3 ms·

If you've never heard of Joseph Campbell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1qd0KGOv9Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1qd0KGOv9Y https://www.youtube.com/watc

by pravda 9y ago

If you've never heard of Joseph Campbell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1qd0KGOv9Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1qd0KGOv9Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbeWTOubqSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbeWTOubqSo

ak39 9y ago
Thank you very much for this. It is serendipitous. I wish I had the fortune of simply talking to or being in the presence of a man of such calibre. Such men are indeed rare and often their compassion and humble wisdom is easily drowned out by the noisy loud-mouthed advice we often get from so many self-help gurus. I've been kicked to curb this year with failures, with skullduggerous cheats, with outright rejections and with rejections of no communication. A growing sense of a dark godawful dread has made residence in the core of my belly. I walk around with it everywhere I go. I feel more than ever that I have now truly and completely doomed my family's future. I should have instead remained, I now think, grinding at that safe but soulless day job before I even thought of cultivating that perilous and impossible journey - that falsely advertised dream to go out alone in consulting and into the business of enterprise bloody software. (A place where arse-kissing and networking matters more than your ability to produce software that is actually useful to clients!) I was hanging by that last thread of once abundant hope. This dastardly year is coming to its ignoble end, and I continue to stare solemnly at the targets I set for myself in January this year. It's deplorable. Campbell says "the real end is the journey" and that I need to possess the fire to drive me into battle fearlessly. I have to summon that courage. But I have to summon the courage to be honest first!
- jdpigeon 9y ago
  Hang in there, buddy. It sounds like you've got a lot of actually useful skills and I think you and your family will do fine in the long run. Even if you end up going back to a "safe but soulless" job.
  - ak39 9y ago
    Thanks, JD. Agreed, if I have to imagine doing fine in the longer run, I have to confront this phase as a game of nerves. Gotta keep the nerves. If you were in town, I'd get the first round this Friday!
musage 9y ago
Here's another bit about Star Wars, but the whole playlist is wonderful. To put it mildly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97moKnDZYlM&index=19&list=PLiJELyO9hcAZ_JVEmAI3sByatFwdSy6F7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97moKnDZYlM&index=19&list=PL... I need to have this on DVD. I may have "heard" of the man in the sense of having heard the name or having seen the face somewhere, but I had no clue what I was missing out on; thank you! He's absolutely right, the only way to "save the world" is to be alive.. whatever additional possible useful interactions there may be, they have to come from and be in harmony with that. Most of the time, being open and constructive leads to things you couldn't have possibly foreseen or planned to achieve. Come to think of it, for the first time ever I don't feel 100% silly for sometimes feeling like "the universe" kind of "rewards" paying attention to it for the sake of the relation between it and oneself, not the relation of oneself and others. But it's not about this deity or that myth, at the very least, there indeed is consciousness everywhere we can look, so maybe there is even more where we can't look yet or ever. There sure is a lot we drown out with our own clanging of pots and pans, individually and socially... but like a plant turns to the sun, maybe the sun turns to plants, in a way. Meister Eckhart went so far as to say that you can basically "force" God to come down to you, into you, by making yourself completely empty, because he simply cannot resist humbleness. I always found that kind of a sweet and wise way to look at what others would describe very draconically, in the language of slaves rather than lovers, but more importantly it's really profoundly true. As a metaphor, as poetry. > "You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet." - Franz Kafka

by pravda 9y ago

ak39 9y ago

Thank you very much for this. It is serendipitous. I wish I had the fortune of simply talking to or being in the presence of a man of such calibre. Such men are indeed rare and often their compassion and humble wisdom is easily drowned out by the noisy loud-mouthed advice we often get from so many self-help gurus. I've been kicked to curb this year with failures, with skullduggerous cheats, with outright rejections and with rejections of no communication. A growing sense of a dark godawful dread has made residence in the core of my belly. I walk around with it everywhere I go. I feel more than ever that I have now truly and completely doomed my family's future. I should have instead remained, I now think, grinding at that safe but soulless day job before I even thought of cultivating that perilous and impossible journey - that falsely advertised dream to go out alone in consulting and into the business of enterprise bloody software. (A place where arse-kissing and networking matters more than your ability to produce software that is actually useful to clients!) I was hanging by that last thread of once abundant hope. This dastardly year is coming to its ignoble end, and I continue to stare solemnly at the targets I set for myself in January this year. It's deplorable. Campbell says "the real end is the journey" and that I need to possess the fire to drive me into battle fearlessly. I have to summon that courage. But I have to summon the courage to be honest first!

jdpigeon 9y ago
Hang in there, buddy. It sounds like you've got a lot of actually useful skills and I think you and your family will do fine in the long run. Even if you end up going back to a "safe but soulless" job.
- ak39 9y ago
  Thanks, JD. Agreed, if I have to imagine doing fine in the longer run, I have to confront this phase as a game of nerves. Gotta keep the nerves. If you were in town, I'd get the first round this Friday!

musage 9y ago

Here's another bit about Star Wars, but the whole playlist is wonderful. To put it mildly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97moKnDZYlM&index=19&list=PLiJELyO9hcAZ_JVEmAI3sByatFwdSy6F7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97moKnDZYlM&index=19&list=PL... I need to have this on DVD. I may have "heard" of the man in the sense of having heard the name or having seen the face somewhere, but I had no clue what I was missing out on; thank you! He's absolutely right, the only way to "save the world" is to be alive.. whatever additional possible useful interactions there may be, they have to come from and be in harmony with that. Most of the time, being open and constructive leads to things you couldn't have possibly foreseen or planned to achieve. Come to think of it, for the first time ever I don't feel 100% silly for sometimes feeling like "the universe" kind of "rewards" paying attention to it for the sake of the relation between it and oneself, not the relation of oneself and others. But it's not about this deity or that myth, at the very least, there indeed is consciousness everywhere we can look, so maybe there is even more where we can't look yet or ever. There sure is a lot we drown out with our own clanging of pots and pans, individually and socially... but like a plant turns to the sun, maybe the sun turns to plants, in a way. Meister Eckhart went so far as to say that you can basically "force" God to come down to you, into you, by making yourself completely empty, because he simply cannot resist humbleness. I always found that kind of a sweet and wise way to look at what others would describe very draconically, in the language of slaves rather than lovers, but more importantly it's really profoundly true. As a metaphor, as poetry. > "You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet." - Franz Kafka