...to stereotype you.

Ahem.

That about says it all, gang. Quit picking shit apart like it's going to resemble itself upon your deft reconstruction. You've already convinced me, at least, that you can not see things holistically -- fine. I might be able to help there. But don't shift gears like some chimpanzee with a remote control and a bucket of popcorn and declare that everything we need to know is in THE DETAILS about which only YOU are preeminently schooled. Everybody wants the world to sing their tune, and always has. We actually believe that that is what will bring about harmony, peace, and end world hunger.

I thought all ya'all knew that was bullshit, a priori.

I don't *get* post-modern "thought" at all. "Hey, gang, it's all a big hoax perpetrated by the Man, so let's all pole vault over mouse turds! Weeeeeeeee!"

Now, right there, folks will seize upon this delicious bit of irony, perhaps because they need a multivitamin, and label me a hypocrite who decries the self-same things of which he is guilty.

It's the LANGUAGE, kiddies. The English language is CONSTRUCTED not to discriminate between Newt Gingrich level hypocracy and the subtler shades of blue that allow an elder brother (or uncle, if you must...g'damn that makes me feel old) to attempt to describe a perspective or world view that allows everyone to be wrong at the same time, yet still appreciate one another as equals on the same journey.

Why would a language with germanic roots DO THAT do you s'pose??

I dunno, maybe, y'think, it might have something to do with the Germans always needing one and only one, "Daddy," one alpha male, to get behind in single file? So only ONE perspective needs to be considered as "right" at any one time...hmmm?

So how does one explain a higher level of truth to one's fellows in language without looking like a complete foole?

Can't. Can't be done. It's like trying to explain humility to a crowd of people. You have to show them over a period of time. You can't use language to do it effectively.

But that is where we are online. We only gots da words. So I fade in and out of using my moniker and being anonymous because that is the only way to talk to that part of your mind that overrides your ego and keeps coming back here to be bored to tears with stuff your individuated ego would rather you didn't know. And yet you come, thinking you know why.

No one knows why they do the things they do. They think they do, but that's complete horseshit. It is a fiction. The absolute BEST anyone can do is to live their life according to some set of consistent principles so that the stuff that shows up in the rear view mirror starts to make some coherent sense. Meanwhile, the road ahead is a blur. And that's because there is ONLY NOW. Everything else, per Kierkegaard, is just a reflection of the vacuum inside your own head. It's not really there.

Time is not a straight line from left to right or right to left. It's down to up. Welcome to the Pit...the same one Mike Douglas claimed he needed a guest host for. It drops out of an eternal NOW and lasts as long as you'd like. Or as long as you can stand being in two places at the same time, one of which is a fiction and never really there to begin with.

That little illumined being who keeps popping out in between my little troll-like pedantries -- s/he's YOU. You may have different words for it, but it's Source. You recognize it in the things you love and, sometimes, the things you hate. It is a polarizing influence because its presence begs the question, "who the hell are YOU, and why are you laughing at my naked body in front of the mirror?"

I am convinced that Eric Schaeffer knows who he is, really, and continues to be frustrated by the fact that almost no one else wants to see themselves like he sees himself. You guys think that that is because he's a shrew, a pervert, a moron, a douchebag, an abuse victim, a failure of some sort or other...because that's easier to accept than the eternal matter of fact that he's more successful at being authentic than you are. And by what measure, you ask?

His utter inability to convert his art into cash.

Real self awareness can't be sold without disillusioning the student in the process. It's given to everyone for fun and for free.

I just can't stand to see someone TRYING so g'damn hard to live an authentic life and watching people pick at him with their biting sarcasm and harmful words. Save it for the Bush Family as we drop them with parachutes in their boxers over the Sunni Triangle. Especially that gargoyle Barbara. They won't need a chute for her, her overgrown labia will open wide and break her fall, revealing to all of us that her face was actually a comb-over from her nether regions, and she is, and was, in fact, an undigested piece of from the movie, "C.H.U.D."