Author: Immanuel Joseph

Immanuel Joseph (Male; Born - 11.08.1979, Madurai) What am I doing?? Actually, nothing much! But I am a self-employed, part-time, freelance spiritual worker. What that means exactly, I myself don't know...... I don't have a job. But I have vocation...... Christian, medical background. Lay, maverick, eccentric thinker & spiritual friend (Insightful Facilitator) - passionately seeking to better experience, understand & enjoy life! Reclusive & contemplative autodidact. Controversial conversationalist. Life-partner - Salome Divya. Living in Hulimavu, (Bengaluru, India). Email jimmanueljoseph@gmail.com Cell Phone/WhatsApp +919840227977

NOTES

24.1.18
– pare
contrite
gendarme
arête
ridge
commune
commutation
resentencing
Star fruit ~ carambola
preponderate
bestride
flitter
Ted Bundy
unstudied
briefing
– Distinguish:
Consecutive
&
Concurrent
– “Looking for a dog to kick”
Anti-party activities – suspended on disciplinary grounds
– The Christian ethic is primarily religious & social, as opposed to moral or private.
According to the Bible, can a person be righteous without first, or also, being pious?
– What is spiritual capital?
Should I really care??
– Bible verses of the day:
Trusting GOD + religious observance + loving others => unimaginably abundant blessings!
– “Don’t suppose that anyone really learns something from another human being. I can admonish you by the sound of my voice, but if there isn’t within you One who teaches, then my words are only meaningless noise.…
The instruction that comes from others is a kind of help, a call for attention. But the One who truly teaches the heart teaches from heaven.”
— Augustine of Hippo
– News:
Violent protests in many states a day before ‘Padmaavat’ release.
Lalu Prasad sentenced to five years in jail in fodder scam case.
India vs South Africa, 3rd Test: 187 As Good As 300 On This Surface, Says Cheteshwar Pujara.
How Modi gave Davos a new global narrative with India at its heart
Hyderabad Man’s Train Stunt Again Proves That Indians are Dying to Take a Selfie
Karnataka Bandh Over Mahadayi Dispute: BJP’s River Of Trouble?
Pakistan condemns ‘unilateral’ US drone strike on its territory
Haqqani
New Jihadi John
ASEAN
Ex-USA Gymnastics doctor sentenced to 175 years for sexual abuse
Google Lunar X
Identifying other habitable planets & hunting for alien life
Ganguly says Wanderers pitch unfair on batsmen
Apple iOs 11
Indian firm’s anti-diarrhoea vaccine gets WHO nod
Onion type may hold key to combat drug-resistant TB: Study
UDAN Phase II
Recapitalisation bonds for weak banks
Pro-Kannada outfits
Cauvery Stage V Water Supply Project
Cup and Cloth’ campaign pitches for reusable menstrual hygiene products in Bengaluru
Housekeeping staff of IT firm caught recording female employees
– Globalization
Vs.
Protectionism
24.1.18
– I was thinking about our conversations in this group, & how to improve the quality of the interactions…
(These suggestions are for myself first, & then for everyone else too)
1. Reflective listening – repeat the gist of what I have understood about the other person has just said.
2. Interjection – add leading, open questions to make the person who is speaking to explain or clarify what they have said. This is to more deeply know the person who is speaking, not just what is spoken.
3. Try to avoid responding to the other person, until this initial process is complete. Even critical feedback can be given in the form of questions rather than counter-statements.
4. Be fully aware of one’s own “internal landscape” – feelings, memories, thoughts, etc. while interacting with the other(s).
5. I got these ideas from Sublimewe & Socratic Method.
Whenever anyone says anything, it’s good to ask 3 questions:
1. *What* exactly is this person saying, and what does it mean?
2. *Why* does this person say what he/she says? And *who* is speaking here? What are the experiences, personality & cultural factors behind their opinions?
3. *How* does this work out in one’s life & the world? What are the implications & consequences of their position?
One can even try to argue *for* the *other* person (as a thought experiment)!
This would be a great way to form solid bridges of understanding and create the base for the next level of communication in the future……
26.1.18
– “The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu: Humanitarian Despotism and the Conditions of Modern Tyranny”
Escapist magazine
– BITS Goa
“The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” – Mark Noll
Enlightened tyranny
– The Indian cricket team gave a truly special performance today – Republic Day celebration?! 😉
– Nothing noteworthy from the PM’s R-Day speech?? Not unusual!!
– R-Day parade – military might + cultural diversity
How do they both go together?
– Sports – I must start watching tennis & football also, along with cricket.
Cricket:
Watching a test match ~ reading a novel ~ drawing a portrait ~ meditation camp
What is the South African timezone?
Should I set a reminder for the Australian Open final on Sunday?
Just added some interests in Google Now
Are you keen on following (contemporary) Tamil culture? Always a Tamilian!
– Jesus Christ – everything about him (his name, faith, self-understanding, vocation, etc.) was contextual (historico-cultural) – although unconventional, he was thoroughly shaped by Judaism, but he was never a conformist or traditionalist……
Get soaked in something first, then make your unique contribution to the progress of that field!
– Right now, I’m feeling fine – neither happy nor sad, but not flat either!
That’s a big deal for me……
– How does this thought feel?
And what do you think of that feeling?
Feelings >> thought
Or
Thought >> feelings
Or……?
– I am grateful for the leisure and freedom of choice, provided by financial security, which I enjoy, and never take for granted.
I am also grateful for the hard-earned virtue, & undeserved gift of, intellectual maturity/spiritual wisdom in dealing with the big questions of life.
– Distinguish:
Parental
&
Genetic
– I want us to have something like the EGF (Evangelical Graduates Fellowship) open home – student ministry!
– Research as care
Care as research
27.1.18
– Necessary evils
Impossible life and indecent death
Natural inequalities
“Difficult Freedom and Radical Evil in Kant: Deceiving Reason”
The social authority of reason
Theorizing evil
The atrocity paradigm
mendacity
– Meaning has no life!
– What if desire became the superego (overlord) and morality became the id (underdog), for a change?!
Would that be good for the ego?
– “Guts it out”
“Get stuck in”
Dig deep
– She wants to watch porn with him. But he doesn’t.
Why?
How should they deal with this now?
What if it’s the other way around?
29.1.18
– “The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind”
Ha ha ha ha ha! Booohooo…… 😉
– “Thor: Ragnarok”
Narrative & graphic illustration of Pyrotheology (Peter Rollins)! 😃
“What were you the god of, again??”
– “Masters of Sex” Season 2
How can the huge chasm between research-knowledge and personal-wisdom be bridged??
WOW…… What awesome acting – gut-wrenching and heart-breaking – BRAVO! BRAVO!
“Their work is their passion”
– Citation index
Impact factor
Jocular bloodsucker mockumentary
Eeyore
Wartime humanitarian corridor
coddle
“Autocrats vs. Despots”
Benevolent absolutism
Philosophical popularizers & social commentators
Corrupt clergy & noble landlords
Warlord-entrepreneurs
Forced contributions
Monarchist bureaucracies
Constitutional monarchies
adduce
Incremental reform
Society of orders
The emperor as “first servant of the state”
Mercenary states
– What does geopolitical strategy have to do with ethical principles?
– “Society has a set of constructs that one must abide by and if we don’t manage, the diagnosis is quick. To me, depression feels like having access to a range of human emotions that we are otherwise asked not to feel. It tells me that the world is not a beautiful flowery place and I am in touch with these ‘negative’ emotions and that it is okay to do so.” – Reshma Valliappan >> Deepika Padukone
– What is special about the last of the Ten Commandments (the prohibition against covetousness)?
– Isn’t it ironic (& tragic), that both Judaism & Christianity, which begin with the story of the Fall (where man chooses the knowledge of good & evil over the tree of life), finally ended up being religions with a legal & moral core?!
– “Homo deus”
Christianism
Ambulance bomb
30.1.18
– tincture
heraldic
Academic credit points
Tahiti
Maori
epithet
anagram
Oviri – Paul Gauguin
“Der Führer”
chancellor
bobbin
“Loose change”
First Attempted Assassination of a US President (1835)
Charnel ~ ghastly
Desiderative Vs. Decretive will
India – LOC & LAC
– If, according to the Gospel of Mark (the earliest & most reliable Gospel), the disciples did not get Jesus, then how accurate or useful are their respective accounts??
– “Just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was sensible.”
– Lucy Maud Montgomery
Imagine, a world more boring than this one!
– Bible:
Do not misunderstand the Lord’s patience as weakness, because he is eagerly waiting for you to believe in his Son/Word, and become his children.
– But I thought a supernova was invisible to the naked eye!
– News:
Plan for orange passport for vulnerable laborers dropped. Is there such a thing as positive discrimination?
Shopian & Kasganj
A free press must not undermine a fair judicial system
Grand mufti of Kashmir says Indian Muslims should seek a separate country
Yashvant Sinha launches “Rashtra Manch”, a national forum for political action
Inter-faith prayer meeting on Mahatma’s death anniversary
Youth ‘commits suicide’ on live video call with girlfriend
Donald Trump rejects talks with the Taliban
Yemen: A timeline of conflicts in the nation since the 2011 uprising
Crackdown on corruption in Saudi Arabia
Ishan Porel
Cricket – 3 demerit points for Wanderers pitch
“Super blue blood moon eclipse”: 17:20 – 20:40 IST
Adults with autism show a diminished brain response to hearing their own name
Chief Economic Advisor
Abetting suicide
“Karni Sena”
– bender
1.2.18
– “The Square” (2017 film)
A good, funny movie, but does it deserve the Palme d’Or??
A satire (& critique) on art (& life) in a capitalist society
I think the chimp in the house and the one in the gala are connected. And this is the interpretive key to the whole movie…
The cruelty of political correctness – distinguish inhumanity from mere brutality!
– casserole
buckshot
craven
instauration
Double bind
Ikigai – devotion to a path + harmony with nature –> masterful artistry!
– looker

EXPERIENCE

17.1.18

– The Hindu Diary of Events
Check it out every year!
– 1 meter = 3.3 feet
– Ostensibly inherent inclination
Natural criminality
Racialized culture
Mainstream (media) discourse
The invisible hand
fortuitous
Keen consumer
– MLK Jr.
The difficulty is, *where* love will come from, if one is surrounded by hate……?
– Is investment advice also a part of “spiritual conversation”??
– Emojipedia!
– Add green tea to my list of evening drinks
20.1.18
– sedulous
cenacles
solvency
irrefragible
apodictic
Epistemic Psychology
The principle of principles
Absolute presuppositions
subjectist
experior
Evental singularity
Procedural truth
The gangue of common sense
“Aletheurgy”
Fictive word
Revelatory occasion
Conceptual history
Militant manifesto for philosophy
Compossible truths
Truth-acts
Pretheoretical event horizon
Unnameable realm
Fidelity to the new present that localizes the truth
Non-metaphysical transcendentalism
Insurrectionary version
“tout court”
crepuscular
Semiotics of a transdisciplinary field
Immanent logics
Manifesting the impossible
Post-Christian theology
Transcendental materialism
nub
Contemporary eventalness
Belletristic strategies
demurrals
theothanatology
– “Theology consists in  trying  “to  find  a  new  way of  fitting  God  within  the  general  structure  of  being,”  but  rather conceive  it  “as  a  contingent  transontological  event  whose kerygmatic  trace  becomes  the  occasion”  for  the  moment  of subjectivation.”
22.1.18
– The Women Behind Wonder Woman
Poster
Trailer
– Movies:
“Kong: Skull Island”
Review
Poster
Trailer
– Series:
“The Walking Dead” Season 1
Trailer
Poster
Trailer

REFLECTIONS

10.1.18
– Natural geyser
– The Florida Project
Trailer
Review
Posters
– impecunious
strumpet
Medici pope
The Sphere of the Fixed Stars
lodestone
philophaster
pretender/dabbler
Importunate rabble
Quintessential material
“Saving the appearances”
New sciences
instauration
trenchant
Signature style
Signal achievements
Pithy truths
Subjunctive mood
– Jesus crucified (publicly humiliated) his enemies first!
– There are eagles soaring above my house! 😃
– I guess we all need to learn how to be happy in whatever situation we
are, and also go after what we really want.
Both approaches in equal, dynamic interaction!
We can find a way to get what we want in any situation, and even if we get
what we want, we will still have to learn contentment, because there is no
perfect paradise on earth……
12.1.18
– Work as worship
Vs.
Worshiping work
– Public bath-houses
huntress
Pantheon of titans
Syncretism as propaganda
Freedmen & clients
coterie
Legalities & practicalities
Social mobility
Judaic religion, Greek culture, Roman law and Christian theology
patronless
Octavian >> Augustus
Leader ~ patron ~ father ~ god
Lying governments
Census & tax
Pax Americana
franchisee
Oppressive peace
Honoring by burying
Religious persecution as an expression of political oppression
Joint reading of disparate passages
Textual parallels
Narrative interpretation
city-state
Noble savage – Adam ~ Tarzan!
The harlot-teacher
steppe
Wild innocence/primitive purity
stinting
marquee
– Near-Eastern kings claimed to be divine – born of a human mother and a
male god!
– Distinguish:
Family
&
Household
– Cricket – what can we (India) learn from the disastrous 1st test in SA?
Does India deserve the No. 1 ICC ranking??
– Educational bureaucracy
Open-minded adoption of the enabling provisions
Game-changer
The panchayat as local authority
Credibility that inspires confidence
Professionalizing arbitration
Ramallah
Gaza Strip & West Bank
Landless farmers & rural distress
pauperization
13.1.18
– Unorganized sector
Reverse discrimination
Archaic laws
decriminalize
Capital offence
Tags & tabs
Neo-Nazi sympathizer
Blither/blather
Shithole countries
Surprised about being surprised
Cottoned on
Echo chambers
Confirmation bias
Preference falsification
The liberal paradox
Winging it
Building your audience
Carving out a niche
Evolutionary perspective
“vanitas”
Right ~ best
Brand integrity
Deep research projects
Read broadly & extract truth
– Adultery – not a criminal act
– Why is racism still persistent in the USA?
– Trump & Modi – facts do not matter
– Trump & historical racism
– Distinguish:
Liar
&
Bullshitter
– Why do we have such bad leaders and such stupid people, in spite of the
modern growth of “democracy” & “education”?
Why are technological advances not enough to create a better world?
– What is your operating system?
– Work:leisure balance
2 days off (freak-out) each week (Thursday & Sunday) – 1:2.5 – weekly
routine
2 months off (from ministry) each year – 1:5 – annual vacation
Take 6 months off every 5 years – 1:9 – self-renewal sabbatical
– Truth > meaning > purpose
Purpose >> meaning >> truth?
Are we living in a moral universe, or……?
– The latest is not always the best, but it ought to be so!
– What is one thing that you’re grateful for, over the last week?
Not being depressed!
– What was going on yesterday, at this time?
I was going to sleep, tired after the shopping. Skipped the night stroll…
– What were the highlights (experiences, insights, developments, etc.) of
the past day (24 hours)?
Why do I tell others that I’m “doing nothing”? How does that feel? Should I
change anything (either what I say or what I’m doing)?
Retrace some of your emotional high & low points in the recent past.
Too flat?!
– Macho, childish, men
– What is it to love oneself unconditionally & unreservedly?
Do I already?? How about you?
Why/why not?
– Self-examination, criticism & evaluation is probably best done in a
spiritually supportive peer group setting.
– The good life
&
The least of these
– Sorry, I have only gold, no currency notes!
Am I poor?
– When analyzing a complex problem (& making your choice), learn to
take all relevant & important factors into consideration, and not get
preoccupied with only one (or two).
Step back & take in the big picture, before jumping into the details.
Deductive over inductive?
14.1.18
– 🍚🙏🏽 உழவர் திருநாள் நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்!
GOD BLESS our farmers 👨🏽🌾
How can we contribute to the welfare of the agricultural laborers who are
under severe distress today??
Let’s make it a resolution to put the focus back on our farmers every year,
during this harvest/thanksgiving festival, instead of just going back to
the default mode of celebrating the holidays without even remembering the
reason for it……!
One way is to identify NGOs who are working for farmer welfare and support
them (sponsoring, etc.)
Sending out gratitude to the agricultural laborers before every meal……
Being aware of, honoring, and celebrating the natural/seasonal cycles that
sustain our existence
– Christ University
All the faculty need to come together, discuss, and create a dialogue with
students & management, to come up with ways for continual improvement
of the institution
In relentless pursuit of the ideal of Education!
Move toward a more democratic mode for critical evaluation & creative
progress
15.1.18
– Movies:
“War Dogs”
– There is a man in my neighborhood who walks like the dead (the “walkers”
in “The Walking Dead”)!
– Wonder & doubt
There is a ? implicit in every !, and a ! implicit in every ?
– Movies:
“Professor Marston and the Wonder Women”
Is this one of the best ever movies??
But definitely one of my all-time favorite films!!!
– obviate
16.1.18
– demiurge
unclassifiable
unsavory ~ immoral
molder ~ crumble
calcite
birefringence
Sinn Fein
prefecture
pentagram
Prohibition Era
Epigram ~ quip
Pokey ~ slammer
Entresol ~ mezzanine
gutless
crochet
– “There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.” – Upton Sinclair
– There is no way to the good life, without being devout, upright & charitable.
No amount of cunning or power can compensate for solid character!
– “The Walking Dead” Season 1

 

WANDERINGS

30.12.17

– Auronya
fintech

– Try disabling screen filter apps (like Twilight) and see if it solves the problem with the working of some apps like SBI Anywhere on Android mobile.
This also removes the inability to install apps from the apk file!

31.12.17

– bildungrosman

1.1.18

– New Year Mass:
Jan. 1 = Mary, mother of God (as opposed to Holy Name – Jesus Christ – in the Protestant high church)
The divine/spirit/revelation/salvation is found within the human/flesh/reason/church!
Compare & contrast:
Catholic (ecclesiastical)
&
Protestant (evangelical)
What about the Orthodox? They are more into mysticism!

3.1.18

– sacerdotal
execrable
sepulchral
charnel
Angkor Wat
Panamanian
demitasse ~ cafe noir
espresso
alfresco

– Spiritual insurance

– Nature/persons fucked by culture/society.
Time to invert the order! 😡

– Spiritual practices help one to be rooted in ultimate reality, and thereby lead to a virtuous character & beautiful lifestyle.
Do you love life?
Do you seek the good?
Do you believe in (that there is such a thing as) truth?
No experience of divinity, no motivation for humanity!

– “Every holy soul is itself a heaven, in a sense” – Bernard of Clairvaux
Inward ~ spiritual ~ eternal
You know how life is “different” when you’re tripping!?
No virtue, no joy.
Right?
Yes.
But also,
No joy, no virtue!

5.1.18

– “Toward a more safe, healthy, diverse & just world”

– “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” review
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/12/12/16765308/last-jedi-star-wars-review-rey-carrie-fisher-poe-finn-kylo-ren
Trailer

Poster
https://lumiere-a.akamaihd.net/v1/images/sb_online_character_kylo_v3_lg_6ba805e5.jpeg?region=0%2C0%2C810%2C1200

“This is not going to go the way you think!”
Individual vocation + communal solidarity = hope for the world
“Realize your (great) destiny!” – the Dark Lord beckons……

– Social therapy
Community mental health
Cultural psychoanalysis
Antisocial queer theory
Feminism & misogyny
Open-ended, non-objectivist, non-interpretive approach
Subprime mortgage crisis
Predominant, tendentious & damaging assumptions
The politics of (all) theory & practice
Critical psychology & integral psychotherapy
kibitz
grandstand
Pissing in the wind
Hermetic spontaneity
Jungian analyst
The severe limitations of self-critique
Depressive realism
Academic silos
Aetiologies of distress
Distressed & distressing persons
The outcome question
Competing models
cryptomisanthropist
Schizoid outsider
Anaesthetising insistencies
Pure signifier
Fundamental rupture of transcendental tendencies
The prism of sexual desire
Subjugation, commodification & valorisation
Potentially ensnared
Pornography & the money shot
Schizoanalysis
Hyperinsistence of our machinic enslavement
A countervalence to the stifling reproduction
The demands of representation
Oedipal handcuffing & the docile body
Paranoid knowledge
The event of resistance
Freudian politics
The hermeneutics of reason
The ambivalence of unreason
Repetition compulsion
Being-toward-death
The therapy industry
Well-designed placebos
The fashionable belief of magical voluntarism

– Abstract, criticism & application

– Do something you love at the start of each day!

– A beginner’s guide to LSD
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwqja3/a-beginners-guide-to-lsd
The graph is really accurate! 😃
My Lysergic trip (1.1.18) notes:
“It’s just a ride!” – Bill Hicks
“Aruvi” movie jukebox
Midnight Clear – Christmas album by Solid State Records (Christian metal)
Feel the music inside your heart/soul!
Non-identification with the body
Extreme emotional highs & lows (powerful catharsis), as opposed to the mundane blandness!
Euphoria/mania/ecstasy/bliss
Spiritual insights >> lifestyle resolutions
Contemplation = education + entertainment + maintenance
Cosmic/mystic experience
Logorrhea
Reconnecting with repressed memories
Applying Prisma (photo enhancement app) to your entire surroundings – vivid colors!
Absolute freedom, radical peace, immense joy, universal love & unlimited power
Smoking is amazing
Totally in the moment, & loving it! Time expands. You feel like you have all the time in the world to play and enjoy……
Laughing at the futility & vanity of the common culture
Periodic usage might be therapeutic!
Coming down to the normal (next day) is quite depressing.

– Movies:
“The Florida Project”
Children cope with tragedy by escaping into fantasy.
E.g. Chronicles of Narnia
But don’t adults too??
Is the mother really a criminal, worthy of imprisonment?
Notice the Disneyland background sounds & visuals (helicopter, colorful buildings, gaudy hoardings, etc.)
The brutality of capitalism (not just an economic system, but a complete political, legal & cultural ecology) – the dehumanization of both the oppressor and the oppressed
This filmmaker focuses mainly on the lives of the marginalized sections of society – beautiful pain, & hard questions! I’ve seen another movie of his too…

– Profile:
Shane Smith – the founder of Vice magazine/channel

– 3 levels of life/reality:
1. Social roles
2. Individuality
3. Nothingness
In increasing order of depth.
I focus on the second, and balance the other two from there……

6.1.18

– Horsing around
felony
larceny
Statutory crime

– Distinguish:
Science
&
Technology

7.1.18

– My Prisma
https://prisma-ai.com/u/4c81b404-5198-425e-a296-b9e67be44f15

– Collage & watermark with Adobe Photoshop Express on Android!

9.1.18

– 5paisa stock trading app

– Mk. 3:1-6
Religiosity/legality/morality
Vs.
Spirituality/humanity/ethics
The sheer audacity of the Man!
Distressed – within himself
Saddened – for the cripple
Furious – at the experts

– News:
Yuva Hunkar rally: Jignesh Mevani says India ‘facing fascism’; Kanhaiya Kumar for ‘saving Constitution’
Govt to Have Final Say on ‘Respect’ for National Anthem After SC Recalls Order
No disruption in lives of Indian H1B visa holders, clarifies US govt (for my brother’s family)
Two party workers (cook & aide) get themselves arrested to land in same jail as Lalu
Indian politicians & the NRI diaspora – why are Modi & Rahul cozying up to them now?
Enough confusion for over two decades, Cauvery verdict in 4 weeks: SC
North Korea agrees to military talks, sending Olympic squad to South
Israeli leader’s son under fire again for strip club banter
Wondering if I looted bank or revealed secrets to India’: Imran Khan on third marriage plan
Oldest supernova found in 5,000-year-old rock carving in Kashmir
New Star Identical To Sun May Help Decode Its Effect On Earth’s Climate
SCIENTISTS FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE MUSCLES FROM SCRATCH
FSSAI urges states to use its book on eating right in schools

Bengaluru:
Do you travel for work often? You are more likely to suffer from anxiety
Anjana Rao – Engineer picks music over circuits and big pay
‘Unsafe practice of staff sleeping in hotels has proved tough to stop’ – Fire Department
Three asphyxiate while cleaning STP (sewage treatment plant) at apartment complex

– hawala
Rosetta stone
“Metta”

– Two approaches to living:
1. Be in the moment and take things as they come. Just be fully present, open & willing!
2. Plan ahead & take control. Direct the situation according to one’s own values.
Each approach critiques and complements the other.
So, use both, equally interacting, for optimum quality of life!
The best antidote to both anxiety & mediocrity……

– Futures & Options (F&O)
brokerage
Forex, commodities, cryptocurrency, derivatives, equities

GLEANINGS

23.12.17

– sleight

flambe

postpositive

truculent

shut-in

bespoke

short-handed

metronome

cockeyed

Necrotizing fasciitis

– Advent/Christmas:

Immanuel ~ Jesus ~ Christ

The salvific presence of the divine!

Do you receive the Gift?

How can I, if I don’t even believe/know it??

Saving the world ~ eternal life for each person ~ the revelation of GOD’s love

Catastrophic Grace!

– Do you know why Angelo Mathews did not come out to bat yesterday?

– “By putting forward the hands of the clock, you shall not advance the hour.” – Victor Hugo
But without the clock, how would we know the hour??
Yes, time & tide wait for no man. But chronological time is, in a sense, man-made!
Distinguish:
Actual/reality
&
Popular/perception
“kairos” – from boredom to leisure, via awareness!
There are those who make a lot of noise, but are empty, and there are those who are changing the world quietly……

– Moon phases – waxing/waning crescent/gibbous

24.12.17

– “Cut the cord”
“Bite the hand that feeds”
“Waiting for the sky to fall”

25.12.17

– The festive spirit has infected me too…
And that’s very surprising! 😃

– *Merry Christmas* , dear…! 🌲
GOD showed his *no-holding-back* love, through this baby.
And, as we kneel in adoration before him, we are inspired to love with *no-holding-back* too!
So, may we all be liberated to experience the *joy of giving* (ourselves freely)……

*GRACE & PEACE* 🎁

– 26.12.17

– “This Is Us” – Kevin & Kate have confused success/career with fulfillment/vocation!

I am experimenting with putting the emphasis on the private/personal as opposed to the public/social, when it comes to work……

– Fictional/cinematic universe

Digmine

28.12.17

– “Superstar (feat. Matthew Santos)” – Lupe Fiasco
“The Fear” – Lily Allen

– Movies:
“அருவி” (Tamil)
She should have contracted HIV via sexual promiscuity, not by an “innocent” accident!
The ending was too melodramatic & dumb – fairy-taleish. Very disappointed, after the rousing & provocative beginning & development.
“அன்பின் கொடி” – awesome song!

Jukebox

Something different & provocative in Tamil cinema, but does not maintain the realism untit the end. Does not live up to the standards set by (similar) movies like இரைவி.
Has the filmmaker borrowed from movies like “God Bless America” and “Ingrid Goes West”?

(10/12/2016) Kelvikkenna Bathil | Exclusive Interview with Lakshmy Ramakrishnan | Thanthi TV

 

Review
http://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/aruvi-review-the-coming-of-rage/article21670011.ece
Posters




Trailer

 

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi”
The second half lives up to the expectations nicely built up by the first! The movie goes out with a bang, not a whimper.
I feel somewhat like Luke Skywalker – voluntary retirement & complete isolation, loss of faith in the religious order & conventional warfare.
Watched in IMAX 3D (courtesy Chris Joseph)!
The republic & the empire are not that distinct! It is the spiritual warriors (Jedi/resistance) that needs to do the hard work of figuring out what it means to be & stay faithful in such a situation……

29.12.17

– Procrustes
procrustean
pleonasm

inapposite

GRIST

13.12.17

– Julian calendar

Caesarea Maritima

metier

Light pollution

– How can being forgiven cleanse me from my sinfulness??

– I did not like the Christ University Christmas musical very much, maybe because the Christian spirit (faith/devotion) was missing.

But I was already depressed, so maybe I wouldn’t have enjoyed it much, no matter how good it was……

Also, Handel’s Messiah & Santa Claus don’t go well together! 😐😌

– Sometimes, 2 (or more) emojis are required to express how one is feeling!

– Love does not know sacrifice, only passion!

Integrity ~ self-love

Love ~ relational truth

– UC News app

Why use the (irrelevant & stupid) pic of a school girl in skirt, for your ad (in Clean Master)??

Does this mean you will focus on the sleazy news for our daily infotainment?

Fuckers! 😠

– Be who you are.

Do what you are.

Say how you are.

– The closest to an epiphany that I have got in the past year may be the vision of gorgeous gals (some, goddesses) in my neighborhood, & rarely making very brief eye-contact with few of them……!

– amphitheater, racecourse, forum

chamberlain

A tour for the rich

promenades

artisans, manual laborers, merchants

Social status, economic class

Favoritism, discrimination, partiality

excoriate, vituperate, lambast

elitism & patronage

Competition for civic advancement

refounded

Jews as underdogs

Ethnic identity & political influence

The mistake of imprecision

Pseudo-relationships

Family slave

Documentary, literary & technical papyri

Philosophical education, self-improvement & entertainment

Assimilated Jews

Homer (Greek) Vs. The Bible (Hebrew)

Training for public office

Rhetorical affairs

Philo, Josephus, Cicero

Eloquent wisdom Vs. The power of the Cross

2Cor. 10:10 – the Apostle’s “foolish” life-sermon

vixen

– Despising menial labor

Vs.

Glorying in tribulations

16.12.17

– Movies:

Thelma

Gorgeous, in every way! Norway – mmm, yummy……

Just another parable on religious fundamentalism & adolescent repression?

Non-epileptic (psychogenic) seizures

PTSD

The power of our unconscious desires and their subtle, yet significant, impact on our lives

But what about her “murder” of the younger brother?? The religious as (human response to) the demonic!

Is she evil? What is (the meaning of) “evil”? The power within us which we struggle to harness – yes, dangerous, but also vital!

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Connect the first and the last scene – the child/feminine/nature/desire/man/future Vs. the adult/masculine/culture/morality/GOD/past – guess who wins!?

Midpoint ~ 54:00 – the serpent enters her (via the mouth)!

Is the filmmaker a Freudian?

Our faith in/dependence on GOD, cripples and retards us.

I think I am also liberated!

longuers

Chthonian

Art-horror/poetic terror

Youth, university & isolation!

“…can be both a particle

or a wave…

depending on what kind of

instrument we’re using.”

“Lord, take it away from me. Get rid

of these thoughts. Take them…”

“There’s something within you…

I’m going to help you.”

“It’s alright. I’ll take care of it.

– I went to see grandma at the hospital.

Are you doing the same thing to me?

Is it?

Could you please let me go?

– Get some sleep.”

“Trond?

Trond?

Trond!

Trond?

Where’s Trond?

What’s happening?

Thelma, don’t go. Thelma!

Thelma!

Thelma! Thelma…

Review

http://www.vulture.com/2017/11/thelma-review.html

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgQMHG9SGlU

Poster

http://3ipycv2ugat81cqgps20hwke-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Thelma-Poster.jpg

– TV series:

“This is Us”

Watched 1 episodes of Season 1

WOW… Didn’t know I liked such sentimental stuff! I think it touched/moved a part of me that I thought was dead (intimacy/affection/loyalty)……

18 episodes is too long for one season…? I’m not gonna watch all of them. Episode 12 brings it full circle from 1.

Kevin’s talk on his painting (On the Us) was lightning out of the blue!

Celebrating the mundane mystery of the family

Biological family – is there any other kind?

Compare with the families of “Transparent” & “Fleabag”

A romantic/optimistic view of a dysfunctional family? Or a perfectly healthy family with ordinary, struggling members?

Individuality >> relationality

Vs.

Relationality >> individuality

Yin-Yang – the question of which is better/first/greater is simply stupid!

Of all the main characters, I identify most with Kevin.

Family/home as church.

Childhood, vocation, intimacy – 3 themes that are always relevant & integral to your life, no matter what stage you’re in.

Where is the “we” in all of this??

Schmaltzy/quirky/in-house

Life is complicated & problematic, but it’s real, and it’s fine!

No love, no hope!

– wait, am I really saying this?!

Review

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/apr/04/this-is-us-the-tv-show-that-lit-up-america-then-left-the-whole-world-cold

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_gVYoUbrLM

Poster

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/66/5a/af/665aaf5a2f02ad19a6a06230f84cead6.jpg

16.12.17

– I am slowly becoming someone I would despise and hate!

Better U-turn before it’s too late…… 😶

– Movies:

Bullethead

Baby Driver

– WHY do you like lesbian porn so much??

What does your sexuality, your secrets & your crimes say about your soul?

18.12.17

– My work belongs neither in the church nor in the academy

– Distinguish:

Tradition

&

Culture

– The child & the curriculum

School & society

– Movies:

“The Killing of a Sacred Deer”

Tough, heavy, mysterious, disturbing

Why this title??

The hero of the movie is Martin (the boy), not the doctor!

My interpretation is theological – the film is basically a theory of atonement – the surgeon/father is God, his family is the Trinity, Martin is Man (His dead father as Adam), and the son Bob is Christ.

GOD has to pay for his sin by taking full responsibility for the suffering of the world upon himself – and he has no choice – there is no escape!

GOD is judged and Man is vindicated……

Distinguish:

Justice

&

Fairness

Would adopting the boy (& his mom) been another alternative?? If you murder the father, then you become the father. Or, you kill yourself too.

But why kill another member of your family?

No confession & repentance (or rather, restitution), no forgiveness & reconciliation

Martin only knows the meaning of what is going on, or is he actually causing it??

What happens when you go digging where there is no “deeper meaning”?

“That critical moment we both

knew would come some day?

Here it is.

That time is now.

You know what I mean.

– No, I don’t.

Listen, Martin, I don’t have time for this.

– Okay, I’m gonna explain this very quickly so that I don’t hold you up.

Yes, it’s exactly what you think.

Just like you killed a member of my family,

now you’ve gotta kill a member of your family to balance things out, understand?”

Review:

http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/the-killing-of-a-sacred-deer-review-1202439468/

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQFdGfwChtw

Posters

https://epeak.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/1507817192_130_new-the-killing-of-a-sacred-deer-poster-and-website.png

http://cdn1-www.comingsoon.net/assets/uploads/gallery/the-killing-of-a-sacred-deer/unnamed-1.png

19.12.17

– “When you die” – MGMT

20.12.17

– Nothing really matters.

Realize this. 

Nothing else matters!

NOW, go and engage in all other matters.

So, the miserable are somehow more enlightened than the happy……?

They at least “know” that it’s all just a big show. But they have not (yet) come to terms, or personally reconciled, with this knowledge.

– ostensible

veridical 

portmanteau 

Living idols

Intentional objects

Implied character 

Putative experiences

Kitsch taste

fealty 

Sworn loyalty

Formal acknowledgment

Feudal lord

Lesser gods

Simulacra of religion

perfervid 

Set pieces

Scientism as superstition

Spiritual tone-deafness

Undergraduate atheism

brio

“Pantheism as sexed up atheism”

CliffNotes version

Idolatrous expressions of religious experiences

Natural/rational religion 

Secondary compensations

Semantic artifice

Real religion

The Dred Scott case

Constitutional law

“Our religions as forms of resistance to the divine”

Legitimate naturalism

Gerrymandering the terminology

Logopoiesis

Salamander

Space-heater

Amphibian family

Unredeemed longings

Nominal definitions

mantic 

Geomancy 

Divination ~ prophecy

Auspicious arrangements

Spiritual experience & religious doctrine

“Seeing as”

Popular bumf 

Radical transformations of the linguistic-cultural frame

“You will see him there, just as he told you”

Argument from exemplarity 

Unaugmented Gospel 

Surviving death

anastasis 

– Narcissus, becoming Leviathan!

Naïve fanaticism

Suspecting desire & desiring suspicion

Illusory hopes

– “The ending of the Gospel of Mark and the ends of God”

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/the-strange-ending-of-the-gospel-of-mark-and-why-it-makes-all-the-difference/

– Dream:
Someone has broken into my house. And I end up killing him. Then I tell my dad that there is something terrible inside me that comes out at such times……
I am standing in queue, in an eatery, inside a bus stand. Came to drop someone off. The guy who prepares & packs the food is overloaded, because his co-workers have gone for a break. He says, “human beings!”.

– The enlightened man is the one who has fully embraced the nothingness at the core of existence. And he engages in everything else, with the full awareness of this ultimate reality.
All the colors eventually fade to grey.
Or is it black?
The pursuit of greatness is just another failed attempt at immortality!
So, give it up too, along with all the other grandiose delusions & failed strategies – family relationships, religious devotion, social work, material prosperity, psychological health, moral excellence, individual achievement, physical strength, sexual pleasure, cultural refinement, etc., etc.
LIFE, is for those, who are NOT tired of dying!

– The essence of all philosophical endeavor is the struggle with the problem/question/sheer fact of the existence of language.

– Employment as distraction…
From?

– Christ University:
What good are youth, beauty, talent & enthusiasm, in solitude?

– He/she may be remarkable, but I am NOT!
What about you?

– kaivalya

– TV series (limited):

“Wormwood”

22.12.17

– Hygge 

My Scandinavian fantasy

Prussia

Radical newsletter

Conservative democratic government 

Empire, revolution & republic

Identity structures

Use cases

UX 

Trust as currency

Distributed ledger

Digital timestamps

– Blockchain & Bitcoin – could this be the latest (& maybe better) challenge/alternative to capitalism?!