Pity the Ignorant

The zealot Muslims are just doing as there "religion" teaches, even if there "religion" is a splinter group. They are ignorant that we are here to cooperate, and provide an environment for our species to flourish. We have flourished in spite of such belief systems, to the point that there are too many of us now, and for now. Soon the drug resistant bacteria will trim us to size, or climate change or man made disaster, or man's ignorance...

The zealot Muslims are unaware of the natural laws of mass society, treat others as we would like to be treated. This can be observed in any peaceful law abiding community. They, the ignorant, instead follow a old man made stone age religion, with modern weapons. The only result can be destruction and loss of goodwill toward that group, and by extension toward all Muslims, even though many are good people. They need to separate themselves from the bad in order to be considered good.

They are ignorant that there is no god, that the good life is based on good human behavior toward each other, not a consistent ideology. Logic alone can drive good behavior and sound thinking, but if they need to believe in a supernatural force to get through life, then I pity them. The stone age, bronze age, iron age, have passed. We are down to information age. We can sort real from fiction by the acid tests of logic and reality, the concepts philosophy and psychology. We do not need some old book of stories that display the art of good story telling, immorality of the main character, and the demand or suggestion that we follow his prescription... because he knows more than we do.

As we mature unto our senior years, we know more than anyone could have at any time in the past, as there is just so much more known and shared in literature, including all written publications. We do not need to hold onto the idea that what was good enough for Mohammad is good enough for us. All I can feel is pity for there ignorance.  

    

Letting go of Attachment

What am I on about? Letting go of attachments is a concept that is repeated in the Stoic tradition and in the Buddhist tradition but does not show up in Christianity. It is the difference between ownership and stewardship over land and estates. It is the root cause of suffering in the Buddhist four noble truths, and with virtue, detachment is necessary and sufficient for the Stoic sage. It is freedom from condenser for those things beyond our control or influence.

Barbara Fredrickson, a psychologist researcher, suggests that love and attachment can be separated to produce a loving kindness toward all without attachment. It is the other part, the lack of attachment, that is the key to letting go of all the hassles of life. Freedom, in its true sense. Serenity. Tranquility.

Attachment is one of the emotions that Christianity and Islam push for. The opposite is found in the philosophy's that bring tranquility. I think that I need to look to the philosophies on this one. Attachment is the problem, not the solution. This is a subtle difference, yet big in effect. Ideas exist outside of us, and those who do not subscribe to the same idea are just not looking at the same concepts, like rigorous honesty.

Consider our wonderful NDP government. They have a revenue  shortfall due to low oil prices. So they do not want to bring a sales tax, but bring in a carbon tax instead. It is intended to "clean up our environment". It is all semantics. They are importing foreigners, yet the real problem is overpopulation, because that is what we should do for humanitarian reasons. Detachment is what we need to resolve many things. Attachment, as promoted by Christians or detachment as promoted by Stoics and Buddhists; that is the question of the day. 

  

Yah Sure

https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/cephalic-phase-response-hunger-fasting-18/
And then there are those of us who find hunger unbearable after 6 or 8 hours, knowing the fridge has food in it.

on other topics

On a personal level, I have had time to read a bit of philosophy now, and have identified several philosophical/psychological issues around life and/or retirement which I need to resolve. Social need, activity-exercise need, and adaption to change all have changed. So must the ways of fulfilling these needs. Some of these I have resolved, which leaves me at odds with many others.  I need more social time, but not a great deal. Work, in the past, has been low social, isolation at a desk, crank out engineering reports. I like to do the work necessary to crank out the report as well, but age took that away.

From an academic standpoint, some of this is cross societal bovine natural fertilizers, and some is my personal belief system that I would like to reconcile into something not resembling conflict. Some of this is the result of the times, starting out with basic survival level and ending in the computer age. All this high speed change does not sit well with my analytical nature and the speed of change that I am comfortable with. In many cases, when I look at the raw logic, society is just out of date with the logic and much of the proven knowledge. There is no solution other than me becoming more sociopathic, that is “not caring” or reducing the frequency of contact to approach zero of those who are insistent.   

Modern psychology is quick to tell we are not social enough, or we are too social, but never will it define the right amount of social in advance, for it could be wrong, and always want to be right. I have met people who cannot concentrate for 5 minutes on something by themselves, and others of us that can work in isolation for months. So what is the right amount? Either way, what ever is required, is what the psychologist suggest? 

I pulled a quote from unrelated place...."the business of living is so desperately hard, relationships are so challenging, work often so unfulfilling or boring, family dynamics so tricky and the capacity for honest, kindly conversation so restricted, we may through no particular fault of our own fall into despondency"... It is often tough to earn a living of the standard we expect, or that others expect of us.

There are those people who can never be satisfied, and those who are always satisfied, they have no desires. There are those who work for every thing they get, and those who just demand more all the time. More effort, more production, more money. Screw it all. I just do not care any more.

Short Term Fix for Life's Problems

Shot term fix is all anyone can offer until the real problem is understood and a solution found, assuming the problem is fixable. All we can really fix is our reaction to the problem. That is all we have control over.

For example, we have all heard these grand schemes of the politicians to fix the unemployment issue, and yet we import workers from the third world into this second world country. Old world, new world, third world, that makes us, by definition, a second world country. Tim Hortons could not run here without imported workers, because our locals have such high expectations (delusions) of there value that they will not work there. It is not a career, but a job until something better comes along. Put some interest into the work, learn how to sell, systematize product distribution, and the next job may be much better. Would you like fries with that?

The first thing anyone needs is interest in something. A positive emotion is the place to start in any field. A bit of enthusiasm, interest, yield engagement, knowledge, effort, purpose and meaning. Over time and if fate permits, accomplishments occur, leading to satisfaction, joy, and reinforcement of the positive emotion. By the way, that is the essence of positive psychology.

None of this is short term, the first step in overcoming the disease, disorder, behavior, habit of overeating is to stop overeating and get busy with life, and address those factors that are driving us to overeat. We can step back from our extended family if that is the problem. Family is not the most important thing in my life. My tranquility, serenity, peace in my life is to me. If family is the problem, then until I learn how to live sanely in a insane situation, it is time to step back. I have. Now it is time to get on with my life without them, or there idiot beliefs effect the way I live.

We live under constant bombardment of ideas, most of which are wrong, do not apply to me, or are just marketing. All bool. Being partly deaf is not such a bad thing. As a atheist, sorting memes from reality is becoming easier. Assume it is all bool, bullshit, or crap, and salvage the good ideas only after careful examination and testing.  

Lose the weight; life problems remain

I expect that the reason that weight is so difficult to keep off is that after we lose the weight, all our life problems remain, what ever those problems were. I think that long term success will need to include identification and corrections of those shortcomings, or conditions in which we live. I do not think that learning to live in a bad situation created by others is a real solution. 

In the past I have listed an number of categories of these problems; to this list I will add one more. http://philosophyofweightmanagement.blogspot.ca/2015/09/edited-thinking-time.html Physical, environmental, psychological maladaptive personality or emotional response, social discomfort, chemical in the food aka food addiction, food knowledge plus lack of direction now. 

Until I find a suitable handle for this group, I will describe the group first. Loss or lack of direction, boredom, lack of a scene of urgency or importance for some activity, lack of interest in activity, in general apathy about life. I think it may be the result of being put down so much as a child, why bother caring about anything if it will be just taken away, or condemned. Apathy is the result. Frustration fixation, that is where there is only unsatisfying outcome or eating was the way I was raised. It was hell, but with lots of food, good food, and no rules other that eat, eat, eat. 

This lack of direction is not in it's self bad, but the converse is good. It is a burning urgency of action that keeps me away from the food, regardless of what that activity is. I need to value that activity. Tilting at windmills, if you like.   Conversion of the religious to realism/atheistism sound like a good thing to become frustrated at, it should be possible and would have value, considering the resent events in Paris and elsewhere.

I think some of us overweight people do not have enough to do that we want to do in an urgent way. Others of us quickly become apathetic to other people who do not think as we do, hence have no desire to hang about with others, even when we have to opportunity. We end up with time to get bored... or not bored, but not pressed into action at least. Perhaps we need to live with a sense of urgency to do something. A human doing, rather than a human being.

But then, what do I know?

Eating disorders

Eating disorders are real, and there is no solution beyond stopping the disorder, what ever that looks like.

So we need to live normally, but that is not defined.

First, the subject, in this case me, must desire to stop. To that there is no solution, so WTF.

The War Against Religion

The War Against Religion is about to start. We see the problems that religion bring to the the middle east, and now to  France.

Religions are belief systems founded on a underlying theology or philosophy. When that "belief system" is just wrong, but  "religions arrogance" says "We are right, god is on our side" now what.

I am an atheist, -well not quite. More of a non-theist but becoming more atheist. The difference, as I see it, is the non-theist does not care what you, other think. You are free to believe what ever delusion turns your crank. But this is where the problem lies, in not knowing how to test for true solution.

I believe we are an opportunistic organic species living on this big rock whirling through space. We evolved in this atmosphere, over time. There is no purpose beyond biological reproduction and flourishing of the species. We have become too successful, there are too many of us. We suffer from local overpopulation. We suffer from delusions that our group, that is people which think alike we do are right, and our belief system is right and should be adopted without discussion.

In the sciences, there is very little conflict. The science is clear and right. Evolution is real and correct. The survivor is right. The conflict is in convincing the non-believers that science is right. Philosophy is part of science, just the concept part.

I did believe that you had the right to believe what ever delusion made you happy. I am not so sure now. We should teach the way to separate delusions from real facts that evidence shows. This is the foundation of facts. Testing of philosophy only gets us part way. We need to understand our secondary purpose that we plan onto life, and get these into line with the world as it exists in the here and now, where we have the capacity to destroy much of what the population has built. In fact, we are on a self-destruct course, exhaustion of finite resources, and making portions of this planet uninhabitable. The other case is to make some of the people wish to not be, that annihilation is better that what we have. Consider the refugees that cross the Adriatic on a leaky boat? Death by tyrant v. a high chance of drowning. There is no down side of getting into a small poor boat.

I started today as a non-theist and now am truing atheist, that is one who has a duty to tell you that there is no god, and if you think there is one, you have a serious delusion. What does this have to do with weight management? It is all about what we believe, even more than the food. If I are busy fight a good war, the food is not calling due to boredom, indecision, inaction.

image of Richard Dawkins Atheist pin

But then what do I know? 


  

Shear Luck

When we consider all the possibilities, and eliminate the nots, whatever remains, however improbable must be the solution... or something to that effect.

Overeating is driven by something internal or external, and we can create a long list of causes. We can list the internal causes as over driven hunger, cravings, appetite or desires. Among then is some physical or mental irrational urge, without defined cause, which remains after we deal with stresses, emotions, and maladaptive behaviors.

AA and OA deal with moral values, ethics, social interactions, through acceptance of a delusion. So if that does not help much, and CBT, IP leave us lacking and behavioral therapy tries to change us into a twerp, what is left? All these therapies start with an assumption that what we are doing is wrong, and that may not be true. The Stoics described how one should behave, as do many religions and certainly there is an undefined behavior behind all these therapies. These are mutually exclusive, so which one is right?

If the problem is not food knowledge, social, environmental, food addiction, or maladaptive behavior, all that remains is some kind of mental or physical defect or illness that drives us to desire to eat strongly and to eat to much, too often, or the like. Is that what has come to be called compulsive overeating? 

 http://oathursdaynightgroup.blogspot.ca/2015/11/treatment-for-compulsive-overeating.html

Ultimately, I guess what I am saying is: the treatment does not match the problem that many of us have. 

WHO bullshit

Correlation does not prove causation. All the chemicals in modern processed meats are not like pemmican. Fructose is being used as a browning agent in the fast food industry. So knowing all this, am I going to pay any future attention to WHO?

The world is overpopulated; we are seeing the migration of local political over-populations from Syria and middle east. It is time to recognize religions are as much bullshit as WHO. Dawkins has the answer, perhaps. Evolution is continuing, and after the next die off, which will be left?

Mental vs. Physical

Is the desire to overeat mental or physical or behavioral?

That is a big question in a way. Previously, I defined six categories of problems that lead to overeating: Lack of food knowledge, physical, environmental, psychological maladaptive behaviors, social, and addiction. http://philosophyofweightmanagement.blogspot.ca/2015/09/edited-thinking-time.html   We can re-slice these a number of ways.

Does it  have an internal cause or external? Ultimately, we need to deal with the problem in a internal fashion, but we are not responsible for the environment we were raised into, nor are we responsible for the family or cultural bullshit that we need to learn to cope with. We learn from our families; when they are wrong, we learn wrongs. This is the simple "obese" parents raise obese children, yet the parents are not necessarily fat. Obesity generates out of a way of thinking. We can blame our parents, our affluence, our environment, the times, chemicals, and yet it will be thrown back on us as we need to learn to live in this toxic environment. It is all our fault, as others are not willing to claim responsibility for there actions, why should I. It is not my problem to fix the sick world, it is my responsibility to take care of myself. That may mean avoiding the "sick" family, a bunch of food pushers.

Some thing are up to me, and some are not. I am responsible for my opinions, my beliefs, my values, my motivations, my intent to act, and the like. I am not responsible for your reactions to me.

I think I will go through shafts down a lane. What do I know or care?