On Getting Off of One's Butt (Being a Doer not Just a Muser)

[Philip Coates]

> When you start a thread it’s a safe assumption that you’re going to take an active part in the conversation.

So the complaint was when I'm too schoolmarmish and prescriptive and now the complaint is when I try more to stand aside and listen or ask questions for a while?

(Too often I've started a thread and written a too dense pages-long diatribe and the conversation just dried up. Instead, a lot of interesting comments on this one and I for one have learned some things - I particularly like the quotes.)

[Philip Coates]

> I have in fact engaged in such activity as you describe, but it was in the area of union organizing, striking, etc., and though deeply satisfying and exhilarating as it was, I do not think you would admire it. [#14]

Daunce, I'd like to learn from it.

I don't have to agree with the goal to learn from the method or be inspired by the energy or persistence. Or to want to hear about your deep satisfaction and exhilaration. I actually read an occasional 'ministry' email form Christians who are explaining how to proselytize, organize, administer, spread their ideas.

[caroljane]

> I have in fact engaged in such activity as you describe, but it was in the area of union organizing, striking, etc., and though deeply satisfying and exhilarating as it was, I do not think you would admire it. [#14]

Daunce, I'd like to learn from it.

I don't have to agree with the goal to learn from the method or be inspired by the energy or persistence. Or to want to hear about your deep satisfaction and exhilaration. I actually read an occasional 'ministry' email form Christians who are explaining how to proselytize, organize, administer, spread their ideas.

You'll have the story then Phil, but it is a story and will be longer than my usual posts so it will take awhile.

Thank you for asking for it.

[william.scherk]

Wow, Otherizing. It slows down, but it never stops.

Phil, as one sometime writer to another, here is some unsolicited advice:

• please try to De-Otherize your posts, as this will make your communications more effective.
  
• Please also examine your post for weak or passive constructions ª.
  
• Please try to grasp that your usual Theme (the Other fails to do right) is not always the best way to introduce a topic
  

In addition, if your subject is, as proposed, On Getting Off of One's Butt, then I do believe your post would be much much stronger if you gave examples of your own off-butt activities, and if you fairly featured those off-butt activities of Others that strike you as significant.**

All in all, if you or me or anyone wants to discuss Doing (instead of Musing), we can do it best by featuring stories of folks that got off their flabby-ass butts -- even if we ourselves are still losers and third-rate also-rans in comparison. Our own stories, of course, are the ones we know best. I bet that one of the things that triggered your fit of keyboard pounding was your own life and actions.

You may have asked yourself things like this:

• "Why do so many Objective-ish people sit on their big fat asses and tell other people what to do?"
  
• "If I have a superior knowledge of Objectivism, why is it that I have never published any of this knowledge beyond fifth-rate shitholes like OL†?"
  
• "When I move to a town (as I did to East Elderly Gated Holding Pen), I seek out Objectivists, reach out to interesting people, and even start clubs ‡
  

Here, Phil, I am going to De-Otherize your post once more. I am going to do it in two stages. First, I will strike all the weak, unfocused, rambling and incoherent passages. I will also strike whiny, Otherized pontificating. I strike or note by colourizing unattributed quotations and unusual and unnecessary formatting ². I will in some cases add in possible de-Otherized illustrative phrasing, and may include bracketed URLs that you have left out ³.

I'm continually impressed by how much Diana H's small community group, "Front Range Objectivists", does to get up out of the passive, grumbling defeated armchair state and fight for their values: has upped their output in the last year, according to a post from Paul Hsieh at Noodlefood last Friday (13th!). Check it out:

" For calendar year 2011, Front Range Objectivism (FRO) members ... published the following at the regional and national level: Articles: 4, OpEds: 73, LTEs: 24. Some of the topics covered include free speech, economics, health care, energy policy and environmentalism, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, abortion and "personhood", foreign policy, and Colorado politics. For comparison, our total 2010 output was 5 articles, 68 OpEds, and 27 LTEs. The majority of this writing was done by people working in their spare time, in addition to their day jobs. This list does not include numerous TV/radio appearances, talks to community groups, oral and written statements to elected officials, postings to Facebook and Twitter, and blogging." -- Paul Hsieh, Noodlefood.

The future is affected by those who choose to affect it.

Not by those who lie down and 'take it' across a whole life - like a kicked dog.

,,,,,,,,, þ

Does anyone here have any examples to share of their own fighting for their values and philosophy - either currently or in the past? (Doesn't necessarily have to be activism/outreach to the general public. There are other ways.)

I will return to deliver my fully De-Otherized revamp. I should mention that the IDEA of the post is I think, very very good for the list community. Examples of "getting off one's ass" are great. We can compare them to our own sorry efforts, we can contrast them to our own value hierarchies, we can be encouraged to put forth our own. Stress 'encouraged,' mind, since there is little in your initial post that encourages self-disclosure from others: the lurking subtext of MASTERFUL PHIL, POOR FAILED OTHERS stinks up the place too badly to be attractive (though Ba'al, gawd bless his social deficits, gets to it quickly). I mean, Phil, let me be unkind and personal in my remarks here -- in an excellent, self-revealing post you spoke of your ground-breaking work on the solution to the problem of induction:

I had the solution. It was complicated. I wrote page after page, addressing all the quandaries associated with induction and how my theory solved them.

I went back to Peikoff's class with my head in the clouds, ready to show him the paper...

Well, Phil, how big was your butt then, and how big is your butt now? Did you ever get anything done with your paper? Did you show it to anyone else but Peikoff? Did you fall back into depression, self-thwarting excuse-making, blaming the Other? Did you ever since rise above your crushing by Peikoff -- I mean, have you ever forgiven him (or yourself) for essentially choking your progress?

Moreover, my friend, did that experience cause you to pull back from any test of your superior understanding, from collaboration, from positive engagements? It just seems to me -- and I hope I am wrong -- that that episode wrecked you somehow. You still appear to fully believe that you have gifts of inestimable value, in your mind, yet nothing has squeezed out of the cheeks, so to speak. Diana, bless her ChurchLady soul, does her picnics and her measles parties and her videos and her exercise tips and her morality-of-feeding wackaloon posturing, and occasionally (though not this year) manages to get a letter to the editor published in suburban coupon-weeklies. She gets to fool herself and her other Church people that she is in the Vanguard and not merely another crazed windbag. She gets to make unbelievably boring, trite, graceless and horrifyingly righteous Youtube videos. She gives 'advice' on how to do everything the Objectivist Way (including cooking yams and whether to eat pickles stem first or not or how to deal with the Evul of Vegetables), but at the same time she lives off her husband's earnings and flails about trying to find a job. Her readership (at Noodlefood) has plunged; the comments have dried up, she gets uglier and more insulated from criticism every week.

Please, please do not compare your self to Diana (or Paul), because it is only going to make you feel like a big fat useless failure the way you are doing it.

Compare yourself to yourself, brother.

Compare yourself now, and your projects and your life-satisfaction to what you once imagined yourself to be. YOU get off your butt often enough, I am sure. You run, you exercize, you take care of an elderly parent. You fall in love. You write pithy comments to five-hundred-and-counting followups to New York Times blogs. You hector people online. You go on dates. You get laid. You fall in love. You give to your favourite charity (People with Huge Inactive Butts Sprawling over the Squashed Lips of their Scooter Seats). You get to save your half-drank cups of coffee (or tea) and mix them up to a refreshing froth later. You get to drive to Tampa once in a while to visit your girlfriend at the detention centre. You get to go in the garage once in a while to contemplate your Seven Metric Tonnes of Notes.

_________________________________

** Diana is a member of the Church of Objectivism, and her maniacal efforts on behalf of Right Thinking, Right Dieting, Right Friending, Right Churchiness and all-round Objective-ish Rectitude and Righteousness are by no means interesting and attractive and significant to all. On the other hand, there is George H Smith. He is self-plundering his own writings and publishing essays at CATO. As we speak, Phil! Oddly, this probably does not even require him getting off his (no doubt taut and toned) behind to do so. In any case, my bottom line is: has YOUR off-butting resulted in a notably sleeker gluteal area? Has your pounding the pavements for Jayzuss Rand put you nearer YOUR dreams of a high, hard, firm, round, smooth and fully-packed Behind region?

‡ Seriously, the clubs you have attended, started or officered are a great topic of a story or two, or even seven (depending on the number of clubs). When you put aside the tired passive voice and passive construction, when you set aside the rampant Otherizing and finger-wagging and pursing of lips, when you simply tell the story of your life (episodes), truth and passion and humanity and struggle and everything interesting and signal about your life shines through, in my opinion. Your tales of emotional struggles in NYC, your troubled relationship with Peikoff, your experiences with Objectivist psychotherapists Lonnie Leonard & Edith Packer, your latter experiences with TAS/TOC conferences, your personal observations of your own attempts to understand self and others -- in my mind, these are your most effective works. They do not wag fingers. They do not presume Authority. They tell a story as it happened and as it occured to you.

ª Here is a simple rule-of-thumb for strengthening prose constructions. Ask "Who is doing what in this sentence?" If there is no somebody or somebodies named, if the subject of the sentence is a murky THEM, then fix it. Make something happen in the sentence. Similarly, examine a whole paragraph to see if there is any Action.

† -- yes, of all the places on Earth that Phil Coates could publish his wit, he chooses OL. Not Solopassion, not Rebirth of Reason, not ObjectivismOnline, not in a monograph. Not in Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. Not on his own blog or website. Not in forums of or under the banner of CATO. Not in a leaflet distributed to the elderly widder ladies in his Library Reading Club. Not on the Bulletin Board of said library. Not scrawled in shaving foam on the roof of the Senior's Centre. Not in a sign to hang off the back of all those who ride with the Huge Fat Florida People Who Ride Scooters To Walmart And Back club ...

² -- for some reason you have italicized two lines. We do not know why. Are they your own words? If so, then great! -- you have restated a truism in a pallid, boneless manner. You might make some extra money writing those 'fun' apothegms that old folks sometimes put in their motor homes. If these are not your own words, whose are they?

³ -- Universal Resource Indicators/Universal Resource Locators (URI/URLs) ought to be used when excerpting direct quotes in an online forum (this is standard); these are REFERENCES (as you may recall, you will FAIL your course and have your college essay FRANKED if you misuse or otherwise slop around references. URI/URLs are the equivalent of MLA inline citations (Shithead 666) plus works cited -- or APA (ShitforBrains, 1923) inline citations with references. The entire point of such citations is to get the reader to the information cited as easily as possible. So, although you cited Paul Hsieh, you failed to give an adequate reference. Now, you certainly do not need to use APA, MLA, Chicago or any other particular convention. Nor do you need to use a URL -- you can easily refer to Hsieh's post as I have at the bottom -- since you could write the reference conversationally: "On Noodlefood blog, Paul Hsieh posted the following on January 13th of this year." But, Phil, my sweet little teacher with the hard buttocks and springlike stride, a URL can get the reader to the cited work with a simple CLICK: 2011 Front Range Objectivism Media Output

Believe it or not, OL does not need you to write HTML code to include a link/URI/URL, although you may. You can either click the little 'link' icon in the editing page and follow instructions, or you can simply paste the URL, as here: http://blog.dianahsi...vism-media.html

-- in the second case, OL's forum scripts add the URL for you automatically, truncated and 'hot'-linked. Phil, I think you should get in the habit of copying URI/URLs ... that way, when you paste an excerpt from somewhere, you can quickly paste in the locator. It will give you access to the site, as well as give access to the cited words to those of us who are not in a coma or on Rage Ward after reading your Big Flabby Butt Wobbles.

þ -- Phil, what the fuck are the little strings of commas all about? Eg., ,,,,,,,, What the hell does this signify? This makes me think of the kookiepants Spock Guy who larded his posts with underlining, odd punctuation and curly brackets, tildes and whatnot. He seemed demented, orthographically, and not able to write without such fussing and frills. Is this what you are emulating with your unique and stupid style? Please say no.

______________________________________

Here are the examples of references in APA and MLA style. Note that the MLA style is much more forgiving to someone like you.

Hsieh, P. (2012, January 13). 2011 Front Range Objectivism media output [Web log posting]. Retrieved from

http://blog.dianahsi...vism-media.html

or

Hsieh, Paul. "2011 Front Range Objectivism Media Output." Noodlefood. Diana Hsieh PhD, 13 Jan 2012. Web. 18 Jan 2012. <

http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2012/01/2011-front-range-objectivism-media.html>.

[william.scherk]

So the complaint was when I'm too schoolmarmish and prescriptive and now the complaint is when I try more to stand aside and listen or ask questions for a while?

No, that's not it. It is several things. Some of us do not enjoy discussing things with you -- since you are all-too-often tetchy, defensive, self-blind and not in a discussion mode. Indeed, some of us (me) do not think you know how to discuss or how to show good faith in discussion, nor how to make your own little tests attractive to non-imprisoned torture victims-in-waiting.

In this case, Ghs put it best: you first .... and then he will hop in. That is me, too. You go first, then I will happily hop in. This would show good faith in two ways ... you would step down from the podium or Master of Ceremonies role, and you would put your money where your mouth is (as that c**t Ellen Stuttle put it once): It does not serve you to always insist that You Are On Top. You are not on Top.

Let me put it this way, Phil: one of the impediments to me giving more than superficial attention to your blandishments is that you seem to refuse to leave the Teacher's Podium. If you could put aside your rather fiendish obsession with Standing In Front Of The Class, controlling all activity in the classroom, things could be fun.

Think about it: In this thread, as usual, you are at the Lectern. You are asking The Class to do something (for you, or Humanity or the best value Spread, for themselves, for Glory, for the Gipper), but you do not get down to the activity yourself. You want to be the one with the whistle, the red flag, the scorecard, the referee stripes, the cudgel, the marking book. This seems insanely deluded and self-thwarting to me.

This posturing as Teacher, Leader, Class Invigilator, Proposer of Activities -- it is a tiresome bore, friend. If you would get your high, tight and hard ass off the saddle of Chief, if you could take off the garb of Elder, Churchwarden, Ecclesiastical Authority, Miss Grundy, if you could simply pitch your interest to PEERS, you would win this game a lot more often.

[Philip Coates]

William, ignoring any insults or personal attacks, you have a lot of useful tips and (schoomarmish - I use that term as a compliment) warnings in your above two posts (and, I recall, in a number of other posts).

They are a bit long and perhaps just a tad rambling, so, in order not to go hijack this discussion of examples of being active and doing things, I'm going to 'snip' some things out of them and insert them into a new thread on what is your real subject: "the art of effective persuasion and communication".

[Philip Coates]

> Ghs put it best: you first .... and then he will hop in. That is me, too. You go first, then I will happily hop in. This would show good faith...

William, I have no problem with sharing my own 'activism' and pursuit of values, but I hate to repeat myself, and I thought I'd written on those things numerous times....experiences in college and grad school, starting clubs across the country, getting published, public speaking, LTE's, professional publication, oist and non-oist stuff, debating the lefties.

[Brant Gaede]

> Ghs put it best: you first .... and then he will hop in. That is me, too. You go first, then I will happily hop in. This would show good faith...

William, I have no problem with sharing my own 'activism' and pursuit of values, but I hate to repeat myself, and I thought I'd written on those things numerous times....experiences in college and grad school, starting clubs across the country, getting published, public speaking, LTE's, professional publication, oist and non-oist stuff, debating the lefties.

You are not talking to those who've just shown up on OL regardless. As for me, I vaguely recall one post years ago with something of your c.v. that wasn't a bit and a piece. There is also the problem of not getting down to the actual particulars enough. Since these things are important to you, what are you doing right now? Maybe an OLer who lives near you could literally join forces with you--help you out.

--Brant

[Philip Coates]

> You are not talking to those who've just shown up on OL regardless.

I know, but I don't have unlimited time to post and repeating myself takes time that's in short supply. Plus, what I wrote above is a good-enough summary: I don't see you or others providing tons of detail.

[Brant Gaede]

> You are not talking to those who've just shown up on OL regardless.

I know, but I don't have unlimited time to post and repeating myself takes time that's in short supply. Plus, what I wrote above is a good-enough summary: I don't see you or others providing tons of detail.

I don't propose to be a teacher and go out and save the world, which is akin to catching a falling piano. After the smash and crash libertarianism might save the world, but not the philosophy of Objectivism, which is 95% ethics and except for thats basic premise simply weak and undeveloped.

--Brant

[Philip Coates]

> I don't propose to be a teacher and go out and save the world, which is akin to catching a falling piano.

The role of being a good teacher is more in preventing the piano from being thrown off the roof in the first place.

[Brant Gaede]

> I don't propose to be a teacher and go out and save the world, which is akin to catching a falling piano.

The role of being a good teacher is more in preventing the piano from being thrown off the roof in the first place.

Too late!

--Brant

[Xray]

I don't propose to be a teacher and go out and save the world, which is akin to catching a falling piano.

The role of being a good teacher is more in preventing the piano from being thrown off the roof in the first place.

You do have a point here ...

The role of being a good teacher is more in preventing the piano from being thrown off the roof in the first place.

Too late!

Good one!

But since these are only virtual 'cyber pianos' being thrown down the forum roof here, we can be confident that no one got seriously hurt.

[Xray]

Baal cites this old quote which captures the right attitude toward taking actin to further your values: It is better to light a candle, however small and weak, than to curse the Darkness.

I too thought when reading the quote posted by Ba'al : "What a wonderful saying that is!" It propels you forward, encourages you to never give up. Every action that brings light into the darkness counts. There's such a deep truth in that.

http://www.phrases.o...ngs/207500.html It was first spoken in public by Peter Benenson, the English lawyer and founder of Amnesty International, at a Human Rights Day ceremony on 10th December 1961. The candle circled by barbed wire has since become the society's emblem.

There are times when cursing the darkness, metaphorically speaking, may be the appropriate thing to do. A better "candle" quotation is the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

My candle burns at both ends

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -

It gives a lovely light.

Ghs

This candle metaphor addresses another issue: the amount of life energy we put into in our short 'guest appearance' here on this planet, before darkness engulfs us for good.

[Philip Coates]

" The role of being a good teacher is more in preventing the piano from being thrown off the roof in the first place."

My point here was that teachers catch people early when there is still time to form their non-piano-throwing character.

[Selene]

Folks:

In my life, I have seen various teachers, coaches, business owners and other gatekeepers change a persons path early in life, in their teen years, in their young adulthood, in their middle age and in their old age.

Changing someones trajectory has no timetable.

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

I don't propose to be a teacher and go out and save the world, which is akin to catching a falling piano.

The role of being a good teacher is more in preventing the piano from being thrown off the roof in the first place.

You do have a point here ...

The role of being a good teacher is more in preventing the piano from being thrown off the roof in the first place.

Too late!

Good one!

But since these are only virtual 'cyber pianos' being thrown down the forum roof here, we can be confident that no one got seriously hurt.

It's not too late to reach and teach people--who would want to live in such a state? It's too late to prevent general economic-political calamity engulfing the United States, Europe, Japan and the rest of the world. Economically, it's the calamity of debt, mostly public. Everybody wants to avoid pain and short-term pain is generally being avoided, but it's going to be put off until there's no more put-off possible and that will mean an unbelievable amount of pain such as what is now going on in Greece is a modest foretaste. Gross inflation will be used to spike riots which will be the last bullet in the statists' gun.

--Brant

[seymourblogger]

I don't propose to be a teacher and go out and save the world, which is akin to catching a falling piano.

The role of being a good teacher is more in preventing the piano from being thrown off the roof in the first place.

You do have a point here ...

The role of being a good teacher is more in preventing the piano from being thrown off the roof in the first place.

Too late!

Good one!

But since these are only virtual 'cyber pianos' being thrown down the forum roof here, we can be confident that no one got seriously hurt.

It's not too late to reach and teach people--who would want to live in such a state? It's too late to prevent general economic-political calamity engulfing the United States, Europe, Japan and the rest of the world. Economically, it's the calamity of debt, mostly public. Everybody wants to avoid pain and short-term pain is generally being avoided, but it's going to be put off until there's no more put-off possible and that will mean an unbelievable amount of pain such as what is now going on in Greece is a modest foretaste. Gross inflation will be used to spike riots which will be the last bullet in the statists' gun.

--Brant

And I thought I was the only one who knew this. Yes, this is the last wring of inflation because it will be world wide and it can't gt any bigger than that. I am going to get more friendly with my new neighbor who has a huge organic garden. I haven't done that for awhile and I really miss it. Once you are growing almost all your own food you get very paranoid about buying anything in the supermarket.

I get free range eggs with dark orange yolks rich in iron. and I get fresh cow's milk. sometimes goat's. Do you know what they do with milk after they get it from the dairies? Horror stories.