Earl Grey

The Far Right departed this forum, I am hoping gullible, self-assured morons who can’t stop mentioning in every thread colonialism, David Icke, and pseudoscience conspiracy theories from Zechariah Sitchin will leave and join the Far Right members in a long march into the orifice of Rush Limbaugh and out of his worthless mouth and into the airwaves for his worthless constituency to hear again and again.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/05/743579605/how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries-in-deaths-from-gun-violence

They are good for people short on time, and with a good foundation of the first few volumes, you will feel how powerful they are alone. The effect was mentioned earlier in this thread, which you can search, in which Tao Stillness posted what Eric Isen found when reading the effect on him personally. How it will affect you also is different in subtle ways that only Eric Isen can read. Do them as often as you like. The fifth meditation was also mentioned to not be Flying Phoenix, but actually from Bat Din Gum, or Eight Sections of Energy Combined, a martial system.

https://kotaku.com/we-do-not-need-to-defend-video-games-from-politicians-1836980493

The quality of discussion is a different issue altogether from the topic itself. Besides the mention earlier of a couple of disgraced "teachers" (which I did not mention because the posters were not yet banned), it was mainly the OP asking for free teachings in Liuhebafa and then refuting the statements of people who actually do the style telling him that he can't learn from a DVD or act like the things we were saying as experienced students (and a teacher myself by next year) was not true. So if it's as good as its membership, there's a lot missing there then because that's like saying laborers are lazy without mentioning that the conditions of the workplace are bad, such as a sweatshop or that the laborers are dumb without saying that their access to education is limited or non-existent, and omitting that the managers themselves don't know what they're doing wrong, let alone don't even know what they're doing.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/trump-blames-shootings-on-mental-illness-but-hes-spent-the-past-2-years-trying-to-cut-access-to-health-coverage/

Better to consult an expert rather than self-diagnose because you can seriously harm yourself. For a good healing system, look up Flying Phoenix. We have a whole thread on it and the teacher comes in to answer questions. He is also friends with Eric and they both endorse one another.

Eric Isen. www.ayurvedicintuitive.com

https://www.thedaobums.com/forum/413-systems-and-teachers-of/

This is quite true, though with some caveats. Video Games, Television, Comic Books No simple response. Really, it depends. In Nigeria, the violence against "witches" comes from even pastors saying that movies about demons prove that evil exists. Yes, fiction. This isn't so much as the media itself but the level of education and individual development. There are also a lot of gamers, nerds, and couch potatoes who use these mediums as escapism because the actual thing itself is either too much work or too scary for them. Guns Yes, guns aren't necessarily the problem in of themselves, the common argument is the ease of access they have, but what most people don't understand is a lot of gun nuts treat them like toys and like to shoot cans, skeet, or go to the driving range, if not hunting. Some of the most responsible and pacifist people I met were those who loved guns believe it or not because they were taught well and were fairly nice individuals. A story: at the shooting range, there were three individuals who didn't know basic safety and kept their fingers on the trigger, were pointing at each other and themselves, taking pictures, and were more obsessed with taking photos of themselves posing. Everyone cleared out in five minutes and the rangemaster had to give them a ten-minute orientation to safety, then told them to not come back until they were a little more disciplined because even if guns are like toys to kids, they are not to be treated as toys irresponsibly. Does this mean I think gun control is not necessary? Hell no. It means that I think it should have more regulation and more responsible training for people to own and use guns, if that's even on the table because if someone leaves their gun in an unlocked drawer, their kids could find them! Let's not mention the black market for guns! You can have the most well-educated population and responsible, but the access and the black market are the problem! Muslims There is absolutely no correlations between more gun violence and more Muslims, unless you're talking about them being targets for hate crimes. So no, Muslims do not cause violence, considering it's a pacifist faith. Immigrants See response above about being targets for hate crimes. "Don't shit where you eat" if you want to stay. Mental Illness The issue of people having mental illness risks causing stigma and alienating people from their community more. This is essentially one step from criminalizing mental illness. What we need is reform and more care, education, and compassion for people with mental illness rather than just writing them off, because when they seek support, who is to say that support won't come from 4chan and 8chan or crazy YouTube extremists? Far Right Populist Ideology This is the big reason that all of the above factors are considered reasons for gun violence. It ultimately boils down to pointing fingers and blaming everyone else for the problems in their life, and yes, while they feel abandoned and forgotten and the walls of their reality are tumbling down, they refuse to look inwards. Video games, comics, and television are evil because they push people away from God. Qigong and yoga are Satanic because you draw power from the devil and other deities who don't exist when there is one God. Guns will protect you from bad people with guns. Immigrants and Muslims are evil because they bring ideas and values different from ours and want to steal the land we stole from the Native Americans. Mentally sick people should just be given more meds or locked up and forgotten. The Far Right does not want to take responsibility, the Far Right wants someone to take care of everything for them. This attitude has historically proven to be the end of any functioning republic or democracy by looking at Caligula and Nero. The strongman ideology does not work because he is not out to represent the populists who want him to fix their problems for them, he's only out for himself (or herself if one looks at Southeast Asian and Chinese histories). Case example: the Duterte supporters in Manila want him to fix pollution, crime, poverty, and corruption, but what I saw instead one morning was a guy with a DU30 bumper sticker and all sorts of signs showing his love for Duterte, stops in the middle of a pedestrian lane, throws out his garbage, bribes a traffic officer to leave him alone, and shouts at the homeless children begging him when they knock on his car window for some change. No desire to recognize that they contribute to the problem more than the people they are blaming, or that they are making no effort to contribute to positive change themselves.

We're under no obligation to have them back in our lives, yes, but I tend to be open after a few years or earlier based on their willingness to reconcile. Others, not so much if they demonstrate they're unwilling to change, particularly when we add these 12 types of abuse to the rest of the kinds such as stonewalling, and then to the four control dramas, which work out really well with these. For the sake of discussion and elaborating on something that has gone on in this forum for too long, here are the four control dramas from The Celestine Prophecy, which in spite of its New Age roots, is actually quite applicable in life to an extent. The most aggressive one is the Intimidator, who steals energy from other people by dominating them and making them feel inferior, either with physical or verbal aggression, so the intimidator gets to feel better and the other people feel worse. This is similar to being aggressive. Next is the Interrogator, who gets to feel good by asking questions that are borderline aggressive, certainly they are aimed at making the other person feel small so that the interrogator can feel superior to them. Questions like “Have you thought about going on a diet?”, “Why don’t you do that differently?” and “Why are you so hopeless?” and “Come on, TALK to me!” are not nice questions are they? And questions like “You know why that happened don’t you?” are tricky because whatever you say they are going to say “Oh no no no, you’ve missed the point”. That’s the interrogator. Then there’s the Aloof, which is a common response to an Interrogator parent or an interrogator partner – the Aloof copes with other people by acting distant & hiding what they really think, and either not answering at all or answering evasively, maybe with short non-committal answers like “Maybe” or “I don’t know really”. They might drop vague hints, which in turn may mean that you ask even more questions in order to engage with them. You can imagine how an Aloof person could use this as a defensive strategy, but also you can see how the aloof will encourage others to interrogate them to try to find out what they really think. The Aloof encourages the Interrogator, and the Interrogator encourages the Aloof. Finally there’s the fourth way to control others and that’s the Poor Me. These people take the victim position, saying their life is awful and it’s all unfair, and they use guilt or pity to manipulate you. They might say “It’s fine, I’ll just carry on, I’m used to doing everything by myself” or even “After all I have done for you, you let me down like this.” Those control dramas are actively employed by abusers often.

A friend sent this to me a couple years ago when she was doing research for her Master's in Psych. I think it is important for people to know this given what we endured the past couple years here on the forum, because many of these and more were used in the Trump and climate change. I have set in blue the most egregious and obvious types that I have seen on the forum. A lot of people in emotionally abusive situations don't have the words to describe what they're going through. It's partly why they end up being stuck in the situation for a longer period of time or end up blaming themselves. I had discussions with trauma survivors who said that they wished they knew the word for "gaslighting" earlier. Anyway, these terms can apply to both an emotionally abusive childhood or an emotionally abusive romantic relationship. Not all of these are psychological terms but they're in enough use in contemporary language that people in support groups will probably understand you. 1. Gaslighting - When a person constantly makes you doubt your memories, judgment, and reality instead of acknowledging your version of truth. This makes it easier for them to blame you for something they did. 2. Projection - When a person doesn't react to who you actually are, but to their own internal feelings about themselves or others unrelated to you. 3. Triangulation - When a person intentionally creates a scenario where two other people end up fighting for his/her attention. This could be in a relationship or in a family, say siblings fighting for a parent's attention. The two other people end up blaming each other or tearing each other down instead of recognizing that the abuser is the architect of the situation. 4. Neglect - The absence of a need being satisfied adequately. Example, when a child's presence is never acknowledged. This is not always intentional, but it can be an invisible form of abuse. 5. Minimization - When the abuser downplays the severity of a negative event they triggered, or downplays the feelings that the victims has. For example, pervasive school bullying can be minimized by the abuser as "just a prank" and tells the victim that they're overreacting. 6. Informed consent - Adults agree to do something together before they actually go ahead and do it. If one party withholds information relevant to what is being agreed upon, then that is not informed consent. That is what's called a bait and switch, which is basically like getting scammed. 7. Personal boundaries - The mental, emotional, and physical limits we have around ourselves to protect us from harm. Usually emotional abusers push these limits or get angry if these are enforced, and assert that their wants are more important than your needs. 8. Narcissistic supply - People on the narcissistic personality disorder spectrum have a pathological need for attention from others. They will seek attention even if it is destructive towards others, because they don't see the separation between self and other, and cannot regulate their own emotional needs. They will regularly trigger events, confrontations, and provoke a reaction, scandal, and confuse people around them. And when they receive this attention, they will gather social information about involved parties to instigate another event, confrontation or scandal to repeat the process. 9. Grooming - When an emotional abuser tests a potential victim, by pushing his or her boundaries and seeing how far they can take things. Think of a frog being slowly boiled in a pot of water--grooming is turning the heat on. This is also when the victim begins to see red flag behaviour or has the gut feeling that something isn't quite right, but he or she may dismiss them ("Oh I was overreacting") or think that the abuser was just joking. This can also be the time for the abuser to plant seeds of doubt in the victim's mind about their own reliability, competence, ability to live happily without the abuser, who they can trust, and so on. 10. Golden child and scapegoat - This often happens in a household with a narcissistic parent. It's a form of triangulation where the parent pits the two children against each other, but the golden child is the favoured child that can do no wrong, while the scapegoat is the child where everyone's problems are projected on. The golden child will begin to mirror the narcissistic parent and also abuse the scapegoat to win the affections of the parent. 11. Isolation - Some emotional abusers will isolate the victim so that he or cannot depend on others or use other resources to protect his or herself, or have regular contact with healthy normal relationships to compare the abusive dynamics with. This can be more obvious in the form of financial control, or it could be more subtle and the abuser can successfully convince the victim to cut off ties to friends and family. 12. Hot and cold - It's pulling a Jekyll and Hyde. When a person acts inconsistently and oscillates between affectionate behaviour and either complete withdrawal or outright hostility. The emotionally abusive person acts unpredictably so the victim never knows where he or she stands, and the victim will work hard to seek the "good side" of the abuser. There are a lot more terms of course, but I hope that this at least makes it easier for folks to understand invisible or insidious dynamics by being able to finally put a name to them. If you're a victim, you cannot change an abuser and you are not responsible for their actions. All you can do is disengage. Unfortunately it's hard for some especially if the abuser is your family (assholes end up having kids after all, unfortunately), but being able to manage the level of contact can help. You are not alone. If you see yourself taking part in some of these abusive behaviours, you might not be conscious of them. You might have grown up in a dysfunctional household that taught these behaviours. Maybe you were the golden child. You may not be 100% responsible for your destructive behaviours, but you are 100% responsible to change for the better for the sake of everyone around you. Even if you intend to change, remember that people you have mistreated in the past are under no obligation to forgive you or to remain in contact with you. Stay safe out there, kids. It's a weird world out there. Remember, no one is entitled to your body, time, or spirit. Healthy friendships/romantic relationships/family dynamics are filled with respect and mutual care. People are not who they say they are or the promises they make, but how they consistently treat you in the here and now. And remember you are not responsible for other people's destructive behaviours no matter how convinced they are otherwise. Don't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.

Yes, and the results are not enough to satisfy those like Jack Thompson who insist that video games are murder simulators as they assume. I don't believe they would satisfy you though as I found out from the video game sites reporting on those studies from Mayo Clinic (will check if it was them or another group) and others. In my personal experience with a lot of anger and playing violent games, it's a totally different thing when I've held actual guns and been in real fights. A gun from Doom or CounterStrike does not prepare anyone for holding an actual gun, even in a shooting range, and in my case, in self-defense during a very unfortunate encounter in a lawless country. The violence in Mortal Kombat or other fighting games bemuses me these days because when I played them as a youth, the decapitations and disembowelments were funny to a teenager, but to an adult who is already in his 30s with close to two decades now having dealt with muggings and assaults, none of them were anything I thought about nor did they influence me in the moment, for my focus was on the sudden unexpected altercations erupting.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/video-games-violence-guns-explainer/

Guys, this just in over in Ohio... https://www.npr.org/2019/08/04/747989695/9-killed-at-least-16-injured-in-shooting-in-dayton-ohio

A teacher told me once his political views were worldly and spiritual views other-worldly. I disdain rudeness. Politics, unfortunately, fuels it, whether it's the Right-wingers Trump and climate change threads or crazy David Icke kooks people telling me I am a brainwashed white savior for being in the Peace Corps (and I am neither white nor colonized). Manners are something that are important to teach after the distasteful elements are gone.

This is supported by classic sociological theory. One of the founding fathers, Emil Durkheim, wrote about how the number of suicides in society reflected more on society than the individuals who committed suicide. Unsurprisingly, the same can apply to homicides and drug use, as well as the criminalization of many things from sexuality to the commercialization of mental health and the lack of rehabilitation in the justice system.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/07/junky-tv-is-actually-making-people-dumber-and-more-likely-to-support-populist-politicians/?utm_source=API+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=6fc3865598-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_07_29_12_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-6fc3865598-45814541

Glad you're back and many of the people who pushed you out are gone. I prefer four quarters over a hundred pennies, or rather a few good quality people instead of a party full of mediocrity. PS: I left for a while too because they did the same thing to me.

Have you actually had formal training in development both at university and professionally, worked for NGOs at grassroots level for DOMESTIC agencies not funded by foreigners and international collaborations, or the Peace Corps and lived in 13 countries? I can’t take anything you say seriously because you’re just posting platitudes and mocking my experience that has been critical to my identity and values, not to mention I’m a Third Culture Kid (something I’m pretty sure you won’t even understand if you research it), meaning I’m not one of your fellow American colonialists as you like to presume. By the way, I am not white, I am Asian and therefore not part of your stupid white savior complex assumptions. Kindly get lost and quit wasting my time by trivializing my experience to fit your conspiracy theory narratives or presume you know more because of some protests and counter culture literature. You sound like joeblast for crying out loud. If the next thing you post in any dialogue with me doesn’t have an apology for your rudeness calling my work “LARP” and has more bullshit accusations, you’re getting blocked and will not get anything out of me you asked for before. Back to topic.

Before you can have savings, you must have some money on hand. We start with some jing even without qi awareness. As your qi capacity increases, as in what's in your wallet, you can store more as jing--at least that's what I've been told.

The feeling is mutual. You've also had a lot of tact and respect, and as a fellow martial artist, I can appreciate that. It's a pity that these complexities and nuances are hard to see with words on a screen. I only needed a few posts from you when discussing Liuhebafa and internal power for Yi Quan that let me see you are one of the few here who has had quality instruction and exposure. Some of my friends from other systems have politics opposite of mine, but when we have friendly training sessions or even friendly competition, it's easy to forget what we vote for because we just see each other as someone we can rely on for a little help if life is in a crisis, someone to offer a couch if marital problems are causing strife, faces who smile when they know you're doing well because they genuinely care, and those who save you a seat at the pub and drag you away from the cashier so they can treat you for drinks and dinner. If I ever cross paths with you offline, am more than happy to have some friendly tui shou and buy you a pint of whatever you fancy.

I had no idea your politics were different from mine, but from what I recall, we got along fairly well in some posts when talking about internal power. I believe it is possible to get along, but the probability is questionable, given how very strong views on certain subjects divide people and have done so the past couple years. If you stick around here, I'm happy to still discuss that with you since we haven't had any beef with each other. I'd like to hope others who stick around can do the same with other members on topics they can see eye-to-eye on too.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/world/africa/zimbabwe-water-crisis.html Really sad. When I worked in Peace Corps in Tanzania and for another NGO in Sri Lanka, East Timor, and Indonesia, clean water was already a crucial issue. Even the locals knew that climate change was impacting them and were doing as much work informing us as we were building the water towers with them. [NOTE: PLEASE STOP POSTING BULLSHIT CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT NGOS AND PEACE CORPS WORK IN RESPONSE TO ME SHARING MY EXPERIENCES. IT IS IDIOTIC AND UNINFORMED, AND MY OWN EXPERIENCE AND INSIGHT DOES NOT REFLECT ANY OF WHAT HAS BEEN SAID. IT IS ALSO INCREDIBLY RUDE GIVEN THAT I DEDICATED MY TIME AND CARE TO SERVING OTHERS].

Analogies recently used: qi: money in your wallet to use at any given time. jing: your savings, when what you have on hand is not enough.