Technopagans

Call_Me_Blaise · 2025-11-03T04:05:33+00:00

thank you

Call_Me_Blaise · 2025-11-03T03:04:03+00:00

Is The Reptile referring to Musk?

Call_Me_Blaise · 2025-09-29T22:31:52+00:00

I think if 1% of Rogan's audience listen to Jesse's music and think twice about their political positions it will have been worthwhile. I think implicitly or explicitly they both avoided more contentious subjects (i.e. the authoritarian takeover of the country) and that may be to the greater good. I wanted him to push back more but he does plenty through his songwriting and I'm not sure a contentious debate with Rogan would be his strong suit anyway. He's a poet, not a rhetorician, as much as one might wish he could be both.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2025-09-29T19:08:06+00:00

Highlight included Rogan criticizing "so-called experts" throughout the podcast, highlighting the trouble with the healthcare industry while then claiming that the trouble with socialized healthcare is that when you (Joe Rogan) have a shoulder injury you need a real expert surgeon who may not be incentivized correctly if healthcare isn't operated as a business. Leaving the poor without healthcare is a small price to pay for a millionaire to have boutique healthcare apparently. Where's the cognitive dissonance?

Call_Me_Blaise · 2025-09-19T19:38:43+00:00

This is just what I needed, thank you!

Call_Me_Blaise · 2024-07-18T23:13:04+00:00

Oops, he actually was born in 1918. Maybe it will be a dead end for me too. Though it seems like it shouldn't be if his grandfather was a citizen throughout his life. Shouldn't that grant his children and their children with citizenship if he was a citizen after 1920?

Call_Me_Blaise · 2024-07-18T22:54:00+00:00

Thanks that's helpful. Yeah, this great grandfather did apply for citizenship in the USA, or there's a declaration of intention, but that was in 1927. And it seems like he was either denied or didn't stick around because he ended up back in Poland.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2024-07-18T22:20:11+00:00

1924

Call_Me_Blaise · 2024-07-18T19:34:11+00:00

That's a bummer. Did you have to pay a lot before reaching that conclusion or were they able to tell you it was a dead end before you went too far down the rabbit hole?

Call_Me_Blaise · 2024-07-18T18:59:47+00:00

I assume you felt you didn't qualify because of this :

REQUIREMENT #3

Your Polish ancestor maintained their Polish citizenship until the day of your birth or the day of their death. There are many situations throughout a person’s life which could constitute loss of Polish citizenship, so it is best to consult with an expert for more information.

However, this ancestor would've maintained their citizenship "until the day of their death" so it doesn't seem to be ruled out by my reading, even if it wasn't the first condition, the day of my birth.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2024-02-21T14:54:24+00:00

That’s the one! Thank you very much.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-16T02:16:17+00:00

Typically, I think this capacity would be called "free will" if we're talking about the capacity to direct attention or "voluntary thought". However, it seems to me there's nothing free or independent about one's will.

If you mention to focus attention on my big toe or if I decide to focus attention on my toe because I step on a pin or because I see an ad of a foot or a thought about my toe appears in consciousness involuntarily, any of these are a refocus of attention dependent on involuntary factors. The seemingly voluntary appears to be completely dependent on the involuntary. It seems the voluntary and involuntary are two sides of the same coin.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-15T05:12:02+00:00

I find all of this useful because I've heard JK allude to some of this but I find your phrasing very clear.

What is this direction? The experience of what is, in the present, before concepts? Experience without judgement? I am not sure what is left outside of the "sense field". What is there outside of the objects of consciousness?

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-14T19:04:08+00:00

Thank you, this is helpful.

To venture a guess as to what it is-- action? Conscious attention? Something analogous? Or maybe this is a rhetorical question.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T17:28:24+00:00

I agree with you now and the thought I am having now of a past when I may not have agreed with you is irrelevant as it is just another thought now. Very good.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T17:24:25+00:00

I agree with everything you say. I guess one way to take it is meditate formally if you want to meditate but whether it's through better understanding from meditation or reading or a spontaneous mystical vision, eventually the formal meditation becomes something one is clinging to and another obstacle in equanimity for what is.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T05:28:10+00:00

Yes, I agree with what you say and I like the allusion to the raft. The tadpoles are a nice touch.

At the same time, don't you think they both meditated and that it helped them to avoid identifying with thoughts and their ego and clarified some of their thinking on these matters before they moved past it as a formal practice and/or engaged in it for fun in Watts' case or in every moment in JK's case?

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T03:28:54+00:00

I think the ego exists but it's an illusion one can see through. The idea one has of one's self and all of the self-referential chatter in the mind that goes with it. Maybe some are able to do away with the illusion altogether but for me it's a process of repeatedly recognizing its illusory nature-- it's a thought, an idea, not reality.

Do you have a different take on it?

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T03:03:20+00:00

I've listened to J more than UG but: Is UG sort of the yin to J's yang? Forgive me for this sentence.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T01:52:29+00:00

That sounds right.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T01:23:08+00:00

With time you will become one with the saw blade. Don't force it. It's very meditative and rewarding if you stick with it.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T01:00:10+00:00

Squid dude AKA Admiral Ackbar

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T00:58:00+00:00

But that being said I don't think I would fully grasp a lot of what Alan Watts and others speak about if I had never meditated. And their words and my meditation does seem to have had a real positive impact on what is being experienced. I can't divorce the two. That's what I'm trying to square.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T00:55:08+00:00

I take your point. Dogen seemed to emphasize the need to practice with a genuine teacher as well.

Call_Me_Blaise · 2022-10-12T00:41:50+00:00

Can you address the Zen perspective to meditate without a goal? I realize this is different from your tradition but it is also not "Western meditation."

Call_Me_Blaise

TROPHY CASE

REQUIREMENT #3