Winston

I won't click on the "like tab" for your blog-post , what's to like? but just for the record Winston, " I get ".

When I was young, Jesus taught me not to be selfish; and while it's still a good idea, it's not exactly poplar here in the human race. Whether it's corporations, the government, the medical community, (you name it) you finally realize they are not your friends. You will not get help, you gotta walk that lonesome valley by yourself. I trust very few people; the friends I've made are people having their own struggles with life.

Once in a while I see a spark, like the teenage girl who helped me get my wife out of her wheelchair into the car. Good deeds seem to be fading, but I keep going. Probably because there are still a few people who need me.

Today is my cheapo-shopping-trip day, the walk to and from, back to my house ,I suppose, probably takes getting on for an hour, and, for the whole duration, there and back, I couldn't stop thinking about this blog. But that's just me. So many thoughts, feelings, and stirred up emotions, but what to say and how to say it.

All my life I've hated people, life, society, that I didn't belong, fit in, measure up. I didn't have a hope in hell, so what chance did THEY have? Well, I HAD to start somewhere and let me state right now, that I am neither suggesting nor implying anything. This just me. So many times I've been told that I over analyze. That I think to much. EXPECT too much. Yeah maybe but what if? I mean REALLY, what if?

Forums, ANY forum is merely a microcosm, a world within a world, a society within society and probably, albeit on a smaller scale totally representative of, warts and all, the one that encapsulates us all. Are we inadvertently sending out and receiving wrong confused and confusing messages? Misunderstanding? Misreading?
Are we/they, thoughts clouded by our own expectations, and their's, not least of ourselves, letting our own disappointments and imaginings run away with us? YES, there's a lot of bad shit out there, I won't argue with that. Discussions like this always make me think of my kid-brother. For him, the bottom line is and always HAS been, "they're only people, they can't help it." Another way of looking at that is "well? we're only people, we can't help it", and I DO wonder about that.
I'd like to say that I too don't care, that it doesn't matter, any of it. But I do, it does, and I hate myself for that also but there it is.

And now I'm thinking of Plastiweld and what he might have to say about this. No offence intended PW.
I prefer to think/hope that you are BOTH wrong on this one, and that humanity is somewhere in the middle,, we HAVE to be, but also, I must declare, that in my opinion, it doesn't look good.

I shall say no more.

The circle grows smaller :}

My jaded perspective, maybe.

If life is like the high school cafeteria, and the WF is a just one of those tables full of geeks and losers then it is pretty tough if that is your only view of life. This however is not the only table.

I will start by saying that there are some people here I respect and care for, you are of course one of them, but there are a bunch more, far more that I would never associate with in real life.

The table here is full of misfits and losers throwing a pity party for themselves. While I admire the intellect of some, I am dismayed at their mental weakness in most areas in life. I am thankful to those that helped me learn how become a better writer, it is a skill and a craft that is to be respected, as it takes tons of work and does not just happen.

Writers are storytellers, they invite you into their life to share their vision. This is what separates me, and you and a few others. While many here are gifted writers, they have nothing to say. Writers block for many, is a gift to the rest of us. The ability to say nothing well, is still worth well...nothing. There are no shortage of those here who see nothing but the bad in life, see hopelessness as the norm, there view is jaded.

This is not a healthy table in life, you should swing by, say some pleasant hellos maybe sit for a few seconds, and then move on to where you want to sit down and eat. Eat and bullshit with people that share some of the same views, the same optimism. The guys that are excited about what they did, and are going to do, not those who have never done anything, nor ever will.

Spending too much time at the wrong table as already started to jade you. I don't believe for a minute that you don't care. And really do you honestly think I don't care?

PW, if that question at the end of your post is for me, then you have misunderstood. Winston, with his blog, would have us believe, rightly or wrongly, that there is, in his view, no or very little good in this world. You are the exact opposite. I would go along with views expressed in that blog probably more than Winston would but you...

You only see goodness and light. In everything and everyone.

I do accept that with the passing of time I have become the epitome of bitterness and resentment and maybe life isn't quite as bad as I would have it seem. I do wonder about myself.
But at the same time, I cannot buy into your view of things.
So, I am trying consider the possibility that... well yes... of course there are faults in how I see and perceive things but it ain't no rose-garden either.

Respect to you both.

That was for Winston, I know your views.

While I wish better things for you, to be happier, to see things differently I know that probably is not going to happen. The part that is sad is that I see you as more than you see yourself. I see you more of a man, more of a factor of change than you give yourself credit for.

While you have given up hope, I have not given up on you.. Each day we get to decide who we are, each day are actions and our words to others have an effect. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not happened. Today matters, and you matter whether you believe it or not. It is a question that get to answer every day.

hummm, well... in life, thankfully we have choices.... we can be part of the problem, or we can be part of the solution... if you don't want to be part of the solution, then stand down, stand aside, there is a lot of work to do if you want your grandchildren to have a chance at something better... if you want your grandchildren to have a better pov, then the time to do something is now...change starts with each of us....

[ walks away humming "The Sound Of Silence"]

Maj, I have no grandchildren , there will BE, no grandchildren, but I get what you're saying, really I do. We are talking good versus evil here and it's a forgone conclusion. For those who are now in their twenties, thirties even, I am saddened. Look in any keen gardener's garden. One prized flower versus the proliferation of those weeds. It's over, the game is almost up, and my generation, if we're lucky, will escape just in time.

we're all complicated but to take people on words alone seems a bit vague...

I tend to be one of the people feeling sorry for myself, that PW mentions.

But as he also mentions, I've enough self-awareness to know that I don't *want* to be one of the people at the Pity Party Table. I don't want to be insufferable. So, I do stop by the table of pity from time to time, say hello, bitch and complain about something, and then force myself to move on. The regulars at the pity party are not your friends. Likewise, the regulars at the bar.

Like any other echo chamber, you can get stuck in that place and it will warp your perspective. And overtime, as the sun and weather crack and dry your brain and heart, you can find yourself more or less stuck there. Either you have to restore some flexibility to your character, or you have to prevent yourself from ending up that way in the first place.

I see it as my responsibility to not just be a constant source of negativity. There are people who care. I refuse to believe, as PW seems to do, that every little act of kindness has some sort of tremendous, tangible impact. My experience is that it can be a complete waste of time, will fall on deaf ears, or won't be enough to shift the scales. Sometimes you plant a seed and that shit just dies.

However, what's the end result of planting no seeds? Of completely giving up? As taxing as it is, I can't help but believe that it's better to have tried than not try at all. The world and the people in it can make it very difficult to keep it up. They're either blind in ignorance, or they actively work to undo the good work. Yet I can't sit there and idly watch as they fuck up everything.

What I've also found is that if you're expecting a return, or in some manner trying to manipulate good to your own benefit, then your heart isn't in the right place and it's not really "good" at all. This is the lesson of Cain and Able as far as I'm able to understand. Your sacrifices don't mean shit if they're not genuine, if you're just going through the motions, or if there's ulterior motives.

Just because I've given up hope on love for a variety of reasons, both jaded by the moronic state of our society as well as my own shallowness, doesn't mean I've given up on everything. If you don't like what I have to say about love, or about relationships, or about women, then don't fucking talk to me about it. Talk to me about something else.

There are individuals such as Steven Pinker and Jonathan Haidt, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, Plasticweld and Winston, and many others who give me hope. They care.

I've discovered that I still care quite a bit.

Smith your post makes me feel good. Made me smile, and proud to count you as one of my friends. Well thought out, well said.

Winston’s post is the kind of sentiment that I would usually avoid responding to or engaging in any way. Much like responding to a child having a temper tantrum where negative attention is presumed by the child to be better than no attention. But this post is so full of pain, it’s like a cry for help. What really struck me was that at the end of the post Winston says he doesn’t do hope and on the very next line he says he hopes he hasn’t offended anyone. I don’t know if he’s trying to be ironic. If so, it’s pathetic irony. The paradox is so poignant. It drips with self-pity.

As I see it, this kind of world-view is completely ego driven. Everyone in the world is a threat; either exiled, distracted or bored, a chain-saw killer, a cannibal, a bleeding heart, a virtue-signaling, preening self-righteous do-gooder, a deluded idiot, an attention-seeking hypocrite, a self-deluded, holier-than-thou loser in need of validation. The world is sliding into the shitter. And anyone who doesn’t agree is weak. There is no goodness in the world. Only cold logic and evil.

I know a lot of good people. But none of them are without flaws. We all have a dark side. We all carry pain. To live in the world as a human being is to be bound by paradox. By our nature, we wish to fulfill ourselves as individuals and at the same time we have an insatiable need to belong. It’s a paradox that can never be resolved. To live without going crazy we have to accept that the paradox is reality. It’s inescapable. But what IS escapable is the ego. A lot of compassionate people through history: Buddha, Jesus, Marcus Aurelius, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., the Dali-Lama have taught us that to escape the bonds of the ego is the only way to be free. But it’s a constant struggle. The ego is relentless. That’s why I write. It offers me moments of freedom when I briefly escape the chains of my own ego and see glimpses of something much bigger and much more fulfilling than the dark, pathetic little sewer that is me.

^Maybe it's a lack of my own understanding, but the way the new-agey "lose the ego" stuff comes across to me is a cowardly way to escape negative feelings by foregoing any effort of striving for ideals. I've found it to be a pretty cynical and meaningless outlook on life if you take it to its full conclusion.

There is a beauty in the bittersweet duality of life. If you dare to desire the highs of life, necessarily you must accept that it will come with its lows. Opting out of that is kind of lame. Studying both stoicism *and* hedonism has been of great benefit to me.

In itself, this new-agey stuff conceptualizes the ego as being an exception to the paradoxical nature of existence. Everything else is this nihilistic shade of grey, oh! Except the ego! That's just completely bad! I found Alan Watts to be the most honest man about it.

I mean yeah, you're right, you ought to check your ego from time to time. Tempering the ego seems to avoid self-righteousness. You tend to see the world in less of a black and white way. Getting the ego under control seems to lead to being less selfish, and more forgiving and more understanding.

But personally, I don't really want to escape the ego. Just don't take it so damn seriously. And no amount of "your ego is saying 'I don't really want to escape the ego'" gaslighting is going to change that.

Otherwise one might as well be saying "I don't like losing, so I'm not going to play", conveniently forgetting that you have to play if you want to win. And that's antithetical to the belief that it's better to try and fail, than to never try at all.

In the 1960s, when I was a boy chronologically and intellectually/creatively, I read Colin Wilson's THE OUTSIDER. Amazing book . . .well, it was amazing to the young me. One line from the book has stuck to my memory like shit to a blanket: "The Outsider sees too deeply and too much, and what he sees is essentially chaos." Resolving our need to be unique and our need to be contributing members of the Tribe, is the greatest tension most people will ever face. Most do not even know they're facing it. Or if they do, their single response is to strengthen the walls, dig the moat deeper, and stock the ramparts with extra tubs of boiling oil. Protect what you (think) you have, for that acquisitive muthahfucker next door wants it all and is just biding his time . . . .

Good writers get free of this insoluble dilemma, however briefly, through the act of writing. A poet or fiction writer must embrace an impossible transmogrification--they must create, enter into, and BECOME the world they create and the people they put in it. No one understands how that process works. It doesn't matter. What matters is that the writer is prepared to abandon self, to expose their vulnerability and in do doing, try to penetrate the ooze of superficial shit that coats "the essence" of every separate experience. Writers try to get a glimpse of that 'essence'. . .and pass it on to their readers. William Blake said it was "to see the world in a grain of sand."

Winston's post struck me as a statement of defeat. And of judgment. It accepts the chaos Colin Wilson speaks of, rather than rejecting and combatting it. It evaluates what it declares to be whiney, self-serving, "self-righteous do-gooders" that (apparently) comprise 99% of WF members, then professes the indifference mirrored in the blog title, I DON'T CARE. Sorry Winston, "methinks thou doth protest too much": setting up the blog itself, and with such passion, indicates that you care a great deal.

WF comprises a gaggle of writers. Some are annoying, abrasive, egocentric, others are naïve, gullible, gushy, still others are brilliant, gifted, wise. A slice of The Global Tribe, eh? You're a member, Winston, and you do yourself and your ability a disservice, and deny the whole forum the benefit of your contributions, by opting out of the quest for the Essence and cynically declaring that the Chaos is too much for you.

How about focusing on EMPATHY for those writers who, in your opinion, do not understand any of this, do not understand that they're fumbling around, tripping over their own egos and going nowhere? You say "

I Do Good because it is logical. There is no "love" left in my heart. "

You're so full of shit your eyes are brown. You care a great deal. Your post extends a lot of empathy towards yourself and your POV. You say "I do Good because it is logical." DO-ing anything is an extension beyond Self towards a set of circumstances, towards another human being, towards a set of ideals. You can't just throw The Good into the equation and expect it to dangle there on its own. The Good without Love (which you reject) is illogical

As is your post.

The above is a lengthier way of saying "psychological projection".

And I don't disagree with that assessment.

But to be honest, I'm not all that worried. Everybody needs a good rant every once in a while. It spawns from a certain grain of truth. Give it a good night's sleep, a nice shower, a couple days; Winston is smart enough to dial it back and figure out where he may have been letting his frustration go too far.

Sometimes it's good to clear the mind and take a step away from all this stupid bullshit they force-feed us 24/7 on the television and internet.

I agree with Smith. For that matter, I agree with the passion and commitment of Winston’s original—Keats said in his Letters that he abhored the results of two men fighting, but he loved the dedication and fire that fueled it to begiin

This is turning into a luv in....

Oh e-man... Can we get married? Lol
is the world getting worse? Mmm. I don't know. I think nature has gotten worse, like we're using it up, but people on the other hand, are just the same. There's always been people just like there are now- selfish manipulators, and mob mentality killers for a cause. And there's always been a few that said how about we don't eat this one? Because, just because.

taker us for a drink first...jeez

The internet does often show us the downside of humanity, and some of it is very disturbing; however, if we let ourselves be ruled by paranoia a lot worse things can happen. "We shall overcome someday," sings an old spiritual. We could do worse.