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Picking up on subject raised on another thread regarding – Identity or how we choose to Identify ourselves:
Who are you?
For my part I have to say I’ve always been a bit suspicious of people who choose to strongly identify themselves with one grouping or another.
Anyhow in descending order if I had to I would identify myself as:
British – European – English – Southern – Christian – Anglo-Saxon…..
Originally Lutheran, now Pantheist – British by accident, European by attitude, but ultimately belonging to the soil.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
VG PaulO GC
Earthling – Pantheist – son of the soil – white quadroon of Trinidadian, Irish and English ancestry – happened to be born in the British Isles – ashes to ashes dust to dust
Life is too short and the world too beautiful to waste valuable time worrying about such petty concerns as Identity, Country and Borders
Are you reading this Alex Salmond you myopic unadulterated tosser? IMVVVHO
Life is too short and the world too beautiful to waste valuable time worrying about such petty concerns as Identity, Country and Borders
Are you reading this Alex Salmond you myopic unadulterated tosser? IMVVVHO
Spot on – what makes me really smile is the Nationalists cry for independence and teh break-up of The Union.
Yet at the same time they are embracing the EU with open arms and if the EU hat its way the independence they achieve would be lost as the United States Of Europe developed.
There seems to be a paradox there.
I’m one of the only animals on the planet who do it no good whatsoever; we take but do not give, and we destroy more than we save. We kill our fellow humans because, well, just because.We are capable of amazing things; books, words, music,art..and yet, as the only creatures on the planet that probably enjoy the sheer beauty that surrounds us we, again, are the only ones destroying it. Who am I; me? Just someone who, I hope has, and still am contributing to society in my own small way; someone who has produced two amazing kids who are doing the same. Who am I really? Don’t know, because we exist only as what other people see of us, and we are quite chameleon like in that way.
I’m one of the only animals on the planet who do it no good whatsoever; we take but do not give, and we destroy more than we save. We kill our fellow humans because, well, just because.We are capable of amazing things; books, words, music,art..and yet, as the only creatures on the planet that probably enjoy the sheer beauty that surrounds us we, again, are the only ones destroying it. Who am I; me? Just someone who, I hope has, and still am contributing to society in my own small way; someone who has produced two amazing kids who are doing the same. Who am I really? Don’t know, because we exist only as what other people see of us, and we are quite chameleon like in that way.
We need a Post Of The Year category in the awards and if we do this post of Mo’s must be the sure-fire winner.
Who am I ? Thats a really difficult question, because to answer it you have to be completely honest with yourself before being honest with everyone else. Mo is right in one way, we are what other people judge us to be but those people cannot know the whole story of who you are. The majority of us are just acting out a lifelong scene intertwining truth and deceit throughout that period with both having the potential to be as destructive as the other.
Honesty
Diplomacy
Belief
Oblivious
Deceit
Anger
Sadness
Forgiveness
Happinesseenie meenie miney moe……
To be honest I consider myself proud to be English with all the heritage and way of life that affords.
However I also empathise with fellow Europeans.
I travel the world on a regular basis and ultimately I prefer the company of like-minded souls rather than people of any particular nation or religion.
A donkey to some, other things to others. I think Mike Tyson once said he was many things, including a loving father and a rapist. I’d imagine he was talking about peoples perceptions. In a way it is quite funny.
We are all fellow travellers in a unique and wonderful experience we call life.
If, as some say, the big-bang happened 13.5 billion years ago, then we’ve had to wait a bloody long time for our existence. Make the most of it, ‘cos when we die, we’ll all return to a complete state of non-existence, just as in the previous 13.5 billion years. There’s no afterlife, we won’t meet again our departed loved ones or go to some wonderful golden paradise. Complete non-existent oblivion awaits. Don’t mourn this, let it spur you on to make the most of your precious time here.
Rejoice that you DO exist now. Don’t worry about dying, after all, even Shakespeare, Einstein, Newton, Beethoven etc. all had to die, so don’t take your own mortality too personally
Most of us on this forum have never had to fight a war, been conscripted, endured rationing or known the fear of being bombed: never known REAL poverty or homelessness. We’ve even got (in spite of our current government and the EU) a measure of freedom, free speech and a democracy greater than most of our fellow humans have ever enjoyed.
We have access, if we choose to take advantage of it, to great music, great books, great films, great art and we have the internet and remote-control to make accessing it even easier. We’re supremely fortunate. Don’t feel guilty about it – enjoy it. Every day spent being miserable, angry or guilty is a wasted day – a day you’ll never get back. And you’ve waited 13.5 billion years for that day!
Make each day a "Brig-O’doon" day (that’s for the older forumites).
Be an optomist and don’t let anyone else bring you down ; you’ve got the rest of eternity to be a negative. miserable ******* (and you needn’t worry about that ‘cos you just won’t exist).…well that’s cheered me up no end
Going by what you’ve just written you don’t appear to do as you preach. I certainly wouldn’t have you as an optimist and you do seem to let things get you down quite a lot judging by other threads of yours. Just an observation.
It’s a bit presumptive of you to assert that most on this forum have not suffered hardship or poverty at some point – you really don’t know that.
Also we cannot know whether there is an afterlife or not, not even you. I personally believe in something after death occurring, I’m not sure what, life may continue in a never ending cycle for all we know and that time is meaningless to the dead, but you certainly don’t need to be religious to have such beliefs, and even atheists can have them too.I think that is a subject best left open to question.
Perhaps you have never lost anyone really close to you, you may have and apologies for suggesting otherwise, but I do think that those of us who have experienced this generally need a grieving period which may last a very long time and during this period we may like to believe that we will still have contact of some kind with the one we have just lost, or that we may see them again one day. I wouldn’t insult anyone who may hold those beliefs by claiming that it’s a wasted emotion.
Oh dear; I’m always feeling angry, guilty and miserable.I now feel guilty about feeling guilty….and that makes me even more miserable…..
Also we cannot know whether there is an afterlife or not, not even you. I personally believe in something after death occurring, I’m not sure what, life may continue in a never ending cycle for all we know and that time is meaningless to the dead, but you certainly don’t need to be religious to have such beliefs, and even atheists can have them too.
I think that is a subject best left open to question.
Indeed
The Rationalist believer would choose Theism – there is an Afterlife
The Rationalist non-believer would choose Atheism – there is no Afterlife
The Empiricist is neither a believer or non-believer and would choose Agnosticism – there may be an Afterlife, it cannot be proved there is and it cannot be proved there isn’t
Rational reasoning versus empirical proof
The existence of an Afterlife and the existence of True Odds…agnostic I am
Betting-the-odds is an exercise in reasoned rationalism
Beating-the-odds is an exercise in reasoned rationalism tempered by the empiricist’s innate scepticism
…probably, possibly, perhaps
Good stuff on this thread, most enjoyable
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