Re: Joy of this, Joy of that

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

On Sat, 7 Dec 2024 23:07:50 +0100, D wrote:
>

I think it depends and can be anything from destroying it, shattering
your ego,
jarring it, or mildly "nudging" it. Maybe psychological illness is like
the gearbox getting stuck, and the mild jarring, or hit of the drug,
might shake it a bit so it becomes unstuck?

>
Back in the day I did acid of dubious quality twice. The first was a bad
experience, the second was better.  I was alone for the second attempt.

Did the second attempt give you enlightenment or a new depth to life? I've never touched any other drugs besides coffee, tea and alcohol, but I did have a spontaneous explosion of love once when I was 15. I've had a few mild echoes of that experience, but never anything close to the strength of it since.

True. I often think that the reason christianity banned suicide was that
life was so bad in the middle ages, that if people truly believed they
would go to heaven after death, they would all commit suicide, if the
church didn't forbid that way of "hacking the system"!

>
I don't think it was all that bad. People raised families and carried on
obviously or we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Interesting. I mean of course it would vary with the region. But thinking about medieval serfs, hounded by the nobility in northern europe, does make me quite suicidal at least. ;)

I'm reading a series by James L. Nelson set in 852 A.D. when Dubh Linn was
a Norse settlement. It follows a small band whose leader only wants to
grab some Irish loot, go home to Norway, and spend his golden years
farming. It doesn't work out that was of course.
>
One of the band is a berserker. He gets morose after battles when he
survives since he wants a heroic death in battle to attract the Valkyries
to take him to Valhalla.
>
The Christians had to make a few edits to sell their goods to a warrior
culture. I think I've mentioned Russell's 'The Germanization of Early
Medieval Christianity' and the Heliand, a Saxon poem that had Jesus as the
drighten of a war band heading to the hill fort of Jerusalem. The massacre
of the Saxons didn't get the job done so they had to come up with a better
spin.  We still honer Woden's Day and turning the other cheek never got
very popular.

True. I doubt they had christmas trees in jerusalem as well. ;) In fact, I have an early memory from when I was a child looking at some childrens jesus programs around christmas, when that question hit me.