Wednesday 9 April 2014

Post No. 541 - Letting rip (and reading)

After another stressful day at work (for example, I've found there are engineers in the water industry who do not know what epidemiology entails ... ), and a nightmare drive home because of the rain (50% longer + more stress; I know there were accidents this morning, but hope tonight's delays were just people being more cautious ... although I saw idiots tailgating etc, so there probably were accidents), I've decided to "let rip" with a few things I've been feeling annoyed or frustrated about. So ... warning! warning! warning! Rant ahead!

I'll begin with ...

The Blindness of Mundanity 

The lead character (i.e., the 'protagonist') of Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Heartlight", Colin MacLaren, says a few times words to the effect that "people have the right not to be bothered by the Great Unseen".

Bull.

I disagree.

No.

Not only should people expect to be bothered by "the Great Unseen", it is a key part of growing up as a human being. It's a little like leaving home and standing on your own two feet: if you never do that, you can never claim to be an adult. If you have never had a significant encounter with anything psychic / metaphysical / spiritual, then you can never claim to be spiritually mature.

The problem is that so many people put so much energy into denying or avoiding anything which could be vaguely 'weird' in the sense that I'm writing about. They'll party, get drunk or addicted to drugs (legal or otherwise) or something else, set up something which would otherwise be truly spiritually noble such as family as a front for avoidance ("I can't do that - I've got to look after 'X' " - which is rubbish if 'X' is not a valid dependent, such as a young child, ill family member or elderly relative) and thereby make such cheap and nasty and completely unspiritual (remember that saying about the means shapes the end? This is another example).

I've written about an example of this in relation to the February 2009 bushfires here in Victoria. I was with a few other people, and I was the only one that day who made any attempt to do something magickal about the fires. There was a valid family event happening that day, but ... perspective is needed, - people at all times. (If you ever want to try doing something magickal about bushfires, see here, or here.)

I really, genuinely find that sort of behaviour hard to fathom: are people really so blind or insensitive that, just because they cannot see someone's suffering, or they do not personally know the person, they cannot feel others' pain? I guess not. Unfortunately, I often do - the pain of people on a planet wide basis is sort of like a nagging backache (and I have plenty of those to compare this with! :) ) ... as opposed to the direct auric pressure and nausea and migraine effects of living inside four million leaky auras ... Hmm ... maybe some of the avoidance is to avoid pain, or fear that one could not cope? (This is another example of why grounding and shielding and looking after oneself are so important.) Well, tough. You're meant to grow up enough to deal with that, just as you're meant to grow up and deal with your own finances and doing your own housework, too :)

Going back to the sort of avoidance I was writing about, even housework can be used as an excuse to avoid dealing with spiritual matters, believe it or not :)

My main concern, however, is people putting trivial matters ahead of spiritual growth - excessive parties (I actually once had a Wiccan teacher try to tell me that I could explain Wicca as a series of parties around Esbats and Sabbats! Goddess! .. Needless to say, that person is no longer my teacher) are easy to pick as an example (and have been used probably too much as an example), but there are others.

I sometimes feel that people are seeking constant entertainment / stimulation out of fear of boredom - maybe they need something to distract them from the thought of dying?

Spirituality is about a range of matters, including why we are here, and why we die. Maybe ... just maybe ... we should stop avoiding such issues by focusing on the mundane, and let ourselves see.

On being ‘up oneself’

Ah, that’s a good bit of Aussie vernacular there, being up oneself – as in (to use an older style of lingo*): “ah, yer up yerself, cobber!”

Basically, it means one is being arrogant. 

I’ve been thinking about that phrase as I think about the attitudes of some in the engineering profession, people who think engineers deserve special status. Some even use “Ing.” in front of their names.

I disagree.

There are quite a few skills experienced engineers have, and good engineers are capable of thinking things through clearly, but a lot of it is just doing calculations accurately - and you don’t have to be an engineer in order to do that.

Furthermore, there are people with either limited or no formal qualifications who can do much of what an engineer can do. The best engineer I ever worked with had no more than a diploma, in terms of formal education, and yet he taught me a great deal.

So ... don't be patronising, presumptuous or arrogant about others' abilities until you know.

Oh, and engineers truly do deserve their pay, in my experience (which is mostly in civil engineering, an environment where many tradies earn more than engineers), and pressure to cut costs and save time really do create unacceptable pressure at times.

Putting people down (e.g. ratepayers assuming ill will on the part of people they don't know) is also a case of being up oneself just as much as being too willing to sing your own praise.

* lingo is - in Australia, at least - slang for language 

OK, so now, let's have some ...

Reading 

 G'day, hello, howdy, hi, zdravstvujtye (some of my work colleagues are Russian, including an absolutely invaluable administrator who has recently taken maternity leave - may she and young one and family be blest), guten tag (where I have connection owing to a recent past life), sveiki, czesc (I have friends, not just colleagues, at work who are Polish), bonjour (colleagues at a former workplace were French, and we practised and tried to extend my woeful and limited range of this language), selamat pagi (one of the best junior engineers I ever worked with was Malaysian, and she taught me a few words), annyeonghaseyo, pryvit, bitaem, como vai (a friend of mine a few years ago, although not Brazilian, had Portuguese ancestry), ¡Hola (a former work colleague and friend, a VERY talented artist - with a Mexican sensibility to her artwork, particularly around the Day of the Dead - used to teach me Mexican Spanish), Selamat pagi, ni hao (ah, my work trips to Asia, and the many wonderful, wonderful people I have met there - and some excellent work colleagues and friends here, as well), bongiorno (my current home city of Melbourne has lots of Greeks and Italians, who have made our culture far richer - and made us coffee snobs :) ), hoschakal, hejsan, ciao, no japolt kivanu, chào bà, chào ông, yiassou (from the city which has, I understand, the largest collection of Greek people outside of Greece), ceau, salam wa aleikum, sawas dee ka, dia duit, hoi, hei, namaste, marhaba. 


On other matters ...  
Oh, the post numbering is because I have finally caught up enough with my blogiography to do that - I'm still catching up with details for the blogiography post, but I'l get there ... eventually :)

Also, I've changed browser, and am still working out how to use the new one ... apologies if the mistakes and problems while I do so are disturbing!

PS - this is also an excellent post relating to some of the links here, and this post of mine.

[1] BPLF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this. 

 Love, light, hugs and blessings 

Gnwmythr  
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux? Morinehtar? Would-be drýicgan ... ) 

My "blogiography" (list of all posts - currently not up to date) is here.  

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here andhere), and it grew ...  See here for my group mind project, here andhere for my "pagans for peace" project (and join me at 9 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour - and see also here, and be flexible.

I am a Walker upon the Path of Balanced Positivity, seeking Spiritual Maturity.  
  • One size does NOT fit all. 
  • Don't be mediocre - seek to excel.  
  • Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if  the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
  • Our entire life experience, with all the many wondrous and varied people, places and events in it, is too small a sample for statistical reliability about Life.
  • May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
  • Ban the dream interpretation industry! 
  • A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
  • Housework is for ensuring a home is comfortable to live in, not competing to outdo or belittle others.
  • Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal. 
  • Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master. 
  • Expertise at intimacy and emotional happiness is generally not the same thing as spiritual growth.
  • "Following the crowd" is not "going with the flow".
  • Armageddon is alive and well and happening right now: it is a battle between the indolence of "I only ..." and/or "I just ..." and/or "Everyone knows ... " and/or "they can ..." and what Bruce Schneier [2] calls "security theatre" on one side, and perspicacity and the understanding that the means shape the end on the other. Indolence vs. perspicacity, and expediency vs. honour.
  • The means shape the end.  
  • BPLF restraint of uncooperatives is NOT an opportunity for revenge or getting even - even unconsciously. 
  • As words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
  • My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films. 
  • All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ... 
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger [people]. JOHN F. KENNEDY (who was quoting 19th century Episcopal Bishop Phillips Brooks)
Jesus loves you.  Odin wants you to grow up. (Facebook meme, according to John Beckett)
We make our decisions. And then our decisions turn around and make us. F.W. BOREHAM
Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious. JANE ELLIOTT  

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing. (based on writing by) EDMUND BURKE

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." EINSTEIN

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Those whom we cannot stand are usually those who we cannot understand P.K.SHAW

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, and the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change." SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY (US Attorney General 1966 Speech) 
Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that -- counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. ... Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile." ROBERT F. KENNEDY 1968
Tags: abuse, attitudes, avoidance, discrimination, family, materialism, paganism, society, spirituality, violence, Wicca, 

First published: Wodansdagr, 9th April, 2014

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Sunday, 14th April, 2014 (added postscript) 

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