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Gift: What is your special gift in life?

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
As we say goodbye to civilisation and its discontents, we become nostalgic for the pursuit of truth and human rights.

Yes, our civilisation found a way to determine what is true and what is not true. It is called the scientific method based on evidence and reason. But tribalism replaces evidence and reason with lived experience. Under tribalism lived experience trumps evidence and reason.

Lived experience has the advantage of being intuitive, it does not require years of training, it can't be challenged, and must be accepted, just as revelations of old were accepted.

Looking deeper we see the foundations of civilisation are eroding. Civilisation began with the phonetic alphabet, and the Greco-Roman alphabet was spread throughout the world. This was rejected by the barbaric tribes just as Boko Haram rejects Western literacy today. And so we applied the phonetic alphabet by force of colonialism.

But under the onslaught of the electric telegraph, the telephone, the radio, the television, and the net, civilisation began to dissolve into electric tribalism.

There is no way back, the best we can hope for is the book will be retained as a status symbol, unread but proudly displayed.
 

Mole

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Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
What rough beast is slouching towards Bethlehem, waiting to be born?

And I am afraid its lineaments are familiar, sickenly familiar, I don't have to tell you, we only have to look around, hate shows itself, the ceremony of innocence is spoiled through manipulation, the centre cannot hold, and Bethlehem is waiting to be seduced.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
Some of us worry about getting back on track, while my special gift is to get off track.

This is not as easy as it seems, as industrial culture is devoted to keeping us on track, so schedules can be met, appointments kept, and production can keep flowing.

In industrial society getting off track is seen a mistake, so to deliberately get off track is seen as a mental aberration or worse, a betrayal.

So I discreetly get off track while no one is looking, I pretend to be on track as I leave, looking as though I intend to stay on track the whole journey, but once I am out of sight, I just slip off the tracks, and follow my fancy into the open fields, with the trees and flowers and horses.

On track of course we need the iron rails to guide us, but once we are off track, with a mind innocent and quiet, we are guided by our fancy.

We do just as we fancy, and it works. We start to fall in love with the beautiful world around us. And the world falls in love with us.
 
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RadicalDoubt

Alongside Questionable Clarity
Joined
Jun 27, 2017
Messages
1,848
MBTI Type
TiSi
Enneagram
9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
I really don't have one of these... Maybe story/world building so long as I am not required to think about doing it.
 

Tonitrum

Member
Joined
May 27, 2017
Messages
289
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
584
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I am unsure what my gifts are, unfortunately.
 

ElayzPadla

New member
Joined
Oct 19, 2022
Messages
1
MBTI Type
ISTJ
Enneagram
Six
I think it is a beautiful and inspiring post. Moreover, I agree with most of the statements. I believe each person has gifts; some are just unconventional, which is why they have them. Or it is just too unusual, like building something with the help of coins or making perfect gift baskets. But I think if people searched for their gifts and tried to find them and use them in life, they all would be happy. As there’s a phrase: ‘if you love your work, you’ll never work a single day in your life. I hope it also inspires some of you.
 
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