Expansion of the god concept

A god concept can expand to fill the available space.
What am I saying?
Our god concept can define not just god,
but god's will for us, our way of thinking, of being,
of reacting to the various stimuli that we are faced with throughout life.

As I have stated,
my god is the sum of the natural forces that exist,
gravity, electromagnetic, and all those other physical and biological forces.
Science is largely a study of these forces,
and their products,
therefore I can say that the study of science is the study of god,
or at least study of my god.
We do not understand much, but we can observe,
and try to codify the forces,
becoming a written record of his laws of nature.

This matches with the stoics "live in accordance with nature",
and Socrates belief that "we cannot draw breath without god approving."
God and nature are one, forces and matter since E=mc².
How do I get to superscript with this stupid editor?
That is to say, energy is force over time,
so mass and force is related over time,
so time must also be part of god.
God is all the stuff we do not understand yet,
and perhaps even some of the stuff that we do understand.

The sense of wonder, at the expanse of space,
the detail and colour in flowers,
in greens of nature, in winter weather, in life,
at the industry of man,
the technology we have developed,
whatever,
should instil wonder and gratitude.
This can be our underlying feeling or emotion,
and all others just cover it,
so that when all the other emotions are gone,
we are returned to this wonder and gratitude.
That would make life nice, would it not?
Now how do we reset ourselves,
to spend any loose time in a state of wonder and gratitude?

But what do I know?
Be well, eat real food, breath deeply,
smile easily, and enjoy what life has to offer.



Daoish.

gratitude

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2egMSliB8DE

And abstinence is the most important thing in my life today without exception.

So my food plan, diet, or what ever I call it is the most important thing in my life today. Really.
Without my food program I would be headed for the grave or more likely, an incinerator. Quickly. You see, if I did not follow it, I would be diabetic. My blood glucose is being entirely controlled to normal range by my diet. I would fail the glucose challenge. A nice baked potato will double my numbers. The next morning I could expect a 7 to 8. No thanks. My low carb plan works.

Step 1 is backwards

For me, step one looks backwards, some of the time. My life was unmanageable by me, and eating gave me relief. I made a conscious decision, at the suggestion of my parents that if I ate, I would grow and not be picked on. But I took it to far, and that did not help. The reason I was being picked on by the other kids was because my parents were frugal eccentrics, not just poor, and would not buy us kids decent close, but rather mother dressed me in her sowing, which were not that great. It was not until I refused to go to school that father bought me close. We can deal with harassment in a number of ways. One way is avoiding contact. By then, I was grossly obese, and remained that way, likely due to the insulin/leptin effects.

That experience was a "defining moment", more like several years, that had a major impact on shaping my life, and shaped my personality. I did not associate with anyone more than necessary. That trained me to be "low human contact need". I did not need friends, and was better by my self than with others. Mind you, by grade three, I was an attacker, so nobody wanted to be around me anyway. That did not mellow out much until I read "How to win friends and influence others" when I was 19 or so.

Now that I understand the overfeed / insulin / leptin issue, the physical part of the overeating problem, and take the appropriate measures, as much as I can, it is possible to see the personality issues. These likely developed as defence. That is why it is so critical to give up overeating before the program can really work. But coming to have a concept of god is the next step. Once we have a concept of god, or in my case a definition of god (ignostic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism), we have something to lever off to obtain more motivation. We humans try to do right, and to follow the "will of natural laws" is going with the flow. Then we need to clean up the past and fix up old relationships that need to be fixed, and continue this into the future.

So you frugal minimalists, eccentrics, religious freaks, control freaks, fear mongers, irrationals, and the like, what effect is your life style having on your children? I survived (gratitude for), but how well? Some do not survive. Oh, well.

But what do I know? Be well, eat real food, breath deeply, smile easily, and enjoy what life has to offer.

So why do I want to use?

So why do I want to use food, why do I crave?

It was long my habit to use food as a stress or anxiety relief.
So having reduce the food greatly,
now what do I need to do to relieve those stresses and anxiety?

OA does not have a real answer beyond obsess about the program,
and use the social aspects of the program as relief.

It is the social portion that gives me stresses and anxiety.
Treat the cause of my anxiety with more of the cause?
Not a real solution, but a religious one, that is
hoping that god will provide an answer.

What is it about my exchanges with with people
that causes me so much grief and anxiety, agitation, dissatisfaction?
Nobody ever understands what I say,
oh well, it is better to understand than be understood.

So I know the solution to your problem is Epictetus,
and some things are within our power, and some things are not.

Just because someone expects us to control
that which is not within my power
does not mean that I have an issue,
but rather it means that your expectations are goofy.

Buddha, Dao, and the Stoic all agree. It is your problem, not mine.
So how, besides apathy, am I suppose to deal with your bullshit?

The Problem

The problem of giving up eating is that now we need to find a replacement method of dealing with the stress, anxiety, time related issue, or what ever the reason we were eating to start with. The real difficulty is figuring out the reason to start with. That is what is not being addressed in any of the programs, especially is the reason is stress refeed, an natural condition that exists after the stress has dissipated.

Some people use exercise. If exercise causes pain/discomfort/additional stress, it is not a suitable choice, it will not happen. There in is the crux of the problem, stop an effective method of treatment because of the side effect (weight gain) and not have a replacement for the effective method of treatment.

I will suggest that the real problem is life has become to stressful for the human genome, or at least some of the genome. There are those with no caring values, socio-paths, that do not have issues, and the Spock likes, but what about the remainder of humanoids with emotions?

Then there is apathy. http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy.html Apathy is the condition of just not caring. It can be behavioural. We just stop caring about something that is beyond our power to do something about and is unpleasant or distressing to us. It is common method of dealing. We are trapped and nobody else cares enough to do anything about it. One way is to develop apathy for whatever, ourselves. Now What, if we do not even care about ourselves ...

Oh well. Be well, breath deeply, smile easily, and enjoy what life has to offer. Daoish.

Long term abstinence

Long term abstinence is one of those popular subjects that needs frequent airing.
After all my years of listening, to this I will say:

1. rigorous honesty, as a necessary virtue, this should extend beyond food to our life in general. There is a major gap between rigorous honesty and expediency level, which many of us lived on (note past tense).
2. reverence for the program, and recovery
3. holding abstinence as sacred or as stewardship of the body.
    I was entrusted with this body to look after it. It also helps to have a clear but flexible definition(s) of abstinence, perhaps even overkill. No sugar, no ground grains, no omega 6 rich oils, no processed foods, three moderate meals per day at home plus a fruit or two if needed... generally, and as close as practical away from home, and long days. Aim for perhaps 90% or more, aka 19 of 21 meals per week, unless you are a 19 or 20 meals per week type.

4. one day at a time, frequent contact with indwelling god concept,
    AM, before and after each meal, PM, (stoic frequency, 8/day)
5. spiritual development, extending far beyond coming to believe,
    to the point that god is real as any object,

and here are some mps on this subject:

http://www.ceahow.org/sites/g/files/g74161/f/201311/SatODATtoLongTermAbstinence27Jul13.mp3

I do venture into other camps as reconnaissance, not as considering defection. This is from the hard ass bunch that split of OA, because OA would not follow them, but their program does work for some.

They were the tough love group at one time.

Be well, breath deeply, smile easily, and enjoy what life has to offer. Daoish, or Epicurean.

What am I (Philosophish)

What am I? is a question that comes up as a result of introspection. It need to be answered, much like what is god? The answer is personal, no right or wrong, but possible a correct on not quite correct answer.

I is singular. It cannot be divided. It is the essence of me. Tolle struggled with this in his "I cannot live with myself";  Dante struggled with reality in his "I think therefore I am"; Epictetus resolved it to his mind, that which he had control over. In this way his body became unimportant to him, desirable but not within his absolute control. Kiss your own mortal ass goodbye, and go with god's plan, the non-plan, fate, fortune, destiny, what happens happens. Make it the best we can, live with virtue and nature, but without concern for self.

It seems that, in the modern human thought, the body us included. Yet this leads to problems in the psyche. So the body is out, as is the physical brain, but the mind and consciousness are still in contention. But what is the mind; not the physical structure, not the chemical reactions, not the synapses firing, not memory's, but more intangible than that, the energy of thoughts, not just memory. Memory is diluted with time, and dilutes with more time. I is timeless, it is instantaneous energy, a biological force of some kind, with its own rules of conduct, rules of being. Being a biological force, and with god defined as the sum of all forces, it is a bit of god. Energy is force acting over time.

Just as the body has it's rules, the consciousness underlies language, it is awareness, but not a physical thing, but sit on top the physical cell structure. Is this the intent of the buddhist concept of no-self, the non-existence of self, that there is no physical self, just a concept, a soul, an energy, a no-self? It does what it does. Acceptance is required. Just as the body obeys a unknown set of rules for us to discover, the self does the same.

Be well, breath, smile, and enjoy what life offers. Daoish.