Meditate on this before you shoot it down

[Owledge]

If you decide to wield a sword, first get drunk so that you know the cuts are sincere. — Kōan the Barbarian

[Invisible Acropolis]

 

[Owledge]

I can't watch that. Rights issue.

[Invisible Acropolis]

 

[Invisible Acropolis]

 

[Invisible Acropolis]

 

[Owledge]

Ah, that popular quote.

It shows how versatile the word "good" is.

Yet when on the acute receiving end of an unwise interpretation, most people's minds are suddenly quite enlightened, revealing the insincerity of their previous interpretation.

Which points back at the OP.

 

Cure ail and whine with ale and wine.

But maintain moderation. The cure (teaching) is delivered with the treatment.

[Invisible Acropolis]

1 hour ago, Owledge said:

Cure ail and whine with ale and wine.

But maintain moderation. The cure (teaching) is delivered with the treatment.

 

Clowns never take anything seriously - because their job is to present everything in the light of humor.  As a profession, it can be useful.  As an insult, it can also be useful.  One designates the nature of truth, while the other exposes the nature of deception.

 

It may be useful for you to explore the source of your thoughts and ideas - especially since you yourself have not invented the english language (or any other widely spoken language) - but rather have inherited it as part of your social training.  Language has been given to you, and anything you "create" within it is therefore dependent upon others who have come before you, and have created this possibility for you to begin with.

 

Quote

In May 1927, after having to return home due to contracting measles and then being forced to retake the course, Howard passed his exams. While waiting for the official graduation in August, he returned to writing, including a re-write of "The Shadow Kingdom." He rewrote it again in August and submitted it to Weird Tales in September. This story was an experiment with the entire concept of the "weird tale" horror fiction as defined by practitioners such as Edgar Allan Poe, A. Merritt, and H. P. Lovecraft, mixing elements of fantasy, horror and mythology with historical romance, action and swordplay into thematic vehicles never before seen, a new style of tale which ultimately became known as "sword and sorcery". Featuring Kull, a barbarian precursor to later Howard heroes such as Conan, the tale hit Weird Tales in August 1929 and received fanfare from readers. Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright bought the story for $100, the most Howard had earned for a story at this time, and several more Kull stories followed. However, all but two were rejected, convincing Howard not to continue the series.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Howard

 

[Cobie]

Re Robert E Howard: imo it is ill advised to read the writings of a person who killed himself at age 30 , as imo suicide means the man had no useful knowledge to pass on.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Cobie

[Invisible Acropolis]

3 minutes ago, Cobie said:

Re Robert E Howard: imo it is ill advised to read the writings of a person who killed himself at age 30 , as imo suicide means the man had no useful knowledge to pass on.

 

Do you think this is why Owledge based his original comment on Conan the Barbarian?

[Owledge]

26 minutes ago, Cobie said:

Re Robert E Howard: imo it is ill advised to read the writings of a person who killed himself at age 30 , as imo suicide means the man had no useful knowledge to pass on.

You know about a writer who killed himself?

Interesting. 🤔

 

The plot thickens.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Owledge

[Invisible Acropolis]

11 minutes ago, Owledge said:

Interesting. 🤔

 

The plot thickens.

 

Indeed - it is quite interesting.  That is probably why:

Quote

Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero who originated in pulp magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, films (including Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer), television programs (animated and live-action), video games, and role-playing games. 

 

Robert E. Howard created the character in 1932 for a series of fantasy stories published in Weird Tales magazine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian

[doc benway]

6 hours ago, Cobie said:

Re Robert E Howard: imo it is ill advised to read the writings of a person who killed himself at age 30 , as imo suicide means the man had no useful knowledge to pass on.

 

I'll respectfully disagree.

So many wonderful artists and authors have taken their lives and have had so much to share.

A Confederacy of Dunces is one of my favorite books

Its author, John Kennedy Toole, took his life at 31.

 

[Owledge]

15 minutes ago, steve said:

 

I'll respectfully disagree.

So many wonderful artists and authors have taken their lives and have had so much to share.

A Confederacy of Dunces is one of my favorite books

 

 

Everything can be a teacher. But on the topic of artists committing suicide, which could almost be a kind of clichée even, there are so many lessons to learn. There is AVICII who killed himself because he couldn't stand the strangling pressure of the career tentacles he got himself entangled in. He was very popular, of course. That is the prize, and then it was time to pay the price.

 

Another very rich slice of life (and death) is the production of the video game Night in the Woods. Two flavors of societal distress collided while trying to make something meaningful, ending up conveying a story rarely told, weaving into the meta story. One of the most beautiful video game soundtracks to one of the most meaningful games made by someone who suffered parental abuse, sexually harassed his colleagues, while trying to understand the world and do better, and then committed suicide under the load of what he had done.

 

I can highly recommend playing that game, and ideally after that reading the whole background story (even though I already gave a part of it away, but there is so much more): https://www.reddit.com/r/NightInTheWoods/comments/cy5lx9/news_regarding_alec_holowka_future_discussion/

 

15 minutes ago, steve said:

Its author, John Kennedy Toole, took his like at 31.

 

Take my like instead. 😅

Edited December 11, 2022 by Owledge

[Earl Grey]

1 hour ago, steve said:

 

I'll respectfully disagree.

So many wonderful artists and authors have taken their lives and have had so much to share.

A Confederacy of Dunces is one of my favorite books

Its author, John Kennedy Toole, took his like at 31.

 

 

Don't forget the 27 club and how much they influenced pop culture.

[Cobie]

21 hours ago, steve said:

I'll respectfully disagree. …

Happy to disagree.   

[Owledge]

17 minutes ago, Cobie said:

Happy to disagree.   

 

Don't concentrate on the finger, though.

[Invisible Acropolis]

13 minutes ago, Cobie said:

Happy to disagree.   

 

Same.  As in - Im happy to disagree with you.   I am also more than willing to provide the proper context for it. 

 

You come across as someone quite inexperienced with life, so Id wager you are a very young person (if not in body, then... so forth and so on).  I would include Owledge in this thought as well.   Both of you seem to express the sentiments of young and inexperienced people - which is of course, a necessary part of life.  Young people grow and mature as life goes on.  The only tragedy here would be to remain frozen in such a way of being throughout your lives, and never bothering to mature beyond it  - which is certainly a possibility, but potentially much less so if you are truly dedicated to a life of actual cultivation.

 

Perhaps one day you may come to understand just how many of your own personal "heroes" are quite "flawed" in ways you have not yet discovered - for whatever reason that may be... the most typical being that any given person is not ready to handle the weight of such truths.  Regardless of whether you even have any "heroes" at all, many people have exited this life in ways that may not seem immediately obvious to the casual observer who is predisposed to pre-established ways of thinking. 

For example:

Quote

Socrates was given the chance to offer alternative punishments for himself after being found guilty. He could have requested permission to flee Athens and live in exile, but he did not do so. Instead, according to Plato, he requested that a fine should be imposed on him and also suggested that free meals should be provided for him daily in recognition of his worth to Athens. According to Xenophon, however, Socrates made no proposals.^[69] The jurors favoured the death penalty by making him drink a cup of hemlock (a poisonous liquid).^[70] After a delay caused by Athenian religious ceremonies, Socrates spent his last day in prison. His friends visited him and offered him an opportunity to escape, which he declined.^[71]

 

Life is not always as black and white as you may wish it to be - and in fact, there are many subtle shades to be found in the 10,000 things.  Sometimes the choice between defeat and victory is not as clear cut as the oversimplifications which render everything able to be easily reduced.  For example, Japanese samurai culture includes seppuku (aka "suicide") as part of their most honorable code of the warrior, also known as bushido.

 

Are you a fan of rock music?   There is a famous band called Soundgarden, and their frontman recently committed suicide himself.  

Quote

After hanging himself in his Detroit hotel room on May 18, 2017, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell was found dead at the age of just 52. However, his widow remained adamant that he wasn’t suicidal before his death. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/chris-cornell-death

 

Again, if you are unfamiliar with this band, you may not be aware of their wide-ranging influence on rock music in general over the years, and especially the so-called 'seattle' sound.

 

One of my favorite tracks of theirs seems to address a very extreme sort of "release from bondage".  If you examine the lyrics, its actually quite interesting in the context of later events:

 

 

[Owledge]

1 hour ago, Invisible Acropolis said:

You come across as someone quite inexperienced with life, so Id wager you are a very young person (if not in body, then... so forth and so on).  I would include Owledge in this thought as well.   Both of you seem to express the sentiments of young and inexperienced people - which is of course, a necessary part of life.

 

Consider the thought that you might be in denial about something in you that I am tucking at to bring to the surface.

You seem quite prejudiced and content with your self-image, quite 'up there in your head'. You tend to not even grasp the point of my writing but instead twist in a way that serves your thought bubble.

Many of your responses would require so much energy to simply try and figure out how to even respond to that I decide it is not worth it.

[Invisible Acropolis]

On 12/12/2022 at 2:40 PM, Owledge said:

 

Consider the thought that you might be in denial about something in you that I am tucking at to bring to the surface.

You seem quite prejudiced and content with your self-image, quite 'up there in your head'. You tend to not even grasp the point of my writing but instead twist in a way that serves your thought bubble.

Many of your responses would require so much energy to simply try and figure out how to even respond to that I decide it is not worth it.

 

I dont need you to admit how old you actually are.  My statements speak for themselves, as do yours.