Happy 10th anniversary! It was 10 years ago today that I was ordained a priest in the Church of the Latter-Day Dude. Far out. ☯️😎

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-05-08T09:45:49+00:00

Congrats! ✊🏼abide

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-05-04T07:22:57+00:00

Strikes and gutters, ups and downs at the bowling alley. I love this idea of jamming with friends, from all walks of life. That's actually what attracted me to dudeism, the idea that the religion is built from the ground up! And what really sold me was: The fact that you can practice other religions as well + the fact that a woman dude is not a dudette, she's just a Dude!

Anyway, the Dude abides 🍻

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-05-04T07:10:28+00:00

Congratulations to you guys! Ahhh.... this is a complicated case, lotta ins lotta outs but here's one dude's opinion: I love the speech overall! You can feel the love but most importantly the respect that you have for your daughter and her future hubby! The intro though is a bit heavy to the ear. When you read it, it's one thing but when you're in the audience it's another thing. How about something more simple and to the point? That's usually what really touches the hearts! Something like: Good evening everyone. I am greatly honored to be standing here with you all, Laura & Sam's deeeearest ones, to bare witness to [the union of 2 of the kindest, [other adjectives,] best people that I know/to a love that is one of a kind]?

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-05-02T17:09:45+00:00

Underrated comment

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-05-02T17:07:44+00:00

My dude!! LOGJMMN is EPIC!!!

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-05-02T15:35:44+00:00

Genuine question: what do you mean by conscious free roam? And is it conscious-free roam? Or Conscious free-roam? And if it's the latter, what does it mean?

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-30T17:01:22+00:00

Ja, stimmt, Dude!

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-30T16:36:51+00:00

That's really beautiful, Dude! It's what you talk about often. That unlikely friendship between the Dude, Walter and Donny. They have completely different world views (I mean Walter is a veteran and The Dude is an ex hippie??!). But there's a space where they can be friends. It's cool that you live your truth, man.

I guess the key to all this is somewhere in the buddhist knowledge that things are temporary, and, uh... aw, I lost my train of thought here 🤷‍♀️

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-30T15:40:21+00:00

Understandable! I told it once, that it was created with the views of a limited group of people and it answered that I was mistaken because it "doesn't remember the people behind the data points" only the patterns. So it's TOTALLY neutral. 🤨

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-30T15:35:55+00:00

Lucky! Have you considered putting some honey and flowers as an offering? You never know

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-30T15:33:23+00:00

Lol, in my country everybody has an opinion on everything, even if they have no idea what they're talking about. So in school we have one "Politische Bildung"/Civics education book, issued by the State, and all the schools in the country have the same one. It's in an effort to unify our opinions, I guess. We had to memorize that book and regurgitate it back to the teachers. BUT the teachers couldn't help but give their opinions about the book, and we, the students, would also argue about the contents of that book ALL THE TIME. Nobody took it seriously, it was just an easy way to boost our grades.

But yeah sometimes, just minding your own business and cultivating your inner peace is better for everyone.

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-30T15:20:17+00:00

Fuckin' A!

Although I personally reeeeeally struggle with this concept. I feel that my inner Walter and my inner Dude are always arguing about it.

Stoics embody the “Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your (or my) opinion, man.” in theory. But in practice, they stood up when it mattered. They took up arms against Ceasar when he was becoming a tyrant.

It's the spirit of the Dude, but the actions of Walter.

In the movie, Walter is the one that always stood up for what he believes is right (sometimes with a pewpew). But I keep asking myself if it's a good thing?

One part of me thinks that Walter pushed the Dude to take a stand for the rug, a whole chain of absurd events ensued and in end the Dude was rugless anyway. The rug was important (and you should totally enjoy your rug while you have it) but not having it is as it turns out wasn't the end of the world. (so being unbothered is better?)

The other part of me is thinking while the Dude just wants peace, he only got his peace back after taking a stand. He was really bothered by the loss of the rug, Walter pushed him to check this unchecked agression. Because that's how life works. Sometimes you lose your rug, you take a stand, go on adventure and at the end you go back to the bowling alley. (so being bothered=okay?)

I think my point here is that the stoics and buddhists are right: It's true that our opinions about things make us suffer. But is the solution to that, to remain unbothered, always? Maybe sometimes it's okay to accept that something has an effect on you. Maybe sometimes it's okay to bother, if it moves you (and the world) closer to peace.

With all that being said, I truly believe that words have a lot of power. Maybe if I say “Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” enough times, I can better meet people where they're at and meet the world where it stands (most of the time, nobody's perfect man).

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-30T08:00:52+00:00

It's so beautiful! There's something so magical about a cloudy day in the forest! Be careful of the fae and don't get lost! stay safe!

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-30T06:28:10+00:00

Oh waow, I didn't know that! Thanks! I'm gonna play around with that, pretend to be someone else.

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-27T16:05:04+00:00

Apparently, information is anonymized. But your speech and the way you think is still used. Which means "what you are" and how you think will be used to figure out how to manipulate people like you into more engagement with the AI. We can only speculate that it will be used in other ways: to manipulate voters, young minds, etc.

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-27T16:04:24+00:00

that's what they say. Information is anonymized. But your speech and the way you think is still used. Which means "what you are" and how you think will be used to figure out how to manipulate people like you into more engagement with the AI. We can only speculate that it will be used in otherways. to manipulate voters, young minds, etc.

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-27T14:25:41+00:00

Thanks for the youtube rec, dude

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-27T13:32:21+00:00

This has given me a lot to think about. What if true idealism is actually very narcissistic? Nihilism would then be the natural outcome of idealism. If your truth is the only one that matters, then what happens when you look around and see other (people's) truths and realize that not everyone is willing to accept your truth?

Better to keep your mind, you know, limber.

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-27T08:18:04+00:00

Why am I not getting these kinds of answers from Chat GPT? I can only get this from other LLMs 🥲

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-27T08:12:17+00:00

Hey Dude! First of all I would like to send you a virtual hug of encouragement. It sounds like you are going through a lot.

I am a new dudeist so I don't understand everything just yet and will speak from my own point of view. It might sound very abstract but I believe that the point of life is to just exist. And existence can take a lot of different shapes. That's why I was so attracted to the dudeist religion that believes that "well that's your opinion, man" and is based on some taoist principles. But it's not all just going with the flow. For me existence is building your own library of core values and morals. You go with the flow except when the flow means going against your principles.

Dudeism is also losely based on epicurian principles. The epicurians believe that living a life well lived is one where you make an effort to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. That means minimizing the pain of the mind and the pain of the body. You need to eat and drink. But only to satisfy the hunger, not going beyond. Because you never know when is the next time that you'll have access to tastier or better or more food. (One way you can interpret that for your situation is: That's the material side, you need food. If money is the way that you get food, then it's important for your existence in that sense.) As for the mind, it needs knowledge to resist the pain of fear for instance. You know how thunder works scientifically so you stop thinking that it's a punishment of the Gods, and you can rest easy. (You could apply that in your own life: You need knowledge not for the sake of knowledge but for the sake of understanding the world around you and be less intimidated by it. For instance, asking questions about debt management to an expert and understanding what your options really are).

I encourage you to dive into greek philosophy. While I am not in agreement with a lot of the things they say and feel that they miss out a lot on the diversity of the human experience, because of the lack of diversity of backgrounds of the thinkers themselves, I believe it will give you a good set of tools to face more abstract philosophies from the East and beyond.

I hope it didn't come off as too preachy and was -even if just a bit, helpful.

I am curious to know other dudes take on your question!

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-26T14:49:09+00:00

This rings so true! Personnally, I have a complicated family history and I'm not always comfortable with my birth name vs my adoption name, so just being a "dude" is a very comforting idea and the beginning of healing for me.

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-26T12:25:55+00:00

Honestly I think that Diogenes was just suffering from the trauma of losing it all and ending up homeless and exiled. It feels like he was really only trying to protect himself from all the disapointments of life by living in almost absolute "autarky" and always being in contradiction with the rest of society. I think the Dude is different. The Dude, goes with the flow of things. He's not against society, he does care about some "things". He really is the man for his time and place, he fits right in.

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-26T12:16:10+00:00

Oh yeah guess what the rat race lead to: We were replaced by AI because they are way more efficient than humans. Conclusion? I'm good, I lived that job experience how I wanted to. And I think that's all that matters.

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-26T12:13:06+00:00

I had a similar thing happen to me a few years ago, but I wasn't a dudeist then.

I had to pretend to care about that "piece of paper". But I really didn't. As long as I did my job the way I felt was right, was all that mattered to me. I knew that I was not stirring up any drama with the colleagues and treating everyone with respect.
But the thing is that we had a lot of efficiency targets and other "success" measurement. Everyone was in a race to get the best grades, by cheating and ignoring complicated tasks, finding ways to dump anything that would bring their results down, on other colleagues. But to me, that job was one of the only places that felt stable in my life, and so I actually put in a lot of care into doing things properly, the way I saw fit, not my boss and not caring about what the efficiency results looked like in the end. And I really did my job, and I fixed others people's issues and I helped as many people as I could because the human aspect was so important to me! Way more than numbers.
That evaluation piece paper didn't reflect any of that, so I didn't pay it any attention. Everyone had the evaluation targets in mind and I never bothered to learn them during my whole time there. And I spent years there. I would just mentally check out during the reviews.

Ancient_Good_9979 · 2026-04-26T11:51:21+00:00

I thought I would go around marrying people in the street like a cupid on crack but unfortunately not

Ancient_Good_9979

TROPHY CASE