@logiczombie

Not scathing from this end surely :)

I agree that a transparent (authentic) Life is one that is not governed by secrets (that which is hidden/shameful/knowingly concealed for one's perceived advantage etc) or the need for secrets or the getting pissed-off at the revelation by others of what one considers 'secret'. When there is something to hide, shame is not far away and anger/rage etc are also present. When one says what one means and means what one says and this is done clearly and non-violently, there is no need for secrecy or build up of stress in oneself.

I have played with secrecy and shame and anger in my life. I cannot demand that others cease and desist from this. I do not feel I can project onto others what I may have discovered for myself. I have to respect their choices. I feel the need to respect their desire (real or assumed, if not implicitly stated otherwise) for privacy. Even though it may be claimed that legally both parties must first agree to stuff being 'off the record', this doesn't seem to me to add up lawfully (morally) for reasons previously stated.

I defo agree that one ought to consider anything at all said on the web in any form (email, text even) to be in the public domain. Doesn't mean that folk are in that state of mind when DMing and again, I cannot impose this perception.

You have been polite, but I dunno if it got you Nowhere! I'd have to understand the correlation between you giving up that politeness and the start of the d/vs against you. I'd imagine that there would be some correlation. But it is very vague, this notion of 'politeness' (the social demand that one MUST be polite - I know how deeply it's instinctively ingrained in me!). Being polite also doesn't seem to have anything much to do with facts or Truth. But there's still something in it and this may be to do with personal psychology and the triggers that trip the aggression switch in folk who then view the lack of politeness as rudeness → an attack (and therefore justification for retaliation). When this is subconscious, there is likely to be a lack of awareness on the part of the 'doer'. Not much to do with logic, but then, I've read often that the VAST majority of human decision-making is emotionally-driven and not at all dictated by logic although humans go to GREAT lengths to twist and reshape their statements of reality in order to give the impression that it is ('trust the science' anyone? :).

Perhaps it's also a choice of battles and playing-fields! Is it a fight and does it have to be? Who are the 'oppressors' and are they really the conscious drivers of this rather than entities caught up in the webs of their own ambitious makings? Is it not exactly the same for everyone - we're caught up in webs of our own making? If I'm not responsible for anyone else (only for myself), then this HAS TO BE the case.

How much of this is a result of things being taken personally (by all parties) and how much is this emotionality (taking something personally is an emotion-driven response) the maker of decisions - and not logic (even for the logiczombie)?...I am just wondering rhetorically, yet seriously too for I know you have been around Hive for a long time and have a put a lot into this b/c. I've seen you go to lengths to gather witnesses to vote against Sun just before the BIG hardfork, I know you give a shit! I imagine that being ostracised, feeling misrepresented and misunderstood, bullied and ganged-up on etc is a painful experience! But the 'responsibility' principle still applies - if I am not responsible for anyone, and nobody for me, then they are not responsible for how I feel about anything either, regardless of action taken.

If one doesn't react from a place of personal pain, then the response itself need not be painful (less likely to trigger pain). In other words, could the 'politeness' simply be transformed into 'not reacting from a state of personal, emotional pain'? This would have the best chance of not provoking a pain-reaction in Other. Better chance of one's voice being heard too. No kowtowing required! No guarantees of course but the response of 'Other' is not your responsibility - it cannot be controlled and in a state of conflict any response is unlikely to be anything other than (1) emotionally driven (2) distorted to fit into a box of 'logic' that is really just hyperbolic semantic justification for that emotionally driven decision/action but which cannot at any cost be admitted.

You have quoted Jung in the past so I imagine you do not dismiss the concept that there is more (maybe almost everything more) to Life than what meets the eye at a superficial level; that Energy itself has Power and this is available to us all equally. It can also to be accessed at a level 'higher' than that of the physical plane of breathing/feeling/hurting (and 'fighting') which is (the illusion of?) the Human Condition.

I know it may look like I'm advocating something like turning the other cheek if not outright submission to gangsters on the prowl. I'm not at all and I hope you see that.

You do speak Truth to power, that is clear to me. Those who take up that battle AND speak with sharp voices that cut to the chase and strip everything down to inYourFace facts, have historically been the ones to feel the boot coming down most intensely upon them. Allies can misunderstand them or be turned or become afraid of the forthright nature of their words + afraid of those against whom they are directed, and distance themselves. However, taking up arms and engaging in violence has been tried and found to fail, for any such use of weapons are not only less destructive than what power can wield, but also appear to justify even greater use of force (power presenting itself as victim and getting away with it due to narrative control).

I think there are non-violent ways of communicating Truth to power. I also accept that if you are rummaging around in the secret underwear drawers of power then it will object most vehemently and come to your door with trigger fingers. Shame is a powerful driver of action!

Is it possible to continue to speak Truth to power even when it shits in your yard? Can you sweep up the mess and not Retaliate in Kind?!

I suppose it depends on what you want and what battles you think you are fighting. I dunno what lies on the other side of this for LZ but I don't reckon you'll be served by making war or engaging (at any level) in the energy of violence. To retaliate in kind is to relinquish an extremely solid and strong position IMHO. The consequences are messy and painful. Messages get lost. Credibility appears weak. The gratification (short term satisfaction) of Retaliation in Kind doesn't pay off. The KK incident seems to have had elements of gratifying something for you..... I am not stating 'facts' or really wanting to dissect this much further, merely offering you my (rather subjective) perspective.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges

Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.

Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust.

For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.
— Plato, Republic, 360b–d (Jowett trans.)

Thought-provoking as always! Would I be communicating my thoughts on all this differently if I were invisible to the consequences? Ha ha, and would I seek gratification for what I consider woeful and wilful misreadings of life and how to conduct oneself? Would I be less 'polite' and not beat around that bush so much 😂? Big Qs bro...and I really dunno. I'd like to think I'd find a way of presenting the widest possible perspective in the simplest, clearest manner possible; without any violence towards those I disagree with, yet highlighting why I do so in a non-provocative manner. This way folk can make up their own informed minds with a chance of doing so from a neutral and balanced position which represents a state of consciousness which is NOT the same as the state of consciousness in which the 'problem/issue' arose in the first place.

I think you kinda dig this shit too LZ!

That'll only go so far of course, even with my newly acquired superpower! Thought (and all of Thought's products - which is everything man-made in *Existence) is limited. Thought cannot grasp or acknowledge that of which it is a subset, such as the Reality from which our thought-processed sense of 'reality' is derived. Thought (left-brain dominance) denies the existence of that which is outside of it and goes to great twisted lengths to 'prove' that the little Box_of_Thought is the UNIVERSE_at_Large.

One way outa the cage seems to be a path that cannot be anything other than self-discovered by the individual plodding along it, loaded as he/she already is with all the tools and inner guidance necessary to make this journey....Curiosity, Sincerity and Willingness to challenge one's own deepest Beliefs are, I think, pre-requisites for this self-activation. Where words (Thought) fail to do anything other than trigger in negative ways, Demonstration may be left to us as the most powerful means of communication!