@Weenis
Because we’re human it’s hard not to have the feelings: perhaps even impossible to not have them.
But if they are the “first responder” we dispatch to the scene as you’ve noted, the response can be a logical and wrong: creating problems that don’t exist augmenting fear, actively working against moving the problem to resolution.
The faster and more you can detach your feelings from the situation, and the more emotionally charged the situation is, the better your probability is in the outcome.
You’re right in saying the response can be logical and wrong, but only in that the logic employed had a fallacy in it. If the logic was sound, then the response is most likely not wrong.
I’d push for you to provide an example in which someone responds, and with sounds logic, is wrong in their response to the situation.
That’s what happens with normal people because we’re…most of us…human. Our whole sensory system is designed to send information to the brain for interpretation, but feelings will occur first just due to the chemical nature of our operating system.
Eventually I try and isolate why I am stressed and try to figure it out, so I know what I have to do to offset, but I will trust my feelings because my personal experiences are the sum total of who I am. My feelings are the foundation of that.
@griz Tell me something. Have you ever been driving and you just know that you have witnessed a bonehead on the road. They haven’t done anything that could be ticketed but there is this sense in your gut to give the guy room because he is going to do something stupid. How often are you proven correct in your gut sense of said bonehead?
@spitfire3dc
Instincts do figure prominently in our lives. And in my driving.
But intellect is what keeps me from slamming on my brakes or swerving and dumping my load on the mommy van full of kids beside me while responding to the jerk in front of me!
I think of it this way. If I’m injured in an accident would I want the first responder to be someone responding with emotionand feeling or responding with logic and intelligence?
That is not saying that they cannot have emotions while they are doing it; just that they are a poor responder if the emotions (Or instincts) have them.
@griz My reference was not after an “event” It was prior. Do you ever get a sense that someone else on the road might be worth keeping an eye out for. It could be any signal or number of signals (aggressive passing on the left, tailgating maybe a little closer than seems safe…) Your emotional response to those observations could influence you to hold back. Emotion, then brain, then action.
@spitfire3dc
I think I failed to delineate sharply enough between a reaction and a response.
And you may be going back even further to the Instinct that prepared us to react.
My thought is that the emotion in the situations you describe is essentially fear. This triggers passive responses like increased alertness or caution; and preparation for a logical active response if necessary.
I’m not downplaying feelings emotions or instincts. I’m simply pointing out that they are more often than not, inferior “First Responders”.
But we are wired in such a way that they are almost always our first reacters!
There was a time in my life that I was training to be an EMT and I worked as Dispatch and occasionally as a driver for American Ambulance. The training said to respond first. Responding and taking action had to be #1. There is time after the worse is over for you to have feelings and cry. BUT THEN, there is another call to run to and you have to pull yourself together and go to the next emergency situation. You learn to pull the emotions inside and work with intent and logic. The saddest pick-up was a child that was beat to death in his crib. I have never before (or since) seen such a sad look on a baby’s face. He looked so forlorn and helpless. I lifted him to put him on the gurney. I was able to hold in my emotions —– although, I had a deep hate for the mother’s boyfriend, who was being arrested for this murder. I kept myself responding to the transfer and did not cry until we delivered the baby’s body. I had to drive and did not have time to be crying while maneuvering through traffic. My heart broke for that baby.
What broke me was an airline crash — flight 182 in San Diego, CA 1978. All of the passengers died and body parts rained down on children playing in the school yard at recess. There was the task of helping the Coroner. There was marking location of body parts, bagging and tagging. I got sick and quit that day. It was more than I could handle emotionally. Since then, I am very aware of airliners in the air.
I am surprised at myself since then because I have an annoying habit of ducking and screaming in an emergency. Each time I catch myself reacting by cringing, I am annoyed by my own reaction. I cannot watch gore and killing in a movie. My mind just won’t follow the action and I duck out while people are shooting and hitting.
However, in 2009, shots rattled the windows in my neighborhood and I responded by going to my door and looking down the street. There was a drive-by shooting. I began to walk swiftly to the scene of the crime, along with my neighbor. The wounded and surviving children and teens were screaming and one boy collapsed in my arms. I took off my t-shirt and pressed it on his gunshot wound. I was fully responsive to the emergency as the 9 year old boy died in my lap. Only then, when he was dead, did I hold him close and allow myself to cry. The Police made me let go of the child. The kids had been using and dealing in drugs and they had angered drug dealers in Compton. The thugs from Compton shot all the kids playing in that garage. All of the other kids were wounded, but lived. One child will be in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. There is a time to respond and there is a time to react with feelings. You cannot do both at one time.
If there were a crash, or fire, I respond with a cringe at the crash, but then, I have the ability to pull myself together and respond to do what is needed to handle the emergency. If Immortal were to cut himself in the garage, I would go to the first aid kit and get compresses and attend the wound. There will be time to cry later on.
@ladybarbara
I’ve had some first responder training as well. And the orchestrated logical procedure is what one uses to over-ride the reaction — to postpone it to a later date.
My observation was that cumulative PTSD happened when one didn’t consciously revisit that unfinished emotional reaction and deal with it. The impression was that you had “mastered and defeated it”, just because you were still riding on a wave of professionalism; or because it hadn’t come knocking at the door.
But it’s still there. Reinforced by other buried emotional traumas. Building. Just waiting to jump out and go “boo”.
And I mentioned Carl Jung’s axiom to @luftballooneyegouge . That what we most need to find (healing from the trauma) will be found behind the absolutely darkest, scariest door in our mind.
And it will be guarded by demons. (which tend to proliferate the longer we leave that door unopened).
Now I’m not a trained therapist, and don’t know if there comes a place where that door should just be left unopened. But I’m also aware of the tendency for it to fly open on it’s own at a moment we are at our weakest and not in our best form to fight our way through whatever is there unto a breakthrough.
I tend to opt for throwing open every dark and scary door in the basement just so I can know there’s nothing hairy living there to jump up and consume me when I’m not paying attention.
@griz I use the memories of the traumas to keep in my mind for some time if the same emergency comes again. Just like learning to ride a bicycle, you learn by it. If I ever become an end of life caretaker again, I will know the steps and how it ends. I learn that the hardships do not last forever. Life comes in chapters. At the end of the chapter, a new chapter opens. But, I keep the crib notes because life lessons will repeat.
@ladybarbara
Rather than the memories of the trauma, I attach it to a good learning or wisdom that came from it.
It takes effort. Not just to open the “forbidden door”, but to attach some positive meaning to it. It takes perseverance because the trauma wants to remain negative.
But the result is worth it. Every trigger turns into a smile. And everything that might try to make me weaker, makes me stronger.
My first responder is usually feeling, but I hope I have learned through the years not to react to a lot of them.
this post reminds me of something I read in 619, concerning adolescents. the latest brain research shows that the adolescent brain isn’t fully developed, and in fact, they have periods of what is called hot and cold cognition. Hot cognition is where their thinking is influenced by their emotions, and this is most likely to happen when they are with peers and in certain other situations. In cold cognition, which they also experience, they have the ability to problem solve better than most adults. It raises the question of how responsible these adolescents really are, and should we modify certain laws to account for the fact that their brains aren’t fully developed. In any case, humans have not yet evolved that they will not react with feeling. With practice, and mindfulness they can learn to respond and not react to their feelings.
@Scarlett
In reading the responses I’m thinking I should have painted a sharper line between a reacter and a responder.
We all tend to react first with emotions, instincts and feelings.
And things our society cherishes like bravery and positive dominance behavior in a chaotic situation happen when the response isn’t governed by the initial reaction.
As a correctional officer, I was a first responder. I relied on my extensive training to carry me through every situation. Feelings had nothing to do with it, and never will. Feelings are emotion based and can get you hurt or worse, in an institutional environment.
@immortal_pirate
Despite training and professionalism, are there emotions/feelings triggered that need to be dealt with — put to bed so to speak, either spontaneously on-the-fly, or after the fact?
I remember 5 specific roadway incidents where training kicked in and one of them I still don’t know how I avoided squishing multiple cars and/or a kindergarten field-trip-on-a-rope waiting to cross the road. (There’s speculation my trailer anti-lock failed at just the right time for my trailer to side-slip in a skid — essentially performing an “impossible feat” for a 75′ rig. The anti-lock spontaneously started working again the next day).
One horrific crash I was the sole spectator of and responder to.
Each left their emotional mark that manifest a time after the original event when I’d been getting ready to pat myself on the back for how professionally I had acted.
The worst of them lingered for months, even though I was aware of the trigger and the process AND the path to healing. It still just had its way with me — and I worked around it as best I could.
@griz Usually after the fact, after filing reports. One becomes emotionally detached from the situation DURING the situation. If you’re asking me if there were ever inmates that died in my custody…yes, in a hospital, under the care of medical personnel, and the inmate’s death was due to circumstances beyond my control. Did I feel bad about it? Yes, all life is precious, even the life of an incarcerated person, regardless of their reason for being incarcerated.
Compassion is also something we were taught to have in our training. You can’t do the job for very long without compassion, compassion tempered with professional standards. Never mistake my compassion for weakness.
@immortal_pirate
Compassion properly exercised is never weakness. (But the problem there is just how few people seem to know its proper exercise. Which doesn’t have to include the present company!).
This separation of emotion and logic is what I was getting at with this post. But just as much it is about us remembering to reunite those things again at the proper time. We cannot remain healthy if one or the other of them is running away with us and the other never catches up.
If we don’t reunite these aspects of the experience, we walk through life with a growing accumulation of half-experiences: living in dreadful subconscious anticipation of the other half catching up to and ambushing us.
COLD HARD Logic is most important aspect of *ANY* situation, i.e. is this provable within the boundaries of science, logic, and common sense. Why? Even if we bring emotions in afterwards, they need to be informed by the realities of the situation so we don’t go “off the rails.” We may be still happy, sad, excited, tired, etc… but at least we know what our base is
@griz the point is that reality is what it is and ONLY our opinions / beliefs of a given situation makes a difference in our experience, hence the need to get the facts right.
@griz there is this thing that will always correct itself in the long run called science. If not immediately, rhen eventually as more knowledge is discovered
@griz such a desire for the perfect shows not only an immaturity, but a fundamental misunderstanding of how the universe works. Such perfection not only doesn’t exist, it can’t. See Moore’s law for the reason why. Those who can’t adapt, change with the times, aren’t able to proccess new concepts, ideas, technologies and the values, mores/ morality with this knowledge gets left behind to stagnate, die.
@Jear77
The wisdom traditions of our species have long recognized there is both a measurable and immeasurable aspect to life.
It’s only in the increasing hubris of recent years (and the bastard of scientism!) that we’ve started to think ourselves advanced to the point where we can measure even the immeasurable. (Or if we cannot, it must therefore be meaningless!)
There’s an un-credited axiom that in order to process new concepts . . . we first have to effectively process the old ones! And pretending they’re not there is not an effective strategy for processing them!
So perhaps a fear of pain and suffering is tied to the greatest kind of pain and suffering we can endure: the realization that we are not nearly so clever as we might like to think ourselves! (Take THAT, scientism!)
@griz that’s the point of science: to learn. The idea of religion is to say we can’t learn because we are broken, dependent, inadequate, and flawed in such a way we need an outside force to fix what’s wrong with us. And i reject rhat concept.
@Jear77
I disagree. Science just seeks to identify physical cause for every physical effect. And the result lies there in cold dead data that will not result in any learning unless WE apply wisdom and effort to learn.
I hope you’re listening to yourself. Just recently you asserted that you “couldn’t care” because you’re broken, dependent, inadequate and flawed. How can you reject, what you so lustily embrace?
(And PLEASE, don’t take what I offer and use it to re-affirm your brokenness or inadequacy. As with the tool of science, one needs to exert effort, apply wisdom, and perhaps even endure some psychological pain to turn Truth into learning. Otherwise we just say “ouch” and run away from that which will rejuvenate, reform and re-create us into a more durable form).
@griz remember what i said before? I am a person of infinite contradictions? I am the ultimate hypocrite? I embrace my hypocrisy to the fullest extent… and THEN some!
@griz actually by giving up my faith, by giving up tbe concepts of good and evil, by not being tied down by the ideas of trying to keep one,set of ideas straight in my head, i am infinitely more stable, more filled with peace than I was before, because I can do what i must and not fear any consequences because i am able to hold opposite views and not give a fuck about what others think
Why do you focus angrily on just one aspect of the religious mythos (the feared consequence) . . . and not the many parts that talk about how the fear is perfectly allayed?
And what can be said of the person who habitually extracts and focuses upon just the parts of life that let them be pissed off?
@griz we had this discussion before. If you have no fear, choose to die. You said no. If you have no fear, you have nothing to lose, everything to gain. You don’t have the perfect love you profess, hence you’re being a hypocrite telling me that I should accept such!
@Jear77
We did. But the logic used was contradictory.
You say that the fear of consequence is what triggered the cognitive disconnect/dysphoria. So what death was this fear trying to protect you from?
Consider also is having fear and being ruled by fear are not the same thing.
If not being controlled by fear equals nothing to lose, shouldn’t it follow that being controlled by fear means having everything to lose? ( not reaching one’s full potential and being angry about it)
Now tie this into the verse that says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. . . ”
And combined it with the first verse I gave you about perfect love casting out all fear. All you are left with is “. . , the knowledge of the Holy One” ( the continuation of Proverbs 9:10)
@griz but still, you are being ruled by fear by not doing the very thing that would allow perfect communion with that which you claim is perfection in love. Seems like more hypocrisy to me.
@griz it’s far easier to say “people are people” and deal with things they do rather than categorizing them (or their actions) as good or evil. No one goes around painting themselves as the villain of the story – unless they’re insane. I haven’t any energy to even decipher people’s actions, or EVEN my own or thought patterns, which is why I simply don’t. We all do as we must to accomplish the ends we set forth, even if others decry our actions as evil, twisted, warped, or sick.
@Jear77
Where in the Bible do you see it as our place to judge this of others?
We assess our thought patterns continually. It’s part of Being Human. The animals don’t but they’re not human. They’ll keep making the same self-destructive mistake over and over and over again unto death.
We don’t have to. Unless we choose to.
And to choose to, is insane.
I will continue this discussion for as long as you would like. But I don’t want it to go south like it did last time.
So if you want we could frame this as an open debate. Either one of us can call “final arguments” at any point.
The other is then given their opportunity for final arguments and that particular debate is over, unless one of us reopens it.
@griz i am not willing to even look for, see patterns. People adapt too much, change with the times, with who they’re with, with who the audience isand these changes are much too much for me.
@griz the problem is that the patterns themselves are smoke and mirrors, changing like a person might change their hair styke or clothes. Very little of what a person does in public is aught but a mask.
@Jear77
Just because something takes effort, does not mean it’s a waste of time and energy.
Many patterns persist and even endure. If they did not, things like mental and behavior therapy, and archetypal stories would be meaningless.
Science would be meaningless; for it counts on persistent patterns that can be predicted.
@griz are people perfectly logical? No. If that were the case, no one could believe in any god, as the input output necessitated by science doesn’t exist. Proof, an ability to test and always get the same answer to a problem is the cornerstone of a logical mindset. The issue of the concept of the divine is that it doesn’t follow the rules, which would make it needlessly capricious and cruel, particularly in the absence of direct, clear, constant communication
The problem of trying to find patternsin people is that they only exist to an observer who will/ is able to view, study the subject for a long time. Most interactions between people happen in 5-30 second bursts.
@Jear77
But neither are we built to be perfect illogical either. If we were, we’d be extinct.
There are proofs that lay outside of the exceedingly narrow and stringent (and changeable) restrictions you are willing to allow.
And this not for the sake of truth, but for the sake of keeping stability. But what possible value is there is a stable falsehood??
The methodology in what you offered is flawed. The “rules” are understandably set by the “higher power”; and almost all of the emotional power-construct of your argument is that we cannot make “higher power” play by the rules of “lower power”. It’s a logistic disconnect. IT is silly to be pissed off at the sun for burning you after staying out for too long without sunscreen. The “higher power” sets the rules and rage as we might, we cannot make it kowtow to us.
You perhaps need some longer interactions in your life. Let’s start with you and I. We’ve been in regular and at times very intimate and even intense interaction for what? Over a decade now?
Just because something is easy doesn’t make it right. And just because something takes some effort doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time.
@griz why include thing unable to be empirically proven for something as far reaching as eternity? And why accept ANYTHING less in a diety, especially one that refuses to communicate with us in the here and now. A book 2000 years old is not a particularly effective way of communicating in a day and age of cell phones, instant messaging and Snapchat. Opening one’s heart to the message of the divine while trying to cross the street to ask for literal direction is a surefire way of getting run over. A diety that can’t / won’t communicate with us in the way we do so in this age is infinitely more harmful than anything physical, sexual, emotional, financial that might be done to us if it expects, demands to be obeyed. The day of obedience sans explanations is centuries past its prime.
@Jear77
1) many things have most certainly “existed” throughout history despite a lack of empirical evidence in the time-frame of the observer.
2) how would one even BEGIN to cast an experiment to “prove eternity”? Where would such evidence lie? And then back to point 1. Our not being able to see/find it cannot in all logic or humility, be seen as absolute proof it doesn’t exist.
And I think you’ve lapsed back into the process of insisting the mountain comes to us to prove it’s existence/reality . . . rather than us going to it. It’s the lazy man’s conundrum.
But there’s a logical (non-scientific) disconnect in it.
BTW, there IS communication (and it works where there’s no cell or wifi signal!). But it lies outside of the exceedingly (and intentionally) restrictive parameters you have convinced yourself that you’re willing to accept.
You will not find ANYTHING beyond you (beyond what you’re currently living in), by refusing to go beyond yourself.
Even Spock logically concluded there came a time to step outside of logic and “wing it”.
@griz eternity is the easiest thing to prove, wrapped up in a single word. Immortality. In this life. No need for this thing called death.
Instant? No. Face to face? Never. Always takes time. In any way provable in a method able to be recorded to check what it says? Still no. Failure all around with anything anyone living in the ewal world would call communication.
@Jear77
Materialistic monism is self-contradictory. It predicts its own demise. So classic “immortality” is a non sequitur in the context of “eternity”.
I think you set the parameters for “proof” intentionally narrow, so that anything that doesn’t come and bow to you in the way you like . . . is fallacy.
There is surface (ego) appeal to such a strategy. But ultimately one becomes trapped in a box of self that is ever-shrinking, ever-isolating from the phenomena of Life.
So that makes it a poor Life-strategy.
@griz my point exactly! You have every moment of every day of your life to immediately join ultimate eternity… yet you do not. You choose to stay here, when the alternative is infinitely better.
@griz here’s a test of the communication you claim to exist: blindfold and insert earplugs and drive your rig, trusting only on communication with god todive safely. Can’t be done, you say without getting killed or killing others? Oh, ye of little faith!
@Jear77
Again, you set the parameters so “you can prevail”.
There is a huge difference between fellowship . . . and just “using”.
Literature and mythology is chock FULL of examples of fabulous things people are “granted”, but which “malfunction” if not used wisely or in “unworthy” fashion. (ie, King Solomon)
Or if one wishes unwisely? (ie. King Midas)
@griz but it would be the ultimate test of your fellowship that you claim to be superior in ALL aspects of communication. So either you have this surpassingly perfect fellowship or you have empty words
@griz sounds like god’s shtick. Knows best yet can’t figure out how to not destroy literally everything to prove his point. “New heaven and new earth” anyone?
@Jear77
Human ideologies, whether deism theism secularism phenomenalism materialism scientism( to name but a very few) are exercises of us trying to understand existence. ( Specifically the unknown)
And most of them are functional tools:l in some regard: provided we don’t go religious on them and become nothing more than ideologues. This is where we Surrender free thought and become addicts. We become a robotic function of the ideology, instead of a free thinker simply using the best tool for the job.
We can easily become toxified by human ideologies that we become addicted to. Even though you assert that you have left human religion behind, you are still a function of it: spun negative. A disgruntled ideologue.
It keeps you from being creative and free thinking.
@griz uh… It’s the fact that i have had to struggle and fight for my whole life that has toxified me, left a bad taste in my mouth to the concept of waste, to the concept of a throw away society. And the bible showcases a diety that does so to the extreme. Recycling/ up-cycling takes what is there, creating something else, oftentimes, something better. 99.999% of EVERYTHING (save a few select souls) will be destroyed (and while hell technically doesn’t destroy souls, it amounts to waste nonetheless). Not cool!
@Jear77
The mindset you’ve approached life with has toxified you. What was it you said earlier about you having to take total responsibility for the situation you’re in? And what did that video you suggested say about blame lists??
Do you think a chickadee in a snowstorm anguishes about the struggle and fight of survival? Or are they just too busy having a blast with what’s been given them confident that they will be provided for in all ways that matter!
I should like to think that we have more going for us than a couple ounces of fluff on the wing. (See Jesus Sermon on the Mount)
You’ve adopted of mindset that only succeeds in making you miserable in the face of life’s current realities.
Pure logic should dictate that it’s time for an attitude adjustment; and not just more of the same blame game.
@griz not so. Y’see basically anything is capable of being reused, made new again. Removing the damaged areas, giving few new things. Even the damage / seemingly unusable is usable – pollution can be trapped to make sturdier roadways. Total waste has a way of biting us in the long run. Things rot and end up in the water table. So how will god’s idea of destruction of heaven and earth be a good idea?
@Jear77
How is regenerative, destructive?? (Unless one chooses to cleave with the destruction and disqualify themselves at all and any cost from the Regeneration???)
The only way to avoid a logic disconnect in what you just offered, is a very very very pricey structure of using half-truths, half-thoughts, and half-quotes from scripture.
So what measuring rod shall we use for these things? Truth or half-truth (aka fallacy)?
@griz the proof is in the pudding. EVERYTHING dies. Regeneration also would not be needed if this life you say existed. Things would simply be alive without end.
@griz not so. Except for a very few things (which don’t align with the typical definition) very little is immortal – and those things are typically plants. This is the way this universe is. No fault found in saying the truth.
@Jear77
Just remember that science cannot tell you what is moral. That’s not it’s perview. It just tells you what stuff is made of; not how to interact with it.
Again. Did you watch the longer 16 min video of the same name you recommended?
@griz the 4:37 one is the one I saw. African American speaker. Probably a different guy.
But science doesn’t NEED to tell what’s moral
If you need have a non zero integer value to do any of the following things, you don’t need to be in society, you need to be not in society
– steal from someone
– murder someone
– rape someone
Beyond that, there are VERY little need for laws, save what an individual wants to put up with.
@Jear77
The 16 minute one is listed right there with it. I listened to “your guy”. It’s only fair that you listen to this other guy.
Because you are possessed of a VERY profound blame-list.
Laws exist for those who struggle with morality and ethics. Perhaps, they are for those who are convinced that science is all they need to tell them how to act?
Which again, is NOT science’s purview. It’s not it’s purpose. And it’s certainly not it’s strength.
It would be good to reciprocate. Especially when there is so much wisdom in it . . . and essentially . . . YOU are the one who pointed it out to me! Don’t just pick out the parts that give you an emotion-rush.
Financial responsibility is not moral responsibility. There are aspects of it. But the former resides within the latter: not the other way around.
@griz often… not always. In this case it’s actually the truth. I barely have time for posting articles… and even at that i have been cheating lately by recycling articles
78 responses to “Who is your “first responder”? Feelings or intellect?”
Intellect.
Feelings based reactions are illogical and often wrong.
@Weenis
Because we’re human it’s hard not to have the feelings: perhaps even impossible to not have them.
But if they are the “first responder” we dispatch to the scene as you’ve noted, the response can be a logical and wrong: creating problems that don’t exist augmenting fear, actively working against moving the problem to resolution.
@griz
The faster and more you can detach your feelings from the situation, and the more emotionally charged the situation is, the better your probability is in the outcome.
You’re right in saying the response can be logical and wrong, but only in that the logic employed had a fallacy in it. If the logic was sound, then the response is most likely not wrong.
I’d push for you to provide an example in which someone responds, and with sounds logic, is wrong in their response to the situation.
@Weenis
Because none of us is a creature of pure logic, any such exercise would soon turn hypocritical.
And even if the assessment was divinely logical, an absence of love and perfect timing would have it registering as an attack.
@griz
You are creating a false dichotomy that doesn’t exist. Logic isn’t at odds with love.
God is divinely logically, perfectly logical, in fact. God does nothing that is illogical, ever. And yet God perfectly encompasses love.
@Weenis
Pointing out a pre-existing perceived dichotomy . . . is NOT the same as creating it!
You sometimes have to use the language people are accustomed to, to invite them to expand their perspectives.
God perfectly epitomizes true Love.
But we are not God. So is there no allowance for, or forgiveness in you, for those who are not yet God?
And is this “love”?
Feelings.
That’s what happens with normal people because we’re…most of us…human. Our whole sensory system is designed to send information to the brain for interpretation, but feelings will occur first just due to the chemical nature of our operating system.
Eventually I try and isolate why I am stressed and try to figure it out, so I know what I have to do to offset, but I will trust my feelings because my personal experiences are the sum total of who I am. My feelings are the foundation of that.
@spitfire3dc
The feelings tell us that something is wrong. (actual or perceived).
Our intellect is where we speculate what might be wrong and formulate possible resolutions. We move from reacter, to responder.
@griz Tell me something. Have you ever been driving and you just know that you have witnessed a bonehead on the road. They haven’t done anything that could be ticketed but there is this sense in your gut to give the guy room because he is going to do something stupid. How often are you proven correct in your gut sense of said bonehead?
@spitfire3dc
Instincts do figure prominently in our lives. And in my driving.
But intellect is what keeps me from slamming on my brakes or swerving and dumping my load on the mommy van full of kids beside me while responding to the jerk in front of me!
I think of it this way. If I’m injured in an accident would I want the first responder to be someone responding with emotionand feeling or responding with logic and intelligence?
That is not saying that they cannot have emotions while they are doing it; just that they are a poor responder if the emotions (Or instincts) have them.
@griz My reference was not after an “event” It was prior. Do you ever get a sense that someone else on the road might be worth keeping an eye out for. It could be any signal or number of signals (aggressive passing on the left, tailgating maybe a little closer than seems safe…) Your emotional response to those observations could influence you to hold back. Emotion, then brain, then action.
@spitfire3dc
I think I failed to delineate sharply enough between a reaction and a response.
And you may be going back even further to the Instinct that prepared us to react.
My thought is that the emotion in the situations you describe is essentially fear. This triggers passive responses like increased alertness or caution; and preparation for a logical active response if necessary.
I’m not downplaying feelings emotions or instincts. I’m simply pointing out that they are more often than not, inferior “First Responders”.
But we are wired in such a way that they are almost always our first reacters!
There was a time in my life that I was training to be an EMT and I worked as Dispatch and occasionally as a driver for American Ambulance. The training said to respond first. Responding and taking action had to be #1. There is time after the worse is over for you to have feelings and cry. BUT THEN, there is another call to run to and you have to pull yourself together and go to the next emergency situation. You learn to pull the emotions inside and work with intent and logic. The saddest pick-up was a child that was beat to death in his crib. I have never before (or since) seen such a sad look on a baby’s face. He looked so forlorn and helpless. I lifted him to put him on the gurney. I was able to hold in my emotions —– although, I had a deep hate for the mother’s boyfriend, who was being arrested for this murder. I kept myself responding to the transfer and did not cry until we delivered the baby’s body. I had to drive and did not have time to be crying while maneuvering through traffic. My heart broke for that baby.
What broke me was an airline crash — flight 182 in San Diego, CA 1978. All of the passengers died and body parts rained down on children playing in the school yard at recess. There was the task of helping the Coroner. There was marking location of body parts, bagging and tagging. I got sick and quit that day. It was more than I could handle emotionally. Since then, I am very aware of airliners in the air.
I am surprised at myself since then because I have an annoying habit of ducking and screaming in an emergency. Each time I catch myself reacting by cringing, I am annoyed by my own reaction. I cannot watch gore and killing in a movie. My mind just won’t follow the action and I duck out while people are shooting and hitting.
However, in 2009, shots rattled the windows in my neighborhood and I responded by going to my door and looking down the street. There was a drive-by shooting. I began to walk swiftly to the scene of the crime, along with my neighbor. The wounded and surviving children and teens were screaming and one boy collapsed in my arms. I took off my t-shirt and pressed it on his gunshot wound. I was fully responsive to the emergency as the 9 year old boy died in my lap. Only then, when he was dead, did I hold him close and allow myself to cry. The Police made me let go of the child. The kids had been using and dealing in drugs and they had angered drug dealers in Compton. The thugs from Compton shot all the kids playing in that garage. All of the other kids were wounded, but lived. One child will be in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. There is a time to respond and there is a time to react with feelings. You cannot do both at one time.
If there were a crash, or fire, I respond with a cringe at the crash, but then, I have the ability to pull myself together and respond to do what is needed to handle the emergency. If Immortal were to cut himself in the garage, I would go to the first aid kit and get compresses and attend the wound. There will be time to cry later on.
@ladybarbara
I’ve had some first responder training as well. And the orchestrated logical procedure is what one uses to over-ride the reaction — to postpone it to a later date.
My observation was that cumulative PTSD happened when one didn’t consciously revisit that unfinished emotional reaction and deal with it. The impression was that you had “mastered and defeated it”, just because you were still riding on a wave of professionalism; or because it hadn’t come knocking at the door.
But it’s still there. Reinforced by other buried emotional traumas. Building. Just waiting to jump out and go “boo”.
And I mentioned Carl Jung’s axiom to @luftballooneyegouge . That what we most need to find (healing from the trauma) will be found behind the absolutely darkest, scariest door in our mind.
And it will be guarded by demons. (which tend to proliferate the longer we leave that door unopened).
Now I’m not a trained therapist, and don’t know if there comes a place where that door should just be left unopened. But I’m also aware of the tendency for it to fly open on it’s own at a moment we are at our weakest and not in our best form to fight our way through whatever is there unto a breakthrough.
I tend to opt for throwing open every dark and scary door in the basement just so I can know there’s nothing hairy living there to jump up and consume me when I’m not paying attention.
@griz I use the memories of the traumas to keep in my mind for some time if the same emergency comes again. Just like learning to ride a bicycle, you learn by it. If I ever become an end of life caretaker again, I will know the steps and how it ends. I learn that the hardships do not last forever. Life comes in chapters. At the end of the chapter, a new chapter opens. But, I keep the crib notes because life lessons will repeat.
@ladybarbara
Rather than the memories of the trauma, I attach it to a good learning or wisdom that came from it.
It takes effort. Not just to open the “forbidden door”, but to attach some positive meaning to it. It takes perseverance because the trauma wants to remain negative.
But the result is worth it. Every trigger turns into a smile. And everything that might try to make me weaker, makes me stronger.
My first responder is usually feeling, but I hope I have learned through the years not to react to a lot of them.
this post reminds me of something I read in 619, concerning adolescents. the latest brain research shows that the adolescent brain isn’t fully developed, and in fact, they have periods of what is called hot and cold cognition. Hot cognition is where their thinking is influenced by their emotions, and this is most likely to happen when they are with peers and in certain other situations. In cold cognition, which they also experience, they have the ability to problem solve better than most adults. It raises the question of how responsible these adolescents really are, and should we modify certain laws to account for the fact that their brains aren’t fully developed. In any case, humans have not yet evolved that they will not react with feeling. With practice, and mindfulness they can learn to respond and not react to their feelings.
@Scarlett
In reading the responses I’m thinking I should have painted a sharper line between a reacter and a responder.
We all tend to react first with emotions, instincts and feelings.
And things our society cherishes like bravery and positive dominance behavior in a chaotic situation happen when the response isn’t governed by the initial reaction.
As a correctional officer, I was a first responder. I relied on my extensive training to carry me through every situation. Feelings had nothing to do with it, and never will. Feelings are emotion based and can get you hurt or worse, in an institutional environment.
@immortal_pirate
Despite training and professionalism, are there emotions/feelings triggered that need to be dealt with — put to bed so to speak, either spontaneously on-the-fly, or after the fact?
I remember 5 specific roadway incidents where training kicked in and one of them I still don’t know how I avoided squishing multiple cars and/or a kindergarten field-trip-on-a-rope waiting to cross the road. (There’s speculation my trailer anti-lock failed at just the right time for my trailer to side-slip in a skid — essentially performing an “impossible feat” for a 75′ rig. The anti-lock spontaneously started working again the next day).
One horrific crash I was the sole spectator of and responder to.
Each left their emotional mark that manifest a time after the original event when I’d been getting ready to pat myself on the back for how professionally I had acted.
The worst of them lingered for months, even though I was aware of the trigger and the process AND the path to healing. It still just had its way with me — and I worked around it as best I could.
@griz Usually after the fact, after filing reports. One becomes emotionally detached from the situation DURING the situation. If you’re asking me if there were ever inmates that died in my custody…yes, in a hospital, under the care of medical personnel, and the inmate’s death was due to circumstances beyond my control. Did I feel bad about it? Yes, all life is precious, even the life of an incarcerated person, regardless of their reason for being incarcerated.
Compassion is also something we were taught to have in our training. You can’t do the job for very long without compassion, compassion tempered with professional standards. Never mistake my compassion for weakness.
@immortal_pirate
Compassion properly exercised is never weakness. (But the problem there is just how few people seem to know its proper exercise. Which doesn’t have to include the present company!).
This separation of emotion and logic is what I was getting at with this post. But just as much it is about us remembering to reunite those things again at the proper time. We cannot remain healthy if one or the other of them is running away with us and the other never catches up.
If we don’t reunite these aspects of the experience, we walk through life with a growing accumulation of half-experiences: living in dreadful subconscious anticipation of the other half catching up to and ambushing us.
COLD HARD Logic is most important aspect of *ANY* situation, i.e. is this provable within the boundaries of science, logic, and common sense. Why? Even if we bring emotions in afterwards, they need to be informed by the realities of the situation so we don’t go “off the rails.” We may be still happy, sad, excited, tired, etc… but at least we know what our base is
@Jear77
My experience has been that emotions are the first reacter, but make a poor first responder.
But that we ignore our emotions at our peril.
So very glad to see you back again. I’ve been wondering how you been doing. Don’t you have a birthday upcoming?
@griz the point is that reality is what it is and ONLY our opinions / beliefs of a given situation makes a difference in our experience, hence the need to get the facts right.
@Jear77
So how do the fatally wrong, get the facts right?
(All of our “facts” point inexorably towards destruction, dissolution, discontinuance . . . fatality)
@griz there is this thing that will always correct itself in the long run called science. If not immediately, rhen eventually as more knowledge is discovered
@Jear77
So how does that help us in the imperfect now; if anything that we try to hold as truth or axiomatic might be ” pending correction”?
What Foundation can we possibly build anything of lasting value on, if it could shift and change tomorrow.
No matter how beautiful a house we may build, all our effort will prove a waste if the foundation be rendered invalid down the road.
Scientism is a dead end. It predicts this itself.
@griz such a desire for the perfect shows not only an immaturity, but a fundamental misunderstanding of how the universe works. Such perfection not only doesn’t exist, it can’t. See Moore’s law for the reason why. Those who can’t adapt, change with the times, aren’t able to proccess new concepts, ideas, technologies and the values, mores/ morality with this knowledge gets left behind to stagnate, die.
@Jear77
The wisdom traditions of our species have long recognized there is both a measurable and immeasurable aspect to life.
It’s only in the increasing hubris of recent years (and the bastard of scientism!) that we’ve started to think ourselves advanced to the point where we can measure even the immeasurable. (Or if we cannot, it must therefore be meaningless!)
There’s an un-credited axiom that in order to process new concepts . . . we first have to effectively process the old ones! And pretending they’re not there is not an effective strategy for processing them!
So perhaps a fear of pain and suffering is tied to the greatest kind of pain and suffering we can endure: the realization that we are not nearly so clever as we might like to think ourselves! (Take THAT, scientism!)
@griz that’s the point of science: to learn. The idea of religion is to say we can’t learn because we are broken, dependent, inadequate, and flawed in such a way we need an outside force to fix what’s wrong with us. And i reject rhat concept.
@Jear77
I disagree. Science just seeks to identify physical cause for every physical effect. And the result lies there in cold dead data that will not result in any learning unless WE apply wisdom and effort to learn.
I hope you’re listening to yourself. Just recently you asserted that you “couldn’t care” because you’re broken, dependent, inadequate and flawed. How can you reject, what you so lustily embrace?
(And PLEASE, don’t take what I offer and use it to re-affirm your brokenness or inadequacy. As with the tool of science, one needs to exert effort, apply wisdom, and perhaps even endure some psychological pain to turn Truth into learning. Otherwise we just say “ouch” and run away from that which will rejuvenate, reform and re-create us into a more durable form).
@griz remember what i said before? I am a person of infinite contradictions? I am the ultimate hypocrite? I embrace my hypocrisy to the fullest extent… and THEN some!
@Jear77
And how’s that worked for you thus far?
What joy and peace has come from fancying yourself the embodiment — the epitome — of hypocrisy and contradiction?
Forgive me, but it does seem to give you more torment than joy and peace.
@griz actually by giving up my faith, by giving up tbe concepts of good and evil, by not being tied down by the ideas of trying to keep one,set of ideas straight in my head, i am infinitely more stable, more filled with peace than I was before, because I can do what i must and not fear any consequences because i am able to hold opposite views and not give a fuck about what others think
@Jear77
” perfect love casts out all fear”
Why do you focus angrily on just one aspect of the religious mythos (the feared consequence) . . . and not the many parts that talk about how the fear is perfectly allayed?
And what can be said of the person who habitually extracts and focuses upon just the parts of life that let them be pissed off?
Are they just addicted to being pissed off?
@griz we had this discussion before. If you have no fear, choose to die. You said no. If you have no fear, you have nothing to lose, everything to gain. You don’t have the perfect love you profess, hence you’re being a hypocrite telling me that I should accept such!
@Jear77
We did. But the logic used was contradictory.
You say that the fear of consequence is what triggered the cognitive disconnect/dysphoria. So what death was this fear trying to protect you from?
Consider also is having fear and being ruled by fear are not the same thing.
If not being controlled by fear equals nothing to lose, shouldn’t it follow that being controlled by fear means having everything to lose? ( not reaching one’s full potential and being angry about it)
Now tie this into the verse that says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. . . ”
And combined it with the first verse I gave you about perfect love casting out all fear. All you are left with is “. . , the knowledge of the Holy One” ( the continuation of Proverbs 9:10)
@griz but still, you are being ruled by fear by not doing the very thing that would allow perfect communion with that which you claim is perfection in love. Seems like more hypocrisy to me.
@Jear77
An interesting tangent.
How so?
(And please don’t neglect the questions I asked above.)
@griz it’s far easier to say “people are people” and deal with things they do rather than categorizing them (or their actions) as good or evil. No one goes around painting themselves as the villain of the story – unless they’re insane. I haven’t any energy to even decipher people’s actions, or EVEN my own or thought patterns, which is why I simply don’t. We all do as we must to accomplish the ends we set forth, even if others decry our actions as evil, twisted, warped, or sick.
@Jear77
Where in the Bible do you see it as our place to judge this of others?
We assess our thought patterns continually. It’s part of Being Human. The animals don’t but they’re not human. They’ll keep making the same self-destructive mistake over and over and over again unto death.
We don’t have to. Unless we choose to.
And to choose to, is insane.
I will continue this discussion for as long as you would like. But I don’t want it to go south like it did last time.
So if you want we could frame this as an open debate. Either one of us can call “final arguments” at any point.
The other is then given their opportunity for final arguments and that particular debate is over, unless one of us reopens it.
@griz i am not willing to even look for, see patterns. People adapt too much, change with the times, with who they’re with, with who the audience isand these changes are much too much for me.
@Jear77
The only way to change a pattern, is first to see it.
What kind of an ideology would forbid change? (Answer: one that wanted you to go extinct)
@griz the problem is that the patterns themselves are smoke and mirrors, changing like a person might change their hair styke or clothes. Very little of what a person does in public is aught but a mask.
@Jear77
Just because something takes effort, does not mean it’s a waste of time and energy.
Many patterns persist and even endure. If they did not, things like mental and behavior therapy, and archetypal stories would be meaningless.
Science would be meaningless; for it counts on persistent patterns that can be predicted.
@griz are people perfectly logical? No. If that were the case, no one could believe in any god, as the input output necessitated by science doesn’t exist. Proof, an ability to test and always get the same answer to a problem is the cornerstone of a logical mindset. The issue of the concept of the divine is that it doesn’t follow the rules, which would make it needlessly capricious and cruel, particularly in the absence of direct, clear, constant communication
The problem of trying to find patternsin people is that they only exist to an observer who will/ is able to view, study the subject for a long time. Most interactions between people happen in 5-30 second bursts.
@Jear77
But neither are we built to be perfect illogical either. If we were, we’d be extinct.
There are proofs that lay outside of the exceedingly narrow and stringent (and changeable) restrictions you are willing to allow.
And this not for the sake of truth, but for the sake of keeping stability. But what possible value is there is a stable falsehood??
The methodology in what you offered is flawed. The “rules” are understandably set by the “higher power”; and almost all of the emotional power-construct of your argument is that we cannot make “higher power” play by the rules of “lower power”. It’s a logistic disconnect. IT is silly to be pissed off at the sun for burning you after staying out for too long without sunscreen. The “higher power” sets the rules and rage as we might, we cannot make it kowtow to us.
You perhaps need some longer interactions in your life. Let’s start with you and I. We’ve been in regular and at times very intimate and even intense interaction for what? Over a decade now?
Just because something is easy doesn’t make it right. And just because something takes some effort doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time.
@griz why include thing unable to be empirically proven for something as far reaching as eternity? And why accept ANYTHING less in a diety, especially one that refuses to communicate with us in the here and now. A book 2000 years old is not a particularly effective way of communicating in a day and age of cell phones, instant messaging and Snapchat. Opening one’s heart to the message of the divine while trying to cross the street to ask for literal direction is a surefire way of getting run over. A diety that can’t / won’t communicate with us in the way we do so in this age is infinitely more harmful than anything physical, sexual, emotional, financial that might be done to us if it expects, demands to be obeyed. The day of obedience sans explanations is centuries past its prime.
@Jear77
1) many things have most certainly “existed” throughout history despite a lack of empirical evidence in the time-frame of the observer.
2) how would one even BEGIN to cast an experiment to “prove eternity”? Where would such evidence lie? And then back to point 1. Our not being able to see/find it cannot in all logic or humility, be seen as absolute proof it doesn’t exist.
And I think you’ve lapsed back into the process of insisting the mountain comes to us to prove it’s existence/reality . . . rather than us going to it. It’s the lazy man’s conundrum.
But there’s a logical (non-scientific) disconnect in it.
BTW, there IS communication (and it works where there’s no cell or wifi signal!). But it lies outside of the exceedingly (and intentionally) restrictive parameters you have convinced yourself that you’re willing to accept.
You will not find ANYTHING beyond you (beyond what you’re currently living in), by refusing to go beyond yourself.
Even Spock logically concluded there came a time to step outside of logic and “wing it”.
Consider that axiomatic.
@griz eternity is the easiest thing to prove, wrapped up in a single word. Immortality. In this life. No need for this thing called death.
Instant? No. Face to face? Never. Always takes time. In any way provable in a method able to be recorded to check what it says? Still no. Failure all around with anything anyone living in the ewal world would call communication.
@Jear77
Materialistic monism is self-contradictory. It predicts its own demise. So classic “immortality” is a non sequitur in the context of “eternity”.
I think you set the parameters for “proof” intentionally narrow, so that anything that doesn’t come and bow to you in the way you like . . . is fallacy.
There is surface (ego) appeal to such a strategy. But ultimately one becomes trapped in a box of self that is ever-shrinking, ever-isolating from the phenomena of Life.
So that makes it a poor Life-strategy.
@griz who said this reality? Heaven could have been the only place.
@Jear77
Actually we have great say in what will be real[ity] to us in this moment. But if we discern unwisely we’ll be dead! All at once or over time.
@griz my point exactly! You have every moment of every day of your life to immediately join ultimate eternity… yet you do not. You choose to stay here, when the alternative is infinitely better.
@Jear77
Go back to that quote of the Apostle Paul that you only half-quoted!
Half a quote . . . only half of the picture
@griz here’s a test of the communication you claim to exist: blindfold and insert earplugs and drive your rig, trusting only on communication with god todive safely. Can’t be done, you say without getting killed or killing others? Oh, ye of little faith!
@Jear77
Again, you set the parameters so “you can prevail”.
There is a huge difference between fellowship . . . and just “using”.
Literature and mythology is chock FULL of examples of fabulous things people are “granted”, but which “malfunction” if not used wisely or in “unworthy” fashion. (ie, King Solomon)
Or if one wishes unwisely? (ie. King Midas)
@griz but it would be the ultimate test of your fellowship that you claim to be superior in ALL aspects of communication. So either you have this surpassingly perfect fellowship or you have empty words
@Jear77
That would be me trying to be God; to say that I know best.
(I don’t want to muscle in on your racket!)
Also, by what standard would you evaluate the nature of fellowship I have with the Spirit? Would it be a standard of failure?
Or of success?
@griz sounds like god’s shtick. Knows best yet can’t figure out how to not destroy literally everything to prove his point. “New heaven and new earth” anyone?
@Jear77
Human ideologies, whether deism theism secularism phenomenalism materialism scientism( to name but a very few) are exercises of us trying to understand existence. ( Specifically the unknown)
And most of them are functional tools:l in some regard: provided we don’t go religious on them and become nothing more than ideologues. This is where we Surrender free thought and become addicts. We become a robotic function of the ideology, instead of a free thinker simply using the best tool for the job.
We can easily become toxified by human ideologies that we become addicted to. Even though you assert that you have left human religion behind, you are still a function of it: spun negative. A disgruntled ideologue.
It keeps you from being creative and free thinking.
@griz uh… It’s the fact that i have had to struggle and fight for my whole life that has toxified me, left a bad taste in my mouth to the concept of waste, to the concept of a throw away society. And the bible showcases a diety that does so to the extreme. Recycling/ up-cycling takes what is there, creating something else, oftentimes, something better. 99.999% of EVERYTHING (save a few select souls) will be destroyed (and while hell technically doesn’t destroy souls, it amounts to waste nonetheless). Not cool!
@Jear77
The mindset you’ve approached life with has toxified you. What was it you said earlier about you having to take total responsibility for the situation you’re in? And what did that video you suggested say about blame lists??
Do you think a chickadee in a snowstorm anguishes about the struggle and fight of survival? Or are they just too busy having a blast with what’s been given them confident that they will be provided for in all ways that matter!
I should like to think that we have more going for us than a couple ounces of fluff on the wing. (See Jesus Sermon on the Mount)
You’ve adopted of mindset that only succeeds in making you miserable in the face of life’s current realities.
Pure logic should dictate that it’s time for an attitude adjustment; and not just more of the same blame game.
@griz not so. Y’see basically anything is capable of being reused, made new again. Removing the damaged areas, giving few new things. Even the damage / seemingly unusable is usable – pollution can be trapped to make sturdier roadways. Total waste has a way of biting us in the long run. Things rot and end up in the water table. So how will god’s idea of destruction of heaven and earth be a good idea?
@Jear77
How is regenerative, destructive?? (Unless one chooses to cleave with the destruction and disqualify themselves at all and any cost from the Regeneration???)
The only way to avoid a logic disconnect in what you just offered, is a very very very pricey structure of using half-truths, half-thoughts, and half-quotes from scripture.
So what measuring rod shall we use for these things? Truth or half-truth (aka fallacy)?
@griz the proof is in the pudding. EVERYTHING dies. Regeneration also would not be needed if this life you say existed. Things would simply be alive without end.
@Jear77
More fault and blame?
Do you even entertain these things that I take time and thought to offer? Or do you go instantly into defense mode of your ideologies?
I would like to think at least part of it stays and resonates.
Did you watch the longer version of that video, past the charismatic Hitler wannabe to the guy who talks about blame-lists?
Hey; you were the one who suggested the video in the first place!
@griz not so. Except for a very few things (which don’t align with the typical definition) very little is immortal – and those things are typically plants. This is the way this universe is. No fault found in saying the truth.
@Jear77
Just remember that science cannot tell you what is moral. That’s not it’s perview. It just tells you what stuff is made of; not how to interact with it.
Again. Did you watch the longer 16 min video of the same name you recommended?
@griz the 4:37 one is the one I saw. African American speaker. Probably a different guy.
But science doesn’t NEED to tell what’s moral
If you need have a non zero integer value to do any of the following things, you don’t need to be in society, you need to be not in society
– steal from someone
– murder someone
– rape someone
Beyond that, there are VERY little need for laws, save what an individual wants to put up with.
@Jear77
The 16 minute one is listed right there with it. I listened to “your guy”. It’s only fair that you listen to this other guy.
Because you are possessed of a VERY profound blame-list.
Laws exist for those who struggle with morality and ethics. Perhaps, they are for those who are convinced that science is all they need to tell them how to act?
Which again, is NOT science’s purview. It’s not it’s purpose. And it’s certainly not it’s strength.
@griz i’m taking on the financial responsibility of 2 people, and a business. My time is super limited. In fact i am leaving in a few for work.
@Jear77
I made time for your video.
It would be good to reciprocate. Especially when there is so much wisdom in it . . . and essentially . . . YOU are the one who pointed it out to me! Don’t just pick out the parts that give you an emotion-rush.
Financial responsibility is not moral responsibility. There are aspects of it. But the former resides within the latter: not the other way around.
@griz that’s the point. I don’t play nice. You should realize that by now.
@Jear77
Not playing nice is often a defense mechanism.
There would be benefit in examining what “monster” is being defended against.
@griz often… not always. In this case it’s actually the truth. I barely have time for posting articles… and even at that i have been cheating lately by recycling articles
@Jear77
Well don’t hesitate to call final argument.
I did it on another post and will on this one too. I find the discussions engaging, and I hope you do too. But dragging them on can diminish this.
I would just share that I hope your responses are part of an open learning process and not just a need to dismiss what I offer.