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Oct 24, 2023·edited Oct 30, 2023Liked by Guy Duperreault

Whoa Guy!

Even with several readings, my boundaries are stretched to their limits, and sometimes punctured. But I just had to say thanks for those reference to Pirsig's classic. Just seeing the book cover brought me close to tears. I brought the paperback with me to Japan some 40 years ago, and it still sits in a prominent position among a host of others.

Synchronicity? I mentioned Schopenhauer earlier today (or was it yesterday?) in a comment suggesting his "World as Will" might be a great theme song for psychopaths, though after reading your more nuanced reference, now feel a bit embarrassed.

But for a parallel, though shorter dive into the double-edged sword of logic and language ... I thought you might appreciate a comment I wrote earlier today. Again, last night? My, how 'time' flits and flies as well. 😅

https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/the-fake-antivaxxer-victory-part/comment/42352821?r=d530j

Cheers Guy!

Looking forward to a slower, more leisurely read of your post.

steve

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Hola, Steve!

Someone else who read this had the same response to Zen in the Art of Motorcylce Maintenance you did. She wants to get it in hands again and re-read it!

Did you see the clip of the protest in Kyoto against the vaccines because they killed people in their family? Hola. Someone shared this news clip video from Kyoto

https://twitter.com/_aussie17/status/1718142368174727558

All the best!

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Hola, Steve!

I am so happy that the Pirsig references brought you joyful tears! I have thought that his ideas are extremely important and have been generally surprised that the so-called... what? Thinkers, social critics, forward looking people, seemed to have, imo, completely missed what he was saying and loosely dumped him into a interesting and yet unimportant 'new age' flakey category. And I'm also happy to know that you were stretched! Really, though?

I love that Schopenhauer synchronicity for you, because Schopenhauer came into my essay as part of a synchronicity!

Wow! My heart goes out to you and Amy! And will say that the reactionary rhetoric Amy felt compelled to share is ultimately in a way part of the energy source of the 'bad' guys. It is that kind of energy helps create the reactionary-based rift that allows for us to be crowd-controlled. Evil thrives when our equanimity is displaced because lack of equanimity results in improper vision such as despair. And it is equally important to recognise that the corporate evils state structure would not/ cannot exist without the collective community supporting it. In the 1930's Germany, 4million Germans assisted in the Jewish enslavement process and death camps. Our goal is to really really take agency of our equanimity and spread it to everyone we can around us. With equanimity proper vision happens and evil is easily seen.

And I read your angst at being in substack overwhelm! Isn't it fantastic how high the quality of investigation and writing is, and how divers and unique our voices are! I absolutely love it. And now it comes down to equanimity and really trusting our somatic-intuitive choice-de-jour for what we read. And so that is now my process, of looking and trusting my sense of what is important and going from there and relaxing about what I might be missing! Whatever energy exists in life expressing itself through me is helping me find that which is for me to learn and/or share and/or develop. I am a physically limited energy centre connected to an infinite energy source and presented with a close to infinite amount of information to experience. So, I accept that as a kind of obvrious reality and look to synchronicities to both guide my choices and confirm my path. Yes, the delusion of freedom being the ability to avoid making choices! LoL! Life really does have a wicked sense of humour.

Calm, breathe, connect to your joy and the joyous will confound the dour philanthropaths. I'll be writing about how I've recently come to understand that most likely the 'the' aren't specifically psychopathic! Nope: narcissistic. Much worse than psychopoathy. Yikes! LoL! More possibilities to stress. Deep breath in and out, relaxe, ground to your innate joy, and watch the pathology fall away.

Thank you for dipping into my 'little' exploration. It went madly off in a direction I had no idea it would. The next one is to be less philosophical, more practicaly and simple way into the joyification of life.

All the best! Muchas gracias.

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I'm loving our long-form conversation, Guy, and I'm glad to have waited until I had the time to read this slowly and digest. And perhaps that's my first response here to your love-hate relationship with words. I used to have a consumer relationship to words, a voracious appetite, doing more and more research, but I'd wait to write the paper until the night before it was due. I didn't digest and expel, making up my own good shit, as I was going.

Then I went the opposite direction and decided that hanging onto books was a form of constipation. I allowed myself one bookshelf and had to give away what I had before I could get more. That was okay because it was all fiction, maybe like you in that phase.

Then when I started researching for myself, not for a class, I couldn't do that anymore. I turned the breakfast nook in my house into a library, now double-stacked. I think it's time for me to do a Guy purge if I could find an appropriate receptacle ;-)

You seem like you have a very healthy relationship to words at this point in your life. You take them in, only in appropriate amounts, digest them, and produce some really great shit! I don't see you needing to change your relationship to words, and your love affair with them. But then I'm benefiting from the fine manure so that's just me.

I don't think you were reading me when I posted the prelude to my book: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/in-the-beginning-was-the-purpose. In it, I write this: "Many disagreements come from words being used with different meanings for the speaker and listener. Each chapter has its own lexicon to clarify how I’m using a word. If it has too much baggage, feel free to apply a different word or phrase that better describes the concept and substitute that word or phrase throughout the book. What matters is that we have a way of talking about and thinking about concepts when the words to describe them have been corrupted and often turned into their opposites, not by accident."

The word "Word" is defined as purpose, intent, from its etymology, as economist Susan George explains. Eco- logos means the purpose of the ecos and eco-nomos means the rules that govern it. She says that the purpose should come first. I think the same that's true for an economy is true for words, technology and everything else. What's the end that it's a means for? If the end is malevolent or egocentric, then that will control and pervert the means. But the same means can be used for a beneficial and benevolent end, we don't need to throw the use of water out just because it can be used to drown the baby.

If words have no author, doesn't that make the user into an arbitrary authority: "the question is who is to be master, that's all!" If we are to communicate, we need to understand what that person means by the word they use. To explain that we need to use other words, and then explain what we mean using other words. It seems an endless loop without a touchstone.

In one of my comments to the "Tonic 7" I used the example of 'regenerative' being taken by Monsanto. And then it happened! Talk about casting spells. And I think this does relate to Israel/ Palestine. Does ownership of the word 'belong' to whoever has possession of it at the time? And if I take it from you, as soon as I have it, you have no further right to it? I'm going to do something on that later today.

Last, there's a woman whose name escapes me but Russell interviewed her. She talks about anything that was done in the past, no matter how recent, as being done to someone else, someone who no longer exists in the present, and done BY someone else, who no longer exists. And that fear only comes from projecting a past that doesn't exist onto a future that also doesn't exist. We don't respond to other people as they are now, only someone they once were.

It was one of the most radical things I'd ever heard. I'll look for her name if it's interesting to you. Thanks again for your thoughtful reflections. Happy to be part of your reflection pool ;-)

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Oct 31, 2023·edited Oct 31, 2023Author

Hola, Tereza.

Fascinating comment. Much to digest. I'll do that a bit later as I've been up for about 40 hours writing my next essay. LoL! I thought it would be a short one, exploring my own awareness of magical words that we would be wise to depotentiate. I hope to get it done before midnight tonight. I've allowed my Monday morning deadline drift this week as it did last week. Catch up later.

The woman's concept sounds interesting. If it isn't too difficult, please do look her up. I'm curious.

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liberated me from conceptual ignorance masked as knowledge ----- this is very original individualized thought and i love it but i must admitt i am going to have to take time to try and get it ------- because at the moment i don't it s just to deep i have never heard anything like it -------((((-BRAVO BRAVO INDEEDED !!!!!!! most lovely )))------------ then i made it to trusting after nurrcissitic abuse this women sounds like a real jewel way isn't she more popular ??? i am going to find out as much as i can about thanks for the mentioning----------- thats as far as i read i am going back to finish it tommaro very very mentaly stimulating wrting its alot to digest and absorb

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Oct 27, 2023·edited Oct 27, 2023Author

Hola, Bradley.

Great to see you still with me even with this challenging piece. It was challenging to write too! It opened up some strange thought connections and awareness within me as I was writing this. So great it has stimulated you and I expect that you will eventually find it digestible!

Interesting that you would see the significance of the narcissism part! I think that this is actually very important and my intention is to explore that a bit more in the near future and see where that takes me.

I am grateful you have got the courage to dive into new ideas! Wonderful. I look forward to how your wrestling match 'fadges' with time and reading it a couple of times. All the best!

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Hello, Guy. Thank you for another provocative article.

It is rather prescient for me, as my husband and I have a close family member who is dying of cancer. He recently decided to go off basic life-support systems (feeding tube, saline, and oxygen) but opted for heavy morphine sedation, a steroid to reduce lung secretions, and Ativan to reduce anxiety. These would not be my choices, as I believe the drugs interfere with the process of passing back to Source, so much so that the dying man/woman is no longer captaining their own ship. I am working on an article about my recent insights into the process.

On another note, it is my current comprehension that every *famous* person we see is placed there by the psychopathic-powers-that-shouldn't-be in order for us to worship the person, in a "trust the expert/authoritarian/official/celebrity" sort of way. And when the psychopathic tyrants fake another catastrophe, we (ahem, *some* of us) look to the talking heads for guidance rather than trusting our own Creator-given senses. This is why so many people have fallen prey to 9/11 and the CovAin't, for two examples: They played Follow The Leader. Then, when the *famous* people later say they were wrong about this or that aspect, the disciples can — once again — offload their personal responsibility onto someone else. It's a major spiritual bypass into cul-de-sac after cul-de-sac of feel-good fluff.

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Oct 27, 2023·edited Oct 27, 2023Author

Hola, Sharine!

Wow, so great to be a part of a prescient synchronicity! It sure is interesting how people make choices to not see! My neighbour of 10 years ago developed an odd cancer in his throat, supposedly easy to treat. Nope. At the third operation they opened him up and closed him up because the metastasis was too great. I suggested that something he could try was to remove processed sugar from his diet for a few months, and reduce his other sugars. No guarantee, of course, and yet in my research some people have made miraculous cancer recoveries with that simple change. No, he said to me, I'm comfortable with my diet. A year later, he wasn't really able to talk well, and a couple years after that not at all and eating had beome almost impossible. Hmmmmm.

I agree with your ideas about how our drugging ourselves interferes with all our life processes, including that most interesting of ones.

As to *famous* being our pied-pipers. Yes, that is certainly possible. I'll extend that idea, a bit, and suggest that it is we who have given away our energy to the 'psychopathic-powers-that-shouldn't-be' in the first place, and that in a way they are giving us back exactly what we – the broader colletcive 'we' – have actually mostly unconsciously asked for: total spiritual by-pass.

And I have come to the conclusion that much like much of our distracted world, most yoga studios actually foster that. In a way, yoga as a kind of 'leader' is exactly the same as the famous-as-leaders. Michael Stone described that perfectly in one of his talks: at some point in a dedicated practice, the potential yogi/yogini realises exactly what kind of renunciation of old truth-habits and/or life-habits are being asked to be be released by the 'true' spirit of yoga. Most freak out, by-pass that call and dedicate themselves to an obscure fringe of yoga and lose their sense of humour.

Thank you for your great comment! And for reading that long thing. For some reason, my fingers were compelled to complete that as one piece, even though it is long enough to scare away most readers! So great to see you with the courage to dive into and supply an astute comment! Love it. Muchas gracias.

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Ahh, what a brilliant and thoughtful response, Guy.

Papa died on today at 3:30PM Eastern Daylight Time. I will soon be in physical presence with my beloved husband and his family as we finalize the earthly processes of Papa's long life and his drawn-out passing.

I am quite exhausted after a day of discussions with local friends as well as calls to make travel plans and also have our home and adorable Persian cat looked after. So, to bed I go, with conscious breathing and a sense of release and relief from a rather difficult kind of grief.

I treasure your insights and wish you all the love and peace that Our Great Creator meant for us to experience.💝🤗

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Thanks for the link to the Schopenhauer essays. It has been at least 40 years since I read Schopenhauer, and at the time his ideas were the ones that resonated with me most. Like Uberboyo I have noticed similarities with my recent reading about the “Self” in Eastern Philosophy. I hope I am remembering this correctly, but Schopenhauer felt that we are all drops from the same ocean (or something like that).

BTW, I have always called myself a Luddite in a playful sort of way. When asked what religion am I, I might reply Luddite. However, my religion does not preclude those advancements that make living in our society necessary. We Luddites are not at all like the Amish or Mennonites.

Also, hoping one day to catch up.

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Hola, Carl. Glad that connected with you. And the Luddites were actually very forward thinking, of course and not anti-advancement. They saw the amassing of power and wealth with technology at the expense of freedom, choice and as potentially very anti-humanity. Interesting how right they were about most of that. Hmmmm.

And by the way, Carl. You are awesome to be reading through my essays! They aren't written in a style that suits today's fashion.

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This is an amazing piece of work Guy, thank you again for sharing your insights. It has been a joy to spend my evening reading it, thinking, re reading, thinking some more. A genuine pleasure. And oh, to be reminded of my youthful reading of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in 1981 or there abouts and to know now that I must seek it out again and return over 40 years later.

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Hola, April.

I am so glad you found this so engaging. I am surprised at what I wrote. I just re-read it, and it is much more than what I thought it was while writing it. It was a pretty 'deep' self-exploration for me. My next essay is to be 'simpler', in a way Lol! At least that is my intention. We'll see what words are actually expressed, and what they host that is beyond words!

🤔🤣🙌🧘🏿‍♀️🙂🙏

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Zen ... I practice ZEN.

Although I don't see a point in a Zen Master as a teacher... but a person that masters ZEN.

A footballer may have ZEN in the second before he scores a goal... and time slows down.

A Christian may have ZEN when he believes in Jesus.

Yet my Interpretation of ZEN is this.

It is the very desire within every Human to make themselves a better person acquiring knowledge and thus wisdom through Meditation.

It is the first conscious thought of the first Human that is preserved through our genetic memory.

ZEN is the way... Buddha is the Destination.

Buddha practiced ZEN to become Buddha.

It is the way we do things that is maybe sometimes more important than just doing it.

It is to learn to fight in order to live in peace.

And sometimes we need to learn how to hate in order to learn how to love.

Sometimes Evil and Good are just perceptions... different ways of looking at things.

In all neither evil nor good exist.

It is I that makes the choice.

But how can you live with inner peace when you wish harm to others?

This cannot.

I wish everyone to be the best version of themselves that can be.

For that one must accept the path... and the path takes forever.

People are great... they just don't know it.

Tell them.

https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/the-greatest-capital-of-humanity

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Hello Fritz and great meeting you here! Mucho gusto!

Thank you for this detailed comment! I am thinking about it and how it overlaps with my own recent alternative look at Buddhist practices. I'll likely comment here or incorporate your understanding in a future essay.

All the best, with peace, respect, love and gratitude.

And yes, I do tell them! Love it.

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I practice Wing Chun Tai Qi Gung Hung Gar...

The one thing I figured out...

You can learn anything.

All it takes is time and Truth... and a good teacher.

Life starts in the east... life dies in the west... as days go by... so does eternity.

The world is spinning round.

In the west we been given these "stars" and "God"... the impossible... only to make us small.

But even the tallest tree comes from a small seed.

If there is one thing you should believe in it is yourself.

Never believe Authorities... they are fools to fool the fools.

Incompetent Illusionists.

One can become anything... good or bad... so it is important to stay on the right path.

This is ZEN.

A good education can solve any problem.

The problem is that we don't have a good education.

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ok fun time----- first you speak of ( those sweet moments )))) paragragh #3 )))------------------ can you give me ONE isolated specific moment baesed on what isolated knowledge you are experenceing at that moment----------- and then tell me specificly what the concept is that you are concepualizing -------------- concering the use of the word ignorance used after the word concepuaalized this is the hardest part for me to understand although by answering the first part of my questions maybe i can ----------------but that being said what is your personal definition of ignorance in specific relationship to paragragh #3

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Hola, Bradley! So wonderful to see you jumping into this sumo ring. Please, toss the salt. 🙌🤨

para 3: "Ahhhhh, those sweet moments when words with seeming magic and effortlessness liberated me, liberated us, from conceptual ignorance masked as knowledge."

First, my definition of ignorance as it pertains to this and, for me, more generally. I define ignorance as a form of improper seeing. Technically it means to lack knowledge, of course, making it distinct in a very important way from stupidity. Someone can be filled with book-knowledge, or the parroted knowledge of 'experts' and be completely stupid, meaning without wisdom. These people, of which we are rife to the point of ubiquity, are truly ignorant because their knowledge keeps them from proper seeing. Such as my father. Someone who lacks knowledge, ie book or word knowledge, can be likewise stupid and ignorant such as my mother. And in my life I have been prone to align my ignorance with my father's.

Now for an exmple in several parts.

1) One of the most viscerally profound examples occured when I attended an early economics course and then subsequent ones. This is back in the 1990s. It is multilayered. It began with an obvious truth that success in my world is predicated on the successful acquisition of money. A 'truth' I realised after I had been laid off from work without a skill-base at that time that would translate into 'healthy', ie primarily monetarily, rewarding employment. With that 'truth' I looked for the 'best' option to achieve 'success' and began a business course at university. This was, obviously, a conceptual truth only, simply something arising out of the (fearful) mind living in a fear-based and scarcity 'truth' that has been inculcated in us by our culture and, for me, family.

2) In an early course I was delightfully surprised that the study of economics was really a look at human psychology, the psychology of how people choose. What a great 'truth'! I had a big 'aha' with that and so I refocused my attention on the study of economics as a source of 'truth'. I eventually got an extended minor economics degree. That was another conceptual truth that provided me with energy and life to continue my studies because of my interest in all things psychological. I was deep into Jung by that time.

3) The following year I attended an economics course and watched as the young students around me, likely under 20years old — I was about 30 at the time — listen to the professor and lose themselves. I saw and felt most of the students see THE TRUTH and gave themselves, perhaps even their souls, to the 'truth' that was being evocated. For me the talk, now forgotten, was interesting but was not THE truth.

4) That year I realised that this 'study' was not about LEARNING, it was about indoctrination and I spent that year and the next internally snarling in anger at the religious delusion that IS economics. That was a huge 'aha' because I could see very clearly the effects of that particular religion's ideology. I wrote a short essay about that. If curious, it is here: "Death by Freezing" https://egajd.blogspot.com/2008/12/20081227-death-by-freezing.html.

5) Following graduation, I spent the next 7 years or so looking for the conceptual 'real truth' of economics which resulted in my writing a full 'anti-economics' course that was eventually concentrated down to two short course, which I taught a few times, called 'Economics Debunked' and 'Banks Skanks'. This was confirmation of the previous 'aha' and closed off my extending learning beyond that.

5) During this time I was struggling to write as a professional writer. And I used the lure of the lucre to assist me, to get me to write stuff that people would *buy*. And I found myself not doing that! No matter how hard I tried to use money as motivator, which is a cornerstone of the way in which economics rationalises human behaviour, I simply did not write buyable words. LoL! As I write that now, it is clear that I didn't see that one of the roots of the anger I felt towards economics orignated from a deep core belief in me that 'greed is good', and we live fraught with scarcity. That 'truth' failed to get me to write. Why not was the 'aha' moment.

6) When I did a 'deep; personal examination of why the money motive wasn't working for me I discovered, to my great surprise, that money did not, perhaps even could not, motivate me. And that set me free. Or, to be more precise, with hindsight it blinded me to a deeper 'truth' I've only been recently made aware of. Conceptually, at the time, I was free and no longer castigated my writing failure. This was a huge 'aha' that set me free, free, free! Or so I thought.

7) With the money 'truth' I proceeded to live my life oblivious to the disrespect I had for the fruits of my work, and 'allowed' my personal monetary situation to became a f**ing mess! One I'm still paying for with a huge alimony payment to the OCD shopaholic with whom I stayed with for 37 years. And allowed my writing to be marginal. As my ex would say to me 'You're not a writer!' Why not? Because I wasn't making money.

8) I mostly dismissed my ex's view of that by rationalising my lack of writing income with the 'truth' that 99% of writers are making very little to no money. Another nice 'truth-trap.'

9) Fast forward to recent my-story. With the help of a friend where I live I discovered that beneath this money 'truth-trap' — money *really* doesn't motivate me — was a deeper 'truth': I had been inculcated by my family to see money as evil. That was deeply ingrained into my mind-body-soul. That realisation was another huge 'Aha' because it resonated viscerally inside me and explained so much of my economic-monetary life. That was more truly liberating.

10) The next 'aha' was when I began to see money as sacred no less or more than life itself. Money is *an* energy of life that we humans have developed and evolved to facilitate certain social interactions. Is it a 'natural' requirement? No, it isn't. Is it a necessary requirment? No, it isn't. For now that is my 'truth-trap' that will give me the freedom to explore beyond that.

Summary, each of the 'ahas' were actually an opened gateway that provided the means to see the next gateway. Seeing the next gateway is predicated on my being willing and able to see that each of these truths was temporay. When we get locked to them, that is to become moribund. Newton's single vision and sleep, to paraphrase William Blake.

I hope that this provides, if not an answer, at least something more to consider.

Thank you for jumping into this great discussion!

All the best, with peace, respect, love and gratitude!

🙏❤️🧘🏿‍♀️🙌❤️🙏

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i really got it in your summary ((((((( each of these ahas was an open gateway etc ------------ that each of these truths was temporary---when we get locked into them that is to become moribund------------ i am writing the whole summary down in my personal journal for wisdom keep sake--------- your summary is some of the greatest writing i have ever read------- its basicly a whole book topic on its on----but your personal story is at the heart of what makes the summary so uplifting and close to the heart

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