Those not able to remember the past

*
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
~ George Santayana, the Spanish-born American philosopher
*

Learning to ignore things

°
Learning to ignore things
is one of the most important paths
to inner peace.
~ Robert J. Sawyer
°

 

Words losing their meaning

°
When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom.
~ Confucius

 

A culture of “democratic cleansing” – Elders and youngsters versus respect

The generation born between 1930 and 1960 had no choice but to listen to father‘s law and do as we were told.

Father’s will is Law!

When we asked

Why?

We got a very short but very well to understand answer.

Therefore!

Now those generations from before the 1960s have become the “oldies”.

We live with the thought that we taught some good and interesting things to our kids, but sometimes seem to wonder what they did with what we taught them and what went wrong with the present generation.

What did we do wrong?

For sure, though we did not always agree with our parents, and dared to go on the streets in 1968 to question our way of living and our society, we always still showed respect for our parents and grandparents. In many cases, there were no great-grandparents. Our grandparents, to us, looked already

so old

at an age that we now already survived a few years.

Unlike our parents, we taught our children to dare to question everything and not just accept or consider everything.

John Humphrys in the Daily Telegraph of 26 December 2022 wonders if he perhaps had a ridiculous dream.

Well yes, and a bit of a nightmare too. I can’t think of anything much worse than my kids sitting in respectful silence while I bang on.

At home and at school we learned courtesy rules. But what is left of it? Some of the things we learned, such as keeping the door open for ladies, are not always anymore appreciated but are viewed as a sexist attitude.

Humphrys writes

If I’ve taught them anything at all – pretty unlikely I know – it’s that healthy scepticism beats the pants off reverence. Always has. Always will.

And yet… maybe just the teeniest smattering of respect might not come amiss? Possibly not boys doffing their caps to ladies in the street as my school ordered us do. After all, who wears caps nowadays? (And is ‘ladies’ sexist? What if they’re trans?)

But perhaps an acknowledgement that we oldies just might have picked up some useful stuff during our decades of experience on this planet that could come in useful? That’s tricky in today’s climate. Just that word “experience” is fraught. It has to be a “lived” experience now and I’m not sure I know what that is.

We have also been brought up to check the past and present and to seek the truth each time.

Our parents taught us that if we did not know something, we should go and look it up in the encyclopaedias provided. Those writers were expected to have undergone sufficient schooling and presented well-founded articles under editorial authority to inform the reader and provide further knowledge. We found it great to find such reference works that contained information on all branches of knowledge or that treated a particular branch of knowledge in a comprehensive manner.

For more than 2,000 years encyclopaedias have existed as summaries of extant scholarship in forms comprehensible to their readers. But in the last two decades, we saw several well-known encyclopaedias disappearing from the market.

At our house, the 1968 Encyclopaedia Britannica, as the oldest English-language general encyclopaedia, was just one of the many other encyclopaedias we could use daily.

The researchers and authors and publishers of encyclopaedias had to face technological changes, beginning in the 1980s with the development and spread of personal computers. It really became a world that opened up, making it possible to look up documents from all over the world. The computer business evolved so fast, quickening in the 1990s and 2000s through the Internet and widespread diffusion of broadband access, it radically altered the publishing world generally and the encyclopaedia business in particular.

The 15th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (1974), was designed in large part to enhance the role of an encyclopaedia in education and understanding without detracting from its role as a reference book. It represented very much the way we were brought up, finding it necessary to educate and to spread knowledge. Its three parts (Propædia, or Outline of Knowledge; Micropædia, or Ready Reference and Index; and Macropædia, or Knowledge in Depth) represented an effort to design an entire set on the understanding that there is a circle of learning and that an encyclopaedia’s short informational articles on the details of matter within that circle as well as its long articles on general topics must all be planned and prepared in such a way as to reflect their relation to one another and to the whole of knowledge.
For those who wanted to learn more or wished to delve deeper into a particular fact or topic, the Propædia became a great help for self-study. The propaedia was a reader’s version of the circle of learning on which the set had been based and was organised in such a way that a reader might reassemble in meaningful ways material that the accident of alphabetisation had dispersed.

In 1981, under an agreement with Mead Data Central, the first digital version of the Encyclopædia Britannica was created for the LexisNexis service. In the early 1990s Britannica was made available for electronic delivery on a number of CD-ROM-based products, including the Britannica Electronic Index and the Britannica CD (providing text and a dictionary, along with proprietary retrieval software, on a single disc). A two-disc CD was released in 1995, featuring illustrations and photos; multimedia, including videos, animations, and audio, was added in 1997.

John Humphrys seems to find it a waste of money that his parents scrimped to pay a weekly shilling to the Encyclopaedia Britannica door-to-door salesman so that they as kids would always have the world’s knowledge at their fingertips.

He gives the impression that those modern machines and the evolution of artificial intelligence is one of the many reasons why respect between the generations matters.

We do admit that many young people do not understand how the elderly can or cannot handle today’s modern gadgets.

Millennials (born 1981-1996) tend to put the boomers (born post-war) into a category. Specifically, men. Usually “old white men”.

How come that usage is tolerated? Substitute “women” for men and it wouldn’t be. It would be sexist. Substitute “black” for white and it would be racist.

He observes

Those who once wore the badge of old age with a certain pride must now carefully guard their tongues less they cause offence, even when it’s patently obvious that none was intended. Was it necessary to humiliate Lady Susan Hussey when she was seemingly too curious about the origins of a black woman who was wearing a vivid tribal dress? Her offence, it turned out, was being old.

Getting old happens to all of us. How we deal with it is very different. But it is also very different from how outsiders deal with elders.
Especially in recent years, there has been an unpleasant skew there, with many viewing elders as a burden.
Similarly, few can empathise with the world of understanding of those elders who have been brought up with certain ways of thinking, some of which are also sometimes difficult to distance themselves from or continue to think stereotypically.

We all pursue dreams and shall one day be confronted with that older body, becoming aware that there is not only a tendency to forget people’s names, but having more than once looking for the right words, having forgotten (for a moment) certain things. And then in confrontation with the youngsters, they not always understand or want to give some time to get the memory back.

For some elderly it is also not evident to have to rely on others. And the children are not so pleased anymore to be a safety net for their parents, as we looked after our parents when they were already starting to reach a reasonable age. Some may be annoyued that those above 65 do not want to retire. It might be those in their 60s whose mind is fooling them in which case they will rely on others around them to let them know that it is time to retire.

How many times do those who passed the 50s have to hear from the youngsters that their ideas are old fashioned or that they are not anymore from these times? Many younger people find it not appropriate that the elderly are still pursuing ideas and aspirations. Is it a form of respect to accepting that they express their feelings as well as their dreams and aspirations?

Most young people don’t sense time as being a high-speed train, because for them it often looks ages, before there is another hour, another day. That makes them also to express their impatience so often. But then again, the fact that some elders become a bit too slow bothers those younger ones, in that it seems that that time is taken up by that elder, who then keeps them from renewing moments. Some younger ones do not mind letting the older ones know that it is time to retreat, or to get silent.

At a certain age, it can be that we feel that there has come a time we need to withdraw from the hurly-burly of the life we once knew. But it does not always feel so nice, when those younger people say it in our face. (We never would have dared to say such a thing to our elderly.)

In his book, The War On The Old, English literature professor John Sutherland wrote about what he called a culture of “democratic cleansing… a state-condoned campaign against the nation’s old”.

He describes an overwhelming sense of blame that younger generations attribute to “the wrinklies” who voted for Brexit, comfortable in the mansions they bought for a pittance. The once-dignified badge of seniority is becoming synonymous with “narrow-minded”, “outdated” and “incipiently senile”.
The elderly are bed-blockers, job-blockers, pension-drainers. {We used to respect our elders – whatever happened to that? by John Humphrys}

Normally, one went from one generation to the next with improvements, but today that no longer holds true. Today’s 30-year-olds have it much harder than their parents did. The age-old argument over which generation has had more advantages has been settled – at least where finances are concerned.

Adult life is harder to afford now than it was 30 years ago and it has forced today’s young to delay big life events, which tend to happen around this milestone age. Today’s generation are buying their first home two years later, having ­children three years later and getting married six to seven years later than they were in 1992. {Six reasons why boomers have it better than millennials by Jessica Beard}

Due to the pressures of the outside world, those in their twenties and thirties may have become a bit “shorter” in their statements, and it is not always easy for them to be patient with those older people who are, as it were, still watching them or ready with criticism.

Dependence on two earners can make taking time off to care for children ­trickier, and to care for older people, even more, trickier or not so wanted. So it should not always be viewed so negatively by the elderly when those young people now show a little less time than their parents who could make more time for their parents and grandparents.

Many today are so engrossed in their work and the expectations of fellow peers that they have little time left outside their work sphere for their own spiritual formation, religious pursuits and many family activities outside their own families.

It can well be that certain actions and reactions of youngsters are sometimes unjustly interpreted as respectless, or not showing enough respect. It must not be disrespectful, but just because of these other times with much more pressure on the youngsters, that the gap between young and old has widened somewhat today compared to previous decades.

+

Preceding

A more recent discrimination: Old Age

A Cranky Old Man

Readers, likes and comments

Thought on the birthday of an encyclopaedia

Available information for the youngsters and readers of my websites

Redeeming Our World

The Way You Live Your Life

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan back with a bang

Mishmash of a legal code but importance of mitzvah or commandments

++

Additional reading

1. Ageing and Solidarity between generations
2. Who is considered Old
3. Man in picture, seen from the other planets
4. Subcutaneous power for humanity 1 1940-1960 Influenced by horrors of the century
5. Justififiable anger or just anarchism
6. A trillion words
7. Looking at an era of international “youth culture”
8. Did the picture change for Working dads
9. Living in this world and viewing it
10. Hippies, a president, a damaged ozone layer and knights
11. This Week Twenty-Five Years Ago: The Velvet Revolution Succeeds, December 1989
12. Our brothers in Kyiv’s northwest suburb Irpin
13. Russia not wanting it neighbours countries to cooperate with the West
14. Left behind for economical emigration
15. 2014 Social contacts
16. 2014 Human Rights
17. Time to consider how to care for our common home
18. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #7 Education
19. Martin Luther King’s Dream Today
20. This fighting world, Zionism and Israel #5
21. Another Jewish Voice on Trump’s plan: No peace without equality and mutual respect
22. The truest greatness lies in being kind
23. Agape, a love to share with others from the Fruit of the Spirit
24. Approachers of ideas around gods, philosophers and theologians
25. Cleanliness and worrying or not about purity
26. Today’s thought “Teachers will be judged with greater strictness than others” (December 09)
27. Perspectives
28. Hungarian undermining of European freedoms

+++

Related

1. A reflective Morning
2. Time Hobbles On
3. Beautiful, she said
4. I am old.
5. Learning to be Old–5
6. The effects of just being you… Age.
7. When You Grow Old
8. The Age Old Question…
9. Ageism in the workplace
10. Life is Short
11. Pursuing dreams to stay young in mind
12. What We Need, in Order to, Age Gracefully
13. I Can’t Breath Through It All
14. Thirty Five Years and Old.
15. How to be Old
16. 75 And Counting
17. Age 90+
18. Stillness
19. Dealing with Age Discrimination: Workers’ rights and strategies
20. “The best gift you can give your children, is the love and respect you demonstrate for their mother.”
21. Respect for life…
22. … the taste of respect
23. life will teach you to honor and respect balance.
24. I do respect people’s faith
25. High recognitions . . . Honor and respect them, though you no longer worship them
26. Paris attacks darkning the world
27. Holidays break – Day 7

To Blog or Not to Blog?

Many people have lots of desires to belong to a community and to share ideas, whilst they are feeling part of a group where they are accepted, and their thoughts are appreciated.

On the net we can find a girl with the name Lola, who looks at what a blog is and questions to blog or not to blog.

She considers the word “blog” to be the short form for the word weblog, referring to an informal website or an informal discussion on discrete topics and written in a conversational way. But the latter is certainly not true of most blogs, which over the years have evolved to present a wider range of topics with extensive descriptions or detailed discussions.

She requests:

Let’s compare a blog to a diary. The blog site is the book and the entries in the diary are the posts. In the diary we write our personal encounters – family, social activities and travel experiences. We also write our thoughts and opinions on certain situations and events in this book. {What is a Blog?}

One may love to write, but that does not one want to write on the net. The old-fashioned diary was always for private writing and reading, but now the internet has offered a place for many to write their own thoughts, readable by millions of people.

Some like the writer of the reblogged article look at a blog being it like a diary.

But while a diary is kept private, a blog is shared either with a small group of readers or published in the World Wide Web. {What is a Blog?}

She also thinks Blogs are displayed in reverse chronological order, but that should not always be so. The owner of the blog may decide to place the oldest blog on top or have them ordered by category.  But we agree that the majority chooses for the most practical and easiest way for being updated with the writings, meaning the most recent entry showing on the top of the blog page in one or more columns vertically downwards or with pictures horizontally per three or more. Furthermore

Aside from pictures, a blog’s content may also contains videos and scanned copies of offline documents. {What is a Blog?}

Some may find immense gratification in writing down something, which they know shall be read by several people. They do not mind if they do not know all those readers, though they do hope several of their friends will be some of their readers. It is for those friends, and acquaintances that many go behind the keyboard to let words roll over the screen.

For some, at first, there is that obstacle that wants to limit them and keep them on the “unknown” side of town. Some keep their blog private, while others (the majority) publish them on the World Wide Web, where we are overloaded with millions of texts luring for our attention.

Zillions of reiterations of topics could make people not want to blog at all. At first, there were the many message and fora platforms that caught the pen of many, but where not so many ‘full articles’ could be found. With the greater accessibility and dissemination of internet possibilities, more people could also find their way to that internet and felt stimulated to interpret their say there too.

In the last few years, we also can find more journalistic webblogs where journalists, historians and several blog writers have joined hands to bring truthful journalism or bringing the news of events of the day from a particular angle. Our blog Some View on the World wants to bring such an up-date of what happened in our world, providing the newsfacts as well as extra commentaries.

With the vast abundance of material to borrow on the internet, it is so what that one can no longer see the forest for the trees, and that one drowns in the swirling water mass of copious text material seeking our attention on all sides.

There are loads of articles out there, which may bring up that question:

 Why should I blog about it? Why would readers want to read mine?

Because is it not that when we write something on the net, we also want someone to read what we have written?

In any case, to start blogging, it is best to plan in advance which direction you want to go. Will it be a personal blog, or will it rather be a blog where you want to sell something or put forward a clear opinion?

It is nice that everyone can find a type of blog to his or her liking. There are political, religious, travel, historical, archaeological, cultural and so many other blogs, allowing us to tap from an infinitely full wine barrel.

To remember further

• blogging industry = millions of bloggers
• wanting to share ideas, opinions + experiences with other people
• wanting to maintain communication with others => we blog.
• writing blogs requires a lot of communication skills = to be good in grammar & punctuations, word usage & spelling, formats + a lot of creativity.
• Receiving comments from readers = rewarding experience.
• to blog or not to blog > depends on your desire + determination to learn + excel in this endeavour

 

+

Preceding

Blogging into the New Year

“Our World” Moving from Blogspot to WordPress

Asking for a Re-Blog

When you think you have nothing to say or to show

Readers, likes and comments

++

Additional reading

1. Wagner the NAR and new wineskins
2. Traditional News Turns into The Journalism We Know Now
3. Presenting views from different sources
4. What do we know about the future of journalism?
5. Hello world!
6. A convinced voice to debunk false allegations
7. A busy 2017 #3 Fake, gossip and real news
8. WordPress appears to have fallen off its best horse
9. A Classic Editor versus Block Editor
10. From old times and sites to new linkings
11. Five years on WordPress
12. From MSN Groups and MSN Spaces via Multiply to Blogspot now transferring to WordPress
13. In case Blogger goes further with her new interface
14. Blogger seems too slow to be practical
15. Our World on Blogger coming to its end
16. “Our World” Moving from Blogspot to WordPress
17. Notification and news feed for Facebook users
18. Walking alone? (Our World) = Walking alone? (Some View on the World)
19. What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
20. Companionship
21. Presenting views from different sources
22. Newspapers: Dying or Changing
23. Pleased to find Christadelphian World on the net
24. 2010 – 2014 in review
25. First blog post
26. My World…
27. Blogging in the world for Jesus and his Father
28. Immanuel’s first two years of blogging on WordPress
29. If no one died because of War – how different would worlds appear to be
30. 💬 Misquotation Pandemic and Disinformation Polemic: 🧠 Mind Pollution by Viral Falsity 🦠

+++

Related

1. WordPress on Linux Servers
2. Why I will be writing a blog, and why you should too.
3. To blog or not to blog? (Asha Seth)
4. To blog or not to blog (Miss A.J. My thoughts exactly)
5. 5 fun facts to celebrate 100 years of broadcasting
6. Glasgow community newsroom shows how local news can return to the UK high street
7. Journalism and Mass Communication Syllabus
8. Journalism On The Front Lines In Ukraine
9. Causality Journalism: Can Academics Help?
10. Beyond The Labels
11. For Whom Do You Write?
12. Overwrought Reflection about Blogging “Anonymously” & a PSA
13. If You Don’t Post a Bloated Reflection on Writing, Are You Even a Blogger?
14. A Goal on the Horizon
15. My 2022 Year in Books
16. What kind of blog reader are you?
17. This Little Light o’ Mine
18. Devising a social media strategy – a step by step guide
19. The Potpourri of Blogging Comments
20. Draft Queen
21. No Way Home
22. 4 things that helped me make affirmations work for me
23. Carol Anne asks
24. An Ode to Courage
25. 2022 Wrap Up | 2022 Favourites and 2023 Goals
26. A Fresh Start
27. The Mystery of January
28. The Column: Read all about it!
29. A Brave New Year
30. Happy New Years
31. My New Year’s Resolutions 2023
32. How strong are your resolutions as we face a Brave New Year?
33. Daily Blog #412: It’s been weeks (Part Two) Weird Dreams, Manifestations/Goals, New Years Blog
34. As Horrific As Lord Of The Flies
35. guest posting is super OK
36. December wrap-up!
37. The Morning After
38. 3 Reminders for the New Year
39. About Those New Year’s Resolutions …
40. A random memory
41. Happy New Year!
42. Share Your World 2nd January: my response
43. Share Your Blog 2023
44. Author Journey (January 2, 2023)
45. Confusion Rant- Not my best Post, a break from PVX
46. My first collaborative project !

The Lola Talks

Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash

To blog or not to blog? That is the question.

Every now and then we find ourselves wanting to share ideas, opinions and experiences with other people. Furthermore, we also want to maintain communication with our clients and customers online. For this reason, we blog.

Receiving comments from readers on our blogs is a rewarding experience. More so when the number of readers and loyal site visitors increase. It’s like being compensated for the hard work we have put into writing our posts.

But writing blogs requires a lot of communication skills. We need to be good in grammar and punctuations, word usage and spelling, formats and a lot of creativity.

We have to remember that in the blogging industry, there are not only a few but millions of bloggers. Thus, we really need to write our materials exceptionally well to stand…

View original post 65 more words

Blogging into the New Year

Blogging into the New Year, in a certain way as bloggers we might feel connected with other bloggers from all over the world. Its the magic of the internet that catches us.

How many bloggers are not on the internet willing to shine a light, not wanting to hide, hoping to bring some nice reading and some positive vibes to others, somewhere in the world. Some target a specific public, others do not mind sharing their diary with the world. Whatever reason they blog, is that what they write would be read by ‘some one’.

Janie Leeds writes

I happen to think that there’s a teensy bit of fear in all of us from time to time that squelches our ability to shine our heartlights and I’m choosing to figure out how to allow my heartlight to shine without fear! {This Little Light o’ Mine}

Many therefore just let the words roll over the screen, without fear. Perhaps they too think like J. Leeds that

we have to build our confidence and find someone trustworthy to shine with when we feel that desire to shine and to brilliantly explode our special brand of light into the universe. {This Little Light o’ Mine}

Though many might feel

It’s scary when we choose to be our authentic selves without fear. It’s being vulnerable which sometimes makes people feel uncomfortable. {This Little Light o’ Mine}

We always can wonder why or for whom those bloggers write. For themself? For their community/friends? For the world at large?

Judgy Young Pessimist or Jewish Young(-ish) Professional has the same question as us on her lips:

Maybe we write for different people at different times or maybe we write for all of them. {For Whom Do You Write?}

New Year’s Day finds one reflecting on some of their past resolutions and their outcomes. Bloggers might then perhaps think about what they wrote in the past year or how many blogposts they managed to create.

Lots of bloggers shall express and live by the hope that this fresh year will bring us something better than we had for the last years. So many want to forget Covid (though it is still not finished) and want to see an end to ‘that war‘ going on in Ukraine. Many bloggers leave that war in the fridge, only writing about other and hopefully also better things. Good tidings.

Let’s hope for the best and do our level best to make this year a memorable one for the people around us. Let’s resolve to spread happiness, empathy and goodness in the world. Let’s be humane and humble. {Happy New Year 2023}

writes a freelance writer who finds he is doing fine and has a lot to be thankful for, because “Allah, the Almighty” has been so kind to him. He is also aware we do not know much about the future. He thinks we can not predict the days ahead.

Can we not rid ourselves of unfounded fears? Can we not enjoy this precious MOMENT (present), instead of living in the past or worrying about the future? {Why Do We Worry About The Future? Why Don’t We Enjoy The Present Moment?}

Those who believe in God can find enough advice in the Book of books, the Bible, where the ‘bloggers’ of ancient times wrote down what we should know. In those books is enough said about times still to come, and as such do we know what to expect. Concerning those end times there are several bloggers on the net talking about how we can prepare for those times.

Many other subjects gain much more attention. Many blogging platforms are being used, but also many disappeared and bloggers had to change platforms again last year. The greatest change last year was the leaving Blogger and Blogspot by many bloggers, because those blog systems had become too slow and unworkable. This could be an asset to WordPress, but it was also discussed last year, due to its introduction of the less practical Gutenberg Block editor system.

Several bloggers let themselves be guided by prompts or requested tasks by other bloggers.

sometimes, prompts provide that inspiration for a piece that may have been ruminating,

writes JYP. We also admit some blogposts find their origin in something we notice on the net or some event that reached the news. In any case, the main reason to write such a post is for many to share something they find interesting or has something to do with their community or faith. As such, JYP for example wanted to share about Jewish community prompted by one of Fandango‘s Provocative Questions

– and it’s since become the basis for the whole pond/community/housing search tortured analogy saga. Prompts can provide both the inspiration for something I never expected to write and the necessary nudge to write something that were already ruminating. {For Whom Do You Write?}

Some bloggers like to tell the world about their very private things, whilst others prefer to stay in the anonymity or would not dare to talk about something personal. For some personal self-expression is the primary motivator for writing their blog and wanting to get an audience.

These are the posts that arguably could have been written in a private diary. These are the posts that might have less “polish” because sharing a message with an external audience isn’t the primary goal. These are the blog posts that feel less like public speaking, and more like casual conversation, or even just venting. {Blogging About Judaism: Promotional vs. Personal}

These posts are the casual conversation, maybe even the therapy sessions, of blogging – intimacy, sweats, and all. Photo by Ekaterina Bolovtsova: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-women-talking-to-each-other-4051134/

The problem with some of those blogs is that we feel more like in a café, catching up on some conversations. Others have a message they want to promote like we too have some good new to tell.

According to JYP promotional blog posts are those that:

• Have a message that the author wants to share externally. (eg. This is not a post that the author could have written in their private diary)
• Because the author wants to share this message, the post tends to have some “polish”. {Blogging About Judaism: Promotional vs. Personal}

she rightly compares this to public speaking

– the most heartfelt, sincere, genuine speaker is going to make a point of revising and editing, practicing, and putting on more professional attire/ hygiene/ grooming/ makeup etc. (vs. brain dump whilst looking disheveled) to look more presentable to an external audience so the message comes across better. {Blogging About Judaism: Promotional vs. Personal}

For her

the promotional vs. personal classification applies to all kinds of blogging {Blogging About Judaism: Promotional vs. Personal}

What we notice, looking at the Blogosphere and social media, is that lots of people want to be part of a community.

JYP thinks

the sense of community is probably the greatest strength of a well-run prompt. {For Whom Do You Write?}

In our globalising industrialist capitalist world, where there are so many people walking around, most people are just lost in the mass. Several people hope to escape their loneliness, but on the internet, they also find such an empty space. By blogging they do hope to have some reactions by which they would not feel so on their own. By writing a blog they want to break the silence and their loneliness.

Look, the internet is a big, lonely place. Blogging helps build community. Prompts can create a sense of community rituals and norms. It’s been fascinating to see the way bloggers will show up for each other, even within the simple forum of a prompt response. And it’s incredible to see how a prompt “ritual” goes beyond that, like when fellow bloggers share sad news with other prompt participants who respond with tributes and memories. {For Whom Do You Write?}

It is by such reactions the blogger may feel his or her work is appreciated and worthwhile doing. Responses on blogs also may trigger curiosity to go and look at that blogger his pages. If answers are given to a blog post, those comments may prompt the blogger to check his or her blog with that responding person. In this way, an exchange of ideas can arise among certain people who eventually become part of a small or larger group of regularly exchanging people.

To be clear, I think blogging without prompts can build community as well. But if you imagine the blog world as a religious community (bear with me), while you absolutely can and should socialize with fellow congregants outside of regularly scheduled services, some members will really appreciate the regular weekly meeting times to connect with their fellow congregants. {For Whom Do You Write?}

writes JYP. As such we can find bloggers who make it a custom to publish every week on a certain day an article. They even go to apologize when they did not. Or certain bloggers want to see for every day another sort of blog, be it a poetry day, haiku day, tanka day, garden day, short story day, thriller day, relaxation or meditation day  …. Some even want to have days for an amount of words.

We may not forget

Not all of our followers will care about everything we say. And even in blogging where we create more community through prompts, not all of our fellow prompt participants are going to be interested in our other writings. {For Whom Do You Write?}

Another aspect we may not forget or overlook

The reality is that almost none of us will become famous or make any real money from blogging, so you might as well write for yourself in addition to whomever else you’re writing for.

If, in the course of blogging and responding to prompts, you don’t feel like you’re writing for yourself, it might be a sign to take a step back and figure out how to incorporate prompts in a way that feels more authentic to you. {For Whom Do You Write?}

In our busy world, we have limited time to do certain things for ourselves, like reading. On the net there is so much to read, it is impossible to read everything or to follow every blog full-time. Even when we are following a blog or others are following our blog, we can not expect that they read every blog, and certainly not that they notice or look at every blog on the day it is written.

we’re not necessarily interested in every post that another blogger writes. {For Whom Do You Write?}

It is logical that everyone has their own preferences for certain subjects and will look for interesting literature in this area. In that respect, it is not bad that the internet offers such a variety of subjects so that everyone can find something to their own liking.

We from our site are happy you came to read this post, and honestly do hope you’ll have also got a taste for reading here a bit more than just this article.

Welcome to From Guestwriters in 2023, and hope to see you more.

+

Preceding

Asking for a Re-Blog

When you think you have nothing to say or to show

Readers, likes and comments

++

Additional reading

1. WordPress appears to have fallen off its best horse
2. A Classic Editor versus Block Editor
3. From old times and sites to new linkings
4. Five years on WordPress
5. From MSN Groups and MSN Spaces via Multiply to Blogspot now transferring to WordPress
6. In case Blogger goes further with her new interface
7. Blogger seems too slow to be practical
8. Our World on Blogger coming to its end
9. “Our World” Moving from Blogspot to WordPress
10. Walking alone? (Our World) = Walking alone? (Some View on the World)
11. What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
12. Companionship
13. Presenting views from different sources
14. Newspapers: Dying or Changing
15. Pleased to find Christadelphian World on the net
16. 2010 – 2014 in review
17. First blog post
18. My World…
19. Blogging in the world for Jesus and his Father
20. Immanuel’s first two years of blogging on WordPress
21. If no one died because of War – how different would worlds appear to be

+++

Related

1. WordPress on Linux Servers
2. Why I will be writing a blog, and why you should too.
3. To blog or not to blog? (Asha Seth)
4. To Blog or Not to Blog? (The Lolatalks)
5. To blog or not to blog (Miss A.J. My thoughts exactly)
6. My 2022 Year in Books
7. What kind of blog reader are you?
8. This Little Light o’ Mine
9. The Potpourri of Blogging Comments
10. Draft Queen
11. No Way Home
12. 4 things that helped me make affirmations work for me
13. Carol Anne asks
14. An Ode to Courage
15. 2022 Wrap Up | 2022 Favourites and 2023 Goals
16. A Fresh Start
17. A Brave New Year
18. Happy New Years
19. My New Year’s Resolutions 2023
20. Daily Blog #412: It’s been weeks (Part Two) Weird Dreams, Manifestations/Goals, New Years Blog
21. As Horrific As Lord Of The Flies
22. guest posting is super OK
23. December wrap-up!
24. The Morning After
25. 3 Reminders for the New Year
26. About Those New Year’s Resolutions …
27. A random memory
28. Happy New Year!
29. Share Your World 2nd January: my response
30. Share Your Blog 2023
31. Author Journey (January 2, 2023)
32. Confusion Rant- Not my best Post, a break from PVX
33. My first collaborative project !

Available information for the youngsters and readers of my websites

John Humphrys does feel a sense of guilt that his parents scrimped to pay a weekly shilling to the Encyclopaedia Britannica door-to-door salesman so that they as kids would always have the world’s knowledge at our fingertips. He says:

What a noble intent. What a waste of money it seems today.

Though I also twice got the full encyclopedia version and for a long tim bought the additional yearbooks. Now I still do pay my yearly subscription, so did and still do support the Encyclopeadia Britannica, so that I can search for truthful information. Once the kids were on their own legs they did not seem interested to search in the books, or on the internet version, because they found other sources on the internet in which most of the youngsters put their faith. For some of them, they do forget that it is people, like me, who are offering our knowledge for free on that internet, but are also not all masters in different subjects.

The volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica. The Macropædia is the set of volumes 13 to 29, with single colour spines.

What bothers me most about those searches on the internet is that not all search machines bring the ‘searchers’ to the right answers. The Britannica is there also at fault, Not bringing people to their full articles on a certain subject. I must say, often my searches in the Micropaedia and Macropaedia deliver much better answers than the ones on the net.

The 17-volume Macropædia is the third part of the Encyclopædia Britannica; the other two parts are the 12-volume Micropædia and the 1-volume Propædia, intended as a compendium and topical organisation which is an interesting guide to self-study.

The last edition of the print Britannica was published in 2010, and today it provides only the electronic version. I am happy that I have still the printed versions next to the two main electronic versions I can do my research with. I find it important that people should be able to find out more about certain subjects, and for that reason, I still try to include further links in the articles presented on my various websites. I do hope people would use them to find out more about certain subjects. I am happy to see that until now certain links are clicked.

Incorporate new things into your daily routine – without feeling like it’s a struggle

“Many people have been conditioned into thinking of January 1 as a day when we deprive ourselves of all the things that we have been encouraged to indulge in during December,”

neurologist Dr Rachel Taylor says.

“But the brain is hardwired to make it difficult for you because it does not deal with deprivation well.”

Dr Taylor advises that if you need extra motivation to make a change,

“start to really reflect on how that food/drink/activity makes you feel.

In these dark days, it is easy to get carried away with dark thoughts. For this, we must be careful not to get discouraged or start feeling miserable. The danger is that if you get carried away by those dark thoughts, you will also start feeling inferior and others will notice your weakness and take advantage of it.

We need to be aware that everyone encounters dark moments from time to time and that not everything can always be rosy. There is really no need to always show ourselves strong. We should not always put away our weaker points. It comes down to finding the right people with whom to share our weaknesses and talk quietly about things that bother us. Sharing our weaknesses shall make us vulnerable, but to make you vulnerable shall show your strength.

Marcus Ampe always advised people to bring the mind in balance with the body. For him, it is clear we need, first and foremost, to sort out our own inner self before we start working on the outer. If we are not happy with our appearance, we must find ways to accept our “self” as it is, be it too fat or too skinny, or not the shape we would like.

“Before taking drastic action on our body, we need to calm our “soul” by going for a walk in the great outdoors, for example.”

he says.

As we walk, we can safely think about many things that bother us. But we should also try to quiet our minds while observing the greenery and animals around us. Therefore, according to Mr. Ampe:

“Even if others may want to take us deeper, we must convince ourselves that we are worth being there and that we can contribute enough to others.”

Thus, during those walks in the morning and afternoon, we need to open up to what we are, but also to change that we can let come to ourselves.

“The brain is much more likely to accept change when you have done a sound job in convincing it that it is worth the extra effort and energy it is going to have to expend on managing the change.”

Even though these are dark days, we must not let our thoughts darken. According to M. Ampe, it is therefore also best to start fully enjoying the sun’s warming rays (albeit little) after sunrise.

Dr Rachel Taylor, like him, finds that an early morning blast is essential.

“The rate of production of serotonin has been shown multiple times in research to have a direct correlation with the amount of sunlight a person gets: it rises quickly when access to sunlight increases.

In Scandinavian countries, therefore, often light therapy is used, to reduce suicides during these winter months.

“The more serotonin you have the more melatonin your brain can make, which is not just good for sleep, although that is its primary role, but is a really powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compound.”

That early dose of sunlight could have added benefits for weight loss: a study from the University of Alberta found that lack of exposure to sunlight could lead to an increase in fat and therefore contribute to weight gain.

Especially with these dark days and upcoming holidays, we do dare to go beyond our means and eat more than we actually need to, while also reaching for sweets a lot quicker, to feel better.

It is no use that we let ourselves become stressed by what we would go to eat at Christmas and New Year, or what presents we are going to buy. Stress is to be avoided. Though this period is one in which many people get unnecessarily stressed out. Many are very busy, dealing with endless to-do lists and struggling to balance it all. This search for trying to do the best for others results often in a day-to-day life that feels too hectic. Our running back and forth in search of the right gifts and food gets us so excited that we throw ourselves off balance.
By putting their body these days into overdrive, lots of people do not see it is taking them down. Fatigue becomes the master of them.

A good way to get back to folds should start as early as breakfast.

Many think their daily serving of breakfast cereal is a healthy dose of calories and vitamins. But the majority of people use breakfast cereals with added sugars. And these are bound to be avoided. So no granola or caramelised cereals, even those with hoing processed breakfast cereals should be taboo. The concept of cereal food that originated in the vegetarian beliefs of the American Seventh-day Adventists, who in the 1860s formed the Western Health Reform Institute, later renamed the Battle Creek Sanitarium, in Battle Creek, Michigan, was very healthy, but the food industry made something sweet after it to tempt more people to come to enjoy their products. Therefore forget those ‘modernised’ grainproducts and go back to the  source, ditching the sugary, high-carb cereal for a more balanced start to the day.

“If you start your day with a good quality source of protein, some fat and some vegetables, you will balance your blood sugar levels,”

says nutritionist Grace Kingswell, who advocates eggs and vegetables to start the day.

But, Mr Ampe warns, in doing so we must be careful not to be tempted in the supermarket to buy fruit and vegetables that do not belong in our own region during the particular season.

“Only seasonal fruit and vegetables should be put on our plates.”

he says.

In doing so, choosing the right food at the right season will bring us into balance with nature and provide the necessary nutrients and vitamins for that time of year.

“It will have positive benefits for your hormone balance, PMS, energy levels, mood, stress response, cravings, satiety, weight management, and so much more.”

remarks Kingswell.

Researchers at the University of Missouri found that a higher protein breakfast produced lower spikes in glucose and insulin after meals, which led to increased feelings of fullness throughout the day (if you struggle to eat first thing, try adding a protein shake, such as one from strongnutrients.com). Increased vegetables also have added benefits for your gut health.

After having started the day with a good meal, one can go for the first walk of the day. Before that walk, like at other moments during the day, it is, according to Mr. Ampe, also not bad to take the Bible at hand and to read, every day, some verses out of that inspiration book. The part read that day should bring something to think or meditate about.

For good reason, private devotion or mental exercise encompassing various techniques of concentration, contemplation, and abstraction, is regarded as conducive to heightened self-awareness, spiritual enlightenment, and physical and mental health. Meditation has never been more popular: there are currently more than 51 million posts on Instagram.

Neuroscientists at UC San Diego recently reported that mindful meditation can be as effective in reducing pain relief as medication. While in another recent study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, researchers found that a guided mindfulness-based program was as effective as the use of medication for patients with anxiety disorders.

Even for a beginner with no serious health issues, a 13-minute daily meditation improves mood, sleep and memory, according to researchers at John Hopkins University.

“There is no need at all to repeat all the time some words or phrases,”

says Mr. Ampe.

“It is much more important to get toward mental, emotional, and physical well-being, by concentrating on the Words given by our Creator, Who has provide the most complete words or thoughts to instruct and form or mould us in the best human being we should become.”

Some prefer through the repetition of a mantra, to still the activity of thought and to experience a deep state of relaxation, which is said to lead to enhanced contentment, vitality, and creativity, but by repeating such mantra, the source of the problem is not taken away. By using the Bible as a source and backbone of life, a person shall be able to attack the real problem and origin of the troubles. Feeding yourself every day with such spiritual food shall enrich and strengthen yourself more, so that you and others shall be able to notice changes in yourself. At the same time you should not be afraid to use that active, voluntary, and systematic thinking about a biblical or theological topic, to be part of your conversation with others, by which you shall come to feel that a certain confidence shall also give you more strength.

“The meditations are designed to be incorporated into your everyday life and can be done sitting, standing or while doing light exercise such as walking, hiking or stretching. We want to make it as easy as possible to meditate any time, anywhere,”

says Julz Arney, director of fitness for health technologies at Apple.

By knowing the Divine Creator, Jehovah God, and giving time to yourself to think about His Words and worship Him, you shall find out that you will gain the first step to coming at ease with yourself and making you strong enough to tackle this world.

The tips from the experts here are small changes that you can start to incorporate into your daily routine – without feeling like it’s a struggle.

+

Preceding

Facing our existence every day

O, little voice within…

Echo

Soul Pampering Time

Share Your Smile

Blossoming and healing the planet

Thinking about thinking

Thoughts and reflections taking only a few minutes

Deeper Call

‘I try to keep my hate in check. If you can’t hate, you can’t love.’

Crying is good for inner self!!

A little ray of sunshine.

Mini-MAX-malism: A Bigger Approach to Less is More

New form of body exercises gaining popularity

++

Additional reading

1. Expectations for kashrut to meet individual and contemporary norms
2. Christians, secularism, morals and values
3. Every athlete exercises self control

+++

Related

1. Mental health tips: Easy ways to beat the winter blues, manage mood swings | Health
2. The Inferiority Bug
3. Feeling “Less Than”
4. Are You Inferior?
5. Thought For The Day: April 17, 2018 “At The Expense of Others”
6. Darkness Exists in All
7. Hijacked by Darkness
8. Beyond darkness
9. Dark Clouds
10. Dark Disquietude
11. Dark Destressing
12. Angst And Anxiety
13. Secrets from a shadow
14. 2 a.m.
15. Tea Time
16. Weather Related Depression Is Brutal
17. How to Treat Seasonal Affective Disorder
18. How to Deal with Depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder
19. How I’m coping with SAD (Seasonal affective disorder)
20. Understanding Inferiority
21. You’re receiving peanuts because you’re giving yourself peanuts
22. Just What If…
23. True me.. Tap-1164..
24. When you’re feeling inferior
25. Which kind of hell would you choose?
26. you are not alone
27. How Do You Know Your Body is Out Of Balance?
28. How To Ditch For Ever The Ridiculous Idea That You’re Not Good Enough
29. Fed Up With Feeling Inferior? Here’s How To Fix It With One Simple Step
30. You Are Not
31. Weakness is Powerful
32. Vulnerable
33. Causes Of Sudden Weight Gain
34. Eating Disorder in the Psych Ward.
35. Tips for avoiding holiday weight gain.
36. Today’s Health Tip ~ Want to Lose Weight?
37. Part One – Will Adrenal Fatigue Cause Weight Gain?
38. 11 Foods That Cause Visceral Fat, Ranked by How Bad They Are For You
39. Patterns of weight gain or loss later in life may increase risk
40. Boost the Effects of Exercise on Weight Loss and Health (Without Changing Your Workout Routine)
41. Offering A Little Brightness During The Darkest Months Of The Year
42. Journal Prompts & Activities to Boost Positivity this Winter
43. Day 125 – A Stunningly Sober Holiday Season
44. What is your foundation for optimal health?
45. How Can I Have True Spiritual Power?
46. He Knows Storms Are Coming
47. Give Yourself Fully to the Work of the Lord

Try to get it!: Choices😍

Ěl Shaddai, the High or Exalted One, has given every human being a brain, with the capability to think, question, make choices and decide.

Al-Azeez – Al-Azeem (The Mighty – The Great One – The Strong One) wants us also to become strong and to be masters over ourselves. He is no dictator that wants everything done His way in His time. He allows us to make up our own minds in our own time. But created in His image, He would love to see us become like His image, free of wrong thoughts with a pure conscience.
Al Khaleeq (The Divine Creator) is the Al-Mubdi’ (The Originator – Starter of everything – Creator of mankind) Who is the beginning but also the end. As such, we should try to reach the end He has provided for mankind. Our eyes and ears should be directed in His direction, going for and with Him.

He does not commit anyone to anything but does suggest the best for all of us. As it is up to us to follow His Will or not, out of the free will, it is to say out of making our own choice for Him.

Try to get it!

Life is But a matter of choices
By a free will we choose our way
By a free will we open our ears
We choose the voice we want to hear
With no compulsion
Or an interfere
Sohair
Allah says
مَنْ عَمِلَ صَالِحًا فَلِنَفْسِهِ ۖ وَمَنْ أَسَاءَ فَعَلَيْهَا ۖ ثُمَّ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكُمْ تُرْجَعُونَ
If any one does a righteous deed, it ensures to the benefit of his own soul; if he does evil, it works against (his own soul). In the end will ye (all) be brought back to your Lord.
Chapter 45 Crouching سورة الجاثية

View original post

The growth of Wikipedia

Words and data to look for

For some years now, voluntary writers make the effort to provide enough serious information for all people to find for free on the net.

We have hardback copies and a subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica and provide links to it on our articles so that people also can find more information on subjects. Some of our writers also contribute to articles on the multilingual free online encyclopedia (or encyclopaedia) Wikipedia, started in 2001, to which our readers also can find additional links. It is a fantastic enterprise, that operates under an open-source management style and allows everyone to find sufficient background information on multiple topics.

Nupedia, the beginning of a free online English-language encyclopaedia

Screenshot from the Wayback Machine Nupedia 2003

Homepage of Wikipedia, which runs on MediaWiki, one of the most popular wiki software packages

Perhaps inspired by objectivist “openness,” Jimmy Wales, a successful bond trader, founded a free online English-language encyclopaedia called Nupedia, which sought free contributions from scholars and other experts and subjected them to an intensive peer-review process. Frustrated by the slow progress of this project, Wales and Nupedia’s editor in chief, Larry Sanger, in 2001 turned to a new technology, a type of software called wiki, created by American computer programmer Ward Cunningham, to create Wikipedia, a companion encyclopaedia site that anyone could contribute to and edit.

Wiki software and Wikipedia

As a feature of Nupedia.com Wikipedia entered the world of the internet on January 15, 2001, but, following objections from the advisory board, got relaunched as an independent Web site a few days later. The Wiki engines allowed content to be written using a simplified markup language, sometimes edited with the help of a rich-text editor. Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described wiki as

“the simplest online database that could possibly work”

It was incredible to see how many enthusiastic writers from all over the world could bring some 20,000 articles in 18 languages, including French, German, Polish, Dutch, Hebrew, Chinese, and Esperanto its first year. In 2003 Nupedia was terminated and its articles moved into the non-profit effort Wikipedia.

By 2006 the English-language version of Wikipedia had more than one million articles, and by the time of its 10th anniversary in 2011 it had surpassed 3.5 million.

The only regret we have to note is that too many readers insist that Wikipedia tells THE truth and that everything it says would really be so. They don’t realise that over the years certain writers have repeatedly taken advantage of it, to sell disinformation or totally untrue matters as well-founded. Luckily, several writer-readers are willing to invest their time to control the added articles so that individuals who will maliciously attempt to thwart the open-source website Wikipedia by introducing false or misleading content, shall be unmasked and excluded from the system. Rather than worrying about every user’s actions and intentions, proponents of wiki software rely on their community of users to edit and correct what are perceived to be errors or biases. The good thing about having continuous writers make additions and corrections is that the encyclopaedia can be kept very up-to-date. Very quickly, necessary background information can thus be delivered to the inquisitive public. Although such a system is certainly far from foolproof, wikis stand as an example of the origin of an Internet counterculture that has a basic assumption of the goodness of people.

The website’s coverage of the events of the day and controversial topics such as American politics and major events like the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has received substantial media attention and has exposed weaknesses as the system’s strengths.

Wikipedia pages on female and minority scientists and engineers

It is incredible how many people use Wikipedia and trust it for its information. But one must realise that it is not an all-explanatory work that also does not reflect all information correctly balanced all the time.

Jessica Wade in 2017

Jess Wade a British physicist in the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College London, specialising in Raman spectroscopy. noticed she could not find any information on Wikipedia about some very important people.

In 2017 after meeting American climatologist and professor Kim Cobb she wanted to know more about her and went on Wikipedia to be astonished not to find an entry on that very young but also a good professor and publisher with over 100 peer-reviewed publications in major journals.

Having the idea that Wikipedia is “used by pretty much everyone,” Wade realised that

“despite it being this incredibly important resource, it was suffering from a lack of content, particularly about women, but also about people of color.”

Since then, Wade has completed more than 1,750 pages for female and minority scientists and engineers, she often spends her evenings reading journals, scientific papers, archived documents, and social media to find potential subjects. It takes Wade a few hours to write each Wikipedia entry, but she’s not doing it all alone — she also teaches others how to research and put together pages during training workshops. Wade describes herself as a

“tiny fish in a massive sea,”

but she’ll

“keep doing everything I can to make science a more accessible and inclusive place to be.”

It is with people like her that Wikipedia is in a position to grow further into a place where people can easily go and look something up to find further more information about someone or about something.

Meaning of ‘Impossible’

Impossible just means you haven’t found the solution yet.

Beyond this earth life!

Preceding

The purpose of this glorious life…

Dutch translation / Nederlandse vertaling:

Voorbij dit aardse leven!

Purplerays

Photo & text credit: “Return To Eden” on Facebook

“You *must* lift your eyes far *beyond the* earth and recognise where your path leads after this earthly life, so that at the same time you may become aware of why and for what purpose you are here on earth!”
– The Grail Message “In the Light of Truth” http://grailmessage.com/en/about/

View original post

Martin Heidegger Quotes

+

Preceding

Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

Existence in the non-existent and non-existence in the existence

Our existence, the world showing up for us and holding up a mirror

I and Thou

In your own heart or outside of it

Modern Living

There is no human being on earth capable of declaring with certitude who he is.

Quoteliv

Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one.

Everyone is the other and no one is himself.

Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing?

The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.

Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.

If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only then will I be free to become myself.

Martin Heidegger

Anyone can achieve their fullest potential, who we are might be predetermined, but the path we follow is always of our own choosing. We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set…

View original post 58 more words

Heidegger and the Question of Being

Looking at Martin Heidegger’s ideas and his question about being, and

What is “goodness”? What is “truth”? What is “justice”?

To remember

• According to the blogger:

Philosophy = literally any time when we ask a question that doesn’t necessarily have a right answer.

• asking questions about being & existence = most urgent task for each of us.

+

Preceding

Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

Existence in the non-existent and non-existence in the existence

Our existence, the world showing up for us and holding up a mirror

There is no human being on earth capable of declaring with certitude who he is.

ELI5 Philosophy

Philosophy is really hard to understand, let’s get that straight. Yet while there are countless YouTube videos, textbooks, and podcasts dedicated to making hard things easy to understand, I’ve yet to find philosophy content on the internet that I actually like and is meant for everyday people. While I don’t have a formal training in philosophy, I thought I’d take a shot at explaining some of the most compelling philosophical ideas I’ve encountered. In the first installment of this series, I take on Heidegger.

“What is water?”

The most interesting observation Heidegger ever made, and what planted the seed for the rest of his philosophy, was that of the question of being. It triggered a shift in worldview for philosophers, in precisely the same way the shocked fish asks “What is water?” in David Foster Wallace’s (DFW) famous commencement speech. DFW used the anecdote to encourage us to reconsider our…

View original post 452 more words

There is no human being on earth capable of declaring with certitude who he is.

 

Léon Bloy, the French novelist, critic, polemicist, poet, and philosophical pamphleteer reasoned,“Every man is on earth to symbolize something he is ignorant of,”

or more pointedly,

“There is no human being on earth capable of declaring with certitude who he is.”

+

Preceding

Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

Existence in the non-existent and non-existence in the existence

Our existence, the world showing up for us and holding up a mirror

I and Thou

In your own heart or outside of it

Modern Living

Our existence, the world showing up for us and holding up a mirror

The world doesn’t just exist, it shows up for us. It appears as the pure experience of the present moment. And one of the most amazing things about the world is that it changes – from age to age, generation to generation, over the course of a human lifetime.

We can not ignore the world. We live in it, and we have to face those things that happen in that world. Today it would even be very difficult to live on a desert island just to live on our own without any interruption or interference from other human beings.

We are here and though others can ignore us, we can not ignore them nor deny our own existence. We have our fleshy bodies within it our brains which enable us to think and reason. From the moment we are born we are confronted with the world and shall have to learn to live in that world. From that first step on earth, time does not let us on our own but however we want, time binds us to itself. It makes hours, days, months and years go by while we have to hold in it and come to the realisation that we are getting older. However, we turn it or turn it and look for the ‘why’ we are here and the ‘how’ we can make it true here, we are pulled in all directions to do this or that or to be here and there.

Sometimes we even wonder not only why we exist, but also why this world and this universe exist. Lots of people also wonder what there would be in outer space. In the darkness behind the horizon, stars and planets get us dreaming of other planets and perhaps also about other living beings. Why should we be the only intellectual beings?

When we see time passing, we often feel as if we are running out of time. Looking at how glaciers melt and how waters rise, but so many in the world do not want to believe climate change is a serious business and that we are heading for an unseen natural disaster if we do not act quickly to combat global warming.

If nothing existed there would be nothing to contemplate existence and no existence to contemplate. Now we have to think about a lot of things. In fact, it happens that our brains don’t let us rest easy and get our heads spinning with all sorts of (sometimes foolish) thoughts.

Why did anything happen?

Why didn’t nothing happen?

Why did all those planets came into existence?

Why does anything at all exist?

What does it mean to exist?

Why did man came into existence and why does he thinks he is superior to all other beings?

Why are we here?

What is life all about? or What is the purpose of existence?

Is that what we think to see realy there? Or is it just an illusion?

Philosophers through all ages have tackled this most fundamental question of existence. Many persons came to practice or investigate the systematised study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. There was and is the searching, the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience. We know of major Eastern philosophers, like Buddha; Confucius; Dai Zhen; Han Feizi; Laozi; Mencius; Mozi; Nichiren; Nishida Kitarō; Wang Yangming; Xunzi; Zhu Xi.

But in the West, they did not have to undercut and could in turn make others think and philosophise with a variety of thoughts. There were many Ancient Greek philosophers, like Aristotle and his followers, who brought a whole movement into being,  Aristotelianism. Epicurus and Epicureanism.
The Western world provided lots of major Western philosophers, like Peter Abelard; St. Anselm; St. Thomas Aquinas; St. Augustine; Noam Chomsky; Jacques Derrida; Duns Scotus; Michel Foucault; Jürgen Habermas; Martin Heidegger; David Hume; William James; Saul Kripke; Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; John Locke; John Stuart Mill; Friedrich Nietzsche; Hilary Putnam; Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Bertrand Russell; Jean-Paul Sartre; Socrates; Benedict de Spinoza; Bernard Williams; Ludwig Wittgenstein, and so many more who request our attention.

Some of those philosophers from the east and west will tell you that everything that we experience as real is an illusion. Especially in Eastern philosophies, we find ‘masters’ or ‘teachers’ who will say this is all a dream.

Could it be that we are part of a dream or living in some surreal universe?

And is there some Being managing it all?

Is there a Creator or Manipulator? And are we just His toys?

We may see all this physical stuff around us, but in which way is it real, or do we get to know how it really is?

Over the years, mankind had to change its views about so many things. More than once, man had it wrong. More often there were groups of people or organisations, who wanted to have control over people and made it a rule or doctrine that people had to believe. The Roman Catholic Church was (and is still) a master in that.

Many people have high ideas about themselves. Sometimes it happens that they suddenly become confronted with themselves and have to come to see that their thoughts and emotions are ‘nothing’. It is all, they will say, the play of pure consciousness. John Locke considered “the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind” man’s consciousness.

Pure being is all that really is. Everything else is an illusion created in an ungraspable field of consciousness, awareness and sentience. Some philosophers regarded it as a kind of substance, or “mental stuff,” quite different from the material substance of the physical world. From such philosophers’ ideas many started to believe we exist out of more than one element. They managed to have several people believe that when they die that there is a spiritual element (the soul) that will go to other places (like purgatory, hell or heaven) and another physical element that will transform into another body (incarnation and reincarnation). That reincarnation, also called transmigration or metempsychosis, in religion and philosophy, would be a rebirth of the aspect of an individual that persists after bodily death — whether it be consciousness, mind, the soul, or some other entity — in one or more successive existences. Depending upon the tradition, these existences may be human, animal, spiritual, or, in some instances, vegetable, depending on the way one lived before.

The French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher René Descartes for instance as one of the first to abandon Scholastic Aristotelianism, formulated the first modern version of mind-body dualism, from which stems the mind-body problem. Because he promoted the development of a new science grounded in observation and experiment, he is generally regarded as the founder of modern philosophy. We all know his expression

“I think, therefore I am” (best known in its Latin formulation, “Cogito, ergo sum,” though originally written in French, “Je pense, donc je suis”).

The medieval English logician St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033/34–1109), is at the heart of Descartes’s rationalism, the view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge, knowledge about an existing thing solely on the basis of reasoning from innate ideas, with no help from sensory experience. Descartes has an innate idea of Allah Al-Aliyy or Most High God, being The Sublime God as a perfect being. For him, it is clear that God necessarily exists, because, if He did not, He would not be perfect. It is That God Who presides in the great assembly (Psalm 82:1) of human beings, who often think they are greater than others.

Jim Holt, the American journalist, author in popular science and essayist, who often contributed to The New York Times, wrote the nonfiction work and NYTimes bestseller for 2013, Why Does the World Exist?, presented the central question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’, which lies in the domain between philosophy and scientific cosmology. Also the English cosmologist and astrophysicist Martin Rees looked at the big-bang theory of the origins of the universe. By examining the nature of existence itself Holt was following in the path of the philosophy called ‘Existentialism’, which stresses human existence in the world concreteness and its problematic character. for those writers ‘Existence’ is primarily the problem of existence (i.e., of its mode of being); it is, therefore, also the investigation of the meaning of Being. Going back to the intitial thought of previous philosophers

What is Being?

What does it mean to be?

To be is the question!

What does it mean to exist?

What is the nature of being?

For the German philosopher, counted among the main exponents of existentialism, Martin Heidegger, the human subject had to be reconceived in an altogether new way, as “being-in-the-world.” Because this notion represented the very opposite of the Cartesian “thing that thinks,” the idea of consciousness as representing the mind’s internal awareness of its own states had to be dropped. With it went the assumption that specific mental states were needed to mediate the relation of the mind to everything outside it.

Man philosophers had the above questions, bringing them to think about their own being and the being of others around them. Those people thinking and writing about those life questions bring the deep contemplation of what it means to be human. We think no other living being is concerned with such questions. Even pets don’t wonder what their role in the family might be (we think). Even though plants and animals have sentience, we suspect that they have no thinking capacity whereby they would ascertain their essence in this world.

On the other hand, it can well be that one of the reasons that other creatures don’t worry about the meaning of life could be that they don’t seem to have any choice about how to live it. Dogs and cats just live the way dogs and cats live. They respond to circumstances the way dogs or cats generally do. Sure they may differ one to the other, but generally speaking they act more or less predictably like dogs or cats.

But human beings can also be very predictable. We also could say human beings act in a similar way. Many people around us are also very predictable. Though we can notice that even when the majority lives a standard way of living, we can find people who follow a totally different course. There are human beings who stand out and surprise us. We also find several people who do not want to follow the tract the majority follows. They don’t live an ordinary life. They live an extraordinary life, that is remarkably new and different from the norm. And sometimes these rare human beings discover a way of being that eventually becomes the new norm.

Martin Heidegger was convinced that the history of Western thought has failed to heed the ontological difference, and so has articulated Being precisely as a kind of ultimate being, as evidenced by a series of namings of Being, for example as idea, energeia, substance, monad or will to power. He recognised that most of us live as ‘the one’, or that we do generally what ‘one’ does or what would be the general norm to do. Though we are often concerned with what ‘one’ tends to be concerned with.

He spoke about “Dasein” or “being there”, the most fundamental a priori transcendental condition or mode of being not so much to be seen from the point of being there but from the perspective of how the being essentially unfolds. As Heidegger puts it:

“A being is: Be-ing holds sway [unfolds]”.

The hyphenated term ‘be-ing’ is adopted by Emad and Maly, in order to respect the fact that, in the Contributions, Heidegger substitutes the archaic spelling ‘Seyn’ for the contemporary ‘Sein’ as a way of distancing himself further from the traditional language of metaphysics.

We all should be aware that somehow we come on this planet and have to make the best of it. We receive an overdose of information during our lifetime and are fed an untold number of knowledges and rules, with which and by which we try or must try to live. Through all these influences we have to go through, we have to try to build our lives and live a generic human life.

Unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, a human being could, if they were heroic enough, choose to live a different kind of human life and could come to live a profoundly authentic and original human life. The American lecturer, poet, and essayist, the leading exponent of New England Transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson called such human beings ‘representative’ because their lives represented new possibilities for being human.

I do not think “Life is But a Dream” even when we may dream that we live or imagine our life to be a certain way. When we are dreaming it can well be that we are not aware that we are asleep. But also when we are awake it can happen that we wonder if we are dreaming, because what we encounter seems to be so unreal. How often does it not happen that we must come to the conclusion that we were in a dream-world. And that dream world was not always to our liking. More than once the dream world that comes into our mind, is one that can cause fear, but luckilly there is also that dream world that causes joy, surprise, and myriad other emotions. Dreams take us, seemingly, to worlds we’ve been to and worlds that we have never experienced. In them we re-live what we lived before in that world we should recognise as the real world. But we should be aware that very often we are deceived by the real world around us. Often we do not want to know that this world has played tricks on us.

Every day we have doubts about certain things, often which we should recognise as facts. There and then we once more are confronted with those questions that come up into our mind so often. Oh, so often we are troubled, and question our own self and all the things we see happening around us. Then we might ask

What is our role in this all?

What happens when we become older?

As time passes we start getting in contact with other peoples and other cultures. Mostly how we grow up is decided by our parents and our surroundings. The culture of our homeland, the religion of our parents, and the friends we hang out with, all influence us and mould us in a form we do not mind or which bothers us. In case we do not like the form in which we are moulded we get frustrated and come into a stressful position. sometimes people would love to have been born in an other place or have lived in other circumstances. But the choice is not up to us. We are dropped in a time and place and have to find our way in it.

We have no memory of a previous life, because there is just not such another life.

Could we prove that we have ever lived if we did not have our memories?

No, there would be no way to prove it. There is not one person who ever could recollect and prove some previous existence. Even for those who are born, when young, their memory is too short and after some time they shall not be able to tell what happened in those first years of life. When you would ask a toddler to prove he lives, he would not be able to do so, because he has not enough memory and not enough knowledge. The very young cannot prove they live because they do not have memories. Memory starts to develop a bit later than the first few years of life. Memory is an essential component to the human mind, so important that we cannot say that we exist without memory. Knowledge and memory are two requirements to realise that one is alive and can be. In other words, our very existence is hinged on our capacity to remember. Without our capacity to think, or to have thoughts, we can not remember nor can we analyse. And to be able to know we live we need to be able to think, consider and to review.

Memory, as the encoding, storage, and retrieval in the human mind of past experiences, is unconditionally linked to thought and being. Without awareness, there is no knowledge of being. We can notice this when people have reached an age when they start to suffer from dementia. It is then as if their thinking but also their “being” falls away.

Memory is both a result of and an influence on perception, attention, and learning. It is those thoughts of past events and influences that help shape us, making us who we are. With that awareness and understanding of that event and of that personality we are confronted with, we ourselves are presented with a mirror, in which whether or not we will accept, love or hate that reflection. But dar we will recognise that this is that “I” that we wish, desire or curse.

+

Preceding

With Positive Attitude

There can only be hope when there is a will to be and say “I am”

I and Thou

Our existence..

Leap

To come to live in the peace of fulfilment of our own Divine Identity

What is Existential Ergonomics?

On the Anxiety of Non-Being

Running out of time

Why does the world exist

Our real self ever perfect and free

Life’s Purpose

Modern Living

Quandary of Reflections

Existence in the non-existent and non-existence in the existence

Human experience maintained in a fragile existence

Soul-searching

Vivamos Videre, the more we live, the more we are a witness to life

++

Additional reading

1. Immortality, eternality – onsterfelijkheid, eeuwigheid
2. Onsterfelijkheid – Immortaliteit – Immortality
3. About The story of Creation 1 Existing cosmologies
4. Genesis Among the Creation Myths
5. Creator and Blogger God 1 Emptiness and mouvement
6. Creation of the earth and man #14 Formation of man #6 The Uncreated One, neshemet ruach chayim and nephesh
7. Jesus begotten Son of God #11 Existence and Genesis Raising up
8. A Living Faith #10: Our manner of Life #2
9. Ability
10. Ability (part 2)
11. Ability (part 3) Thoughts around Ability
12. Ability (part 4) Thought about the ability to have ability
13. The Opinionated Truth
14. God make us holy
15. Two states of existence before God
16. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
17. Wisdom Quote #21…..seeking within with Carl Jung!
18. Living in this world and viewing it

+++

Related

1. Who am I to…?
2. Spike the obit
3. Awareness is All
4. Trouble being myself
5. #being as details
6. Conditioning and Consciousness
7. Becoming
8. What Descartes Proved
9. The ABCs of Python: The Identity of “is”
10. When I sleep, I think, I dream [A philosophy post?]
11. Wisdom Collection Collection 26. Human thinking is a creation process with devastating results. Thinking is separation of myself from my source.
12. Mind and language essays on descartes and chomsky
13. Therefore (Quote Series)
14. Essays on the philosophy and science of rene descartes
15. Descartes proof for the existence of god essay
16. My favorites: philosophy ideas
17. I remember therefore I am
18. Descartes, Perception, and Society
19. Strange nonsense
20. Perception and Reality
21. How Ego Disrupts the Cosmic Brilliance of ‘Is’
22. I am
23. What is Left to Doubt?
24. Life is But a Dream
25. In here and out there
26. Confusion of knights
27. Awareness, Consciousness, Experience, Mind
28. Interlude: Descartes’ Role
29. Descartes
30. Consciousness, Personhood
31. St. Borges of Canterbury
32. Spirituality of the Left
33. Breakthrough
34. The floating consciousness
35. Useful Heideggerian Concepts
36. At The Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell is a biography of existentialism
37. Martin Heidegger, the Standing Metaphor, and the Politics of 1935
38. Time and Being
39. Heidegger and the Question of Being
40. Existential Reflections: The Shadow Side of Human Existence (2)
41. Second Principle- Freedom in Being
42. Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one.
43. The ‘Man for All Seasons’ and Ontological Exigency
44. Martin Heidegger Quotes
45. Religion, Consumerism, and Absurdism: Modernity and the Quest for Meaning
46. Two reviews of The Early Foucault (Polity, 2021) by Colin Koopman and Jasper Friedrich – and a note on Heidegger
47. [Reflections] Why Does the History of Philosophy Matter to Philosophy?
48. Modern Transcendentalism
49. Ralph Waldo Emerson
50. American Voices: Ralph Waldo Emerson
51. Transcendentalism literary origins in america and influence essay
52. Living in Subversia
53. Ernest Holmes and the Science of Mind Part One: ‘Ye Are Gods’
54. What are the main features of Shelley’s Transcendentalism ?
55. Autumn, Concord, and Transcendentalism
56. Transcendentalism : An American Movement
57. Self-Awareness, Self-Reliance and Non-Comformity

On Dreaming, a search for knowledge of the self #1

Kone, Krusos, Kronos

“God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man”

Ibn Arabi

I wouldn’t even know where to start, this business about dreaming it’s so extensive, let me just say for many years as far back as when I was a child maybe no more than five, or six years of age I was intrigued and interested on dreams, in my natal chart I have a very close conjunction Venus with Mars in Pisces, on the fourth  house, making a trine with Uranus in Cancer on the eight house.

Another thing that fascinated me at the time was snorkeling, and diving on the Ocean, did quite a lot of it until of course other prosaic but normal occupations took me away from it, like trying to make a living by working, now I realize that dreaming and diving were connected, you dive to…

View original post 427 more words

Discovering our narrative, a process we call Life

In the midst of the journey of our life we may find ouself in a dark forest, for the straight path was lost, and still there in that jungle, we may find so many tracks to follow that after so many years we still are not yet sure which path or which direction to take.

Step by step in our lives, we have to explore the world and experience things that may or may not appeal to us, bother us, or seem reprehensible to us. Even if we would like to turn back the clock, we are not allowed to do so and have to keep moving forward.

It looks like we are always in a learning process, but by reading “backwards” in our memory we will be able to gain a fuller understanding of what happened earlier and if we get to know the tricks of the trade, we shall be able to have some idea of what may happen next.

Kone, Krusos, Kronos

ON THINGS WE DISCOVER AS WE AGE

Life receives too many adjectives, but life it’s a verb, that it unfolds as we live, uncertainty a first, in childhood, and at our youth undecided, and shy, as we mature during our third decade we choose this, or that, hoping it will work out to reveal what we think we are, on the beginning of the fourth decade we tune, and correct course if in need of, asserting, and throwing out, what we believe of no use, friends, relationships, jobs, locations, and whatnot.

By the course when we arrive to the last years, we can see with clarity, the result from our work, and we can correct, and straighten certain things out, not all of them, since in life you cannot go back, only try again for new routes, different tactics to our general strategy, now hard to change into something else…

View original post 317 more words

Existence in the non-existent and non-existence in the existence

When wondering about the existence, the why and how, there is the darkness around us in which we look for the light. There we find ourselves in a world that has shifted from the here and now. We, looking at the age that has shifted all emphasis to the here, there, yesterday, today and tomorrow, and thus brought about a demonisation of man and his world.

The many things that bind us to each other and to this world we want to curse, but they keep us under their spell. Who plays the game? Who has the strings of our body and soul?

Who is the player of this puppet cabinet, where we are the puppets of who in what world? It was not that we ourselves presented ourselves to be a glove puppet. And who is that One Who plays with the hand puppets of this world?

In this world, we see many who want to seize power and even manage to make money out of their dictatorial traits.  Then they take pleasure in having flocks of dictators around them, until the people wake up, when it is too late and the phenomenon of dictators has already caused great misery. Then people will have to admit with shame that they have allowed such foolishness to take place and to cause so much damage. Then they will have the nerve to admit that mankind has been robbed of his transcendence by the short-sightedness of the super-intellectuals, but also of the foolish followers who turned a blind eye while the others warned.

Many have fallen a victim to unconsciousness.

But then, at last, they come to see, man’s task is the exact opposite: to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

Neither should he persist in his unconsciousness, nor remain identical with the unconscious elements of his being, thus evading his destiny, which is to create more and more consciousness.

What is the sole purpose of human existence? Is it to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being?

What affects us? What affects him or her who is standing next to us?

For sure

the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious. {Carl Jung}

Learn something new

Dr Austin Ejaife inspirit

“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” ~ Christopher McCandless …

Life is filled with a plethora of wonderful things for us to learn. Yet in spite of this truth, there are even more things that we will never know–and this is a good thing, for so much what others try to impress upon us is really not of much use to us on a personal level, and often times completely useless to us as human beings. It is therefore to our benefit to seek out new adventures that inspire the individual within us, and broaden our horizons with new encounters and experiences.

Contrary to popular belief, broadening…

View original post 390 more words