Discussion: [Article] Unconditional Thanksgiving
From the forum: Sam's Essays
This thread was started by: Glowing Face Man.
Discussion start time: 2009-11-14 16:35:52.
From the forum: Sam's Essays
This thread was started by: Glowing Face Man.
Discussion start time: 2009-11-14 16:35:52.
I have been browsing quite a few of your articles about Personal Development, being an old curmudgeon I found, though interesting they warrant some (hopefully constructive) criticism:
1) Whatever your "life start" problems have been you have the good luck of being both intelligent and energetic, your "recipes" may not be so easy for less endowed people, makes you sound a bit smug.
2) Most of this seems loosely plagiarized from Buddhism, Buddhism is very interesting for its hands on approaches to mind control and enhancements but is still a religious dogma more intent on perpetuating its own meme than on the true benefit of the practitioners thus the misleading offering of "one size fits all" solution (roughly, pay reverence to Buddhist ideology and get good at awareness, that will do it).
Since I am much older and have a very different (also painful) experience I know of some ideas/practices/paradigms(?) which may complement your own:
Being mathematically minded you might like many of the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070310221907/www.picoeconomics.com/articles.htm">papers from Georges Ainslie</a> about how the mind sorts out rewards, emotions and will thru Hyperbolic Discounting, also, <i>negative</i> thoughts are highly rewarding (and justifiably so...) not at all the simplistic "monkey mind" explanation.
You spiritual side may not know yet of the <a href="http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/Descript.asp">Ennegram</a>, psychological profiles of ancient Sufi origins which have the interesting property that they correlate strongly with a lot of traits and habits which otherwise would appear as purely idiosyncratic and unpredictable from any individial (no one-size-fits-all there).
Since I found no reference to <a href="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gigerenzer03/gigerenzer_print.html">Gerd Gigerenzer</a> in your website you may also not know of his scientific approach to irrationality, our irrationality is actually quite often <i>not</i> irrational in an evolutionary context.
1) Whatever your "life start" problems have been you have the good luck of being both intelligent and energetic, your "recipes" may not be so easy for less endowed people, makes you sound a bit smug.
2) Most of this seems loosely plagiarized from Buddhism, Buddhism is very interesting for its hands on approaches to mind control and enhancements but is still a religious dogma more intent on perpetuating its own meme than on the true benefit of the practitioners thus the misleading offering of "one size fits all" solution (roughly, pay reverence to Buddhist ideology and get good at awareness, that will do it).
Since I am much older and have a very different (also painful) experience I know of some ideas/practices/paradigms(?) which may complement your own:
Being mathematically minded you might like many of the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070310221907/www.picoeconomics.com/articles.htm">papers from Georges Ainslie</a> about how the mind sorts out rewards, emotions and will thru Hyperbolic Discounting, also, <i>negative</i> thoughts are highly rewarding (and justifiably so...) not at all the simplistic "monkey mind" explanation.
You spiritual side may not know yet of the <a href="http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/Descript.asp">Ennegram</a>, psychological profiles of ancient Sufi origins which have the interesting property that they correlate strongly with a lot of traits and habits which otherwise would appear as purely idiosyncratic and unpredictable from any individial (no one-size-fits-all there).
Since I found no reference to <a href="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gigerenzer03/gigerenzer_print.html">Gerd Gigerenzer</a> in your website you may also not know of his scientific approach to irrationality, our irrationality is actually quite often <i>not</i> irrational in an evolutionary context.
Interesting, thanks for the pointers, I will have to check them out when I am home again (currently visiting San Diego). I used to think I was smarter than a lot of people, but now I'm not so sure... "If you're so smart, then how come you aren't banging cheerleaders" and so on.
I've only studied Tibetan Buddhism a little bit through the writings of a westerner (admittedly a westerner who studied in Tibet, but a white guy nonethless and thus very SWPL) Ken McLeod. It doesn't seem particularly self-replicating, certainly not when compared to other major religions. I understand Tibetan is a lot different than Japanese Buddhism, though...
I've only studied Tibetan Buddhism a little bit through the writings of a westerner (admittedly a westerner who studied in Tibet, but a white guy nonethless and thus very SWPL) Ken McLeod. It doesn't seem particularly self-replicating, certainly not when compared to other major religions. I understand Tibetan is a lot different than Japanese Buddhism, though...