Introduction: i am here for us

Hello, i've been a lurker here for a long time. After i finally signed up i've only made a few comments. Mostly i hold my tongue on subjects, because i don't want to get into endless arguments or diatribe. i have felt more often than not, most folks here merely want to reinforce their personal opinions and/or beliefs (only sometimes to perhaps just share ideas), but (imho) quite a few are not searching for "Truth". As you probably have noticed yourselves there are these revolving threads where one person says this and the other says that with no resolution and the same redundant ideas just keep on revolving (not evolving). Although i have noticed the meta-physical threads tend to be more open minded. i am not conspiratorial by nature but have learned there is something more to almost every story. i definitely do not trust the government, experts or authorities (with good reason), but i also don't see any vast conspiracy... More i see a conspricay of stupidity and/or shared guilt.
i have been gifted by the fates to be involved in very strange and varied situations where i've been allowed to somewhat take part yet still remain on the outside of personally being affected by the event. When i say strange and varied i mean unbelievably strange and varied. i don't like humans so much, yet at the same time i love individuals incredibly, and this has led me down some strange trails.
i am in a plural marriage with two women (who are also married to each other) (i am a slighly past middle-aged man by the way). We3 consider ourselves as a unit, each one equal and bringing to our lives our own perspectives and sharing our ideas (although we do share certain morals and values). This constant interplay between us3 helps us with perceiving the world as not soley through one persons eyes. (if i am wrong or not understanding something i will be told or reminded).
i've been married to one of the women for 31 years and us3 have been married for 12 years. i have two adult children (girl and boy).
i've been wealthy and poor, homeless and housed comfortably, have lived throught the USA, a running theme in my life is charity and volunteerism, i see no person as more or lesser than myself (which sometimes comes across as arogant to a few). Although i personally feel i am rather boring and mundane my life has been very extreme.
i am big, tattooed and pierced which has given my appearance to many whatever the person places on my looks and what their interpretation of a pierced up/tattooed/big guy is (my late mother always thought it was a hippie thing), some see "biker", some see "aging punker", some see "arty guy", a couple have even seen "white supremisist", etc. The view always changes once someone gets to talk with me and the first conversation always has in it "I thought you were ______ (fill in discription), but now that i talk to you you are really a nice guy". Which i assume is meant as a compliment, but also indicates that i must look mean or crazy.
Anyhow, i am on this site for us. i am an expert in logic and reasoning and very knowlegeable in literature and the arts. i do know some truths and my quest in life is no longer about finding truths but helping some folks understand what their truths are. i abhor suffering of any type for any type of person and i feel a lot of suffering comes from (aside from obvious physical amladies) a lack of understanding ones own life. Am i a "know it all"?, Yes, in a way i kinda am, but not in a dishonest way, i am very honest with myself and i will admit if i am not "getting" something, because for me it makes no sense to hold beliefs which are not true or healthy. Religiously i am a Gnostic and/or Rosicrucian (but most likely not in the way you are used to defining the terms).
i try not to view guilt in people but try to see only human foibles and folly, trials and tribulation. i am a firm believer in "Love the sinner but hate the sin"...
So anyhow if you have any questions or whatever, i am here... And my salutations to you, i hope we have further discussion and added insights to our perceptions of our world...
Please excuse and mispelllins and grammatical errors.

reply to post by trika3000


welcome dood . looks like your video is ether taken down or malformed..

hehe ill bet your a happy man. come the extra lunar bedroom activity's ...
makes my pam and her five friends look positively antiquated.

reply to post by funbox


i think i might have done something wrong when trying to embed, i copy pasted the url in the little box but it didn't show up on the post... The url works from other sites so i don't understand the malformed thing (it is still on my YT channel)

Greetings by the way...

i'll try and re-post the YT video here in this reply

www.youtube.com...

reply to post by trika3000

Welcome to ATS.
Try posting the video again but this time cut paste (here) just the numbers and letters AFTER the = sign in the info that pops up when you hit the 'share' button.

Welcome again to ATS!

peace

reply to post by silo13


i managed to edit it in after my post - Thanx for clearing that up for me

Great intro, and welcome to ATS!
Yes, I know how you feel, and I know how people judge alot by its cover.
One day, I pointed something out to my son.....
I was living in South Sacto at that time, and quite often a rough looking person would walk down our street.
Seriously, they look like you would not to pass by them in the night.
One day, there was a G-lookin black guy coming down our street, and my son started fidgeting, acting nervous, and watching the guy coming. My boy was pretty frightened at what he was seeing, so I told him this:
"Son, that guy looks pretty scary too you, huh? Well, think for just a moment. I bet he has a bunch of friends who think he is a cool dude, and he would do anything for his friends. Sure, he may be a gangster character to us, but just like everyone else, he is liked and loved, and he returns the same."
As the guy was walking near our porch where we sat, I raised my hand, smiled, and said "Sup" (What's up).
the guy did a slight smile and did a curt nod to me in response. My son sat there with his mouth open. After the guy was past my son said "Wow".

Originally posted by triplereiki
Great intro, and welcome to ATS!
Yes, I know how you feel, and I know how people judge alot by its cover.
One day, I pointed something out to my son.....
I was living in South Sacto at that time, and quite often a rough looking person would walk down our street.
Seriously, they look like you would not to pass by them in the night.
One day, there was a G-lookin black guy coming down our street, and my son started fidgeting, acting nervous, and watching the guy coming. My boy was pretty frightened at what he was seeing, so I told him this:
"Son, that guy looks pretty scary too you, huh? Well, think for just a moment. I bet he has a bunch of friends who think he is a cool dude, and he would do anything for his friends. Sure, he may be a gangster character to us, but just like everyone else, he is liked and loved, and he returns the same."
As the guy was walking near our porch where we sat, I raised my hand, smiled, and said "Sup" (What's up).
the guy did a slight smile and did a curt nod to me in response. My son sat there with his mouth open. After the guy was past my son said "Wow".

Hello, i am going to use your response to figure out how to use the Quote reply comment as i am figuring out how the response, video etc. stuff works - please bear with me - i'm glad your boy learned a little valuble life lesson... small things like that when young help us learn, and usually better sooner than later, whereas later in life could've unintended consequences. i remember being told by some female co-workers that myself and another man who looked similar to me but was about 6 foot 5 with a mohawk hair style were actually the two nicest guys who worked for the company. i always kinda thought we didn't need to put on a pretense of being badass or confrontational, so we avoided a lot of needless insecurities. Now i am getting old, gray and lazy so i come off more as some old loon than some cool dude ; )

It's really funny. Sometimes the "nicest normal" people are the ones you gotta watch your back against.
Gee, look at our politicians for a good example. he he

reply to post by trika3000


Thanks for your offer to be asked questions and be a consultant. Can you give me more detail on your understanding / education on arts and literture? I would also be curious to hear who your favorite writers and artist are? What are your favorite pieces?

Originally posted by amc621
reply to post by trika3000

 

Thanks for your offer to be asked questions and be a consultant. Can you give me more detail on your understanding / education on arts and literture? I would also be curious to hear who your favorite writers and artist are? What are your favorite pieces?

Well, i've been an accomplished (have collectors and have been an invational speaker) for over 30 years. Education never stops for me really. Ontological existentialism is what i have most fun with. As for understanding that would take several pages and several years for me to complete ; ) i really don't understand much. i've seen and done a lot of things but as far as understanding any of it that would be questionable...
MMmm? Favorites? That is a hard one as they have changed over the years... Writers i would say, Ibsen and Plato are the mainstays, although Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett wrote and edited a book titled "The Minds I" which blew my mind. And Viktor Frankl's "Man's search for Meaning" was just as mind blowing. As was Lewis Mumford's "Myth of the Machine : Technics and Human Development" was long a favorite and suggested reading.
i am one of those lucky one's who can read and comprehend books very fast and the list of authors would be quite long, so i'm kinda going off the top of my head. As far as the poets i would go with Walt Whitman, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, John Donne, and some Ogden Nash... Donne and Yeats have given me incredible insight.
Artists Mmmmmm????? All of the classics, and a few friends (funny as i don't like a lot of my own work).
Also, i like most movements but my favorites would be art nouveau and dada... Waterhouse - Goddard -Leighton are my favorites as of right now as i am doing a sorta take off on lithesome women in redux, a series which i titled "All This Useless Beauty" (after an Elvis Costello song title). i am trying to reduce asthetic beauty into a sort of gestalt theory of simple line and form and negative space.
If you have a more specific question or wanna talk and share about something i can tell you what i know and/or what i don't know... i love art, a love deeper than anyway i could express with mere words. i eat and drink paint, spend endless hours digesting beauty and all it's forms including ugliness (although i have worked in concrete and iron). Those are my favorite mediums - Paint and canvas and concrete and iron (wow, as i just wrote that, i thought to myself how feminine and masculine are my favorite mediums). Well, anyhow i could dribble on and on... So whatever comes to mind that you would like to share i'm game for some interesting ideas and topics.
Oh, almost forgot my most favorite fresco piece is the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and sculpture is a toss up between Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa and Michelangelo's Pieta (i love religious art)...

reply to post by trika3000


A welcome addition to the site. I see you as someone seeking truths, peaceful, and tolerant. Someone who knows that the strange stuff happens. We need more like you.
I'm also RC, and smack dab in the middle of rural Canada. What are the odds?

Originally posted by snowspirit
reply to post by trika3000

 

A welcome addition to the site. I see you as someone seeking truths, peaceful, and tolerant. Someone who knows that the strange stuff happens. We need more like you.
I'm also RC, and smack dab in the middle of rural Canada. What are the odds?

Hello snowspirit... Canada huh? i like to think of anything north of Wisconsin as Northern Wisconsin ; )
Here's some more of my rambling ('cause that's what i like to do)...
A line from a David Byrne song is: ..."All i want is to breathe, won't you breathe with me"... This one line has been an important factor in my life...
i don't care what your beliefs are, those are yours. i don't care where you are from, because we are all from somewhere here on Earth, we are the space aliens because the Earth is in outerspace. Although i do want to hear about your place on it as i haven't been able to be everywhere and most likely won't get the chance.
We pop into existence and one day will pop out, we can barely grasp our own intracacies and barely have a grasp on personal relationships, yet there are many who think they know about world problems and their resolution with easy fixes. i try to love my enemies but can barely stand some people in my family and actually hate some of my neighbors (why can't they just act like decent human beings?)
As we grow old and bury our friends, family and loved ones, everyday becomes something special. i've been laying on the pavement, looked down the wrong end of a gun, over did it on the party train and i've found my wish, my last breath has always been the same. It has always been a begging, a pleading for one more chance, one more breath... And i've made those promises, cut the deal with the fates or GodHead... If you give me another chance, just one more chance, i swear i'll be a better person, i'll surrender to your will, please just let me breathe. Well, that last for about a minute, then you brush yourself off and go back to being the way you were... This has been my cycle anyway.
Slowly it has sunk into my thick skull that i have to keep those promises. i used to own a gallery and on the gallery wall was written... "How much is you soul worth, and to whom do you repay the debt?"

With the internets we have a tool in which we can share our thoughts, opinions, ideas, stories and things that are happening in the world outside. Sometimes we have to look beyond our own absurdity, folly, and vanity (at least i do).
We don't know anything more than those who came here before us that we now think were ignorant, stupid, savage and/or superstitious. In 500 or so years we too will appear ignorant, stupid and superstitious. Oh sure, we have new names for old things, and new ways to deal with old things but little has change since Socrates drank the poison hemlock, Jesus was hung on the cross, Nero fiddled, and Martin Luther King jr. took a bullet in Memphis.

We are all we have, and strip away what we think is right and wrong and we are just naked humans trying to be.
Really that's all we are, everything in this world is just trying to be...

i look forward to seeing more of you here on ATS... oh and i have another reason to post one of the videos i threw together...