Wow. That was interesting. But... full disclosure, I had to pause halfway through. I will read the second half later. I know nothing about Rurik Skywalker (except for what I've read here. But I agree with much of his thoughts on the hidden Masters of War. The Hussein business. (H really was suckered into invading Kuwait. And then there was all the lies about the Iraqis throwing premie babies on the floor of the Kuwaiti hospitals.) I, a Vietnam War draftee, got into a big argument with a co-worker about this. He was my age, but somehow had avoided going to the 'Nam meatgrinder, but he was bawling furiously that we had to throw American soldiers against the Iraqi monsters.
Anyway, I am surprised that I am the only one commenting on here.
The only criticism I have is that a piece this long could be broken into two or even three chapters released over two or three days. Readers may have found the length daunting.
Thanks for reading - to make things more para-social - may i recommend listening to the interview on a walk or multiple sits... voices carry meaning different than the reading... regarding the "meat grinder" - interesting analogy you bring up as this is an important "meat grinder" scene/place in the film "Stalker"... Thanks for entering the zone with us...
I always try to find real audio and a photo (when possible) of interesting people. More than anything else, it separates the wheat from chaff 99.9% of the time. You were both calm, articulate, well versed, with fluid cohesive thought patterns.
I like how friendship is a recurring theme of yours. It's a topic that has a great deal of significance to me. It seems we have a lot more in common than I realized.
Just like you, I grew up in America. And I have a pure Russian first and last name, not anglicized like many fotb parents give their kids here for assimilation "John, Dave, or Rick" etc.
The word which best describes my experience in America would be loneliness. Going back to early grade school in the early 2000's, I can recall there never being any kids outside playing in the streets in my suburban neighborhood because there were no kids (prime example of the inverted demographic pyramid). In order to find someone to play with, you had to pick up the phone. You'd get driven over there, spend the day, and come home. Saturday was always a special day because that was the only time you could really get to see a classmate outside of school.
I was always the one calling asking to hang out instead of being called. No one ever called me. And I was a cool kid! I was very athletic, strong, smart, had a nice middle class house.. I can remember feeling shame when I picked up the phone to call this one kid, Eric. He always had several neighborhood kids at his house, so a ticket to his house was the ticket to hanging out with all of them. It was lots of fun. But I always felt shame because I had to ask him if I could come over to his house to hang out with him. Some times it worked, sometimes it didn't. It felt very unnatural. Those few minutes on the phone were nervous for me because I didn't want to be rejected. I didn't wan to spend the Saturday alone. I also didn't want to look like a chump with no self-respect, odd as that may sound at that age. We were only 12, 13 years old!
Looking back all these years later, I could never figure out why he didn't want to hang out with me as much as I did with him. I had several of the same toys and games, I was phenomenal in backyard football, I was strong, definitely not awkward. Sure his house was cool, he had all the latest nerf guns, games, Call of Duty's, Xbox 360's, big backyard, but even if I had all those things, if I had no one to share it with, they would mean absolutely nothing. It wasn't what he had that I wanted, it who who he had. He had everyone there.
Even at the time I understood that it didn't really matter if I was there or not on.
Contrast this with my first visit to Russia when I was six. I was visiting my relatives at their apartment on the outskirts of a major city and I saw a bunch of guys my age playing soccer in the dusty courtyard outside. I went straightaway to play and they accepted me immediately. We had a great time. They didn't say "who are you", "we don't know you" "go away", something that I had experienced in the US. We just played! My trips back to Russia since then have been nothing but breaths of fresh air. The experiences with people have been real, down to earth. Not transactional.
Russians are born with something called "душа". I suppose my душа is incompatible with the culture I was born into. Even though I look American, talk like an American, act like an American, "get" all the American mannerisms and social cues, I still feel like a fish out of water.
It was much less that way in the 80s, just 20 years earlier. The speed at which the change occurred has been impressive, but is explained by technology.
"... they're so tainted and poisoned that they can't actually dig themselves out of their own hole." -Rurik
I'm an American, pretty much a classic American fuckup according to prevailing winds. The addiction to military to homelessness pipeline can get the best of anyone.
Rollo's observations about the perpetual toxicity of American culture and how adhering to the prevailing social orthodoxy is pretty much a death sentence for the mind and spirit hit home.
People here are hypnotized beyond their ability to recognize it. Basic and innate curiosity is in very short supply.
Kudos to the themes addressed here. A sense of basic wonder is what keeps me going, gets me out of the hole. Thanks guys.
First lets put this "altered states of consciousness" crap to bed. There is consciousness and there is unconsciousness and deep sleep. When you are conscious you are feeling your being, your existence , you know that you are . Consciousness is expressed when we say " I am". When conscious we can conceptualise and cognise and perceive through the senses. The alterd state is not an altered state of consciousness it is the content of consciousness that is altered. What appears and is perceived through the senses is altered . Conceptualising can also be altered. The being is still happening , you still know that you are even when hallucinating.
Secondly about Americans you are right in general but I have had some very real and true friends in America. The problem is that Americans do not get authenticity. Everything in America is fake and false and they don't generally know what is authentic and real . That is where the friendship thing gets weird because of the shallow false personas that mostt Americans have.Most of the time when you are talking about Americans and war and banking, you need to say American Jews.
Rurik brought me here (cross-posted)
Sensational interview and discussion - subscribed and shared.
Rurik is still dragging me over the hot coals of Putin Hopium.
Wow. That was interesting. But... full disclosure, I had to pause halfway through. I will read the second half later. I know nothing about Rurik Skywalker (except for what I've read here. But I agree with much of his thoughts on the hidden Masters of War. The Hussein business. (H really was suckered into invading Kuwait. And then there was all the lies about the Iraqis throwing premie babies on the floor of the Kuwaiti hospitals.) I, a Vietnam War draftee, got into a big argument with a co-worker about this. He was my age, but somehow had avoided going to the 'Nam meatgrinder, but he was bawling furiously that we had to throw American soldiers against the Iraqi monsters.
Anyway, I am surprised that I am the only one commenting on here.
The only criticism I have is that a piece this long could be broken into two or even three chapters released over two or three days. Readers may have found the length daunting.
Thanks for this interview.
Thanks for reading - to make things more para-social - may i recommend listening to the interview on a walk or multiple sits... voices carry meaning different than the reading... regarding the "meat grinder" - interesting analogy you bring up as this is an important "meat grinder" scene/place in the film "Stalker"... Thanks for entering the zone with us...
I always try to find real audio and a photo (when possible) of interesting people. More than anything else, it separates the wheat from chaff 99.9% of the time. You were both calm, articulate, well versed, with fluid cohesive thought patterns.
I like how friendship is a recurring theme of yours. It's a topic that has a great deal of significance to me. It seems we have a lot more in common than I realized.
Just like you, I grew up in America. And I have a pure Russian first and last name, not anglicized like many fotb parents give their kids here for assimilation "John, Dave, or Rick" etc.
The word which best describes my experience in America would be loneliness. Going back to early grade school in the early 2000's, I can recall there never being any kids outside playing in the streets in my suburban neighborhood because there were no kids (prime example of the inverted demographic pyramid). In order to find someone to play with, you had to pick up the phone. You'd get driven over there, spend the day, and come home. Saturday was always a special day because that was the only time you could really get to see a classmate outside of school.
I was always the one calling asking to hang out instead of being called. No one ever called me. And I was a cool kid! I was very athletic, strong, smart, had a nice middle class house.. I can remember feeling shame when I picked up the phone to call this one kid, Eric. He always had several neighborhood kids at his house, so a ticket to his house was the ticket to hanging out with all of them. It was lots of fun. But I always felt shame because I had to ask him if I could come over to his house to hang out with him. Some times it worked, sometimes it didn't. It felt very unnatural. Those few minutes on the phone were nervous for me because I didn't want to be rejected. I didn't wan to spend the Saturday alone. I also didn't want to look like a chump with no self-respect, odd as that may sound at that age. We were only 12, 13 years old!
Looking back all these years later, I could never figure out why he didn't want to hang out with me as much as I did with him. I had several of the same toys and games, I was phenomenal in backyard football, I was strong, definitely not awkward. Sure his house was cool, he had all the latest nerf guns, games, Call of Duty's, Xbox 360's, big backyard, but even if I had all those things, if I had no one to share it with, they would mean absolutely nothing. It wasn't what he had that I wanted, it who who he had. He had everyone there.
Even at the time I understood that it didn't really matter if I was there or not on.
Contrast this with my first visit to Russia when I was six. I was visiting my relatives at their apartment on the outskirts of a major city and I saw a bunch of guys my age playing soccer in the dusty courtyard outside. I went straightaway to play and they accepted me immediately. We had a great time. They didn't say "who are you", "we don't know you" "go away", something that I had experienced in the US. We just played! My trips back to Russia since then have been nothing but breaths of fresh air. The experiences with people have been real, down to earth. Not transactional.
Russians are born with something called "душа". I suppose my душа is incompatible with the culture I was born into. Even though I look American, talk like an American, act like an American, "get" all the American mannerisms and social cues, I still feel like a fish out of water.
It was much less that way in the 80s, just 20 years earlier. The speed at which the change occurred has been impressive, but is explained by technology.
"... they're so tainted and poisoned that they can't actually dig themselves out of their own hole." -Rurik
I'm an American, pretty much a classic American fuckup according to prevailing winds. The addiction to military to homelessness pipeline can get the best of anyone.
Rollo's observations about the perpetual toxicity of American culture and how adhering to the prevailing social orthodoxy is pretty much a death sentence for the mind and spirit hit home.
People here are hypnotized beyond their ability to recognize it. Basic and innate curiosity is in very short supply.
Kudos to the themes addressed here. A sense of basic wonder is what keeps me going, gets me out of the hole. Thanks guys.
First lets put this "altered states of consciousness" crap to bed. There is consciousness and there is unconsciousness and deep sleep. When you are conscious you are feeling your being, your existence , you know that you are . Consciousness is expressed when we say " I am". When conscious we can conceptualise and cognise and perceive through the senses. The alterd state is not an altered state of consciousness it is the content of consciousness that is altered. What appears and is perceived through the senses is altered . Conceptualising can also be altered. The being is still happening , you still know that you are even when hallucinating.
Secondly about Americans you are right in general but I have had some very real and true friends in America. The problem is that Americans do not get authenticity. Everything in America is fake and false and they don't generally know what is authentic and real . That is where the friendship thing gets weird because of the shallow false personas that mostt Americans have.Most of the time when you are talking about Americans and war and banking, you need to say American Jews.
You can be in a dream state while conscious