Sloppy Zhang

Thank you

FAKE! Yeah, I saw someone reference this video and say it was fake before. Some trick with the tables. And I believed them since it was on the internet and I had never met them before. So, yeah, sorry bro. Find some other inspiration.

If he constantly wants to talk about sex, or search for information about sex, or something along those lines, then no, that isn't what he's doing He needs to find some hobby that sparks his interest and that will draw his attention. Of course, he could be in big trouble, and his hobby might really BE sex

An episode of "manswers" said that masturbating before heading for a night out will get girls to notice you, because girls can subconsciously pick up your "arousal sweat", it lets them know that you're in the mood and able to perform, and puts them in the mood too. So, yeah, "crotchatal region" power!

Tell him to get a hobby. Seriously, it's far easier to think about something else than it is to stop thinking about sex. Art, music, writing, sports, exercise, martial arts, video games, movies, foreign languages, computer programming, comic books, acting. Anything that gets his mind off it. And that includes not being afraid to partake once in a while. If you are afraid of wasting your energy or ruining your mind, you are going to waste far more energy on the issue. If you do it, and don't think it's a big deal, it is going to be far more healthy.

Don't be hatin', rap is music, a true expression of a man's soul

I want to go see it. Man, I remember when it came out.... I was just around Harry Potter's age, and thought that maybe I could magically get picked to go to wizard school! I didn't get picked to go to wizard school.... .... Yet

I mean isn't it all just in the lobby? Not to say that spam isn't annoying, but it's not like it's disrupting any of the major discussion areas. Isn't that why we had that board in the first place? Leave a post and then move on, prove you aren't a spam bot? The system works!

You know you're in trouble when the KKK counter protests you!

No, you are not alone. Understandably there are people who are victims who turn into perpetrators- especially if they are left out in the cold, shunned, or otherwise shunned by the rest of society. And while manitou's question is good- "I began to wonder at what exact age we stop being compassionate for the poor child who is molested; and start hating him because he sooner or later becomes the molester." I think there is something else to consider- At what point does the person become responsible for their act, and not just a product of their environment? Each individual has their own agency, their own ability to decide what they want to do. Now depending on the person and their circumstances, their ability to exercise their free will might be more heavily influenced by other factors than someone else. But I think the moment we stop being compassionate for the poor child who is molested IS the moment he becomes the molester. Does compassion and understanding imply allowance? Forgive and forget? Forgive, but don't forget? I also believe that compassion is proactive, so how do we stop things like this? How do we treat perpetrators with compassion? How do we stop victims from passing down the crime? How do we protect at risk people from criminals? All while maintaining compassion?

Mewtwo on camera! So now I know mewtwo is not an internet robot......

No comment on it specifically, but it sounds similar to many other methods. If it was working, why did you stop? Refer to the quote in my sig about taking the first step in faith. A lot of times we want to know the whole picture. We want to know how it ends. That is safe. Even if stuff is working, if we don't know how it will turn up, we will be scared it will fail. In avoiding that fear, we'll stop, which, ironically enough, actually guarantees failure. If you have something that works, keep doing it.

I am myself but have not reached godhead or tao or nirvana or enlightenment. What is wrong with me? Or maybe I am being someone else? How do I know if I am being myself? How do I know when I reach godhead or tao or nirvana or enlightenment? Because otherwise it just feels like the same old same old. Help me mew-bi-wan kenobi.

I agree. I'm not saying people should somehow be exempt from personal practice. I can listen to music all day, but that won't help me play an instrument. At a certain point, you've got to actually do something for yourself. I just don't agree with how some people take that idea to the extreme that, since you have to do it on your own, looking for people to give demos and going out and doing studies on people is a waste of time. Especially if there is a new technique out there which is a vast improvement over what we have now. But as for this: 'Tis the nature of the internet.

On the whole, I am hesitant to elevate humanity that much above animals. Because, although you say "but most of us realize the consequence being perpetual war and instability rather than perpetual tolerance and relative stability and cooperation", really, do we? The realization of those consequences only last until we see a reason to go to war to "quickly kill off all competitors", which is the attribute you ascribe to animals. I say this, because after all the times we say "seriously, this is the last time we are going to have a war, because war sucks, and it's better to just get along", we are still fighting wars on a daily basis. So, you know, I just don't want to make stuff more or less than what it is.

You mean our technical connection? Because if it weren't for this tech, we wouldn't otherwise be talking I'm questioning what leads you to believe that if other animals had the access to our technology and the ability to use it, those animals would act more selfishly than humans do. Because humans can be pretty damn selfish.

Really? "more selfish", eh?

Why such the extreme viewpoint regarding "validation"? Don't scientists look to the results of other scientists to see where to go in their own projects? Don't musicians look at the results of other musicians to see how they can work on their own music? Don't athletes look to other athletes to see how they can improve their physical performance? None of these scenarios become "looking for validation". But if you start looking around for people who can produce tangible results of qi, suddenly it's "practice on your own and quit looking for validation"? If one eventually comes to the community with results, then the assumption there is that people will eventually view results. So how is it that when someone asks to see what results are available for review, the first response is "don't rely on anything or anyone else"? I have seen this attitude prevalent in many metaphysical communities, and I've always found it a bit contradictory.

Sadly, while this statement may be intended to encourage people to practice more, it can also be used to cloud the issue and encourage an uncritical way of viewing the issue, allowing less than honest people to get away with all sorts of claims. There's nothing wrong with mewtwo's line of questioning, and the act of looking for external confirmation of qi results (or any results, for that matter) and the act of personal practice are not mutually exclusive. I find it interesting that while we may be encouraged to be a part of a community in almost all other aspects with regards to cultivation, we are so discouraged to look to others when assessing whether something like qi is as it is claimed to be.

Greek gods manipulated mortals, caused wars in the mortal world, sided with champions, built them up, watched them fall, and had sex with pretty much anything that moved. If it didn't move, they would turn it into something that did move and then have sex with it. Then they would party and have more sex and fight over whose father was who. Sounds like just being a god was a party in and of itself If ever they "role played" it was as a mortal.

I've seen this kind of thinking written about here and there, that technology meant to connect us over barriers we can't cross (through telephone, the internet, etc etc) is actually separating us. This kind of thing is also something I've seen written about. Basically, lots of people associate technology with some kind of "progress"- moral, spiritual, social, etc. But technologies are tools. It would be a mistake to project too many ideals onto them. Internet helps us to connect and share information. If we use that to spread knowledge or to spread lies is up to us. Sharp sticks can help us to kill game or kill each other. Human nature isn't going to change because of the "stuff" that you have. But that doesn't mean we should go back to a romanticized stone age, because we'd still have the same problems! I'd rather have my problems with medicine and air conditioning than having my problems with disease ridden water huddling in a cave from monsters with huge teeth.

People have been talking about "the good old days" and the "deplorable state of the current times" for thousands of years. I heard one of my professors make an offhand comment that Socrates thought writing was bad- that people would write things down and in so doing become stupider, and that a true human being should use the memory which they naturally have. On the history channel I heard that a Roman historian writing in some year a.d. put a preface to his history, saying that "the economy sucks, children disrespect their parents, politicians are corrupt, and the rich abuse their power for personal gain at the expense of the welfare of the state, so I am writing this history to remember the good old days" (and those good old days, to the contemporaries, were times of endless war, strife, conquest, betrayal, and general overall raping and pillaging as befitting the general Roman attitude towards their neighbors). Point is, in the face of changing times, people ALWAYS think back to the "good old days". And to mix things up even MORE, we are shifting into a new era. The era of sciences and information technologies. Print media is dying out. The number of jobs requiring someone with a strong back are dwindling as the demand for people with science or mathematics related skills are exploding beyond our ability to cope. Occasionally I come across articles from my university career services about how some companies are automatically putting job applicants with any computer related degree through to the final round of the interviewer phase because they need people who can cope with that. And with higher education being super competitive, people are looking to pad their resumes even in high school. If you want to go to school for biology and/or pre-medicine track, it looks far better to have volunteer time at a hospital than it is to have a job at a diner. If you want to get into a computer related field, it looks far better to be able to show your experience with web programming or academic competitions than it is to have a job as a construction worker. So putting aside the people who must take whatever job they can get because they can't get in any other way, the "character building" jobs that some people might have gone through even as recently as my generation (I went through some young, but by junior year of high school had to take a serious look at how I would be marketing myself to universities) are being phased out for the more technologically oriented roles which are just now coming into their own. Anyway, a little while ago fiveelementtao made a thread about the internet generation and its attitude towards work ethics and things like that. And what I said there is what I'll say here- the form changes, the function does not. Just because someone doesn't work some tough manual labor job doesn't mean they aren't getting put through their paces in other ways. Besides, standards for that ALWAYS change. When I did a summer working construction part time, my parents' generation of the family was saying "you're lucky, when I was a kid, my summer jobs were full 9 to 5!" and my grandparents' generation was saying to my parents' generation "you're lucky, when I was a kid, I had to get to work before the sun came up and didn't leave 'till long after it had set!" But somehow everyone walks away with the same attitude "work sucks and I worked harder in my day then the damn kids these days!" And with language, social conventions change. And not just with language. Even clothing. I look at some of the things these "sexy women" in old James Bond movies wear (like the swimsuits). And sure, some of the ladies are pretty attractive. And some of the bathing suits might fit the form..... but the sheer amount of material that makes them! Nothing compared to the hardly there bikinis I can see on a daily basis on a summer day out on the college quad And for language, I personally think that freaking out over "bad language" is stupid. But I'll hold off my reasoning for that another time (I've talked about it once or twice, here or there, I think), but this post has already gone on too long. Basically: What you are presenting is nothing new, nothing that hasn't been said, nothing that society as an entity won't get over, and is the exact template that the current 20-30 year olds will be saying in about 30-50 years.

Cool stuff. But in the context of the movie, "returning to the source" was all still a form of control

What I've said before about dream interpretation before is that symbols are secondary to the feelings. Because symbols vary from person to person. You might like Avatar: The Last Airbender, but someone else might not like it. So seeing the same symbol could mean very different things to different people. So the questions you should be asking are how you felt when you were doing each things? What were you thinking/feeling when you were watching? What did you think/feel when you realized that you were Aang? What was your purpose in mind when you were asking for help? What was the attitude of the person helping out? What did it feel like before you broke the door with your karate chops? During? After? That kind of stuff.

Of course the only way you could accurately appraise the usefulness of the information is if you actually read the post. And you have demonstrated in this thread (by asking about an issue which was clearly and repeatedly conveyed in the first post it was discussed, as well by as providing a picture describing your reading habits) that you do not. So I find your statement questionable. Wait, I think there was a more concise post which conveys what I'm getting at, and I think you could even fit it in a gif... I think you'll like this one...