Loneliness

[randolph]

I would suggest that you don't need advice, what you need is understanding how your mind is deceiving you. The book titled "Now" by Eckhard Tolle is an excellent place to start. It is a compilation of much of the wisdom humans have compiled over the ages. It has worked for many people. Tolle is also on youtube but the book provides the insite that you need. Let the good person within you come forward and take control of your mind.

[smc]

Originally Posted by randolph

I would suggest that you don't need advice, what you need is understanding how your mind is deceiving you. The book titled "Now" by Eckhard Tolle is an excellent place to start. It is a compilation of much of the wisdom humans have compiled over the ages. It has worked for many people. Tolle is also on youtube but the book provides the insite that you need. Let the good person within you come forward and take control of your mind.

Enoch Root, I would advise you to tread very lightly with any "self-help" guru such as Eckhart (the correct spelling) Tolle, especially one endorsed by the Queen of the Facile, Oprah Winfrey. You don't need to enrich Tolle further to figure out what to do.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by smc

Enoch Root, I would advise you to tread very lightly with any "self-help" guru such as Eckhart (the correct spelling) Tolle, especially one endorsed by the Queen of the Facile, Oprah Winfrey. You don't need to enrich Tolle further to figure out what to do.

Thank you for that piece of advice, smc. Ah yes, the dreaded Oprah recommendation. Perhaps the only good thing she has ever done was that William Faulkner box set. (Which oddly enough sits across from me right now...) I never much cared for the woman, never have seen her show, but when I learned she had enthusiastically endorsed the book "The Secret" I knew with how many grains of salt to take her. Aren't you a teacher, smc?

And I just saw he's New Age, so yeah...

How does that Menken quote go: "For every complex problem there is a simple, easy and wrong solution?"

[randolph]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Thank you for that piece of advice, smc. Ah yes, the dreaded Oprah recommendation. Perhaps the only good thing she has ever done was that William Faulkner box set. (Which oddly enough sits across from me right now...) I never much cared for the woman, never have seen her show, but when I learned she had enthusiastically endorsed the book "The Secret" I knew with how many grains of salt to take her. Aren't you a teacher, smc?

And I just saw he's New Age, so yeah...

How does that Menken quote go: "For every complex problem there is a simple, easy and wrong solution?"

The ego is the source of much human unhappiness.

[randolph]

Originally Posted by smc

Enoch Root, I would advise you to tread very lightly with any "self-help" guru such as Eckhart (the correct spelling) Tolle, especially one endorsed by the Queen of the Facile, Oprah Winfrey. You don't need to enrich Tolle further to figure out what to do.

To assume a book is not worth reading simply because Oprah Winfrey likes it seems rather presumptuous. Would you refuse to buy a car because she owns one?

[smc]

Originally Posted by randolph

To assume a book is not worth reading simply because Oprah Winfrey likes it seems rather presumptuous. Would you refuse to buy a car because she owns one?

Randolph is correct. The problem of the book will be found between its covers, not in the endorsements on the cover.

[joshuaty2010]

hmmm. Interesting book to read. But i heard this book to my friend and she said it really nice to read it.

I think it's very easy to be cynical about any kind of 'New Age' stuff - especially stuff that's endorsed by Oprah. The trouble is that cynicism is most people's default position nowadays when confronted with just about anything, which doesn't really help at all.

Somebody gave me a copy of A New Earth a while back and, although I was hardly bowled over by it, there were some interesting bits and pieces in there. I was certainly a bit less cynical about it after I'd actually read it.

Personally, I'd rather people were reading 'Self-Help' books than relying on prescription drugs to solve their problems - although both are 'quick-fixes', I'd think that drugs would do more harm in the long-term.

[Enoch Root]

Add to the Digital Age a near complete lack of a sense of community everywhere in the Western world (or maybe those places touched by the hand of the US) and you have yourself the recipe for something awful. Two examples to illustrate both those things: 1)I have lived in the same godforsaken suburb my entire life, but have yet to experience anything like the community coming together for celebrations or bringing many to the fold; as is often the case, no one knows their neighbor and no one cares, it may as well be New York; 2)My mother has recently discovered Facebook and now scours the site incessantly, but to what purpose? She is so lacking in self-assessment, or she doesn’t care, that she can’t see how meaningless her actions are, how they add nothing to her days and her life.

Yes, it is a terrible loneliness that resides in me. I am not obsessed with transsexual woman. I met one whom I thought was lovely and I fell hopelessly in love, hopeless Romantic that I am. It all went awry and now I am left with nothing but mornings and nights cursing myself for what I didn’t do. This is a situation exacerbated by the fact that I really do want a transsexual girlfriend, yet could not begin to tell you where to find one where I live. I may as well give up on that front.

I have no need, and no love, for the teachings of spirits or modern gurus. I do not want the silly and ultimately empty promises of crystals, balms, benedictions, transubstantiation, and the feel good teachings that are everywhere, from the pulpits of megachurches like those of Osteen, to those of unorganized believers of mashups like Tolle. What I need is something much more earthly and much more beautiful, and absolutely vital to the continuing health of an individual.

I now question the wisdom of ever having created a thread here. When I created it I did so because of the circumstances behind my depression, that is to say, it involved a transsexual woman; which is a topic I have not even discussed with my best friend. On all my island there is only one soul who knows of my attraction to this girl, and I am not even sure he has taken the logical leap to assuming I am attracted to transsexual women. I posted here because it seemed pretty clear to me I wouldn’t be judged for my sexual proclivities. But now it feels like griping is beginning to hold sway in the thread.

[smc]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Add to the Digital Age a near complete lack of a sense of community everywhere in the Western world (or maybe those places touched by the hand of the US) and you have yourself the recipe for something awful. Two examples to illustrate both those things: 1)I have lived in the same godforsaken suburb my entire life, but have yet to experience anything like the community coming together for celebrations or bringing many to the fold; as is often the case, no one knows their neighbor and no one cares, it may as well be New York; 2)My mother has recently discovered Facebook and now scours the site incessantly, but to what purpose? She is so lacking in self-assessment, or she doesn?t care, that she can?t see how meaningless her actions are, how they add nothing to her days and her life.

Yes, it is a terrible loneliness that resides in me. I am not obsessed with transsexual woman. I met one whom I thought was lovely and I fell hopelessly in love, hopeless Romantic that I am. It all went awry and now I am left with nothing but mornings and nights cursing myself for what I didn?t do.

I have no need, and no love, for the teachings of spirits or modern gurus. I do not want the silly and ultimately empty promises of crystals, balms, benedictions, transubstantiation, and the feel good teachings that are everywhere, from the pulpits of megachurches like those of Osteen, to those of unorganized believers of mashups like Tolle. What I need is something much more earthly and much more beautiful, and absolutely vital to the continuing health of an individual.

I now question the wisdom of ever having created a thread here. When I created it I did so because of the circumstances behind my depression, that is to say, it involved a transsexual woman; which is a topic I have not even discussed with my best friend. On all my island there is only one soul who knows of my attraction to this girl, and I am not even sure he has taken the logical leap to assuming I am attracted to transsexual women. I posted here because it seemed pretty clear to me I wouldn?t be judged for my sexual proclivities. But now it feels like griping is beginning to hold sway in the thread.

Your articulate contribution above is welcome. Please do not regret having posted it or starting the thread. Your description of the problems of community in the Digital Age are spot-on; in fact, this comprises some of the research I do at my university. I am off to teach right now, but will write more later.

"Unorganized believers of mashups" ... absolutely brilliant, in four simple words.

[randolph]

SMC "By pushing this agenda, Randolph, you not only hijack the thread from Enoch Root, but you do so in a very insidious way."

Your accusations are insulting outrageous and untrue. Agenda? Hijack? Insidious? Nobody else on this forum has accused me of these things. I am simply sharing some information that is interesting to me. I hope this is a forum for the free exchange of ideas, if not then I am out of here.

[smc]

Originally Posted by randolph

SMC "By pushing this agenda, Randolph, you not only hijack the thread from Enoch Root, but you do so in a very insidious way."

Your accusations are insulting outrageous and untrue. Agenda? Hijack? Insidious? Nobody else on this forum has accused me of these things. I am simply sharing some information that is interesting to me. I hope this is a forum for the free exchange of ideas, if not then I am out of here.

I stand by what I wrote.

This is a forum for the free exchange of ideas. My freedom is no less than yours.

[randolph]

Originally Posted by smc

I stand by what I wrote.

This is a forum for the free exchange of ideas. My freedom is no less than yours.

Very well, I reserve the right to insult you as the occasion arises.

[Jenae LaTorque]

?Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.? Henry David Thoreau

Many older men have been quoted as saying that they regret not so much the things they did as they do the things they didn't do. So, you can stay there in your "nest" and grow old and bitter over life, or -------- you can go out to sing, and see what life has to offer.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Jenae LaTorque

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Henry David Thoreau

Many older men have been quoted as saying that they regret not so much the things they did as they do the things they didn't do. So, you can stay there in your "nest" and grow old and bitter over life, or -------- you can go out to sing, and see what life has to offer.

It's what I'm trying to do. It just takes more time than it should: between the terrible economy and my ingrained shyness, it is difficult.

And the lit geek in me sings at the Thoreau quote, so thank you. Or as Pink Floyd put it: "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way."

[randolph]

Get out of your room and look up Yasmin Lee, if anybody can make you happy, its her. She is the nicest most beautiful, sexy tgirl in the world.