You are ABSURD!

There are worse things to be than a voice crying in the wilderness. Even if none of us are right, maybe one of us can redirect the one who will finally get it right, and if that's the way that one of us - or several of us - contributes, then what a privilege it will be to be such a contributor.

Nothing important has ever been accomplished by a "normal" person. A normal person hasn't got the single-focus drive and determination to do anything other than make a living, have healthy personal and professional relationships, and stay out of trouble. It takes a serious psychological mess to put together the kind of life that actually makes a notable difference in the world. This has always been the case, and it'll always be the case.

The average, normal person hasn't got what it takes to do much more than pass Go and collect 200 dollars from year to year.

Absurd?

Only in the eyes of those normal folks as they collect their 200 bucks @ Go.

And what else would you ever expect from anyone who's describing those unlike themselves.

reply to post by NorEaster


That's great, very fitting, and humorous! Wonderful. You grok. Must be the hat!

I don't mind being authentically absurd, not knowing who I am, or better yet knowing that I don't know, and turning what for most people remains forever in an unknown unknown, or what they didn't even know they didn't know, into something knowable, something playful, creative, even cute. Let us say at best "authentically inauthentic" how's that.? After all what can we do but play a role of some kind, might as well play it to the hilt!

Talk about absurdity?

When I was a youngster, a rebel with a cause as the minister's son (both parents, God rest or ressurect their souls) although top of my class in school and all round athlete and leader, I used to sometimes pick on the local "mentally handicapped" guy who rode around town on his BMX bicyle (like it was a motorcycle), while personifying the Fonz on Happy Days (ehhhhh, thums up). I'd run and block his path, his name was Rob too, and I wouldn't let him pass and rush off on his way until he said "Yes sir, Captain Rice, sir." (I know, pretty sad, and VERY nasty, kids can be cruel not that that's an excuse). We called him "Douy", and even my dad, the town Minister, hearing us refer to him as that so often, once mistakenly called him Douy himself (to his later astonished and absurd horror).

Anyway, he used to imagine this guy that he was quite literally God's gift to all women (but in a playful mentally handicapped kind of way), by declaring "I am cute and cuddly", but the cuddly sounded like "cudowy".

He knew, he knew who he was in his "feeble mindedness".

Back to my "bad"..

So later in life, when we're all "grown up" I have an opportunity to meet him again at my friend's (once girlfriend's) wedding and here he is all dressed to the nine's looking dapper, and so I approached him and said hello Rob, do you remember me? it's Bob Rice (I used to be a "Bob" but later changed it to Rob, because it was too absurd, and people used to emphasis the B's too much as in hi BOB), "Rob I'm the guy if you might remember when we were kids who used to tease you and make fun of you. I'm really sorry about that - will you forgive me?" to which he replies, after a short pause..

"This time around."

And he really totally meant it.

He was smarter then it would now seem in hindsight than I like to now think of myself as being, he knew already, automatically and instinctually.

He was never absurd, only fully self expressed as he was.

It was I who was absurd.

"Dear Rob (Fonzarelli), it won't ever happen again, I promise!"



To this day I've heard that he's the kindest hearted soul you'd ever meet.

reply to post by NorEaster


I just wanted to also say also, that your post made my heart sing.

Something just happened to me earlier, the slightest thing, the tiniest of ordinarily mundane details. Walking over to my boss' condo to pick up a key fob (I'm working late to make up for my recent procrastinations), here in downtown Vancouver, there are street people everywhere, and as we passed we had to turn away at least three of them over a three block distance, and he walks tall as if above them, and I point out to him that what I like most about my Christian orientation, is that I tend to bow relative to these people, in a curteous manner, as if they are in truth royalty - he of course looked at me as if I was absurd, and then not a moment later this tiny little old street lady who's crossing our path, simultaneously seeks to avoid him in coy submission as if not worthy, but then noticing me, she was uplifted and almost did a twirling dance. He didn't see it, but I caught the knowing grin in her eye. Walking back, after his bemused and slight scorfullness, another guy just says "hello, what's happening brother" while passing me by (which never happens here in Vancouver (I call it Vanhoover the social vacuum), and for some reason, my heart just soared, and I came back this way (yes I ought to get back to work) thinking, you know something Rob, you have a phenomenonal heart man, there's no need to be ashamed or embarassed about that any more. It's the kind of heart that the world needs, keep up the good work, and now here I am bragging.. or I should say "sharing".

Ah, would anyone like to share an absurdity of their own, and by "absurdity" I don't mean anything "bad", but something, perhaps an incivility, or not, which arose from a complete and utter miconception and misunderstanding on your part, because you were operating from the whole wrong paradigm, based on who you presumed yourself to be, or another to be, in relation to you.

I don't want to hog the floor. It's not all about me after all, I'm not THAT special.

Anyone..?

...

Absurd Interlude, to keep you entertained.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
reply to post by NorEaster

 

I just wanted to also say also, that your post made my heart sing.

Something just happened to me earlier, the slightest thing, the tiniest of ordinarily mundane details. Walking over to my boss' condo to pick up a key fob (I'm working late to make up for my recent procrastinations), here in downtown Vancouver, there are street people everywhere, and as we passed we had to turn away at least three of them over a three block distance, and he walks tall as if above them, and I point out to him that what I like most about my Christian orientation, is that I tend to bow relative to these people, in a curteous manner, as if they are in truth royalty - he of course looked at me as if I was absurd, and then not a moment later this tiny little old street lady who's crossing our path, simultaneously seeks to avoid him in coy submission as if not worthy, but then noticing me, she was uplifted and almost did a twirling dance. He didn't see it, but I caught the knowing grin in her eye. Walking back, after his bemused and slight scorfullness, another guy just says "hello, what's happening brother" while passing me by (which never happens here in Vancouver (I call it Vanhoover the social vacuum), and for some reason, my heart just soared, and I came back this way (yes I ought to get back to work) thinking, you know something Rob, you have a phenomenonal heart man, there's no need to be ashamed or embarassed about that any more. It's the kind of heart that the world needs, keep up the good work, and now here I am bragging.. or I should say "sharing".

That's a wonderful experience to have.

reply to post by NorEaster


Thanks. Now the key I think is to go a little easier on myself, because I'm actually a really awesome person!

Absurd!

Originally posted by Dark Ghost
I am absurd, but the world I live in is even more absurd!

And more absurder.

reply to post by TerryMcGuire

But there's two types of absurd. One is bad, the other very good. I think it's important to draw the distinction lest we lose our good-willed, good natured joy and humor.

The real world, is the real absurdity, the one we don't even know about, or I should say, relative to it, what we think about it is and must be absurd.

Originally posted by yourmaker
I was him, I lived that. It's funny because the further I read into it, the bigger the smile on my face got.
You know me too well.

I figured it might reflect someone else's experience almost to a T.

But I think anyone and everyone can get to the same smile regarding the depths of their own absurdity, and what I mean by that would be the powerful driving force and motivation, based on mere interpretations of "what happened" which have shaped our very lives by who we THINK we are, or are not, and by extension, who everyone else is and most dishearteningly, isn't. We assumed. What can we do, it was how we were trained, there's no blame here to go around, and no judgement, just awareness and increasing understanding, so that we might again come to know what it means to be entirety true to ourselves, as we really are.

Who are we? We are that one who is choosing to be someone, not based on a pre-programmed pattern of accumlated behavior and reaction/response mechanisms (absurd0, but because that's just who and what we are creating, not for ourselves, but in terms of who and what we are choosing to be at any given moment. We are not the role, but the one who freely chooses the role. Who we are really, that's a mystery, and a very good absurdity well worth further exploration, and mutual enjoyment and all manner of participative sharing, from the sacred, all the way to the most mundane, which then becomes sacred, by virtue of the fact that you in it, actively engaged in being creative. To be creative, all we need to know is who we are NOT, and then choose to be something or some one new, and someone which more closely reflects our heart's innermost desire (who we really are), which is always directed towards something good, something loving, fruitful, and therefore formative or evolutionary. This is a new way of approaching self mastery, where all you need to work with, is an absurdity the size of but a tiny mustard seed, your own, given back to yourself, as a newfound understanding as to the person, the deep mystery, that you really are, on the other side of that nonsense. That is who we really are. It's a known unknown, instead of an unknown unknown, and there's a big difference between those two states of being, and becoming, or maybe it's simply who we already were, to begin with! : )

My problem is I'm terrified about the very things I preach, because you know as they say, we must not simply pay lip service, we have to actually become it, ourselves, and as you know I'm lazy and a procrastinator. So you have to imagine that people know your plight and are cheering you on, what else can ya do, and I'll betcha there are, somewhere.. who knows, doesn't really matter, since it works just as well as a projection!

So it's an absurdity the size of a mustard seed which cannot, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view, be witheld from another, in commiseration with our neighbor, because if we share something costly with them, although they might think we're absurd (who cares we already know), then we win their confidence, and maybe even their own confession, and that's a marvel, to have such mutual burdens lifted away in a simple act of courageous sharing, about something that is, by its very nature utterly absurd to even begin with!

The very undoing of the absurdity is absurd in its own right, and there's the distinction again, beteween the "bad" absurdity and the very good one, which is even capable of generating humor at the expense of its former self. There's probably enough material there for comedians to work with for many generations, until it's no longer funny only simply because we've all heard that one before. I'm sure there will be new follies to laugh at though don't worry! We're pretty good at that as you may know. Humans. But God love em!

"What is man that thou art mindful of him."

Here is where my primary absurdity began..





Fresh absurdities, you are sure to find amusing, coming soon...

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
Here is where my primary absurdity began..





Fresh absurdities, you are sure to find amusing, coming soon...

Man, heres a song for you. Shiela Chandra

reply to post by TerryMcGuire

Thanks for that. No need to feel bad for me though, it was a lot of fun. On Sundays I was tasked with ringing the church bell in exchange for my cigarette allowance, which I'd pick up off the kitchen table immediately afterwards, although I didn't attend church.

What's absurd is that I still feel the impulse to ring the proverbial bell for all with ears to hear, but neglect to show up myself, and 30 years later, I'm still addicted to cigarettes.

"The hardest thing to do is to express yourself honestly."
~ Bruce Lee

And here's what he could do..

I actually had to read that twice, at first it didn't make any sense (I blame the lack of available coffee), the second time I laughed my way through it, and saw some amazing insights you have sir

Of course, everything there is so true of us in this "gimme gimme. F-you jack as long as I'm ok" reality. I know of so many people in the same boat (myself included) who had priveliged upbringings, good education, loving families, who now as adults bemoan our complicated lives, debts and families, and wish deep down TPTB would accidently press the button and do the white flash thingie, or that the alien mothership would somehow land in our street and start rounding us up like cattle just so that SOMETHING INTERESTING WOULD HAPPEN! (Hopefully at this point you realise the unseriousness of previous statement...)
Alas, life goes on. But something I discovered (as your second post on your boss, yourself and the people around you) is how little people understand their own reality. You were nice, smiled at someone, they smiled back... You said you felt uplifted by this small act, and by that admission you just changed the world for the better. Admittedly, it's hardly going to knock the Earth off it's axis with groundbreaking revelation, but does it really have to? Both you and the people you said a simple hello to were subtly changed for the better, so keep going at it... Change becomes habit soon enough.
I'm lucky enough to live in a small town with people who you pass almost every night during your required exercise time that give you a simple "hello, how are you?" or even a smile and a nod, yet for some reason, I fail to notice this somedays. They make my life a little brighter, and I no doubt make theirs also by a simple acknowldegment of their existence.
Yes, we are absurd. Pathetic even... But are we good people? I give a straight up hell yes for that one

reply to post by 74Templar

"Hello brother, what's happening?"

Thanks for your contribution.

We are contribute, in one way or another, for good or for ill. If there's a purpose to this thread for those who read and "grok" of it, it's to get us the heck off auto-pilot. We are not robots, and neither are we merely "meaning making machines" no matter how complex. There is something more, something greater here, within and among us, but if we could precisely place our finger on it, then it wouldn't be the mystery that it is and must remain.

I want us to move from "bad" absurd, to just altogether absurd, or authentically absurd - fully self expressed, let's put it that way.

I want to have a breakthrough and I want to see others have breakthroughs, and hey we can't do it alone, we're in this thin

If you change all the "you are absurds," to you were obsurd, this would be a great ulogy for you when others are at a loss for words as what your life amounted to.

I have to admitt I am a sucker for people who see the humor in themselves!

in this thing together.

ulogy! (and they moved the thread too, to "rant" from psychology, where I've begged them to move it back, it's not a rant it's an act of love and a work in progress.)

I'm sorry, but honestly, the triple A batteries in my office remote keyboard simply ran out at that precise moment (I hope it wasn't a "sign"), so I wanted to get to a computer ASAP just in case someone might have gotten the wrong idea as to what happened to me there in my last post just ending there like that, as if I either hit the keyboard face first having had a sudden heart attack, or, God forbid "whisked away" like Ezekiel!

Talk about absurd?!

No, I am STILL absurd!

You know I've never been resurrected from the dead in an ATS thread before, this is cool.

But I wish to God that the ATS "PTB" would move this thread back to Psychology where it belongs.

Immediately demoted to "rant" status eh, so that's what happens when you disappear even if only for a little while, I don't know..

reply to post by supine


P.S. I love you too. Very much, everyone. We were absurd. What can we do?

reply to post by NewAgeMan

And I didn't even get a star for that (yes I lifted it off the Bruce Lee thread).
That is absolutely the funniest thing I have ever posted here on ATS, imho.

At the end of it, he could not face us.

Oh God.

Don't you just LOVE people?!

And by "oh God" of course, I mean you, the love you have, because it's surely made of the same stuff whatever that is.