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“It is a more complex decision to live your life, rather than let your life happen to you. There are always more reasons to not get involved.”
— Russell Crowe Tweet —
There is a way in which Russell Crowe’s penetrating insight dovetails, in an interesting way, with another well-known axiom: “If you’re not part of the solution — then you’re part of the problem.”
Until I read Crowe’s tweet, I had always just seen the axiom as a kind of ‘call to action’ for people to get politically involved in the struggle for social reform. And of course — it is. But the remarkable phrasing of Crowe’s tweet brought home the point that the axiom applies just as well to “the struggle within” each person — the struggle to understand the meaning and purpose of one’s life; the struggle to fulfill one’s potential; the struggle to ‘awaken’ to a new understanding that will finally make sense of the chaos within; the struggle to see our own faults as clearly as we see the faults of others; the struggle to attain the wisdom that we wish all humans had.
The Reflecting Pool Discourse blog represents an attempt to reconcile the outer political-religious-social dynamics with the inner world of the human psyche — so as to convert the outer political-religious-social issues — from external dogmatic abstractions into a meaningful correlating map of the individual consciousness — with its hopes and dreams and needs and its long history of labeling, categorizing and defining ‘things’ — sometimes inaccurately in the heat of the moment.
If the term “politics” or “religion” has any meaning whatsoever, it is realized only within the heart, mind and soul of each individual. Religion is not some ‘thing’ that is “out there” somewhere in the public domain that I agree or disagree with — rather it is an interactive dynamic within a psyche that interprets, defines, judges, categorizes, and reacts to that outer abstraction. With this understanding, the inquiry into these terms necessarily begins within that judging, interpreting psyche — because before we can decide ‘what to believe’ we have to first know what it is that we now believe and why we believe it.
Jiddu Krishnamurti succinctly described a common glitch in this predicament when he said, “We are confronted with a dilemma that inhibits our ability to actually learn ‘New Things.’ This is because we listen comparatively. That is, we compare what we hear with what we already ‘know’ … what we already believe. That which does not comport is discarded. All listening of this type obviously prevents us from listening.” The big problem with this is that we all do this and we do it habitually and unconsciously. So it requires an extremely disciplined, focused effort to run this video in slow motion so we can actually see ourselves doing this — incessantly.
Ordinarily, the proverbial wisdom is “Don’t talk religion or politics at a social gathering — if you don’t want to turn the ‘party’ into a War Zone.” Yet that caveat is assuming that the treatment of the topic is strictly as an external debate about the outer abstractions the topics are wrapped in. But when you unpack the contents and dive down into the deep end of the pool of the interpreting psyche that is ‘sorting the incoming mail’ — the outer skirmish is by-passed and the inner skirmmish begins.
To this end, the Reflecting Pool Discourse blog presents a variety of Topic Categories with related articles intended to redirect the reader from the typical outer abstractions to the inner workings of the mind that is considering the issue. When properly understood, this converts the process from one of “examining the subject” — into one of “examining the critical mind” that is judging and interpreting the subject. It gets very, very interesting very quickly when articles are read in this way.
All of the topics at the Reflecting Pool Discourse blog site are open for discussion and your participation by way of Comments on the articles posted is genuinely invited and encouraged. At this point in time, Moderator approval IS REQUIRED before a posted Comment will appear on a Post (necessitated by spammers and hackers). There is a very rapid turnaround time for Moderator approval — typically less than a few hours.
TOPIC CATEGORIES
1. Reflecting Pool Blog Introduction (uncategorized articles)
2. Compassionate Truths
3. Religion’s Mortal Wounds
4. American Politics at Toxic Levels
5. Animal Welfare Discourse
Leaving Comments:: You can only leave comments for “Posts” — as Word Press does not display a comments section for “Pages.” But Keep in Mind there is a Post article for every ‘Page’ article — so you’ll always be able to submit a comment for every article on this site. If you see a ‘Page’ article you want to comment on — just find it under the same title under the ‘Posts’ section. To leave a comment to a Post — there are two “Required” fields that must be provided: 1) Your name and 2) your Email Address (E-mail address will NOT be displayed on the webpage). Keep in Mind comments submitted will not appear immediately. It takes 2-12 hours for it to appear — due to moderator approval requirements. Remember to click the reCaptchya “I’m no robot” security box BEFORE clicking the comments ‘Submit’ button.
Special Note: The “Page” version of the article was necessary because “Post” articles can NOT be organized into Categories in any menus — because they are strictly date-ordered to show how current they are. But on Word Press Blogs — “Pages” do not allow visitors to leave comments. So I published all blog articles as both “Pages” and as “Posts” — so visitors could post Comments on every article here.
Pages Categorized: To peruse this Blog site according to the Specific Topic Category, there are two Menu Options. Option One is to look under the “Pages Prioritized & Categorized” section on the left-hand side-bar Menu Panel and select the Page article you like under the listed Category. The Category header link is Worth Viewing — as it summarizes the importance of that Category. Clicking on a Page Title will take you to the Blog “Page.” The Second Option for viewing Topic Categories is to go to the “Topic Categories” mid-way down the left-hand side-bar Menu Panel and select the Topic of interest. This will take you to the first blog “Page” for that topic — with other Pages for that Topic appearing beneath that. There are two blog pages per page.
Pages – Page No. Order: I have also arranged blog “Pages” according to their page number — which was simply a way to organize “Page” articles according to their level of IMPORTANCE. To peruse the blog “Pages” according to the page number, go to the “Pages – Page No. Order” section on the left-hand side-bar Menu Panel and select the Page of interest.
ALL POSTS in Reverse Date Order (most recent on top): To view the entire string of blog Posts, which appear in Sequence with Most Recent First (descending order), click on the most recent Post (the first listed post) under the “All Posts – descending” heading on the left-side Menu Panel. Keep in Mind when you enter the “All Posts – descending” section, ALL posts from ALL Topic Categories are mixed together and the posts appear in descending date order, regardless of the topic category. To view “Pages” that are segregated according to the Topic Category they fall under, select a Topic under the “Topic Category” heading on the left-side Menu Panel — or better yet — go to the “Pages Prioritized & Categorized” on the left-side Menu Panel and select the article Page of interest to you. (see, “Pages Prioritized & Categorized” above).
Recent Comments: To peruse the Comments submitted to the Reflecting Pool Discourse Blog by visitors, look under the “Recent Comments” heading in the left-side Menu Panel and select the Comment of Interest. Clicking on a Comment will take you to that Comment where you will be able to post your own comment on that Comment.
Our Topical External Website Links: Reflecting Pool Discourse Blog “Website Links” appear under numerous headings that include the term “Website” in the heading. They appear in the left-side Menu Panel and they are labeled according the Topic Category which their subject matter falls under. These are “external” websites that will cause your browser to migrate away from the Reflecting Pool Discourse Blog website. Many of these “external” websites belong to the Reflecting Pool Discourse creators and you will see the word “Our” in the link title for these website links. Others are Third Party websites which we felt provided important, accurate, reliable information relevant to the Topic Category they are listed under. The word “Our” will be missing from these third-party website link titles. We always try to list these external website links according to the Topic Category they relate to, for easier browsing.
Memorable Quotes: At the very top of the left-side Menu Panel is a revolving Marquee that displays 16 of the most memorable Quotes we have found in our travels. A new quote appears every 20 seconds. We will change \ rotate in a new batch of 16 quotes on a regular basis, to keep the offering fresh.
Twitter Posts: On the left-side Menu Panel is a Twitter link to our “CatDaddy_NY” Twitter page (http://twitter.com/CatDaddy_NY). It used to dispay a few of the most recent Twitter posts — but — Twitter changed the ‘feed’ protocol so that it is a major gauntlet to set-up now – so I just have the link to my Twitter page. Clicking on the Twitter Feed label “Follow Me on Twittter” will take you to our Twitter site. On some browsers holding the CTRL key down or right-clicking on the link will offer an option to open link in a new window or tab.
