Attitude is just such a bloody lovely tool, both for use on one's self and on others. It's also probably the biggest ethical pain in the ass I've ever dealt with because I find it so easy to use.
One day, perhaps, I'll find the words for the how. For now, I'll leave it at, "Unchecked, attitude drives or crushes. Better that it is checked and used with deliberation."
I think I know what you're talking about; I agree. Yeah, maybe some other time (heck, I think maybe over on intj_ might be a particularly good place for that particular discussion).
No, if it works for you. I don't think in communicating the topic to others that it sums up at all, because of the aforementioned gotchas. There's a reason I wrote this in the form of a long, detailed argument and was very careful not to skip steps.
When I was writing this, the latter third was with the clenched teeth of someone who was very, very tired, and really, really wanted to knock of and get some sleep, but who knew that if it didn't get done completely it couldn't go out and if it didn't go out it would probably never go out.
Is there an obverse to the rude "tl;dr?" Because your post was really long and I read it with enjoyment. ;)
At any rate, that was most interesting. I like your examples of Joe and Sigmund; you make it clear that this works inside one's own head.
What I am curious about is whether the current book does go so far as to be victim-bashing or not. I suppose I'd have to actually read it to find out (shudder) but I feel rather fond of my opinion that one reason it is popular is because it reinforces people's prejudices about social groups during an uncertain time in history. (And yes, I'm quite aware that this statement reinforces my own!)
Yeah, in fact, it is. (My mom got it as a present and made me read it.) It actually says stuff like, "People who are starving and people who died in the Holocaust subconsciously attracted their fate to them."
And that is when the book crossed my threshold from "silly" to "morally repellent."
This is what bothers me about the karma thing. While I know those who strongly follow beliefs in Karma/Law of Attraction, there are some people who you can't tell them. "Yes, you have no memory of doing this awful thing because it was a past life, but you deserve all the pain and suffering." Rather than giving them purpose/reason to the suffering to get through it, they just feel guilty and more ashamed/helpless.
I was just reading about karma in Insight Meditation by Joseph Goldstein. In his chapter Subtleties of Karma, he specifically addresses this issue. He believes that how we act in every moment, how we react to bad things, significantly affects how karma plays out. He uses the metaphor of a seed. An action in the past is a karmic seed. It will have an affect in the future. But if you feed bad actions with continued bad actions the effect will be more profound. You can also starve past bad actions by good actions. So, in his view, yes, you may deserve the pain and suffering, but you can always change your karma by how you react to pain and suffering. It actually sounds a lot like Siderea's argument about attitude.
Re: N unrelated reactionssidereaOctober 17 2007, 18:54:36 UTC
(BTW my favorite shadow of this metaphor is from the Amber RPG, which has a nebulous quantity called "Stuff"; if you have "Good Stuff", you have a positive attitude, and attract positive random things, and if you have "Bad Stuff" the inverse is true. Of course, since it's a story, this extends to truly random events as well.)
That's awesome! I didn't know that. What a great mechanic! (Anybody here ever cross Amber and Call of Cthulhu? Stuff and Sanity! Whoo!)
Re: N unrelated reactionssidereaOctober 17 2007, 18:56:58 UTC
...so, you're saying when sports stars say "I owe this win to God" they're really thanking their attitude, which they project on God to avoid having that much control of their life?
I'm not comfortable with that "really", and I don't think its about control. See selkiechick's brilliant analysis below.
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Attitude is just such a bloody lovely tool, both for use on one's self and on others. It's also probably the biggest ethical pain in the ass I've ever dealt with because I find it so easy to use.
One day, perhaps, I'll find the words for the how. For now, I'll leave it at, "Unchecked, attitude drives or crushes. Better that it is checked and used with deliberation."
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When I was writing this, the latter third was with the clenched teeth of someone who was very, very tired, and really, really wanted to knock of and get some sleep, but who knew that if it didn't get done completely it couldn't go out and if it didn't go out it would probably never go out.
Reply
At any rate, that was most interesting. I like your examples of Joe and Sigmund; you make it clear that this works inside one's own head.
What I am curious about is whether the current book does go so far as to be victim-bashing or not. I suppose I'd have to actually read it to find out (shudder) but I feel rather fond of my opinion that one reason it is popular is because it reinforces people's prejudices about social groups during an uncertain time in history. (And yes, I'm quite aware that this statement reinforces my own!)
Reply
And that is when the book crossed my threshold from "silly" to "morally repellent."
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That's awesome! I didn't know that. What a great mechanic! (Anybody here ever cross Amber and Call of Cthulhu? Stuff and Sanity! Whoo!)
Reply
I'm not comfortable with that "really", and I don't think its about control. See selkiechick's brilliant analysis below.
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