What do you mean? You work, you get a job and you think that's being in control? I never complain about other's power over me, I accept that it exists and it drives me to escape it.
If I could extract a handout(without consequence) from the rich and powerful or the government, that makes me in control of them. Of course, nobody gets a handout from rich and powerful, it's always at a price. It's not like I get a handout from anyone in my life, nor have I ever expected one.
It doesn't matter what you do in life, most people's lives are dependent on the service they provide to others, only the very rich and those that inherit their wealth are outside of the necessities of survival. Once you recognize the chains/strings/ties that bind you to others in this world, you will realize that these forces are both the source of our service and empowerment.
I don't think pleasantries like full responsibility, taking control and choice even matter in this conversation, these are just idiotic pleasantries to make it sound nicer and somehow empowering, basically it's bullshit. Power, success, money, fame is the game.
And in the Game of Thrones, you win or you die. (Read Game of Thrones)
How about just calling it like it is, work, do things for others, be decent to them, hopefully get paid and have a few good times along the way.
I'm talking about entrepreneurship, starting your own business to take control of your finances, and not be dependent on others. It seems we're different here.
Seems like a passive, submissive way to approach life to me. I'd rather not have my family and I 'hoping' to get paid by another man someday, end up getting laid off, and having our survival be dependent on another man. I want to know my children will be provided for, and I'm willing to work for that.
You don't seem to be familiar with the company I do marketing for. They've been in business for over 50 years and haven't missed a single bonus payment any month, and are debt-free. Companies pursue THEM, want to contract with them, because they'll get more advertising, and more sales. We've helped companies increase revenue 30%-40% in just 3 months time after coming to us. Long-term, building an Amway business is the most consistent revenue-based way to make a living in America.
Anyway, both you and Gilly seem to just want to poke holes in everything I say. You'll probably find something in this post and my last to pick at, because you both seem to be bent on putting me down, as opposed to any actual discussion. So I'll end this here. Going back and forth isn't worth my time.
i was given Danial Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow for the laudable acheivement of turning 20-something +1 a few days ago. preliminarily the book looks to be so refreshingly good that i'm breaking from tradition and deciding to feel good about having a birthday for once in my life.
But, for a certainty, back then,
We loved so many, yet hated so much,
We hurt others and were hurt ourselves...
Yet even then, we ran like the wind,
Whilst our laughter echoed,
Under cerulean skies...
I like this, but taking control is not something I blame myself for or feel guilty for. 'Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.' I agree, of course there are factors you can't control. I, however, do take full responsibility for the situation, regardless if it's completely my fault or not.
Hey sorry I think I deleted the post by mistake. I am sorry I wasn't responding to the conversation between you guys, was just responding to what hkkmr said. Sorry about that. Shall be more careful next time. I didn't realize the context of the conversation. But since I was reading a bit now, if I could just add that taking control of one's life and designing it to the way you wish to experience and live it is the greatest form of creativity according to me. But sometimes the human soul can't always function from a state of " I am gonna take control of my life". When I am low I need to vent, talk it out, just cry and after sometime let some catharsis happen where I feel better and then I enter my tool room (metaphorically) and start recreating and redesigning my life. Sometimes trying to fix people's problems doesn't really work. And they really do need to be heard out. There is a lot that goes from our conscious into our subconscious and allowing the subcon to communicate with the con can be had work. I think Carl Jung mentions that in the Wounded healer... Sometimes it's not about fixing things more than releasing things. Healing happens in different ways. Talking allows the subcon to re-establish it's connection with the consciousness and then suddenly you have these insights and that itself gives you answers in how to fix things. So the outside party need not really say anything. The mind like the body has an ability to heal.
Anything by Henry Miller
EIE tritype 5w4, 4w5, 9w1
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Carl Jung, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections", 1962
Henry Miller is good... Fanny Hill is good too!
Anyone ever come cross Anne Rice's The claiming of Sleeping Beauty?
I wouldn't call this one literature, heh. Though I suppose it is considered as such in some circles.
This, and those similar to it, however, would not be an appropriate book to recommend to jinxi.
If you liked this series/subject matter, I recommend The Marketplace Series. Much better characterization and character development. (still not a book for jinxi, though)
IEE 649 sx/sp cp
Ya it's not literature... haha. I haven't read it actually, just skimmed through it. I didn't know she had written it. I have read most of her other works but ... wow.. this was a surprise! But knowing her work, one should have seen it coming right? (: I'll check out what you mentioned. Thanks! Oops... Sorry I guess your right. I don't know the members well, my bad.
Last edited by Kent Lorne; 02-25-2012 at 08:14 AM.
As a well-read philistine*, I'd say that most of the literary canon is bumf. Most of it's written for people who like introspective navel-gazing, realism, & lots of gloom, rather than imaginative storytelling. In school & universities, who do we study? Austen (the Mills & Boon of the Regency period), Proust, Beckett, gloomy books by the Russians (interminable descriptions of potato farming), James Joyce going on about potatoes ... (Has anybody written a thesis about the influence of the potato on literature, or the influence of literature on the potato? If you have potatoes with yoghurt, they'd be cultured. Nowadays, though, we're all couch potatoes.) Why is something interesting just because it's true to life, because it could have happened? Surely it means that the writer's got no imagination! And apart from being boring, they're also usually depressing - people leading drab lives & having horrible things happen to them until they die. Such larks, Pip!
*: I have a degree in English - & hate literature (or, rather, the husks whereof the highbrows do eat - usually with potatoes). A literary friend of mine - poet - recently praised Hemingway on Facebook, for being "heartbreaking". Me: "You like Hemingway? Good grief, man! Hemingway's greatest contribution to literature was his suicide." He promptly accused me of trying to get a rise. How well he knows me.
And what do good books have? Storytelling; Lots of incident & imagination; interesting settings with atmosphere; & memorable scenes & characters. A story's improved by larger than life eccentrics, cannibalism, witchcraft, spontaneous combustion, lost civilisations, exploding ostriches, steampunk, & locked room murders. The best books are full of life & energy & humour. In other words, why read something that isn't FUN?
Which is why anything by Dickens beats Austen & the Brontes hands down. Dumas's Count of Monte Cristo has everything you could want: dramatic escapes from prison, treachery, bandits, insane woman poisoners, infanticide, elaborate revenge schemes - and, as Steven Moffat would say, LESBIANS. (The TV series with Gerard Depardieu is great.) I, Claudius is jam packed with megalomaniacs, murders, treason & treachery - & the TV series is a brilliant black comedy, with every British actor in it, & lines so good you could sing them. (Nero probably would, & force pregnant women to give birth in the theatre.) Sherlock Holmes & Father Brown!
Humour - where to start? Terry Pratchett's the spiritual heir to Dickens - a great entertainer who's used his books to say serious stuff about life (& potatoes, mashed or reincarnated) - &, in another century, will probably be looked on as one of the great writers of the 20th century. P.G. Wodehouse, Gerald Durrell, Douglas Adams, Evelyn Waugh (but keep away from A Handful of Dust, unless you like wallowing in misery), Saki, & Tom Sharpe.
At the moment, I'm reading Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy, which is splendid - very funny, great world-building, interesting characters.
Not a huge fan of literature, but Robertson Davies is fucking fantastic. I'd start with his first novel and go on from there: Tempest-Tost
SLI/ISTp -- Te subtype