Nice read, great blog Travis. I felt like I had moments of purposeful ignorance, especially very recent to me and reading this really hit me in my mind to think and open my eyes. Sorry to hear about your story but also thanks.

5/5

koreasilver

9109 Posts

July 06 2010 05:40 GMT

#105

On July 06 2010 14:14 travis wrote:

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by seeing that you are not actually a mind nor a body but rather a basis for consciousness, and it's through the consciousness(which you are not) that one is tricked into believing that they are a mind, body, or both.

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The body is just a material thing, the ego is a result of consciousness. The body can exist without ego and act naturally. The awareness can exist in the present moment and experience what is happening while the body acts naturally.

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But you assume the body is part of you. I am saying you are not the body.

The mind is excruciatingly affected by the body and the opposite is also true. The very idea of this sort of Cartesian dualism is rather flawed. The mind is not separate from the body. The mind and body are one and the same. The self is all these parts as one and whole. The being is the culmination of all these. To deny that any part of your self is not your actual self is an active self-denial. To separate the mind and body also. Your consciousness does not transcend your physical being into some metaphysical plane. Your consciousness is because you exist. Your consciousness will always be coloured by what you have sensed throughout your life. To say that the consciousness transcends the body and mind is to say that primordial essence of being is characterless and that what happens in one's existence is nonconsequential to it; it neither affects or is affected - this is devoid of meaning and is an escape from the woes of existence. It is a weak affirmation as you are denying your own existence and the existence that you exist upon with no courage to actually face the absurdities of life. You cannot fight, so you surrender.

I do realize that we will never cease to argue as long as I believe that existence precedes essence and you believe the opposite.

Rekrul

Korea (South)17174 Posts

July 06 2010 07:43 GMT

#106

denial is coming to class and seeing a substitute teacher

great feeling, get to fuck around. but learn nothin

kodancer

United States89 Posts

July 06 2010 08:13 GMT

#107

So, you're not a vegetarian?

Anyway I think it's a stretch to call your mom purposely ignorant in that situation. More like distorted feelings of empathy toward animals to the point where it's not purposeful anymore. This conditional effect on her probably didn't lead her to realize that a mouse is even an animal; she only seemed to care about what's on the surface: the mouse being a rodent, it is filthy, dirties houses, and so on. On the other hand, the bird is peaceful, beautiful, etc. The effect of a pitying sound of a beautiful bird might receive more sympathy on the surface than the same pitying sound of a rodent.

QuanticHawk

United States32097 Posts

July 06 2010 14:36 GMT

#108

On July 06 2010 11:23 travis wrote:

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I had no intentions of allowing the cat to toy with it. I'd rather allow it to die in peace. I would only kill the animal myself if I knew it's suffering was to be extreme and prolonged. It isn't really my place to decide whether or not an animal's life is still worth living.

Well if the thing's been attacked by your cat, it's pretty much as good as dead?? I regularly half to kill things that have been maimed beyond recovery by my dog. It sucks. He actually got a baby bird midair as it hopped out of its nest on the Fourth.

Last year was fun. He more or less killed a huge ass muskrat and left it for dead next to my pool. When I tried to kill it, it thrashed into my pool and it looked like jaws ughhhhh

koreasilver

9109 Posts

July 06 2010 14:41 GMT

#109

BlasiuS

United States2405 Posts

July 06 2010 15:05 GMT

#110

On July 06 2010 10:21 travis wrote:
I inform her "you know, the mice suffer just like this bird does, and she kills dozens of mice for every bird".

My mom says "yes, it's just the shrieking that bothers me".

I say "well, it's natural for an animal that is in stress to display it. I am sure the mice display it as well."

She says "yes, but I don't have to hear it. I am sorry that you don't feel sad about it."

Even though I don't know you at all, I detect a tone of sterilized formality and unfeeling matter-of-factness from you in this conversation. Unless of course you said what you wrote in a very empathetic way; but when I read that I picture Spock logically explaining to your mother the intricacies of animal stress display lol.

Your mom probably picked up on that as well, which is why she thinks you don't feel sad for the bird. That, and you didn't overtly freak out about it like she did.

GarlandGreen

9 Posts

July 06 2010 15:23 GMT

#111

Interesting question Travis, I hope you still read the replies.

I must say, I don't agree with lot's of things that's been said here, but I love to see other people's view on these things.
Now to the topic:
You can say your mom was purposefully ignorant in this situation, however, I actually completely agree with her reaction. I believe what you mean by saying she's purposefully ignorant is that she willingly puts away the suffering of all the mice your cat cathes to the back of her mind and don't really care about them. This is a very typical thing to do. In fact, we all do it. And if we didn't, we all would go around feeling sorry for the poor children in third world countries constantly.

This is a mechanism of the human psyche. We have the ability to repress empathy for stuff that's not staring us in the face. Or you can say, we have the ability to feel empathy for stuff that IS staring us in the face, that ability diminishes the more distant it becomes.

I have alot on the heart on this subject, like evolutionary relevance, my own views on animal suffering etc etc, but this post is getting lengthy enough as it is. Maybe I'll make my own blogpost someday. Or you could just PM me for an in-depth discussion.

michiko

United States75 Posts

July 06 2010 15:50 GMT

#112

I think this blog, goes hand-in-hand with the (still haven't read, but I got an idea) "We Work Too Much" blog.

In my opinion, this and the sentiment of "We Work Too Much", while (imo) true, point to a potential issue with our generation (Generation Y).

One of the reasons why your parents fret about these thing (again with the IMO) is because they have not taken the deeper understanding and acceptance of life that you have.

This is because as we grow older, we tend to not over analysis things as often as when we are young. Cause that's A-Number1 here, you're way over-analyzing the situation. But that's okay! I do that too.

But we do it, because we have wayyyy too much 'free' time to be cognitive to these things.

Your mother is too busy/emotional to rationalize the deeper understanding of the predator/prey, nature, of the situation.

Your father is really the 'winnar' in this game. He either has dealt with the situation before and knows the best outcome, or is at least somewhat recognizing the trivial situation and gets pissed when his attempt to trivialize it are thwarted by you being correct about the cat's return and your mom freaking out again.

Heh, even now I am over analyzing the situation! Another key aspect of such bears its light; who is really correct here? Are you sure that your bias and definition are correct? What makes them so?

IMO: No use in fretting about it further, move on and know that the only thing you can pull from this is:

PEOPLE WON'T CHANGE - Nothing you can do will change the outlook, mentalities or thought abstractions of your parents or surroundings.

Great blog btw 5/5

Randomaccount#77123

United States5003 Posts

September 04 2010 20:53 GMT

#113

--- Nuked ---

PanN

United States2828 Posts

September 04 2010 21:40 GMT

#114

I don't know if anyone said this but I call "purposeful ignorance" stupidity. Good blog