... be who God made you to be...

Fluffball · Post by **Fluffball** » Sun Mar 10, 2002 10:40 am

Interesting... wonder what the stag represents, He is dreaming? or is this a real omen from God itself, Too cool!

Edge · Post by **Edge** » Sun Mar 10, 2002 12:24 pm

Nah, that's just the result of too much fish before bed.

UncleMonty · Post by **UncleMonty** » Sun Mar 10, 2002 2:21 pm

It's a little like the moment in "The Lion King" in which the voice from above rumbles "You are more than what you have become."

We all have some seed of greatness in us, I suppose, which responds to that. The puzzle comes when one attempts to discover just what one was meant to be...

Fluffball · Post by **Fluffball** » Wed Mar 13, 2002 3:10 pm

On 2002-03-10 14:21, UncleMonty wrote:
It's a little like the moment in "The Lion King" in which the voice from above rumbles "You are more than what you have become."

We all have some seed of greatness in us, I suppose, which responds to that. The puzzle comes when one attempts to discover just what one was meant to be...

Kinda like the heroic side within us, right? That's what I like to belive, that we have deep within us.. A force that can't be stopped once it's released, kinda like the force of Excaliber, tho That's just me day-dreaming :/

_________________
"See you someday space cowboy" - Cowboy Bebop

"Everything is clearer now...

Life is just a dream you know

Its never ending...

I'm decending...."

~Cowboy Bebop- "blue"

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: fluffball on 2002-03-13 15:12 ]</font>

Lowang59_98 · Post by **Lowang59_98** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 12:37 am

you may be wrong fluffball.

ok everyone let me tell you a short story about my encounter with my heroic side. this story IS TRUE so listen closely.

My dear friend's father died due to unknown reason. From time to time before i go to bed i sit on my banister with a lit candel, i gaze upon the many stars in the sky and say,"i promise you that i protect her my any means nessasary. i swear it! even if it means sacraficing my own life to protect her!".

i said those words(in a low tone) right before the last piece of dirt was thrown in the grave.

and thus began the releasing of my heroic side.

i know some of you might think that this story may be hard to belive, but that's what really happend and i still continue to do that to this day!!

Andrick · Post by **Andrick** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 8:26 am

Destiny or self-fulfilling prophecy?

Lowang59_98 · Post by **Lowang59_98** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 11:43 am

acually it was Destiny

UncleMonty · Post by **UncleMonty** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 8:31 pm

One should be careful when making promises to the dead. Such bring out the very best - and the very worst - in any of us.

Lowang59_98 · Post by **Lowang59_98** » Fri Mar 15, 2002 12:51 am

perhaps...but i will be ready when the time comes.

Random George · Post by **Random George** » Fri Mar 15, 2002 6:44 am

personally, i make my promises to the living, but that's a matter of choice. i've become acquainted with a group in the pagan community which uses as one of its guiding priciples the simple thought, "if it must fall, let it fall on me, for i can bear the weight." i greatly admire these people, because they will support and defend people whose beliefs they do not share, or whom they do not personally like. their aim is keeping the people safe and happy, and providing positive role models for the younger members of our community. they strive to show honor, tolerance, decency, fairness, and kindness at all times. sometimes the most heroic thing you can do is to work tirelessy for the benefit of others, whether or not those others appreciate or even acknowledge your efforts.

geo

Andrick · Post by **Andrick** » Tue Mar 19, 2002 9:37 am

Somewhere, right now, Ayn Rand is spinning in her grave.

Random George · Post by **Random George** » Wed Mar 20, 2002 6:57 am

frankly, i take great glee in the fact that if they could hook the old bat up to a turbine, ayn rand could power the eastern seaboard based on the way i alone live my life. in fact, i've been known to make decisions between two otherwise equal options by thinking "which one of these options would annoy ayn rand more?" someday, i think i'd like to find her grave and sit next to it, murmuring, "life is fun. the world is a joyful place. helping people makes me happy. in fact, i do it when there's nothing in it for me. sometimes, i'm nice to strangers--for no reason whatsoever." i think ayn rand would have been much less uptight and a lot more fun at parties if she ate more cookies and walked around in the grass with no shoes more often.

in college, my roommate had a dream that he came home and found ayn rand and che guevara in a passionate embrace on our sofa. i'm not really sure what it means, or how it relates to the comic, but every time i think of ayn rand, i think of that.

geo

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Wed Mar 20, 2002 9:33 am

Ahh, but there *is* something in it for you-- personal satisfaction, friendship, even love... and the advancement and improvement of your own spirit. People of religious background do charity, as well, because they value the pleasing of their God or gods. There is still a "profit motive" underlying the transaction.

Ayn Rand wasn't discounting the notion of charity, but rather the notion of *coerced* or *mandatory* charity. aka "The world owes me." When "charity"-- un-earned material succor-- is forced at the point of either a metaphorical or all-too-real gun, it is no longer charity but legalized plunder. (It isn't charity if they'll throw you in jail for not forking it over.)
Although she had some blind spots-- disavowing the existence of the supernatural for one. I submit that all our senses, and the extension placed upon those senses with our man-made scientific instruments, demonstrate that there is always something that lies *beyond* our ability to percieve. And that every door we open in our perceptions only reveals ten or a hundred more lying just beyond it-- she was still a smart cookie. She did what no other thinker of the time was doing, and few if any do today; namely, demanding that objective reality should hold first place above and beyond subjective opinion; insisting that human liberty demanded the acceptance of individual freedom and autonomy; demonstrating the link between freedom of interchange between individuals-- capitalism-- was vital to, in fact inseperable from, the freedoms we as westerners claim to hold dear.... and forcing people to consider that wishful thinking does not trump observed results.
A woman who had escaped the cesspit of communist Russia has the authority, I think, to speak on that. She spent the first portion of her life being told that, if she didn't "give her all to the State/Communist Party/Brotherhood of man," then she was evil and selfish. (Ever notice that politicians only think you're greedy if you want to keep your OWN money?) She lived in a world where "charity" was not an act of free will but an act made under threat of government force and social censure... and when she came to the Western world she saw many of the same collectivist, coercive, confiscatory practices and ideologies taking root. That she backlashed in her writings to the opposite extreme would only be expected.
And I think she had both the right and the authority to comment on its ideologies.

If she wasn't "fun" to read, well, it's never fun to take a dose of medicine. She was a bitter antidote to a sweet, syrupy poison... the mutual delusions of subjective reality and humanist, collectivist utopia.

Random George · Post by **Random George** » Thu Mar 21, 2002 6:56 am

her ideas, however, instead of inspiring people to understand the very important concept that charity and kindness must be personal instead of state-sponsored, offered an entire generation justification and an easy rationalization for selfish, hedonistic behaviour. we live in a world where it's perfectly acceptable behaviour not to know or care about your neighbors, where the moment's pleasure is allowed to overshadow the greater good. that's not right. i never said i don't get anything out of helping others. they just don't give me anything--what i get is a knowledge that i have made the world a better place for myself and others to share. and i think that like digitalis, opium, and laxatives, any medicine becomes poison if used incorrectly--and someone who prescribes its universal use without regard for consequences is irresponsible at best, and dangerous to others at worst. government was trying to take the place of conscience. it still does, and that's still wrong. i won't argue that. no one has a right to legislate my moral decisions or force me to be 'nice' by their standards. but the deplorable state of the world today is not even remotely helped by a bunch of people using ayn rand, neitszche, and beckett to justify living their lives selfishly and without even the consideration for others offered by basic etiquette. people have used ayn rand and social darwinism to justify everything from kicking the mentally ill out of hospitals where they can get some help, to unethical business practices, to marital infidelity. her 'bitter medicine', universally applied, is destroying our society. small doses might have done some good. no help for it now.

and as to her being 'not easy' to read? as opposed to dostoyevsky, lao-tse, and others whose works have been difficult for me to read because they forced me to consider ideas that made me uncomfortable, ayn rand is not easy to read because she used the english language poorly. words were never meant to be blunt objects for assaulting unsuspecting readers--ideas may be, but words ought not be. blame it on a poor command of the english language if you will, but i think she was not a good writer. the other two writers i mentioned were only available to me in translation, and yet their use of language was brilliant and lovely. i think she communicated her ideas badly, and as a result they have been greviously misused. a more competent writer could have more effectively presented the same concepts, and done less damage to the world at large.

geo

LudiNimTazral · Post by **LudiNimTazral** » Thu Apr 04, 2002 4:34 pm

Since this topic seems to have gone off on an Objectivist tangent:

Later in her life, Rand turned her ideas into a cult, with herself as the totally-infallible cult leader.

Details in <i>Why People Believe Weird Things</i> by Michael Shermer, "Unlikeliest Cult of All" chapter.

Random George · Post by **Random George** » Fri Apr 05, 2002 8:41 am

none of this explains the ayn rand-che guevara dream my roommate had, and that dream haunts me to this day, much more than any of the ideas put forth by either party...

still freaked out,
geo