לעצור את הטירוף

מתישהו, צריך לעצור את הטירוף.
להרגיש את הכאב, במקום להעביר אותו לשאר העולם.

Striking Commercial

Hey You!,

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Before you say 'no, striking will never work for me', answer these questions:

Do you have control over any important resource such as electricity, water or life saving medicine?

Are there thousands, or better yet, hundreds of thousands of people who will be affected in someway if you stop doing your job?

Will temporary cessation of your livelihood result in discomfort\irritation\injury\disease or death of many pepole?

Then you have all it takes to be a striker!

Have you ever asked yourself 'why is my salary signifcantly smaller than the national budget?'. Never seemed fair, did it? Well, striking is just the solution for you! In fact, the national budget is the only limit to what you can earn through striking!

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Not convinced? Listen to these testominals:

Ex-convict: "I used to rob stores and banks. It was nice for a while, but I'd get arrested and put in jail every now and then, and I had alot of stress at work in general. I always felt it could be better if I could do things by the book. Now with striking, I just take money from people for some alleged service they want to recieve, and then I just go on stike! and the best thing is that it's 100% legal!"

Government employee: "The best thing about striking is that it's simple! You just go through your regular schedule, and take out the things that could potentially help someone.'

Start your strike today, while national resources last!

How to Catch a lion

Problem: To catch a lion in the Sahara desert

Reading Lion Catching Theory developed so far, I tried to come up with a few
methods of my own based on theoretical computer science.

The PCP method:
Ask an experienced (but untrustworthy) hunter to deliver the lion in a cage.
Convert the lion into a PCP. Now it is enough to stick 3 random fingers in the
cage and have them bitten off to be reasonably sure it is a lion.

The Conditonal Probabilites method:
We start by standing in the middle of the Sahara. At each phase, we either take a step to the right or a step to the left depending on which one will increase or at least preserve our success probability. Since it is possible to safely catch a lion in the Sahara with odds of at least one to a trillion, assuming the lion does not move while we are calculating, we are guaranteed to end up with a lion in the cage.

The arithmetization method:
The lion's action range in the Sahara: {Running fast, Eating a Lion hunter}
can be thought of as embedded into a larger range.
Now we can extend the lion from the Sahara to the entire southern hemisphere.
Going south enough the lion is slow and indifferent in the cold climate and can be easily catched.


I hope everybody is now convinced that it requires at least an MSc in theoretical computer science to safely travel around the world.

Math lecture psyhcology when an alien finds himself in a lecture on western culture

Lecturer: "So Cancer is a terrible problem. Many people die from
cancer around the ages of 50 and 60".

Alien: "Oh, so humans are normally immortal?"

Lecturer: "No."

Alien (thinking to himself): That was a dumb question. Everybody here
must think I'm an idiot. I guess I don't have the necassary background for this lecture so I should just shut up and not waste everybody's time.

Lecturer: "Here's an example of someone who's built a happy life: A good career, three beatiful kids, a great house".

Alien: Maybe this isn't as complicated as I thought. There's just a threshold
of achievement you have to get to without getting a disease or being killed and after that you've made it.

Alien: "So is this example tight?"

Lecturer: "Well no, some people have made it with just two beatiful kids
and a great appartment in a fancy part of the city"

Alien: "Oh, so is it known what's the exact lower bound of achievement you need to get immunity from disease?"

Lecturer: "What do you mean? There's no immunity from disease!"

Alien: Damn! I was so presumptious to think I was following. I 've made an
idiot of myself again and wasted more time for everybody! There's probably an advanced course I'm missing on how time stops the minute you've made enough kids and enough money. So, maybe he means you're never immortal as time passes but since time stops for you it doesn't matter-or something complicated like that. In anycase, I really shouldn't interrupt again as I don't have the necassary background on methods in popular western cultre for achieving peace and happinness





p.s- Anybody reading this Blog is encouraged to leave comments, I'm getting lonley here:)...

Vipassana

Hey, I just returned from my third Vipassana course (see http://www.dhamma.org/ for details)

What is Vipassana? For the basic facts and a clear explanation see the link above. Here are some less clear\self-contained and more personal thoughts: Vipassana is an exploration of reality with the object of understanding it better. To understand reality better not for the purpose gaining knowledge but for the practical purpose of living better. The approach is that our suffering comes from a misunderstanding of reality. Reality is never bad in itself. We only precieve it as bad and as a result struggle against our illusion trying to make it go away. And struggling against an illusion, when you think about it, is exactly what gives that illusion more substance. When practicing Vipassana, this is experienced in the most concrete form. When your mind gets tense, resisting what it feels, say, a pain in the leg. That feeling becomes more and more 'real', more and more solidified. On the other hand, when you simply take the approach of 'OK , this is what I am feeling, this is the current reality', these solidified feelings start to dissolve (though not necassarily right away). As you become more gentle with your current experience your current experience becomes more gentle with you. This progresses up to a stage where the entire body is felt as nothing more than subtle vibrations-no solidity anywhere (just to make it clear- I haven't gotten there yet..).
The emphasis here is on the practical significance. When you experience the body as something fluid and changing rather than something fixed and solid your attachment to the body and the sensations that run through it automatically decreases. You don't make as many futile attempts to hold
on to things after you clearly see that they are simply not stable in their basic nature. On the other hand, you are less worried about things that you don't like since you realize that they are also fluid and are going to change.
We've talked so far about the body and its sensations but an important idea an Vipassana is that everything comes down to the body. Everything is experienced eventually through the body. And therefore, by working with your body and your reactions to the body sensations, you can change your behaviour patterns regarding external situations more effectively than you could have ever done by directly working with the external situation. By the way, even a thought in this context, is an 'external situation' to some extent. As even in this case there is a sensation in the body accompanying the thought and that sensation is the actual experience you're directly reacting to rather than the abstract thought.
After seeing what I have written so far, I'd like to stress again-for a clear simple explanation see the link above.

Coming back from this third course, I am becoming more and more convinced that this technique of meditation is the key to making a real change for good both in my personal life and in humanity.
Looking at human history and things going on currently, it is obvious how much a deep change is required. It also becomes clear that no external solution will work. Going through history we see how solving this or that political\military crisis or external injustice just relieves a symptom (which is also good ofcourse), and a little later another external manifestation of the collective insanity begins.
It becomes clearer that a deep inner change in the minds of humans is the only real lasting solution.
I have always been frustrated by how westerm pshycology seems so
ineffective in making a real change in the deep level of the mind.
It seemed that suffering and unhappiness in my life were caused by
conditioning accumalated from an early age and it seemed that this conditioning is rooted deep and cannot be accessed or changed.
In this respect, I feel that Vipassana is truly different. Straight away from
the beginning, it enables you to go to the deep levels of the mind and make changes there, and a small change at the depth of the mind manifests itself
in countless ways in your external life.

So I guess the bottom line is that we will either reach a critical mass of humans who will make this change in themselves or blow up the planet-either way it's going to be quiet:)

p.s-I'd like to stress that I do not think that Vipassana is the only way someone can improve himself. I also think that maybe some people are simply not as screwed up as others to begin with(just to make it clear- I don't see myself as one of those people:) )

Concepts- another mind mechanism for running away from reality

Studying logic we are given examples of things that cannot be coneptaulized.
For example, there is a town. There is a barber in the town. The barber cuts the hair of every person in town that does not cut his own hair. If you try to make sense of this you get into a problem: If the barber cuts his own hair, then he is one of the people in town that cuts his own hair, therefore he does not cut his own hair. If he does not cut his own hair, then he is one of the people in town that doesn't cut his own hair. So he does cut his own hair.
When exposed to this sort of idea, alot of people, including me, inately feel that there is something 'cool' going on here, something 'Deep'. It 'strikes a chord'. I think this is so because this sort of struggle of trying to conceptualize something that 'gets ruined' when you try to concetpualize it is an intrinsic part of our interaction with reality.
For a brief moment, I have a direct experience of reality. Immediatly the mind comes in 'OK, so the reality of this moment is such and such, has the following characterstics, experiencing it feels like this, ect..' . And a brief moment later, I am not in direct contact with reality anymore. The mind has interepreted and labeled it , and now I am experiencing the mind's approximation of reality instead.
It seems that, in a similar fashion to the beloved self-referential pardoxes, you cannot run away from this: You can say "I'm not going to interpret, I'm not going to label, I'm just going to experience". But the mind can label\interpret this statement itself! Just like it can create an approximated state of "Looking at a tree", and take you away from reality while looking at a tree. It can created an aprroximated state of 'Not labeling-just Experiencing'.
These approximated states happen inside your head. In the world of concepts and thoughts. Every time you have a direct expereince the mind creates a
concept that approximates the state and takes you away from reality into the world of concepts.
Sorry, next statement not self-contained:
Reminds me, of how in Gedel's theorem, adding the problematic unprovable statement as an axiom just creates a system where there is another unprovable statement.
Similarly, when finding something that is outside the world of thoughts and concepts, the mind immediatly creates a new concept.

Assuming this is the case. How do you get out of this? Can you get out of this gradually, by practicing awerness and meditation, or does it have to be an intense experience that suddenly happens? These issues are very much on my mind lately.

Can we choose in what to succeed?

I've changed my view of this lately. I used to have the opinion that you can set your mind to anything, and since your mind is powerful, you can achieve anything. But lately, I'm doubting the part about being able to set your mind to anything. It seems to me now, that a basic part of you, is already prewired with a certain direction and goal. So if you try to set yourself in another direction, it'll be like setting part of the sails east while the big sail is still set west, which will work partially and produce limited results. Any opinions?

subText

"Hi!"(I'm empty can you fill me up?)
"Hi.."(I'd like to get away, you're sucking my energy, but I have to be polite, I must be polite)

I wonder in how many interactions between people, do both sides gain something. I notice in my interactions there is a lot of the following.

-I condescend someone to get an ego-boost.

- I try to put someone down in an aggressive way, I'll only be satisfied when he's miserable.

-I try to get someone's approval , I try to show off.

-Someone else try's to show off to me\get my approval.

-Someone using his status to condescend me.

Some of this may seem extreme things to say about yourself, but I think that unconciously, most people do aggresive\mean stuff all the time.

It comes out in a subtle way because on the surface level we're all making sure we adhere to society's rules. In places like a university, or a high-tech company there is probably no physical or even clear verbal violence. But the people there are just people, they have aggression and fear inside, and for the most part they haven't evolved out of it, they just repress it.

So how does subtle violence take place?
Well, take the example above.
Suppose you're talking to someone in a way that you're sucking their energy,
and he's just staying there because he feels he has to be polite.
I see two forms of violence here. The first is the violence of this person forcing himself to stay there, and if someone is violent towards himself he treats others in the same way. The second is that you're using the fact that he has this compulsion inside of him to keep him there so you can keep sucking his energy. You may say, "How can I know what's going in his head? Maybe he's having a great time talking to me? If he doesn't say anything how can I know?"
Well in my opinion, subconciously you feel everything that is going on. In particular, subconciously, you know he's not free to leave, and you're using that.
I think that part of 'Charisma', is simply people that don't do this stuff as much. Not just conciously, but also subconciously, they do not behave in this way, not even in a subtle way that they would not be aware of. So people instinctively feel safe and accepted around them.

I really want to stress that when I think about these things. The intent is not to judge these behaviours and blame. On the contrary, the intent is to develop a calm acceptance and awareness of these parts of myself and others. Because this calm acceptance and awareness is exactly what seems to make these behaviours and tendencies fade away.
If you're violent and you punish yourself for being violent in some way, you're just strengthening your tendency for violence.

In any case, I think anyone that can read this and examine himself to see
if it connects and not just get totally defensive, is doing pretty well compared to most.

A stack analogy for being spontaneous

A friend of mine told me the following story(paraphrased to suit this entery): He was in a hurry to get to a meeting and was leaving his son at his grandfather's house. His son started crying "I don't want to go to grandpa!". His first impulse was to say "stop! I don't have time for this!", he observed that impulse run through him said to himself "I don't want this, next, what else is in here?". The next impulse came, it was to pacify the child, "Oh, come on, will get you some icecream and you'll have a great time!" he observed that impulse run through him said to himself "I don't want this, next, what else is in here?".
And then he felt the desire to just sit with the child and listen to him.
He wrote a song about this 'a child's cry' in his blog:
http://blog.myspace.com/pomerus

A stack is a storage device with the 'last in first out' property. For example,
if you have an empty stack, and you first put a red ball inside of it, and then put two black balls inside of it you are going to have to take out the black balls
first if you want to reach the red ball. The red ball is the deepest inside and is covered by the black balls that are on top of it.
Imagine you have a stack of impulses for action. In this stack there are two basic kinds of impulses: Spontaneous and Compulsive. More suggestive names to the way I'm thinking about this is: 'I want to' impulses, and 'I have to' impulses. Once in a while, an impulse is shot out the top of the stack and runs through the body. If you choose to act on the impulse, an impulse of
the same kind is put again on the top of the stack.
So, if you act out of compulsion, out of 'I have to', a new 'I have to' impulse
is put on the top of the stack.
Suppose that, for a long period of time, you always act on the 'I have to' impulse. Then, in all this period an 'I want to' impulse has never been
on the top of the stack. So, for all this time an 'I want to' impulse
has never been shot through your body. As time passes, your memory of
what it's like to want something from a natural spontaneous place grows dim.
As in the story above, by simply observing the compulsive 'I have to' impulse
run through your body without acting on it, a new deeper level will arise at the top of the stack and new options arise.
As an example: When talking to people in various contexts I have an instinct
to justify my behaviour about something, and when I don't get into the justifying, when I just basically say "Ye, that's how things are" a new level of
more honest communication immedatiliy opens up.

To feel or not to feel- an energy barrier

I just did a primal workshop (see http://www.rishi.co.il/Schedule/?about=142 for very limited details-or search the net for primal\primal feelings)
I would like to leave some thoughts that have come to me following the workshop.
A lot of self-help resources talk about conciously choosing to feel good. For example, an excersise given is to catch a negative sentence you say to yourself (e.g., people hate being around me), write it down, think of a positive one to replace it with (e.g., people love being around me), and say it to yourself instead. I think this stuff can be great and can help you a lot.
However, I now think there's a more fundamental decision we make. The decision of whether to feel at all. In this workshop I have noticed how much I refuse to feel. I managed to refuse without noticing I was doing so, using the following 'mind trick': I would notice that I was feeling bad and say to myself 'OK, I'm feeling bad, I'm aware I'm feeling bad and now, like the spirtual teachers say, I'm not going to fight it, and instead I'll just wait patiently till this emotional wave passes and I feel good again'. Actually, this state of 'waiting to feel good again' was a refusal to really accept the current pain, and to feel it fully. It was an alleged acceptance of the negative emotion motivated by the agenda of feeling good again. Of course, there are subtleties here to what I mean by 'alleged' as of course the point is to eventually feel better.
There is a child inside who is frustrated because you do not accept his rage, his fear, his pain. You just want his bliss, facsination, energy and euophoria. Just like a parent who always wants his to child to be 'representative' and 'managable' I was being this kind of parent to myself.
The child inside doesn't trust me, because my accpetance of him is conditional.
Anyways, it seems you cannot really make this choice of parital acceptance. If you turn
the volume knob down, the bad parts won't bother you that much (at least on a superficial concious level) but you barely hear the good parts too. You turn the volume knob up, everything has power, but you'll also here the nails going down the chalkboard very loudly.
If you want to feel the bliss and love and inside you intensely and really live , you are going to have to feel the rage and fear and pain inside of you too.
However, this does not seem to be such a tragic dillema as it may sound, since I'm finding out more and more in these last years that feeling what is there is never suffering. Suffering is caused only by avoidance of feeling, by a conflict beetween your conciousness and the current reality.

Getting yourself to do things

This is something I read by Moshe Feldenkrais recently. Most people know that you
cannot get someone else to do something he doesn't want to do and he doesn't understand
what's the point of doing just by trying to force him and yelling at him. So why assume you
can force yourself to do things? But first, who is the you that is forcing and who is the you
that is being forced? In this context, I think the you that is forcing is basically the concious\high-level mind and the you that is forced is the more low-level mind that actually controls and moves the body. Goes back to understanding. If you don't reach a point where the deeper level of your mind understands why you want to do what you want to do it will not cooperate. If you try anyway, the result is action that is inconsistent. You start a diet and stop. I decide to be super-social and outgoing at a party but after 20 minutes I'm just sitting alone with a drink like a zombie. The part of the mind that actually controls the body enjoys\is addicted to the previous behaviour patterns. From it's point of view, by sitting alone with my drink, I generate the emotional state that I am addicted to. It understands the motivation for this action-generating the emotional state, and currently doesn't have data that implies what your trying to force
it to do has any point to it. You need to work through experience and not just abstract logic to
get this deeper level of the mind to understand things. For a great concrete demonstration of this- try the Feldenkrais method for improving your body awareness\movement.

The Gap between reality and image

"The more that we acknowledge where we've deluded ourselves for the sole sake of preserving a FALSE self-image, the more we can IMPROVE ourselves in the REAL WORLD, and not just IN OUR HEADS."

-Tyler Durden

This , in my opinion, is an incredible quote. It is taken from the following article:
http://www.bristollair.com/outer-game/skills/state-control.html

This article is one of the most amazing things I have ever read. It's written in the specific
context of approacing women but I think it is relevant to any area you can think of.

People don't make progress because they do not want to admit, even to themselves, where they are now. Suppose you want to get to level 3. Currently you are at level 1, but you
think you are at level 2. You will never get to level 3 because you keep
trying to take the steps that will take you from level 2 to level 3.
The condition gets worse with time beacuse although the actions you take aren't
actually making you progress, they ARE making your self-image 'progress'. Specfically,
after a while of performing actions that are meant to take you from level 2 to level 3,
you begin to think of yourself as someone who is on level 3. Thus, the Gap between self-image
and self-reality deepens, making it harder to admit the truth. Ofcourse, at a deep level, you know EXACTLY who you are. Therefore, this gap builds a tension inside of yourself. A tension,
between the deep level of the mind and the rational\conscious mind with all of its abstarct, imaginary ideas. To keep this self-image you need to detach from yourself.