I believe your environment is a huge part of your life and, if nothing else, of the background hum of your life, the context it is all put into. You can be your own high points, but your context is always there whether you like it or not, and whether you find some way to transform its impact on your spirit and possibilities or not.

If that's the case, it's much healthier that it be something that buoys you up rather than something to overcome. Who wants to start every day overcoming even before you've had your damn coffee? And see overcoming out of every window, popping up grinning in the background of every photo? It's nice not to live only in the foreground of your life, but to have the background worth something too. Solace, stimulation, comfort or beauty, anything that turns you on.

Our environment affects us, subtly and invisibly, every moment of every day. How much sounder and happier it is to have it be a good fit. I believe it is possible to make large and clearly felt positive changes in one's life by asking oneself honestly whether what comprises the background of consciousness is worth changing. Your notion that you automatically feel and function better in certain environments is one I can relate to and believe is not a trivial matter. I don't doubt that you will get your creativity and drive back by being in an environment that suits you. No man is an island. We are all part of what surrounds us, even if only in successfully rejecting its hold on us. That still is a step away from drawing strength or comfort from it.

There is always the possibility, though, that one is not seeing the best of a new environment clearly. Not getting out and meeting people exacerbates that risk. And in that case, one carries one's environment with one and doesn't give the new setting a chance to sing its own praises and win one over. Coexistent with the danger of the inability to feel the new is the risk of romanticizing the old and familiar. They say you can't go home again. Sometimes we can find that the great things we remember about some favorite place were exaggerated, too dependent on factors that have changed, or not enough to compensate for the lack of new needs we have developed that can no longer be met by that place we once thought comfortable and complete. I guess the authenticity of your own consciousness is up to you. One simply wouldn't want to carry one's dissatisfaction from place to place if place is not the problem.

Good thread idea! Here's a pecualiar one - I realised today that my fascination all things space-based started younger than I thought.

I know all children draw spaceships and things, but I was looking through some of my old pictures/doodles and realised that even from a very young age, maybe 85% of my artistic output were spaceships, space stations, planets, stars, etc. I then thought about it even more, and remembered a few other things - I had a large jigsaw puzzle with a jungle scene on it, but it was just made from MDF so the back was easy to draw on. I recall I turned it over and draw (using mostly black crayon, ldo) a space scene with stars and planets and things, and once I had completed this great endeavour, I swiftly lost interest in the original jungle scene, even if my design was almost entirely black (being space, and all). I also had toys of all five Thunderbirds, and even though obvioulsly only 3 & 5 travel in space, I considered all 5 - when I wasn't watching the show, this is, which I loved - to be space-worthy. I'm sure I could think of a thousand other examples if I tried.

There's a place in Scotland which is supposed to have absolutely no artificial light pollution for many, many miles around, so you can see stars with amazing clarity compared to even the countryside. Planning on going there one day...

I think where you are is important, even if I've personally always felt utterly aspatial about my location (but that's the topic for another post). I'm not sure what else to add to this, really - but different places attract different kinds of people, and have different ways of doing things, and all the rest of it. If the city relates to you in a particular way - because you like the way people go about their business, or the sense of a bustling metropolis/quiet hamlet, or anything inbetween, I think it's a key factor in one's happiness/wellbeing.

Hmm, that was rather rambling.

It might be too late by then.

The rap industry/world is often a lot like live action role playing: participants pick a persona and a faction and then enact elaborate, imaginary battles through rap. Nerds and rappers aren't that far apart, which I guess explains the popularity of "nerdcore" among nerds and the ubiquity of hyperbolic, modern day paladin fantasies in rap music; they're different expressions of more or less the same desires.

The whole point, not of religion, but real spirituality, is that essence which cannot be verbalized. The brain has fully functional non-conceptual capability operating alongside this conceptualized, language and emotion-based consciousness in which we experience so much friction.

We cannot explain how this egoic self operates because its operation is the egoic self.

Friction arises when the ego denies reality.

The ego denies reality by engaging in fantasy and nostalgia.

After much serious thought, I am again struck by the impact of the song "Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow", theme song of the tv series Baretta, starring the great Robert Blake.

This profound song tells "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Don't do it."

"Don't roll the dice if you can't pay the price. Don't do it."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrz_qowIIbQ&feature=fvw

Take it a step further, most people in life are this way its not often you get to see what people are really like. People will hide their real thoughts, ideals and personality to suit a group no matter what. Not always to the same extent but a large amount of the world are part of some sort of group be it three friends, a gang, the military work, family whatever. How many times have you heard or indeed told stories of sticking it to the man, like "yeah I went in and told my boss, man your wrong my way is right and the dude was speechless" or some other hyperbole. This is why I never got all the Alpha Phi Kappa (is that right? Im english ((explains alot))). Pressure to conform is drilled in from the day we are born, not wearing the right clothes fk you, you dont like sports, ***, you like reading books!, why? Its hard just to be your self nowdays.

Dr Dre rolls a 9 and breaks through Fiddys bullet armour, now that would be fun, I have never played a role playing board game so I dont know if thats right lol but is a funny image.

Here is a little story to explain to you what strikes me today and really I think I want to brag as well. lol

Recently I dug a hole for a lady I know. She needed a new connection on her septic tank. The item cost $30 but they wanted her to pay for a backhoe to dig the hole and she was stressing about the costs. I have lots of money but to offer her the money would be an insult and she would never accept it. It strikes me that money is not worth as much as honest work when given to someone else.

Instead I offered to dig the hole myself, by hand. She laughed at the idea of this. She knows I have never done similar repairs and assumed it would be impossible for me. I insisted as once something is deemed impossible it really appeals to me. lol It strikes me that people who know me for a long time still often underestimate my craziness.

So off I went shovel in hand and no idea what I was trying to do. So I dig and dang if you don't dig a huge hole if you stick with it for a few hours. Finally she comes out and tells me to stop because there is no way it can be that deep. Hole was about 9 feet deep and I had to dig little steps in the walls to get out. It was great fun. It strikes me why someone had to stop me when it was clear something was wrong and I wonder how deep I would have dug if I had been left alone.

So next day I talk to the guy that was going to fix this thing and he tells me the part I need to replace is on the other side of that tank and I dug on the wrong side. He is somewhat amazed I dug that sucker by hand and I get great joy from that as well. It strikes me that planning has its benefits.

Off I go again digging in the right spot this time I hope. And sure enough a few hours later I find the outline along with the rusted part I need to replace. From there it was as simple as watching how I removed the part and going to the store and showing them what I had then resemble the whole mess and fill in some holes. It strikes me that filling in holes is not nearly as fun as digging them and oddly there is never enough dirt to refill a hole?!

I like this story good on you.

Very nice good deed, Stuey. Though you do sound a little crazy.

lol, Stuey, you're a nut

It's amazing how you didn't know to dig a hole. The hard part is dealing with all those blisters. When I first did handy work, that was essentially all I did. But I was younger at the time, and you quickly discover that you need to use a jack hammer to dig California dirt.

I was going to post something about my golf swing until I read about Stuey and the neighbor's hole.
I can't top that.

That fame is the new currency and the old bible verse about the love of money being the root of all sorts of evil applies to fame now as well

how stupid direct realism is. i have always felt that it is stupid, but today i feel it to be extra stupid. our perceptions are just our brains way of interpreting sensory data, and there is no reason the way our brains interpret data is the same as how the raw data actually is. infact i dont think it makes much sense to talk about how uninterpreted data actually is anyway.

I'm in Jamaica right now, at the Royal Plantation, and what strikes me is:

Why the hell do we choose to participate in the inane urban/capitalistic/"modern" world, when the natural world can be chosen and attained very simply, assuming you are willing to do with less in the way of material, uh, crap.

See my post in the "What Are You Coveting?" thread for a proper dose of dichotomy.

You know, El Sapo, most people wouldn't be able to accept any responsibility for such a circumstance, and would be everything you've described and be embittered on top of it.

You're probably doing better than you think if your mind is still this open and your general disposition is this reasonable.

I think you ought to go ahead and post a new thread for this. There's a lot at work here, and it seems a worthwhile topic.

Just my .02.

Thanks. I do appreciate that, and the idea that it might make a worthwhile thread. Back when I was considering it, I intended it to be more of a "help me find ways to improve life here," kind of thread.

If I did it now, however, I think it would just be a soapbox for me to hear myself blab, and I'd wind up feeling like an attention whore wanting someone to listen to their problems.

I will say this, however. The move and the last two years has really helped show me some things that matter to me, and some thing which matter less than I thought. Life here is very easy - my salary is adequate, I have ample space and plenty of free time. Three things which really, I always thought I placed a premium on.

And yet I want to move back to an area where I'll effectively have less money and time and space. Who knew?

Now, some of this may be "grass is greener" thinking. When I was in DC, I wasn't exactly shouting the virtues of efficiency apartments and living paycheck to paycheck. So, who knows, maybe I move back and it turns out I'm wrong. We'll see. It's a process, I suppose.

People leave Scotland. It's very sad that such a wonderful country is in a state of constant exodus.

as a peson who would enjoy seeing into the infrered spectrum in the future...this intruiges me...gogogadget science

i realized last night and today that the lounge is a cool place to go an learn stuff...even if i have to look up lots of words in the dictionary online

i also came to relize that blarg makes really good posts all the time and i will read more of his threads and posts soon

2p2 is a community full of intelligent and thoughtful ppl once u leave bbv(4l) and is probably the most important website for me personally, google and wikipedia are great but there are alternatvies to them while P5s just really isnt gonna cut it and this subforum is a perfect example of one of many reasons why

I have always had lots of epiphanies. All of a sudden, often for no reason at all, I feel like I have figured everything out. I just had another one and it is no better nor worse than any other I have had. But it is good and fresh so I am keen to share it. But in the past I have found all my epiphanies fade with time. Yup I have had a epiphany about epiphanies. That is epiphanies are useless unless they lead to concrete action! So anyways that's what strikes me today. I imagine when I read this tomorrow it will not mean nearly as much to me as it does right now. Feels really good right now tho.

today i was watching some stuff on tv and i realized the US prison system is in an urgent state right now

One of my least favorite epiphanies was seeing a show on prisons and realizing that the multiple murderer being interviewed lived in a bigger room than I did. Plus he had cable.