PeakOil is You
America: How Prosperity Has Degraded Our Lives
Re: America: How Prosperity Has Degraded Our Lives
by holmes » Mon 23 Oct 2006, 19:07:09
awesome Aaron! The climb up IS the adventure! The peak just the trophy! U speak my language!
"To crush the Cornucopians, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."
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Re: America: How Prosperity Has Degraded Our Lives
by coyote » Mon 23 Oct 2006, 19:42:03
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', 'H')uh? Where did that come from? I'd like to see that story. It must have been about some very obscure, new age, "alternative" school or something. It sure couldn't have been any sort of mainstream school.
No, Aaron's correct. I remember stories about dodgeball bans. Here's a few news links:
Google News: Dodgeball ban
What these folks completely misunderstand is that any kid whose self-esteem can't stand up to competition learned that from home, in the first few years of life. Banning dodgeball (or tag! - as some are trying to do) won't help worth a damn.
Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive...
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive...
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Re: America: How Prosperity Has Degraded Our Lives
by duke3522 » Mon 23 Oct 2006, 19:46:42
But is not one of the most important lessens of competition learning to lose well. Because, let’s face it, most folk go through life doing a hell of a lot more losing than winning, and knowing how to lose is an essential skill.
In ‘Losing Well’ I’m not talking about shaking hands and being friends with the guy who just kicked your ass. But the skills of learning from a defeat. Being able to analyze your own performance, being able to identify your own strengths and weaknesses. Learning how your opponent operates and learning his strengths and weaknesses. There is no shame in defeat if you fought well and if you learned from that defeat.
One of the biggest problems I see with kids coming out of schools today is their inability to handle a defeat. I see many kids fresh out of high school who are just fine when whatever they are involved in is going well. But at the first sign of a problem many of these youngsters will just give up on the project.
The problem is that public schools fill the kids with plenty of ‘positive self image’. Unfortunately, they fail to give the kids any skills to be positive about.
Duke of Indiana
In ‘Losing Well’ I’m not talking about shaking hands and being friends with the guy who just kicked your ass. But the skills of learning from a defeat. Being able to analyze your own performance, being able to identify your own strengths and weaknesses. Learning how your opponent operates and learning his strengths and weaknesses. There is no shame in defeat if you fought well and if you learned from that defeat.
One of the biggest problems I see with kids coming out of schools today is their inability to handle a defeat. I see many kids fresh out of high school who are just fine when whatever they are involved in is going well. But at the first sign of a problem many of these youngsters will just give up on the project.
The problem is that public schools fill the kids with plenty of ‘positive self image’. Unfortunately, they fail to give the kids any skills to be positive about.
Duke of Indiana
<b>I'd rather get my brains blown out in the wild than wait in terror at the slaughterhouse</b>.
Craig Volk, Northern Exposure, A-Hunting We Will Go, 1991
Craig Volk, Northern Exposure, A-Hunting We Will Go, 1991
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Re: America: How Prosperity Has Degraded Our Lives
by Zardoz » Mon 23 Oct 2006, 20:22:54
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coyote', '[')url=http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=dodgeball%20ban&btnG=Search&sa=N&tab=wn]Google News: Dodgeball ban[/url]
Wait a minute! Read those stories! Only one of them had anything to do with what Aaron is talking about. All the others have nothing to do with "competition". The games are banned solely because some school districts are afraid of lawsuits if kids get hurt.
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Re: America: How Prosperity Has Degraded Our Lives
by BlisteredWhippet » Mon 23 Oct 2006, 20:23:25
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')And I can't speak for runners or bikers, but as a skiing, martial artist I can tell you that it's all about the competition. Remove the competition & those become solo activities with little interest to me.
')And I can't speak for runners or bikers, but as a skiing, martial artist I can tell you that it's all about the competition. Remove the competition & those become solo activities with little interest to me.
For me, there is only the self. No other competition matters. All competition with others is competition with the self. When I think of other people "competing", whether in combat or games, I regard them as people competing with themselves. They are after all, only striving to overcome their own limitations. Competition is certainly useful for driving one's effort to master oneself.
If the intention is only to score points, or valuate based on some third party standard, this is incorrect and can lead to failure. In another post I brought up Navy SEAL physical standards of conditioning, but even those shouldn't be taken literally. It is self-control and mastery of the self only that is important. Competition is a figment of western culture origin. Perfection is possible without competition. The Art of War underscores this principle again and again. Slavish devotion to competition is pathology, in my opinion. Misplaced energy.
Competition only seems to help set standards for people. Seeking black belt opponents or a mountian as challenges are all aspects of finding standards. For the rehabilitating, getting out of bed and pissing in the toilet without missing is not a competition with others. Its only useful if it helps prove to the self that it is possible. It helps raise the standard or guage progress.
This is all scattered. But basically my main sentiment is that the competitive principle is overused in western society. Too many people defeat themselves because they believe they must compete with others. They fail to realize their capabilities because they adopt a standard that is useless. They give up because they don't believe that they can achieve something worthwhile in a social sense. They start thinking social success means something and is more important than personal success. So competition becomes mass pathology. I really appreciate the John Taylor Gotto link, I read his ideas a few years ago and he attempts to illuminate this idea.
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Re: America: How Prosperity Has Degraded Our Lives
by mmasters » Mon 23 Oct 2006, 22:44:14
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', '
')This is all scattered. But basically my main sentiment is that the competitive principle is overused in western society. Too many people defeat themselves because they believe they must compete with others. They fail to realize their capabilities because they adopt a standard that is useless. They give up because they don't believe that they can achieve something worthwhile in a social sense. They start thinking social success means something and is more important than personal success. So competition becomes mass pathology. I really appreciate the John Taylor Gotto link, I read his ideas a few years ago and he attempts to illuminate this idea.
')This is all scattered. But basically my main sentiment is that the competitive principle is overused in western society. Too many people defeat themselves because they believe they must compete with others. They fail to realize their capabilities because they adopt a standard that is useless. They give up because they don't believe that they can achieve something worthwhile in a social sense. They start thinking social success means something and is more important than personal success. So competition becomes mass pathology. I really appreciate the John Taylor Gotto link, I read his ideas a few years ago and he attempts to illuminate this idea.
Yeah it's sad when people attach themselves so much to the outside world that they value social success over personal. Sometimes I think it's the ultimate responsibility of one's self to get out of this mess, tending to lean to self empowerment as being the only real answer. But it seems there's a greater responsibility to try and influence others in the right direction too aside from completely seeing self empowerment as the answer. Then again, there's so few individuals anymore it's getting ridiculous!
I really think one of the worst influences is the money system we have, it encourages the short term instead of the long term. Like in investing for instance, the dominate focus is short term ROI. And with self empowerment one of the big keys is developing your conscience over your ego desires, in other words orienting yourself to think long term instead of short. Encouraging people to think for the immediete is just bad. It really has helped manipulate our society into one stop shopping, instant gratification, mcdonalds, easy livin. It's in everything. Ever look at porn these days, it's mostly just this gimme dick and pussy mentality. Whereas porn in the 70s and 80s had character, people tended to have personalities even though they didn't look as pretty on the outside.
I could go on and on but that's something definitely missing from this world is character. Surely tough times ahead will bring back individualism into this world but at what cost? I can only imagine with the great population of sugar coated egos we have today that the barrage of tough times will be one colossal-collective-nightmare-temper-tantrum. It's really kind of scary what we could be up against. I have to think maybe the government controlling people through the terrorism bogey man into bad times isn't a bad thing, may keep it from getting completely absurd!
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