Eternal Life? You Might Want To Rethink That...

Started by Solomon Zorn, July 05, 2017, 06:12:57 AM

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Solomon Zorn

I have figured out the solution, to every human problem that has ever plagued mankind, is currently fucking-up our lives, or ever will. It won't save your house from a fucking tornado...but yeah...I figured it out. The thing is, I CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT IT IS, because this message is SO IMPORTANT, that I have to figure out a way to post it anonymously(with no chance of being identified as the author) or it will be nullified, by the fact that...I am an American, schizophrenic, atheist, high-school dropout, with an alcohol dependency, and...well...name your preconceived bias. Basically, I am too smart too make the "Jesus Mistake,"(that's right, you heard this phrase here, for the very first time). If what I have discovered...a thought that can be a genuine catalyst for change, that snowballs into something more meaningful, and effective, the wider it is spread(look up, "the fullness of time," and think, "internet,")...then I refuse to exploit it, for my own profit(what the fuck do I need money for? I need SLEEP...), or take ANY CREDIT FOR IT: THE JESUS MISTAKE. The message must be separate from the messenger, or it won't help the people who don't like you. It's that basic.

But, trust me, I WILL save the world. I HAVE TO, because, of three things: NO ONE ELSE BELIEVES THAT THEY CAN; THEREFORE NO ONE ELSE IS TRYING; AND MOST OF ALL, BECAUSE, FOR FUCK'S SAKE, IT'S ABOUT TIME. Just give me a little bit of time to figure out, how to avoid the "Jesus Mistake:" associating my identity with the message, and it will begin. I really shouldn't even post this, but I have tried as hard as possible, not to give any hint, as to what I intend to say. Still, it's about to begin...

All praise to...?
If God Exists, Why Does He Pretend Not to Exist?
Poetry and Proverbs of the Uneducated Hick

http://www.solomonzorn.com

Solomon Zorn

If God Exists, Why Does He Pretend Not to Exist?
Poetry and Proverbs of the Uneducated Hick

http://www.solomonzorn.com

Baruch

Quote from: Solomon Zorn on July 05, 2017, 11:35:50 PM
I have figured out the solution, to every human problem that has ever plagued mankind, is currently fucking-up our lives, or ever will. It won't save your house from a fucking tornado...but yeah...I figured it out. The thing is, I CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT IT IS, because this message is SO IMPORTANT, that I have to figure out a way to post it anonymously(with no chance of being identified as the author) or it will be nullified, by the fact that...I am an American, schizophrenic, atheist, high-school dropout, with an alcohol dependency, and...well...name your preconceived bias. Basically, I am too smart too make the "Jesus Mistake,"(that's right, you heard this phrase here, for the very first time). If what I have discovered...a thought that can be a genuine catalyst for change, that snowballs into something more meaningful, and effective, the wider it is spread(look up, "the fullness of time," and think, "internet,")...then I refuse to exploit it, for my own profit(what the fuck do I need money for? I need SLEEP...), or take ANY CREDIT FOR IT: THE JESUS MISTAKE. The message must be separate from the messenger, or it won't help the people who don't like you. It's that basic.

But, trust me, I WILL save the world. I HAVE TO, because, of three things: NO ONE ELSE BELIEVES THAT THEY CAN; THEREFORE NO ONE ELSE IS TRYING; AND MOST OF ALL, BECAUSE, FOR FUCK'S SAKE, IT'S ABOUT TIME. Just give me a little bit of time to figure out, how to avoid the "Jesus Mistake:" associating my identity with the message, and it will begin. I really shouldn't even post this, but I have tried as hard as possible, not to give any hint, as to what I intend to say. Still, it's about to begin...

All praise to...?

Zen is quite clear ... if you can think it, write it or say it ... then it is an impediment to real enlightenment.

BTW - every human is Jesus.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

I don't know, I've been retired for 11 years and I'm not bored yet.  In fact, I don't feel the passage of time.  Maybe eternity would work that way.  Unending loss of time-sense, vague dementia, forever debating about a deity or lack of one.  Forever at the keyboard drinking a few glasses of wine...  Flying around playing frisbee with the halos...  Tricking a few friends in stepping on the thin spots of the clouds and watching them fall through.  Could be fun.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on July 06, 2017, 07:23:39 AM
I don't know, I've been retired for 11 years and I'm not bored yet.  In fact, I don't feel the passage of time.  Maybe eternity would work that way.  Unending loss of time-sense, vague dementia, forever debating about a deity or lack of one.  Forever at the keyboard drinking a few glasses of wine...  Flying around playing frisbee with the halos...  Tricking a few friends in stepping on the thin spots of the clouds and watching them fall through.  Could be fun.

Agreed ... lack of regular routine, or being bed ridden, leads to a kind of dissociation.  Maybe if your body isn't going to pieces, your mind is.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Quote from: Cavebear on July 06, 2017, 07:23:39 AM
I don't know, I've been retired for 11 years and I'm not bored yet.  In fact, I don't feel the passage of time.  Maybe eternity would work that way.  Unending loss of time-sense, vague dementia, forever debating about a deity or lack of one.  Forever at the keyboard drinking a few glasses of wine...  Flying around playing frisbee with the halos...  Tricking a few friends in stepping on the thin spots of the clouds and watching them fall through.  Could be fun.
Actually, I seem to be more acutely aware of the passage of time.  I think that's supposed to be typical of aging and have even read an explanation for the phenomenon, but if that continued on for eternity, it could be the blessing that gets you through it.  Eventually, the past and present could merge into a kind of moment of understanding everything at once.  It wouldn't answer the big question about where everything came from, because none of us could have experienced that, but it might make the question rather irrelevant.  I don't actually know that, of course.  I'm just speculating wildly.

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on July 06, 2017, 07:54:00 AM
Actually, I seem to be more acutely aware of the passage of time.  I think that's supposed to be typical of aging and have even read an explanation for the phenomenon, but if that continued on for eternity, it could be the blessing that gets you through it.  Eventually, the past and present could merge into a kind of moment of understanding everything at once.  It wouldn't answer the big question about where everything came from, because none of us could have experienced that, but it might make the question rather irrelevant.  I don't actually know that, of course.  I'm just speculating wildly.
Time does not pass for me.  I still feel 35 and it seems I retired "last year".  I think I could live forever (if in decent health) and not notice.  Just call me "Cavebear Lazarus Long Somelastname"... 
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

SGOS

Quote from: Cavebear on July 06, 2017, 08:02:06 AM
Time does not pass for me. 
I'd like to know how you accomplish that.  I'm not trying to run out the clock.  I'd like to keep the game going for as long as possible.  Overtime, if I could make it happen.

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on July 06, 2017, 08:22:41 AM
I'd like to know how you accomplish that.  I'm not trying to run out the clock.  I'd like to keep the game going for as long as possible.  Overtime, if I could make it happen.
That's not an easy question.  It's mostly attitude.  But...

1.  I think more about the future than the past.
2.  As relatives die, I accept it as the normal course of their life.
3.  I have never attended a funeral.
4.  I live with cats.  When one goes (and I mourn them), it means room to accept another.
5.  I think of the lawn grass.  It gets mowed but endures. 
6.  Keep an unending "To Do" list. 
7.  Do something useful every day.
8.  Never repeat yourself.
8.  Never repeat yourself.
9.  Convince yourself the flowers and veggies NEED you.
10.  Be assured the cats do.
11.  Listen to different music every day.
12.  But listen to some favorites too.
13.  Always plan what you are going to make for dinner tomorrow.
14.  Plant a tree and expect to see it mature.
15.  Completely change your style of clothes every few years.  I'm really into desert camo now.  A few years ago, I was The Man In Black.
16.  Develop bad habits and then drop them.
17.  Live in the same place with the same furniture and change it so gradually you never quite notice the difference.
18.  Be an atheist, so there is no reason to look forward to dying.
19.  Plan stuff you will never do but "will someday".
20.  Tell the world your annoying opinions and change them sometimes.
21.  Make lists like this.

;)
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

SGOS

Good advice to live by, and I follow similar rules myself, but time is still accelerating.  I know I could do better, and I think I'll make a hard copy of your list and put it on the refrigerator, but at best I would expect any changes in my perception of time to be more subtle and more closely related to attitude.  I promise I won't give you any advice on how to speed up time.  Neither of us could benefit from that at this juncture.

But you know, long after I retired I traded my house for a boat and sailed across the ocean twice and explored places I had never been and saw things that I could not have seen in any other way.  I did that for three years, and while some people lead that life for much longer, it was three years and not just your average vacation by any means, but something I'd had on my bucket list since I was a teenager.  But that went by all too quickly and then I had to get on to the next thing.  That three years seemed like one year, and in my memory it could be a month.  I even lost track of seasons for a while, and would have to stop and wonder if it was winter or summer, although that was during the year in Hawaii.  During the Alaska part of the adventure, I definitely knew when it was winter.  In the summer, I knew it wasn't winter, but I still puzzled about if it was still early spring or actually summer.  Then I worked my way down the coast, and by Fall I was in Southern Canada, but I thought it was summer.

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on July 06, 2017, 09:16:54 AM
Good advice to live by, and I follow similar rules myself, but time is still accelerating.  I know I could do better, and I think I'll make a hard copy of your list and put it on the refrigerator, but at best I would expect any changes in my perception of time to be more subtle and more closely related to attitude.  I promise I won't give you any advice on how to speed up time.  Neither of us could benefit from that at this juncture.

But you know, long after I retired I traded my house for a boat and sailed across the ocean twice and explored places I had never been and saw things that I could not have seen in any other way.  I did that for three years, and while some people lead that life for much longer, it was three years and not just your average vacation by any means, but something I'd had on my bucket list since I was a teenager.  But that went by all too quickly and then I had to get on to the next thing.  That three years seemed like one year, and in my memory it could be a month.  I even lost track of seasons for a while, and would have to stop and wonder if it was winter or summer, although that was during the year in Hawaii.  During the Alaska part of the adventure, I definitely knew when it was winter.  In the summer, I knew it wasn't winter, but I still puzzled about if it was still early spring or actually summer.  Then I worked my way down the coast, and by Fall I was in Southern Canada, but I thought it was summer.

That was an outstanding adventure.  Different things, but similar.  I once spent 6 weeks in a sleeping bag, but not quite the same for sure.  I live life at home now.  The hummers at the feeders, the butterflies at the flowers, the bees everywhere and the cats being cats outside but inside every night.  My house and yard are my sanctuary.

I paddled uplake in Canada with a friend once at Lake Opeango.  Spent a week with dried food heated with boiled lake water and fierce mosquitoes.  My friend was utterly inept, I was right at home.  We paddled back and were hit by a squall.  My friend was in the bow and just paddled, I quartered us into the waves and gained the leeward shore eventually.  I should mention he tipped the canoe over previously in 8" water and *I* had to do all the diving to recover our stuff.  I still have the leather cowboy hat (my handle back then was "Sheriff")  I wore then that was soaked in the Canadian waters of 1976.  My friend never understood how close we came to dying in the squall.

Some people do interesting things in their life.  Most don't.  They just go along with life as the tides take them.

YOU are an interesting person.

Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

SGOS

#41
Quote from: Cavebear on July 06, 2017, 09:38:53 AM
I paddled uplake in Canada with a friend once at Lake Opeango.  Spent a week with dried food heated with boiled lake water and fierce mosquitoes.  My friend was utterly inept, I was right at home.  We paddled back and were hit by a squall.  My friend was in the bow and just paddled, I quartered us into the waves and gained the leeward shore eventually.  I should mention he tipped the canoe over previously in 8" water and *I* had to do all the diving to recover our stuff.  I still have the leather cowboy hat (my handle back then was "Sheriff")  I wore then that was soaked in the Canadian waters of 1976.  My friend never understood how close we came to dying in the squall.
In my early 20s, I had a similar experience with my dad.  We paddled his canoe into Ontario's Quetico Canoe Area starting from the northeast tip of Minnesota.  I drove back to Chicago from Montana to make the trip with him.  It was in early may a week after the ice left the lakes.  We paddled 100 miles and made 20 portages and had the place to ourselves.  Only saw a couple of other canoes at the very beginning and the very end.  We encountered similar blows.  On the first one, which wasn't as bad as the second, we got caught out on one of the bigger lakes of the journey and with the wind at our backs, we rigged a small sail out of a tarp and canoe paddles.  We made extraordinarily good time, but finally threw in the towel when we made it to a small peninsula early in the day and decided it was safer to make camp for the night.  I wouldn't say it wasn't dangerous.  I was pretty nervous during the ride.

The second blow was much worse.  Again we were caught out in the middle of the lake, and knew right away we were in a bad place.  We managed to make it to an island gravel bar still quite away from shore, and held up until the sun went down and the winds subsided.  My dad always wanted to try paddling at night.  He had read somewhere that the French Voyageurs often traveled that way guiding themselves by the north star.  So on a glassy calm, we started out in the dark.  I don't think the stars were necessary, but we kind of pretended that they were.  While we didn't have a time when we needed to get back to Chicago, it was nearing the end of our trip and we had made arrangements for a launch on the next day that was to save us an extra 20 miles of paddling across American waters and take us the final distance to our car.

We paddled until about 4:00 in the morning and found shelter at an unused cabin in a quiet bay.  My dad was in the bow, and told me he couldn't stay awake so he stopped paddling and fell asleep.  So much for the voyageurs fantasy.   I didn't mind.  I was having a good time and paddled us for the last 4 or 5 miles.

As it turned out the next day, the launch wasn't there at the appointed time when we arrived.  So we paddled the rest of the way, thinking we might meet the launch along our route.  I can't remember.  It might have been another 10 or 20 miles.  When we got to the takeout point, the outfitter that ran the thing told us he had simply forgot to get us.  I didn't care, nor did my dad.

On that trip we did the freeze dried food thing like you did.  We also supplemented it with some items from the grocery store that lent themselves to light weight.  One of them was powdered omelets, made by the Borden Dairy Company.  They were quite tasty and we ate a lot of those, but I don't think they make them anymore as most cooks at home just use regular eggs, but on the trip, they were delicious.  We also paid out for one special freeze dry meal; It was pork chops, peas, and some kind of potato serving a bit more glamorous than hash browns.  The meal was not the standard freeze dry goulash, but actual pork chops without the bone.  Out of the package, they were a good size but resembled something made out of cork.  They could be reconstituted with hot water and a small package of something labeled "pork enzyme."  Once that was done, they could be fried like a regular pork chop.  The meal also came with peas.  It was all delicious, but the potatoes were really something special.  I can't remember potatoes that good since.  The rest of the trip, we ate the usual freeze dry goulash like chicken and rice and beef stroganoff.

We also brought with us a reflector oven made out of aluminum, and it worked surprisingly well.  We baked corn bread, and biscuits, and I even made a coffee cake out of plain old Bisquick topped with a crusty brown sugar glaze.  We also had one of those plastic squeeze bottles of honey that my dad turned up his nose at when I bought it.  He thought it wasn't appropriate enough for light weight, but he admitted later that it was a welcomed luxury on the biscuits and cornbread.

That trip was one that stands out in memory, and it was the last such experience I shared with my father. 

trdsf

Any eternal afterlife that doesn't involve cruising the multiverse unfettered by the laws of physics so I can see everything there is to see is not an afterlife I have any interest in.  There's no point in being a disembodied spirit if I can't poke my ghostly head inside an event horizon and see what's going on in there, and then move on to watching Betelgeuse or η Carinæ go supernova from one of their outer planets (if they have any) and then off to observe other sentient life forms elsewhere in the galaxy/universe.

If I can't do that, then I'll take oblivion, thanks.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on July 06, 2017, 07:54:00 AM
Actually, I seem to be more acutely aware of the passage of time.  I think that's supposed to be typical of aging and have even read an explanation for the phenomenon, but if that continued on for eternity, it could be the blessing that gets you through it.  Eventually, the past and present could merge into a kind of moment of understanding everything at once.  It wouldn't answer the big question about where everything came from, because none of us could have experienced that, but it might make the question rather irrelevant.  I don't actually know that, of course.  I'm just speculating wildly.

Most people as they age, experience the sense of ... time passing more quickly.  Years are quicker, months are quicker, weeks are quicker and days are quicker.  If it keeps up, I expect the sense of last good day ... to attending my own funeral will be a snap of the fingers.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on July 06, 2017, 09:16:54 AM
Good advice to live by, and I follow similar rules myself, but time is still accelerating.  I know I could do better, and I think I'll make a hard copy of your list and put it on the refrigerator, but at best I would expect any changes in my perception of time to be more subtle and more closely related to attitude.  I promise I won't give you any advice on how to speed up time.  Neither of us could benefit from that at this juncture.

But you know, long after I retired I traded my house for a boat and sailed across the ocean twice and explored places I had never been and saw things that I could not have seen in any other way.  I did that for three years, and while some people lead that life for much longer, it was three years and not just your average vacation by any means, but something I'd had on my bucket list since I was a teenager.  But that went by all too quickly and then I had to get on to the next thing.  That three years seemed like one year, and in my memory it could be a month.  I even lost track of seasons for a while, and would have to stop and wonder if it was winter or summer, although that was during the year in Hawaii.  During the Alaska part of the adventure, I definitely knew when it was winter.  In the summer, I knew it wasn't winter, but I still puzzled about if it was still early spring or actually summer.  Then I worked my way down the coast, and by Fall I was in Southern Canada, but I thought it was summer.

I see the key to what Cavebear is saying ... retire, and make every day like every other.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.