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Two Steps Forward and One Step Back
Two Steps Forward and One Step Back
By
Cognitive Dissonance
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Sometimes the greatest learning we can ever achieve comes from the process involved rather than the conclusions drawn. In fact I am surprised how often I actually disagree with the ‘answer’ provided by someone else, but still have learned so much from the thought process and logic path presented either by the author or utilized by myself. Even when I find no value in the presentation or the conclusion, there are times when I still find it very useful seeing in stark relief wrongheaded thinking being rationalized and presented as right. Sometimes the best lessons are learned from really screwing things up or from witnessing someone else doing it wrong right in front of our eyes.
Remaining in my comfort zone may be exactly where I wish to be but not where I need to be, a lesson I still relearn to this day. When in a reflective mood or just daydreaming about nothing in particular, it becomes clearer to me that my biggest steps forward have almost always been a function of psychological and emotional pain rather than pleasure. This isn’t to say there are no lessons to be learned while enjoying the pleasures of body and mind. But the significant leaps forward come not from individual baby steps of cognitive growth, but from giant leaps of intuitive puzzle solving involving complex and at times incoherent concepts, as well as disparate information interlinking………once I manage to overcome my own Cognitive Dissonance.
This is most evident to me when examining an article or analysis of an extremely controversial subject which has been polarized to such a degree that nearly everyone reading it, myself included, has not only already established a strong opinion (aka belief) about it, but the opinion is tightly intertwined with so many other opinions that to challenge one means we must challenge them all. Certainly this is a tall order by any standard of measure.
Many articles or other media which on the surface may appear to be tragically wrong, skillfully presented disinformation or just plain silly, can instead be seen as either an opportunity to learn a great deal about ourselves in order to continue our personal growth or (for many) the opportunity to reject everything we are reading, seeing or hearing because we are disturbed by some or all of its parts. I call this the David Icke effect since many who first begin to read or listen to Icke find themselves vigorously nodding their heads in agreement right up to the point the reptiles are rolled out, then everything previously affirmed as correct in the mind of the ‘consumer’ is violently vomited up and discarded regardless of its merit or validity.
Just because I may not like the subject or conclusion doesn’t mean I can’t gain from the information or analysis. There is nothing that declares I must believe in part, or in whole, what I am reading, seeing or hearing, other than my desperate need to do so in order to hold together my at times shaky connection to the consensus reality. Those who are thoroughly convinced they are righteously correct have little need to question themselves and even less desire to do so. Ignorance is bliss, and for many quite empowering.
However, if I am sincere in my desire to continue my personal growth as part of the continuing awakening process I must seriously consider everything, especially those subjects that emotionally or intellectually trigger me the most. If I quickly stop reading, become angry or disturbed, rush to the comment section to leave a disparaging remark or display any other emotional reaction out of the ordinary, this is clearly a loud alarm bell going off that identifies to nearly everyone else except me that my Cognitive Dissonance is screaming at me.
Where we are often tripped up, where our ego and sense of ‘self’ intrude to soothe the mind and quell any emotional outburst, is the blurring of the line between new ‘information’ that is not threatening and that which is. For example I have recently been conducting deep research into photovoltaic (solar panel) systems as well as emergency deep well pumps. While the information might be connected to something potentially disturbing, such as a long term power outage that renders my well useless and my family without water, the actual subject matter is nonthreatening and even quite interesting.
In order to self affirm I confidently remind myself that new information is not a bad thing and in fact quite desirable. I exercise my prodigious intellect as I research alternative energy systems and submersible pumps, and while doing so might even consider myself somewhat superior to others who are not taking similar steps to ensure their survivability should disaster in any form strike close to home. Clearly my ability to cope with potentially bad news is remarkable.
This comforting self deceit works in several ways to reinforce my belief that I am right and everyone else is wrong. Since I create my own reality I know with absolute certainty there is no mind control or manipulation here because my reality is based solely upon unemotional analysis of just-the-facts Jack. So naturally I would get royally pissed off when some clown starts spouting off about stuff he knows nothing about.
Sadly the denial is both extremely subtle and glaringly obvious to everyone else but me. In particular, when the subject material is firmly entangled within my worldview it is not the new learning that is so difficult, but rather letting go of the old learning which has been thoroughly incorporated into my faith and belief system that is the problem. Since any one piece of ‘knowledge’, something we often call ‘facts’ in order to repel all challenges to our ‘self’, is deeply intertwined with every other piece, any examination of one requires a fresh assessment of them all. The easier softer way forward is often rationalization or outright rejection of the deviant thinking.
To give something great weight or consideration does not mean it must be believed. The crisis arrives when we find the new information is threatening the old information, a condition that might not exist when reading about solar panels but might exist when reading about the petrodollar and our coddling of the despotic Arab oil states who we proclaim are the bastion of forward thinking and civility.
We do ourselves a terrible disservice if we do not keep this in mind whenever we are introduced to a different point of view or conclusion. The last thing we should do to ourselves is reject (nearly) everything because we don’t like something. In reality, when we do this we are activating an already implanted mind control meme, the ultimate goal of which is to keep us narrowly confined within mind and body and most certainly devoid of pertinent new information or a different point of view.
The key to breaking from this self imposed mind control is to admit we are human and therefore quite fallible and not always right, something we are taught from grade school we must always be. Plus we must fully accept that much of what we know as ‘fact’ or ‘opinion’ is often carefully disguised cultural or political conditioning and/or little more than blind faith and belief. While deeply immersed in our righteous indignation over whatever it is that has emotionally or intellectually triggered us, the absolutely last thing any of us wishes to experience is knowing deep down in our hearts we are wrong, itself a deeply implanted mind meme designed to keep us deaf, dumb and blind.
Personal growth and spiritual development is all about taking two steps forward and on occasion a needed step or two back. The devil is not in the details, but in our ever present ego and the denial it inflames within our ‘self’. If there is one thing I always try to remember it is the following. I am not my ego and my ego is most certainly not me. That voice, that narrator we hear in our head is not us, but most often our ego. Once we recognize this universal truth we can begin to take a few extra steps forward before the inevitable step back. Progress, not perfection is the order of the day!
12-06-2014
Cognitive Dissonance
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Best article I've read this year, sir!
A Whiter Shade of Pale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkiggbPb5CY
two steps forward ....
Laurie Anderson - Walking & Falling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02BIaMBfUc8
.
one step back.
Guns and Butter
"The Cancer Causing Bioweapon and Plot to Kill JFK" with Judyth Vary Baker
Contact Bonnie Faulkner: faulkner@gunsandbutter.org
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/109079
if ignorance is bliss, that implies that bliss
is some sort of ground state of being. i'll buy
that and live with it everyday, but, that is just
a part of it.
.
speaking of showers, there is the hydrologic cycle,
powered by sunlight, drawing water vapor up where it
circulates around and then condenses and showers down.
some refer to the convection as a "pump".
i wonder if this natural mechanism could be created
in a well of some 200 foot depth in a least costly
manner; the water vapors then condensed and collected
in a surface tank.
.
a very interesting endeavor, to use sunlight to extract
liquidity from the dark inner-under regions, the stuff that
inspires the poets, etc ....it is about the heart,
isn't it?
.
similarly, but more immediate, there is this.
How to build a Sweatlodge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CfyNFG1lMs
.
alternate music .....
Thelonious Monk quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v74rRYBbSJc&feature=youtu.be
.
here some links for the seriously bored, curious,
rebellious and furious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Hugh_Fudenberg
.
http://drmhaatma.com/fluvaccine_bmjarticle.pdf
.
http://www.wellnessresources.com/health/articles/are_vaccinations_causin...
.
i have a friend who once told me he designed,
in his mind, a water extraction device that
would condense water out of the air in any environment.
simply a glass tube with a dark core to heat/boil the
water vapor and then cool-condense-collect it.
he said he entered the idea in some competition
but that was the end of the story so i can't
tell anymore.
Cog, I think you and I came from similar backgrounds and learning experience, I dont think and write
as complex as you but I think I am learning the same things they way you did.
Nothing is what it seems everything is opposites.
Somehow when I was a young boy a few things triggered the bullshit radar, most importantly was the
womans lib tv mind control destory 6 female lives in my family, two of my sisters are functioning but they
also are effected by the occult satanism that permeated their family members.
Another was the cover up of JFK, how did a boy of 4, see through that tv cover up. I guess some are
born with intelligence, I call it god. And then that leads me to shock and fear, primortal fear, that all these
zombies milling about me are, godless.
And then into the corporate jobs, it was slavery, I had to overcome it by breaking out through acheivement,
that was alot of pain, physical pain too.
Once I realized this part and that part of the dialectic was manufactured lies, the epiphany occurs that it is all
lies, all of it. Want to feel hopeless and alone, try coming to the conclusion that all the slaves milliing about
exist in fiction, almost the same as godless. I think some of them are real smart however, some of them just
say, I walk with Jesus and just ignore all the insanity. This is quite a leap, they have to go through life by rote,
doing the daily work while disbelieving the legitimacy of institutions and social structures around them, that is faith.
They are smart ones, and you know the reason they succeed or at least get along, grace. I never quite knew the meaning
of that word until I knew Jesus.
For a long time I had to suspend beliefs and observe reality and learn. This is what brought me full circle to Jesus.
My early primortal response was to perceive dangers coming and formulate abatement strategies, sort of like financial trend trading,
and that goes back to earliest learning that everything in the environment from womans lib satanists to a tv coverup
of JFK, everything is occult, everything is death, everyting is primortal danger. I was more like that first
antelope that hears the appoarching predator vibrating though the ground. And that comes from terror radar.
But there is even a better way, grace. If the pain and learnings is what got me this far to come to Jesus, that is my life
as it had to be.
John Prine : Jesus The Missing Years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9BRia7J9P4
.
Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris-"A Song for You" from "GP"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDwkk-rKhAo
.
Oh, my land is like a wild goose
Wanders all around everywhere
Trembles and it shakes till every tree is loose
It rolls the meadows and it rolls the nails
So take me down to your dance floor
I won't mind the people when they stare
Paint a different color on your front door
And tomorrow we will still be there
.
Jesus built a ship to sing his song to
It sails the rivers and it sails the tide
Some of my friends don't know who they belong to
Some can't get a single thing to work inside
.
So take me down to your dance floor
And I won't mind the people when they stare
Paint a different color on your front door
And tomorrow we will still be there
.
I loved you every day and now I'm leaving
And I can see the sorrow in your eyes
I hope you know a lot more than you're believing
Just so the sun don't hurt you when you cry
.
Oh, take me down to your dance floor
I won't mind the people when they stare
Paint a different color on your front door
And tomorrow we may still be there
And tomorrow we may still be there
Agree. At the heart of critical thinking is one's ability to genuinely consider the counter-argument without the fear of becoming a believer in it.
It is almost as if we fear we will be consumed by the counter argument if we were to consider it. I have felt this fear before and I understand the genisis of it, at least in my case. When all I know or knew was what I was taught or conditioned to know, nothing I knew was organic. Nothing was 'me' and everything that I thought was 'me' was external and not my own.
When I began to decouple knowledge or 'knowing' from information and belief I began to understand where my fear of being consumed was coming from. Still working that issue on a daily basis, but much progress is being made.
Oh and my recommendation for further reading on the overall subject/science of what we know of the mind is
A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind:What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell...
by Robert Burton M.D.
psssst: as of this friday gone, theres only 20 tonnes of elligible gold left in Comex
720 000 oz - thats all we have to take delivery of, and the beast is dead. pass it on.
http://srsroccoreport.com/
Cog,
Your first paragraph reminded me of one of my 'best' learning experiences.
Years ago I was the medical part of a conservator depostion of a little old demented lady who had some money but no family to help her.
The 'state' requested the deposition, the little old lady had a local lawyer (of some national refute but in the twilight of her career) representing her.
I (the lady's local family doc) got to go first: gave my account of her slide into early dementia and that she needed assistance, very few questions from the lawyer a 'thank you' and please sit down.
The state representative (a business like appearing mid aged women) was called up next and started to present the states' case to become conservator of person and finance, WOW! The asshole ripping the lawyer gave her for the shoddy job she and the state did in presenting thier case to have this little old lady conserved was uncomfortable for everyone in the room. However within that asshole ripping was a lesson in 'argument preparation/presentation" that is probably a required part of law school curriculum. I got the schooling without the ripping that day.
Well the lady was not conserved that day the judge dismissed it, when I was called 2 weeks later by the local rescue squad because the little old lady was again acting 'funny' I said well call the lawyer or take the lady to the hospital, she went to the hospital willingly lived the end of her days in assisted living.
Years later one morning at our local little diner the lawyer was there, I thought I should go up to her and thank her for the education I received from her earlier. Introduced myself to her, cited the case and my take of the experience, thanked her for so clearly stating her objections and how I was educated by it and found it valuable. She looked up from eating her toast muttered a brief something of ? acknowledgement then went back to eating her toast; I was dismissed! Turns out the dismissal was probably her not remembering enough of the past experience to comment further, she herself had begun the slide.
Thank you for the story.
Which is worse, knowing you are losing your cognitive ability, or later, having lost it and not knowing it? My elderly mom is showing signs of severe memory issues, but is still very much together in cognitive function until she is very sick or under great stress.
She is aware of the decline and takes it in stride. The good thing about it, she says, is that because she can't remember if she saw a movie or not, and even if she did she can't remember, the entire world's library of movies has just been refreshed for her.
Lemonade if ever I tasted it.
tell her to eat lots of turmeric.
it halts and sometimes can even reverse dementia and altzheimers. india has very low rates as a result.
I've used the two step forward one step back phrase before as well. In this age of information overload when conveying convoluted information sometimes less is more. :)
The key points I take away from your treatise is two-fold, one on a practical level, the other on a cognitive one. First, no matter how smart I 'think' I am, without applying it to something necessary and tangible like water extraction or power production, I'm a dumb-ass. Second, and this I already knew but you nailed it, the narrator in my head is only my ego, and my ego is not myself. A tenet that would help many people manage their beliefs when in contradiction with their cognition better.
Short, sweet and to the point. Thank you.
Two-step much Christiana?
Postcard from Peru to ice flow-ers
iiSD.CA
"and I'm gonna chew Christiana Figueres a new asshole if she passes by for what she said the other day about CMP 11 while I'm stuck outside France waiting LULZ. "
"Emergency"
CMP 10 LULZ but this Guy really armchairs, dresses to kill, speaks volumes.
rush!
In defense of Icke, just because small minds cant contemplate conceptually, doesnt make him wrong.
I think reptiles is not a literal reference, we dont know anything about origins of dna, sounds alot like liberals,
judging what they know nothing of and can never understand anyway. Before I ever heard of icke I formulated a hypothesis that
they were some non human dna involved in these satanists, they are not and can not be human. Reptiles refers to the
base cortex of the brain stem, the base biological function exists there, with no soul, reptile brains.
He could or should have used another label, something for small minds, or maybe he just expecting a certain low level intellect
to get anything and that case the label doesnt matter.
And yet, if the universe is 13.5 billion years old and our star is only 4 billion years old, then I can imagine critters from stars billions of years older than ours having the technology to travel very fast, and with cloaking, and with lots of other neat scientific tricks. So, I can believe Earth COULD be a sort of slave planet. And the critters wouldn't necessarily be reptiles. I bet there are lots of lifeforms on other planets we can't even imagine. Or the critters might be machines. Anyway, I don't expect to ever find out, but it's fun to imagine both possibilities, that is, the literal (with actual reptilians) possibility and the metaphorical (with the "reptile" parts of our own brains) possibility.
THE DATA OVERWHELMED THE HUMAN CONTRIVANCE YEARS AGO.
These crimes have moved well beyond being "opaque and elusive." At a certain level a threat to human existence itself has seemingly appeared. And we are to do nothing but die?
Can't speak to the rest of the world but Americans will continue to arm themselves here. Why else would the police tell them too?
I am nothing, I am infinitely fallible, and I know nothing other than what I observe in this state.
the capstone to that is to love all UNCONDITIONALLY.
I find trying to actually live that philosophy both easy and difficult depending upon the situation. In social interactions others tolerate my thinking more easily. In business it is mostly rejected.
Nothing wrong with integrating new information when you already know who you are. The problem I find with most people is their are either completely ignorant of who they are (lost ball in high weeds) or they are so absolutely certain about things that they can't integrate ANYTHING from the outside world that doesn't reinforce that (rigid mental state).
Both extremes don't react well to legitimately new inputs. Those who know who they are (by either proper nurturing/upbringing, or my personal path- by getting your teeth kicks in a few times until you understand what's really important) can process information in proper context without the potential for seriously "unproductive" behavior.
It's why I think "big" changes in understanding can only happen safely for most people in generational waves. Children take what they're taught by the previous generation (setting their core understanding) and then integrate the changes they see in the world around them into that teaching (a healthy pace of change in understanding). But make the changes too big, too fast and you get a break-down in society, usually ending in a lot of violence.
Problems I see today are from changes that are happening much faster than a generational pace (technological obsolecence of many things, for instance) and from people who INTENTIONALLY try to ram radical societal shifts down people's throats, KNOWING that it will cause the chaos in which they seek their own opportunity.
“But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this world-wide neighborhood into a world – wide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools.We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Nice quote. What do you believe is the direction we should take to bridge the difference between the progress rates of science and morality. Wouldn't one need to address the glaring problem that the direction science advances is towards what will be profitable. Look at our universities and think tanks for instance. What gets funded? Lines of research or thought that will benefit mankind or what will pay a return on investment? Take UC Davis for example. Monsanto gives a lot of cash to this institute. What bandwagon is UC Davis riding? The Ag Dept is beholden to GMOs. Monsanto has developed terminator seeds- meaning their are no viable seeds produced for next year's crop. How is that advantageous for humanity. Take the robotics program of any university. How can creating robots be adantageous for anything other than trying to trip long ago placed land mines. Look at the rampant unemployment for our youth and yet science is helping put them out of jobs. I am not against science or technology but until we find alternative sources of funding we will have scientific minds working on methods of destroying mankind. Most of the tech we see today that has made our life supposedly easier originated from military applications. Check out "The Paradox of Our Age" or "The Paradox of Our Time"- the gist is we have more conveniences, yet less time- more medicine, yet less wellnes- more weapons, yet less peace.
I don't think the current trajectory of science is serving us. Is it really progress or profit? Why don't we concentrate on what we have forgotten. Do your children know how to grow food? Can they identify birds and plants? Why is being connected to the earth any less sophisticated or important than creating gadgets?
This is in response to my comment.
"I am not against science or technology but until we find alternative sources of funding we will have scientific minds working on methods of destroying mankind."
OK- that was hyperbole. I didn't mean intentionally destroying mankind- scientists need to put food on the table too and in the case of GMOs its all wrapped up as its going to increase yields and decrease chemical use- both promises by the way not fufilled. I also probably should have tempered destroying mankind to enslaving mankind. Although once robots advance to the point of self aware- which is closer than you think- maybe destroy is not too strong.
Anyhow I also understand gadget makers create jobs- even though Apple suppliers have to put suicide nets around the factories.
Morality is not keeping pace with science maybe because we find this current life so unsatisfying. Our bodies were meant to move more, interact more, our minds to love more, fear less. Who knows where we are headed and what we will face. The key thing is to find someone to face the future with that is a good fit. Someone who understands you, appreciates you, and is willing to share their lives with you. Co-habitating in a dead end relationship just because you made a mistake is going to kill you (ok this last part is for me.)
"....and from people who INTENTIONALLY try to ram radical societal shifts
down people's throats, KNOWING that it will cause the chaos in which
they seek their own opportunity."
Never let a crisis got to waste, especially one you engineered yourself.
I stepped back from naming names in my post (I do plenty of that on here already), but yeah, he's one example.
your take on better well water through technology only supports something i have come to believe. the socalled geniuses and inventors are really nothing special at all. most of their genius is built on information and processes refined throught a long slow process or development, brought about through hard work and generally low tech applications until some base element is made available which someone uses in a way in which it was never intended. as mcluhan says, there is no modern science without photography, you split the atom? how do you know? what is a photograph, well it started with a man in a dark room seeing the image outside coming through a pinhole, or aperture in the wall, projected on the other side (upside down of course) from there they found chemicals to capture the image. it was a long slow process from there to the atom bomb.so you see its really ordinary people doing ordinary things and improving their methods which makes socalled hitechnology solutions. and once you have fissionable material, well even a monkey can make it go bang
I believe that everybody is smart, but in different ways, and that everybody has a unique genius. I think someone said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
This article doesn't pass the turing test. Only a computer could write so many words about so little substance.
just wait tell Mrs COG upgrades CD to 4 cores !!! Holy shit, LOOK OUT !!!!
Never gonna happen. Mrs. Cog HATES upgrades. Hates them with a passion. I have to trick her into leaving the house for the afternoon or sneak back to my desk at 3 in the morning just so I can run some Windows security updates and bring the antivirus up to date. And don't get me started on updating iTunes.
Oh My Gog!
This old fart is still running Windows 95 on a 486DX2 with 1 MB RAM and a 60 MB hard drive. Worse, my floppy drive has seen better days and is plum worn out. :-)
I really hope you're joking about your computer <roll eyes>
You can get a fantastic 5 year old Dell laptop, performing on par with upper middle/low top range current laptops, on ebay for only $250...
I work in IT and am using exactly one like that as a personal laptop for my daily work. (Ping me if I should point you to one)
Agreed. I'm pretty cheap, but good used computers are so inexpensive that I bought one (for $250) which I use solely for music. That keeps the hard drive on the other computer nice and empty, which makes the other computer faster to defragment, etc. But on the music computer, I use Windows Media instead of iTunes, because the computer itself has a Windows operating system, and because Windows Media has music-file options which allow bigger, and therefore better quality, music files.
I am joking about the 486DX2.
The implanted AI chip is my brain and on a daily basis I'm working on the upgrade. :-)
I spent 4 grand on a Micron 486 with a 540 mb scsi drive in 93. What a dumbass I was !!!
I still can't throw away some of the very expensive components I bought back when 1 MB of ram was well north of $200.
Thank God Mrs. Cog loves this old relic.
Sorry about that. Still fine tuning my AI chip.
Try back next week after Intel installs the latest generation.
Cog: Just because I may not like the subject or conclusion doesn’t mean I can’t gain from the information or analysis.
Yup. agree 100% Sometimes that switch can sting, 'specially with a thorn or two, but ya always learn a bit from it after licking the wounds.
I kinda like the Reptoid alien thing.
It would explain a lot about some people in general and WalMart people in particular.
It's like they haven't quite got the hang of living on an alien planet.
Check out the new PBS series "Your inner fish" Excellent 3 part series
http://www.pbs.org/your-inner-fish/home/
Cog, you continue to say things that I'm thinking but don't quite know how to articulate. I've been discussing issues with younger folks recently. They look at me like I'm out of touch with reality(they do it in a respectful way) and I feel like I'm in a parallel universe when I explain the reality behind what they see. It's helpful for me to have these conversations. Even when they don't understand, I am learning something from their argument/explanation.
Tell Mrs. Cog that watts, volts, amps was informative and hillarious. 1.21gigawatts. I love that scene.
Livin' the dream.
"Even when they don't understand, I am learning something from their argument/explanation."
In my opinion the only thing more valuable than seeing life (and the world) for what it truly is, rather than what we want it to be, is to see 'reality' through someone else's eyes and perspective. Empathy may in some respects be equally important to personal growth as love is.
In fact.......ultimately aren't they really the same thing?
"Tell Mrs. Cog that watts, volts, amps was informative and hillarious. 1.21gigawatts. I love that scene."
Regarding Mrs. Cogs amps volts article, I think I had as much fun editing it as she had in writing it. It was originally just slated for TwoIceFloes.com, but when I was finished editing it I was certain Zero Hedge would have some fun with it as well. It turned out to be a hit and we received some valuable info in the process.
You never know what life has in store for you unless you take off your socks and shoes and go for a stroll down some random path.
Hope all is well with you and Mrs. Stengel. We think about both of you all the time and worry just a little bit when ya'll go radio silent. :-)
Kind of puzzled here. If you're out in the boonies, you're going to need a gasoline powered emergency generator, so why not use that to draw well water into a day tank at surface level? You have to run your generator from time to time anyway to ensure it's working, so why not get some actual work out of it when you do that?
We have several generator backups. And having an aboveground water storage tank to be filled and re-filled during an emergency is the way to go. But that solution assumes the problem is temporary with a duration shorter than our, or the regions, supply of gas and propane. What if it is longer, much longer, for any number of reasons?
I guess you could use steam power if you have a good supply of wood..heh.
I should get over here more often, COG. Besides being an ex- airborne, ranger, infantry captain; I am presently a practicing Buddhist, (talk about cognitive dissonance!) and much of what you say relates pretty well. Been practicing a lot harder since my wife died in February, as I still believe we can figure out life and death and who we really are. But it is hard, there is pain, but somewhere, there may be understanding and truth.
The recently failed rescue in Yemen brought out the Cognitive Dissonance on ZH (and in me) really well. I guess it boils down to I love my country, and those guys trying to do the right thing, but really don't like my government any more at all.
Keep up thinking hard.
One of the most significant and consistent brain washing ideologies we are hit with, especially when we are very young, is the conflating of love for country with love for government. How well I remember this one.
"My country right or wrong."
My 'country' cannot be right or wrong in the same manner my the government can. Or from another point of view, just because my the government is 'wrong' doesn't mean my country is.
Agreed. At sports events in the USA, they sing "The Star Spangled Banner" instead of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is My Land, This Land Is Your Land".