LINES

10.6.19
– wog
warg
Lord of the Rings ~ Harry Potter ~ Game of Thrones
– Pornosophy – what does Alan Watts, Pornhub, Super Deluxe (Tamil film) & Gabriel Mangalraj (my friend) have to do with each other??
– streaking
Internet banking commission
Boniface
Shavuot ~ Pentecost ~ Sunday of the Fathers of the First Council
– There’s more to being human than just human being!
– What’s said in anger as the most open expression of one’s true beliefs (take it very seriously, even more so than what is said when he/she is calm)
Vs.
What’s said in anger as the impulsive blabbering of a person in the grip of wild emotion (ignore it as mindless nonsense)
Proportion is everything……!
11.6.19
– Thankless job
Morals/commandments as laws/principles of life
Stackexchange, Rediff, Quora
Porn baron
Ressourcement & aggiornamento
– What would it be like to be that toddler who fell into the borewell and died?!
– What aspects of culture are “natural” and which elements are “artificial”?
Is more natural better?
Grace is what underlies and sustains both nature and culture!
The Trinity is an anthropomorphic divinity, not the deity “in itself”……
– “The way to defeat the cliché is through detail.” – Hauerwas
– Where is the intellect/theology in Richard Foster’s Renovaré components (of Christian spirituality)?!
12.6.19
– I feel more disturbed when she moves closely with her own family and male friends.
But I don’t feel that way about her being close to XYZ, because he is close to me as well (“like a brother”)!
(I think I might not even be that upset if she has a sexual affair…!? 🙃)
– I see how ABC does not get into any serious intellectual/spiritual/ethical discussions when with friends in a casual setting.
He only engages in weightless humor and harmless fun, although in a professional setting he is quite the perfectionist!
How do we understand this kind of behavior?
He has given up on true passion and has substituted that vacuum with diligent performance!
So pathetic and tragic……!
I wish and hope he will get out of this (deadly and convenient) rut, and I want to help if I could.
– I’m much more sentimental than I would like to believe! 😐
– I don’t mind if women are frivolous, but I despise silly men!
(Does “men” include me??)
– “Road Trip Time Lapse Across The Loneliest Road in America” on YouTube
– “Find that long spine”
RSPB Dearne Valley Old Moor – wetland reserve
Kivu Ebola
Glacial lake
Common roach
prestidigitator
Pole of inaccessibility
E. M. Forster
“Failed bid to retain power”
preponderant
Whirlybird ~ eggbeater
caducous
Cyclone Vayu
Heat index
Due point
Medical thriller
UV index
Headway
– Movies:
“Colette”
Compare with “A Quiet Passion” & “Professor Marston and his Wonder Women”
Distinguish Claudine & Colette?
Self-publishing and writing as collaboration
Love as support without exploitation
Woman as child and man as father
Missy – the cross-dresser as liberator (instead of victim)!
– Levels of election:
Panchayat, Assembly & Lok Sabha
– Peak temperature ~ 2 pm
Trough temperature ~ 5 am
– Commonsense wisdom
Vs.
The weird truth!
13.6.19
– Movies:
“In Praise of Nothing”
I enjoyed it thoroughly! Why?? 😎😶
Philography/Photosophy!
Nihilism ISN’T, evil. Even evil isn’t……!?
Lalalala-lulululu-jah!
Metapsychicality
– TV series:
“The Sopranos”
Drama ~ drag
This is a character-focused (1), as opposed to plot-focused (2) or stream-of-consciousness (3), genre
Dr. Melfi seems to be the ONLY person engaged in any meaningful and intentional self-work with social contribution
What are the qualities in Tony that I find most unlike me?
What keeps me from criminal/violent behavior?
Could I kill, if deemed necessary, by my own conscience?
What an abrupt and puzzling finish! Why?? It’s a masterstroke indeed!
14.6.19
– forgo
– My blog:
Distinguish explicit and pornographic
Distinguish titillating & trivial
Distinguish offensive & evil
Vulgar, obscene, provocative, etc. are NOT bad words in my dictionary!
– .asx (radio stream)
Dead to Self
Fuel
– “Climate weirding”
Chennai – never again! 👎🏽
Goodbye forever. 👋🏽
Deep aquifers
– Less(er) evil:
Redemptive suffering, necessary busyness, tolerable nuisance
– Sky-gazing, tree-hugging, full body stretch
15.6.19
– Can social roles be used to aid self-realization instead of being seen as only detrimental to true growth?
Yes!
Self > social roles + personal definitions + feelings/intuitions
“>” could mean both “more” and “other”!
– What do you do when you don’t feel like doing what you love?
You feel like shit, but you also are not able/willing/ready to do what it takes to get out of the rut…… It seems like the medicine is worse than the disease.
Learn how to “fight for joy”!
E.g. Overcoming my resistance to conducting the next retreat
– gyre
Gaytheism
Purity ball
corral, pen
risible, zany
Hegemonic regimes of identity
Non-normative desires
Queer eroticism
Ideological fetishizing
Christian abstinence culture
Barely veiled subtext
prom
Abstinence education funding
subtend
“(Sexual) purity is the enemy of (all) adventure.”
“Daddy-daughter” coupling
propinquity
retrenchment
Insulting by excluding
Protogay youth
carceral
defilade
– Unrequited lust 🤣
The only reality is the negation of the unreal
17.6.19
– Common sundew

ANNUAL RETREAT 2019 INVITATION

Dear folks…
It’s time for our annual spiritual retreat, again!

*Date*: September 7th morning – 9th evening (3 days & 2 nights)
*Place*: In/around Bengaluru.

*Theme* – DEEP CONNECTIONS

*Format* – Mini-presentation (by all participants), reflection, discussion & conversation… surrounded by silence & solitude.
We will be learning from each other, and even become friends, as a result…!?
I will facilitate this process of collective intelligence & mutual education (unlearning & relearning) through dynamic interaction.
The participants will be required to compose their talk, before the retreat.
Instructions to aid preparation will be given.

*Medium* – English

*Cost* ~ Rs. 4,000 per head (all-inclusive, at actuals).
*Registration* – Rs. 500 (non-refundable)
The details (location, cost, etc.) will be finalized and announced in the next 1 month.

Participants (including me):
Minimum – 4
Maximum – 12
(Adults only)

Whoever will be attending, please reply ASAP so that the necessary arrangements can be made.

*PEACE* ✌🏽
(Please add my contact info, and share the invite with your friends.
Thank you! ✋🏽
Immanuel Joseph +919840227977)

THOUGHTS

30.5.19
– “Congress to boycott TV debates”
Yeah! Go, snivel in your corner… losers!
“Minorities made to live in fear: PM to party”
WOW! Pray for Modi (and then keep him accountable)…
– Algorithm(s) for personalized content recommendation(s)
Upgrade > update
Exuberant nihilism!
– Emotional first-aid
– Nietzsche:
Distinguish –
Voluntary Herculean spiritual task >> mental breakdown >> death
&
Suicide (cowardly despair/weak resignation)
– Boring >> interesting >> challenging
– What’s the difference between comic & graphic novel?
– Red meat (mutton/pork/beef) allowed – only 1 meal on Sundays
31.5.19
– meta-education
3.6.19
– scrobble
– From faith-hope-love to truth-power-joy!
– WhatsApp – hey Facebook, let me delete “you deleted this message” for everyone!
– Are there any omnivorous animals other than humans?
– They got divorced, because they didn’t love each other anymore, or one of them realized they didn’t love the other anymore……
HA HA HA HA HA!!! What shit??
– What is the verb form of “immanence”?
“Transcending transcendence”!
– dang
Ethical crime
Carrying bat
Inclusio
Jamat-Ul-Vida; Eid-Al-Fitr
Sunday of the blind man
Johannine double meaning – post-resurrection appearances & pentecostal indwelling
Martyr-compatriots
– “The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Hmmm…… I don’t agree!
– Movies:
“Ankur” (Hindi)
Title – seedling
From caste to class
Lust is boundless, but love is not…?!
The pregnant Mother Mary & the fetus of revolution
4.6.19
– The flying wise serpent
Arch-rebel
Falling star
The I AM Vs. The Adversary
Un-creation
Demon(ic) sex
Holographic universe
Rosetta Stone
Quantum gravity
– World Marriage Day
Do you know how to create an event in Google calendar that repeats on the 2nd Sunday of February each year?
– Moot point
5.6.19
– massif
6.6.19
– Article 15 (constitutional film!?)
anteroom
– Movies:
“The Man Who Fell to Earth”
I was referred to Nicolas Roeg by Grant Morisson from “Arkham Asylum”
The human individual, as alien, in the “society of the spectacle”
Newton has arrived not from another planet (space), but from the future (time) – from a review in Criterion Collection
It’s fundamentally a love story!?
Earth as Canaan (paradise) Vs. The world as Egypt (prison)
“Black Mass”
Do you know what the title means?
Yes! This is an ode to “Jimmy”, and what an embodiment by Depp… WOW! 😇👏👍
Why do ordinary people admire, even love, charismatic criminals like this?
Can one be both human and demonic? Is there any overlap between the divine and the Satanic, or between the sublime and evil?
What could Psychotherapy do for folks like Anthony Soprano?
Loyalty as the ultimate/essential virtue – compare with Christian definitions of faithfulness – is Christianity basically a personality cult?
All-star caste dazzles
Dakota Johnson – one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen?!
There are a few unforgettable scenes in this film!
7.6.19
– The Devil’s notebook
Death metal + metalcore = deathcore
– Epistemic virtue
Tournament reserve day
– UEFA:
Distinguish Europa League & Champions League
– Copa America
African Cup of Nations
8.6.19
– DRS for LBW – why does the wickets-hitting aspect say with the on-field umpire?!
– Cottrell celebration (Windies cricket) 😍
9.6.19
– Do you know the etymology of “okay”?

NEWS

22.5.19
– In a perfect/ideal/utopian world, everybody’s basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, etc.) would be provided by default.
No one would have to work/toil/struggle to survive.
Then, the only/main/core purpose of life would be to realize/grow/transform!
– I’m looking for the innocence on the other side of mindlessness……
– Believer mag
“Comedy advice column”
Jamming sessions
Egyptology
– Distinguish:
Being happy
&
Enjoying life
– Occultism + science fiction + performance art-theory
– Arkestra
unpeggable
Afro-futurist
Space love
Supersonic Jazz
Healing vibrations
A&M
Alien abduction
Mythocracies
Super-sanity
Bitches Brew
Atonal experimentation
Noise fusion
Harmonic blast
Furnace gymnasium club
Nation of Islam & Black Power
EVM & VVPAT
– Distinguish:
Call girls
&
Sex slaves
?
23.5.19
– Movies:
“Burning” (Korean)
Compare my theological interpretation with the existential review of The Atlantic’s critic
By killing GOD, man is born again……! The climax, and Peter Rollins’s “Idolatry of God” – the rejection of success, romance and religion as salvation (from dissatisfaction & uncertainty)
Escape the domination of the symbolic, and access the real, via the imaginary
Can envy ever be(come) a positive force? If not, then how can one move from being a reactive to an active person??
Do you know what demons simmer under the surface of ordinary everyday life?!
Self-negating void ~ perpetual creation!
Compare with “The Favourite”
Compare “The Favourite” with “Mary Queen of Scotts”
What is it like to be a narcissist’s friend!?
In the beginning, opposites attract, but in the end, birds of a feather flock together!
Psychoanalysis – the wounds of the past may be identified, but they can never be healed – the rabbits rule!
24.5.19
– The ideology that has the more powerful representative, irrespective of its own merits/faults, wins!
– Enjoy life >> << self-improvement >> << unique contribution
– Guided meditation, nature sounds, white noise, spiritual music, mantra, chanting
Beer marinade
25.5.19
– warbler
– How do you feel now?
I’m not depressed! But I feel blank and neutral…
No physical problems.
24 hours recollection
What’s going on in your mind?
I feel the urge to work in a more rigorous, smart and focused way, on myself. If I’m ready to stretch myself and make my routine more balanced, I might just be able to crawl out of this hole. I must somehow learn to do what I don’t feel like doing, in order to get what I want! This way, maybe I can also recover my own health, and restart my work of facilitating personal growth in the context of a small spiritual community…
– Recollection & Repetition (Kierkegaard),
Will to Power & Eternal Return (Nietzsche) &
Difference & Repetition (Deleuze)
26.5.19
– “Why am I not working??
I appreciate your question, X! I love curiosity.
You can ask me freely, but you can also ask Y if not comfortable… ✋🏽
My response:
1. Why not?! Why should everyone have a job??
2. I believe my work is inward/spiritual, unlike what most people do in our world. In other words, NOT working like everyone else is my job! I need to be different, in order to make my unique contribution…
3. I am introvert, eccentric & maverick. I have adopted a contemplative lifestyle (life with much more time, space & energy compared to general society) in order to facilitate the work of experiential reflection, theoretical insight & experimental self-education.
Having said that, I am able to do this because of the economic & moral support of few people (formerly my parents, now my wife)! 🙏🏽”
– TV series:
Malgudi Days (Season 1 – Swami & Friends)
Nostalgic/sentimental indulgence!
What was the childhood of Jesus like??
“The child is the father of man”
Friends as siblings
Growing pangs – the travails of birth continue throughout life, into death……!
The poignancy of early grief and the development of tenacity
Psychogeography – Malgudi, in & through Swami
– frisson
27.5.19
– Freeze frame
Hair perming
No-names
Opportunity cost
Next best alternative
DFTBA
Crash Course
The Green (vlog) Brothers
Perverse incentives
– Distinguish:
Compulsory/mandatory
&
Essential/necessary
Economics
&
Finance
Theory
&
Policy
– Most people are busy making a living – is this good, in one sense, because it keeps certain (evil) drives within them at bay?
No!
Why not??
– To understand any experience/idea/practice properly, you need to look at:
1. Its history & development
2. The psychology of the person holding them
3. The wider cultural context of the people/group (believers/followers)
– Constantine & Helena
Edict of Milan
Christian pilgrimage
Define ~ defend
Hadassa
Bede & Cuthbert
Futuristic present
Ancient aliens; Astro-biologist
Sunday of the Samaritan Woman
– What an irony it is, that someone like me (melancholic recluse) should be the guardian of personal growth, & sustainer of spiritual community, in my context……!?
– Distinguish:
Darkness/chaos/emptiness/death/surreal
&
Evil
Light/order/fullness/life/actual
&
Good
28.5.19
– Solid & liquid modernity
From community to connectivity
Thoroughly standardized prefigured relations
Vs.
Multi-faceted meaning-negotiating intiatives
Quantitative equality and qualitative singularity
The systematic dependency of social networks
Division based on mobility
The new classification
Reworking space
Absentee landlords
Personal troubles Vs. Common cause
The public sphere & private interests
The invincible – because decentralized and ambiguous – nature of globalized/contemporary power!
musi.sh
Hypertely – non-Darwinian concept – imitative ornamentation
Modernization ~ liquifaction
“Until further notice” clause
Ultra-flexibility
Sign value Vs. Utility
Simulation & consumption
Random & illusory reality
Self-referencing symbolic system
Hyper-real matrix
The sub-normality of the actual
Market-driven (capricious & unpredictable) interpersonal relationships
Universal deregulation
New global polarization
Love & reason – value vs. use
The privatization of morality
The endemic aporia of responsibility
Uncertainty & impotence – self-preoccupation & non-committal posture
Postmodern ethics; Non-universalizable morality
Immortality as life-strategy
Extra-territorial capital
Fluid sociality and obligatory self-determination
The agora and the ecclesia
Collective action as the basis of individual liberty
Life-politics
Individualization –> totalitarianism!
“Every act of interpretation always contains a legislative moment”
– Distinguish:
Power
&
Authority
– Roots & wings:
Floating
Vs.
Entrapment
– Unbridled powers and false freedoms
– Napflix
Lowlife Magazine
“Find what you love & let it kill you.” – Charles Bukowski
BIMSTEC
Gaming mouse
Contrarian angle
– Open elective ~ radical hospitality ~ SFG meetings ~ liturgical space
– Humans need BOTH roots and wings – both the social/public AND the personal/private – the crucial place of spiritual community is its mediation between these two spheres, which seem to be at odds with each other.
This is why such a group is absolutely essential & indispensable in today’s world!
We need to negotiate the tension between the old settling mentality and the new mobility ethic.
Those who want to comfortably settle in one extreme or another will be left bankrupt, compared to those who try to stay in the middle and fight it out.
(Inspired by Zygmunt Bauman’s “Liquid Modernity”)
If you score 50 out of 100 with the whole 50 coming from materialistic standard of living, and another scores 50 which is made up of 2 or 3 elements (including social, vocational, etc.).
Who is the “richer” of the two??
29.5.19
– hotbox (v.)
– Gaspar Noe
Aleister Crowley
Nicolas Roeg
Nature, magic and nihilism
Non-conformist Christians
– Distinguish:
Libertarianism
&
Hedonism
– Movies:
“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (French)
I am exactly midway between the child and the hag…?
I agree with the hero – 70-80 is the best/most important period of life…!
The lion stands for what – Death? Courage? – what do you get from the combination of both?
“Mug” (Polish)
The face as allegory – I am no longer the man whom Salome married!
The Christ figure turns the head of the Church – with or without their approval/knowledge!
What does a metallic Christianity look like – ask Immanuel Joseph…… 😎🤘
“Enter The Void”
The scene where Oscar’s affair with the married woman (his friend’s mother), was juxtaposed with him being breastfed as a baby, had a very powerful impact on me!
The inner child ~ the destiny of the adult ~ the afterlife
Life > self > role
An aesthetic morality looks nihilistic only from this side……!
(Gabriel had recommended Noe)
– Fiction:
Arkham Asylum: Serious House on Serious Earth
Read the complete commentary & script by Morrisson
Distinguish the insane and the evil
Batman wins in the end, yes. But only because he was let off by his enemy! So, did he actually win him over, in the fight??
I don’t wanna live and die as an extra, in my own life……!
– Distinguish:
Rational
&
Ethical
– Despite the upsets for the BJP in the mid-term local assembly elections in many states, how did they sweep the 2019 Lok Sabha elections??
– To say that the id (basic drives) is the “true self”, and the superego (conscientiousness) is pure cultural conditioning, would be a gross & grave error!
– Distinguish:
Autodidact
&
Dilettante

PENSEES

4.5.19
– Tattoo stories
Mini diva
– kantor
Distinguish Pascha (Orthodox) & Pesach (Judaism)
Bright Week
Passiontide
– Distinguish Christian martyrdom and Islamic jihad
5.5.19
– Porn:
Desire/sex/energy > the human!
8.5.19
– Who is Wes Cecil?
Rehabilitating Nietzsche
Distinguish:
Tragedy
&
Pessimism
Passionate ~ noble ~ great
soliloquy
obscurantism
humbition
– Judeo-Christiano-……!?
8.5.19
– Barely legal
sub-paragraphs
overleaf
Critiquing values from a reclamation of sense
Meta-valuation
pleb
Game/play/gamble
– Distinguish:
The mindless liver,
The sensual thinker &
The theoretical man
fate-al
– Jordan Peterson is NO Nietzschean!
10.5.19
– Namasthe/Jeevitha:
Tarot cards
Chakra Balancing (using crystals)
Counseling
Why am I depressed?
How can I be healed?
1. Balance – correct the over-dominance of the intellectual. From brain to heart.
2. Strengthen the root & heart chakras
3. Yoga, guided meditation, water, salt, essential oils (rosemary & thyme)
4. Positivity – gratitude, visualization, confession, etc.
5. Forgiveness – parents? In-laws? Siblings?
11.5.19
– Alto’s Odyssey Zen mode
– yaesizp
– Movies:
Super Deluxe
15.5.19
– Genealogical criticism
Interpretation & evaluation
Noble/active/affirmative & base/reactive/negative
Sense & value
Eternal return, will to power & force(s)
Quantity & quality
18.5.19
– Prime Reading
– Movies:
Blackkklansman
– On the lam
19.5.19
– “What PM Modi said after meditating in the cave?”
– Ferocious women!
– Give more attention to the critics who give negative reviews
– Movies:
“The Favourite”
– Becoming better than my current best…!
– Distinguish egotism (Ryan Holiday) & egoism (Max Stirner)
– Confessions of a manipulator
Risk Engineering
Anti-fragile
20.5.19
– Scribd Snapshots
Vs.
Blinkist
– Frederick the Wise, Christian ruler
Believer ~ disciple ~ witness
Metrology
SI – International System of Units
The Big K
21.5.19
– laterite
Coffin flower
Off-white
estivation
sepals
Sun Ra
– Comics:
Venom (2018 – 19) #1-12
– rind
mangosteen
haunches
purloin
“fierce lack of ambition”
“indifference to passionate critiques”
Vernacular architecture
temerity
seersucker
gnome
gargoyle
anthurium
spadix, frond, spathe