I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

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Pattern-chaser
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Pattern-chaser wrote: April 14th, 2021, 11:50 am On the basis of your clarification, no I'm not grateful, I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed that I have so much more than my fair share of what the ecosystem can spare. And ashamed that this aspect of human behaviour - proudly-uncontrolled consumption - is leading us to extinction. And I'm frightened that we, knowing the danger of our present situation, are unable to rein in our rapacious appetites.
Scott wrote: April 14th, 2021, 3:54 pm I am sorry to learn you feel ashamed. If there is anything I can do to help you overcome, eliminate, or transcend those feelings of shame, please do let me know. [...] I do not in even in the slightest way think you deserve to feel shame or should feel shame. Likewise, I don't think there is anything you should have done that you didn't do; I don't think there is anything you should be doing right now that you aren't already doing right now; and I don't think there is anything you should do in the future that you will not do. Thus, in a completely non-mystical and purely logical way, I therefore believe that everything that is meant to be will be, and everything that already is was thus meant to be. There is no should or ought or other reason for deserved shame.

Shame has a place, and a value. I feel shame because there is reason to feel shame. The actions of humanity, as I described above, are shameful, IMO, and so I feel shame, personal, and on behalf of my species. I cannot find it in myself to be "grateful", as your topic describes. How can one be grateful that ones predecessors (and oneself) have made a good start on the utter destruction of a living and functioning ecosystem? Shame seems more appropriate, don't you think?
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Steve3007 »

It's interesting to note how the concept of shame has evolved over time. At one time, to call somebody "shameless" was to accuse them of lacking what was seen as a right and proper sense of how to behave fittingly.
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Nick_A »

P C

Shame has a place, and a value. I feel shame because there is reason to feel shame. The actions of humanity, as I described above, are shameful, IMO, and so I feel shame, personal, and on behalf of my species. I cannot find it in myself to be "grateful", as your topic describes. How can one be grateful that ones predecessors (and oneself) have made a good start on the utter destruction of a living and functioning ecosystem? Shame seems more appropriate, don't you think?

At the same time we can learn from shame. Jacob Needleman wrote in his book "The American Soul:"
Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is the lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas.

Throughout history ideas of a certain kind have been disseminated into the life of humanity in order to help human beings understand and feel the possibility of the deep inner change that would enable them to serve the purpose for which they were created, namely, to act in the world as conscious individual instruments of God, and the ultimate principle of reality and value. Ideas of this kind are formulated in order to have a specific range of action on the human psych: to touch the heart as well as the intellect; to shock us into questioning our present understanding; to point us to the greatness around us in nature and the universe, and the potential greatness slumbering within ourselves; to open our eyes to the real needs of our neighbor; to confront us with our own profound ignorance and our criminal fears and egoism; to show us that we are not here for ourselves alone, but as necessary particles of divine love.

These are the contours of the ancient wisdom, considered as ideas embodied in religious and philosophical doctrines, works of sacred art, literature and music and, in a very fundamental way, an indication of practical methods by which a man or woman can work, as is said, to become what he or she really is. Without feeling the full range of such ideas, or sensing even a modest, but pure, trace of them, we are bound to turn for meaning.
The great ideas which defined philosophy as the love of wisdom and the awareness of reality greater than our own has deteriorated into secularism and political justifications. The devolution into materialism is the normal lawful result. Nothing to be ashamed of. Since we are as we are, everything is as it is. The real question for a person who still possesses the love of wisdom is if they must meet the same fate of society in general. Has philosophy and the essence of religion died in them as well and what can be done to keep them alive.
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Steve3007 wrote: April 15th, 2021, 7:48 am It's interesting to note how the concept of shame has evolved over time. At one time, to call somebody "shameless" was to accuse them of lacking what was seen as a right and proper sense of how to behave fittingly.
For me, it is still that "one time". 🙂
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by PhiloSoul »

A little late joiner but just a pov...

If by Filthy Rich you mean lot of money then No. Most of such people do not even know what being grateful means.
But if Filthy Rich means Wealthy then Yes. Such people are bound to be grateful and show gratitude. Just because Wealthy ones have learnt from experiences, cultures, relationships and past.
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Scott wrote: April 14th, 2021, 3:54 pm I don't think there is anything you should have done that you didn't do; I don't think there is anything you should be doing right now that you aren't already doing right now; and I don't think there is anything you should do in the future that you will not do. Thus, in a completely non-mystical and purely logical way, I therefore believe that everything that is meant to be will be, and everything that already is was thus meant to be. There is no should or ought or other reason for deserved shame.
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 15th, 2021, 7:44 am Shame has a place, and a value. I feel shame because there is reason to feel shame. The actions of humanity, as I described above, are shameful, IMO, and so I feel shame, personal, and on behalf of my species. I cannot find it in myself to be "grateful", as your topic describes. How can one be grateful that ones predecessors (and oneself) have made a good start on the utter destruction of a living and functioning ecosystem? Shame seems more appropriate, don't you think?
No.

Assuming gratitude is a choice, I choose to be grateful.

Assuming love is a choice, I choose to be unconditionally loving.

Assuming forgiveness and non-resentment are each a choice, I choose to forgive unconditionally; and I choose to not engage in any resentment.

Insofar as it is a choice, I choose to unconditionally accept unchangable reality the way it is rather than resent unchangeable reality for being the way it is.

Shame may be a feeling like fear, hunger or pain, and in that way then shame would be generally uncontrollable and not a matter of choice. If so, then shamefulness would be to shame what scariness is to fear. In regard to such feelings, I generally watch unavoidable feelings like fear, hunger, anger, jealousy, or pain pass by like a rain storm, beautiful and interesting in its own way. Sometimes I even chase them, which is presumably why I have a motorcycle and a treadmill, to get my fear and pain fixes respectively, the scary thrills and the literal torture.

However, mostly, I can't choose the weather or the feelings. I just choose how I react to them (i.e. what I choose do while they happen to be occurring).

Steve3007 wrote: April 15th, 2021, 7:48 am It's interesting to note how the concept of shame has evolved over time. At one time, to call somebody "shameless" was to accuse them of lacking what was seen as a right and proper sense of how to behave fittingly.
Humans are silly indeed.

They used to burn people at the stake as witches too. :)

I've noticed humans are prone to superstitions, obsessive judgementalism, restlessness, and us-verus-them tribalism, among many other things.

While sitting in the backseat of a car, I was once arrested over an absurdly tiny amount of marijuana that ironically wasn't even mine (I'd already consumed my share), and if you can believe it the self-righteous men with guns who came after me, presumably thinking themselves the "good guys" whatever that means, did a lot more than merely wag their fingers at me and call me improper or try to verbally shame me. If shaming someone is the spiritual equivalent of violence, then they took it a few steps further than that. They didn't just figuratively attack my spirits is what I'm saying. Compared to many others, I got off easy in terms of my beloved shamelessness and the eager way in which I do allegedly improper things if not sometimes simply because they are allegedly improper, as if that could really mean anything. If a human points a shaming waging finger at you, just be glad it's not a gun in that silly human's hand.

Historically, some humans would hang other humans to death just because those humans had interracial sex. I guess to them it was seen as a shame to sleep with a human with mismatched skin tone.

Impropriety is one of humans' more laughably silly superstitions, in my opinion.
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

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I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Sy Borg »

So very, very, very grateful :)

So often people have to endure the unendurable. Loss of siblings and children. Loss of everything in fires, floods and scams. Loss of movement. And so on. For the most part, life is still pretty brutal. I like to think that it's a phase.
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Steve3007 »

Scott wrote:
Steve3007 wrote:It's interesting to note how the concept of shame has evolved over time. At one time, to call somebody "shameless" was to accuse them of lacking what was seen as a right and proper sense of how to behave fittingly.
Humans are silly indeed.

They used to burn people at the stake as witches too. :)
Yeah, but I think the general concept of shame isn't the universally really bad idea that burning witches at the stake was.
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Scott wrote: April 21st, 2021, 9:44 pm
Scott wrote: April 14th, 2021, 3:54 pm I don't think there is anything you should have done that you didn't do; I don't think there is anything you should be doing right now that you aren't already doing right now; and I don't think there is anything you should do in the future that you will not do. Thus, in a completely non-mystical and purely logical way, I therefore believe that everything that is meant to be will be, and everything that already is was thus meant to be. There is no should or ought or other reason for deserved shame.
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 15th, 2021, 7:44 am Shame has a place, and a value. I feel shame because there is reason to feel shame. The actions of humanity, as I described above, are shameful, IMO, and so I feel shame, personal, and on behalf of my species. I cannot find it in myself to be "grateful", as your topic describes. How can one be grateful that ones predecessors (and oneself) have made a good start on the utter destruction of a living and functioning ecosystem? Shame seems more appropriate, don't you think?
No.

Assuming gratitude is a choice, I choose to be grateful.

Assuming love is a choice, I choose to be unconditionally loving.

Assuming forgiveness and non-resentment are each a choice, I choose to forgive unconditionally; and I choose to not engage in any resentment.

Insofar as it is a choice, I choose to unconditionally accept unchangable reality the way it is rather than resent unchangeable reality for being the way it is.

I think the difference between us is that I feel like a part of my community, and thereby my species, to the extent that I take my share of the responsibility for our doings, even though few of these doings were my own. You, on the other hand, appear to take responsibility only for yourself, as an isolated and unconnected individual who is not part of something/anything bigger.

P.S. I do not "resent" unchangeable reality, I accept it, as you do. Forgiveness is good too. But any Roman Catholic will tell you that you cannot be forgiven unless you try to stop whatever it is you did that was wrong, and put right what you can. It is the latter bit you seem to gloss over.
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Rich is relative to the other folks around you, not to people far removed in time and culture from oneself.
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Theoryst »

Neither the wife or I grew up in a "rich" household nor do we live a lifestyle of the "rich" but I would say we're fortunate in many ways that have nothing to do with how much money we make or have in the bank or stashed away for retirement. It's all about perspective.
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by -TheLastAmerican »

I am grateful that what other people have, or do not have, or how they feel about it, is their business and is totally irrelevant to me.
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Slavedevice »

This is a very interesting discussion! I agree that materialism is like a drug - the more you have the more you want. Sometimes I’m guilty of taking things for granted. In my opinion, Non-Abrahamic religion helps people understand BALANCE. We need Fire/Desire to discover new realms. We also need THANKFULNESS and Gratitude to get us grounded. Then west is starting to shed its Abrahamic skin and identify with our forefathers who were earth religions that understood Balance and respect of nature
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by heracleitos »

In Islamic law, the believer is supposed to express his gratitude by giving away the minimum mandatory charity to the poor and the needy, of whom in priority his own extended-family members, the giveaway consisting of yearly 10% of his harvests and 2.5% of his net monetary assets when these are in excess of the computed equivalent of 3 ounces of gold and 21 ounces of silver, in addition to making the habitual, regular prayers.

(Salaries are not harvests, and there is no mandatory charity on salaries. Salaries must first result in savings that have subsequently been held in monetary assets for over one year.)
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Re: I bet you are filthy rich. But are you grateful?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Slavedevice wrote: September 28th, 2021, 9:06 am This is a very interesting discussion! I agree that materialism is like a drug - the more you have the more you want. Sometimes I’m guilty of taking things for granted. In my opinion, Non-Abrahamic religion helps people understand BALANCE. We need Fire/Desire to discover new realms. We also need THANKFULNESS and Gratitude to get us grounded. The west is starting to shed its Abrahamic skin and identify with our forefathers who were earth religions that understood Balance and respect of nature
I don't think it's binary, but it does look as though many Western humans are looking for alternatives to the exclusive approaches of the 'traditional' Abrahamic religions. Yes, some seek "earth religions", and others look into the Eastern belief systems: Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, even Shinto. Still others investigate other possibilities. But the Abrahamic religions are big and strong, and they will persist, I think.
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