My brother wouldn’t really say this out loud, but I get the feeling that he likes shitting on people from a great height. He’s not like me. I see something I don’t agree with and I’m direct and blunt. I berate its vacuous nature. I try to pick it up by the throat and slap it, or, when passing by, I just spit on it. My brother doesn’t share my barbarian ways. He will eloquently size things up and dismiss them with grace and candour.
To me, this is what he does in his recent responses to my questions. The way he responds to people who have notions of having superior morals compared to the Basis of any morality is wonderful. Again, he’s not uncouth like me.
He expounds upon his relationship with mobile technology in a clear and principled way. And he tries to grapple with the source/”location” of the nonphysical mind admirably, with humility and honesty.
Please find his article here.
Q – Do you think your current family commitments make it difficult for you to cultivate and operate your own business? Is it something you’d consider or you don’t think it’s worth applying your mind to it? Would you consider being an associate of the business enterprise of your brother with his effort at a media and training company?
My family commitments would make it difficult to cultivate and operate my own business. However, this is only if I wanted to cultivate and operate my own business. I do not have that desire. Supporting my wife in her endeavours, trying to raise my son with any degree of competence including helping him to develop outside of the school system, raising and handling two retarded girls, as well as my other responsibilities, all these things make it difficult to start a business or maintain it. Lacking the desire makes it impossible.
And this is talking about just “a business.” Just having a business is not what is required in my world. It would have to be a successful business with decent profits to sustain my household. That requires the sort of effort that comes from a person with sustained ambition. As I’ve related a number of times, I do not have that ambition. It’s enough that I wake for another of many day-night cycles to do the jobs I already have, to just keep living and doing God’s commands. That’s all I have right now. I only have enough drive to keep the car on the road, and that’s it, and only because God commanded that I’m not allowed to stop the car myself. Hopefully you understand the analogy.
So “my own business” is not in my mind at all. I’m a soldier of sorts, a good one. I’m great at following orders that don’t go against my morality or reasoning. So that’s what I do.
Is setting up a business something worthwhile to consider? Yes. To remove dependency on an employer for finances would be advantageous. To build something of my own may be an accomplishment. So there are merits to pursuing this course. But there is not a strong enough urge with me to do it, no necessity right now. And I need a clearer and defined purpose to do things. That’s not enough. That’s just me.
I’d consider being an associate in your business. My actually becoming part of that enterprise would depend on a good amount of factors.
Q – “The Queen is to be revered and adored both for her position as the monarch as well as for the sterling example she has set to her subjects.” What are your reflections on this sentiment?
The simple response is that I’ve seen no example of honourable leadership from Liz to make her anything more than a bog-standard “Liz.”
Sorry, I jumped the gun. I’m assuming that by “the Queen” you refer to “Queen Elizabeth the Second.”
You referred to this person as a monarch. It’s funny that you did that. The suffix “-arch” in monarch is supposed to refer to rulership. A ruler, in the “queen” sense, is someone who commands and exercises authority over a country, its inhabitants being her property or “subjects.” There should be no real difference between “property” and “subjects” because this ruler does with either whatever he or she wants. Liz doesn’t have that authority. It’s the politicians that are said to have this authority.
A quick note. In reality, this authority does not exist either for the monarch or the politicians to use. There is no real basis for it. So it’s a fiction, another baseless religion. It’s a religion that is said to structure and organise societies, yet its hands is drenched in the blood of the innocent, and leaves many broken bodies in its wake.
So Liz isn’t a monarch. She may be a rich lady with house servants and chauffers, but nothing more. At least this seems to be the case superficially. Whether what the conspiracy theorists say about “the Crown” and its shady dealings is true or not remains to be seen. I don’t have enough concrete facts to dwell on that point so I’ll move on.
So, she’s not a monarch in the proper sense of the word, so her position in that station is no reason for adoration or reverence there.
Then it is mentioned that she is a “sterling example to her [slaves].” Ok. Let me think about this example. She travels about. I guess her slaves can travel about too. People give her more credit that what she appears to be worth. I don’t know what example there is to get from that. I guess there are many entitled people in the country who act as if they are owed something although it is uncertain what they’ve actually done of any merit.
Do I have to do an internet search for what she’s actually done? Ok, let me give her a chance. Wait a sec.
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The Wikipedia entry on Liz was quite useless when looking for “sterling example.” The Readers’ Digest on “things to know about Liz” was again bereft of personal merit. The website called “The Grunge” attempts to make her into something. Her accolades include the following:
- “Serving” in a war. “She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Territory Service (ATS), and trained for six weeks as an auto mechanic.” They say this was not without risk because over 300 ATS members were killed. Doing what exactly? There’s no evidence that this “royal” mechanic … errr mechanic-apprentice (how much can you learn & retain from a six week course? – not much) was put in any risky situation. So this “example” is useless.
- She’s done charity work. Well, that’s something. Not the whole of a sterling example, but credit where it’s due … if she actually did it and wasn’t merely a mindless signee, as she is when it comes to legislation. Hmmm … this is slightly more questionable now.
I realise after that second point that I should stop trying to find things that she’s supposed to have done. I think back to what I said about the shady things some say Elizabeth and “the Crown” have done. And now I’m reading stories attempting to make out as if Liz has done something of merit. Looking at them both, I realise I have the same amount of evidence for both kinds of stories: none. I’m essentially looking for hearsay, gossip, nothing of any worth.
Let me go back to my experience and reasoning.
Elizabeth is not a monarch. She’s just a stranger that appears to be rich. I don’t know her and she is nothing for me to revere or adore since I’ve experienced nothing that would give me grounds to have such sentiments towards her.
So the statement, “The Queen is to be revered and adored both for her position as the monarch as well as for the sterling example she has set to her subjects,” is a baseless claim and of no value to me. It’s void of real meaning and is not based in truth. That’s how I regard that statement.
Q – “There is an unhealthy fixation on being healthy as seen in the multi-million-pound industry of gymnasiums and other health outlets.” What is your perspective on this statement?
I’ve not seen this multi-million-pound industry, not the money side of it anyway. So I did a little search and found that, worldwide, it’s an industry that was worth just less than 90 billion American dollars. That agrees with the claim that the question is based on.
That there is a fixation on being healthy, a good or bad fixation, I’ve not seen so much of. I know some people exercise and go to gyms, but that doesn’t look like most people. When I combine this claim with the overuse and influence of pharmaceuticals, it doesn’t seem congruent. A people invested in a system that weakens to body to hide symptoms cannot be said to be fixated on health in any real fashion.
In addition, when I combine the claim with the ubiquitous nature of fast food restaurants and the alleged prevalence of obesity worldwide, as well as the terrible quality of food that is easily accessible in supermarkets, full of chemicals and drugs, the claim that there is a fixation on health is ludicrous.
Yet, as I already stated, the gym industry is worth around 100 billion dollars. That can’t be swept under the rug and ignored. There is demand there, enough for big corporations to swallow huge sections of it with their chain-gyms owned by one financial group. There are people who frequent these venues for a variety of reasons or else there’s wouldn’t as much profit as there apparently is.
Do people want to be healthy? Maybe some do. And maybe some of those have an unhealthy fixation on something. But as health refers to the overall condition of a thing or person, then an unhealthy fixation is a contradiction to being healthy, since a human is made up of both mind and body. An unhealthy fixation refers to an unhealthy way of thinking. So on that level, there is no such thing as an unhealthy fixation on health.
There are multiple conflicting narratives in the world about health. There’s the body acceptance notion where a person is supposed to be happy with their body (and no one else should complain about it) no matter what its condition is in terms of levels of obesity or even being underweight. That’s the stupid idea that even morbidly obese humans can be successful supermodels, or that hurting a person’s feelings by pointing out their unhealthy lifestyle is some form of “hate crime.” “Hate crime” … hmmm … I’ll ask now.
Q – Dissect the term “hate crime.”
There are other ideas about the devotion to bodily beauty expressed in the male bodybuilding physique and the female and male supermodel. This maybe has a more subtle component that appears to act like a mental disease causing bulimia and other eating disorders where it’s like an unattainable look or appearance is desired.
But, as I’ve put forward above, there are other related ideas floating around about food and bodily health that impact on what people do about their health, such as dieting. And I believe many just don’t care about health and just get on with life, regardless of the consequences.
When Jesus spoke of the narrow and broad way, he was not saying anything new or profound. It’s a clear observation that there are many fools and many wicked and only a few circumspect and wise. The amount of people that have a precise and proper view of health are too few to make a market out of, those who will work on the overall condition of themselves, their body and mind. Thus it seems, after walking away from the statement in your question, I find myself walking back to it. In order to really make a billion-pound industry, the companies must attract a bunch of fools with unhealthy views about health, and thus are unhealthy. And by unhealthy, I don’t refer to just being unfit in body, but misshapen in character and/or moral fabric.
So, I believe the gym industry is one that does profit from the unhealthy, and I use the word “profit” for a specific meaning. I don’t think the industry would be so big if only people came to their facilities truly to gain or maintain bodily fitness/health.
But even then, that’s not so much an indictment against the customers since coming to health is a process. You may start going to gyms to get healthy and it be part of a program to improve both body and mind. So, again, it’s just a tool to be used by any Tom, Dick or Sally. I just don’t have much faith in people nowadays. And I don’t see much business in the holistic exercise needed to craft full humans, mind and body, rather than muscular animals.
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So you’ve already got my first question. Here are my next two.
Q – How does a husband be sensitive to his wife’s needs and wants without becoming a sucker himself? How do you believe a man shows himself to be a pillar of his home and community without becoming too hard, inflexible and callous?
Q – How does one enjoy life as opposed to just living it?
I know you prefer the lighter and easier questions, so I’m sure you’re thanking me already. GRIN!
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