The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

You and Gizmo are in a great place, exactly where you want to be. I envy you in a way but am not exactly where I want to be.

Life seems to boil down to people, mainly family & Friends and having fun doing things with others.. Mix in some aesthetic experiences and some spiritual awareness and growth, enjoy nature, plant and animal life, be creative, help others, share, keep learning new things..... What else is there?

Feeling great about the bad stuff which has happened; that is probably where I differ a bit with you and Gizmo. You two are happy with that stuff. I don't hate that bad things happened to me and don't dwell on it but if I had a chance to do those things over I would chose to do so. Other than that, I guess I'm in agreement with the two of you on your other comments.
Lakey

Of course an assumption there, not saying its a bad one, is that one could change what happened, even as it was happening for the first time. I won't try to get into a long speal about free will. I don't particular believe in it or care if it exists. As an existentialist I doubt it matters. Please don't argue to me that free will exists. Of course in experience it appears we are making all sorts of choices. Free will is a form of control for me. For example, love is involuntary. Once we love our actions are not free, ever. We are now bound to that love. That is all I am saying. Life and love have an involuntary quality that I ADMIRE and LIKE and would NOT change. That's why i find cause over m, e, s, t to be ridiculous. It ruins all the fun! Being effect of things is so much more amazing....the let the heart be open and see what enters the heart and allow oneself to be affected. I really cannot figure out ANY other human being. And I don't want to figure them out, create rules, decide in advance about actions. I enjoy the distance between myself and another. Where would be the mystery, the suspense and the generosity if everything was planned. For me that is not attractive although I realize that in varying degrees all human beings seek stability and control. I guess I have a high tolerance for a lack of control. I like life washing over me rather than life as a business plan.

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

And, Maria, I find the way you think so refreshing, so encouraging - I do enjoy & look forward to your posts !

Thank you. Of course only 1% of what I think is publishable (or would I communicate it). The rest would either fly over the duck's back or else cause massive amount of discord. As you know, I prefer to sip drinks by the waterside than quibble over stuff, and more than 99% of 'stuff' is pointless anyway so why bother....

Well, now that I've just gotten myself into trouble, no doubt the questioning might begin, so I'll stop. Maybe should not have had that "Arrogant Bastard Ale" (Stone Brewery).....but the previous must stand without any intention of clarification since I do not believe a clear universe is prerequisite for happiness...in fact an obscure one is often much more tantalizing.

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

If there was no Scientology, there would be no Apollo thread. If there was Scientology but you never joined up there would still be an Apollo thread. The thread would have progressed the exact same way it did up to early March when you showed up. Almost for certain, you would not have shown up on the thread but there is a slight chance that a Google search could have sent you here but even if you showed up here, you problem wouldn't have joined ESMB because you were never in CoS.

I there was Scientology but I never joined it there would be no Apollo Thread. If Carmelo had never joined it, the Apollo thread would have ended in October, 2009 with about 7,200 hits.

If I had never joined CoS, I never would have met my wife and had the Kids I know have. I wouldn't know a lot of good people, I would be a lot more wealthy financially but my life probably would have been much emptier.

It seems as if each of us has a time line, of our movements through space. (A more esoteric descriptive would be a 4 dimensional spacetime line.) Places where we meet, are intersections of our line. Often, if two people meet, their influence on one another causes them both to change directions. Where the life line ends is anyone's guess. Time will continute on but the person will no longer appear on the time line as a person. Either he will be no more or will continue on as a spirit or perhaps as a spirit the person may not be subject to the agreements about time.

Our discussion had to do with trying to go back to some critical point on our time line and make a decision whether or not to change course. I believe that 4 people have weighed in on whether or not they would change anything. 3 said no they wouldn't. I was the only one who said yes, I would. Our sample size is way too small to be of any value in evaluating the question.

One thing which appears apparent to me is that if one was ablty to change course, he would likely prevent something which he considered bad from happening. For example, if someone went back to the 1930's in Germany and killed Hitler, we could say with almost 100% certainty that WWII would never had occurred. That is about it. All we would know is that WWII would not be started by Germany invading Poland. Everything else would be speculation.

As far as agreements, I believe that there is only one senior agreement for individual human beings and that is that we all are given freedom of choice of action. We are also given some tools and aids which we can use to attempt to make our choices turn out well. Other than that, I don't feel there is any preplanned destiny or any way things were intended to be. Those concepts seem ad hoc to me. Its just one person's opinion but the idea that things were just meant to happen seems totally untrue to me. It would be the ultimate of all ad hoc proofs.
It would be a solution pieced together on to prove its own point. Example: In am talking about saying, +The way things are now is the way things were meant to be." To me this statement is completely false.

SUMMARY:

If some says, "The way things are now is the result of the conglomerate of agreements from all beings combine." I believe this statement is an accurate portrayal of how the current moment came to be. A key point to make is that this common agreement does not guarantee us an optimum state of affairs. If someone could go back and change some people's agreements in the past, we know that what we have right now would be DIFFERENT from what it is right now. It might be better or it might bet worse. We really don't know.

My feeling is that it should be better because we are stopping somethings, such as WWII from taking place. The odds are that this would have been better than what actually took place but there is a chance that things could have been worse. One reason, I am in favor of changing things if I could go back is that I feel the odds of improvement our higher than 50% because I am getting rid of something which was extremely bad, such as WWII. Maybe the odds are 90% that things would be better and 10% that they would be worse. No one can know but coming at it from a mathematical point of view, I will nearly always bet the hand which has the better chance of winning. The only exception would be if I had some sort of inside information but in this case I would never have that nor would anyone else.
Lakey

I appreciate your wonderful sentiment and desire that certain bad things never happen.

To my understanding, maybe others see it differently, there was never any way where WWII did not happen. Since it did happen, there is no way to change the 'past'. But don't listen to me, I don't believe in past lives. I don't believe in these because as you may know, I don't believe in time itself. I take a Minkowskian view that time is an aspect of space. For that reason, Hitler is someplace, doing what he did as we speak. What he did did not happen because it is going on now. It's not in the "past". Past lives are all right now, lives but not past. They cannot be as-ised because whatever that is, it's just dreams, dreams we dream at night, thoughts, journeys into love, journeys into the abyss. I don't know.

Nothing can be gotten rid of in that way, I feel that because matter cannot be created or destroyed and Hitler and all his activities are actually; for me the truth is that they exist 'somewhere'. (If you want to stop Hitler, stop him right now, since it's all right now.) I won't write a long explanation on why I think all this since it's probably too long and might interrupt the sun going down at this moment. Plus it's highly speculative and I can offer no evidence. It's an opinion pure and simple, given by one who does not ascribe to time and therefore doesn't see how anything can be changed, repeated, redone, or anything else. The only 'card' I may have in this 'life' is love. Carmelo wrote about this, love, in some post long ago. I've been trying to catch up on the thread but I am still way behind.... I guess understanding Hitler, getting rid of Hitler, undoing Hitler, etc., is not possible. He's a surd. He's there. Anyway, perhaps being Cuban I just refuse to consider that dominoes can be stacked to fall the way I want when I play them.

Wiki - Surd evil is another term for Natural evil, a type of random and unexplainable evil without meaning.

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

 

[Leland]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Are these your paintings Maria?

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Are these your paintings Maria?

yes. Here is my friend's cat, named Leia.


Leia

(I like kitty cats.)

 

[JustSheila]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Maria,

I don't know any way to say this that isn't going to come across as offensive, but it is my intention to simply be honest with you and any others that may happen to read the Board and these last few posts.

Aside from your views of your past (there is probably no right or wrong way to view our individual pasts), this "no time" thing and some of your other comments along the line of not being in control of anything sets off alarm bells for me.

You are not describing some wonderful state of exterior or pan-determinism or objectivity or such, as some might imagine, but something else. It seems to me that rather than such wonderful concepts as were promoted to us within Scn (and may or may not exist), what you are describing, instead, is dissociation and dissociative fugue as a desirable philosophy and ideal state of mind.

In psychology, the term dissociation describes a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experience. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality, rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis.[SUP][1][/SUP][SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP][SUP][4][/SUP] Dissociative experiences are further characterized by the varied maladaptive mental constructions of an individual's natural imaginative capacity.[SUP][citation needed]
[/SUP]
Dissociation is commonly displayed on a continuum.[SUP][5][/SUP] In mild cases, dissociation can be regarded as a coping mechanism or defense mechanisms in seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress – including boredom or conflict.[SUP][6][/SUP][SUP][7][/SUP][SUP][8][/SUP] At the nonpathological end of the continuum, dissociation describes common events such as daydreaming while driving a vehicle. Further along the continuum are non-pathological altered states of consciousness.[SUP][5][/SUP][SUP][9][/SUP][SUP][10]
[/SUP]
More pathological dissociation involves dissociative disorders, including dissociative fugue and depersonalization disorder with or without alterations in personal identity or sense of self. These alterations can include: a sense that self or the world is unreal (depersonalization and derealization); a loss of memory (amnesia); forgetting identity or assuming a new self (fugue); and fragmentation of identity or self into separate streams of consciousness (dissociative identity disorder, formerly termed multiple personality disorder) and complex post-traumatic stress disorder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology)

Maria, I hope you are just playing with concepts here in a sci-fi sense, because it would be quite unhealthy for someone to choose any sort of dissociative path as a means of dealing with difficult experiences. Some here are having a hard enough time integrating their Scn experiences with their lives. Following the sort of mental construct that dissociates their experiences during their healing could be quite detrimental.

I am not going to comment further, as I do not wish to get in any sort of argument with you, but of course, you are welcome to comment publicly to my post.

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Sheila, of course I don't know that what I said is true so as I think I stated before, it was speculative. That said, I tend to not for myself go through life feeling a need to do more than just be there and accept whatever comes. So the philosophy, while may appear dissociative, I grant that, is just a way of saying that I try to rely on being loving, while at the same time realizing a lot of stuff is out of my control. I can see why it appears strange. As for the time bit, yes, it's all a bit speculative. In the end it does not matter. I'd rather not judge my life against time or time tracks just because maybe being the way I am I want to remain in the present and just let it be. In that sense, past lives or time is irrelevant. Can I prove any of it? No. Physicists also say there is no time. But they also disagree about it. And it remains provable on a mathematical scale yet not what we see in experience. Since I am not a scientist, let me just say that I am interested in these ideas and I try to live without thinking about past or future. If that succeeds or not or if it works I don't know. I do realize I have obligations and I do fulfill them. I don't spend lots of time worrying about what the future holds since I feel that the only way to assist the future development of my life is to live my life well right now and try to act in a way conducive to my life right now. I want to be kind, accepting, and work hard on something. I try to take care of myself and anyone I can. I try to enjoy art and literature and read as much as I can. Beyond that I really don't go too far.
What you wrote was fine. Take care.

Maria,

I don't know any way to say this that isn't going to come across as offensive, but it is my intention to simply be honest with you and any others that may happen to read the Board and these last few posts.

Aside from your views of your past (there is probably no right or wrong way to view our individual pasts), this "no time" thing and some of your other comments along the line of not being in control of anything sets off alarm bells for me.

You are not describing some wonderful state of exterior or pan-determinism or objectivity or such, as some might imagine, but something else. It seems to me that rather than such wonderful concepts as were promoted to us within Scn (and may or may not exist), what you are describing, instead, is dissociation and dissociative fugue as a desirable philosophy and ideal state of mind.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology)

Maria, I hope you are just playing with concepts here in a sci-fi sense, because it would be quite unhealthy for someone to choose any sort of dissociative path as a means of dealing with difficult experiences. Some here are having a hard enough time integrating their Scn experiences with their lives. Following the sort of mental construct that dissociates their experiences during their healing could be quite detrimental.

I am not going to comment further, as I do not wish to get in any sort of argument with you, but of course, you are welcome to comment publicly to my post.

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Hmmm. Probably a few things I never learned to blow.................

I never got to Greece ( yet ) or on an Alaskan Cruise.

I never got to witness in person the Northern lights.

I never even my got my very own personal goldenrod giving me my freedom & setting my soul free from eternal captivity !

The ones I bolded and marked in red apply to my "I never" list too!

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Leland, I'd love to see more of your art work too....maybe on your spewings thread?!

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Of course an assumption there, not saying its a bad one, is that one could change what happened, even as it was happening for the first time. I won't try to get into a long speal about free will. I don't particular believe in it or care if it exists. As an existentialist I doubt it matters. Please don't argue to me that free will exists. Of course in experience it appears we are making all sorts of choices. Free will is a form of control for me. For example, love is involuntary. Once we love our actions are not free, ever. We are now bound to that love. That is all I am saying. Life and love have an involuntary quality that I ADMIRE and LIKE and would NOT change. That's why i find cause over m, e, s, t to be ridiculous. It ruins all the fun! Being effect of things is so much more amazing....the let the heart be open and see what enters the heart and allow oneself to be affected. I really cannot figure out ANY other human being. And I don't want to figure them out, create rules, decide in advance about actions. I enjoy the distance between myself and another. Where would be the mystery, the suspense and the generosity if everything was planned. For me that is not attractive although I realize that in varying degrees all human beings seek stability and control. I guess I have a high tolerance for a lack of control. I like life washing over me rather than life as a business plan.

Good post Maria, I can't see much to disagree with. Maybe, we differ on free will although I find your concept of it interesting and plausible and the rest of your post simply declares how you view life. It's a good clean view, it seems to work well for you and others. Part of the mystery and interest in life is in meeting good people who view things differently from you. For most people, if everyone thought like them, I bet they would be bored to death.

I readily acknowledge that I don't have all the answers and I am always searching for new and interesting points of view. I think your post above is fantastic! I'm absorbing the concepts slowly but surely and that might take some time.

We were so lucky that out of nowhere, you landed hear a little over 2 months ago and chose this thread as your home base on ESMB. . The Apollo thread has not been the same since you arrived. You got Hats to come back to the thread and Leon, healing from his medical issues, returned as well. With you 3 joining or rejoining our ranks, we are having a renaissance. Thank you so much for contributing to it.
Lakey

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Good post Maria, I can't see much to disagree with. Maybe, we differ on free will although I find your concept of it interesting and plausible and the rest of your post simply declares how you view life. It's a good clean view, it seems to work well for you and others. Part of the mystery and interest in life is in meeting good people who view things differently from you. For most people, if everyone thought like them, I bet they would be bored to death.

I readily acknowledge that I don't have all the answers and I am always searching for new and interesting points of view. I think your post above is fantastic! I'm absorbing the concepts slowly but surely and that might take some time.

We were so lucky that out of nowhere, you landed hear a little over 2 months ago and chose this thread as your home base on ESMB. . The Apollo thread has not been the same since you arrived. You got Hats to come back to the thread and Leon, healing from his medical issues, returned as well. With you 3 joining or rejoining our ranks, we are having a renaissance. Thank you so much for contributing to it.
Lakey

What I like on the thread is the civility. Also the people here are first rate!!! Hats is awesome plus others I am getting to know. As long as I am welcome here I will stick around. It also helps that the thread is laid back, and friendly. I love being around caring people like yourselves!

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

View attachment 10375

I like them all but my favorite is the "2 Flamingos" and my second favorite is "The Poppies"

The Poppies has a tremendous amount of energy emanating from it while the 2 Flamingos appeals to my aesthetic and mathematical senses. (mathematical because of the geometrical shapes of the 2 Flamingos intertwining)
Lakey

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

I like them all but my favorite is the "2 Flamingos" and my second favorite is "The Poppies"

The Poppies has a tremendous amount of energy emanating from it while the 2 Flamingos appeals to my aesthetic and mathematical senses. (mathematical because of the geometrical shapes of the 2 Flamingos intertwining)
Lakey

That idea of the flamingos came to me while thinking of the ouroboros, and also the omphalos or navel of the world. These two things are not the same but they both represent an unbroken connection; each is a circle of life. In the painting itself these are only subtle references, inspirations that I took in another direction. Ideas that were passing through my mind.... Instead of a snake eating its tail (ouroburos) I used two flamingoes without knowing if their entwining was creative or destructive, reminding me a bit of a Möbius strip in shape. The ouroboros forms a circle, as does the Möbius strip; although these are different.

In the case of the omphalos the circle or navel represents the birth of the earth or its navel, a primal place. Another sort of unbroken line.

While those ideas inspired me, in the end what won out was remembering beautiful Flamingos.... And I entwined them so they formed a continuous unbroken shape. So yes a mathematical inspiration in organic form.

 

[MrNobody]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Maria,

I don't know any way to say this that isn't going to come across as offensive, but it is my intention to simply be honest with you and any others that may happen to read the Board and these last few posts.

Aside from your views of your past (there is probably no right or wrong way to view our individual pasts), this "no time" thing and some of your other comments along the line of not being in control of anything sets off alarm bells for me.

<snip>

Yeah, this "no time" sets my brain to "auto-dismiss" mode. Why? Because If I accepted that concept, I would end up being tangled up in an infinite number of infinite loops, which means I could never come to any sane conclusion about anything.

Example:
Let's say I plant a potato in early springtime and plan to harvest 6-12 "potato babies" from that, approximately 4 months later. So I'm left with 2 possible outcomes:

1. Everything goes as planned and I end up with 3 handfuls of nice, fresh, juicy potatoes.
2. Something goes wrong and I end up with just an old, rotten potato.

Now, if I assumed that everything exists at the same time (i.e. time doesn't exist at all), I'd have to set the "Time" variable to 0. But there's another variable: "Resolution" which, since "Time" is 0, would no longer be a variable, it would now be a quasi-constant named "Infinity". Therefore, if I wanted to put that into a mathematical expression, since I now have two "Infinity" factors, I might end up with a formula like "Infinity²/0".

I have no clue what such a formula might do to the world, but chances are, that I'd end up with no juicy, fresh potatoes.

So why even "harvest" such a thought?

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Yeah, this "no time" sets my brain to "auto-dismiss" mode. Why? Because If I accepted that concept, I would end up being tangled up in an infinite number of infinite loops, which means I could never come to any sane conclusion about anything.

Example:
Let's say I plant a potato in early springtime and plan to harvest 6-12 "potato babies" from that, approximately 4 months later. So I'm left with 2 possible outcomes:

1. Everything goes as planned and I end up with 3 handfuls of nice, fresh, juicy potatoes.
2. Something goes wrong and I end up with just an old, rotten potato.

Now, if I assumed that everything exists at the same time (i.e. time doesn't exist at all), I'd have to set the "Time" variable to 0. But there's another variable: "Resolution" which, since "Time" is 0, would no longer be a variable, it would now be a quasi-constant named "Infinity". Therefore, if I wanted to put that into a mathematical expression, since I now have two "Infinity" factors, I might end up with a formula like "Infinity²/0".

I have no clue what such a formula might do to the world, but chances are, that I'd end up with no juicy, fresh potatoes.

So why even "harvest" such a thought?

And that is why I am an artist!!! Not a farmer. In a painting the potatoes are always fresh and ready to harvest!!

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Good post Maria, I can't see much to disagree with. Maybe, we differ on free will although I find your concept of it interesting and plausible and the rest of your post simply declares how you view life. It's a good clean view, it seems to work well for you and others. Part of the mystery and interest in life is in meeting good people who view things differently from you. For most people, if everyone thought like them, I bet they would be bored to death.

I readily acknowledge that I don't have all the answers and I am always searching for new and interesting points of view. I think your post above is fantastic! I'm absorbing the concepts slowly but surely and that might take some time.

We were so lucky that out of nowhere, you landed hear a little over 2 months ago and chose this thread as your home base on ESMB. . The Apollo thread has not been the same since you arrived. You got Hats to come back to the thread and Leon, healing from his medical issues, returned as well. With you 3 joining or rejoining our ranks, we are having a renaissance. Thank you so much for contributing to it.
Lakey

I enjoy Leon's posts. (As well as other posters he spoke with.) I stayed out of recent conversations only because I would rather not discuss politics in public.