Break Your Chains

[e]

Sadly, this idea came to me because of power metal.

Along a similar train of thought as BIP, how about convincing people to "Break Their Chains" before diving immediately into the idea of "Changeable Prisons".  It might serve as a good introduction to the idea of freedom in the BIP/Discordian sense, before telling people "Oh wait, you're actually not free.  There's no such thing as real freedom, but you can convince yourself that you're free which is much the same thing."

After all, before you can get to the bars of your prison to change them, you're going to have to take off the chains they put you in.

[Politician168023]

How about a sequal to the BiP too?

Aimed at these people:-

who already understand the idea of changable prisons, and how directly opposing the mainstream doesnt mean anything. But because they have been thinking like this for so long, they have become a bit of a 'pretentious twat' really....

....They no longer listen to other peoples ideas, they just start pulling peoples words apart forgetting that all they are playing is 'word games' instead of looking to the meaning in something. They never look at something properly, never search for any meaning of an individual because they think they know it all.

Basically you-are-a-'discordian'-and-your-mind-has-now-closed-type-people

[Payne]

How about a sequal to the BiP too?

Aimed at these people:-

who already understand the idea of changable prisons, and how directly opposing the mainstream doesnt mean anything. But because they have been thinking like this for so long, they have become a bit of a 'pretentious twat' really....

....They no longer listen to other peoples ideas, they just start pulling peoples words apart forgetting that all they are playing is 'word games' instead of looking to the meaning in something. They never look at something properly, never search for any meaning of an individual because they think they know it all.

Basically you-are-a-'discordian'-and-your-mind-has-now-closed-type-people

If you have something to say, say it.

Don't dance around the issue.

[Politician168023]

I'm not intending to dance around the issue.... its called brainstorming - havnt quite formulated a plan yet - just tossing an idea in the air as I liked the idea that TheStripèdOne posted.

[e]

all they are playing is 'word games' instead of looking to the meaning in something

But... but... I like word games. 

I think the main problem with the "I'm a discordian and that means I know everything" people is that even with a sequel they'd just change to "I'm a post-discordian and that means I know everything".  FLIEGENDE KINDERSCHEISSE! etc. 

My brain is gibberish right now.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

all they are playing is 'word games' instead of looking to the meaning in something

But... but... I like word games. 

I think the main problem with the "I'm a discordian and that means I know everything" people is that even with a sequel they'd just change to "I'm a post-discordian and that means I know everything".  FLIEGENDE KINDERSCHEISSE! etc. 

My brain is gibberish right now.

I agree... no matter how any of us draw a map... lots of people will still look at it and say "OK, I'll believe that IS True". Discordianism, in my view is something that you can grok or not grok... the metaphors can only provide so much help. The heaviest burden lies, I think in the mind of the individual.

[Politician168023]

all they are playing is 'word games' instead of looking to the meaning in something

But... but... I like word games. 

I think the main problem with the "I'm a discordian and that means I know everything" people is that even with a sequel they'd just change to "I'm a post-discordian and that means I know everything".  FLIEGENDE KINDERSCHEISSE! etc. 

My brain is gibberish right now.

ROFL!!



I think my point is that 'knowing we dont know everything' is a bit better than thinking we do. This way at least we will be open to other peoples ideas.

[Politician168023]

all they are playing is 'word games' instead of looking to the meaning in something

But... but... I like word games. 

I think the main problem with the "I'm a discordian and that means I know everything" people is that even with a sequel they'd just change to "I'm a post-discordian and that means I know everything".  FLIEGENDE KINDERSCHEISSE! etc. 

My brain is gibberish right now.

I agree... no matter how any of us draw a map... lots of people will still look at it and say "OK, I'll believe that IS True". Discordianism, in my view is something that you can grok or not grok... the metaphors can only provide so much help. The heaviest burden lies, I think in the mind of the individual.

Belief is the end of thinking?

Or do you mean temporary belief? Like: (absailer) right now I believe this rope will hold my body weight, because if i dont i will get too frightened to drop..
And if so, then "I appreciate your opinion, but currently I believe XYZ, maybe next week that will all change" would be a nicer way to respond rather than "YOU ARE WRONG (full stop)"

[e]

The main problem is that half-enlightenment is worse than full enlightenment.

For example, see the following story from the youth of Hakuin:

This state lasted for several days. Then I chanced to hear the sound of the temple bell and I was suddenly transformed. It was as if a sheet of ice had been smashed or a jade tower had fallen with a crash. Suddenly I returned to my senses. I felt then that I had achieved the status of Yen-t'ou, who through the three periods of time encountered not the slightest loss [although he had been murdered by bandits]. All my former doubts vanished as though ice had melted away. In a loud voice I called: "Wonderful, wonderful. There is no cycle of birth and death through which one must pass. There is no enlightenment one must seek. The seventeen hundred koans handed down from the past have not the slightest value whatsoever." My pride soared up like a majestic mountain, my arrogance surged forward like the tide. Smugly I thought to myself: "In the past two or three hundred years no one could have accomplished such a marvelous breakthrough as this."

Shouldering my glorious enlightenment, I set out at once for Shinano. Calling on Master Shoju, I told of my experience and presented him with a verse. The Master, holding my verse up in his left hand, said to me: "This verse is what you have learned from study. Now show me what your intuition has to say," and he held out his right hand.

I replied: "If there were something intuitive that I could show you, I'd vomit it out," and I made a gagging sound.

The Master said: "How do you understand Chao-chou's Mu?"

I replied: "What sort of place does Mu have that one can attach arms and legs to it?"

The Master twisted my nose with his fingers and said: "Here's someplace to attach arms and legs." I was nonplussed and the Master gave a hearty laugh. "You poor hole-dwelling devil!" he cried. I paid him no attention and he continued: "Do you think somehow that you have sufficient understanding?"

I answered: "What do you think is missing?"

Then the Master began to discuss the koan that tells of Nan-ch'uan's death. I clapped my hands over my ears and started out of the room. The Master called after me, "Hey, monk!" and when I turned to him he added: "You poor hole-dwelling devil!" From then on, almost every time he saw me, the Master called me a "poor hole-dwelling devil."

One evening the Master lay cooling himself on the veranda. Again I brought him a verse I had written. "Delusions and fancies," the Master said. I shouted his words back at him in a loud voice, whereupon the Master seized me and rained twenty or thirty blows with his fists on me, and then pushed me off the veranda.

This was on the fourth day of the fifth month after a long spell of rain. I lay stretched out in the mud as though dead, scarcely breathing and almost unconscious. I could not move; meanwhile the Master sat on the veranda roaring with laughter. After a short while I regained consciousness, got up, and bowed to the Master. My body was bathed in perspiration. The Master called out to me in a loud voice: "You poor hole-dwelling devil!"

After I devoted myself to an intense study of the koan on the death of Nan-ch'uan, not pausing to sleep or eat. One day I had an awakening and went to the Master's room to test my understanding, but he would not approve it. All he did was call me a "poor hole-dwelling devil."

I began to think that I had better leave and go somewhere else. One day when I had gone to town to beg for food I encountered a madman who tried to beat me with a broom. Unexpectedly I found that I had penetrated the koan on the death of Nan-ch'uan. Then the other koans that had puzzled me, Su-shan's Memorial Tower and Ta-hui's verse on the Roundness of the Lotus Leaf, fell into place of themselves and I penetrated them all. After I returned to the temple I spoke of the understanding I had gained. The Master neither approved nor denied what I said, but only laughed pleasantly. But from this time on he stopped calling me a "poor hole-dwelling devil."

taken from the second letter on This page (do a find for Supplement: Kambun text appended to letter)

[LMNO]

How about a sequal to the BiP too?

Aimed at these people:-

who already understand the idea of changable prisons, and how directly opposing the mainstream doesnt mean anything. But because they have been thinking like this for so long, they have become a bit of a 'pretentious twat' really....

....They no longer listen to other peoples ideas, they just start pulling peoples words apart forgetting that all they are playing is 'word games' instead of looking to the meaning in something. They never look at something properly, never search for any meaning of an individual because they think they know it all.

Basically you-are-a-'discordian'-and-your-mind-has-now-closed-type-people

Cf: Barstool Experiment.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

all they are playing is 'word games' instead of looking to the meaning in something

But... but... I like word games. 

I think the main problem with the "I'm a discordian and that means I know everything" people is that even with a sequel they'd just change to "I'm a post-discordian and that means I know everything".  FLIEGENDE KINDERSCHEISSE! etc. 

My brain is gibberish right now.

I agree... no matter how any of us draw a map... lots of people will still look at it and say "OK, I'll believe that IS True". Discordianism, in my view is something that you can grok or not grok... the metaphors can only provide so much help. The heaviest burden lies, I think in the mind of the individual.

Belief is the end of thinking?

Or do you mean temporary belief? Like: (absailer) right now I believe this rope will hold my body weight, because if i dont i will get too frightened to drop..
And if so, then "I appreciate your opinion, but currently I believe XYZ, maybe next week that will all change" would be a nicer way to respond rather than "YOU ARE WRONG (full stop)"

I think it depends heavily on how you define belief. Dogmatic belief vs. tentative belief... belief vs. good idea... etc. Temporary belief, as a tool seems useful. "Today I will believe in Chaos Magic, because I'm gonna do a ritual later.  Strong belief or dogmatic belief, if you will, does seem to lead to a distinct lack of thinking, most of the time (Thinker/Prover).

So in short. Some people will read the Principia Discordia and say "Ah! Discordian's Must Eat Hot Dogs on Friday with no Bun. Ah! Discordians Must see 5's. Ah! Discordians must believe in Creative Disorder over Destructive Disorder." Some people will read the BiP and say "Ah! We ARE trapped in a prison. Ah! There IS no real Freedom!"  No matter what any of us write, if it is compelling, if the model appears useful... then some people will forget that it is just a model, just a metaphor, just an idea... and instead Believe it to be True. The Pentabarf was a meme that symbolized a concept, just as The Law of Fives was a meme that symbolized a concept... so too is the BiP a meme that symbolizes a concept. Yet, there are Discordians today that BELIEVE the Law of Fives, or the 23 enigma... and someday there may well be Discordians (or post-Discordians or whatever) that read the BiP and believe it, rather than considering it a useful model.

No matter how much effort we put into the model, no matter how much verbage we use to say "Remember, don't eat the menu, ya fuckin Spag!" It seems likely (assuming our stuff ever becomes popular beyond this site) that some people will confuse the model and reality... and stop thinking in the process.

The best we can do, I think, is to build models that are useful, make sure that we don't confuse the model with the reality and hope the Spags that read it aren't gonna put ketchup on it and try to eat it.

[e]

There's a lot of really fun stuff out there with model vs reality to try and get around this wall.

I remember reading about a teacher who taught ontology who, taking from the old Tao/Ch'an/Zen stuff, would ask a student what he was holding, and then when they answered "A piece of chalk" would say "Wrong" and throw the chalk at them as the right answer.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Forget the spags - they will always be there, they will always be the majority and they will always do stupid shit. It's a bonus, like the intent of the work may be to help the odd soul come to terms with liberation but, by the same token, hundreds or thousands of idiots taking it as dogma and fighting wars about the colour of the barstool is the icing on the roflcake

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Forget the spags - they will always be there, they will always be the majority and they will always do stupid shit. It's a bonus, like the intent of the work may be to help the odd soul come to terms with liberation but, by the same token, hundreds or thousands of idiots taking it as dogma and fighting wars about the colour of the barstool is the icing on the roflcake

Aye Troof.

[P3nT4gR4m]

SRSLY tho, I hear a lot along the lines of "but what if they take that the wrong way" and I'm thinking fuck dilluting our shit for the slow readers. The slow readers are what we should be laughing at, not trying to help