James, My iPeace Friend,Al and the iPeace Familyand when You get this birthday wish, I would like toYou back James, to"So Let's Make a Difference for You & Yours & Everyone" and"Happy Trails" & "Happy iPeaceing"As You can see, We (the iPeace Family) are still here!
"Enjoy Life"
I guess I don't get it. How did I become so old? So jaded? I just wish I could erase the last two years, and feel 'young' again, but even my closest friends here joke that I am am '23 going on 49'. Sigh....I lost my youth :)
I am far too cynical. I don't like how burned out and jaded I have become, but on the other hand, I am so thankful for the chances I have had to work with children and so on, and I really care about people and the human race. I just feel a part of myself is shutting out and closing up...C'est la vie.
As for the current political climate, and ipeace closing down, I think we both have seen this type of thing happen before, and it will happen again. It's the ugly reality of human nature.
I completely think I understand what you mean. I still think you take too much blame for a lot of the stuff. Everyone has had their off days, and initially it was me who sucked you into the whole QR thing, and I am not sure you were really prepared for it. It would have been better if I left you to happily bashing theists. I also talked way too much about your personal life, and for that I apologize. I do strongly believed, and it is confirmed by a lot of research at this point, that emotional triggers can be set off online more. People are a lot less sensative or aware of what they are saying / doing, and it's also impossible to read the mood of the person posting. That entire situation makes me fairly certain now that ipeace is closing, leaving the online world for good is the best decision.
I do occasionally read QR's channel, but it seemed like it had really gone downhill.
Also, I sometimes have a bad habit of being overly melodramatic, so I didn't want to come off as too epic with the comment below. It was more one of those moments of intense self-reflection that hit me around the turn of the year, and I kind of realised I had to let go.
I have no idea why she left (now that you brought that up, I kind of freaked out thinking maybe I caused, but it looks like she was prescient,as ipeace appears to be shutting down).
I still lurk on QR's channel from time to time. More for old times' sake, although I cannot post, and am not sure I would want to. There's just been so much negativity and nastiness in the online world. Maria and everyone else from our group will be sorely missed. I have to admit, I don't think I was aware how attatched I became over time to a lot of my virtual friends, and when I did, what bothered me was not that I was so attatched, but this just incredible sense of emptiness that I had never been that attatched to friends/ family in real life. I hope that sort of makes sense? Maybe, it doesn't. I could just be neurotic ;) Either way please be well.
I am also sick of the conspiracy theorists that refuse to believe that suffering and deprivation cannot motivate people, but that somehow people not rebelling against injustice but compelled to keep their place in society are responsible. Intelligent, ambitious, driven people will execute their ideas. This is proven by history. 911 was not a conspiracy. The Federal Reserve is not a conspiracy. There are not ‘bad guys’ out to get people. We are just petty and vindictive by nature. The lesson is played out time and time again. Symbolic and actual forces have power over the mind, because without them, what exactly is there? People do what benefits them, or get caught up in events that make little sense, but seem to be essential to their existence. How many of those who massacred the Tutsi in Rwanda did so in the name of the market dominate minority? Does that give them justification? No. There is no justification for killing an individual in the name of an ideology. This is the greatest truth we have. But actually, everything in our life teaches us to view the individual as part of a whole, and what is ironic is that so many so-called libertarians and other politicians actually teach through cause and effect that the individual is to be subject to the whole. Companies and politicians need people willing to punch a time clock, and what we teach, is that if you want to be free.
Moreover, America has tried to export its version of democracy while ignoring the historic processes that took place to resemble something somehow not self-interested, but self-sacrificing. How many people in China, Palestine, Russia, or Cambodia really believe in the ‘American Dream?’
The global spread of democratization reflects the powerful Western assumption in Western policy and intellectual circles that markets and democracy go hand in hand.
In truth, if I want to make as much as I want and to profit, why do I need democracy? I just need a target demographic.
The hilarious aspect is that the rest of the world forgets how prosperity changes the national mindset: either I want or I protect what I have…the same old story. I am not anti-American at all, and I no longer carry any respect for any ideology or country, just accept the realism.
1) The idea of identity might not exist unless it could be tangible--in other words, unless it was self-interested or served to motivate people, it wouldn't mean too much. What on earth can I make of 'postitive' or 'negative'
2) I am not giving up at all on anything. I simply refuse your arguments because they are so emotive. For example, how many people conflate liberty with free market capitalism? I finished an excellent book called the world on fire that centers on these issues.
In actual fact, there is nothing about liberty that equates to the American Dream.
I guess what hit me tonight is that my motto would have to, especially when it comes to so-called identity, be that 'I'm not here to win a war. I'm here to live my life.' That is it for me.
In other words, while at one point in time, identity was considered in a positive sense by such labels, not purely individualistic preference, today, whether in the form of affirmative action or in many other ways, it asserts its presence through its negative sense? It's present by our need to show it is not a factor in forming preconceived notions of identity?
Not that I think 'I am' is all that great a goal to try and become. I always feel a bit frustrated between the people who say things that just seem ignorant, or even stupid, or bigoted for that matter, and the elitists, who are more concerned about whatever external standard can measure them to the point that they reduce themselves down to that external standard. So, I don't worry either way, and just live my life, and focus on the reality around me more than my ideas about reality.
I try to take how much I dwell on the current state of affairs in measured dosages, or I just get burned out and discouraged.
One of the things I don't look forward to is being able to understand the words that are coming out of people's mouths when I go back to the States. It's so much more peaceful when I can tune out 90% of the day-to-day conversation I hear.
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"Enjoy Life"
I do occasionally read QR's channel, but it seemed like it had really gone downhill.
I have no idea why she left (now that you brought that up, I kind of freaked out thinking maybe I caused, but it looks like she was prescient,as ipeace appears to be shutting down).
I still lurk on QR's channel from time to time. More for old times' sake, although I cannot post, and am not sure I would want to. There's just been so much negativity and nastiness in the online world. Maria and everyone else from our group will be sorely missed. I have to admit, I don't think I was aware how attatched I became over time to a lot of my virtual friends, and when I did, what bothered me was not that I was so attatched, but this just incredible sense of emptiness that I had never been that attatched to friends/ family in real life. I hope that sort of makes sense? Maybe, it doesn't. I could just be neurotic ;) Either way please be well.
The global spread of democratization reflects the powerful Western assumption in Western policy and intellectual circles that markets and democracy go hand in hand.
In truth, if I want to make as much as I want and to profit, why do I need democracy? I just need a target demographic.
The hilarious aspect is that the rest of the world forgets how prosperity changes the national mindset: either I want or I protect what I have…the same old story. I am not anti-American at all, and I no longer carry any respect for any ideology or country, just accept the realism.
2) I am not giving up at all on anything. I simply refuse your arguments because they are so emotive. For example, how many people conflate liberty with free market capitalism? I finished an excellent book called the world on fire that centers on these issues.
In actual fact, there is nothing about liberty that equates to the American Dream.
Fairly good weekend, and you?
One of the things I don't look forward to is being able to understand the words that are coming out of people's mouths when I go back to the States. It's so much more peaceful when I can tune out 90% of the day-to-day conversation I hear.
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