Reconciling Differences

One of the more often used excuses for divorce is euphemistically called "irreconcilable differences" - a basic catch all for cheating, money problems, loss of affection, cruelty & a whole bunch of other excuses. That which was common before has become strange & different. Each Ego wants to go a different way & on a different path. Children complicate this. The process of divorce when lawyers are involved looks like war.
I looked up the word other in the etymology online portal this AM . Basically it means different. It is an adjective - i.e. something that modifies a noun which is a word used to name something. The word otherness turns the adjective back into a noun & essentially makes it mean difference.

source: ...
the state or fact of being different or distinct.

... & now we are into distinctions. See #BofNK if you want further ideas on them.
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Otherness & difference are distinctions without a difference.
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Wars are cause by many things. Economics is one of the biggest causes. WW-I & II happened with the depression & Germany's response to the depression. Mostly it is a country's leaders & politicians, acting within the Ego of a country, cause behavior of their military which constitutes an irreconcilable difference with other countries' Egos.
Yes - sovereign countries have Egos. Some call it the spirit of the nation. Those in the USA can think of themselves as Americans - a form of identity.
Strangeness (or difference) in humans is a result of having an Ego. Nothing bad about that because it helps us maintain some kind of interest in what we call our life & what we are doing. Otherwise you could say that we would dissolve back into the cosmic ooze as a puppet of God. Thus endeth free will!
Speaking of God, we have currently the dual problem of a religion, Islam & the world economic problems, mixed with oil where many nations have irreconcilable differences. One faction of Islam does not acknowledge other religions & approves of destroying all others as products of Satan & infidels. Economics could solve that because peoples who depend upon commerce don't have it in their best interest to destroy each other. To hold the difference as permanent & unsolvable is to eventually invite war. Somehow holding the difference as a wonderful feature of diversity of humankind ignores the problem altogether. I suspect that humankind is not yet perfect enough to follow the subset of the Golden Rule called "Love thy enemy ... " . It is only an aspiration without the compulsion of having to feel other's pain you have caused.
The hint of the solution was spoken above in economics. Even the Chinese seem to welcome more joint endeavors since we trade & trade benefits. On the human-human level most problems of difference can be solved. Our custom of shaking hands & waving hi derived from demonstrating that we had ho weapons hidden in our hands.
Egos are irreconcilable & different. Who want's another's "I" or life without their things or their life situation? But, we can cooperate & obtain a synergy of individuals in the process of living with most differences. The exact details will be obscure until after the next war if the human race is still around!

Comments

Seth says

seth 2013-09-04 10:23:48 16738

Well i can see how you get to "Otherness & difference are distinctions without a difference" based on dictionary definitions of words. But i am using the word "otherness" in a peculiar way to refer to an attitude, as i mentioned many times. There just is no dictionary word for this peculiar feeling, or attitude. I discovered it myself in a time of great stress. It is not a mere mental distinction ... not just an awareness of the difference between A and not A ... but rather the attitude adopted to me being A and that which is not A.

I also see how you get to "Strangeness (or difference) in humans is a result of having an Ego". If I had no awareness of self, then I could never feel otherness. But differences are not created by their awareness ... my being is not your being and does not have the same history and environment. That difference exists whether i am aware of it or not ... and/or whether i identify with me rather than you, or you rather than me. Yes, I can take a grand view which ignores the petty identification of me to my peculiar being. But that view, that awareness or lack of awareness, that mental projection, does in no way eliminate the actual difference. It does not mean that i will feel your pain ... though it does meant that i can imagine it.

Your certainly right, "irreconcilable differences" is what creates war and divorce. My feeling of "Otherness" recognizes differences and loves them ... no reconciling necessary.

NICE!

You may have copped a nice attitude. Maybe, if you are going to use a word in an abnormal way you should spell it differently like attItude. So you are not speaking about otherness, not speaking about differences but copping an attItude pecular to your particular Ego construction, eh? A way of destroying as you say "your petty identification of me to my peculiar being" by your new/old attItude. I mentioned nothing about awareness as part of any of the equations I was talking about. I mentioned distinction which is a fact of being able to be conscious of something - it has to be distinct from the background. You can't be aware of any nicely featured attItude which does what you claim it does without also noticing a difference via a distinction that there is a difference, or otherness which is a feature of having an EGO!

Your rwg related machinery program seems to be minimizing your own egoness in order not to be wrong about differences, I suspect. I really don't know what you are doing with attItude except making egos wrong or pretending that you are so above it all that difference does not occur for you or reconciling them is bad. If differences disappear or more appropriately don't occur then you must have already achieved satori & grok the unity I have previously pointed to in the Tao.

Seth says

seth 2013-09-05 09:32:43 16738

ME 2013-09-05 07:36:32 16738

seth 2013-09-05 07:22:16 16738

Could it be that war is the product of ego + bad attitude toward other ? For "bad attitude" substitute all the usual suspects, fear, hate, unknown, strangeness, suspicion, etc. Me, i don't think ego, self identity, or even pride, is sufficient on its own ... war needs that additional element. ... does it not?

Yeah Hitler just had a bad attitude about the Jews, eh? I still say economics is the key. Nobody in a prosperous economy wants to take time out to kill people & be killed. Someone has said for years that "war is politics by other means - purpose is to kill people & break things as an instrument of political objectives" It is the bad attitude of leaders that gins it all up, imho (which is neither

well, yeah, hitler had a bad attitude towards jews ... but i don't know what is implied by the "just" part.

certainly the bad attitude of leaders + their personal motives fuels national conflict. they gin up the people and sell the war. they project their bad attitudes to the people and the people reflect it right back. the middle east is a caldron of that. we should have learned not to get involved. i think obama fell into a trap with his red line and now things have escalated and the media is telling us the story that this strike is inevitable. will it stay surgical and end soon and change anything that makes any difference to us? or will things just escalate out of all control. is american's word on the world stage worth the risk? not to me. i would vote against the strike. good thing, i'm not in congress, eh?

"just" is my juxtoposing something between the rational & your current favorite buzzword "attitude".

America's word on the world stage is already sacked. Our economy no longer carries much importance to other nations. The Soviet Union broke up when they could no longer afford their military excursions in Afghanistan & elsewhere & the people finally began to wake up. The Senate bill allows for "boots on the ground" - sounds like the last 4-5 wars to me. Let the people in the Middle East sort it out - maybe Allah can wake them up. As long as they don't threaten to use atomic weapons or their oil to spread their theocracy here, I can ignore it provided our own leaders get their heads out of their collective rectums & allow us to drill for oil in our own backyards until we can invent better sources of energy.

Seth says

seth 2013-09-05 07:22:16 16738

Seth says

seth 2013-09-04 17:21:43 16738

Well when you say "everything that is not within what I say 'I' to is other", you are certainly setting up a context where you can feel about that other. Now when the other is being nice, kind loving, supporting ... or even just irrelevant to you (your I) then you will feel just as you do ... probably reflecting in kind. But when the other is hostile, hateful, acting against your interests, or perhaps even just ignoring you when you want their attention, you probably don't like that. I mean if you are human you are going to feel some way. Now that is the very situation where you can make up a emotion toward them. One thing you can do is become amazed

that they are so different than you that they are acting toward you in that way. How could a person act that way ... what would they need to be inside to act that way twards a beautiful person such as yourself? Is it not so very amazing that they can be so very different! you can feel lots of different ways, as you yourself have underlined. where i go is to try to feel how very strange it would be to be in their shoes ... and i try to do that sans any judgement. if i do a good job with concocting that feeling, i won't get mad or confused or react negatively to them. I'm actually getting better at feeling that way towards your obstinate having to twist my meanings around so they seem ridiculous to your strange innards ... oh the sweet taste of "otherness" in the morning

The explanation is getting clearer. I am rarely surprised about the way people react to me. Tina often does surprise me, but often also in the same way she has before, but the why escapes me still. You surprise me by writing that you think I twist your meanings. I call it argumentative or missmatching. I mostly use English analysis to clear up what is unclear mixed with a bit of ontology & zen. Sometimes I use the ad absurdum style which you might interpret as twist, but for me I am just stirring up the pot to see what is there besides the obvious politics.

The main impact of this item was intended to see war as a product of Ego similar to the individual human condition. It was, as most of these are, the first thought I woke up with this AM. Obviously, you hold the same judgements "obstinate having to twist" but you feel that you have crossed the uncrossable barrier by emoting?

Seth says

One way to stop wars or begin to do so is to separate governments from money & politicians from money. Unfortunately a SCOTUS & election laws have almost insured that that is not the case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo - money is political speech? I think the only way to get past this is to invent a way that is more fair than what we have yet makes it possible for unknowns to enter the races. Then too, we need to encourage citizens to go back to their original jobs & only spend a few years as politicians - the ideas originated around the founding.

Seth says

seth 2013-09-04 13:54:02 16738

ME 2013-09-04 13:39:36 16738

ME 2013-09-04 13:36:36 16738

seth 2013-09-04 13:12:45 16738

ME 2013-09-04 11:59:02 16738

seth 2013-09-04 11:32:08 16738

Well, of course, i have been talking about an attitude all along, you just, have not heard it.

... err, still not hearing it when you say "if differences disappear or more appropriately don't occur" .... right after presumably reading my "Otherness recognizes differences" .... does that really sound like making them disappear to you?

That is the whole point ... I don't Zen out and make differences disappear ... instead I love the differences. It's kind of an Anti Nirvana state ... if you like that sort of thing.

So ontologically you see differences & like them - so what? I thought there was something profound you had discovered. What happens if you see differences & don't like them, like someone just about to have a difference about whether you should be alive or not?

well seeing differences and not liking them is the opposite of me feeling otherness.

again, "otherness" is a feeling, not an ontological analysis. it is not all that profound. it just works for me. i doubt you will ever grock it, unless somday you actaully manage to feel it. right about now, i am feeling it toward you ... how are you feeling toward me?

Apparently I don't - not knowing what it is; & in any case you have not conveyed such in any useful way. Ontology is about IS, Existence & Being - if it doesn't fit in any of those it is probably just your bullshit. I probably will not delve further into something that does not fit in Existence.

Above, it has turned into a feeling. A clue for me is that it falls apart on analysis or attempts to be conscious of it. I can synthesize just about any feeling with a little NLP work.

(re-edited)

Well i didn't ask whether you were feeling "otherness" ... rather i just asked how you were feeling toward me (in this context). It would be fun to actually get an honest answer from you on that ... or not, lol.

I am conscious of my feelings ... they don't fall apart just because they don't fit some rationalization. They are real things which do exist. And, yes, we certainly do synthesize feelings! As spirits go, "otherness" is a great one to synthesize ... to conjure. Try it the next time you feel strongly that somebody is an asshole and your neck becomes bright red in response.

How I feel about you at this moment is really not relevant about the discussion - it varies with each comment & communication. You have not sufficiently described otherness to me as a feeling to be able to say whether I have experienced it or not. As an Ego - everything that is not within what I say "I" to is other. I don't go around making anything in the way of feelings about that. Feelings are mostly made up, but to grok that you might actually have to read #BofNK. I don't feel embarassed or shame (?neck gets red?) when I see someone acting like an asshole. More likely I would probably wonder why they are not embarassed (or ashamed) at being an asshole.

Seth says

Sign of Obamacare failures captured in cartoon:

PML

Seth says

ME 2013-09-06 07:29:56 16738

You see, if POTUS really was for peace & worthy of his medal he would have obtained a consensus from the world bodies - the UN in particular - he is still mostly a one-worlder believing in world government.
I say it is more an Ego trip for POTUS.

And the secretary of state:

Seth says

seth 2013-09-06 07:03:39 16738

ME 2013-09-05 10:22:34 16738

Your rhetoric sounds to me just like the flip side of this from Syrian State TV yesterday ...

source: Syrian State TV via damascus

so talk it up ... it is sure to happen now.

and when congress votes no, it will be all on Obama.

On the other hand you can see what Iran thinks of the president:

...

Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Forces, Wednesday told the Assembly of Experts — the body that chooses the supreme leader — that “[w]e will support Syria to the end.”

And in an unprecedented statement, a former Iranian official has warned of mass abductions and brutal killings of American citizens around the world and the rape and killing of one of Obama’s daughters should the United States attack Syria.

... Obama - too late, too little, no support inside & outside the US ....

quite the opposite of GWB with a UN resolution, congressional support & the moral high road in the days when other countries still respected US.

Seth says

seth 2013-09-05 09:09:45 16738

ME 2013-09-05 08:40:03 16738

ME 2013-09-05 08:29:48 16738

Then too in the Decline & Fall of the American Empire can the electorate - community organized base of voters - switch from non participating, Robin Hood morals & political corruption to something else while reversing the direction of decline? Is it so entrenched that can't reverse course or move toward threefoldness?

Well i don't know about all that. but i think we both recognize that there is a vicious loop of corruption between money and power. ... and that is not just America, but world wide. reversing the thrust and progression of that vicious loop is not going to be easy. no political party dares to even put that on the agenda. what is more, our very notions about thinking about that loop are themselves fraught with confusion and contradiction. i can see no easy way out of the loop. except perhaps to encourage people individually to get out of it ... and to flourish without sucking on that cultural habit. the more people do that, the more it will just drown of its own corruption. but it wouldn't be pretty. and it won't be soon.

We need something like a "we're going to the Moon" moment (JFK).

Seth says

seth 2013-09-06 07:30:42 16738

source: Mark above
... Obama - too late, too little, no support inside & outside the US ....

quite the opposite of GWB with a UN resolution, congressional support & the moral high road in the days when other countries still respected US.

... yeah perhaps Obama is just as bad as GWB and even less capable of going to war. but we will see ... things are not always what they seem from the cheep seats. who knows, when congress votes no, perhaps obama will not strike and will peruse an alternate course. from my perspective, that would be the courageous thing to do. but those of you who still love the grand old USA to be the big bad policeman of the world will scream with horror. have at it bro, sometimes you will get what you expect.

With hour head way up your ASS your lies don't compute! Nobody in my camp wants the USA to be a big bad policeman. The most vocal anti-war is coming from Rand Paul - a libertarian! It is looking more & more like you neolibs are looking for a fight with someone - Congress? Syria? Russia? Iran? anyone? just to take the light shining on Obama's failures from derailing Obama's running against Congress for the mid-term elections. In particular the economy going south because Obamacare implementation shows corruption & infeasibility & cost overruns of gigantic proportion. Obama lies & the country dies!

Seth says

seth 2013-09-06 08:35:12 16738

interesting ... you attack obama himself ... obama as ego ... obama as person ... and you think me as his proxy. that is your focus. to you, apparently it is all about actual ego.

and interestingly enough, obama is not channeling the ego or american people ... which is trending against this war. instead obama is channeling the ego of america as the most powerful protector in the world. which ego will take over here?

and interestingly enough, as your probably already know, rubbing your ego, makes it worse

Except Obama's credibility as channeling ego of america as most powerful protector in the world is not credible by his previous actions as apologist in Egypt for America & his stand & others in his administration that don't like America as the World's super power; prefering that America get cut down to size. Well he certainly has engineered it that way; your mind-reading sucking as usual.

Seth says

seth 2013-09-06 10:23:06 16738

ME 2013-09-06 09:23:28 16738

ME 2013-09-06 09:07:09 16738

I just don't see that single thread of integrity that other president's had. He dithers from one side to the other anti-war, pro-war; anti-US, pro UN, ignoring UN; anti-military, pro-military probably wanting increase in military budget (special tax to finance Syrian war coming?) who knows? Only community organizers do that sort of thingy. The ends & the means don't justify each other for a community organizer - just the immediate pressure & power appearance.

Then too, he might just be searching for a better truth but can't find on yet because he doesn't know what it looks like until it comes out of his own mouth; that being his only criteria & whether the M$M can count a win for him with it.

well, no mind reading going on here, just observation of what you are doing, you are attacking obama's ego directly.

me, i try to be not just a little bit stand-offish ... to be just myself. nothing to be gained by attacking egos ... yours, obama's, or america's. i just try to see what is happening and what likely is behind what is happening as quite otherness to me. it is a thing of its own, not my fight, and not something that i must identify myself with.

strangely enough there may be an alternative. have the SEALs arrest Assad and take him to the world court. that would actually accomplish everything that obama says the strike is for. now wouldn't that be a dramatic solution! hard ... but dramatic ... and the right thing to do. No?

I think I have suggested something like that many times above in places where I have talked about the US & the UN. It takes an awful big Ego to run for & become POTUS, eh? He seems to believe that he can act in spite of Congress & invalidate laws for his friends sake & now is testing whenther he can declare a war all by himself - but got caught. I don't think he is above the law, the US Constitution etc. He has already demonstrated that he does. If that is not an overly ripe Ego ready for the fall, I don't know what does. Next time you think it's NOT about ego, count the number of times he uses the word "I" in a major speech; maybe even the one coming up before 9-11 trying to convince the people about a Syrian strike.

Reconciling Differences

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