QuakerInfo.com Forum

[merry mitchell quaker]

I'm curious for opinions. . . I suppose there is this industrial affect upon the ability to "feel" at some level, however, I've also seen the opposite (or perhaps a parallel) configuration.

For example, I have a neighbor who suffered some intense emotional pain over a period of several years. He rightly identifies and states openly that "he stopped 'living' years ago." In other words, his entire emotional range has been indefinitely put on hold, so to speak, so as to avoid feeling these intense grieving experiences.

Now, one thing I have noticed. As we spend time together, he does occassionally let down that barrier and experience grief. . . almost immediately he will go to his TV, turn the volume exceedingly high, and channel surf hypnotically; occasionally while simultaneaously making calls on his cell phone . . . I believe it is a way of "shutting down" those feared emotions. (It could be that I'm just boring to talk to )

Is there not, perhaps, a two way street in this matter? Yes, perhaps industrial gadgets interrupt emotional abilities. . . but, mankind also seeks "oblivion" from those same emotions (there's Buddhist teaching on this, I think). . .and, of course, technology is a more common "drug" than possibly any other.

I personally like chocolate ice cream as far as "addictions" go. It gives me reason to feel that grief can be balanced with something truly wonderful. Perhaps teaching society to accept emotion and balance it against the abundance around us would reduce the desire for oppressive technology, and maybe even, reduce the destruction (or at least provide a better balance) of/in our natural world.
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who i am is irrelevant; if i happen upon the truth and share, it should stand separate from my human successes and flaws. Light is no man's monoply. Light is entirely other.

[orPowers]

"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?" It is an interesting choice quite often, and I have more or less consciously made the decision both ways. After having "lost" I dug a hole and pulled it in after me, but found after some years that it was not really living (I must confess that it was the fact that someone I knew needed love that was the decisive factor). "Making friends" with feelings that are painful is not an easy choice, and we have had ways to keep from doing so as long as we have recorded history, so I tend to think that the "gadgetry" and so forth is more a choice of hiding place than it is a cause of cutting off feelings.
The point is well made that consumer culture is destroying the environment, and that it offers distraction from "real" life on an unparallelled level, but is it a cause of that detachment and mental decay? As Kevin indicated, we have to "be the change that we desire to see."

In His Love,
orPowers
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Romans 8:38-39

my blog: http://mild-side.blogspot.com/

[MettaMaid]

Sushil has appeared in every single forum I have ever visited, and posts the same thing again, and again, and again, and again....zzzzzzz

If this is the only forum you, my good Quaker friends frequent, you won't understand the significance of this, but it is wearisome to periodically read the same blah-blah everywhere one goes....

What I'd like to know is what exactly he - or she - is doing themselves to redress the balance....

Always with the long posts, always with the doomesday predictions....

Ah well.... and on......and on.....and on......
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"Believe those who seek the Truth. Doubt those who find it."
"Hatred never ceases through hatred, but hatred ceases by love alone. This is the essence of the ancient and eternal law."

[Ailsa]

Thanks for that information dear Friend.

I had rather wondered as the post was almost identical to the one in September.

I suppose there are people in this world who have nothing better to do but fortunately I am not one of them.

And there is a little point in there - although one cannot un-invent the wheel, one can eschew the unnecessary trivia and consumerism of modern life. We try to do so as much as possible, making the consumables our servants, not our masters.

And without our computers, we friends would not be exchanging views on here, would we?
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Still walking cheerfully ......

http://bipolarbear-buckshot.blogspot.com/

[kevin roberts]

[sushil_yadav]

[MettaMaid]

The problem is, all these things I see and do habitually don't sound like a stuck record. I see the same people every day, I visit many forums. The difference is that they add variety.
You don't.

You're posting the same thing year on year.

And you haven't answered my question.
If you are so concerned about all of this - what are you personally doing to reverse the problem, other than saying the same thing, over and over and over again - everywhere?
_________________
"Believe those who seek the Truth. Doubt those who find it."
"Hatred never ceases through hatred, but hatred ceases by love alone. This is the essence of the ancient and eternal law."

[Shay]

[sushil_yadav]

[sushil_yadav]

[Shay]

[sushil_yadav]

[Shay]

[sushil_yadav]

[Shay]