JuliusFawcett wrote:The ten commandments
Thou shalt not kill
Liberty is a state of mind, a clean conscience is kept by being nice
Well, God Bless you then.
But you should be knocking on wood, shouldn't you?
You seem to be boasting that no matter how hard Life gets -- Poverty, Pain, Persecution, Abandonment, Disease -- that you will be able to shrug all of that off and still feel perfectly at Liberty.
Well, Liberty is a vague word. And especially here on this Site there is such a peculiar way that people define the words they use that one can hardly be sure what they mean. And Liberty is such a French Word. It’s taken on the meaning of having the Right to do whatever one wants, particularly in regards to livelihood and making money. But that seems kind of tawdry, doesn’t it. People usually use the word Freedom nowadays because it sounds less cheap and material. But, as I said, one can only wonder what you might mean by the word ‘liberty’. But it seems like some word indicating some strict and absolute principle for you.
And what you say does seem drastically fixed in Principles -- sort of Absolute Principles with no wiggle room at all.
and I wonder whether Anybody can live up to the Most Ideal Principles when Life comes at us with its Absolute Worse.
I hope you are never tested. I hope you can go on with your comfortable life without ever having to prove just exactly how much you really can tolerate.
and they are just Principles. Everyone has Principles. We all Know the difference between Right and Wrong, in the Western Cultural Sense anyway, as Right and Wrong varies between Cultures), but Knowing and Doing are different things entirely.
When put to the Test, many of us Do what we wouldn't want to Say.... you know, when Doing seems to be Necessary for Survival. We still Know the difference between Right and Wrong, but we compartmentalize off to the side, while we do what we feel we have to do. And sooner or later certain circumstances could push any of us to that point of ‘compartmentalizing’ our Principles to clear the way for some Saving Action. And I can't imagine that you are really all that different from everybody else. I am thinking back on everything you have posted and I am wondering, 'is there the mark here of somebody truly exceptional', and, no, I can't find anything that makes you significantly better than the rest of us. Of course, no insult intended, if you really did have your heart set on being better than all the rest of us. If such is the case, then rest satisfied that I myself simply don't have the superior standing necessary to even recognize a Truly Superior Being such as yourself… blah, blah, blah. You know, as they say in the "Happiness Training" Business... "whatever makes you happy".