Post No. 3,453 - Thoughts of an alleged deep thinker

Recently a friend described me as “a deep thinker”, which has never happened to me before - that I can recall. 

It is possible that others may have thought that, but wrongly decided I “knew” it - a particularly pernicious problem that afflicts many combative professions, in my opinion, and which denied me the encouragement and boost to my confidence that the actual comment did (a lot of people have slagged off at me over the years for a range of issues, which is one of the reasons I took early retirement from engineering [where the criticism included “not being a team player” - when I acted in accordance with my ethics], and is also one of the reasons I have not bothered doing things like trying to write about my specialty in engineering, or about sailing, and so on). 

One of the reasons I have considered stopping blogging or posting on Substack is the lack of feedback - I keep going out of a stubborn sense of principle, and a hope that someone in the future may find something I have done worthwhile. 

So ... if there is someone you admire for something, make sure to tell them. Assuming they “know” could be wrong - and is likely to be wrong for many women, people of colour, autists, introverts/HSPs, victims of trauma, etc. 

 

There was another comment by my friend which intrigued me and got me thinking further, which was that the deep thinkers he knew usually find a comfortable life on “the fringe” - which I interpreted as a lifestyle with low physical engagement with society (although possibly spiritual engagement, given the example of Alan Watts * that he cited).  

So ... I wonder ... does that mean they lived alternative lifestyles, or somewhat conventional lives but with minimal engagement with society (or the combative economic parts of society), or were buried in academia somewhere? 

How do I find a comfortable way to live? 

If I had no dependents I know what I would do, how I would live (writing, reading, and maybe doing a little woodwork or sailing ... and doing some artwork), but that is five years away. 

It would seem I have to find a way to make an adequate income and, despite that, survive for another five years, and hope the damage done is recoverable ...  

If I had received such a comment a few decades ago, I would have actively changed my lifestyle then - which is another reason to remember to tell the people you admire that you do. 

I would have finished all my books years ago, and people could have used them during the current series of disasters ...   

Ah well. 

Maybe I can write a book about being an unappreciated deep thinker 😂 

But no ... I will continue as I am, and hope to survive.  

 

 * For more information on Alan  Wats, see   https://alanwatts.org/ ,  https://alanwatts.com/ ,   “Merging East and West: Who Was Alan Watts?”   https://www.thecollector.com/who-was-alan-watts-merging-eastern-western-thought/   “The legendary philosopher Alan Watts is best known for merging Eastern and Western thought, and for bringing Zen Buddhism to Western audiences” ,   “Alan Watts: The Philosopher Who Brought Eastern Wisdom to the West”   https://knowledgeisgrowth.com/alan-watts-the-philosopher-who-brought-eastern-wisdom-to-the-west/ ,   YouTube ,  Encyclopaedia Britannica ,  Wikipedia  

 

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider: 

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

 

Gnwmythr 

teaching the "good" (balanced positive and spiritually mature) 
safe ways to counter the "bad" (out of balance, spiritually immature) 

 

If you appreciated this post, please share it. I am now on SubStack, Patreon, 
and you can support me at PayPal (or PayPal Repeating Support Options) or Ko-Fi 
Any and all support will be greatly appreciated, and will aid me in continuing this work 

 

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and  

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here, and Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear  

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2026     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/  

 

Post No. 3,353 - Society’s better angels in response to tragedy

As I start writing this, it is 3 am here. I went to sleep mid-evening, and woke up around an hour ago - not too unusual, but today was probably partly in response to having to do a lot of driving today for a routine appointment with my GP (who is excellent enough to worth driving more than an hour each way). 

As happens many days, I have been plagued - while awake - by the nightmares caused by the trauma of my former day job, but I have two boosts to help counter that today (apart from the techniques I have been taught): 

• a newsletter from a Rainbow Mob organisation; 

and 

• when I went outside to look at the stars (who were all holding a dress up party where they dressed up as clouds - quite convincingly, I must say), one of the neighbourhood cats (who we call NP - short for Not Pebbles after I mistook him for a missing cat named Pebbles) came over to say hello, and was quite insistent on having a long pat (until my back gave up from standing and leaning over [and my back was worse tonight because of the hours in a car seat] - I need to get a small folding chair so I can sit and maybe get NP to sit in my lap rather than bend over [he doesn't object to being held, but he squirms in pleasure and winds up back on the ground).  

There is another source of appreciation as well - one coming out of tragedy ... and that is the response by so many to theoterribleoantisemiticot_rr_r_stoattackoinoBondioonoSunday - responses which stay focused on the fact that the Jewish community was targetted, responses which are nuanced, responses which seem to me to be quite genuine in their remorse. 

As I near the end of the seventh decade of a life which has seen several such mass atrocity shootings here in Australia (back to the 1980s), I have to say this is by far the best response of the Australian community to tragedy that I have seen - which does not lessen the pain, or the need to take actions which address violence, hate, and antisemitism, but, in the last day and a bit, I have seen signs of emotional maturity in many Australians that gives me more hope for the future than I have felt since the unduly optimistic and naïve 1970s. 

 

PS - the good response did NOT happen everywhere in the Australian community - and not elsewhere 

PPS - see also this YouTube video, on hopeo-odespiteotheoneedoforoworko-oinotheoUSA  

PPPS - based on the transcript of an interview today, the PM clearly does not understand that there is a serious problem with at least one part (the definition, which falsely conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism) of the recommendations he received a few months ago for dealing with antisemitism. On the other hand, other parts should have probably been dealt with more quickly ... But the response the PM made was concerningly along populist lines. 

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider: 

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If you appreciated this post, please share it. I am now on SubStack, Patreon, 
and you can support me at PayPal (or PayPal Repeating Support Options) or Ko-Fi 
Any and all support will be greatly appreciated, and will aid me in continuing this work 

 

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and  

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here, and Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear  

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2025     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/