YOU CAN START A MOST WONDERFUL JOURNEY

from your comfortable bed,in a horizontal yoga pose, or slightly upright in you comfortable armchair in the 'meditative pose advocated also for 'Westerners'. Either position,either way,involves a passive 'body' a relaxed 'mind', and positive 'emotions' among other things plus a lengthy period free from any and all distractions: basically, 'attention','concentration''awareness' ,'self-observation', and 'meditation'-leading to 'contemplation' and/or 'ecstacy/enlightenment'--WORDS THAT ARE NOT IN MOST ORDINARY PERSONS VOCABULARY OR INTEREST. 'Sensation' & 'excitement';'stimulation' and 'arousal'; are what contemporarypeoples want and desire, seek,search and devote their lives and energies until they are 'wasted' and 'devoured' by 'THE HUNGRY GODS WHO FEED ON MANKIND-the source of all vampire/demon stories, of course......Watch out for 'demon lovers' in particular.....

OVERSTUFFED FURNITURE: COUCHES & CHAIRS AND SOFAS AND DIVANS

Victorian type homes and houses,both in England and the US, for example, often had an air of elegance and charm and so on, even if some people were not wealthy or had homes that resembled castles......Today's crap with its ultra slim and light materials for moderns and contemporaries who occupy apartments, flats, and pads or live in tents,etc. and hate to lift heavy chairs or use large tables and often prefer to sit 'yogi'style on the floors and roam around the rooms 'doggie' style, then one can understand why old furniture is often seen as 'antiques' commanding high prices if any good stuff can be found....well, of course, wood and timber in the US is hard to come by,that is, the great trees of long age are seldom to be found and usually have to be protected in various ways, otherwise they are turned into wood pellets and bio-fuels... Anyway, the armchair and the couch,now used mostly for TV and other entertainments, rather than for rest and meditation, seem archaic and obsolete for many...but some of the world's greatest thinkers have made use of such furniture in their own way to come up with some ideas and things that still exert an influence on mankind, at least to those who read and understand them perhaps.

THE ARMCHAIR

I grew up using real armchairs that were soft, huge, comfortable, with nice arms and which allowd room for thinking and writing and doing a lot of meditational work and which are 'a great invention'..MOST GREAT ENGLISH WRITERS AND MAGICIANS all used arm chairs in some way when doing things....mulling things over by even fictional characters sitting in armchairs is well-known especially among Victorian Detectives of note and literary fame.........The armchir is a sort of throne but it is more than that...IT IS A VEHICLE OF TRANSPORTATION OF THOUGHTS WHICH HAVE WINGS...a place to view VAST VISTAS and to receive IMAGES...and to take flights of the imagination...at true LAUNCH PAD....today's abominable abodes, those slick modern apartments and senior centers with glizy, trendy furniture and modernistic twists, do not have such a thing.....children are relegated to a culture of clutter and plastic and cheap, light materials that eventually are disposed of and thrown away to be replaced by 'adult' toys of crap that has not lasting value or significance...but which fills landfills .....When was the last time you sat in a real armchair?

THE CARTESIAN CONCLUSION

SI FALLOR SUM: JE PENSE,DONC J'E SUIS; COGITO,ERGO SUM----I THINK, THEREFORE IAM..... to which I add, EVEN IF I ERR, I AM!

BOTH ENDS OF THE STICK

For those familair with sticks and also martial arts systems, this analogy may prove of interest in looking at this question of:WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE? If someone, for example, holds a stick and extends it towards you and holds the otehr end so it is in a horizontal plant and asks you to graps the extended end of the stick and you do so, he has 'given you the stick' roughly speaking! Or, as some say, 'the shaft'! THIS 'STICK' is 'LIFE',what you are handed when you are born, when you come into existence, when you set foot into this world, and what you do with this stick and how you 'hold it' is important.....despite its implications... TAKE a stick and label one end 'good' and label the other end 'bad(evil) and when someone hands you such a stick in such a way yoiu cannot see or read the labels, in the manner previously described, you cannot tell which end you hold until you fully hold it in your hand(s). SO IT IS IN LIFE, you may be given the bad end or the good end and what does this ultimately mean? If you continue to hold, say the bad end, and use the stick to do bad things, like attacking the weak and innocent and the helpless, or vice versa, if you have the good end first, what will you do? THE POINT(of the stick) and of this example is that the good end can be used for a bad or evil purpose fi the stick holder wields it to do so. If LIFE is like a stick and yhou control that stick(live life) then you can controle which end you will employ the most, whether for good or evil or both......more on this another time......

BAD THINGS/GOOD PEOPLE: HEADS OR TAILS

The question has been asked, almost 'ad nauseum, WHY DO BAG THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE? Perhaps if we approach possible answers to this troubling observation many seem to share, from the viewpoint of gambling, games or pastime of chance, where people bet on the odds in an attempt to win something,many take on bets that have 'a high risk',we shall see something about this question few usually consider..... HOWEVER,without entering into a mazeof various pitfalls and confusing anecdotes about 'win-lose-break even' situations of all kinds, let us use the KISS METHOD: KEEP IT SIMPLE,STUPID! and since I am, at many times,if not most times, incredibly stupid, I think I can discuss this 'perplexing problem' that people wish answered or solved-the questions that causes me, but perhaps not others, about why 'bad things happen to good people'...... Take a coin or disc and call one side,bad(things) and the other side good(people) or just keep it 'heads' or 'tails' and begin flipping the coin in the usual way and have someone jot down the result of each flip,whether it comes up heads or comes up tails. If you go all day long with this activity it will get boring and here is where another element enters- aprize, a goal or whatever,and this means usually using the coin to determine the 'winner' in some type of contest or situation or in a tie where opponents-participants come up 'even-steven'. No matter the number of trials undertaken in this noteworthy endeavor, the tables of probability will show what to expect from this, if all other extraneous factors are eliminated as much as possible. To discuss what these extraneous factors are will take a lot of time and and will be done another time, ir at all, and really 'demo' nothing for the average mind.....which always raises objections to most everything... In LIFE the same chances of 'BAD THINGS' or 'bad events turning up for 'GOOD PEOPLE' will prevail. This does not mean exactly that 'good attracts good' or that 'bad is merely, as some philosophers have held, is the absence of good. IF NO GOOD, THEN BY DEFAULT THERE IS BAD! BUT we all sense somehow that even in the absence of 'bad', there may be no 'good'! When we say 'bad things' we mean bad events or happenings and not merely objects,such as a tree or a ball or a car.... We also mean 'good people' to be ordinary persons, like ourselves, for perish the thought we are bad or evil(it's always someone else, of course)! BY THE SAME TOKEN(COIN)(PUN INTENDED) 'GOOD' & 'BAD' THINGS HAPPEN TO 'BAD' PEOPLE,but we all think they go what they deserved, they all got their just desserts and needed some punishment for their ill deeds, AND, if they somehow got punished we immediately assume it a 'DIVINE ACT' by 'GOD' OR 'justice',when it is merely a mechanical operation. The dispension of any justice or revenge need not be immediate-I know, for I have seen it happen at times. LIKEWISE, when good things happen to good people, we assume they deserve such and are being rewarded for 'good deeds',for being 'good', for 'obeying orders' or 'Mommy' or 'Big Daddy" and the like. MORE ON THIS ANOTHER TIME.....

ASSUMPTIONS IN THE INITIAL QUESTION ASKED

Two assumptions in the question,WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE are within the question: one, that 'bad things' exist and that 'good people' exist....and we can compile vast lists of both assumptions which will take 'forever and a day' or all eternity.....an infinite series, that the use of the dictionary and encyclopedia will not cure. The problem of GOOD & EVIL seems in these things a relative consideration when it comes to specific acts and states of being or existence on this level of 'human' consideration....the search for CAUSE rather than effect, the search for reasons, as well as fate/destiny descriptions,etc. Have to dash as the computer is closing.

THE FURTHER QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED ARE"

WHY DO GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO BAD PEOPLE?; WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO BAD PEOPLE?:WHY DO GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?'........Most people will think these questions are most obvious but they demand a consideration that the question,WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE? does not go beyond in ordinary thinking....Since I am running out of time on this computer, I will also quickly ask these questions to set them in contrast to the main ones:WHY DO BAD THINGS AHPPEN TO GOOD ANTS? (the answer may be that people step on them or poison them....to ants, people appear as 'gods', as 'forces' etc.). WHY DO GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO BAD ANTS?(answer might be the 'gods' have dropped some crumbs at one of their heavenly picnics,etc. You can substitute other things, like WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD APES, DOGS,CATS, CHILDREN, MONKEYS, FISH? etc. to see just how far your mind can take in things as most of our thoughts are limited to merely considering HUMANS, POWER POSSESSORS, CELEBRITIES, ATHLETES,ETC. and not the life on earth and certainly not the Universe or Cosmos.....but those are other topics to discuss...if ever...

FURTHER QUESTIONS BASED ON THE INITIAL ONE

I had written what I wanted to say and then, somehow the blog was erased and I can't recall exactly what I had written...an example, no doubt, of bad things happening, at least to me! Setting aside for the moment, notions and concepts and concerns about 'good' or 'bad'(which is also the problem of evil) which are also theological/religious/philosophical/esoteric-occult,etc.,most persons in the modern-contemporary world would tend to favor what is often called 'common sense' and'politically correct' answers or considerations of these problems/issues/topics,etc. However, the basic question of WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE? is actually about SUFFERING or HUMAN MISERY and for most of us, the usual answers are not satisfactory and so we play the 'blame-game' with all kinds of things....THE TRADITIONAL WAYS of answering such questions also are not in vogue with contemporary persons and the life-styles demanded are not easily followed: THE WAY OF THE YOGI, THE WAY OF THE MONK, THE WAY OF THE FAKIR,ETC. although many imagine they are doing such these days in their street corner dojos, temples, ashrams,etc. and the may, to give the benefit of doubt, be doing something however minimal.

'WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?'

This question has been recently asked on FACEBOOK and often is asked in other circles, but I prefer not to answer it by getting involved with the various participants who discuss such, since that is very time consuming from my point of view. Whether or not anyone agrees or disagrees with me is unimportant but they are free to comment on this blog on this topic and follow it. MY INTENTION on this blog is to discuss this question to THE HIGHEST POINT OF ABSURDITY and bundle it up and drop it from there to the bottom of the philosophical dust bin where it belongs and may be eventually burned up, until re-resurrected by someone who has a problem.... This question is,'WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?' is the sort of thing small children ask of their parents, if they have any these days, 'WHY, MUMMY? WHY, MUMMY' or 'WHY,DADDY, WHY?' and the parents usually answers, believing the child is not prepared for a real and honest answer of great complication and description, 'BECAUSE, BECAUSE,BECAUSE!' This type of approach seldom satisfies for the obvious reasons and only delay the real and true, if any, answers.....Thsoe who ask this question tend to do so on the basis of several assumptions which are inherent in the question and I shall discuss these eventually, but the astute reader will soon realize what these are without my prompting at this moment.

IN SPITE OF MAN'S RUDIMENTARY UNDERSTANDING

In spite of mankind's rudimentary understanding and so-called self-knowledge, the earliest men remained animals both in appetites and their behavior!

OLD AND ANCIENT NOTIONS

All the old and ancient notions are still with us,revived by world-wide electronic communications and readily available forms of 'media' that are cheaply reproduced hard copy. As man moves from stone carvings of all kinds to paper adn then to electronic images, you can bet on this: ONLY THE STONES WILL REMAIN TO ATTEST THAT LIFE ONCE EXISTED ON EARTH, WHEN THE EARTH BECOMES A DEAD PLANET, perhaps absorbed by 'the MOON'.

THE QUANTIFICATION OF LIFE

The quantification of life has begun and most people are not wholly aware of its implications.

CHIEF FEATURE

When we bundle together the sheaves of all our characteristics, PHYSICAL, MENTAL, EMOTIONAL, we do not realize that even if we study them , we are completely ignorant of our CHIEF FEATURE, which is, one of those things that everyone can see except yourself! This Chief Feature is readily apparent to those who come to see and know you and so forth, but you are blind to this feature and you can only see this CHIEF FEATURE long after many trials and tribulations and much painful study. It does absolutely no good for anyone to tell you about this Chief Feature or to describe it to you or for you. You will not believe it,most likely, you will deny it, and it will hide from you as you go off in another direction. Then you also have a sort of 'false'self that gets you into many difficulties, mainly by promising things that cannot be possibly delivered, even though at the time you express 'deep sincerity', 'complete honesty' and which you quickly forget you ever made and this contradiction has to be resolved. It is not merely presenting a false face or social front which is another matter that needs to be discussed. CHIEF FEATURE will be an aspect of your fate that only can be overcome once you get beyond the obstacles that will confront you on the Path to Self-Knowledge.

YOUR CHARACTER DETERMINES YOUR FATE

CHARACTER is often seen as being either 'good' or 'bad'; 'strong' or 'weak' but such notions are simplistic. Since the term 'characteristic' is derived from CHARACTER, we would do well to consider physical, mental and emotional characteristics in any dsicussion of why one's FATE dependsin large part,if not entirely, on one's character. By listing under each cctegory the traits and otehr aspects, one can expect to find a good deal about one's self,perhaps one's fate! Abrief example might be: under physical-weak or strong; tall or short; thin or fat,etc. while under mental:dull or bright, slow or fast, keen or sharp,etc.; and under emotional: angry or happy,sad or glad, spirited or dejected,etc. Of course, you have to supply your own adjectives all of which can describe the outcomes of certain behaviors one displays. You can conjure up your images and supply your own examples but quite often when others do so for you, you might experience a 'SHOCK' which will make you realize perhaps that the self-image you have is nothing like how others see you or 'characterize' you! Of course this is only a slight hint, and we tend to suffer when such happens because we feel other people simply do not appreciate us enough or understand us,etc.

THE ARMCHAIR ACTOR, FILM MAKER, PRODUCER, PLAYWRIGHT,ETC.

This armchair series I am composing will perhaps tend to exhaust the ability of readers to maintain their 'armchair' status and goad them into professional efforts and less amateurish areas than what appear here.

THE ARMCHAIR TRAVELER

Here one can travel along the open roads of the imagination and discuss places one would actually like to be outside the normal routine of life, one's workplace, or one's actual obligations and without spending any time aboard ship, plane, or on foot. No need to get seasick, airsick, or hot and dusty or cold and wet, traipsing about the globe when one, in the privacy of one's home or on-line can view videos, photos, maps, travel brochures and anything else that will lend support to one's notions of ideal travel without lifting a foot or perhaps just a finger or two. You can also sample, thanks to globalization, all the exotic or nearly all of the exotic foods and cuisine around the worth, either by takeout, by calling in for delivery, or opening one's own refrig after some shopping trips to the super-duper stores,etc. Bon Apetit!

THE ARM CHAIR WARRIOR

There are a number of 'martial artists' and others who like to sit in their chairs and pontificate on war, fighting, video games of a similar nature, and read, discuss, and explain all sorts of theories, applications, histories, personalities, etc. in this field, and I have to admit, it is tempting to do so and to avoid getting any blood shed,either yours or any actual opponent or enemy you may encounter, and additionally not expending any energy,undergoing any risk or even sweating when one can be in a most comforable chair or roo,

THE ARMCHAIR HISTORIAN

In this posting, I hope to convey some of my interests in HISTORY, which is a large area with many categories and topics, but will tend to focus on my specific interests and observations,which will,no doubt, be far from the usual ones held by many others. Whether or not those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it, remains to be seen and is not as yet proven, only surmised,because, while perhaps most things are relative especially those everyone thinks are absolute, when things recur they do not always repeat in exactly the same manner.