Friday, April 07, 2006
A new spiritual insight
First, a couple of fun bits:
Check out Karma Kitty in the sidebar, and you'll see that he's got something new; if you click on "more," you'll get a steak that you can feed to him (except in Firefox, inexplicably, at least for now). If he's standing, he'll just take a bite every time you click, but if he's laying down he'll pounce and eat it all; give it a try, it's fun... go ahead, I'll wait.
Then, check out this astonishing eBay auction for what's described as:
"GLOW Clone A Willy Kit! Glow In The Dark Version!
This is it! The ORIGINAL Clone A Willy Kit! Preserve Yourself For Your Loved One. Make An EXACT Copy of You For Her That GLOWS IN THE DARK!"
http://cgi.ebay.com/GLOW-Clone-A-Willy-Kit-Glow-In-The-Dark-Version_W0QQitemZ9507206308QQcategoryZ36452QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
My husband's lucky that they want $29 for the darned thing, or... ;-)
And now on to the serious stuff; I don't normally quote from other people's blogs, as this blog is about MY thoughts, but sometimes something I read helps me make spiritual progress, and then I'm compelled to share it. My friend Jax, whose excellent blog is here
http://butchjax.wordpress.com/
has a terrific post
http://butchjax.wordpress.com/2006/03/30/the-consequences-of-helping/
called "The consequences of helping" that, in light of the spiritual insight I posted about on 2-18-06, which dealt with how the karma generated by people whose actions you influenced flows back to you, instantly struck me as being true. She started out with:
"For those of you who haven't played Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II, there is this theme that runs throughout the game regarding the consequences of helping."
I've never even heard of the game, and I do NOT seek spiritual answers in games, BUT, it's been my experience that people who create in the scifi and fantasy genres often come up with plausible spiritual frameworks for their characters by giving real thought to how things seem to work and how they could be explained... which after all is exactly what I'M doing, just with a different intention, and the process isn't diminished by the results ending up in a book, movie or game.
"They give a few reasons for this.
1. By helping, you rob the individual of the experience that comes from struggling through a problem."
I'm honestly stunned that something this basic never occurred to me before, but of course it's perfectly true; although it's always proper to help someone when horrible consequences will befall them if they're left unassisted, think how often we rush to help children, our less assertive friends, and even our partners with things they'd grow in wisdom, strength and capability by handling themselves. Most times your help won't make a bit of difference one way or the other, of course, except to irritate the person you think you're helping, but those times when the intended helpee doesn't get to feel a sense of accomplishment from doing something themselves, or to gain skill(s) from it, or to be given the credit if they do well, or to learn from their mistakes if they do poorly (so that next time, when you're not hovering over them, they can independently do it right), you ARE affecting their behavior and their future in a meaningful way, and any karma that results will come back to haunt you. In addition, as Jax points out:
"I can see how giving someone too much can hinder rather than help. It's at that point you become an enabler, which is worse than not helping at all."
If you think you're helping someone by covering up for their misdeeds, addictions, etc, in other words, you're making matters worse, and you're then to blame for the negative consequences that're sure to result.
"2. You don't know what chain of events you will trigger by helping someone. In the game, the example involves giving a refugee some money, who is then mugged around the corner, putting them in a worst state than they started with."
While the example illustrates an unlikely case, it drives the point home that you just don't KNOW how even the most innocent help could adversely affect someone. You could change someone's entire life by, for example, persuading them to come to your house for dinner so you can try to "help" them by setting them up with someone (who they of course won't like), causing them to miss out on meeting the love of their life, who'll be at the Chinese restaurant they'd otherwise have gone to that night, where they would have met at the buffet when they both reached simultaneously for the sweet and sour pork; having missed their big chance, they'll eventually hook up with someone crummy out of loneliness and desperation, and the negative karma from that will be pointed right at YOU... and you wouldn't even know it, much less know WHY, because from YOUR perspective you tried to PREVENT that person from reaching that desperate "anyone's better than no one" point.
It's things like this that can leave a mystic feeling paralyzed, afraid to act because a terrifyingly high % of actions have the potential to cause negative consequences, from the trivial to the disastrous, and you just CAN'T live your life like a cosmic chess game, trying to see 20 moves ahead from every possible move YOU might make... when you REALLY think about it, you can feel the icy wind from the karmic abyss, believe me. Still, it's desperately important to understand how tightly bound we are to an ever-widening circle of people and events, and how necessary it is to THINK rather than cruise through life on autopilot doing what's easy or feels good rather than what's wise or right... because, although you won't ALWAYS be able to see how your interactions with others could cause a problem, usually you CAN, especially if you choose to be chummy with people who are known wrongdoers, as all too many people do (have you ever seen a wrongdoer withOUT friends?).
It was awesome to make some spiritual progress due to the efforts of another person for a change; thanks, Jax!! :-)
Check out Karma Kitty in the sidebar, and you'll see that he's got something new; if you click on "more," you'll get a steak that you can feed to him (except in Firefox, inexplicably, at least for now). If he's standing, he'll just take a bite every time you click, but if he's laying down he'll pounce and eat it all; give it a try, it's fun... go ahead, I'll wait.
Then, check out this astonishing eBay auction for what's described as:
"GLOW Clone A Willy Kit! Glow In The Dark Version!
This is it! The ORIGINAL Clone A Willy Kit! Preserve Yourself For Your Loved One. Make An EXACT Copy of You For Her That GLOWS IN THE DARK!"
http://cgi.ebay.com/GLOW-Clone-A-Willy-Kit-Glow-In-The-Dark-Version_W0QQitemZ9507206308QQcategoryZ36452QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
My husband's lucky that they want $29 for the darned thing, or... ;-)
And now on to the serious stuff; I don't normally quote from other people's blogs, as this blog is about MY thoughts, but sometimes something I read helps me make spiritual progress, and then I'm compelled to share it. My friend Jax, whose excellent blog is here
http://butchjax.wordpress.com/
has a terrific post
http://butchjax.wordpress.com/2006/03/30/the-consequences-of-helping/
called "The consequences of helping" that, in light of the spiritual insight I posted about on 2-18-06, which dealt with how the karma generated by people whose actions you influenced flows back to you, instantly struck me as being true. She started out with:
"For those of you who haven't played Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II, there is this theme that runs throughout the game regarding the consequences of helping."
I've never even heard of the game, and I do NOT seek spiritual answers in games, BUT, it's been my experience that people who create in the scifi and fantasy genres often come up with plausible spiritual frameworks for their characters by giving real thought to how things seem to work and how they could be explained... which after all is exactly what I'M doing, just with a different intention, and the process isn't diminished by the results ending up in a book, movie or game.
"They give a few reasons for this.
1. By helping, you rob the individual of the experience that comes from struggling through a problem."
I'm honestly stunned that something this basic never occurred to me before, but of course it's perfectly true; although it's always proper to help someone when horrible consequences will befall them if they're left unassisted, think how often we rush to help children, our less assertive friends, and even our partners with things they'd grow in wisdom, strength and capability by handling themselves. Most times your help won't make a bit of difference one way or the other, of course, except to irritate the person you think you're helping, but those times when the intended helpee doesn't get to feel a sense of accomplishment from doing something themselves, or to gain skill(s) from it, or to be given the credit if they do well, or to learn from their mistakes if they do poorly (so that next time, when you're not hovering over them, they can independently do it right), you ARE affecting their behavior and their future in a meaningful way, and any karma that results will come back to haunt you. In addition, as Jax points out:
"I can see how giving someone too much can hinder rather than help. It's at that point you become an enabler, which is worse than not helping at all."
If you think you're helping someone by covering up for their misdeeds, addictions, etc, in other words, you're making matters worse, and you're then to blame for the negative consequences that're sure to result.
"2. You don't know what chain of events you will trigger by helping someone. In the game, the example involves giving a refugee some money, who is then mugged around the corner, putting them in a worst state than they started with."
While the example illustrates an unlikely case, it drives the point home that you just don't KNOW how even the most innocent help could adversely affect someone. You could change someone's entire life by, for example, persuading them to come to your house for dinner so you can try to "help" them by setting them up with someone (who they of course won't like), causing them to miss out on meeting the love of their life, who'll be at the Chinese restaurant they'd otherwise have gone to that night, where they would have met at the buffet when they both reached simultaneously for the sweet and sour pork; having missed their big chance, they'll eventually hook up with someone crummy out of loneliness and desperation, and the negative karma from that will be pointed right at YOU... and you wouldn't even know it, much less know WHY, because from YOUR perspective you tried to PREVENT that person from reaching that desperate "anyone's better than no one" point.
It's things like this that can leave a mystic feeling paralyzed, afraid to act because a terrifyingly high % of actions have the potential to cause negative consequences, from the trivial to the disastrous, and you just CAN'T live your life like a cosmic chess game, trying to see 20 moves ahead from every possible move YOU might make... when you REALLY think about it, you can feel the icy wind from the karmic abyss, believe me. Still, it's desperately important to understand how tightly bound we are to an ever-widening circle of people and events, and how necessary it is to THINK rather than cruise through life on autopilot doing what's easy or feels good rather than what's wise or right... because, although you won't ALWAYS be able to see how your interactions with others could cause a problem, usually you CAN, especially if you choose to be chummy with people who are known wrongdoers, as all too many people do (have you ever seen a wrongdoer withOUT friends?).
It was awesome to make some spiritual progress due to the efforts of another person for a change; thanks, Jax!! :-)
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
********************** 100,000 HITS **********************
WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-) :-) :-)
Click here to show me some love!! :-)
I remember how excited I was when my counter passed 100; 100 THOUSAND seems almost surreal, especially given the oddball nature of the things I post about... it never ceases to amaze me that people read my pages-long rambles and come back for more.
To commemorate this milestone, I've added someone very special to my list of blog buddies; to the best of my ability to determine (I did actual research on this), he's the 1st person who linked to me, way back at the beginning of 2004. Please take a moment to check out Jeffrey's terrific site
http://jeffreybabbleson.blogspot.com/
and you'll see that right from the start my readers have been quality bloggers.
A few of my other blog friends should get a mention too:
Umpire (formerly known as Goose), for being my 1st blog buddy, in other words the 1st person I communicated with on their blog, or anywhere for that matter, that I swapped links with; the other bloggers I'd visited to that point were either indifferent or belligerent, so it was awesome to get some approval for a change, especially from someone with a popular blog who sure didn't need a link from my fledgling site.
Smedley, for this post on the forum of the long-gone but fondly remembered BlogRank, in the thread where I'd said that people who were really weird might enjoy my essays:
"Color me weird.
I just got over to check out your weblog, and I find it very fascinating, the way you dissect common concepts and point out things that might otherwise go unnoticed. Pretty brainy stuff, but not even remotely boring. It's a good combination, and an uncommon one, too."
Those sentences, coming as they did at a time before I'd started finding my blog buddies and getting their generous praise, and from someone I'd had no previous contact with, who was under no obligation to say anything nice to me, meant a great deal... so much so that I followed an "inexplicable" (aka precognitive) urge to copy them out before BlogRank vanished, which is why I still have them.
Keeme, for posting his agreement with Smedley's assessment in that same thread and joining him in being supportive of me from that moment on; although my daily hit count increased steadily, #'s are cold things, and getting verbal verification that people were enjoying what I was working so hard on was greatly appreciated.
Yolanda, who, when I arrived on her blog for the 1st time (having discovered that she was linked to me), greeted my appearance with such a frenzy that she was nearly incoherent; I was stunned, and deeply touched, that she liked my blog so much that she was THAT excited to see me... doubly so since she's in Malaysia, and it was an unexpected pleasure to make an emotional connection with someone in such a faraway and exotic place.
Al and Ron, who are brothers with many things in common, such as their intelligence, eloquence... and the way they unfailingly react with enormous sadness and compassion when I post anything about my unfortunate childhood. Their unswerving sensitivity and kindness has boosted my view of the male half of the species many times, and, although I don't make those sorts of posts to garner sympathy, it's lovely that these 2 always have plenty to offer; their mother did a VERY good job raising them.
It's funny; usually, when people single out bloggers for special mentions, it's because they believe them to have the "best" blogs by some criteria or other... but, without thinking it through, what *I* came up with are the ones who've given me the biggest emotional boost. I'm satisfied with that, because I think it's this sort of thing that SHOULD be valued over writing or site-design ability; not everyone can be an intellectual or an artist, and those that are got it via their genes, not as a reward for virtue, but niceness, kindness, and being caring have to be worked at... anyone CAN be those things, but few bother to try, making those who DO precious indeed.
I hope you'll take the time to go through my link list and visit these folks... and of course all the others, too, because every one of them has a quality blog, has treated me as a friend, and has had sweet things to say about my ramblings.
There were some "extreme" blog-related stories that I'd been intending to stick in this post, but I think I'll save them for the next milestone; the main thrust of this essay SHOULD be to shine a light on some of the people who got me to this point... because the folks in my link list are responsible, both directly via their links to me and indirectly by how those links make Google and the other search engines rank me, for the vast majority of my hits.
I'll finish up with one point about the effect of blogging on my life (aside from the major loss of sleep); I've continued to look up countries as the geolocator shows that I've had visitors from them (160 countries so far!!), and because of this my husband recently said, "Thanks to your blog, you've gone from having geographical knowledge in the bottom 10% of the population to the upper 10%." The former is a gross exaggeration, as he was referring to the AMERICAN population after all, and forgets that just because HE still studies geography that doesn't mean everyone else does, but it was gratifying to know that he was paying attention to just how much I've learned about the countries where my readers live, particularly in the Arab world... if you gave me a blank map of that area I could fill it in with a high degree of accuracy, which is pretty wild when you consider that when I stated blogging I'd never even HEARD of some of those countries.
Breaking 100K was a KILLER way to start the week; thank you to everyone who visits me for making it happen!!
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Omni
Click here to show me some love!! :-)
I remember how excited I was when my counter passed 100; 100 THOUSAND seems almost surreal, especially given the oddball nature of the things I post about... it never ceases to amaze me that people read my pages-long rambles and come back for more.
To commemorate this milestone, I've added someone very special to my list of blog buddies; to the best of my ability to determine (I did actual research on this), he's the 1st person who linked to me, way back at the beginning of 2004. Please take a moment to check out Jeffrey's terrific site
http://jeffreybabbleson.blogspot.com/
and you'll see that right from the start my readers have been quality bloggers.
A few of my other blog friends should get a mention too:
Umpire (formerly known as Goose), for being my 1st blog buddy, in other words the 1st person I communicated with on their blog, or anywhere for that matter, that I swapped links with; the other bloggers I'd visited to that point were either indifferent or belligerent, so it was awesome to get some approval for a change, especially from someone with a popular blog who sure didn't need a link from my fledgling site.
Smedley, for this post on the forum of the long-gone but fondly remembered BlogRank, in the thread where I'd said that people who were really weird might enjoy my essays:
"Color me weird.
I just got over to check out your weblog, and I find it very fascinating, the way you dissect common concepts and point out things that might otherwise go unnoticed. Pretty brainy stuff, but not even remotely boring. It's a good combination, and an uncommon one, too."
Those sentences, coming as they did at a time before I'd started finding my blog buddies and getting their generous praise, and from someone I'd had no previous contact with, who was under no obligation to say anything nice to me, meant a great deal... so much so that I followed an "inexplicable" (aka precognitive) urge to copy them out before BlogRank vanished, which is why I still have them.
Keeme, for posting his agreement with Smedley's assessment in that same thread and joining him in being supportive of me from that moment on; although my daily hit count increased steadily, #'s are cold things, and getting verbal verification that people were enjoying what I was working so hard on was greatly appreciated.
Yolanda, who, when I arrived on her blog for the 1st time (having discovered that she was linked to me), greeted my appearance with such a frenzy that she was nearly incoherent; I was stunned, and deeply touched, that she liked my blog so much that she was THAT excited to see me... doubly so since she's in Malaysia, and it was an unexpected pleasure to make an emotional connection with someone in such a faraway and exotic place.
Al and Ron, who are brothers with many things in common, such as their intelligence, eloquence... and the way they unfailingly react with enormous sadness and compassion when I post anything about my unfortunate childhood. Their unswerving sensitivity and kindness has boosted my view of the male half of the species many times, and, although I don't make those sorts of posts to garner sympathy, it's lovely that these 2 always have plenty to offer; their mother did a VERY good job raising them.
It's funny; usually, when people single out bloggers for special mentions, it's because they believe them to have the "best" blogs by some criteria or other... but, without thinking it through, what *I* came up with are the ones who've given me the biggest emotional boost. I'm satisfied with that, because I think it's this sort of thing that SHOULD be valued over writing or site-design ability; not everyone can be an intellectual or an artist, and those that are got it via their genes, not as a reward for virtue, but niceness, kindness, and being caring have to be worked at... anyone CAN be those things, but few bother to try, making those who DO precious indeed.
I hope you'll take the time to go through my link list and visit these folks... and of course all the others, too, because every one of them has a quality blog, has treated me as a friend, and has had sweet things to say about my ramblings.
There were some "extreme" blog-related stories that I'd been intending to stick in this post, but I think I'll save them for the next milestone; the main thrust of this essay SHOULD be to shine a light on some of the people who got me to this point... because the folks in my link list are responsible, both directly via their links to me and indirectly by how those links make Google and the other search engines rank me, for the vast majority of my hits.
I'll finish up with one point about the effect of blogging on my life (aside from the major loss of sleep); I've continued to look up countries as the geolocator shows that I've had visitors from them (160 countries so far!!), and because of this my husband recently said, "Thanks to your blog, you've gone from having geographical knowledge in the bottom 10% of the population to the upper 10%." The former is a gross exaggeration, as he was referring to the AMERICAN population after all, and forgets that just because HE still studies geography that doesn't mean everyone else does, but it was gratifying to know that he was paying attention to just how much I've learned about the countries where my readers live, particularly in the Arab world... if you gave me a blank map of that area I could fill it in with a high degree of accuracy, which is pretty wild when you consider that when I stated blogging I'd never even HEARD of some of those countries.
Breaking 100K was a KILLER way to start the week; thank you to everyone who visits me for making it happen!!
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Omni
