New member here.

[ReasoningComesEasy]

Thinking too little and you get constipated - thinking too much and you're officially living on the mexican hot sauce diet.

Hello. My name is Jonathan. I'm from NC.
I don't think - in fact I know that I'm not that strong mentally but I do make up for it in thinking. The problem is - where does it all stop? There are people who hardly ever think about what's going on around them. Which who am I to judge and say that they're not most suitable that way? I don't know and chances are you don't either. And then there are people who think - keyword - think they are such much better because they've figured out to think. Perfect example - people who take the time to show the rest of the world how silly some religious people are. Well no shit! Don't you too get tired of things like these?

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not against intellect. I just think it's over used and under used and hey - what the hell does it matter what I think any way?!? See my point?

Honestly I'd love to find some people who don't mind being intellectual but can also exist in silence. I just don't know how much more of the insanity I can take. I wish enlightenment would pour on me like an endless river all ready.

I don't follow Freud's system - I just refer to ego as selfishness. It's worried about it's own survival. In the 'negative' side of the ego you will find everything from shame to pride. Shame easily falls in love with suicide and pride cant stop loving its self but only its self.

And then if you're courageous enough to move above that then well you've probably just shifted to the positive side of the ego.

As beautiful as courage is does not mean it's very logical. And the in between would be faith.

You can see how this is starting to stand.

The tip top of positive ego is the zenith of logic. It's concrete. It's real. And you can understand why it is what it is. There's no lie such as pride. It's real.

And the how and why it happens - a person seeks more than just logic sometimes. Unless you're Einstein because apparently he was just fine with just that. Seems like a safe choice to me but hey - who cares what I think.

You seek to unite with others but through trial and error you learn that two ego's can not make a whole. They're separate. Ah. And one realizes the only way to transcend this would be to raise above the ego.

Some people call it surrendering to a higher purpose. Some people just simply realize they're ready to unite with the world and others here.

I know a lot of you know this and have heard it but it seems to be so very people actually go for it. You can choose to become one with all or one with yourself only. This wouldn't be so hard to understand if the conditioning of the world wasn't so harsh but hey - as george micheals sang 'you gotta have faith'.

And yes I know my grammar kind of sucks but I don't care! Words describe the livingness of the world - they don't live it! All though some words are cute - like tits! Love ya George Carlin!

[labelwench]

Welcome to the forum Jonathon, or should I just call you 'R........comes easy'?

Perhaps we'll leave the references to female anatomy and offal for others to clean up, lol.....

As you enjoy George Carlin, welcome to the forum.

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
George Carlin

[dleviwing]

Welcome to TOEquest Jonathan!
A fool with all the answers can destroy the world; a wise man with answers can only confuse it.
Which are you?

[racecar]

Cerebrate

PRONUNCIATION:
(SER-uh-brayt)

MEANING:
verb tr., intr.: To use the mind: to think, reason.

ETYMOLOGY:
Back-formation from cerebration (act of thinking), from cerebrum (brain). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ker- (horn or head) that is also the source of words such as unicorn, horn, hornet, rhinoceros, reindeer, migraine, carrot, carat, and Hindi sirdar (leader, from Persian sar: head).

USAGE:
"Since Galatea, Richard Powers has been cerebrating more than he's been feeling, but with his latest book, as if in wild overcompensation, he has led with his heart and entirely lost his head." Thomas Mallon; Going to Extremes; The Atlantic (Boston); Jan/Feb 2003.

Explore "cerebrate" in the Visual Thesaurus.


Galatea
Amazon.com Review
Cognitive neurologist and well-known writer team up to produce a machine that can pass a comprehensive exam in English literature, with predictably unpredictable results. Like The Gold Bug Variations, this is another of Powers' wild, unforgettable novels encompassing science, philosophy, and the frailty of mankind.
From Publishers Weekly
Powers, in his mid-30s and with four well-received books under his belt (Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance; The Gold Bug Variations; etc.), is among our most prodigious young novelists, and without a doubt our most cerebral. He seems bent on proving the novel to be a form capable of housing all manner of human thought and expression: art, music, genetic theory, linguistics and philosophy. In Galatea 2.2, Powers, known as an extremely private person, is writing about himself?Richard Powers, the cerebral author of four novels?in a most intimate fashion, detailing his loves, passions and failings. His objective, however, is nothing so mundane as self-portraiture. Typically, he has a bigger idea: in exploring the nature of consciousness, he is trying to build a conscious novel in much the same way that the novel's fictional Powers is trying to spark consciousness in a university computer. The result is a kind of double simulation of intelligence that is breathtakingly elegant. Powers the character, returns to a Midwestern university with a huge computer science department, after several years in Holland, where he has left behind the love of his life, who saw him through the first four books. As a visiting writer, his job is to bombard a computer network, which he comes to call Helen, with literature, music and conversation so that it will recognize beauty in some neuronal simulation, and therefore become conscious of it. Meanwhile, Powers reveals his life, including his career as a novelist (down to the mentioning of a rare picture of him in a PW interview four years ago). It's as if both Helen and the novel itself can be programmed into self-consciousness. In the course of tutoring Helen to be able to successfully interpret a piece of text in a manner indistinguishable from a human, Powers and Helen form an enchanting though eerie bond: she has "read" all his books; he knows her circuitry. Still, there remain mysteries that can't be accounted for by electron paths, in Helen's case, or by a theory of the self, in Powers's case. In the end, Powers is left with the conviction he started with: that intelligence is irreducible; it cannot be known. Although parts of the book seem hastily done or weakly felt (the university folk are rather two-dimensional, and Powers's crush on a rail-thin, obnoxious grad student is simply unaccountable), these are minor flaws in an otherwise ingenious performance.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

If verbs ever needed a spokesperson, they'd find the perfect candidate in the naturalist and author Terry Tempest Williams, who once said:

This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, argue, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers.

Williams said it well. Verbs make words come alive. Verbs are the words, literally, from Latin verbum (word). This week we'll look at five specimens from this tribe of words.


asseverate

PRONUNCIATION:
(uh-SEV-uh-rayt)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To affirm solemnly.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin asseverare (to declare in earnest), from severus (serious). Ultimately from the Indo-European root segh- (to hold), which is also the source of words such as hectic, scheme, scholar, and cathect.

USAGE:
"I asseverate from experience that some of my correspondence opponents do make use of a program."
Peter Gibbs; Pastimes: Chess; Birmingham Post (UK); Oct 9, 2004.

Explore "asseverate" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592

Cerebrate this~

Poppysmic

[ReasoningComesEasy]

Destruction or confusion? lol Well - I'd rather just be a tree.

And as far as verbs technically - I guess it makes words seem like they come to life LoL
words are still just shapes. You could also say it's the sound of the word that matters - and how someone says the word. Thinking about all of this is a pain in the ass but hey - some people work best with a system to run through.

And thank you for the George Carlin quote! It's glad to see someone for once to actually listen and respond in a thoughtful way besides the typical 'Oh! Cool!' That's action and is what matters - not what the word is. Silly intellectuals!

[labelwench]

Good morning, Jonathon.

This one by Carlin, is my choice for today, as this is the start of my weekend, and I work graveyard shift, retail grocery. Monday for the rest of the world.......pshaw.......isn't that harsh, lol.....

It isn’t fair: the caterpillar does all the work, and the butterfly gets all the glory.

[Profpat]

"Silly intellectuals!"

Hi Jonathan;

Never forget, intellectuals were the first to go, under the Mao, Hitler and Stalin regimes. I wonder why?

It's a big world, large enough to accomodate intellectualism and anti-intellectualism, and everything in between. Many of the members here have theories and ideas and prefer logic to emotions. Myself, I like a balance of mental, physical, and emotional.

Welcome to the forum.

Best,

Pat

[labelwench]

Never forget, intellectuals were the first to go, under the Mao, Hitler and Stalin regimes. I wonder why?
Originally posted by Profpat

Good point, Pat.

Perhaps the reason is, that the physical energy of one person is a threat of limited scope, whereas one intellect has the potential to raise the consciousness of a whole group, or nation, without ever striking a blow.

Regards,

LW