Socializing is as exhausting as giving blood. People assume we loners are misanthropes, just sitting thinking, ‘Oh, people are such a bunch of assholes,’ but it’s really not like that. We just have a smaller tolerance for what it takes to be with others. It means having to perform. I get so tired of communicating.
Also worth noting, it was the Obama administration that was involved with this. The Democrats seem pretty appealing these days, since the Republicans are absolutely ridiculous, but the truth is both parties are fucking up the working class (in this case, internationally) and putting the interests of business first. Obama isn’t a nazisocialistdictator but he’s not perfect, either. So remember folks: all politicians are crooks.
i like this. even thought its not mine. but it what streams through tears on your way to work. along telephone lines. trauma and tears on the way to work.
How much time do you spend each day being distracted by technology? According to one recent survey, 53% of people say they waste at least an hour at work every day, and most of their distractions are digital.
The survey of more than 500 employees showed that technology accounts for about 60% of workplace distractions — through email, social websites and even the time it takes to toggle between applications. About 45% of the respondents kept at least six items open at the same time and 65% said they used more than one device in addition to their main computer.
Very slowly, the high waters of the swollen Mississippi River are making their way south to Louisiana. Weeks of heavy rains and runoff from an unusually snowy winter have flooded thousands of homes and over 3 million acres of farmland in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The river is expected to crest at a record height of 58.5 feet sometime today in Vicksburg, Mississippi, 200 miles north of New Orleans. In order to spare larger cities and industrial areas downstream, the U.S, Army Corps of Engineers has opened floodgates in the Morganza Spillway, north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, allowing an estimated 100,000 cubic feet of river water to flow into the Atchafalaya Basin every second. Collected here are images of the Mississippi and those caught in its path over the past few days — coping, watching and waiting.
Despite my doubts, neurology and neuroscience do not appear to profoundly contradict Buddhist thought. Neuroscience tells us the thing we take as our unified mind is an illusion, that our mind is not unified and can barely be said to “exist” at all. Our feeling of unity and control is a post-hoc confabulation and is easily fractured into separate parts. As revealed by scientific inquiry, what we call a mind (or a self, or a soul) is actually something that changes so much and is so uncertain that our pre-scientific language struggles to find meaning.
Buddhists say pretty much the same thing. They believe in an impermanent and illusory self made of shifting parts. They’ve even come up with language to address the problem between perception and belief. Their word for self is anatta, which is usually translated as ‘non self.’ One might try to refer to the self, but the word cleverly reminds one’s self that there is no such thing.
―David Weisman
I’m of course totally interested in this discussion. Since the author points to the obvious fallacy and/or disconnect with science in terms of Buddhism’s belief in reincarnation I will point you to some alternative views on rebirth here.
Also, I would like to add that I find nothing surprising in that so much of Buddhist thought jibes with modern neuro- and cognitive science since it’s whole m.o. is observation of the mind. It’s not a belief system, it’s a science (and spirituality) of the mind, through direct experience of one’s own consciousness.
![mdfsmash:
theatlantic:
Mississippi Floodwaters Roll South
Very slowly, the high waters of the swollen Mississippi River are making their way south to Louisiana. Weeks of heavy rains and runoff from an unusually snowy winter have flooded thousands of homes and over 3 million acres of farmland in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The river is expected to crest at a record height of 58.5 feet sometime today in Vicksburg, Mississippi, 200 miles north of New Orleans. In order to spare larger cities and industrial areas downstream, the U.S, Army Corps of Engineers has opened floodgates in the Morganza Spillway, north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, allowing an estimated 100,000 cubic feet of river water to flow into the Atchafalaya Basin every second. Collected here are images of the Mississippi and those caught in its path over the past few days — coping, watching and waiting.
See more incredible photos at In Focus
[Scott Olson/Getty Images]
This gives me anxiety. How can they even sleep at night?!?
its crazy. country people always get screwed.](http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llgcgz5FJU1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
