[MD] Step One

[John Carl]

Greetings Dan and all,

I glance ahead in my queue, and observe activity in this thread.  What is
all the hullaballoo?

Dan:
> Clowning around is being polite? So please and thank you are forms of
> clowning around. I don't see it that way but if you say so...
>
>
Dang, if I was a professional logician I could label what you just did
correctly and we could all go on with this while the day is young.  But
because clowning is a form of politeness does not mean that politeness is a
form of clowning.

Clowning goes deep.  Higher mammals do it too.  Dolphins definitely clown,
as do dogs, apes and horses.  Probably all social groups, and even the lone
predators when they are young.  But the kind of clowning that is polite is
the social kind, of course.

We don't really want to get in this do we?  I'm sure you understand what I'm
saying without further extrapolation.


> >
> > But the issue of "reverence", bugs me for some reason.  It just doesn't
> make
> > sense to me at all, dan.  And it sorta makes me worry about you, a bit.
>
> Dan:
> Of course it doesn't make sense. That is what I have been saying all
> along.



Ok, well I think here what we're talking about, is that my lack of reverence
doesn't make sense to you, and your accusation of me having it, doesn't make
sense to me.  "Making sense" involves explanation and question - dialogue.
 After my latest explanation, does the holiness of goofiness make any sense
yet?  Because I can keep going on the subject.  It is a favorite of mine.



> Why would you worry about me? You don't know me. Am I being
> irrational somehow?


Well, when you say I'm being irreverent and insulting, it doesn't make sense
to me.  As we've gone over already.  ipso facto, "irrational".

But really dan, the charge "you don't know me" is kinda pathetic.  You don't
know you either.  Obviously. nobody knows anybody for self is an illusion.
 All we know is what is presented to us.  I know what you have presented to
me as "dan glover".  Are you implying that there is something behind this
presentation?  How far back does it go?

Actually, I always thought these kinds of issues were long conquered in the
MoQ.  The emptiness of the concept of self and all that.


Dan:

> As far as I can see, what I am saying is entirely
> consistent with what many others have said, including the quotes I
> offered from The Guidebook to ZMM.
>
>
The guidebook  to ZMM says I'm being irreverent and insulting?  Doubtful.
 And that really was the issue at hand.

Which I did admit to, as a matter of style.  And do not own a bit of, as a
matter of heart or intent.  And thanks for giving me the opportunity to make
it clear.

Or at least as clear as I can.  I don't think I have much more light to shed
on the subject.  Why not go on to another?



> >
> >> Dan:
> >> How about an intelligent conversation?
> >>
>

Sounds good.



> Dan:
>  And many of your posts seem to denigrate
> what he has to say without understanding what it is he is saying. Now,
> you may holler that you understand and that you are not being
> insulting, but if someone were talking about me like that, I would
> consider it insulting and have nothing to do with them. Maybe you
> think it's funny and entertaining. Fine. But I am neither amused nor
> entertained by such antics.
>
>

Fair enough.  Sometimes things hit you at certain times, and they don't fit
the occasion or whatever.  I'm no expert neither, dan.  I'm just a guy
trying.  Trying what?  To be entertaining, and profound.  Holy and a goof.
 It's the role as I see as been handed to me.  Now there are two different
criticisms of this role - one, it's not a good role.  We don't need that
kind of character in this kind of play.  The other criticism is that it's
not being played correctly.  The timing is off, the jokes fall flat, get off
the stage and let somebody else have the spotlight.

Which one is it that you mean with me?  Because if it's the first, then I
gotta say, who made you the director of this play?  I thought Horse was the
director.  Take up that with him, I'm just doin' my job.  An important job,
in my view.  gav's old job, he bequeathed to me and I know I ain't living up
to his efforts, but I'm trying.

If it's the second, well I'm certainly willing to change character, but
somebody else has to volunteer to come forward for lord knows this place is
just cryin' for some comic relief from the sheer intellectual weight of all
these fine minds filling the air with their epiphanies.

But like I say, not really my job to make those decisions.  Horse's dept.

>
>
> Dan:
> Again, there are different ways of caring that have nothing to do with
> caring more. That isn't in question. Re-read the quote from ZMM about
> climbing the mountain. Nowhere does he say that the pilgrims who
> climbed the mountain cared more than Phaedrus. You are missing
> something, John, and perhaps that is what's bothering you.
>
>
Nah, I got so many things bothering me, I doubt it's got room in my head to
do that.

Criticism bothers me because it's hard to question one's existing patterns
and impossible to give over the ordering of those patterns to the critic's
mind without questioning.  But painful as it is, I welcome it.  I attack it,
but I need it.  Funny things, people.



> >  I don't think it's possible to "care intellectually", dan.  We care,
> then
> > intellectualize.  So I can't see how you can be so sure of anything in
> me,
> > that i don't even think is possible.
>
> Dan:
> So you never think about caring? Is that what you're saying? If not,
> then what exactly are you saying? How do you care about anything if
> you don't think about it? And I am not sure about you... I can only go
> by the words you share.


Well I'd hoped the dictionary defitinition of the word intellect solved this
for you dan.  Intellect is a term which excludes feelings.  Caring comes
first, then the intellectualization.  Caring isn't something that we can do,
intellectually.  Caring is purely driven by something higher, in my book.

And Bob's.

tweak.


>
> Dan:
> Faith is the belief in that which isn't real. There is no reason to
> have faith in something that is real, is there?
>
>
Oh brother, you really are very wrong there.  Faith and belief are utterly
opposed concepts.  Completely opposite.  Belief has to do with truth-values
that are utterly understood as Reality.  Beliefs are of Reality.

Faith is an intellectually contrived conclusion that includes hope and is
rooted in what one thinks is true.  Faith is of Truth.  Truth and Reality
are two different realms of human reason.

And finally, in the full meaning of the word, Truth is truth by virtue of
our faith in truth.  That is, Faith creates Truth.

 Even only as an object of  thought, a thing is real.  In my book, and
RMP's. So your statement is utterly ridiculous.



> > Phaedrus succeeded in the true pilgrimage, which isn't about finding the
> top
> > of a mountain, it's about finding yourself.
> >
> > That's what its all about.
>
> Dan:
> It is the analogy I am pointing to, not the actual climbing. But
> perhaps we will get there.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Dan
>
> See?  That statement took a lot of faith, Dan.  Is "there" real?  Only such
faith can make it so.

Your fellow climber,

John