An introduction?

[Guest guest]

Dear Judi,

As I kind of warned :-) before, I can be 'long in the tooth'... well here...

You wrote in your first message to me:

> Hello Wim, a little personal introduction might be nice?

In your last message you wrote:

>No, cut the crap,

>you came in here looking

>for trouble on heresay alone and starting

>shooting your mouth off wihtout knowing exactly >what the situation was. And that my friend,

>is what I call "attitude" and I'm not gonna have it in here.

>And I cut you slack and asked you >for a personal introduction which

>you still have conveniently avoided.>And if you can't see it my way,

>there's the door.

The first sentence that I received from you is only a 'suggestion',

you suggest that "a little personal introduction might be nice?" No

more, that is all you wrote. It was up to me. Isn't that what that

means, a suggestion? If you want me to read in between the lines...

well that is something that I just don't do, have had enough trouble

with that in a 'difficult part' of my life.

So I obliged with the quickest introduction I could provide at that

time (being quite busy marking term papers), I send you my URL. Your

pleasant enough suggestion still does not make it into an official

request. By now you have turned it into a 'take it or leave it'

prerequisite. That is the kind of escalation that turns 'still

possible communication' into separation.

I bet you, that by now you think that you know me well enough, such is

how you react. You might even think that I am one of those "thugs."

You wrote:

>Yep, just a bunch of thugs really. >They come in all varieties and

sexes now too even.>Too bad really, but as you know, I won't be

losing

> too much sleep over it. They get to live with themselves,

>so it all works out. :-) Aaah, the justice of it all. :-)

>And, the best part,>we'll have a great time pissing on their graves. :-)

You could in fact know more about me by now, than if I would have

written that "little introduction." You probably clicked on the URL

to my web site, you might have read some of it, you might even know

what I look like. What more do you want? You even made a comical

remark about something you might have picked up from my site or some

other way.

You wrote:

>Well, geez Wim, I don't know, I'm not sure

>whether to just throw you out on your ear>or take you to a drive thru

aura cleaners. >Decisions, decisions.

I take it as humorous, but then I do not fully know what you are

trying to 'say or decide', not reading between the lines. If there

were "drive thru aura cleaners" I would probably have one :-) The

tenth treatment would be free, I would hand out coupons and have

'post Christmas stress' and 'spring cleaning' specials, maybe some

special 'two-for-one post-divorce treatment.'

It might just work, what do we know?

I am not trying to be facetious. It is hard enough to make oneself understood.

The world we live in is very exacting, very realistic. You say you

discovered something about reality. The Internet world is also very

exacting and realistic, (just see what we got into here.) Except the

email world is a very verbal medium, unforgiving almost.

Understanding 'words' is the most important thing here, as there is

no body language. Second guessing is a very dangerous trap. That is

why there are acronyms and abbreviations like IMHO and LOL, also :-)

and :-( and the like ('Emoticons' is the term.)

I have been teaching computer software professionally to governments

and academically for about 12 years. Probably wrote one of the

earliest public courses on internet and email use. Programming,

software, email, anything cybernetic for that matter cannot handle

ambiguities.

You were wondering about internet teaching in one of your posts:

You wrote:

>I was speaking privately with someone

> this morning and he was telling me>how teaching on the internet can't be done.

>And I begged to differ with him, and I said the>Lord works in mysterious ways, because a

>dead man taught me.

Another thing that I spearheaded, when I set up a department for the

company I managed, was to deliver software courses via Internet. (By

the way I am retired, just work a bit for the fun of it.)

Going to be a bit personal here, hope you don't mind too much. You react strong enough anyway.

You appear to write in clichés:

"cut the crap,"

"there is the door"

"cutting slack"

"shooting your mouth off"

"Throwing somebody out on the ear"

"handing me a business card"

"if you cannot see it my way"

This is just from what you wrote to me. That is not how communication

can be done well, not in any form, let alone internet teaching.

I don't know if I know the way how to get things across clearly via

internet , all this is still very much in its infancy, but we already

know what does not work...

When communication starts resorting to this kind of cliché

communication, it is already on the verge of breaking down. One is

not very good at language when one has to resort to that.

Now what about:

>you came in here looking

>for trouble on heresay alone and starting

>shooting your mouth off wihtout knowing exactly >what the situation was.

In fact I went through all the email exchanges that were in your

e-group. Checked out your web page. Yep, I read it all (and it did

indeed cut into my 'marking papers' time). I found that everything

was pretty much according to its preamble and I thought that I could

contribute some strong stuff.

It seems that one of your respondents did not mind too much what I wrote:

>Very interesting observations.>I've known the cold, and have been to

most of the>places you describe here.>Good stuff, stick around.>This

place, well, I guess it's not for everybody.

>Time will tell.

I also wrote:

>Hope I can help to keep this list going.>The preamble is right.

Sure this may sound presumptuous, but then doesn't a list also depend upon its members?

Don't shoot the... :-(

The following is the first message that I wrote to your site and I

copy it here because it also goes to .

>>>>

Dear Peter, Jacqui and similar members. (Axed or to be axed :-)I

realize that what I'm going to write here is a response to some old

posts. I just wrote a funny post to another e-group so I don't know

how long I can stay serious.I read your posts, Peter and Jacqui and

the replies from the TEOTRR egroup.There is a difference between

enlightened people and realized beings.Those two terms don't cover

the same entity.Enlightened people, hopefully will eventually

discover that enlightenment leaves them (in the) cold, something like

cold fire... no or very little compassion comes with it. Such people

can turn into harsh and cruel masters or mistresses. Enlightened

people are very often a bit blinded by their own light. Nothing too

much wrong with that, but they can't really help you, they do not

really see you. They are not necessarily what some people call

bodhisattvas. Enlightened people who discover their harshness will go

through the 'desert', an intense test, lasting at least 40 days, many

do not make it the first time, many will avoid the desert, a need to

party, me thinks :-) After the desert, which they eventually will

enter, and hopefully can leave behind soon, they will review whatever

'reality' they saw as 'illusion', lit up again as REALITY. Being

Real/Making real, living reality, materializing and handling real

stuff, things ("res" Latin), unconcerned about the conceptual

limitations of time and space. A dynamic and irreversible state of

original energy / matter metabolism. Some writers on this list are

aware of this...Now, there is also pseudo enlightenment.When 'pseudo

enlightened' people talk about 'illusion' and 'suffering' they are

normally showing symptoms of some deep seated pathology, signs of

intense life violation in their early life and only a pseudo-ability

to deal with this, often in forms of transcendence, personality

shifts or intense mood changes. This very often leads to borderline

or dissociative identity disorders. (Dualist as well Non-Dualist

philosophies, and also 'blissed out-ness' and stoicism exemplify

this.) I believe that pretty well every enlightened person has gone

through some form of pseudo enlightenment as well, but they then took

themselves out of that groove, possibly ending up in another

loop-the-loop.That is were 'realization' comes in, a process

differing from 'enlightenment There is also something that I call

"the proto-type realization experience", very powerful and original,

but most get stuck with it just once... only many, many years later

will they get unglued enough for it to carry their realization

forward. Anyway...Any way...Any which way...What is it with this

"TheEndOfTheRopeRanch"? First I thought I was at the wrong address,

"The Edge Of The Cliff Ranch" or so. A self destructive group, trying

very hard to get rid of members and themselves. Hmmm.So many choices

when you find yourself at the end of *your* rope:. Letting go of the

frayed end?. Placing your head firmly in the noose and tip the

stool?. Let go of the rope so that the others who are pulling on the

other end will fall back suddenly?. Tie yourself into a knot?. Self

flagellation?. Realizing there is no rope except for the lasso that

others are trying to rope you in with?. Making ends meet with others

at the end of their rope?. Realizing that the end of the rope is the

end of the road!!!!No rope, no road, no robe, no bowl.Love,Wim>>>>>>

Well, Judi in closing, I notice that you have gone through some

similar readings as I did. Gurdjieff, Da Free John. I noticed though

that you do not use Da Free John's current name (from the many that

he had or has). What is the reason? You quote from the Knee Of

Listening, good stuff, did you read his other material?

Just wondering, that is all...

Love,

Wim

Whatever you decide, dropping, moderating or keeping me, it is OK with me.

Know that I love you and I mean that.