narveen

you are not quite clear here. we are like two surgeons going into the brain with our scalpels and i don’t want to cut your optic nerve. please affirm the following: what are you saying here? which portion of my elaboration? we can’t really know what? and what has been considered a valid point? (seems like you are using too few words and i need to know precisely what you are pointing out.) what extrapolation? what are the two that parallel? cite me one case of extrapolation. what did i say specifically in my post that caused you to make that connection with other people’s extrapolations? i don’t extrapolate. i disdain darwinian monkey business and theorectical physics. extrapolations in spiritual matters are rife on account of quacks - they don’t use the scientific method and most have not even gone to school. how so? conceptry? is this even a word? i couldn’t google this. do you mean our unrealistic “conceptualization” does function as proven by our mental spinning of fantasies? such as? cite one fantasy. i know you want to be polite but sometimes you need to point finger so we know exactly what and who. vague generalization to avoid targetting the problem so we don't offend anyone has caused the NSA data storage mess. we are not allowed to profile and discriminate anybody because it is not nice, so the only way is to screen every baby and grandma going through security and capture every bit of digital traffic in the whole planet just to seize one culprit by the neck and thrown him in the slammer.

do you mean we have all already moved into the cloud? forgive my mirth, but i am curious to learn from you how you figured that out. i hope it's not another darwinian imagination.

cicero ( i don't know who he is) said he found four causes for the misery of old age: 1. it withdraws us from active accomplishments; 2. it renders the body less powerful; 3 it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment; and 4 it stands not far from death. i will add one more, 5. ugly. are people crazy or downright mean and putting a curse when they wish each other a long life?

What's the plan? plan for what? having a plan suggests a motive. i don’t have a plot to hatch. I don’t have a scheme to exploit anybody for selfish reasons or for a higher cause. i understand your suspicion because there had been this danger of death and gore, in spiritual circles (think knights templar, heaven’s gate, david Koresh, Jonestown), of things turning out badly and there is need to nip it in the bud. who would be interested in a point of view that places no value in being alive without a cause? curious, yeah. interest? i don’t think so. concur? i hope never; for when two people agree in spiritual matters or politicis, that’s the beginning of mania. and of those who are curious, all are committed to their own convictions regardless of their realization they don’t have a clue why they exist. so, it is with the curious daoists that i engage in debate on why leaves should want longevity and not naturally shrivel and die off in the fall. i got a call from aunt rose 5 years ago to say she was “going”. she was 92. i told her not to be silly as she was still going strong. a couple of days later she passed on, with neither pain nor suffering, in her sleep. aunt rose moved in and had been living for 30 years with her daughter, my aunt mary, and her husband jim the day the two got married. jim was known to be abusive to mary but, funnily, devoted to aunt rose whose presence in their home was a positive influence. she not only held mary’s marriage together and helped her raise five kids but was a wonderful matriarch for all the extended family. then one wintry day, while jim was in his driveway shovelling snow, a car skidded off the street and hit jim flipping him in the air. he survived but the concussion choked off the optic nerve and rendered him blind. that was a week before aunt rose called me, and others in the family, to say goodbye. she had fulfilled her purpose in life, i guess. aunt rose was like a leaf that did not shrivel in the fall until well into the midst of winter when she felt it was time to go. another leaf that stayed green like that was the buddha. as the folktale went, he died in his eighties. you have been a wonderful inspiration for this post. thank you.

that's right but let me qualify that. let's say, in a fit of depression, you jump off a building and splatter on the sidewalk, is that phenomenon true to you while you are falling? is that phenomenon true to those on the sidewalk looking at your mess? none of that is true but they are damn real. now, we come to the question of what is truth and what is reality. are you up to it? this level of inquiry, i mean. no fudging.

you're not getting it, man. there is no universe. dogfight's over. shut off that radar.

after you hit the quote button, just put your cursor at the end of the sentence you want a break point and hit enter. hit enter again and again and it will break up the quote. you are so clever with dragon. how come you don't know this?

this is not a realistic question. a good argument has to be rooted in reality. true spirituality deals with reality. i guess you would and they too. i feel good and have never gone through a bad time healthwise, financially or emotionally in relationships . really. i think life is great and i feel very lucky to have only great times with none of the bad situations you and others have gone through. in a way, i am living the life that the buddha (according to the story) lived before he saw the bad stuff going on with the rest of the world. once he saw the bad stuff, he was awakened to reality. he realized that his good times wouldn't last. instead of staying in his palace and live it up while he could and seek longevity doing ba duan jin and eating other people's muffins, he took off. not for me because that pleasure is impermanent.

get serious, man. nothing is attracting anything. life is amazing when you drop all beliefs scientific or spiritual. other animals hold no beliefs and its not because they can't think and grasp concepts. animals use concepts that naturally disappear when not needed. for example, a cheetah lazes in a state of blissful nothingness on a bough of tree. it spots a deer and instantly the concept of space and timing materializes, like the radar screen of an F16 flashing on, as it dashes off to intercept its prey in the same fashion the fighter jet acquires its target. for man, there is the greed of today and the fear of tomorrow that freeze the concept of time and space like a radar screen that cannot be turned off. it never goes away. and he incessantly fortifies his space-time prison with evermore myriad sub-concepts that he proudly wear as knowledge of his world. talk about a dark place.

who knows? why fudge an answer? this is the same thing i tell to a jehovah witness when i am asked who created the universe. science or religion, it's the same stuff: different ways of spinning myths to keep our heads in a dark place.

let me get us on the same page here. the first kind of scientists form conclusions and use them to develop technology in the fields of applied science such as engineering and medicine. stuff you can sink your teeth in to build a better life. then, there are the other kind of scientists (which you call theorists) who form conclusions and use them to shape the way we see ourselves and the world we live in . stuff you sink your mind into and get your head in a dark place. you don't think einstein, darwin and stephen hawkins qualify as scientists? i do believe in gravity when i need that concept to function as an engineer designing roads, bridges and rocket engines. but its not ok to harbor the myth that apples and people are actually attracted by the earth to prevent everything from floating away i do believe in a round earth when i need to chart a course to sail or fly from miami to shanghai. but it is not ok to harbor the myth that i am living on a ball spinning in the universe.

there are two branches of science: one based on observation of phenomena and the other based on speculation of possibilities. both branches of science form conclusions about the nature of reality. for example, newton observed a falling apple and concluded that it was due to gravity (two bodies attracting each other). you believe newton and accept his conclusion as a fact along with everybody else (except me). i don’t accept newton’s explanation at all because it is a ludricrous conclusion. apple attracted by the earth? give me a break. my head would be in a very dark place if i swallowed all the myths in the science book. i had to say it was gravity just to pass the tests in school.

it's not a philosophy. it's an assessment of prevalent popular attitude in the face of reality. i subscribe to a spirituality that the tao te ching speaks to, a spirituality that is not fake and consistent with reality. i am not here to argue with those who don't share my perception. i am here, primarily, to engage those who, at least, are curious about why i see longevity this way. let's not brawl over this. if you believe in longevity, then i wish you a long life.

my basic premise is based on actuarial science focusing on the analysis of factual rates of disability, morbidity and mortality. do you think published information of institutions of medical research is absurd, fallacious nonsense? the humanity in my neck of the woods informed me yesterday that she has stage 4 lung cancer which has the highest death rate than any other forms of cancer. she has a disease that goes undetected until it's too late for a cure. she is not a smoker. more people get lung cancer than smokers who run the highest risk of getting this sickness. this disease takes several years to reach a detectable level and usually surfaces when people live past 60. Twice as many people will be getting this disease in the next 30 years. The main reason for the increase will be longer lifespans - the older you are, the higher your risk of cancer is, including lung cancer. the search for longevity, in my opinion, is a form of mental illness that comes from the denial of reality. it is not fun but rather painful to think of a wonderful friend, full of life in her early sixties telling me that it's suddenly all over. i wish she was 30 something and could see her future like i can - not through high-minded spiritual mumbo jumbo but looking at down-to-earth facts - and think things out with me about the appropriate way to live this life. and that is your opinion. thanks for sharing it.

the government is like mom, joe. guess, you never liked your mom also?

why can't the us president show some leadership in this matter? putin is stealing the show. since when did an american run to the evil empire for protection from uncle sam? if i were obama, i would stop this circus and get snowdon back in the usa instead of sending biden to secure committments from other countries not to offer asylum. he keeps getting it wrong and doing the exact opposite of what a us president would do. snowdon is like a troubled child running from his home because he is upset with his dad. a bad dad would go after his son to haul him back home to give the kid a beating. the kid is now getting shelter and protection in the home of the baddest dude in the neighborhood. this makes the bad dad look worse to everyone. all that talk about extending a hand of friendship to iran to get ahmadinejad to come to terms. how about extending a hand to snowdon to get him to come home? a good dad would do that. and if snowdon comes back, obama's approval ratings would jump 1000%

i won't grow old unless tao heaven has a mandate for me and i need to stay alive to make the world a better place. life that has no purpose is not for me. i am a strike-fighter pilot scanning the skies for action. if tao heaven stay silent when i am 45, i push the eject button and dump my ride. you can have my muffin.

why are you not sleeping? it's 4 am. i am in asia.

uh-oh, another point of argument coming up. i don't think the word "better" conveys the appropriate meaning. did you really mean to say that the obama administration is no different from the bush administration despite obama's criticisms of bush policies and promise to stamp them out ( a broken promise that snowdon said cause him to blow the whistle)? methink obama didn't keep his promise because he couldn't - bush policies were grounded on the bedrock of bush doctrine. obama's promise was founded on feel-good, popular sentiment. this is why obama had been all over the place because he and his handlers just couldn't dismantle the bush program set up to protect the nation. but they sure did make a mess of it like a kid fooling around with an adult handgun. he has shot himself in the foot at least a couple of times now and i don't dare to look because he might just blow his own head off. this is so sad.

this is the rule this is the exception amen to that thus far, all the help from life’s experiences through the ages have led to a reality that is progressively harder to deal with the next time around.

can’t complain, actually. women stare at me and it can be embarrassing. being male, you would understand those stares from teenage girls when you were 17. it never stopped and i’m 35. i like sean connery (82). he ages well. i like leslie stahl (71). when they are at home; on a Sunday; at 8 in the morning with a cup of coffee and reading the new york times. old age beauty is great health and good grooming. i think both are fairly well-matched, by my reckoning. which 30 something has my dream for a better word: ridding the world of old age misery? this was also a dream of the buddha.

would you not prefer to be fitter than him at age 37? no matter how fit, we can't wear high heels and be courtesans at 105.

he is terrorizing the administration. if the white house doesn't watch it and handle this matter the way it has been handling the other messes, obama could see judgment day before his term is over.

resettled in jaimaca and bahamas? why not back from where they were taken: Africa?

maybe you got your history wrong, pal. the slaves were not brought to america by americans. it all began with the french, the dutch and the spanish bringing slaves to the carribean and brazil. according to wikipedia, slavery had been practiced in British North America from early colonial days, and was firmly established by the time of the United States' Declaration of Independence (1776). your need for self-flagellation is not doing any good for the american narrative and will keep on feeding "white guilt" forever. it's 2013. time to move on.