what young dogs think - they're old so it doesn't matter

Sitting in the Creperie Restaurant last night (17Mar11) I couldn't help over hearing the table next to me. The volume and the proximity made it hard to concentrate. 

"They're old anyway, so it doesn't matter. They can go and do whatever, go anywhere." 

The young man was talking very enthusiastically to a young Vietnamese lady

It reminded me of myself in my younger days. 

I thought that older people would have less fears because after all they're older, there is MUCH less to lose, isn't there ? 

I mean, why worry, they're going to die soon anyway, so they can really cut lose and enjoy life, can't they ? 

They would not be so scared of life like me. Not so overly cautious would they ? 

I really did think something like that once, in my (more) naive youth. 

How wrong can you be ? 

Ha ha ha.... 

Would be nice. If only. 

I remember reading in the New Scientist (?  or somewhere like that) that bees and ants send the older bees out further from the hive, on the more dangerous missions, because they were more expendable. They had less working life to contribute to the hive. (Well ok, this is what the scientists THINK the bees are doing, I've not asked the bees). 

Now that I'm over 50 (what ME, over 50 ? I thought getting older only happens to others. Never to ME!) 

Let's try again: NOW THAT I"M OVER 50! 

I see that the opposite is true. As we get older we get more cautious, more afraid. 

Less adventurous, less passionate. 

There are exceptions. 

NB: I even saved that web-page about older bees going on the riskier missions on my hard drive, but can't find it now.... anyone has a copy ? 
FOUND IT: its not bees, its ants: http://www.critterzone.com/magazineresource/ants-communication-organization-behavior.htm
Let me quote a small bit from it:

In many ant species, younger workers spend their time at the center of the nest where it's safest, tending to the queen and eggs. As the ants age, they take up tasks further out. The oldest ants carry out the most dangerous work, foraging for food outside the nest where they are more likely to meet their doom. However, it has been determined that in many ants, the correlation between age and task is not so strong, where the division of labor is quite flexible. Age may influence what a worker does, but they may revert to old tasks if needed. Therefore, age isn't the organizing principle in division of labor for many species.

I wouldn't be surprised if something like that applies to bees  too.

Humans do something like that too. In an emergency it is 'women and children first' at least that is what the movies tell us when a ship goes down. I like think it would really happen like that. I like to think I would follow that rule if it ever came to it.

Why are you so afraid to trust in what you hope is true?

2001 Laos

 Why are you so afraid to trust in what you hope is true?

"Because," you say, "my heart was broken once by disappointment when I trusted." 

No, your heart was broken by the impossible demands of fear that placed the nature of your fulfillment inside the narrow, painful confines of its own capability of understanding. 

Faith is not a fool's paradise. It is the soul's singular gift and purpose.

from: - Emmanuel. 

how people control other people -

A follow on thought on the writings of a previous blog here   xylantheum.blogspot.com/2010/02/nameless-fear-boogey-man-is-alive-and.html

People control other people by  somehow getting that nameless horror, that nameless fear attached to their authority. 

They are in effect saying: "disobey me and .........{ nameless horror of fear here }    .... will happen to you. 

It is in effect a variation of the "do as I tell you or the boogey man will get you", which is has been used on many children by their parents. 

Of course as adults, we dress it up a bit more, but in the end all power and force boils down to: "Do this or else.... " The "or else ...." part is more frightening and powerful if it is NOT explained in great detail, if it can latch into that nameless fear cloud (as per previous blog)

From the outside all that one sees is one human being, yielding power over another. The controlling human may be tiny and small and physically no match for the one being controlled. But they have the authority. 

Taking one extreme viewpoint: This kind of control violates the being of the people is controls, it is a force approach.

An authority that controls others through fear like this, has special powers over its subjects.  What they tend to forget is that this kind of control breeds hatred and revolt and rebellion. 

This approach also has  a fatal weakness ( :-) )... can you guess what it is ? 

Answer: The fatal weakness is this: once a person works out how this control through fear works, they see that the control is INSIDE them, and they can remove that control from within themselves and be free of it !

Example: for years I felt fearful and guilty  about a certain issue. Religious authorities had their control claws into me well and truly. 

Then eventually I tossed out that fear. I saw it for what it was: a paper tiger. 

"Ah master, would you say that this is the reason such things are allowed to exist ?"

"What things do you mean Grasshopper ?" 

"Control through fear"

"I don't know why things are allowed to exist or not. But I do see that there is a lesson in this for us."

"You mean the lesson of recognizing how we are being controlled through fear ?" 

"Yes, exactly, it is a realization and consciousness change that releases you from that control through fear. And that to me seems like something that life would want us to learn."

 -------- off cuts and other stuff below ----------

As a small kid, I was totally afraid of my parents. 

Parents were all powerful. 

I suspect that some of that fear lodged as part of the nameless cloud of fear discussed in blog xylantheum.blogspot.com/2010/02/nameless-fear-boogey-man-is-alive-and.html

fear brings about what it fears (fear is a powerful manifestation force)

"why do you want to stop trying ?"
"oh, because it might not work."
"so you want to stop because it might not work. So you decide to stop for sure because it MIGHT not work ?"
"uhmm...yea, I guess so."
"Do you see what you are doing ? You are stopping for SURE, because there is chance it MIGHT not work. Why not take the chance ? "

"Hm.... ..................."
"it sounds like you prefer the certainty of nothing, over the chance of SOMETHING."
"hm....."

FEEEEAR The great liar......

"This is just preventative, to take care of you, so nothing worse happens to you."


 

"I'm doing this to prevent further and more serious problems."

This is how thoughts go round in my mind.

It only slowly came to me, the voice that said those things was really the voice of fear.

Sure, there is reasonable commonsense taking care of things, locking the front door, keeping your money safely out of sight, taking care crossing the road.

But there comes a point, and only I know when the point comes when it gets ridiculous.... that point is hard to spot, because there are no signs, there are not major fault lines to tell me I've crossed that point.

The thing that does tell me though is my body, the mental climate within myself. If it gets obsessive about an issue, or if the feeling is simply 'bad' then chances are I've let my mind run away with fear. Fear of the 'what if this..... or that ..... happens ?'

What if she leaves me... ?

"What if he does this........ or that .........?"

"What if my health .... ?"

etc....

etc...

etc...

This is a  very neat trick that fear does to the mind.
Fear gets me running around, thinking I'm doing something useful to prevent bad stuff happening.
It makes me think I'm fully taking care of myself, that this is a positive thing.
Yet the real trick is: fear is a great liar, its a distractor.
The real damage is done now. Right now. This INSTANT, in the NOW.

There is only one thing I've been told to do about it: 

Awareness.

Not to change it, just to be aware, not dislike or fight it, just to be aware. That awareness will change it by itself.

Fight it - and I get what ?  A war inside. An argument: "oh but I'm just making sure, that this or that bad thing won't happen to me... come on that's reasonable, EVERYONE is doing it!"

Awareness.


What is the climate inside ? right NOW ? 

Sounds very Buddhist doesn't it ?

I'll let you know how I go ....

 

 30Jul09 Thursday Melbourne:
Just found another liar...that works similarly to how fear works...
It is called: pressure and hurry....
Pressure and hurry promise the payoff, the peace and quiet in the future...hurry NOW so you get the PEACE you long for LATER... yea.. right... i'll take the peace NOW thanks....

You human beings tend to be hurried and pressured and thereby deny yourself the exquisite pleasure of savouring your lives.
In this way, a great amount of joy
and sweetness goes unnoticed.
If life is lived with care and attention
it will give you the sustenance
and richness you long for.
Allow yourselves to renew your committment
to your lives and to yourselves
many times a day