JTaylor

Some more work from my pal Glen Scrivener:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RhJfbW...ature=youtu.be

Turbohot

Thank you. I for one shall certainly watch it later.

I'm meeting some radical people face-to-face these days. Not Muslims, though. By now, they've tried curbing my liberal voice twice; by talking back to me at the same time (overlapping dialogues) and dismissing my points. In next meeting, I'm going to go back to my query, tell them not to defend by throwing an incoherent web of words as a gang, and then let's see what they say. I prefer not to discuss the details here, but to my study, new age radical people are psychologically requiring anchoring hence radical. Everything has a reason, as long as their radicalism doesn't go too far and too deluded. IMO.

JTaylor

I think you'll find the vid' pertinent, Swati. x

dpb

Bit early for that sort thing ?

Turbohot

I think I will, James. X


Brain is in the best gear in the mornings; well, unless you have a minging hangover or slept poor in the night.

JTaylor

I've been up since 5am, Duncan.

Turbohot

Best time to wake up, James. I involuntarily wake up about 5 am every day, but as sometimes I keep awake till late, I have to go back to sleep. Then the deepest sleep I would have would be between 7 and 8. It was that Germany match that kept me up last night. I must try going to bed early and not go back to sleep after 5am. Deepak Chopra also says in his book to the Western people that they should wake up at 5, and then they can become millionaires; at least intellectually.

JTaylor

I tend to be an owl in the winter and a lark in the spring, summer and early autumn.

Deepak Chopra frustrates me. I really enjoy his stuff on quantum mechanics and conciousness and like that he's a philosophical idealist (as am I to an extent), but then he goes off on one around alternative medicines and so forth and I find myself switching off. I used to read him before I became a Christian, but find now that a lot of what he writes conflicts with my formal belief. The constraints of exoteric religion, I guess.

Turbohot

That's my issue, James. I cherry pick from all the goodness out there; may it be written by Chopra, late Vivekananda, late Tagore or whoever. What doesn't suit me, I cannot embrace. This way, I end up frustrating many people who find me non-brainwashable. That's fine by me. I don't care.

Turbohot

BTW, I have no problem with DC's promotion of the alternative medicine. I believe that the alternative medicine (yoga, meditation etc.) is very effective. It's very well supported by numerous scientific studies by now. Even waking up daily at 5am is a form of yoga, which is beneficial for one. If not literally (in a religious sense), still physically. Therefore, I'm not bored with his or anyone's commentary in the favour of the alternative medicine.

Turbohot

Just watched it. Glen is a good poet.

JTaylor

I meditate, so agree. I disagree with his position on the treatment of HIV and whilst philosophically an idealist, I think the mind before matter mantra has limitations - cancer being a prime example. I'd like to see some science to support the idea that sufferers can think themselves well.

Turbohot

Sure.

Anecdotally, I've met a long term 76 YO friend of mine who has prolonged her life with a type of lung cancer; with sheer will of the mind. Medics told her in 2011 that she had only maximum 6 months to live, but she's doing fine so far, with no deterioration in her health. She's not into yoga and meditation etc. tbh. She's just amazingly strong-minded and non-dramatic person. Anyway, I also need more evidence to support that sort of outcome achieved via the use of the alternative medicine. I do believe in the 'mind over matter' mantra to great extent. I don't believe in the miracles and magic, though.

JTaylor

Damned with faint praise.

Turbohot

What do you want me to say, hm?

He's only poetically delivering that is already known. Fair enough he has made a good poetry with that common knowledge, and his rendering is hyperbolic; rightly so because it is a poetry, after all. So, yes. He's a good poet. Doesn't exactly rock my boet.

JTaylor

Fair enough.

Paben

iTrader: (5)

As a cancer survivor himself Lance Armstrong makes some interesting comments in his book: 'It's not about the bike'. He notes that in his experience many people, on hearing they have cancer, basically collapse mentally and surrender to the certainty of death. Yet despite this they survive. Others adopt a positive approach and yet still die.

Turbohot

Yes, that's true. I think anyone claiming that the strength of mind would always and without fail prolong one's life from a disease, decay or some other mishap is fooling self and others. In my opinion, yes, it may help one, but the other may die nonetheless. I think the strength of mind may help the dying one to die peacefully in a better way, and that itself is not a bad thing. So I'd still recommend the strength of mind and say that I'd like to see more evidence whether the cancer affected majority does either get cured or prolong their life with the help of the alternative medicine. Then it's worth glorifying it as a cure for the killer diseases. Otherwise, alternative medicine is still of some use, if it could make one face the death in more adaptive way. Spirituality is another one that is known to help with such, so can alternative medicine imo. Neither would work if one doesn't entertain the idea of them at all.

Paben

iTrader: (5)

I agree a strong mind can help an individual face the prospect of death, and in some cases where there is an underlying psychosomatic cause for a disease then plainly a change of attitude will help. I don't believe that cancer falls into this category.

As for the opening vid, a detuned rap approach seems a strange way to spread the word and will probably annoy more people than it converts!

Turbohot

I agree that cancer may not be psychosomatic, yet one thing is common among all the the people who are dying with or without the combination of the psycho and somata and just be somatically decaying and destined to die. That common thing is the death. I believe that spirituality and alternative medicine can provide some comfort and more strength to accept death to such patients and in their loved ones. But they have to want to opt in for such options. That will depend upon their choice. They may show the strength without the assistance of the spirituality and the alternative medicine, and that's quite cool and totally acceptable.

Turbohot

Let me add a few more comforting things that help deal with death; may the cause of the coming death be any; may the death be physical or in some other way. Doing something charitable from the death bed; staying morphined; getting indulged in alcohol so that one feels nothing; doing a suicide; attaching to the animals; getting re-attached or very detached from the loved ones; making new social connections or avoiding to make new connections; getting hypersexual or totally lose the libido etc. etc. etc. are also other methods to deal with the death. Free country, and there's a lot of choice out there on individual level.

So it doesn't have to be the spirituality and the alternative medicine that changes your perspective for death. In fact, death is the most powerful one here, as that makes you do things that you would never have dreamt of. For example, you may even take up The Third Eye meditation because you're dying. But never in life you would have thought of imagining an imaginary eye on your forehead, stilling your mind via that, as it always sounded so f&&kng bullsh7t to you in past.

Disclaimer for the ones with misunderstanding mind full of absurd queries: I'm not saying that all people who are indulged in above methods are waiting to die. They may be using these methods for whatever reasons. As I say, free country.