Category: Alienation From Self

Alienation, Alienation From Self, Authenticity, Being True To Yourself, Eudaimonia, Free Spirit, Goals, Happiness, Human Nature, Life, Living, Meaning, Oppression, Outstanding Bloggers, Passion, Political and Social Alienation, Purpose, Quality of Life, Resilience, Self, Self-Flourishing, Shreya Vikram, Spiritual Alienation, Spirituality, Talents and Skills, The Art of Living Well, Well Being

Dreams Gained and Dreams Lost, Dreams Regained

Paul Sunstone

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:  Paul offers his take on the difference between an enthusiasm for something and a passion for something, and on what the difference means to our dreams, ambitions, and visions of ourselves.

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THE CRITICS EXPLODE! “Paul Sunstone knows all about dreams.  He knows how to mangle and crush the dreams of his readers.  He is the terrifying juggernaut of blogging.” — Arun Ghani, India’s Blogs and Beyond, “The Herald and News”, Hyderabad, India.

Continue reading “Dreams Gained and Dreams Lost, Dreams Regained” →

Alienation From Self, Belief, Consciousness, Education, Fantasy Based Community, Human Nature, Ideas, Ideologies, Learning, Liars Lies and Lying, Life, Living, Reality Based Community, Skeptical Thinking, Spiritual Alienation, Thinking, Truth

Only a Child Can Believe

Paul Sunstone

(About a 3 minute read)

The next time someone gives you directions, take a moment to notice how you feel about them both before and after you have taken them and discovered for yourself they got you where you wanted to go.

Did your feelings change a little bit?  My own feelings change.  Not much, but still perceptibly change.  Near as I can figure, that’s the difference between my believing that something is true and my accepting that something is true.  It’s the difference between my conscious mind believing something, and my whole mind — including my subconscious — believing something is true.

I have a friend who is in the habit of saying, “I believe you, Paul”.  I have known him for at least a decade, and I have yet to see evidence he has believed me even once about anything!

Continue reading “Only a Child Can Believe” →

Absolutist Thinking, Advice, Alienation From Self, Attachment, Authenticity, Bad Ideas, Being True To Yourself, Belief, Clinging, Courage, Creative Thinking, Delusion, Free Spirit, Freedom, Honesty, Human Nature, Impermance, Intellectual Honesty, Life, Living, Obligations to Society, Oppression, Passion, Play, Resilience, Self, Skeptical Thinking, Society, Spiritual Alienation, Spirituality, The Art of Living Well, Thinking, Truth, Whining, Wisdom

The Wisdom of Uncertainty

Paul Sunstone

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Paul zealously offers his opinion that to embrace uncertainty is necessary and key to living a passionate, spirited, and authentic life.

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THE CRITICS ENTHUSE!  Zut! The Grand Fraud American of Blogging once more crucifies our world’s conscience and decency by attempting to undermine all that is holy and sacred about life.  He urges us to reject the certainty of every principle that is certain, reject the certainty of every truth that is a rock. I will not lie about the pig.  He is an outlaw, a criminal, a villain.  It is up to our world to deal justice to Paul Sunstone.  At last, he must be guillotined.  The guillotine must be returned to the public service of our world!”  — Aloyse Leblanc, Le Critique Passionné de Blog, “La Tribune Linville”, Linville, France.

Continue reading “The Wisdom of Uncertainty” →

Abuse, Alienation From Self, Authenticity, Being True To Yourself, Community, Ethics, Eudaimonia, Human Nature, Life, Living, Morals, Oppression, Quality of Life, Relationships, Self-Flourishing, Society, Well Being

When It’s Cool to Try to Change Someone

Paul Sunstone

(About a 3 minute read)

In our world
Are things which should never be violated
That are violated.

–– A Death in the Spring

Is not the question a bit more complex than “to be or not to be”?  To live or to die?

For if we chose to live, then question becomes what is the good life, the best life our species of great ape is allowed by the gods to aspire to?

That’s one question no sane person wants to screw up when answering.  What is the best life we can live?

Continue reading “When It’s Cool to Try to Change Someone” →

Alienation, Alienation From Self, Authenticity, Bad Ideas, Being True To Yourself, Citizenship, Class War, Consumerism, Cultural Change, Cultural Traits, Culture, Democracy, Economy, Equality of Opportunity, Eudaimonia, Free Spirit, Freedom, Freedom and Liberty, Goals, Happiness, Human Nature, Ideas, Ideologies, Liars Lies and Lying, Living, Meaning, Oppression, Passion, Plutocracy, Political and Social Alienation, Political Ideologies, Politics, Purpose, Quality of Life, Self, Self Identity, Self Image, Self-determination, Self-Flourishing, Self-Realization, Society, Values, Well Being

A Most Curious Journey: The 100 Year Long Transmutation of Americans from Good Citizens into Good Consumers

Paul Sunstone

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Paul offers his view’s of how and why Americans have been socially engineered over the past 100 years to become good consumers rather than good citizens.

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THE CRITICS EXPLODE! “Sunstone needs to get laid.  Politics to him is what sex is to the most naive nun on earth — whoever she may be.  It is no more than a world of sins, venial sins, and deadly sins.  It is a world that his delusional mind fearfully attempts to grasp with all the misconceptions of a pure virgin.  But what fool would lay Paul Sunstone?  Not I!  And not you either!  Sunstone merely needs to get laid, but he absolutely must be guillotined.”  — Aloyse Leblanc, Le Critique Passionné de Blog, “La Tribune Linville”, Linville, France.

Continue reading “A Most Curious Journey: The 100 Year Long Transmutation of Americans from Good Citizens into Good Consumers” →

Advice, Alienation, Alienation From Self, Art, Authenticity, Being True To Yourself, Belief, Creativity, Cultural Traits, Culture, Education, Emotions, Ethics, Eudaimonia, Free Spirit, Goals, Happiness, Honesty, Human Nature, Ideas, Invention, Knowledge, Learning, Liars Lies and Lying, Life, Living, Love, Meaning, Memes, Mental and Emotional Health, Morality, Morals, New Idea, Oppression, Passion, Play, Poetry, Purpose, Quality of Life, Resilience, Self, Self-determination, Self-Flourishing, Self-Knowledge, Self-Realization, Society, Spiritual Alienation, Spirituality, Talents and Skills, Thinking, Truth, Values, Well Being, Wisdom

The Key in the Lock to the Door of Life

Paul Sunstone

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Paul offers his views about the crucial and key role the pursuit of honesty plays in living a passionate, flourishing, and fulfilling life.

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THE CRITICS HEART’S MELT! “Down at the Hartsel Cafe and Salon last Tuesday morning Stella Bailey and Libby Sommer got into it over coffee in a dispute that turned so fierce at times Hartsel’s most famous local celebrity, Ernest the Moosehead, looked about to fall crashing down from his place of honor on the the North wall above the table reserved on Thursdays for the Liar’s Club.  I reckon no one in the whole of South Park Colorado honestly needs to be told the subject of the deafening uproar between the two normally soft-spoken and genteel ladies was none other than Mr. Wannabe Blogger, Paul “Fool” Sunstone. The ladies were trying to top each other in who could more objectively describe what an insufferable ass Sunstone is.  Libby’s final position was that any one of Sunstone’s blog posts was just about as confused and messy as an elk sucked into a jet aircraft engine firing up on the runway of internet blogging.  Stella snapped back that Sunstone’s post, “The Key in the Lock” transcended even a hamburgered elk for a confused mess, and could only be compared to the confused mess the infamous Fairplay Twister had made of Ivor Plumber’s strikingly original racoon-fur toupee. You’ll recall back in ’04, the Fairplay Twister came out of nowhere to inflict 16.4 million dollars of damage and in the process suck Ivor’s toupee right from his head. Suck it from his head in the very midst of one of his traditional Friday night courtships of Jane Basil, right along with a full half of her bodice. Ivor has ever since said, the memory of Jane’s exposed left bosom was the only thing that could ameliorate his profoundly felt sense of loss in the days ahead.  Jane has been even more vocal on the subject than Ivor. She maintains that, had the tornado taken her maiden aunt’s hand-me-down chastity belt instead of her bodice, she and Ivor would be right shacked up today. Now back to Libby and Stella.  In the coldly objective opinion of this blog critic, not one, but both ladies are right.  Right in the sense that Paul Sunstone forever and eternally tops his inner ass with each and every new post of his.  Sunstone has never taken so much as a single back-step in his relentless effort to destroy internet blogging once and for all.  ‘The Key in the Lock to the Door of Life’ is in no way, shape, or form a back-step.  Sunstone, the Contemptable Juggernaut of Confused Fools, ever remains true to his worthless self.  Sorrowfully yours, Gunning Gus.”  — Gus “Gunning Gus” Johnson, The Blog Critic’s Column, “Leper’s Gulch Gazette”, Leper’s Gulch, Colorado, USA.     Continue reading “The Key in the Lock to the Door of Life” →

Alienation From Self, Art, Artist, Authenticity, Being True To Yourself, Creativity, Cultural Traits, Culture, Human Nature, Ideas, Invention, Life, Literature, Memes, New Idea, Passion, Poetry, Quality of Life, Self, Self-determination, Self-Flourishing, Spirituality, Writing

A Flock of Sparrows for Majel: Most Poets Are Some Other Poet

Paul Sunstone

A Flock of Sparrows for Majel

(About a 10 minute read)

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” ― Oscar Wilde

I. Insufferable Snark

Hi, Poet.

Hi, You!

HEY, YOU!

Hey, you enthralled heart,
You passionate devotee of the
Great Gut-Slugging,
Slut-Goddess of Love,
Suffering, Lost Causes, Crushed Dreams,
Forlorn Hopes, Teenage Self-Images,
And Poets!

I BEG YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE!

Continue reading “A Flock of Sparrows for Majel: Most Poets Are Some Other Poet” →

Alienation From Self, Aristotle, Authenticity, Being True To Yourself, Christianity, Cultural Traits, Culture, Ethics, Eudaimonia, Happiness, Human Nature, Ideas, Judaism, Life, Living, Memes, Morality, Morals, Pride, Purpose, Quality of Life, Religion, Religious Ideologies, Self Image, Self-Flourishing, Values, Well Being

Pride in Aristotle and Christianity

Paul Sunstone

“The description of the proud or magnanimous man [in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics] is very interesting as showing the difference between pagan and Christian ethics…”.  — Bertrand Russell.

SUMMARY:  Pride to Aristotle was a virtue, and a means to happiness, but to Christians, it is a sin, and a means to unhappiness.

(About a 7 minute read)

In Judaism, pride is called the root of all evil, a valuation that seems in part to have been carried over into Christianity, for Christians regard pride as the first and foremost of the Seven Deadly Sins.

In Catholicism, the Seven Deadly Sins are not to be confused with “Mortal Sins” — they do not automatically damn you to hell if you fail to repent of them before death, but they are pretty much bad enough anyway.

In contrast to the Jewish and Christian views, pride was an actual virtue to Aristotle.  Which of course, raises the question, “Why did Aristotle think pride was a virtue?”

Continue reading “Pride in Aristotle and Christianity” →

Alienation, Alienation From Self, Boredom, Cultural Traits, Culture, Emotions, Free Spirit, Fun, Goals, Happiness, Human Nature, Impermance, Life, Living, Love, Meaning, Nature, Passion, Play, Purpose, Quality of Life, Spiritual Alienation, Spirituality, Television, Vacilando, Values, Work

The Passionate Life: Living in the Moment vs. Living for the Moment

Paul Sunstone

(About an 8 minute read)

“Don’t cry over things that were or things that aren’t. Enjoy what you have now to the fullest.” — Barbara Bush

“Your passions cannot soar unless you release them from the hands of time — the left hand of the past, and the right hand of the future.”  — Some ditz or another of no importance.

 

She looked to be about 15 in her red shorts and white T-shirt.  She was sitting on a boulder at least four times her size, bouncing a tennis ball on a racket.  Her face said she was bored.

Her father had left her there, promising to be back in just a few minutes.  He wanted to “try a few casts in the lake”.  Then off he went down the shore, pausing only now and then to dip his line, before disappearing out of sight around a bend in the water.

Continue reading “The Passionate Life: Living in the Moment vs. Living for the Moment” →

Abuse, Alienation, Alienation From Self, Emotional Abuse, Human Nature, Judgementalism, Life, Love, Lovers, Marriage, Physical Abuse, Psychological Abuse, Quality of Life, Relationships, Religion, Religious Ideologies, Romantic Love, Self Image, Sexual Abuse, Sexuality, Spiritual Alienation, Spirituality, Values, Verbal Abuse

The Cheating Wife

Paul Sunstone

(About a 2 minute read)

Father, I have seen how the morals you demand of me
In the name of your God and his hell
Are like winds from two quarters
That carry the dust to my eyes
No matter which way I turn
So I can no longer see the path I’m on,
Nor which path to take from here.

Father, I have seen how the morals you demand of me
In the name of your God and his hell
Are like tungsten rods encasing me,
Confining me to inaction and encouraging resignation
To my hell, the hell my husband
Has created for me that may yet
Prove to be a death camp.

You tell me right and wrong never alter,
Never turn from one into the other,
That I must keep my vows and stay with him,
Merely praying that your God will change his heart.

I am weary now like a bison after wolves
Have chased her for miles to her last stand,
I am all but exhausted and ready to die.
Your words do not comfort me, nor encourage me,
But sound only like you want me to surrender
To the fangs of my enemy, that he might
Rip my throat and my life from me.

You say I must not cheat.
But I am ready to cheat.
I have met one who comes walking
In the grace of love for me.
One who does not merely speak of love, but loves.
One whose touching me has passed a spark
To the dry and brittle twigs of my self-esteem.

He wants me to live, and through him,
I want to live too.

Yes, I know that I’m weak,
Too weak to love myself without him.
But he ignites me, and my weakness
Will soon enough burn away in a bonfire.

Father, have you never been so beaten down
You could not stand up without someone’s help?
Have you never been so tired
You could not go on without first you slept?
Have you never been so defeated
You could not renew yourself?

Father, in your eyes I am no more than a whore,
I am no more than a law-breaker, an outlaw.
But have you considered this:
Even a whore has a right to life,
Even an outlaw has a right to live,
And how moral can your morals be
If your morals deny my life?

This poem was inspired by a poem on Sarah’s blog, “Fresh Hell”, which can be found here.

Abuse, Alienation From Self, Bad Ideas, Drug Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Ethics, Evil, Family, Human Nature, Life, Love, Morality, Morals, People, Physical Abuse, Psychological Abuse, Quality of Life, Rae, Relationships, Sex, Sexual Abuse, Sexuality, Sexualization, Shannon, Spiritual Alienation

Is Ignorance the Root and Stem of All Evil?

Paul Sunstone

(About a 6 minute read)

“Ignorance is the root and stem of all evil” — Plato

Trigger Warning: Explicit references to child sexual abuse, etc.

Shannon’s father and two uncles were widely reputed to be the three most evil beasts in Champaign County, Illinois.  For one thing, before the Chicago gangs moved in with their greater numbers, the brothers and their friends controlled the hard drug trade in the county.

To call them “beasts”, however, is somewhat misleading since it might imply that the brothers were somewhat on the dull side.  In fact, just the opposite seems to have been true.  The brothers had a reputation for brains.  It was pessimistically said, they could not be outsmarted.

Continue reading “Is Ignorance the Root and Stem of All Evil?” →

Abuse, Alienation, Alienation From Self, Authenticity, Being True To Yourself, Community, Cultural Traits, Culture, Education, Family, Free Spirit, Happiness, Human Nature, Life, Political and Social Alienation, Quality of Life, Relationships, Religion, Self, Self Identity, Self Image, Self Interest, Self-determination, Self-Knowledge, Self-Realization, Society, Spiritual Alienation, Spirituality, Talents and Skills, Teaching, Values, Work

Divorcing Our Self from Our Self

Paul Sunstone

(About a 7 minute read)

Shortly following university, I discovered I had a remarkably alarming problem: I had prudently made firm, long-term plans to eat during my life, but I was rapidly running out of money with which to buy groceries.  Some quick computer calculations showed beyond doubt that I would be out of eats significantly before my ideal lifespan had been reached.

I laid wise plans to rob old ladies of their Social Security checks.

Continue reading “Divorcing Our Self from Our Self” →