Agape

Thar I think you nailed it. I'll repost what I just posted on another forum in reply to a similar comment: "I went to a women's surrealist art exhibition the other day and thought it some of the best art I've ever seen. It wasn't specifically feminine though. so ye I'd say creativity is neither masculine or feminine but there are still trends, like I know the average party chick is not gonna be creating anything like those women did. At the same time though, now I think of it, I know the average club chode won't either. I think my realisation therewith is that 95% of the population male or female are chodes who won't create anything amazing." So I'd still hold that creativity isn't masculine or feminine, it is possible for either gender to develop it equally. I guess the bleak fact is that most people are useless bottom feeders who never will create anything of grandeur. I don't mean that everyone should create something great to be a worthwhile human being but, rather, everyone should have a modicum of common sense and moral decency which the average populace seem to lack. I speak of the pathetic wastefulness of consumerism with no regard of the repercussions and all that type of ignorance. Don't get me wrong I think males are as useless as women on the whole it is just torturous to me that a hot dumb women still pulls my gonads such that I will want something from them even though I am fully aware of their otherwise cretinous existence. People then always say 'then don;t let them' I don't think it;s as easy to just switch off that flagpole in the pants- it's HARDWIRED. So I mostly feel a slave to my desires in that respect. Again people will say 'don't be so shallow' but evolutionary biology dictates that men go for reproductive value and women go for survival value. Any man who hasn't had a lobotomy/lost his sex drive through age or other reasons who claims he isn't turned on by a SMOKINGHOT body is lying. Women on the other hand don't seem to be controlled by the gonads but rather by emotions. This is the ultimate paradox for me cos at once I want to be true to myself but at the same time my STRONG natural inclinations are telling me to compromise my rationality to want to fornicate with some trashy slut. C'est la vie.

Wow, this has been quite a popular thread hmmm? If nothing I can be controversial! Vortex I like what you have to say, I see it is grounded in good evolutionary psych. You guys who say 'women haven't had a chance cos society has kept em down' I'm not being deliberately biased but I take my perspectives from the whole existence of the human race...or at least what we known from the study of it. This is my problm with the ;society has kept women down' position. Women were living in their 'natural environment' back in caveman days wouldn't you agree? All of these 'puacentric' theoryies of attraction are based on evolutionary psychology. The presmise is that women (and men) act the same now as that did back in caveman days. I don't recall any data of women being the innovators and creators back then either. There is the usual dichotomy of males being the hunter gatherers and writing on walls and women gathering fruit (also gatherers within the society) and gossiping with the rest of their girls. If you read the Red Queen (hardcore evolutionary biology, only one perspective but it gives alot of good study into this area from that particular perspective) he states that women are gossipers cos it allows them to root out potential beta males, they are more intuitive just so they can see whether a man will be a cheater or if he is not really an alpha- all domestics related. At the same time men are more spatial and logical cos it allows them to catch the more dangerous prey with their comrades as they would form plans and remember good hunting grounds all that logical type stuff. Some may think I remain 'dogged' in my views. That isn't to say I am dogmatic. My intention was to open a discussion to see what others thought of the situation and we certainly have created a good discussion here. The whole idea of a discussion is that each respective party presents their arguments to the table. Like a dual where the best argument wins (not in terms of a battle for battle's sake but just to perhaps gain new perspectives, at worst each respective party remains within their own reality tunnel). Now if I totally IGNORED other's perspectives I'd accept that it would be reasonable for you to not want to discuss it as it would not be worth it on your part. As I say I remain open to changing my views given sufficient evidence to persuade me so however so far nothing offered has provided me with anything but mere exceptions so the defender's arguments remain poultry at best, imo, but again, of course that is my opinion, which I do not deny. The opposers of my position will end up saying-you are just jaded and sex starved and I am right cos I have the PROPER female perspective, I will say ummm, look at the MASSIVE BODY of evidence to the contrary...but when we reach that point without providing new data for or against is when I would say there is no need to continue and the thread will have run it's course but for now we are still getting interesting debate going here. We have formed a good discussion here and it is good to have seen other's views, including a few women's and women sympathiser's, viewpoints on this to get different perspectives.

Now we are getting deep into things I'd say most of the 'problem' is to do with overpopulation and the fact there can only be one (or a few in their relative territories) alpha male/s. Back in the day it wouldn't have mattered so much that the alpha hoards stock as this was relevant to the hunter gatherer epoch back then and was necessary for survival but now there are so many ppl around it is detrimental. So currently we have those greedy elites who run the world and are hoarding the resources and destroying the world to boot. The rest of the 'common' men lay somewhere in between on the totem pole but most lay at the lower end as they do not dominate the environment. It's like the wolf packs where the alpha males gets to mat with all of the females in the pack but the betas aren't allowed to mate with any. As such the betas are not gonna be alpha and not gonna be attractive to women and thus there is a cycle of frustration between the sexes. The beta males want the hotties but the hotties want the alphas and there are precious few around. I'm not saying this is the ideal archetype of the alpha male but rather it's an old one which is outdated still be used today- hoarding of resources being a relic of our hunter gatherer days which is also causing us to b destroying the planet. So what we need is a new concept of the alpha to run the show a more egalitarian alpha who will reform this corrupt and polluted society; but, alas this is just a dream.

Interesting enishi, I am what would be considered 'hardcore' on the pua front probs the reasons for my pessimistic views of women. I am just starting to get good at it now and would disagree that it only works on 'fucked' women. Most guys quit before they get good and write it off as useless just cos they didn't get it to work. Of course you gotta find what works for you. I think you have to go extreme with it to get good, gotta pay the cost and all that. I agree it's fucking frustrating and makes me wanna kill myself alot; the learning curve is steeper than ANYTHING I've ever done in my life. Contrary to it making me worse off I'd say the more sex I'm getting is the better it's making me internally as it;s making me less needy and also less resentful the better I get. The more experience I get is the more I see women's perspectives, why they act bitchy etc. Although I may not agree like how they act I can relate to it more having had sex with needy girls and knowing what it's like to be on the receiving end. I tried tai chi for a few months but found it so slow and irrelevant to my life. What I mean is the learning curve with that was too high for me to want to continue. I found it relevant long term like inner peace is a nice idea and all that but I didn't get a positive payoff soon enough that it would make me want to continue with it (note I'm not a typically impatient person not especially so anyway, on a global scale I guess I am somewhat having grown up in a western consumerist culture). It didn't move me like say art does. Something has to move me emotionally (either positively or negatively) to make me stick at it. The trouble I have with most of these 'spiritual disciplines' is they are so outdated such that they don't evoke a strong response. What I mean is for instance tai chi is very much based on nature and now we live in cities then it is going to be alot harder to tap the surface of that and make the connections due to the disconnect in its presentation; not relevant to their epoch I think is the correct term. That is why I applaud contemporary art as it fulfills that spiritual side but is right up to the mark in terms of it's relevance to the individual's current identity; the trouble is again, in this consumerist society how often do you find GOOD as opposed to vapid lecherous advertisements appealing to the baser inclinations of the human organism. So in terms of spiritual I haven't found a system which gels with me and am not really motivated to seek one out atm. I think when I'm about 50 or so and I come out of the testosterone haze that is when I'll devote the remainder of my life to the spiritual. Go live in the country and come to terms with my inevitable demise and all that. It will have more urgency once I get closer to expiration.

Yes you said it right five, I am sincere and do not mean disrespect I am just genuinely conveying my (perhaps offensive) perspectives in the hope that I can better understand what is what. Obviously something doesn't sit right with me somewhere which is what impelled me to write the post in the first place and I am happy to rearrange my belief systems should better ones reveal themselves. I also agree that it is the feminine that impels the creativity in men that doesn't mean it is in itself creative though, only indirectly so. If it wasn't for my 'gonads' I'd be a total nihilist. I would go so far as to say dopamine is life itself. It drives everything in life. I am definitely a dopamine addict and I just equate more as better and the best dopamine high I get is from 'getting my rocks off'. I'm also intrigued by the 'middle aged perspective' that you have, as I have often wondered how tinted my perspectives are by my age. I am indeed 25 years old and as I have been told this is the height of my libido. But to try and stifle my natural urges I feel would be an obscene butchering of my natural inclinations so what's a horny devil to do but fulfil those inclinations?

This seems like the first sensible answer enishi, that makes sense. Others seem to have recoiled at my controversial topic title such that they didn't offer reasonable counters to my argument. I am happy and open to having my mind changed here I'm just saying this has been my current experience. The whole point of writing it was to open myself to new ideas which others haven't yet ventured to offer. Case in point immortal_sister was unable to create a reasonably thought out response as she had too much of an emotional reaction to be able to think clearly. lol I'm just being facetious. Also a nod goes to drewhempel for the rec.

It isn't my intention to be sexist or whatnot. It is easy to see though that there are differences between males and females and I am just pointing out that this assumption of creativity being a feminine trait seems to be an incorrect one from my experience. I don't dispute that women have their own complementary traits to men's just that creativity I cannot see as being anything other than a male trait. This has been niggling me for a few days. In all the yin yang and other spiritual bent texts they always talk about the 'feminine polarity' being creative. If that is so, females themselves should have the highest abundance of feminine energy. As such they should be the MOST creative. I see people trying to defend this position by saying that it's just a feminine trait which males poses and use but as I just stated women themselves would obviously have more of this being FEMALE and thus by analogy would be more creative but this is, from my experience, categorically incorrect. Yet again this has caused me to be more skeptical to the pie in the sky theorizing of most 'spiritual teachings'. Sometimes this spiritual stuff has good insights but often I find it is inaccurate even seemingly arbitrary in its speculation. My first hand experience with the real world indicates that this claim is 100% inaccurate as the hotter the women ie the more feminine her energy is the LESS creative she will be. Anyone who has not lived in total isolation from the opposite sex their whole lives (I guess this might explain why the people making these claims do so as most of the 'spiritual gurus' do indeed live in total isolation from society their whole lives and come up with their elabourate theories while high on gamma waves or whatever whilst living in a cave and most are celibate, many probably never even having had sex at all) will know the hotter the girl the less she has to do to get by. Conversely nearly all creative pursuits have been done so by males either directly or indirectly to either attain the favour of women or as an outlet to distract/circumvent love lost etc/as a cathartic outlet to their pent up libido. Men create and women just enjoy the fruits of men's labour. Everything you see in sight was created by men, not women. I don't deny women are nurturers and all that but they are doing so from the safe nest that males create. Women are the most conservative creatures you can imagine and never dare taking risks instead just huddling within the confines of conformity. These are broad generalizations I know but that is all I wish to scrutinise- the general distribution of a given sample, not an exception such as a masculine lesbian. I really don't see how it could realistically be interpreted any other way.

To redirect a little from the current veering of the discussion being "If I met Lao Tzu would he want to be my tea drinking buddy" I thought of another facet of this... If everything is natural under the Tao what does natural actually mean? Everything is 'natural' to the Tao but is everything natural to us? What does that even mean? I was thinking recently of the idea that what is classically considered 'natural' is only what people have known to be so traditionally. So in this sense tradition and nature could be swapped synonymously. For instance we may consider science and pharmaceuticals 'unnatrual' but why? Just because they are new and haven't been around as long as mountains and rivers? Maybe in years to come they will consider these things as 'natural' as mountains and rivers? Is it a matter of degree? Are the mountains and rivers MORE natural than science and pharmaceuticals merely do to their preceding them? If the tao is supremely indifferent then everything is as natural as everything else right? For the human body however some things could be considered less natural, relatively, then others. Drinking too much alcohol makes me feel distinctly poisoned and subsequently so for the next day or so. That I would consider to be unnatural. Putting your hand in a fire might not be 'natural'...anything which disturbs your common equilibrium perhaps could be considered that which is unnatural. Eating food is 'natural' but is it 'natural' to eat until you become an obese behemoth like many in the USA junk food culture? Will this archetype be natural once people accept it as the status quo? So I'm just wondering what people's definitions of 'natural' are as we take it for granted alot of the time and I realised the question isn't so black and white. I find it useful to know for times when I am considering how to act.

Maybe its does; but your reply doesn't make it more helpful by not elabourating what you mean! What do you define as subtle layers? and how do they widen the conversation?

Well... I take a rather individualistic approach to this... If I follow your analogy assuming we are the fruit... Then I say I want to ripen not for the Tao but for myself... Why? Because nature rewards the ripest fruit.... How? Feel good chemicals. In that way I guess nature is rewarding us like the good lab monkeys we are The reason I want to fully actualize is simply because I feel depressed and can hardly bear living unless I am enjoying the fruits the world has to offer. If I rest on my laurels I feel like I am missing out and that I would rather be dead. This comes in thew form of deep frustration and depression. I am not talking about chasing money or fame. I live by very humble means except one thing I do want is the most beautiful women to copulate with. Now my life would be so simple if I didn't have this desire but I do and nature has it that it's very hard to get the 'cream of the crop' in this area as you are literally competing with every other sexually available male on the planet. To me sex is the pinnacle of life and so if I'm going to live life to the fullest (which = enjoy the most feel good chemicals) then this will be the best way to do it. Why do I do it? Cos the reward feels great. If I could take drugs and feel as good I would but their downsides are too great such that the cost/benefit ratio is not worth it. The downside to this is that this goal is one of the most hard things to do in the world. Probably harder than earning money or fame. I couldn't imagine living without this desire, at least not while I'm in my sexual prime. It is the bane of my life in some ways in that I hate being a slave to it but at the same time I could not see myself living without pursuing this goal until my libido drops and I lose the desire. So I guess that was my main gripe with 'nature'; that I'm a slave to these desires and that it is so hard to fulfill them. Possible but extremely difficult. I will not compromise with 'settling'. I take a Nietzschean view that I must keep improving my efforts and going for ever greater quarry, only because the rewards are exponentially greater, not for any romantic ideal of being 'the best'. So for me my penchant would be sex. For others it is achievement or whatever. All the same it gives you that dopamine reward. As Neitzsche says- all life is the will to power. So at once I admit this and go after it like a good lab monkey but am disgruntled that this is the way it is and thus am not calling nature the 'greatest' due to me thinking it a stupid 'paper chase' but have found it to be the only thing that makes life bearable. The sad thing to me is that people such as Hitler would be the logical conclusion of this natural inclination to dominate and conquer for which 'nature' rewards us so highly.

Hmm this is alot different from the 'pop' translation of TTC I have. Would you say that is the best translation overall? If so I'll look for it. I just read this post: http://www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/mason34.htm Which explains the 'tao' pretty well in his own words. I am sure that nature is a bitch and doesn't care the question is whether or not I want to resist nature to create a better life for myself in the short term by for instance working to the best of my human capacity rather than just taking my lumps and being thrown around like a straw doll. The question also arises whether using ones full rational capabilities also entails being natural. I suppose anything and everything you can imagine is 'natural' in the sense that everything comes from nature; from the tao. So I suppose the issue which is really at hand is whether one uses their antiquated animal nature or their new shiny rational nature, not whether they go against nature as everything is in some sense natural. In this sense we can honour the old while accommodating it and improving on it with our new rational judgment. I guess my qualms were more with irrational thinking then than with the unnatural as thinking is but another new adaptation of life.

The more I learn about Darwinism and evolution is the more contempt I have for the imperfection of 'nature'. Sure nothing is perfect and I also appreciate what a great feat it is to create life at all however I have just come to question the blind faith in nature that some people, myself included, have up to this point purported. People often blame everything on humans- we pollute, killl, etc etc etc. but we are only doing these things in the service of our survival and replication drives which have been passed down through the ages. So we are simply running our minds on old programs which are obsolete. 'Nature' seems to run in such a way that the most powerful and brutish survive out and the weak are trammeled out of existence. Contempt is a bit strong but rather I am wondering that if holding nature as our 'God' or the highest beacon for 'how we should live' is the best idea as nature is clearly a bitch and has no regard for the wellbeing or fairness of humanity or other living creatures. It's not that it is against us but rather that it is indifferent. Look at the brutality that happens in the plains of africa etc. the survival of the fittest mentality, law of the jungle. I see this nasty every man for himself ideal play out in human form in any big city. The bigger the city is the more ruthless and cutthroat humans seem to be. All creatures fighting tooth and nail for survival. So I feel that it is a bit stupid to say that nature is all great and benevolent seeing as it has no regard for our wellbeing. And why should it? It is not a living entity. To paraphrase Camus we live in a universe which is indifferent to our existence. I am not going to fall into exitential angst about this, I've spent most of my life n that rut , however I am just pointing out that- is holding nature as our highest moral standard bearer the best idea when it clearly has no regard for living creatures one way or the other. The best we can say is to 'go with the flow' and try and avoid it's negative effects. I think improvements on nature are to be made through human intellect. I think it's naiive and ignorant to say 'everything humans have created leads to pollution and crap and we should just go with nature' as nature doesn't care if we go with it or not. All illnesses and diseases are a product of nature. I think it's just a fatlist view to say that 'Everything that happens was meant to be this way, nature knows best'. I don't think nature knows anything it just does it's own thing and we popped up by chance (but let us not go down the creation line here). Nature only rewards the most ruthless and powerful, survival of the fittest. I am becoming more and more sympathetic with humanitarian ideals. But humanitarian is a little narrow in scope as every living thing shares common bonds and we are not much dissimilar from our other non rational cousins, those who are also struggling in the plains of Africa. They too have to bear the brunt of natures hand. So I think what would be more beneficial for prosperity on earth would not be to put nature at the top of the pile in regards to how to act morally but rather to ask what is best for all living creatures? If we were just to take the nature view we have pretty much what we have today Capitalism and stamping on one another to get to the top of the pile with no regard for one's fellow; only being slaves to our genes. I certainly do not think we should disregard this aspect, however to only view things this way leaves us ignoring the humanity of one another blindly being slaves to our dopamine receptors. So sure follow that as that is what makes us feel good but don't let it be the ONLY thing we are about as I think that is very short sighted and is pretty much the result of where we are at today. Most of the western world I would hazard is the result of the desire for domination and progress at any cost. Now at the same time great technologies have arisen from this internet, medicine etc etc etc. These are great things but I think the focus should shift now or else we just become empty blind automatons as the corporate treadmill will attest. People say this empty materialism is the RESULT of human error but I feel it is only the result of humans acting out 'nature's way'. Being more conscious of our values and 'what is best for all of life' I believe is our primary duty as rational creatures not just following what antiquated patterns nature has set out up till now. So I guess I'd say that capitalism is a natural human progression of dawinistic survival of the fittest but a shift in thinking should occur to take into account the fact that these same reward centers which have been conditioned form time immemorial do not take into account equality for other living creatures and thus are outmoded and should be replaced with new ideals given our shiny new rational minds. I once had a vision that humans were created (by chance or not, whatever) to be the guardians of the earth. No matter of the cause of that vision I still think it was a good one in that I think as the only rational creatures it's our duty to find out not what is best just for our selfish needs as individuals but what is best for all living things. Just a few thoughts I've been having.

Thanks for replies. Yea, ya mu, recently I found out a new 'trick' while meditating where I felt I was able to pull energy which I could feel around the base of my spine up to my head at will. This gave me rather interesting sensations similar to when I used to smoke weed, minus the 'druggy' effect. I would just start giggling periodically and feel light and 'buzzy'. As I was impressed by this effect I kept flooding my head with this feeling a few times but haven't tried it in a week or so. I imagine it would be a good idea to try and 'shoot' these energies in other parts of my body and see what results it yields... Any ideas on how you would explain this phenom? My tai chi intructor just said 'yea thats your microcosmic orbit' but didn't go into further detail.

I am becoming more aware of the energies in my body where they are and how they move around. On a plus when I'm meditating I can feel good energies or chi is it moving around me. On the negative, I find when I am doing menial mundane tasks like having to order something online which has alot of finecky details or having to deal with other nagging tasks then I can actually feel my energy getting sucked out of my forehead. It is a definate feeling. I used to get it acutely when doing my degree and had to edit essays, footnotes, references and the like. I have tried to cut out much of the stressful factors in my life but things like this are bound to occur now and then from day to day so I want to be able to fulfil these necessary tasks without losing my centering. Currently I will feel the energy getting sucked out like a vacuum through my head and it's even like getting a slight migraine. I even feel like a grey fog in my head for a while and have to concentrate on breathing and bring myself back down. I want to be able to function doing these dreary chores while not letting it have such an affect on me as atm it's like it's these things literally suck out my lifeforce. Any tips/tricks for this?