Early Retirement Extreme Forums

@fiby41: Lovely.

I have been reading in circles of related topics lately, and the question that keeps popping up, in simple terms, would be "Is it possible to adopt systems-based thinking, without simultaneously adopting some form of spirituality?" IOW, once you move away from the limited realm of problems that can be addressed through reductionist methods, and you are dealing with "qualities" and "perspectives" and "relationships" , it becomes necessary to include the symbol of the cloud in your systems diagram to indicate unknown or unknowable inputs to the open system. Of course, that which theoretically could be known, or learned by Self, is limited by death.

A big wooden dollhouse was one of my favorite toys when I was a child. I wanted it to be as realistic as possible, so one time I put water from the "real" toilet into the tiny model toilet. My parents were not pleased. I believe it is possible that this event was the basis for my intense dislike of organized religions, which I view as primarily being based on archaic sanitation rules.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Thu May 04, 2017 7:11 am

my intense dislike of organized religions, which I view as primarily being based on archaic sanitation rules.

I always thought organized religion was more about political control, but its hard not to notice all the cleanliness and orifice related rules in the abrahamic scriptures.

@ThisDinosaur:

Right. Politics are about sanitation rules too. I am interested in basic human patterns such as the-formation-of-the-hearth or the-designation-of-the-place-to-shit. As population density rises, the designation-of-the-place-to-shit, whether narrowly or widely defined, becomes more of a critical issue. For instance, think about how some grouchy old guy having a livid reaction to the neighbor's dog pooping on his lawn has become almost a modern suburbanite stereotype. Highly likely that neighbor also engages in behavior such as "makes his wife bring in the trash cans because he is so god-damn lazy." I don't mean to be particularly picking on men with this description either. It's just that for some conglomeration of reasons, they are more often in the role of fence-walker.

I am continuing to read some post-apocalyptic novels, including the second book in Kunstler's series "The Witches of Hebron." I liked that he developed some more interesting (to me) roles for some of the female characters in this volume. The witch is a former professional model who becomes an herbalist/prostitute to support herself at a level several notches above the average in the post-crash world. The novel take place during the season of Halloween, and the generation born post-apocalypse is reverting to assigning this holiday a spiritual and superstitious, rather than secular, designation. Since I work with young children a good deal, I can see how easily this could occur. One of the kindergarten teachers made a big deal about St. Patrick's Day this year, so there are now at least a dozen 6 year olds recently immigrated from Yemen and Bangladesh, who believe in leprechauns, and at least one who simultaneously believes in leprechauns and thinks it is proper sanitary practice to splash the entire front of his pants with water every time he visits the boy's room.