From: "dharmawheel2002" X-Originating-IP: 216.164.200.208 Delivered-To: mailing list LessIsMore@yahoogroups.com Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 08:59:48 -0000 Subject: Re: [LessIsMore]Relationships aren't worth the trouble they cause Thank you for expanding on your earlier posting, David. Note that I don't mean to criticise, just to understand. How CAN I criticize? You seem happy and content being who you are, and you attempt not to harm others. What more could one ask? I just think that sometimes, you are hard on yourself. That is, IMO you are kinder and more "connected" to others (based on your PF and LIM postings) than you would let on. You portray yourself as a sort of an introverted curmudgeon sometimes (my interpretation), but your actions say something else. (I always go by actions, not words.) From what you tell me, you do seek connection -- but that connection is very difficult for you. So you have chosen a method by which to have some type of connection (the Internet) with as little negative consequences as possible, to yourself and others. If you really didn't care to be "connected" with others and preferred social isolation, were really some kind of hermit or "rugged individualist", you would care little about LIM or PF IMO. You would not give a darn about sharing your experiences. Yet you keep coming back. Regarding your comments on the one-directionality of ecological systems, perhaps my sense of "connectedness" (a conscious awareness that my personal existence owes that existence to beings outside by personal Ego) is different from your sense of "relationships". However, by choosing the life that you lead (whereby your aim is not to hog resources -- from other sentient beings, human and non-human, being implied), you in fact admit some kind of relationship with those beings. I mean, an inanimate earth surely does not care what form it takes. Whether every ounce of bauxite has been removed from its mountains to make Pepsi cans, for example. In other words, you recognize some ethical regard toward the existence of other sentient beings. You might not be having a cup of tea with any of them. Nonetheless, you hold them in regard. That awareness, that sense of inter-being, would fall under my definition of both connectedness and relationships. David, you say: "I see no need to bring in any form of religion to explain this. And while I am impressed with it (all together, and its details), I am not in awe of it, I don't worship it." And yet you must hold some ethical philosophy toward "existence", or you would not be living the life you live IMO. Just for the record, David, I don't "worship" the world around me either. But sometimes "religion", like science, provides a better understanding of the world than the illusions we hold day to day. Or sometimes one's personal "philosophy" gained over a lifetime provides that same kind of understanding. I would say, from your postings, that you have a deeply held personal philosophy and ethic that gives you comfort, that makes sense out of this apparently senseless world. And that philosophy is NOT one in keeping with Social Darwinism and its deep faith in "survival of the fittest". I would say that your philosophy, like that of Christ and Buddha, advocates giving a helping hand to the little guy. Because if you were truly a Social Darwinist, you'd be rooting for George W and his ilk over and above those "genetically inferior weaklings" in Asia and Africa. IMO, you sense and express your connection to the down-trodden. Just based on your postings over time. So to me, you are not such a tough nut as you sometimes portray yourself. Gary --- In LessIsMore@yahoogroups.com, Daviid MacClement wrote: >At 04:21 PM 2003-06-24 -0000, Gary wrote: It's postings like this that makes you an absolute enigma to me, David. · I too, don't well-understand myself. However, there's another view of this - my daughter and I both get the commennt "you're the most interesting person I know", from friends and acquaintances; so it's not all bad. It would be a catastrophe for me, if I became boring and uninterested in learning more about the world. Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe was one of my heroes. {Juan Fernandes Archipelago ... where the real Robinson Crusoe (Alexander Selkirk) was marooned in 1705: http://www.tunturisusi.com/robinsoncrusoe/sivu1.html } [Gary: ] ... A Buddhist worldview includes the important principles of connectedness, empathy, and compassion -- something you have demonstrated within this group oftentimes (by action) but which you attest not to have (by words) -- my interpretation. · You're right, but there _is_ a reason for the difference between what I'm willing and able to do by e-mail and not willing to do face to face. · Nowadays (i.e. after concussion in mid-90s and finding my skills unwanted in 1989), I get highly-stressed and unreasonably-angry _very_ quickly. This is manageable when my interactions are by e-mail, and I can _immediately_ get up and go for a walk to cool down, then write my response, and only next day re-read and _send_ my response. (You'll remember my: "Re: population, European and otherwise" posts, #2 (31 March) which is at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LessIsMore/message/8428 after signing-in, and more to the point: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LessIsMore/message/8457 which I wrote in a style intended to remove the heat from the discussion.) · However, the corresponding situation face-to-face results in immediate argument, anger, and in past years, my taking the next bus out of town and staying away for most of a month; (fortunately we have a barn with minimal accommodation built in one end: http://www.jeanette.org.nz/pakaraka/rainbowBig.jpg ). · I could certainly smother my immediate response (so as to become normal) by chemical means - a shot of vodka works well most times - but at no time in my life have I been all-wrapped-up in someone else, wanting increased connectedness (in Gary's terms). So "being sociable" brings me little or no reward, and isn't worth the effort or changing "who I am" by chemical means. [Gary: ] You have also demonstrated a desire to live within a balanced global ecosystem. Last time I checked, the basic concepts of the ecological sciences are based on inter-being, connectedness, relationships. · _inter-being_: yes; _connectedness_: almost always in one direction only; _relationships_ of the human sort: only with mammals and birds (a tiny minority of the number of living organisms on earth), and then, only at certain times of the year (babies and youth, and courting). The multi-year two-directional relationships that are so important to most people are extremely rare and in no way characteristic of normal ecologies. The one-directionality I mentioned is the dependence of one organism on another, usually on the latter's death. For example: a tree seed happens to land in good nutrients; it grows (dropping leaves and branches) then dies; cellulose-digesting grubs and termites thrive on the fallen and rotting tree; a forest animal (I think of the original hen) delightedly kills and eats these; later it breaks its leg or beak and dies; it decomposes to produce good nutrients for a tree (or another plant) to start growing in. "a balanced global ecosystem": the balancing is done by explosions of population (e.g. of foxes) when the next lower level (rabbits) had earlier exploded, followed by population crashes (more than half the foxes die) when the lower level has been almost all used up. A dynamic balance, uncontrolled cycles, not something organised to reach and maintain an optimum level. · I see no need to bring in any form of religion to explain this. And while I am impressed with it (all together, and its details), I am not in awe of it, I don't worship it. (The whole idea of worship is strange to me.) [Gary: ] I also remember from your past postings that a key initial reason for your "ghost" lifestyle, if I recall correctly, was based on a desire to disappear off the face of the earth, as an alternative to suicide. · That's correct. My ghost (seen and recognised but having no effect) life- style corresponds to the current value of my continued living; in terms of the ecology of the whole world, I have reduced my negative impact to a level roughly equal to the remaining positive value of my being-and-doing. Earlier as a teacher and while raising three "future people", I had several times my current value (which, while not negligible, is _very_ small). So I could justify (to myself; no other person or thing is involved) making greater use of the earth's resources (including its waste-absorbing capacity). --- In LessIsMore@yahoogroups.com, Daviid MacClement wrote, at 09:22 AM 2003-06-11 +1200, (with title: >Re: [LessIsMore] Life, death, electrons and The Dancing Wu Li Masters) :- > >... I choose to (i) not get enmeshed in looking for a "why", I accept: "it just is", and (ii) keep my hands off the world and all ... individuals in it > > > David. To: LessIsMore@yahoogroups.com From: "Fitzsimmons, Diane" Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 09:01:21 -0500 > -----Original Message----- > From: David MacClement [mailto:davd@ihug.co.nz] > Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 5:02 PM > To: LessIsMore@yahoogroups.com > Subject: Re: [LessIsMore]Relationships aren't worth the trouble they cause > ... > * I too, don't well-understand myself. However, there's another view of this - my daughter and I both get the comment "you're the most interesting person I know", from friends and acquaintances; so it's not all bad. > Assuming one can get to know a person somewhat on the Internet, I don't find David that unusual. In the old days we called people with similar characteristics a recluse or eccentric; nowadays we're more likely to use some sort of psycholanalytic or clinical term, such as introvert, or depressive, or high-functioning autistic. I hope no one takes those comments as insults or criticisms. They're not intended to be. In fact, I know lots of people who have similar "personalities" as David; I'm related to a bunch of them! On my mother's side, I come from a long line of people who are not "personable." They have difficulty "schmoozing." They tend to mis-read or have difficulty reading people's comments or take them too personally. My mother and husband are both this way, although evidently not to the extent David is *at this point in his life.* (Remember, David spent many years "in the world," evidently functioning as a so-called normal person.) Living in a university community, I know and have known several oddball characters -- almost all male -- who are "loners" are "bachelor uncles" or whatever label we give the kind of person who likes solitude. Now, I often feel uncomfortable interacting with strangers but I've learned to compensate. I don't think it's the nature of my physical being -- as I believe it is with my mother and husband -- but my timidity is a learned behavior having grown up with people who weren't gregarious. However, my laid-back, rather sunny disposition (another product mostly due to body chemistry IMO) has won out, and I can usually make friends fairly easily. (But I still have lots of blind spots -- I'm lousy at remembering niceties or planning nice things or planning social get-togethers.) I'm good at being encouraging and supportive -- and after being raised by and knowing how to interact with an introvert (to use David's term), I'm very good at attracting them to my life -- perhaps explaining why I know so many of them. Sometimes we think of such reclusive types in tragic terms, such as the Radley family in "To Kill a Mockingbird." But I tend to think of them more like I do the autistic clerk who works with me -- she has difficulty interpreting physical cues and/or tends to be literal. She is just another shade of humanity. I'm not saying David or my husband is autistic; I'm just saying that different people have different degrees of being able to interact with the world around them. That doesn't take away from their basic compassion; just means they express it in different ways. And so I adjust accordingly, just as my husband has to adjust to my amazingly poor memory for important things. (I'm great at trivia.) Finally, because I'm such a movie nut -- here's movie I want to see about another reclusive type: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0118163 The Whole Wide World: "In Texas in the 1930s, young schoolteacher Novalyne Price meets a handsome, eccentric, interesting young man named Robert Howard. He's a successful writer - of the pulp stories of 'Conan the Barbarian'; she's an aspiring one. A friendship develops into a sort of courtship. Based on a memoir by Novalyne Price." (Anybody here seen this? It does *not* have a happy ending.) Of course, my take on this whole subject is probably just another way that I'm out of step with the mainstream. Diane Fitzsimmons Norman, Okla.