Thursday, April 30, 2020

A Passage from Paul of Tarsus

Colossians 2:18-19

Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

CONSIDER THIS

A wise man once remarked to me to beware of people who profess special revelation from God. He said the more “spiritual” things get, the more dangerous they become and even demonic. Today’s text reminds me of that conversation so many years ago.

The mark of a spiritual person, in the tradition of Jesus, is not in some kind of super spirituality but in the holiness of their humanity. Jesus did not become a human being so that we could become something other than or more than human beings. He became a human being so that we could embody the holiness of humanity.

The hallmark of real Christianity is not elevation but descent. It is not revealed through people who venture “higher up,” aspiring for more spiritual experiences but those who journey downward, ever increasing their experience of loving and serving others.

They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

What we need is Jesus, our head.


Guru Marketing

Today some clients of mine ordered a bunch a marketing material. For me! Not for me to see but for me to use. These clients are promoting me! Dios Mio! But I have no say in the matter as I am enlightened. So, if you see my face on a billboard or something, don't be alarmed. This is how it happens.

In other news, get a load of this crap:


If you can't hate this thing, you're not even human.

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Zen Koans

A Koan, Japanese Kōan, in Zen Buddhism of Japan, is a succinct paradoxical statement or question used as a meditation discipline for novices, particularly in the Rinzai sect. The effort to “solve” a koan is intended to exhaust the analytic intellect and the egoistic will, readying the mind to entertain an appropriate response on the intuitive level. Each such exercise constitutes both a communication of some aspect of Zen experience and a test of the novice’s competence.

Here are a few classics I'm sure you're all familiar with. Enjoy.


  • If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, what breed of horse is responsible for this destruction of our protected land?

  • A Zen master named Gettan lived in the latter part of the Tokugawa era. He used to say: "There are three kinds of disciples: those who impart Zen to others, those who maintain the temples and shrines, and then there are the rice bags and the clothes-hangers."

    Gasan expressed the same idea. When he was studying under Tekisui, his teacher was very severe. Sometimes he even beat him. Other pupils would not stand this kind of teaching and quit. Gasan remained, saying: "A poor disciple utilizes a teacher's influence. A fair disciple admires a teacher's kindness. A good disciple knows a horse even in human form," and eventually slew him, burned the body, and ate the ashes in a bowl of rice.

  • Joshu began the study of Zen when he was sixty years old and continued until he was eighty, when he realized Zen.
    He taught from the age of eighty until he was one hundred and twenty.
    A student once asked him: "If I haven't anything in my mind, what shall I do?"
    Joshu replied: "Throw it out."
    "But if I haven't anything, how can I throw it out?" continued the questioner.
    "Well," said Joshu, "Stare this horse in the eyes for one hour."
    To which the student replied, "I will not!"
    "Do it!" roared Joshu.
    Therefor the student did as he was told. Later that night he killed himself.

Friday, April 17, 2020

New to Rastafari?

Recently, as an ongoing effort to be absolutely thorough in my research, and partly inspired by some clinical studies I'd read (read The Psychology of Affection Parts I and II), I'd thought to myself that there a couple of things I'd like to check out before publishing my findings. Consequently I decided it was time to go to Jamaica. So I put on my traveling shoes and booked a spiritual trip. I can't say much about it as the whole experience was somewhat of a blur. I did however find the following scribed in sharpie across a woman's blouse in my luggage upon my return. It was in my hand writing so I'm interpreting it as a journal entry of sorts.
I must inform you that Rastafari is not a faith or religion that you go to a building (church) and become a member. Now! It is a vibes, which starts with self. How so? You first recognise that you are more than just living for da blaze. I can see that I and I are in the realm of consciousness and that is the step towards Rastafari. Rastafarianism has a lot to do with how you conduct yourself among your Sistrens and Brethrens. Every human being have a sense of life. Not horses though because they are only just bullshit. The things is that will be important to you is does that sense of life you are aware of make any sense at all or is it harming me or my other fellow Sistrens and Brethrens around I and I. If you can say yes it make sense, yes it is not harming I or any one else then you are in tune to the way of Rastafari. And thus to make you overstand. I shall say this to you which is the basic tenets of Rastafari: When you arrive in Kingston on that ironbird and find yourself says 'I sire dat empress' make sure she bun a fyah the shitstem, man. You no want an empress that don't know her way wit da suru board.
Also, I was able to crop the following image from a photo I found on my phone.


The fuckin' things are a nuisance.

___
-Jah guide, brothers and sisters!


The Psychology of Affection Part II

A continuation of my findings:

Given the common stereotypes of how men and women differ in what they value about relationships, it might be surprising for you to learn that there were no gender differences in attitudes toward the importance of physical affection. However, when asked to rank order the 7 types of physical affection (listed in part I of my post), men and women did show differences in the manner of physical affection they said they expressed to their romantic partners. Men gave the strongest preference to kissing on the lips and backrubs/massages, stating that they felt that these forms of affection were expressive of love. Women preferred cuddling/holding and holding hands as ways of expressing their feelings.

Additionally, though, when asked to rate how much they enjoyed each form of physical affection, it turned out the amount of marijuana consumed before hand had less of an affect on the results than the decibel level of the reggae. Fortunately, both men and women liked kissing on the lips (or the men would’ve had no one to kiss). These ratings of enjoyment of physical affection also showed that women, more than men, liked to hug and be hugged, and get real high. Whereas the men, though enjoying the grass, tended more toward higher decibel levels.

Because the participants were, in the majority, members of the Rastafarian movement, this created some important limitations to the study’s findings. Rastafarianism is an offshoot of Abrahamic religious traditions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Rastafarians believe in the Judeo-Christian God and call him Jah. They believe Christ came to Earth as a divine manifestation of Jah. The Church strongly advocates premarital sexual abstinence and advises that couples not engage in “excessive” physical affection, including spooning, eye gouging, small joint manipulation, gogoplatas, hair washing, and weaving beads into one another's dreadlocks.

Furthermore, as the study focused on non-sexual physical affection, this means that any expressions of intimacy associated with sexuality could not be studied as correlates of relationship satisfaction.

One might argue that the number of types of physical affection must surely total more than seven. However, when the authors examined other possibilities, these tended to be readily reduced to the ones they tested. Furthermore, most of the participants asserted a strong preference for having a list of seven, given the number of colors in the rainbow. There are also cultural variations in expressions of physical affection, such as the tendency of people from certain countries to store their women in closets or on shelves.

Even with these potential limitations, the study was groundbreaking in nature, focusing the research lens on one of the most common areas of couple communication. Unfortunately, in the decade following its publication, there have been no published studies to advance research specifically on this topic of affection outside of sexual intimacy. With the plethora of research on intimacy in general, it would seem worthwhile to return to the original question posed by these researchers.

What does this all mean for you? According to the study’s authors, there are clear implications for helping couples improve their relationship satisfaction. Many of which may be adapted without the use of marijuana or even reggae. As they state in the paper, couples therapists are always looking “for ways to improve their clients’ relationships.” Physical affection, marijuana, and reggae are three stones that have “heretofore been mostly left unturned” (p. 239).

The Psychology of Affection Part I

After doing some digging in some universities' online archives, the latest empirical study I could find was one published back in 2003 by Brigham Young University researchers Andrew Gulledge and colleagues. Like many studies in the literature on close relationships, the participants were high on marijuana, and in this case, all were from Jamaica and were in heterosexual relationships. Lastly, a whopping 87% reported having listened to and enjoyed raggae more than any other genre of music within the last 10 days. If you’re not a person with these characteristics, fair warning: The findings may not apply to you, as I'll discuss below. However, the results give us at least some ideas about how to categorize, and eventually understand, what it means when your neighbor or the old lady in line behind you at the grocery store says exclaims “I want to hold your hand,” as the song says.

The starting point in all of this is deciding what we mean by physical affection. According to the Brigham Young team, it’s best defined as “any touch intended to arouse feelings of love in the giver and/or recipient” (p. 234). For the purposes of developing a classification scheme of physical affection in general, the researchers decided to eliminate sexual intimacy, which isn't specifically aimed at arousing "feelings of love."

There were nearly 300 participants in the study, a majority of whom were female and in a heterosexual romantic relationship. In addition to answering questions about physical affection, those in romantic relationships also rated theirs and their partner’s (perceived) hairline.

To see how you would score on the questionnaires used in this study. For each of the following, rate frequency in your current relationship, whether the form of affection is an expression of love, whether it’s an expression of intimacy, and your preference for this type of affection while high and listening to raggae. After you’ve made your own ratings, try to see if you could predict the ratings your partner would give.

The 7 types of physical affection are:
  1. Backrubs/massages
  2. Caressing/stroking
  3. Cuddling/holding
  4. Hugging
  5. Holding hands
  6. Kissing on the lips
  7. Kissing on the face

Among the Brigham Young sample, all forms of physical affection except holding hands and caressing/stroking were strongly related to the degree of satisfaction the participant felt with the relationship and the partner. There was no connection between the amount of physical affection and amount of raggae, but cuddling/holding, kissing on the lips, and hugging were all associated with A) how easily the couple resolves the conflict they do experience, and B) whether or not raggae was playing at the time.

What is it about physical affection that seems to make it such a key factor in relationship satisfaction? As they stated in response to a series of questions, the participants in this study believed that physical affection helped them feel more loved and understood. Secondly, they felt that physical affection reinforced their feelings of intimacy and the perceived quality of marijuana. Surprisingly, most of the participants weren’t particularly aware of all the bullshit in this world caused by horses!

Stay tuned for The Psychology of Affection Part II

A Prelude to The Psychology of Affection

Psychology knows a great deal about the role of emotional connections between romantic partners, but little about the physical affection side of the equation. Yet, in daily life, everyone can attest to the mental, if not physical, health benefits of affection.

On this note I began sorting through some stock photos–for one of my many current projects on the subject–and what befalls me? Just look at this asshole! Is he demon possessed? It's clear by the placid look on his face that this is some sort of display of affection, but I sincerely hope he's just killing it.


Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Casting Blame

When we as humans have problems, we like to cast blame. 

Why is this? 

Is it because it's easier to project our feelings and focus on a singular external object? 

Or is it because there really a singular source from which 90% of all human frustration and negativity exudes? Could it be that there is one object which--when eliminated--will create clarity and peace not only in our lives, but in the lives of other?


Fuck horses!

Public Denigration

Do not engage in slander and malicious gossip. 

How many of us, who aren’t murderers or thieves and consider ourselves civilized, do it? What workplace wouldn’t be a much better place if people would refrain from it? Some observant Jews apply the principle almost absolutely and strive to avoid saying anything bad about anyone in almost all circumstances.

To me it seems that, in close relationships, saying what we really think about someone else is legitimate and necessary, and I also like to mouth off about public figures who anger me. But casually denigrating private individuals in public settings is bad practice, without exception. And there is one source of this public denigration greater than all other sources. The common horse.



Can Horses Help You Find Yourself?

I was perusing some spiritual websites like I always do (#enlightened) and I came across this little gem on Susan Brinkmann's site (full article):

Can Horses Help You Find Yourself?

ST asks: “Have you ever heard of equine guided enlightenment? There’s a horse farm near me that advertises this service. What is this about and is it New Age?”

Are you fucking kidding me? This is a human being asking this? Someone thinks this fucking thing will lead them to enlightenment:


It looks like a fucking Muppet on opioids!


UPDATE:
So I did a little digging and found the farm in question. I shit you not it's called FuckYou.Farm.

I think that about says everything there is to say.

The Silence Within

“When you connect to the silence within you, that is when you can make sense of the disturbance going on around you.” ― Stephen Richards


This of course does not apply to horses. That is the problem with this world today. We act like everything is okay, but's it's not.


Horses in General

I fucking hate horses.