I have come to the conclusion that I really need only two major markers for who to choose as my friends:
- Those who give more than they take, and
- Those who creates flow more than they create friction
The first one is simple; Avoid leeches. Associate with people who continually generate positive karma.
The second one is also easy to recognize; Avoid unnecessary trouble. Associate with people who make things flow, makes things work, create results. I avoid people who create social frictions more than social positive vibes.
“Taking” and “friction” are not just “bad“. They are important parts of life. The operative words in my advice above are “more than“.
Geir Isene - uncut 
Your hurting me here. 😀 I so want to be back to the positive flow and give! I so want that life back even more I want to give it to others. Grrrr. Thank you for the reminder.
You are welcome 🙂
Agreed…
Honestly dude, I don’t know how you run a company, be a father and put in the kind of mind share that you put in on this blog.
I found a cartoon that you may enjoy …
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105×7490294
😀
STUDENT: “Does a Roy Repiicant have free will?”
ZEN MASTER: “Mu.”
Good post Gier,
My List:
1) Brunette
2) Med. height
3) Must be gud lookin’
4) Likes to sit by the fire
5) Likes long walks on the bea … wha!!
Sorry, wrong list … that’s my Lonely Hearts website list.
(Dennis to himself: Oh, how embarrassing. Thank god I didn’t mention the feathers and cat o’ 9 tails)
1) Yep, I like people who help and aren’t in it for status
2) I like those who ‘disagree’, those who live outside the box, those with high integrity and willing to buck group think. The eccentric, the underdog, the guy who ‘does his own thing’ … as long as their actions are in the direction of help and enhancing others lives.
3) I usually look at comm level, honesty (by their actions), and their level of seriousness.
4) I do like your flow vs friction
Ahh forgot a couple
5) Those who look to the future with excitement
6) Those who, when in a bind, can look ahead & KNOW it will be better
Good ones Dennis,
7) Those who, when in a bind, and the future looks bleak and like nothing will ever get better, yet work their hearts out to make it better anyway.
(oh, and your lonely hearts list? remember to include “looking for my soulmate!” hahahaha)
Good one Chris … yes, I do like someone who does not give up … they keep going for that mountain.
Busted a gut on the soulmate thing … hilarious! hahahaha
Nice Geir…
Hey, long time 🙂
I’ve been reading The Science Of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. It talks about increasing life in all persons you meet, even if it’s just you giving them the idea of an increase or an expansion. It talks about pro-survival in your actions and communications with all people. It talks about the good results you’ll get in return. This seems to fit in with your requirements for a friend.
Per your previous blog, the above-mentioned book talks about many of the world’s great philosophers and poets all having the same conclusion……that we are ONE. I’d have to say, go with your gut instinct on this one, Geir. Ego aside, I do believe that we are one. This would explain everything. Even the Dynamics.
Quantum physics (from my limited understanding), basically exposes matter as not being what it seems. It isn’t real. It is mostly empty space and a relatively small amount of fluttering, vibrating, ever-changing particles. And so, I don’t think matter is actual, all on its own. I do think that you and I work together to create it many times per second. “God” is simply a word describing our infinite, universal mind. I believe all philosophy is merely an attempt to tap into said mind.
A really good reply. Thanks.
You bet.
Also, nice new look to your blog. Funny how the digital realm is always striving to look like comfortable material goods such as leather-bound portfolios, etc.
I am in flux when it comes to design on this blog 🙂
Yes, I can see what you are saying. Regarding friends, I have been having several consecutive cognitions about my environment and the people in it.
For some time I noticed that I pick my friends based on some similarity to myself. Lots of different friends but all had a significant similar personality characteristic of some sort which when I noticed myself doing this I thought, oh! that makes sense.
Currently I am noticing that I have always been picking my enemies for the same reason.
Great insight, on both friends and enemies. Lots to extrapolate there.
Lots is right. It is for me a lot to grasp.
To sit on the chest of one’s enemy while choking the life out of them only to have their swollen and purplish face morph into one’s own face is . . . a significant insight for me.
My grasp of the ego has never in my memory been as good as it is right now.
Chris, I’ve read many comments of yours (for how long now?) and your grasp of lots of things these days seems to be never as good. In fact, the charm and imaginative images in your writing just keep getting better too, along with the intellect. My conclusion is that you have already made great gains from your “adaptation” of solo auditing. Even though I haven’t decided to join you (at least not yet), I hope you know how sincerely happy I am for you! 🙂
Thank you Marildi. Yes – You always are good at encouraging and being a constant messenger of goodwill.
I know I chide, coax and cajol you about solo’ing. You will do what you will and you will do it in your own good time. Everyone does. It is a useless waste of time to evaluate another’s path. If I ever come across as doing this, I am sorry – I don’t mean to be that way. It’s more like kids getting a game of “kick the can” together – c’mon let’s play! Is all I really mean by it.
I’m thinking about how to write an article about learned vs. cognited knowledge and I have some ideas but still not sure just where I want to go with this or how to go about relating my ideas. In short I am considering what a person knows when they “learn” something and I’m considering the differences and similarities compared to epiphanal (is that an adjective?) knowledge. Some of this is clear to me but some of it is not. If I could write an article on this which came out as good and clear and concise as Geir’s piece “On Will” I would be amazed and content. I am waiting for an epiphany to choose how to go about it! hahaha I have no doubt I will wake one morning and know just what to do.
Elizabeth cracks me up! Sometimes I get the idea she has no Hungarian accent at all and uses the whole “pigeon English” thingy as a shtick or comedy device or something. Just when she gets me almost convinced “oh, I’m just an old lady and don’t speaka d’Englesh so good” she lets rip with another of her colorful articles and has me rolling my eyes in either laughter or “oh yeah’s.” Lately they are coming out rapid fire.
Speaking of which, Geir – how long did you spend writing your article “On Will” ? That is a nice short and sweet bit of work – never really ever read anyone make fairly complicated points so efficiently as in this article.
Took me a few hours. Then I amended it a few times…
But to really grasp the underlying concepts—months.
Not to worry, Chris, I totally get where you’re coming from. And the above example, “come play kick the can,” is (in appeal) second only to your invitation to come dance with you guys “among the stars” – topped off so sweetly with “Just come along for a little bit. You don’t have to stay if it doesn’t fit.” I had an impulse to grab my jacket and run out! Anyway, just thought your charming pitch was worth repeating – hey, I’m a good PR agent for you. 😉
Speaking of your grasp of things (as I was in the previous comment), the fact that you understood well enough to be able to critique the article “On will” makes you pretty much a mental giant in my eyes! You probably have enough background education (formal or otherwise) to have a running start on me – but more likely it’s just a matter of native intelligence (ha ha!) For me, trying to read that article was a religious experience – humbling, that is. (Geir, I bow to you.)
Lastly, I am really looking forward to your article on learned vs. “cognited” knowledge. As you’ve probably gathered, I think they overlap to whatever degree. Oh, and on the subject of writing and words, I figure that if the adjective form of periphery is peripheral why shouldn’t the adjective form of epiphany be epiphanal – quite reasonable of you! But it seems that it’s actually epiphanic, as in “an epiphanic moment.” (Just a small gesture there to contribute to your writing flow. And besides, I wanted to speak to the OP again, a bit at least, and not take complete advantage of Geir’s open hand – communication criminals that we are. :-))
Geir,
This latest essay, “On choosing friends” is just one more example of how you continue to move towardgreater and greater simplicity in addressing the important things in life.
You inspired me to take a new look at the applicability of Scientology in your post asking for examples of organizations successfully using Admin technology. Once I found that there were NO successful applications that excluded the use of slave labor, I started asking questions in other areas.
I found myself regaining my power of choice regarding the many fixed datums of Scientology that I had relied on for more than 30 years. Once I started asking what these stable datums were holding back, it became easier and easier to validate the truth of my observations and to actually begin thinking with the data LRH left for us rather than robotically taking everything as gospel.
My willingness to recognize the rightnesses in Ron’s writings increased along with an increased willingness to recognize shortcomings and omissions. That of course classifies me as a heretic, but my cheerfulness is now unkillable on the subject and I have become what I never would have expected, an insouciant heretic.
Thank you for the inspiration!
David St Lawrence
This is one of the best comments I have seen on my blog in a very long time. Thank you.
Geir, no doubt there are other heretics and budding heretics in the woodwork, and free-er thinkers in general because of your sowing of seeds. I’m another one who appreciates you. 🙂
The appreciation is mutual 🙂
Wowee, you made my day. (As if I didn’t already feel free to be me, here..!) 😀
David,
I appreciated your post too and even more so when I read this particular sentence and saw that you didn’t do a pendulum swing either:
“My willingness to recognize the rightnesses in Ron’s writings increased along with an increased willingness to recognize shortcomings and omissions.”
That made me cheerful, like you, and this is a good example of the point in the OP. Thanks!
PART 1: More notes on your will article:
“In the physical theory, there is no will that can cause anything. Everything is an effect of an earlier effect or is simply a random event. With no will, there are no reasons why something happens, whether it is random or not.”
1. I think there is will that can cause things but it is not free. According to people who share a materialistic view, we can create INTENTION or DRIVE that will create effects in the universe, we just delude ourselves that it came ONLY from the individual.
2. There ARE reasons why something happens. It’s just not FW. The better phrasing to the second sentence could be “With no will, there is no ETERNAL INDEPENDENT INTENTION why something happens, whether it is random or not.”
And on your assertion that Physics is the science to explain it all, I disagree with you there and am going to offer why Mathematics/Number is the last vestige of Free Will.
PART 2. IS NUMBER THE FIRST CAUSE OF FREE WILL?
As mentioned and ignored in another post, Number is the only thing that can be the MASTER of a system as well as its SERVANT and therefore self exist. And number, being always unmade, is entangled with everything in every universe without effort. The number 5 is bound to the fingers of your right hand with no effort at all.
Cut off your finger, and 4 is now instantly entangled with your hand.
I think the last hope for free will existing is IF Number can enter a closed system opening access to eternal independent intention
Of course, there is no way number itself could house free eternal beings if mathematics is a closed system.
But it’s not. Curt Godell proved this conclusively.
And if number and physics eventually MERGE into the universes what would it look like? And what would beings who were free to act in such places look like?
For a Sci-Fi representation of this to spur your imagination, I suggest you watch the Doctor Who Episode “Bllink.” It’s on iTunes. It’s amazing storytelling and considered by some to be the best DW ever made. The Weeping Angels are a VERY interesting concept when you look at Free Will. Scientifically, the only measure as stone statues.
They’re Quantum Locked, they’re just stone when you look at them.
And we’re only meat.
PART 3: BEST GUESS ON WHERE TO LOOK
MY LAST HOLD OUT FOR FREE WILL: Unless mathematics itself contains an interplay of living, infinite, separate, incomplete, SELVES of itself that can think in infinite probabilities as subsets and can see and operate themselves as both master sets and subsets, there is no soul triumphant that can live outside any substrate of cause and effect.
Actually Kurt Gödel proved mathematical incompleteness. Whether he viewed math itself as an open or closed system is unknown to me.
I will leave this unanswered except to note that there are some points in my writings you did not get. But to clarify we would have to meet in person. Going back and forth on this will be tedious and highly uninspiring. I will leave it at that.
Well, next time you are here in the US let me know. I won’t be in Europe for a year or so.
Ok 🙂
THE WARNING FOR THIS IMITATION IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE BAD YODA VOICE DETECTION SYTEM.
YOU HAVE BEEN ALERTED TO A FUGGING GOD-AWFULLY IMITATION OF THE CHARACTER KNOWN AS “YODA” FROM THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY “STAR WARS.” YODA IS JUST A PUPPET OPERATED BY MUPPETEER FRANK OZ. YODA HAS NO FREE WILL.HE’S A MINDLESS FUIGGING DOLL!”
PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK:
YODA:
“You seem to hint I have a MU?”
“Or … have I ‘mu?’
Heh-heh-heh … MU? or mu? HmMmMm?”
“MU? or mu?”
Creative – cute – and (widely) communicative.
This is good stuff, reminds me of Greg Baer’s work at http://www.reallove.com
He has written around 18 books on this subject.
Good to have you back.
🙂
_/!\_ (gassho)
“Is there a free will?” … “mu.”
“Is there no free will?” … “mu.”
This reply was in response to Miraldi’s kind comment. I just put it in the wrong place.
MIraldi, thanks for the kind words.
Hey Katageek, you’re welcome. I enjoy many of your posts, many go right over my head.
But now, on that reply, was that still Yoda speaking? If not, I’m tempted to say, not “mu” – “MU” 🙂
Kidding you. If I have it right, you are expressing the Buddhist idea. Doesn’t Buddhism see free will as existing anywhere at all, if not with the individual? Short answer will do, if that’s possible, or you will probably lose me. (At a guess, it might be a certain two-letter answer. ha ha!)
Hi Katageek,
I just realized that you haven’t contriibuted to the latest thread on Cult Think – and here you are the resident cult expert.. Maybe you never got an email notification…
I always wondered since my childhood what a friend is; and I have still wondered about it. The idea of friend / unfriend has the harmonic of connection / disconnection about it. Underlying friendship there seem to lie the uncomfortable feeling of some sort of a fixation.
When one is in present time, one simply deals with whatever is there. There is nothing carrying on from the past. All the considerations are made and unmade right there in that present moment.
I think that it has taken me a life time of wondering to finally resolve for myself what a friend is. Truly speaking, everyone and everything is my friend including my self. And why shouldn’t that be so?
.
Great reply.
A very healthy thing to say — a beautiful breakthrough.