Personality Modifications

Can we change our personality, how much, and should we? Our personality is used to describe our thinking, feeling and behaviors, and then there is disorders. So then, personality disorders are unacceptable ways of thinking, feeling or behaving. How do we separate these from our beliefs, as our beliefs control our personalities?

I avoid interacting with other people because so many other people are concerned with what I consider trivial shit, or that are wastes of money, or are just not interesting, but all that make me self-centered. Other people cause me stress, it is just easier to stay away from them. Being alone is more comfortable that being around those who make me uncomfortable. Sad, but it is my survival I am concerned with. Why is it me that must change? Or is there any need of change?

If we can control our personality, what kind of personality should I pick and what should be the criteria? I have always been an analytical sort of person, quiet, not high sociable gadfly that is concerned with everybody, and knows nothing. That is not likely to change much. I value knowledge, understanding, not social interaction.

Who said we have physical needs for food, sex, exercise, and perhaps companionship? Schopenhauer perhaps, but it does not matter. Our relative need may vary widely for any of these items. A person who works alone, sometimes for days at a time, or does a insular analytical job but around people needs to function well with low human contact. As a technical expert, I need time to think, to meditate, to contemplate the issues, mostly alone. Now, that I am retired with no intention of doing any more consulting or unpopular work, that does not matter.

Back when I was young and the computer was just being talked about, many predicted that we would have all this free spare time, and would need thing to do. So  what did we end up doing? Working, having excess money compared to what we had before, and we spent it on things that freed more time to work harder and longer, but we have so much more, and no time to do anything like talk to the neighbors. It is this rush that has created the demand for more, and that is the result of this computer age. We spend more time but produce less. That which we produce has less value, and we have many more comforts. There was a back to the land movement in the 60 and 70, so what happened to it? We got old working, for the man or ourselves, to fill our desires.

Hedonistic adaptation takes many forms. Our needs expand to fill either the available or the available money and time. Either way, our needs change, unless we control our needs by controlling our desires. I did not need a new pickup often, the old one would do just fine. I wanted space so that I was not hearing the neighbors, as coming from a farm, I valued my space. I am now on a acreage, and due to trees, I cannot see the neighbors houses much. I can hear industry some of the time. We need to live in a suitable location for piece of mind. When the obvious problems of our nation are not being addressed by government, and are actually being made worse by the government, what should one do? Nobody is listening. Oh well, shit happens.

And for all this, I am trying to make myself into a better person? WTF. Honesty, truth, justice ok. What do I know anyway?

   

Non-Violence but

Non-violence is a concept of living in a non-violent world that would be good, where the whole population cooperated and flourished together. But how can non-violence work with four groups of people; criminals, police, terrorists including foreign invaders and the military? How can the population get rid of criminals and terrorists. Until we can determine a way, force is the only way to deal with the modern criminal and terrorists. So could non-violence work in the peaceful population?  It is essentially what we have between the crimes.

Much of the criminal element here in Canada does not think it is doing anything wrong. They are selling product and services the there customers want, or providing the need, so that others may sell the services. Drugs, sex, and the like are the first part, and those whose actions and insurance is the second part. And what about Quzi criminals, not quite criminal, but depending on the criminal element for support, aka, theft insurance, and the criminal legal system defendants. Oh well.

Non violence worked in India for a number of reasons. Nobody had much, most lived hand to mouth. The English in control were not total savages, and would not kill without reason. India was a money pit to England, and the people had a death denying  religion, reincarnation or rebirth. What have I ever lost in dying? They had no fear of death. Death was all about them and had been for there entire lives, nothing new there. There were also many ascetics, up to one third of the population by some accounts, and a cast system that most of the population were lower than cattle. Gandhi came along and offered hope, as a dream merchant, and delivered some of that dream, a free India, but with a tremendous loss of life by the time it was over, with two Pakistan's and India separated. 

To clean up this country, we cannot beat the criminals. We need to remove the profits from crime; legalize and tax all the big criminal sources of revenue. Drugs, sex are straight forward. Pawn shops and resale of stolen items must have high penalties, equal to the crime, for without them, there would be no reason to steal much, only for your own use. Things like reverse engineering would need to end, the combined lot should be treated as one, and all convicted equally, and with vigor.

So ultimately, the virtue of non-violence must be allowed to slide down the virtue priority list for now, and self-preservation, and our own peace of mind must rise above this one. In-fact, our own peace of mind may need to be on the very top always, to be part of a flourishing life.

Honesty, truth and the future

If you want a change, make a change. The future is changed in the present. There are no fairies or other supernatural occurrences. We life from birth to death; that is all there is. It is in this life that we must do our good dead's, else we will be... well what is the people based punishment... shunned? excluded? exiled? imprisoned? sent to work camps? ignored? disinherited? die off alone or with a group of other derelicts? what? 

When we look around the world, religion and those seeking power create considerable problems. Or they are pushing some religion. If they also want wealth, and choose to take land and property by force, and force a group of subjects to believe something, that is just wrong. ISIS, Syria, and the whole Islamic world is doing this, and it is just wrong. And then there is South Sudan. General depopulation of the region -- is the nice way of describing the situation, but just wrong.

We can take any religion and divide the teachings into two heaps, virtues and explanation by story. The explanations by story are just story, they are trying to explain something they do not understand or have the words to describe. These are largely irreverent to much, but are just story. Then there are the virtues which they wish to force on people. Some are good, some are bad, and then there is priority. What was relevant 1500 years ago is just irrelevant today, or has different priorities, and yet some is more relevant today. Though shalt not kill, steal, take, misappropriate, have sex with, or sexual depravity, other forms of  enslavement, force to act in specific ways, general moral behaviors, are just as important today as ever. How we think is somewhat irrelevant, just as long as we have suitable moral behaviors and values; but without reason, we cannot have knowledge, and without knowledge, we are unlikely to have peace. Peace is not as severe as non-violence, for with true non-violence, even police would not be needed. That should be the target, but knowing we can never really achieve that.

So what is needed is a universal moral code of behavior for all peoples and voluntary adherence to that code. "Do unto others as you would they do unto you", or the Confucianism contra claim of "Do not do unto others those things which you would not accept to be done to you" may be better places to start. There is considerable space between these two guidelines. Doing something to people "for there own good", even when they are opposed, must also be forbidden. They may need to hurt to see the light of a better way. Pain is changeful. 

Now the big question is how to reach people who do not want to change because they are "right", everybody else is wrong? I, being right, is the only way to have confidence. If there was wrong done, it was done by others. What I say are virtues and virtues and must be followed... ayh, sure. Non-violence must be one of the founding values, and a system of virtues that all good people can follow must be worked out, and sold to the masses. If it is complete enough, others will adopt it, this I must believe. Non-aggression, must be a founding policy. Then there is the question of how does one compel those who do not wish to adhere to the policy, and there will be the evil ones who see a greed based path forward? It must be complete enough not to need any god concept, so acceptance of doubt and living with not knowing must be part of the belief system.

We live in an overpopulated world. We need to control the population else-wise there will be much suffering. Perhaps a monk movement... the brother hood and sister hood of free thinkers.... to take ourselves out of popular society... and form the new order ... and in several generations... but wait we need to celibate... so we would need to grow by taking in people ... like the Shakers... to create a world ethics code... world moral code... virtue code...

Is anyone interested in developing fleshing out the concept...

Honesty, truth, non-violence, compassion...  What do I know anyway?

Sage, attitude and virtues

Each religion has it's sages, or ideal wise person. These seldom actually exist, but are composites of the ideal. These can be described as an ideal attitudes, virtues and world view. As we look into this breakout further, each religions sage is far different. So what should the "ideal person" look like.

First the Christian would be compassionate, to the point of giving up everything they own to help others. That would be irrational, and not good for the next generation, but early Christians were not concerned with the next generation, the messiah was coming back. They would do everything for others. Get real. They do it for themselves, because they think doing for others is a great virtue, and that generates a good feeling in them. Buddha was right, everything we do is for us first, and second for other people. Anyone who says otherwise is creating a self induced delusion.

The Buddhist ideal person is honest and truthful, peace loving, non-violent passive aggressive, doing good for himself and others around him. He is part of his community, working for his community that supports him. Note that Buddha was part of the overpopulation solution at the time, up to one third of the population were ascetics, they went off and did not reproduce, but were part of the meditative/contemplative life style. These became the depository of information, learning, and the contemplative lifestyle. Note that some did not learn, but rather created or continued superstition rituals and as such frustrated scientific development and social advancement. This is common of many of the iron age religions, Islam, Christianity as well.

The Stoics and Buddhist were very astute at psychological observation, and as a result both recognized that our delusion of what should happen, our desires, and the frustration of those desires and delusions cause mental suffering, and that freedom from suffering can be achieved by letting go of those desires and delusions and following a virtuous life, even if the virtues and different. This is essentially the same as Positive Psychology. They both realized that self change was the way to peace, and going with the flow was the easy way. The right way was always to do what was right, and then all wrong was done by others, we could rest easy in the joy of satisfaction that we were right, and take peace in that. One thing only, our thinking is up to us and thinking that makes it so.

The Stoics and Buddhist recognized impermanence, non-self, and emptiness, the importance of living in the present time, the chain of causation stretching back into essentially infinite time but in different words. They recognized evolution and heredity, the importance of reputation. They both knew the importance of contemplation and meditation, and unhurried decision often based on inadequate data, and the separation of reason and feelings or passions. They both understood the gaps between perceptions and automatic mental processes, the gap between memory and both the conscious and unconscious parts of the brain, and indeed the important gap between mind and volition. They also struggled with the link between automation memory and volition. There wise man need to understand all this as human ingrained dogma that can be modified with effort, but is always there.

Confucianism has first a set of virtues, respect, loyalty, obedience, relationships, and there wise man will live these, without question. They will never ask why, but just obey.

This blind adherence to the principals is also Islamic characteristic that creates so much problem in the world. Some political land grabbing ego-manic can convince believers to follow and away we go down some radical path in search of a conceptual heaven.

So where does all this leave us? Not confused, for I understand and separate attitudes, virtues, and world view. My world view is science, reason, and the like. My attitude is exploring the understanding, and I, like many, am still unsure as to which virtues are best to hold highest. Faith, blind compassion and hope are vices, not virtues. The future is changed in the present. Inner peace can be found in knowing that if I do virtuous acts, any fault lies elsewhere. Educating others of the right path is a virtuous act, even if the path is hazy.     

Honesty, truth, non-violence, moderate compassion, and moderation in self control may be today's virtues.... But what do I know?

Perhaps a virtue of the day?      

essence of religion

What is the "essence of religion"?

It is about control of the population, primarily control, but there is a secondary concern of guidance toward virtue, but each religion has a different set of virtues that they hold high. We could describe any religion as a list of do and do not do's. We could take the five pillars of Islam or the ten commandments as the start of those lists. That give an idea about what those two are about, maintaining the religion first, and then perhaps the people. This is just wrong. I think that our personal list of the virtues we hold high is important, while the religions are of low importance or even evil.

Buddhism and Stoicism is about virtues, and living by virtues, but Buddhism gets sidetracked into meditation practice, rather than the use of meditation or contemplation. It is through contemplation that one can select the better looking available path. Note that I did not say correct, for until we get to the end and evaluate the then past, can we really make the judgement of correctness.

The next problem arises in selecting from the better looking available paths. It must be known, be available, and practical give all of life's constraints. When I look back over all the career choices that I made, some were likely poorer choices, but I owned a house, debt free. I had a run of good fortune early on in life, and was then tied to the property, location, and similar encumbrances when the economy turned down here. Now what? Do I sell at a loss, or do I wait the economy out? Well, I decided to wait it out, and recovery took too long, and by the time it recovered, I was too old. But I did OK, just not as well as in the early years. Decisions should not come with regret.

Contemplation is great, but we must stay in the present time, not get tracked into the past as I did there. A bit of a plan for the future is fine, even necessary, but religions do not help much there. They a like positive psychology, lay out a path, but not provide a clear direction, when it is the lack of direction that creates much of the problem. Meditation, as described in the modern Buddhist literature, Surya Das or Kabat-Zinn, are lovely ways of sitting but may not produce tangible results for a long period of time. Oh well. These require faith that meditation has value. Not a good thing in such time as we live in with tremendous amount of possible concepts to choose from.

The first item on the virtue list is faith, faith that the belief system is right. Stoicism considers faith to be a vice, and that is where it belongs. So if we accept this one tenet of Stoicism, all religions are screwed. We also need to consider one virtue at a time, and we soon see that as we sort, belief in any supernatural concepts must go. Meditation as taught by the early Buddhists and some forms of Buddhism, seems like a different cat from most of the modern teachers. It is much more of quiet contemplation, and there are even writing forms, as the candle meditation, where each distracting thought is written. That quickly get to the problem. It may also be that each person has a style that best suits there personality.

So religion may serve as a distraction from life, or a subject to focus on as a group for the benefit of community. A community needs a cause that can never be realized, for as soon as it it reached, it stops being a motivator. We also see dropout rates along the way, as well as washouts, those that leave before they have seen substantial progress. We saw this same phenomena in OA, and in most service clubs, even sports clubs.

We have the responsibility to choose which virtues that should be where on our personal priority list. I think that non-violence need to move up in my personal list. Non-violence is more stringent than peace, in that peace, the current connotation is no fighting, whereas nonviolence suggests that even preparation for violence and even swatting a troublesome child would be forbidden.  This is something that a whole culture or community would need to undertake for it to work.

Food pushing is another think that is cultural and not helping the obesity situation. That alone may be one of the single largest factors in the obesity epidemic. It is everywhere. We must resist.

Respect, truth, non-violence, moderate compassion, and moderation in self control.... But what do I know?  

         



    

Which Virtues?

Almost every religion calls for virtuous life, and that is necessary and sufficient for a contented life. The issue arises when question which virtues are highest in prority. Here is my list of the top four virtues for a few religions, as the literature indicates.

Christianity - the religion aka faith, humility, surrender, acceptance
Islam - the religion aka faith, surrender, obedience, following
Buddhism - truth, peace, compassion/loving kindness, Reason
Jaine - Non-violence aka peace, truth, knowledge, belief
Confucianism - Respect (shown and demonstrated both ways), relationships, obedience, loyalty
Stoicism - Reason, wisdom, self-control aka moderation, persistence, courage, justice

What verity. Note the big difference that Christianity and Islam put the religion ahead of the individual. This just seems wrong, for it is we individuals who must be provide for, even Buddha puts self first, help yourself and then help others. Be happy and make others happy. That we place ourselves first is natural and reasonable, regardless of what others say.

Those that say we should serve others and thereby receive are missing the real point, that unless we enjoy what we are doing, we will be miserable. Altruism is a fine concept but it does not match with human reason. It is like photo radar for safety, not money grab. Poppy-cock. 

It is currently my thinking that respect, truth, non-violence, self-control ( mental portion only*) should be the top four. This will be difficult in the present environment.

* this eating disorder has physical and chemical components to it, that is to say it is not a mind function that we have complete control over. For many of us it is a over driven biological urge, and we may not be able to resist consistently, as much as we or others would like or think we should be able to. We may need to do things to modify the urges, that others do not need to do. It can be and is difficult. I know some who the control of food is a life controlling obsession. It is not there fault; they have survived this long. In previous generation we damaged people we just allowed to die off.

Respect, truth, peace, and moderation I hope. But what do I know?

What does exist without a doubt

I am responsible for my beliefs, even thought as a child I was told what to believe, which it turns out was completely wrong. I have been wrong all my life. I know this now. Sacred is spelled wrong, it should be scared, just a dyslexic error, that is all. The void of space exists but not really, it is a void. The earth exists, and we exist. To the skeptics I say, if we do not, all this does not matter anyway.

The great void exists. About one billion light years wide. Was a big bang at the center, and everything flew outward from there? There is noting but matter and energy, in all it's forms. It all obeys the natural laws, and that which can exist does exist. There are also unstable and intermediate molecules. And there is the great void, and the even bigger void, within which this bit of matter exists in. Does that make us feel small or what?

Part of the matter since the big bang may be traveling through the void at greater than the speed of light away from us, relatively speaking, for we may be traveling, relative the void at something over half the speed of light, and the other half is moving away at a similar rate, so we may only be able to see half of the matter that there is. This number, half is just a guess, for the matter must be spreading radially, more of less so without the physics who knows. I do not know, but I do believe in the void that all exists in for that is the definition of nothing and the void, not to be confused with the smaller great void. If you do not understand this, it does not matter.

So what does this have to do with with overeating recovery? Well the truth shall set us free. We can believe in  the void, the biggest space there is, and is defined by not existing. So we are just opportunistic organic matter living on a rock that sucks air to it's self, and whirls about a hydrogen nuclear reactor that provides us with radiation energy. This is where we evolved, but we could have been seeded or developed here. Either way, it does not matter. So then there is no purpose but to reproduce, eat, grow and die. So we might as well just sit back and party, but if we do that we will die off for who will produce food. So then it is up to us to live the best we can, as equals, spread the resources out so that none/few starve, but those who work the hardest can get ahead. But now it is the inequality, the cornered markets, and the uneven distribution of wealth that make such a difference.   

Now when I start from this reality, the world takes on a different view, light or whatever. Life is not a sacred as it was. The who concept of scared sounds phony phony to me. There is no doubt that we all want to live, but with the overpopulation problem we have, there is no reason not to trim lives at both ends. At the tail end, it should be voluntary, and at the front end up to 80% of viable, 16 weeks or the like, if the parents like.  Many of the cultures exposed there old and unwanted young, which is just inhumane. We would not do that to a domestic animal now, but the religion forces us into that situation now. Oh well, that is religion, the group delusion of our ancestors.  All we really need to do is to educate women and men to the reality, and those who are honorable, society minded will limit reproduction. If that is not enough, we may need to take action against those who just want to reproduce. 

Those who are not rational, or think there is a god should have no say in the matter, they suffer from a group delusion. There is much that we do not know, but lets not promote ignorance. We do not have all the answers yet, but group delusions are not the way to understand the world. All we need to do is figure out how to live together in joyful peace and harmony. If you are not willing to do that, then what are we to do? Kill you? And eat you, as in Fiji or Easter Islanders did as a survival method for the last 200 years of their existence?

We are headed toward interesting times for sure. Wateves. Oh well, what do I know?