Likewise I am not free to live in any moment but this one, or to separate myself from my feelings..."

~ Alan Watts ~

"Wisdom of Insecurity"

This kid is feelin the vibe.

The kid is onto the best thing in life.

The one you have.

The living in mind body and essence at the same time.

Full powered living only you can experience yourself.

Kinda beautiful really.

Disclosure is a trap of the mind.

Portals are gravity traps.

A mirror is a trap.

So many traps!

Eeeeekkkk

Just have to smell  your way through.

Hunting wisdom.

Follow the logos wherever it leads.

That chat Jordan had was like how my mind makes connections.

Crazy sometimes how things connect.

Been meditating on his passion.

Hunt for wisdom and seek the logos wherever you can.

Yes.

That has been my life, an obsessive pursuit of wisdom, the real.

My favorite poem is “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Frost.

True genius.

True logos.

Pure gold.

Every time I write my own poems I measure them against this one. While most of mine are crap, I have seen gold now and then.

I have seen and held the golden thread in my own hands.

It shocked me as if I had touched the ark of the covenant.

That it is real.

And it can be found and touched is a revelation for humanity.

I really appreciate Jordan Peterson more and more.

He’s a fuckin beautiful dude in pain and he doesn’t hide it.

He has disclosed himself.

Jordan is no muppet.

He is god.

When I saw Dan dancing I felt that golden thread too.

Bahahahaha

Nothing gold can stay.

That just resonates with me.

Such a great metaphor.

Was watching a documentary on John Dee this morning.

Quite a polymath.

Been digging into the Ritman Library YouTubes, they are most excellent.

Gold is of course related to alchemy.

Alchemy is related to the golden thread.

A mysterious state of mind that seems to pop up in our history over and over.

Peterson is deeply into the golden thread.

Anyone who studies and does their own alchemical work will seemingly come across this golden thread.

It’s hard to pick up.

It’s a live wire.

Now why does smelly goat continue to avoid talking about strange phenomena in the sky on a UFO board with claimed connection to the intelligence and militia community?

Kind of part of my act and art, but also a dig at the corrupt.

I rarely find quality people among these lunatics.

Well, this is just where I showed up.

And I think I’m onto the greatest part of the phenomena and feel the UFO is a metaphor for the sacred.

You become obsessed with the pursuit of wisdom.

It becomes another idol.

Seeking for truth is a wise thing to do if you ask me.

Along this alchemical journey you come to see our view is occluded.

It takes work to uncover.

I think I’m speaking about the most important thing and point of the phenomena.

The phenomena challenged all my beliefs and faiths in the world I was conditioned into.

Giving everything to the search seemed the only thing I could do as an outsider.

The outsider is really on the inside.

Alone.

Alone with the alone.

I realized the ones who think they are on the inside aren’t.

They really aren’t, I generalize, but experience has proved it.

They just don’t usually see beyond their material existence.

It is best perhaps to stay grounded in the material existence until one experiences what I call The Shift.

The Shift somehow opens you up consciously to that which generally is hidden underneath.

So nothing is just as it appears anymore and things are just what they appear to be.

A paradox, looking inside out instead of outside in.

It is this strange green dimension in between.

I think those who will leave earth to go to a dead planet are going to suffer being apart from their material home.

It seems to me a much better pursuit to live the best you can in the space that you appear in.

Your body and earth ground you.

The air gives you life.

Consciousness looks to solve the metaphor of being here.

Pierre Hadot came to hold the golden thread I am convinced and he spent his life in pursuit of it.

This is a wise man.

Ancient philosophy begins in an existential choice he came to believe. That choice is based on a vision of the world and a way of life based on that vision.

He adopted stoicism and that was how I came to learn about him as a modern stoic.

I can find so few who are aware of the golden thread and knowledge about it in history in modernity.

Much dark stuff out of the Russian writers.

Nihilism stalks the best minds.

Pragmatic dynamic spirituality is one vision of life, I feel worth the time to explore.

I don’t have anything against religion, it plays a key role in our psyche, but it is only an eclectic of the personal.

Perhaps what is eternal meets us in our imagination, that is one theory. Perhaps our thinking itself is evidence of things unseen.

You won’t know, if you don’t look.

He has a great book I highly recommend, Philosophy as a Way of Life.

In this chaotic narcissist degrading world, he was a great teacher on how to live your best life.

The ancients can be a great aid, but contemporary sources who practice wisdom are the best sources.

Mostly poets are the ones exploring these spaces and indeed one must become a poet to learn to deal with the paradoxes and metaphors one encounters.

Developing one’s focus and imagination is critical.

The imagination is key.

If one is not connecting to and expressing their art, they have no clue about the meaning of being.

How to live your best life is the goal of a lived philosophy.

Most of today’s Philosophy is analytical and it sucks.

You cannot capture in word the essence of lived philosophy.

You must practice and apply it daily.

Most have not realized you must summit on your own and raise yourself up?

They look to outside sources to define their identities.

They live for the images in life.

Very short sighted imho.

Sadly, most have not heard the call and if they have, not made for the summit.

Well, if this is what I felt so strongly to do, I must be consistent until the end I decided and have been.

I have surprised myself with my focus really.

I can’t explain.

I do feel inspired.

And I am focused, like I never was before.

I caught a glimpse of the gold and realized the lie I was living.

So I stripped it all off and ran around naked.

It was glorious fun.

I am way off the beaten track now.

Deep in the wood.

I keep seeing glimpses of Pan around trees.

Now and then I shoot up a signal flare, but hardly anyone sees.

Early on the trail I found a few good hiking friends but they have mostly stuck to the trail.

I went into the woods and find treasure after treasure I cannot share.

The treasure is always used in the moment and then it dissolves away.

Others have been into the wood and left caches, I found.

Ok, so I’m not too original, but in today’s world, I have found some hack codes.

Greco-Roman philosophy provides a valuable model for interpreting Buddhist philosophy that, by emphasizing practical context, is superior to interpretations from the standpoint of analytic philosophy. The "unifying framework" of the volume, he says, is "spiritual exercises" rather than "problems and arguments".

Practical pragmatic consistent practice is the only way to make meaningful progress.

I realize most on a UFO conspiracy board will be like, what is this lunatic talking about?

Indeed.

One in this mode can only occasionally find one who you can relate to on these deepest of metaphors.

This is not a message for anyone or the masses.

This is brutal hard work and most cupcakes today just don’t have the focus or sticking power to go too deep.

Dan says I am saying I can only do this, no, I just am like, hey, if you are serious about this, count the cost and go all in.

I like to have fun with this and have my own expression and style.

It tends to piss muppets off.

That’s a Capricorn goat for you.

Driven and demanding, but we have a soft side too.

We love to relax and play as well.

Form a movie I was watching this morning...

“Life is like a carpet, we weave in and out to make a pattern. The bird of freedom is caught forever in the pattern.”

I love the song of this bird.

It is a sad one at times.

I sing the song of freedom from within the pattern, I am the bird woven into the pattern.

Caught in the pattern I am not totally free, but the song of freedom is life changing and powerful and I sing it anyway, knowing I am finite.

Now tell me about your ufo experience.

Where did it lead you?

Fear?

Paranoia?

Insanity?

Freedom?

Well, once you break through the pattern, an entirely new vista opens and you realize how foolish the world is and most of all how foolish your identity is.

When I meditate, I look into what is behind my mind.

I ask to connect with that that I always am, which is silly, because I am already that.

Check out Nisargadatta on this pointless point.

Everyday, like a mantra, I seek my hidden face.

That’s outside looking in.

Rarely, I find myself inside looking out.

That’s the state of mind I seek to persist more and more.

Seeking they say is just more selfish desire that taints the sublime.

Is it?

What about inspiration?

So intention matters I found.

What is your intention looking into ufos?

To expose truth?

To expose lies?

To change the world?

Absolute foolishness.

Have you really looked deeply into your motivations?

Along this journey I realized I had a dark passenger and we began a dialogue.

These writings are partly the tales of my contact with that dark passenger.

I wrestle with it everyday.

There isn’t a moment that goes by, where I am not shown the error of my ways.

Now and then I might get an at a boy.

I swear it feels like Jedi training sometimes of the mind.

It can be exhausting.

A hard task master this dark passenger beating me onto my best like a horse

But there is another in here too, the child.

The child who might stick a knife in a light socket.

Poor kid.

But there is a goddess involved too and gods, haha.

There are a lot of things bouncing around in this meat bag.

I will be honest and say I was mostly lead into the woods by this dark one.

Do I trust it, I feel you must be skeptical of everything.

Even your most intimate private thoughts.

The presence of it astounded and confounded me.

It is quite playful in a dark way and much smarter than myself it seems.

It seems to bring knowledge I never acquired.

It isn’t about power, well, not material power.

This journey has been about realizing the power that is available to each of us, to live our best lives in spite of any circumstance.

It is a love story.

Do not assume you know me from my words, fool that I am, you do not, you only know what is in my minds you do not know what to do for me and I don’t know what you should do.

But if you are so driven in the pursuit of wisdom as I am, then we do know each other, otherwise, you haven’t a clue what I am on about.

That’s fine, but I will stay focused and shoot up my signal flares as I progress.

Relax, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

I have crafted smelly goat for effect and experimented with this on the OMF board.

But I will continue to share what I have found that seems to work reasonably well living as a finite being.

So, do I feel we can live eternally?

Nothing lives forever is the riddle.

“The present alone is our happiness.” —Pierre Hadot

FatThorDude wrote:

Very good series.

Expunge the bullshit from your mind.

Don’t feed the Monster reacting to pleasure and fear.

Smarten up already.

Seneca puts it well, “Life is like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.”

AntiFatThorDude

Wisdom means to know and love what matters deeply.

“We must keep the beasts at bay and in their place.
So we seldom ask them questions,
lest they answer and terrify us by smashing our beliefs.”

—Charles Bowden

You might want to practice this.

So when Socrates says he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, he loves what he knows.

We can know love and it transforms us.

Socrates said that the only thing he really knows is love.

Socrates’s love cannot be identified with the objects of various desires instantiated in the individual parts of the soul. Socrates loves the other as a divine being and that his love involves both ‘need love’ and ‘bestowal love.’ Socrates’s erôs was the true object of his love, which is love itself.

Love wisdom.

Love love.

“In other words, wisdom is conflated with measurable intelligence or virtue. But real wisdom has more to do with our ability to engage in what Vervaeke calls 'relevance realisation' than the acquisition of theoretical or factual knowledge.”

Are today’s philosophers practicing relevance realization?

They better start!

How best shall I live where I am and who and what I am with and doing what I am doing is what I seek.

With what comes to me.

And love it.

My answer to how to live is to shape yourself to what you love and to what matters to you.

This is not theoretical knowledge.

Do you see where I am coming from?

I don’t love Disclosure or trump or fascism.

I love you Dan, of course.

I love what I give my time to.

I give my time to what I see as meaningful to me, to what I love.

Philosophy is the recognition/realization of and practice of love.

I don’t love science, I respect it as a powerful way of knowing.

I love being with what I love.

—

I’m tellin ya, this is gold.

“In the present meaning crisis, according to John Vervaeke, we tend to ‘conflate the having mode with the being mode‘—or mistake the ‘product’ for the ‘process’—the shallow representation for the real.

But wisdom, like love, is not something we can have or acquire — it is deeply existential, complex, and about being in the world.

Vervaeke points out that while there are many valid scientific or psychological theories of wisdom, they too often focus on the product of wisdom—rather than the deeper process of wisdom and relevance. In other words, wisdom is conflated with measurable intelligence or virtue.

Many theories of wisdom offer a ‘feature list’ rather than a whole picture. They make us think that wisdom is a combination of traits, rather an underlying ‘meta-ecology’ . Wisdom is in fact a a gestalt of courage, compassion, intelligence, empathy, and other virtues — which cannot be reduced to any combination of these.

Sometimes a theory will help us become wise, at other times it is an impediment—if, for instance we are being chased by a lion. Wisdom therefore constitutes our panoramic and deep understanding of a situation, which may be prior to proposition, analysis, or theory.

wisdom is not merely a series of intellectual propositions applied to a situation—it is embodied and holistic understanding and action. The intellect may be a vital part of wisdom but it is not the whole story.

Wisdom is therefore not the fireworks of our extraordinary IQ or the application of a strict moral code—it is love and meaning applied to real life. That is why the real meaning of philosophy is not academic: it is quite literally the love of wisdom.

We need to know the difference between ‘the language of training’ and ‘the language of meaning’—between our ordinary ‘folk psychological’ notions and and the deep meaning of ideas, Vervaeke tells us. Folk psychology can be equivocal. (For instance, the word consciousness means several different things in different contexts, and has become so equivocal it might not meaning anything at all anymore!).

That is why philosophy—the love of wisdom—is so valuable. Philosophy is the work of constantly redefining and renewing the meaning of ideas, which often have a hidden story or unseen dimension.“

Every generation has to renew this meaning.

“Furthermore, we have to divest ourselves of the notion that wisdom is merely an individual journey. We actually become wiser in community and in the presence of others, Vervaeke tells us. Since the Cartesian revolution, wisdom has been identified with the atomized individual—the wise person being personified by Rodin’s ‘thinker’. However, real wisdom is also bound up with ‘participatory knowing’ and is profoundly communal, as even empirical science can now prove.”

Am I not in conversation with you Dan?

Even if OMF is filled with muppets, hehe.

4 kinds of knowing.

“Episteme is the type of knowing that involves science and empiricism and what Vervaeke calls ‘propositional knowing’.

Techne is the knowing of ‘art’ and ‘craft’ and evolves embodied skills and what Vervaeke calls ‘procedural knowing’.

Phronesis, is often poorly translated as prudence, but can also be thought of as ‘awareness’ or what Vervakake calls ‘perspectival’ knowing — that is, being sensitive to different perspectives.

Sophia is an overview or gestalt of wisdom of what Aristotle called ‘universal truths’ or the the capacity for ‘relevance realisation’ in Vervaekese.“

To summarize, Episteme — propositional or scientific knowing cannot work in isolation: a mere theory or scientific description does not tell a whole story. Technical or techne is similarly limited on its own — as technique doesn’t equal mastery. Phronesis or ethical awareness is impotent without applied wisdom or skilful means. And finally, sofia, or the overview of wisdom, will not help us with nitty-gritty, technical, epistemological, considerations.

We have to balance all these together.

Wisdom is not a solitary or individualistic endeavour or some kind of expertise: it is the activity of a sage or wise person. This is why we need to ‘Internalise the sage’ Vervaeke tells us, or experiment in perspectives greater than our own.

How do we become wise? This may be equivalent to the question of how we grow. A child grows into an adult by internalising adult role models and imitating them. But the adult can also grow by what Vervaeke calls ‘internalising the sage’. This means having an internal model of a wise person to imitate.”

This is what Dan was trying to say.

“Tantric symbols are not considered ultimately true in themselves but are doorways to meaning. Fake it till you make it, to put it prosaically.

Internalising the sage requires a certain romanticism, combined with a pragmatic and humble application of basic discipline. By means of single-minded dedication, we can embody the principles that the sage represents. Becoming wise involves a series of incremental steps which can lead to quantum leaps of understanding, where intelligence and courage are transformed into wisdom and accomplishment.“

A symptom of the meaning crisis may be the loss of the sage as a model for continued education. A model of a higher state is necessary for growth at every stage of life — as learning does not end with graduation. Adults need the humility to acknowledge that there are persons far wiser and more accomplished than they are.

Should we not be aiming to transcend ourselves?

Perhaps today the sage archetype has been replaced by the professor or the scientist, or those who help us with propositional knowledge. But there is a big difference between propositional knowing, book learning, philosophical mastery and real embodied wisdom.“

With the great women who have born the sons, Socrates and Plato and all them others and Marcus and Jesus and Lao and Dan Smith, how could we go wrong?

Single minded focus is needed.

U wrote:AntiFatThorDude

Takes all kinds to make a world.

Do you know Slavoj’s work?

He’s throwing a grenade.

I agree with his bullshitz definitions of kinds of wisdom he doesn’t like.

Do you know yourself enough to be able to discern good info and stupid info?

He’s talking about religious wisdom.

Pay attention.

Wisdom means to know and love what matters deeply.

I’m not talking about philosophical wisdom, I’m talking about the original meaning that the ancients lived.

You have to live it.

You have to love it.

Pleasure is the monster.

I too throw grenades.

Who are you talking to?

I have a bag of grenades.

I’m a god damn terrorist after all.

And we should blow our bullshit up.

Our own first.

Because we took a wrong turn, but it was prob best to take the wrong turn.

You wanna read someone interesting, Hegel is something.

He thought he had the answer.

Maybe.

He is more like a hermetic and a bit mystical.

Slavoj is a Hegelian.

Recent good book on Hegel that Slavoj loved, where is that...



Another one I thought was pretty good.



“God is God only so far as he knows himself. his self-knowledge is, further, a self-consciousness in man and man’s knowledge of God, which proceeds to man’s self-knowledge in God.”

— Hegel, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences

Our self consciousness is all I know or could know about god.

Interesting way to say what he said.

This was great.

The Dash-The Other Side of Absolute Knowing (Short Circuits)

- https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262535351/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_BC42RYVPQF20XVE5DN39

If you would live unruffled by care -
Let not the past torment you e’er
Be angered as little as you can
And let the present be ever enjoyed;
Never let your heart be moved with hate,
And as for the future, confide it unto God. (Goethe at 231)

“Even as Faust contemplates the new paradise for “many millions” he foresees, he avows that “[t]he last word wisdom ever has to say” is that “[h]e only earns his freedom and existence, who’s forced to win them freshly every day.”

The wisdom of living fully in the moment is the reward.

Eternal moments.

No one can see the vista I see in my own life, I have lifted my view by force of will.

I have transformed myself and shown myself I can.

But others have striven to find that moment where it matters.

I’m in good company.

This brings a satisfaction, a serenity, in light of my immanent death.

I do wish to help my brothers and sisters live free, as Faust feels.

Have you ever thought about the characters written and sung?

They are always alive when you read or hear them.

Always present in your hands and mind.

They do not live, they always are.

I saw Elon Musk one time tear up when someone told him his space heroes doubted his vision.

It hurt him and that pain motivated him, he wasn’t angry.

These are meditations about how I changed my own life and at least I was able to get them down.

To reflect on the moments of life as clearly as I could.

This moment is always the face of eternity.

This moment is worth living all of eternity.

That kind of full living I think the ancients came to find through great pain and force of will.

Brilliance flashes in our history and then is gone.

Nothing gold can stay.

So my answer to your jest today U is a heartfelt one.

“The last word wisdom ever has to say” is that “he only earns his freedom and existence, who’s forced to win them freshly every day.”

Was reading this book saying we have to consider Hegel as a Hermetic thinker if we are to truly understand him at all.

Interesting.

Hegel has a strange taste to him.

Hegel felt he was the discoverer of the process of geist and realization that allows us to reflect on the movement toward absolute spirt/geist(self understanding). There is a Telos in history moving towards absolute idealism.

Systems of ideas grasp this pattern of dialectic, this is moving from understanding to reason.

We make sense and create the world with god.

Non-religious God, not a god intervening in history through prophets.

It has been realized through contemplation and rationalization.

Hegel saw his project in religious terms.

But he always translated the religious terms.

He has secularized and rationalized the Hebraic heritage.

The real is rational.

Rationality has realized itself.

This is german idealism in a nutshell.

Ok, ok.

He felt the enlightened and unenlightened must clasp hands.

Mythology must become philosophical and philosophy must become mythological to make philosophy sensible.

This is a bridge from myth based religion, to rational religion.

Secular Christianity.

Hegel felt this will lead to a higher spirt and found a new religion among us.

It will be the last religion and greatest work of Humanity.

God is agape.

It is identical to the process of becoming persons.

We dwell within this.

Geist dwelling in its self awareness.

God is dwelling in the development of the community.

This is what Hegel was on about, Dan seems to be attempting to express this.

How did I do Dan?

Too big for my mind.

Lots of criticism.

We can’t just reason our way out of this.

One of my fav book of poems.



II.

Where’s the trail to Cold Mountain?

Cold Mountain? There’s no clear way.

Ice, in summer, is still frozen.

Bright sun shines through thick fog.

You won’t get there following me.

Your heart and mine are not the same.

If your heart was like mine,

You’d have made it, and be there!

--

A mountain path

Meandering through my heart

A butterfly flys

Over still canvas

And raging waters

Now it's gone

—

I’m not commenting on Dan’s Disclosure religion any longer.

A foolish exercise.

I do not care about or seek Disclosure of anything more than my own heart.

I do not care about anything except how best to live today.

So I’ll do my best to let Dan be.

I do enjoy my writing here on OMF, though no one here really shares my interests.

He and I are not on the same page and he does not value the moment as I do.

My philosophical tastes are more nuanced than his

I’m not interested in spy fools or empty words.

I’m writing from my heart and if you are in your heart, stop by and say hi sometime, if not, I’ll meet you there.

I do not care about your conspiracies and theories about god or life, practical living is my focus grounded in everyday life.

I’ll share my travels and own practice here in my little corner of the Interwebs, I wish you the best days.

Dickhead!

A Bunch of Poor Scholars by Han Shan

Here we languish, a bunch of poor scholars,
Battered by extremes of hunger and cold.
Out of work, our only joy is poetry:
Scribble, scribble we wear out our brains.
Who will read the works of such men?
On that point you can save your sighs.
We could inscribe our poems on biscuits
And homeless dogs wouldn't deign to nibble

U wrote:Dickhead!

Hehe.

Some of the greatest cinema ever shot on film.

Born Thirty Years Ago - Han Shan

Born thirty years ago, I wandered
the world thousands and thousands of miles -

tramped the lush green grasses by many rivers
far as the swirling red sands beyond the frontier.

Seeking immortality, I concocted dangerous potions,
scoured sacred texts, labored long over epic poems.

At last, led to Cold Mountain, in its icy waters
I soaked my head & scrubbed the dust from my ears.