https://aeon.co/essays/dread-accompanies-me-through-life-but-it-is-not-without-consolation
This seems a pertinent topic for people here, at this time.
Because of my anxieties, I have come to understand why I’m the philosopher I am, why I hold the views I do, why I do not trust that there is an inherent, essential, meaning or purpose to life. My anxiety is intimately related to a hard-won knowledge about this world’s eternally changing nature, one that often runs afoul of human plans, intentions, attachments or relationships; it informs me that it cannot be so, and it is no less valuable for that as a source of my knowledge.
Some thinkers, such as Jordan Peterson, use the universal experience of suffering as the basis for their moral thinking. Recently I have been considering impermanence as a deeper challenge of human existence.
Quote from: GSOgymrat on March 03, 2018, 06:40:01 AM
Because of my anxieties, I have come to understand why I’m the philosopher I am, why I hold the views I do, why I do not trust that there is an inherent, essential, meaning or purpose to life. My anxiety is intimately related to a hard-won knowledge about this world’s eternally changing nature, one that often runs afoul of human plans, intentions, attachments or relationships; it informs me that it cannot be so, and it is no less valuable for that as a source of my knowledge.
Some thinkers, such as Jordan Peterson, use the universal experience of suffering as the basis for their moral thinking. Recently I have been considering impermanence as a deeper challenge of human existence.
The impermanence of things is a major motivator for both personal and collective issues. We each face it differently. According to Buddhism, bad reactions to impermanence are the basis for illumination. Got monks? Of course The City of God by Augustine, was the Western contribution to the initial observation of Heraclitus.
Quote from: Baruch on February 28, 2018, 08:13:23 PM
https://aeon.co/essays/dread-accompanies-me-through-life-but-it-is-not-without-consolation
This seems a pertinent topic for people here, at this time.
As you said nothing about the subject yourself, merely offerring a link which I won't bother to follow, I am not impressed.
Quote from: Cavebear on March 05, 2018, 03:12:44 AM
As you said nothing about the subject yourself, merely offerring a link which I won't bother to follow, I am not impressed.
It got people thinking, and many good responses ... except for yours ;-)
Quote from: Baruch on March 05, 2018, 06:30:27 AM
It got people thinking, and many good responses ... except for yours ;-)
"Touchey" LOL! Oh what, you are bragging about Gilgamesh?
Quote from: Cavebear on March 05, 2018, 05:12:27 PM
"Touchey" LOL! Oh what, you are bragging about Gilgamesh?
Gilgamesh and I, see eye to eye, on several issues.
Most people use a colloquial definition of anxiety. They express "anxiety" over Trump, Clinton, or North Korea. But clinically, this is not anxiety. It's fear. The difference between fear and anxiety is that fear is connected to an identifiable source: For example, "I am afraid of the Russians (or Muslims)."
Anxiety differs from fear as it has a cause that cannot been identified. The source is there, but at a subconscious level, outside awareness. Intense anxiety can be worse than fear, sometimes reaching panic. I believe panic attacks are intense anxiety, although that is intuitive on my part. It's also possible for anxiety to exist without a source, probably as a learned response to the multitude of unknowns in life.
You are right that sometimes when people talk about anxiety they are referring to something worrisome. People also confuse sadness with depression. Anxiety can have a known source but its intensity or frequency is difficult to manage. It is helpful to look at anxiety as a cycle.
(https://www.allinallnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Anxiety-Cycle.jpg)
I agree about fear vs anxiety. Both can be legitimate, but they are different. I fear hornets. I've been stung a few times and it is very painful. I fear them in a practical manner because they are around the house and yard.
I have an anxiety about large dogs. I have never been attacked by one. I worry whenever I see a large dog. But my anxiety is not supported by experience. Anxiety is more a concern of threat than an actual one.
Yes, hornets are nasty buggers! Only been stung once (they had colonized by garage door opener). I respect bees.
Been mouthed by a large dog (he held my forearm in his mouth) ... but he didn't bite down hard, and I didn't move until his owner released me. My ex though has a deathly fear of dogs, because when a child, a dog at a family gathering, came over and at the food off her paper plate, without asking first! But fear of heights causes real panic attack in me (as recently as 2009).
Quote from: Baruch on March 08, 2018, 07:58:46 PM
Yes, hornets are nasty buggers! Only been stung once (they had colonized by garage door opener). I respect bees.
Been mouthed by a large dog (he held my forearm in his mouth) ... but he didn't bite down hard, and I didn't move until his owner released me. My ex though has a deathly fear of dogs, because when a child, a dog at a family gathering, came over and at the food off her paper plate, without asking first! But fear of heights causes real panic attack in me (as recently as 2009).
Hornets are wasps, not bees. Though from a similar family, they have slightly different origins among the social insects. I once read that "wasps came from ants, and bees from termites" but I can't find the reference immediately.
Sorry about the dogs. My family members have been attacked several times by large dogs too. Mom and me (as a child) by one thrashing to get the food we carried, my teen brother by a Weimarana (many stitches and fear). I myself had to grab a large loose dog (and we aren't talking border collies here) that attacked me as an adult by it's spiked collar and drag it snarling and snapping several house away where I knew it lived. I do NOT love dogs.
Quote from: Cavebear on March 12, 2018, 06:48:34 AM
Hornets are wasps, not bees. Though from a similar family, they have slightly different origins among the social insects. I once read that "wasps came from ants, and bees from termites" but I can't find the reference immediately.
Sorry about the dogs. My family members have been attacked several times by large dogs too. Mom and me (as a child) by one thrashing to get the food we carried, my teen brother by a Weimarana (many stitches and fear). I myself had to grab a large loose dog (and we aren't talking border collies here) that attacked me as an adult by it's spiked collar and drag it snarling and snapping several house away where I knew it lived. I do NOT love dogs.
Doing what come naturally to them, like apes do, only different.
Quote from: Baruch on March 12, 2018, 06:57:04 AM
Doing what come naturally to them, like apes do, only different.
No that isn't what dogs "do naturally". What dogs do naturally is obey humans. That is what differentiates them from wolves. When dogs are not properly trained or are allowed to loose-breed, they start to revert. In older times, such dangerous dogs would have been culled as untrainable puppies or killed as unsociable adults.
We have lost that discipline over them lately.
Generally, I love dogs, but I have a natural fear of certain breeds and appearances. I won't approach those types, which make up a percentage of dogs somewhere in the low single digits. I've had serious conflict with Dobermans and German Shepherds. If I know them I will touch them, but with a high degree of trepidation. But I'm fine with their close cousins, the Siberian Huskies. I'm much more fearful of an unchained Doberman than I am of meeting a bear on a wilderness trail. I've experienced both, and the fear factor for the bear experience is much less than half that of the Doberman.
When I first moved to my present location, I was taking a walk down the road serving my driveway, and I was a quarter mile from my house approaching my nearest neighbor, when some large fanged slavering cross between a Shepherd and a wolf started barking at me from the yard, I spun around and headed home, while some old lady called out, "He won't bite," which carries about as much weight as a parent that says, "My kid never does anything wrong."
Later, I did make friends with that dog, which turned out to be a total marshmallow starved for human affection. During thunderstorms when his owners weren't home, he would travel the quarter mile to my house looking for protection from the thunder, and I would let him. When the storm passed he would beg to go out, and he would head home. So you can't judge a book by its cover.
Edit: that dog looked exactly like my avatar.
Quote from: SGOS on March 12, 2018, 09:56:54 AM
Generally, I love dogs, but I have a natural fear of certain breeds and appearances. I won't approach those types, which make up a percentage of dogs somewhere in the low single digits. I've had serious conflict with Dobermans and German Shepherds. If I know them I will touch them, but with a high degree of trepidation. But I'm fine with their close cousins, the Siberian Huskies. I'm much more fearful of an unchained Doberman than I am of meeting a bear on a wilderness trail. I've experienced both, and the fear factor for the bear experience is much less than half that of the Doberman.
When I first moved to my present location, I was taking a walk down the road serving my driveway, and I was a quarter mile from my house approaching my nearest neighbor, when some large fanged slavering cross between a Shepherd and a wolf started barking at me from the yard, I spun around and headed home, while some old lady called out, "He won't bite," which carries about as much weight as a parent that says, "My kid never does anything wrong."
Later, I did make friends with that dog, which turned out to be a total marshmallow starved for human affection. During thunderstorms when his owners weren't home, he would travel the quarter mile to my house looking for protection from the thunder, and I would let him. When the storm passed he would beg to go out, and he would head home. So you can't judge a book by its cover.
Edit: that dog looked exactly like my avatar.
I quite understand about the "don't worry, it won't bite" claim. It isn't true.
That is true maybe for the owners and family. They forget that the dogs are bonded to THEM. Barking dogs do bite. Owners dogs do bite strangers. It's almost what they do!
When I was a young teen, I tried to make friends with a kid nearby whose family had 8 Chihuahuas. He walked among them with no problem. But they snarled at me and tore and me pantslegs and stuff and I had to quit him after a week.
Dogowners just don't recognize that dogs protect family and hate intruders. The Chihuahuas tried to bite me everytime I moved.
Quote from: Cavebear on March 12, 2018, 10:22:10 AM
I quite understand about the "don't worry, it won't bite" claim. It isn't true.
That is true maybe for the owners and family. They forget that the dogs are bonded to THEM. Barking dogs do bite. Owners dogs do bite strangers. It's almost what they do!
When I was a young teen, I tried to make friends with a kid nearby whose family had 8 Chihuahuas. He walked among them with no problem. But they snarled at me and tore and me pantslegs and stuff and I had to quit him after a week.
Dogowners just don't recognize that dogs protect family and hate intruders. The Chihuahuas tried to bite me everytime I moved.
The last dog that bit me was a Chihuahua. It was 10 years ago in Hawaii. He spotted me from across a parking lot, bolted from his owner and leaped up and bit my stomach. It wasn't a very bloody bite, but he did break the skin. The owner thought it was funny.
Quote from: SGOS on March 12, 2018, 10:31:10 AM
The last dog that bit me was a Chihuahua. It was 10 years ago in Hawaii. He spotted me from across a parking lot, bolted from his owner and leaped up and bit my stomach. It wasn't a very bloody bite, but he did break the skin. The owner thought it was funny.
The owner would. They think that way. I would have considered dogicide entirely legitimate. Imagine his reaction if you had just killed it in self-defense...
Bonker-city...
Quote from: Cavebear on March 12, 2018, 10:35:06 AM
The owner would. They think that way. I would have considered dogicide entirely legitimate. Imagine his reaction if you had just killed it in self-defense...
Bonker-city...
Or even kicked it and sent it flying.
Quote from: SGOS on March 12, 2018, 10:51:33 AM
Or even kicked it and sent it flying.
Oh I was SO TEMPTED! But it wasn't my house and not my pets. Easier to just never go to that neighbor kids house!
But a situation occurred many years later. I used to run a mile around the apartment complex. One time, the neighbor kids told their dog to "sic him". The dog came at me, and in stride, I kicked him 10 yards onto some cars. And apparently the dad was right there. Big Guy.
"WHY DID YOU KICK MY DOG"? And he grabbed me and I didn't like that. And this was before you would fear getting shot for that... I put my face in his and told him the kids sicced the dog on me. And he apologized and said it wouldn't happen again.
The old days of reason...
Here's an opposite experience: Years ago, a friend had dropped me off in the woods during hunting season, so I could do a walk home hunting with my 30-30. I was on a dirt road that found it's way through an isolated community of tarpaper shacks, when a black lab came out of the yard and approached me snarling. He just kept coming, not charging, just a slow cautious snaring intimidation, and he wouldn't respond to me commanding him to go home. There were some little kids in the yard, all less then ten years old watching, and the dog kept coming. Finally, I looked at the kids, who went from just watching to looking quite apprehensive after I cocked the 30-30. I told them to call their dog back, and with relief, they seriously called to the dog, "Come back here, Sparky!" The dog perked up and looked at them, and then even the dog seemed relieved as he trotted back to them wagging his tail. I thanked the kids, and they said, "That's OK. Thank you."
Quote from: SGOS on March 12, 2018, 11:51:40 AM
Here's an opposite experience: Years ago, a friend had dropped me off in the woods during hunting season, so I could do a walk home hunting with my 30-30. I was on a dirt road that found it's way through an isolated community of tarpaper shacks, when a black lab came out of the yard and approached me snarling. He just kept coming, not charging, just a slow cautious snaring intimidation, and he wouldn't respond to me commanding him to go home. There were some little kids in the yard, all less then ten years old watching, and the dog kept coming. Finally, I looked at the kids, who went from just watching to looking quite apprehensive after I cocked the 30-30. I told them to call their dog back, and with relief, they seriously called to the dog, "Come back here, Sparky!" The dog perked up and looked at them, and then even the dog seemed relieved as he trotted back to them wagging his tail. I thanked the kids, and they said, "That's OK. Thank you."
Lucky for you there wasn't no banjo picking in the background ...
Quote from: SGOS on March 12, 2018, 11:51:40 AM
Here's an opposite experience: Years ago, a friend had dropped me off in the woods during hunting season, so I could do a walk home hunting with my 30-30. I was on a dirt road that found it's way through an isolated community of tarpaper shacks, when a black lab came out of the yard and approached me snarling. He just kept coming, not charging, just a slow cautious snaring intimidation, and he wouldn't respond to me commanding him to go home. There were some little kids in the yard, all less then ten years old watching, and the dog kept coming. Finally, I looked at the kids, who went from just watching to looking quite apprehensive after I cocked the 30-30. I told them to call their dog back, and with relief, they seriously called to the dog, "Come back here, Sparky!" The dog perked up and looked at them, and then even the dog seemed relieved as he trotted back to them wagging his tail. I thanked the kids, and they said, "That's OK. Thank you."
I understand. That's the thing about dogs. Loyal to the end and they are good like that. I just don't like them.
Dogs have owners; cats have staff.