Guts
Padawan Learner
Couldn't agree more!! That's why the insights of the Cassiopaeans would so be extremely helpful on this topic at this particular point in time.
Coronavirus Pandemic: Apocalypse Now! Or exaggerated scare story?
- Thread starter wanderingthomas
- Start date
I wanted to check in and reach out to those of you who have been affected by all the shut-downs, whether it be job loss or loss of revenue in your business. It is a distressing, confusing and stressful time for those of us who have suddenly found ourselves wondering what the heck we are going to do now.
With this moving at such a fast pace, it can be hard to ground and process what is happening around us; there is just so much darned uncertainty. I’d like to share my experience and emotions with the hope of helping those who might be feeling the same.
My business was shut down on Friday night and I think with the whole whirlwind of things to do, people to contact, and loose ends to tie up it has taken till this morning for it to really settle in. I too have been swinging between exhilaration and despair. I had a bit of a cry and let myself feel sorry for myself for a while.
The thoughts I was having were along the lines of:
“I’ve studied all these years to gain a skill in doing a job I love, I’ve ploughed hundreds upon thousands of hours into building my business and becoming successful and now it has been taken away for goodness knows how long” Darn it, I was so angry and upset to learn that while employed people would be helped with 80% of their wage by the government, as a self-employed person they were offering around 20% of what I earn to help me through the coming months, that doesn’t even cover rent!
So, I’ve had my selfish, self entitled meltdown and put that aside and made a list of things to do which I hope will help others who are struggling. I’m writing this from the perspective of being in the UK, but hopefully much of it can translate to where you are.
1. Breathe. Do an EE session to help calm and focus yourself.
2. Share your experiences on the forum, it’s so helpful to read stories from other members all across the globe. It really put my situation into perspective – there are people who are in a much worse situation, and there is solidarity in coming together during a crisis which brings a great comfort.
3. Put down social media unless you are sharing articles or tweets. Getting caught up in hysteria, unnecessary arguments with trolls, even spending too much time looking at memes which support our views (something I am guilty of) is a time drain and a way of dissociating.
4. Make lists – prioritise the tasks that you need to do to “close down” your business for the time being. Remember that this is hopefully only temporary.
5. If you can apply for benefits/grants/funding make a list of these and work your way through them one by one – keep in mind that phone calls will take hours of being on hold, websites will be overloaded and will likely crash/delete info/bring you in endless circles so be prepared to practice patience and do not let frustration get the better of you.
6. Share what you know with those in the same situation – if you know of local businesses which are suffering give them the links for what they can apply for/phone numbers of helplines etc.
7. Network with others if you are having thoughts about taking any kind of drastic action like taking out big bank loans, self-harm, rebelling, looting (I’m sure forum members are sensible enough to not do this but if it starts happening in your neighbourhood or if you are having dark thoughts then please reach out!)
8. Look for a temporary job – It has been reported in the UK that supermarkets are begging for people to come and work for them just now so that is a great place to start looking if you need to find a new income stream. There will be demand for delivery drivers, security, warehouse workers, shelf packers, online sales pickers etc.
9. check in to the forum regularly and keep up to date with this thread. Being under the influence of a positive pendulum is like having a lifeline to what is real and IMO is what will stop you from being swept away.
With this moving at such a fast pace, it can be hard to ground and process what is happening around us; there is just so much darned uncertainty. I’d like to share my experience and emotions with the hope of helping those who might be feeling the same.
My business was shut down on Friday night and I think with the whole whirlwind of things to do, people to contact, and loose ends to tie up it has taken till this morning for it to really settle in. I too have been swinging between exhilaration and despair. I had a bit of a cry and let myself feel sorry for myself for a while.
The thoughts I was having were along the lines of:
“I’ve studied all these years to gain a skill in doing a job I love, I’ve ploughed hundreds upon thousands of hours into building my business and becoming successful and now it has been taken away for goodness knows how long” Darn it, I was so angry and upset to learn that while employed people would be helped with 80% of their wage by the government, as a self-employed person they were offering around 20% of what I earn to help me through the coming months, that doesn’t even cover rent!
So, I’ve had my selfish, self entitled meltdown and put that aside and made a list of things to do which I hope will help others who are struggling. I’m writing this from the perspective of being in the UK, but hopefully much of it can translate to where you are.
1. Breathe. Do an EE session to help calm and focus yourself.
2. Share your experiences on the forum, it’s so helpful to read stories from other members all across the globe. It really put my situation into perspective – there are people who are in a much worse situation, and there is solidarity in coming together during a crisis which brings a great comfort.
3. Put down social media unless you are sharing articles or tweets. Getting caught up in hysteria, unnecessary arguments with trolls, even spending too much time looking at memes which support our views (something I am guilty of) is a time drain and a way of dissociating.
4. Make lists – prioritise the tasks that you need to do to “close down” your business for the time being. Remember that this is hopefully only temporary.
5. If you can apply for benefits/grants/funding make a list of these and work your way through them one by one – keep in mind that phone calls will take hours of being on hold, websites will be overloaded and will likely crash/delete info/bring you in endless circles so be prepared to practice patience and do not let frustration get the better of you.
6. Share what you know with those in the same situation – if you know of local businesses which are suffering give them the links for what they can apply for/phone numbers of helplines etc.
7. Network with others if you are having thoughts about taking any kind of drastic action like taking out big bank loans, self-harm, rebelling, looting (I’m sure forum members are sensible enough to not do this but if it starts happening in your neighbourhood or if you are having dark thoughts then please reach out!)
8. Look for a temporary job – It has been reported in the UK that supermarkets are begging for people to come and work for them just now so that is a great place to start looking if you need to find a new income stream. There will be demand for delivery drivers, security, warehouse workers, shelf packers, online sales pickers etc.
9. check in to the forum regularly and keep up to date with this thread. Being under the influence of a positive pendulum is like having a lifeline to what is real and IMO is what will stop you from being swept away.
dredger
The Living Force
Your coment made me remind one of the first post I made on this thread thinking this was more and SDA event than STS, we'll have soon more details/explanations from the C's.
One personal example : I offered 2 books +/- 10 months ago to one of my brothers who never read. Ok, these 2 books are not much the good ones to start any long term work, but my aim was to prepare him for what may come in the future, so I offered him the 2 books of Laurent Obertone "Guerillas" (french) which are a fiction about a complete social chaos in France. And he started to read them since a few days ! (he even was kind of happy to tell me that he started to read the first one
)Another example is my other brother (I just have 2, a bit ager than me), I phoned him yesterday just to get news, it's totally unusual with this brother, there remain a tension from the past because he did not kindly treat me when I was a child up to arriving to some situation where his best friend was taking my defense, but i don't remember in fact ^^. Anyway, he first made a joke by coughing and saying he had corona, then laughed and gave his opinion on this, it was already a relief for me that he did not buy the whole story, he was much in the feeling that this all is done principally by the bigpharma and their wish to vaccine everybody, good. We directly spoke about an actual matter regarding an architect he recommended me, then he asked something like "And you were calling for what Bro ?", and when I answered that I just called for news in order to know if all goes well (he lives at 120km from where the rest of family lives) I directly perceived that this simple answer much ... perturbated him (I mean, the good way, it's not the good verb but suppose you all understand), and then he was ... much joyfull and kinder after during the rest of the converation with nice "last words" repeated, you know.
This made me remind one post in this thread from Loreta, but situation was different, I did not have here something to defuse, but better say, an occasion to reinforce our relation, and it did, that i'm 200% sure. What I understood, and it's like FWIW as many people here already know that, but it's good to have the same concept explained/summarized by different people, (remember Gurdjieff explaining the 7 different types of any word, just read that again yesterday), and my summary is the following :
If you are gentle, if you send real positive thoughts of carefulness, question about "how it's going ?", take time to understand the other and use the duo of compassionning and empathizing, then you have the best soul & emotional medicine in your hands, like is the Vitamine C for the body.
Thanks for this list Keyhole.
Maybe usefull to stock this before than too late, and to stock this not only for you, if you can afford, stock for many others, or, see who in your entourage agree with this then organize a group stocking
I did Iodine protocol during 1y and stopped because I started to miss some complements - wonder if I should start it again (+/- off-topic)
If you are not well oriented in stock markets, and without good financial advisor, be very cautious with investing, as many companies are running rather large debts and sooner or later we might see a lot of businesses going bankrupt. However, if you are interested you might want to check Tom Luongo's Patreon, where he actually provides a lot of useful info how to build portfolio and he discusses finances in context of Geopolitics. His articles appear also on Sott. He issues monthly newsletter and twice weekly also video market report, and subscription costs $12 fee monthly.
United Gnosis
Jedi Council Member
Yes, Laura, I was definitely triggered. I'd guesstimate around half, as I had time to notice the tension overtaking my body, breathe through it and shake most of it off. Definitely not all of it, though.
It's kind of fair to describe me as "going kaflooey", as I know I am for various personal reasons which wouldn't be on-topic here, but I also cannot shake off the intuition that this contains a bit of the same dismissiveness which irks me so much.
I also know the video I referenced could be fully constructed - see videos for syrian gas attacks, for instance. Also noticed that one of the patients under a positive-pressure bubble actually seems to be distracting himself with a phone. But it was telling to me that I felt like bracing myself to answer to that even before posting the video, which was meant as information to consider that I didn't specifically sought to 'defend'; yet there seems to be something in the air, so to speak, that encourages polarization. As if I sought to remain open, but prepared to 'face' closure one way, that pushed me to polarize the opposite way .against my own original intent.
For instance, posting the link to the video, then the first answer being about the doctor at the end not wearing PPE as a reason to dismiss it entirely, when there would be plenty of reasons for it. In the end, I do not know much, am aware that videos and even peer-reviewed studies might be entirely constructed, and have very little reliable information to go on. It's obvious that there are authoritarian power plays unfolding right now, whether this is a bioweapon, an accident or a fully contrived lie; however, I am getting concerned when healthcare workers in my region - who do not have time to scour the news and darker regions of the internet as I do - start saying, for those who develop symptoms, this is the worst type of pneumonia we've ever seen.
Therefore my reaction to what seems to me as potentially useful information being dismissed. I know I am getting triggered, and work through it. But it doesn't necessarily imply that those concerns are valueless.
I am definitely looking forward to this incoming session. Thanks all for your Work.
I'm really looking forward to the new transcript. Thank you Laura and the whole team.
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I have had a doctor acquaintance too who countered any argument with "you should walk around our ICUs". It's very hard to resist such claims, and such emotional videos for that matter. It is one giant mind control operation, like a "hypnosis ray" or something. It's crucial to keep a cool head and keep absorbing truthful information and building an internal core based on that. Truth is, stories of full ICUs don't count, neither do images of hospitals. What counts is the science and the numbers, and as of yet, these speak loud and clear. My acquaintance is simply hypnotized by the authorities and has no clue, period. And yes, doctors have a rough job and all that, but I'm sure many doctors (and other healthcare workers) are on an epic self-importance spree these days as well. Can't take that from them using facts. Can't question their authority. It's all very difficult at the moment to keep sane.
We are all Stoics now
By Pepe Escobar
The Philosophical Silk Road as celebrated at an Italian airport: a meeting of Chinese and Greek/Latin stoicism
Earlier this week a delegation of Chinese medics arrived at Malpensa airport near Milan from Shanghai on a special China Eastern flight carrying 400,000 masks and 17 tons of equipment. The salutation banner the visitors rolled out on the tarmac, in red and white, read, “We’re waves from the same sea, leaves from the same tree, flowers from the same garden.”
In a stance of supreme cross-cultural elegance, this was inspired by the poetics of Seneca, a Stoic. The impact, all over Italy, where people still study the classics, was immense.
The Chinese were consulted in advance and they preferred Seneca to a Chinese saying. After all, for China, a 5,000-year-old civilization-state that has confronted perhaps more than its share of instances of luan (“chaos”), there’s nothing more rejuvenating than post-chaos.
China is donating coronavirus test kits to Cambodia. China sent planeloads of masks, ventilators – and medics – to Italy and France. China sent medics to Iran, which is under unilateral, illegal US sanctions – and to Iraq, which the Pentagon is bombing again. China is helping across the (Eurasian) board, from the Philippines to Spain.
President Xi Jinping, in a phone call with Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, pledged in the wake of Covid-19 to establish a Health Silk Road, a companion to the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative.
Thus, finally, there’s the Philosophical Silk Road celebrated at an Italian airport, a meeting of Greek/Latin stoicism with Chinese stoicism.
Slave, orator, emperor
Stoicism, in Ancient Greece, was pop culture – reaching out in a way that the sophisticated Platonic and Aristotelian schools could only dream of. Like the Epicureans and the Skeptics, the Stoics owed a lot to Socrates who always stressed that philosophy had to be practical, capable of changing our priorities in life.
The Stoics were very big on ataraxia – freedom from disturbance – as the ideal state of our mind. The wise man cannot possibly be troubled because the key to wisdom is knowing what not to care about.
So the Stoics were Socratic in the sense that they were striving to offer peace of mind to Everyman. Like a Hellenistic version of the Tao.
The great ascetic Antisthenes was a companion of Socrates and a precursor of the Stoics. The first Stoics took their name from the porch – stoa – in the Athenian market where official founder Zeno of Citium (333-262 BC) used to hang out. But the real deal was in fact Chrisippus, a philosopher specialized in logic and physics, who may have written as many as 705 books, none of which survived.
The West came to know the top Stoics as a Roman trio – Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. They are the role models of stoicism as we know it today.
Epictetus (50-120 AD) was born as a slave in Rome, then moved to Greece and spent his life examining the nature of freedom.
Seneca (5 BC-65 AD), a fabulous orator and decent dramatist, was exiled to Corsica when he was falsely accused of committing adultery with the sister of emperor Claudius. But afterward he was brought back to Rome to educate the young Nero, and ended up sort of forced by Nero to commit suicide.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (The Younger) c5 BC-65 AD. Roman Stoic philosopher, committing suicide in his bath, having antagonised Nero. Photo AFP / rom Hartmann Schedel ‘Liber chronicarum mundi’ (Nuremberg Chronicle), 1493 woodcut, Nuremberg
Marcus Aurelius, a humanist, was the prototypical reluctant emperor, living in the turbulent second century AD and configuring himself as a precursor of Schopenhauer: Marcus saw life as really a drag.
Zeno’s teachers were in fact Cynics (the nickname affixed to them came from a Greek word meaning “dog-like, currish, churlish”) whose core intuition was that nothing mattered more than virtue. So the trappings of conventional society would have to be downgraded to the status of irrelevant distractions at best. Few of today’s (lowercase) cynics would qualify.
It’s enlightening to know that the upper classes of the Roman empire, the 1%, regarded Zeno’s insights as quite solid, while predictably deriding the first punk in history, Diogenes the Cynic, who masturbated in the public square and carried a lantern trying to find a real man.
As much as for Heraclitus, for the Stoics a key element in the quest for peace of mind was learning how to live with the inevitable. This desire for serenity is one of their linkages with the Epicureans.
Stoics were adamant that most people have no clue about the universe they live in. (Imagine their reaction to social networks.) Thus they end up confused in their attitudes towards life. In contrast to Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics were hardcore materialists. They would have none of that talk of “Forms” in an ideal Platonic world. For the Stoics, these were nothing but concepts in Plato’s mind.
For the Epicureans, the world is the unplanned product of chaotic forces.
The Stoics, in contrast, thought the world was a matter of organization down to the last detail.
For the Epicureans, the course of nature is not pre-determined: Fate intervenes in the form of random swerves of atoms. Fate, in ancient Greece, actually meant Zeus.
For the Stoics, everything happens according to fate: an inexorable chain of cause and effect, developing in exactly the same way again and again in a cycle of cosmic creation and destruction – a sort of precursor of Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence.
Resigned acceptance
The Stoics were heavily influenced by Heraclitus. Stoic physics dealt with the notion of interpenetration: the physical world as a stirred concoction of intermingled substances, quite an extraordinary precursor of the equivalence of energy and matter in Einstein.
What the post-modern world retains from the Stoics is the notion of resigned acceptance – which makes total sense if the world really works according to their insights. If fate rules the world, and practically everything that happens is out of our hands, then realpolitik means to accept “everything to happen as it actually does happen,” in the immortal words of Epictetus.
Thus it’s pointless to get excited about stuff we cannot change. And it’s pointless to be attached to things that we will eventually lose. (But try selling this notion to the Masters of the Universe of financial capitalism.)
So the Way, according to the Stoics, is to own only the essentials, and to travel light. Lao Tzu would approve. After all, anything we may lose is more or less gone already – thus we are already protected from the worst blows in life.
Lao-Tzu (c.604-531 BC) on his Buffalo, Qing dynasty (ceramic) by Chinese School, (18th century); Musee Guimet, Paris. Photo: AFP
Perhaps the ultimate Stoic secret is the distinction by Epictetus between things that are under our control – our thoughts and desires – and those that are not: our bodies, our families, our property, our lot in life, all elements that the expansion of Covid-19 has now put in check.
What Epictetus tells you is that if you redirect your emotions to focus on what is in your power and ignore everything else, then “no one will ever be able to exert compulsion upon you, no one will hinder you – neither there’s any harm that can touch you.”
Epictetus the Greek Stoic philosopher. Photo: AFP / ©Costa/leemage
Power ultimately irrelevant
Seneca offered a definitive guide that we may apply to multiple strands of the 1%: “I deny that riches are a good, for if they were, they would make men good. As it is, since that which is found in the hands of the wicked cannot be called a good, I refuse to apply the term to riches.”
The Stoics taught that to enter public life means to spread virtue and fight vice. It’s a very serious business involving duty, discipline and self-control. This goes a long way to explain why over 70% of Italians now applaud the conduct of the prime minister in the fight against Covid-19. Conte did rise to the occasion, unexpectedly, as a neo-Stoic.
The Stoics regarded death as a useful reminder of one’s fate and of the ultimate insignificance of the things of the world. Marcus Aurelius found enormous consolation in the shortness of life: “In a little while you will be no one and nowhere, even as Hadrian and Augustus are no more.” When circumstances made it impossible to live up to the ideals of Stoic virtue, death was always a viable Plan B.
Epictetus also tells us we should not really be concerned about what happens to our body. Sometimes he seemed to regard death as the acceptable way out of any misfortune.
At the top of their game the Stoics made it clear that the difference between life and death was insignificant, compared with the difference between virtue and vice.
Thus the notion of a noble suicide. Stoic heroism is plain to see in the life and death of Cato The Younger as described by Plutarch. Cato was a fierce opponent of Caesar, and his integrity ruled that the only possible way out was suicide.
According to Plutarch’s legendary account, Cato, on his last night, defended a number of Stoic theses during dinner, retreated to his room to read Plato’s Phaedo – in which Socrates argues that a true philosopher sees all of life as a preparation for death – and killed himself. Of course he became a Stoic superstar for eternity.
The Stoics taught that wealth, status and power are ultimately irrelevant. Once again, Lao Tzu would approve. The only thing that can raise one man above others is superior virtue – of which everyone is capable, at least in principle. So, yes, the Stoics believed we are all brothers and sisters. Seneca: “Nature made us relatives by creating us from the same materials and for the same destiny.”
Imagine a system built on a selfless devotion to the welfare of others, and against all vanity. It’s certainly not what inequality-provoking, financial turbo-capitalism is all about.
Epictetus: “What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? ‘I was practicing for this, I was training for this.’” Will Covid-19 show to a global wave of practicing neo-Stoics that there is another way?
Thanks for your concern, luc. Can't say I have a plan B and I will have to see if there's any assistance plans that I qualify for. I'm okay right now. One day at a time, as the saying goes. The Universe tends to treat me pretty well so I have faith that something will turn up. As long as I make myself useful and remain open to possibilities...
A friend of mine called tonight to talk about the strong possibility that she will have to close her business. We spent some time brainstorming about how she could a) deliver services differently without violating the lock down b) working on plans to diversify income to give her greater financial protection in the future. There were some pretty wild ideas thrown into the mix and no real answers that suit her came from it, but I note that back in the day it was kind of like a business wisdom to use down time to develop additional income streams from the existing business during a downturn so that you come out of the down turn with greater protection for the future and a better income. Just thought I'd mention it in case it helps.
Thank you Laura and all other who participate in this session and af course thanks to Cs.
dredger
The Living Force
Wanted to respond to this separatly.
There's mabye one element that help much the Japanese : their Kangen water.
It's apparently used in all hospitals in Japan, and one of the biggest effect/propriety of this water is to be alcaline, doing the same effect than using bicarbonate.
Then I remembered that when I "studied" the colloidal silver matter, my uncle much studied many similar subject about water, and he sent me a link to a very long & detailed page of someone analysing the effects and benefits of the Kangen water, adding that he passed all in review, re-doing the chemical formulas and attesting that he was right.
So I searched and found back this page, which was updated since I read it originally +/- 8y ago, 2 links, the french and english versions (note: french one has a summary more than the english one does not have) :
French : Eautarcie - Sur l'eau hydrogénée ou « eau Kangen »
English : Eautarcie - About Hydrogen water or « Kangen Water »
Here is the english conclusion :
Conclusion
Hydrogen water formed at the cathode is a highly reductive water (i.e. an antioxidant) whose therapeutic applications extend well beyond what its proponents have reported. Better knowledge of medical bioelectronics opens prospects that would excite the most daring physicians. Those who have practiced medical bioelectronics for the past 50 years have never had such powerful medicine (i.e. hydrogen water) at their disposal, to modify what they call « a patient’s bioelectronic terrain ».
What I want to point out here, in addition to try to explain why Japan is less suffering of this, is that it seems that this website, www.eautarcie.org, looks like a valuable source of information, and I did not find the word "eautarcie" on the whole forum, thus this may be good to introduce it (in other more specific threads) - the guy behind this site goes far in his explanations, like on this document in french where he visibly personally studied the redox and acid-base concepts
This remain anyway an expensive tool, around 3k euros to get one, but seems quite less than in 2010 where I spot a post from flash that the price was around 8k USD
Fast notice : on the other subject I'm testing, the CEF/Koltsov plate on which I gave a first feedback yesterday, the independant Russian I speak about, Dmitry, if you look well on his website about the plates, there's in fact a second topic he refers too, and guess what it is : Kangen water. Wonder if it's more connecting the dots or attracting the dots in order to be connected ?
