Please allow me to introduce myself.

This place intrigues me. I have nothing to hide but teeth marks on certain areas of my body. I will no longer speak about these. Promise.
I enjoy the exploration of ideas. So much that in college I failed to pass philosophy twice for failure to memorize the names times and places, so much would I loose myself in considering of the thoughts I found in the texts.
As a teenager, against the advice of a mentor, I headed of into a journey of discovery in a deeply existentialist manner. I may never emerge. But for that matter will any of us?
In the mid 60's I experienced numerous psychic events and witnessed several UFOs.
In the late 60's I came upon the teachings of Sun Myung Moon. Four years later I found my way out and have managed to shake off enough of that programing to function effectively. One thing though that has remained with me is the meme that we are living through eschatological times. This has flavored most of my thinking for the last thirty five years .
In the early ninties I collaborated with a radical Marxist group for several years but left that persuasion after enough study to understand that the perspectives I found there were not enough to bring about the social changes they struggled to correct.
In the mid 90's I spent three years in an online chat room catering to Wanderers and Walkins.
Throughout it all I have read science fiction. Steering away from the robot, laser firing,bang bang shoot-em-up I have concentrated on finding those authors who offer at least nuggets of serious speculation. Three years ago I traded away my collection of 4000 paperbacks.
My favorite quote?
"What was that about hats?"
I am looking forward to interacting with you all at ATS. At least until some other fancy tickles my synapsis.

Most excellent introduction. Welcome to tha' big show.

Sounds like you are not only a living, breathing sociological experiment, but from that viewpoint will have much to bring to the table.

Flagging this because I know the other members will dig your intro too.

Hello and welcome Terry!

Pleased to meet you, I thought you were going to make us guess your name.

Welcome to ATS.

I think I liked your original Introduction thread better.

Welcome to ATS, sounds like you have much to offer. See you out there.

welcome hope you enjoy the site as much as i do.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

I realize your introduction thread is likely dated by this point in time. Yet, after reading it I felt the need to share one of my favorite quotes.

"Genius is self bestowed, mediocrity is self inflicted."
-Walter Russell

Thank you for welcoming me to the ATS forum.

a reply to: IAMUnification

Well isn't THIS intriguing. Nice quote by the way.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Because you are a man of wealth and taste ?

I am glad this intro was dragged out just so i could say the above quote

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

I was really surprised that nobody was wondering where the sympathy was!

Nice intro, welcome to ATS.

a reply to: IAMUnification

The devil gets none

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

"Without adversity, there would be no growth, and without growth, there would be no lesson to be learned."

-Michelle D. Rosado

Sympathy may be defined as: an affinity, association, or relationship between persons or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other

I'll give the accuser the same I would give the defendant. Otherwise I'm partial before considering the whole.

It's an awesome song. I will also stop here because I don't want to hijack TerryMcGuire's introduction thread. Even though it's about 5 years old and Terry probably had forgotten about it years back.

a reply to: IAMUnification

Oh no, please keep on. How a five year old intro has become a nesting place for new conversation is different. I even got a new welcome to ATS out of it.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Maybe enough time has passed that you'll reconsider elaborating on those teeth marks, Terry?

a reply to: The GUT
Well howdy there partner...See that other member that viewed this intro five years after I posted it? When that member introduced himself I asked him about his handle, quite subtly I thought. Anyway, that new member found this intro and from what he read here knew that his cover was blown and never returned, at least under that name.

As for the teeth Gut, well, who knows how much of my thinking is still marred by those times, both in the Moonies and the Marxists. I can tell you that one observation I have come away with is that in some ways they were similar. Not in the ideology as one was fundamentally arch conservative while the other was arch leftist.

For one, neither could compromise. Both had discovered the ''truth' and from there is was our way or the highway. Those who could not see either of these ''truths'' were considered to be asleep. All others needed to wake up. It was believers jobs to help them do that, wake up. Once the wake up had happened then all would fall in line.

I see this everywhere now Gut. People fall in line. I see it in on the left side of the political spectrum as well as the right.
I see it here.

Hey, it's late and I am only replying now because once I clicked on your reply it disappears from my in box and the liklyhood of y forgetting you had done so is higher as each day of my life advances.

So please, any more discussion you would like to have, please do, let's do it. Just in the morning.
Gnight.

I was reminded of your intro from our conversations elsewhere and just thought I'd drop back in. This might actually be a nice quiet place to chat a bit without the usual--these day--distractions.

Even though we disagree on some things, I know you as a good guy and sincere person...with an interesting set of lifetime experiences. Hope you slept well old feller. I'm no spring chicken either just to be clear. Hey...we made it this far thus far.

You wouldn’t happen to be a man of wealth and taste that’s been around a long, long year?

In all seriousness I’m very interested to see your contributions, I always wonder with Old timers like yourself what that journey has been like. It seems to me that many of these subjects are more out there than ever, but lack any depth.

a reply to: Westernmaj

Well hello Westernmaj. I am a mite intrigued that you have visited my introduction page. I have taken that intrigue and found your own introduction. From that I can see that there are a number of things we might converse around.

From reading your own intro I see that you have not engaged in other threads as yet, somehow singling out my intro as the only exception to replies in your own intro. Likewise from your intro I see that you are familiar with the various types of replying to a post one of which is replying specifically to a post which in this case here you have not and hence not calling it to my attention in my reply window. Actually, I randomly found it while checking out my profile for something else entirely and noticed that someone had recently visited this page.

I have found that long before I ventured onto this site there were a magnitude of threads and replies that offered considerable meat for contemplation, tossing ideas back and forth so as to add to discussions rather than just throwing bricks at ideas offered. Now it seems that discussion is a rare , Defensiveness now seems to rule the site.

To me, defensiveness is rooted in reaction rather than reflection. This is what I see as being a major hurtle for us human individuals, teaching ourselves to reflect on stimuli instead of unconsciously continuing to follow our ancestral impulses.
So I agree that there is an appearance of a lack of depth as reaction does not foster much ''depth'' as it relies upon old mental patterns rather than to fertile ground of reflective considerations.

So, if you do not mind, how is it that you seem to have singled out my intro here. Was it random or in your lurking could it be that you have found some of my other posts to have been stimulus for your own mental gymnastics?