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and then on FaceBorg SE Posted:

I don't know if I'll ever understand how people can allow their smart phones to control their lives, but it seems that the majority of people are indeed controlled by their phones. I have a smart phone not because I actually WANT one, but because I feel like it's necessary in this day and age to be able to communicate by text. And I do appreciate having an alternative to talking on the phone. Before smart phones, I would often call people when I knew they weren't there and leave a message on their answering machine because I really didn't want to get stuck in a phone conversation. I remember a few people getting mad at me for always calling when they weren't available, and these people would tell me what time to call so I could reach them, but I would intentionally NOT call at that time because I didn't want to talk, but I wanted to get a message to them because we were trying to make plans. I found it worked just fine to make plans by leaving messages for each other until the plan was finalized.

The main reason I still have a landline is because I need to be able to step away from the phone every once in a while. I need to know that when I leave the house, I will be unreachable. Of course I also have a smart phone, and my friends all have the number so we can text, but I consider the landline to be my "primary" phone, and that's done intentionally so I can step away from calls that aren't from friends or family members. Like, when I'm job searching and getting tons of calls from recruiters about jobs in far-off locations which I'm not interested in, it would give me major anxiety to have my cell phone blowing up with those calls. So I only use my landline number for job searching. That way, when I leave the house, I don't take those calls with me. Anyone contacting me on my smart phone is someone who I actually WANT to hear from.

But I also refuse to let my smart phone control me. I typically have the sound turned off when I'm out, and the phone is in my purse in case I need it for an emergency. If someone texts me, it might be hours before I even look at it. I refuse to be one of those people who drops everything while I'm out and about in order to reply to texts the instant they come in. I especially feel this way if I'm spending time with someone face-to-face, I feel like it would be rude to make my phone a priority over the person who actually made the effort to spend time with me in person. I know some people feel the need to be constantly glued to their cell phone in case the incoming text or call is an emergency, but we somehow managed to deal with emergencies before we had smart phones. Most things can wait. I actually fantasize about traveling back in time to a time before the damn things were invented, because I really hate the way people are so fixated on them now.

and I Replied:

I have a Phone to Order a LYFT Ride... When you get THERE... you have to Order a ride HOME on a Phone... and I Take Photographs.

Right-wingers are constantly screaming that there are just as many extremists on the left as there are on the right, and they love to say that the left is just as corrupt as the right. I see absolutely no evidence of any of this, and they can never provide any evidence of these accusations. Both parties are NOT the same, not even close. There is a huge difference between supporting a coup to overturn an election and supporting Medicare for all. There is a huge difference between thinking all student loans should be forgiven and believing that lizard people are taking over the planet. I'm sorry, but none of this craziness is happening on the left. Nobody can ever provide an example of anything coming from the left which even comes close to the insanity coming from the right. Both sides are NOT the same. Maybe they were the same at some point, but now the right has completely gone off the rails.

and then... Someone else Said:

The Old Testament is not meant to be taken literally. People often point to the story of Abraham willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, for a murderous God who seems to have no compassion. Abraham and his son are symbolic. The sacrifice of his son is symbolic of being willing to sacrifice your ego in order to reach God-Consciousness. Leveling up requires this ego sacrifice. These are not meant to be real people or a God seeking murder. God requires us to be willing to kill the ego to reach consciousness. Every story, every character, from Adama and Eve to Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Ruth, Deborah and Sarah, et. al. in the Bible are symbolic of different aspects of our personalities. How to shape them to achieve higher consciousness. This is spelled out in the Zohar, the main guide book of Kabbalah. The Bible is written on different levels: literal, symbolic, metaphorical and mystical. Kabbalah spells out the last 3 levels. There is much deeper wisdom embedded in the original Aramaic and Hebrew versions. The literal, English, King James versions distort and discard the true meaning of the stories. Another symbolic story: Moses going up to the mountain to attain higher consciousness and unity with God. He comes down and the people are worshipping the material world. They reject higher, unity with God-consciousness that Moses attained on the mountain to worship the material (literal) version of reality. Symbolism is the true value of the Bible.

The New Testament was made up to control the people by political powers. To repress higher consciousness. To keep people focused on this world. It was heavily edited to eliminate many references to higher consciousness, God-Consciousness. To prevent society from attaining it. But hints of it are still there, hidden in the texts. Especially in the Apocryphal books that were left out. These were confiscated and burned. Anyone who had achieved this level was banished or killed.

Stop obsessing over the literal interpretations. It's a waste of time. Seek ye the Kingdom of God means seek higher consciousness and unity with it. It's all within us. JMHO. YHVH.

and then SE Said:

Are we becoming the movie Wall-E? I've never seen it, but I understand it depicts a future in which people have become obese and helpless as robots cater to their every whim. I feel like this is happening already. If someone never wants to leave their house, they no longer have to because we can now have everything delivered. It used to be that if you needed something or wanted something, you had to put in a certain amount of physical effort to go and get it. Even if what you wanted was food, it used to be that the only food you could get delivered was pizza. Now you can get EVERYTHING delivered. Combine this with the fact that many people now work from home, and we've already got a huge number of people who simply never leave the house. Maybe they don't even leave their bed. I understand that this is great for people who are disabled, but I'm not talking about disabled people. I'm talking about people who are perfectly capable of getting up and expending the minimal amount of energy required to go and get something rather than having that thing come to them. I know I've ranted on and on about how I'd rather go get stuff than have it delivered because I don't like to pay extra for unnecessary things, so I don't want to pay extra for delivery charges or fees when I'm perfectly capable of going and getting the thing myself and saving myself from having to pay those unneccesary extra fees. But it's not just about the money. I don't like just sitting around all the time. I like having a reason to go expend a little bit of energy here and there, even if it's just to go to the store or to go pick up food. I don't want to live a life where I just lay around and have everything done for me. If I can do it myself, why wouldn't I? If I don't get out of the house at least once a day, I feel like I'm going crazy. And when it comes to shopping, I like going and finding the thing I want to buy. I know it's all available online, but there is a certain satisfaction in finding it in the wild. Those of you who are around my age or older, you remember how much fun it used to be to shop for records...and if you were looking for a rare record, how thrilling it was to finally find it. That thrill is lost now that you can just click a mouse and have whatever you want delivered to your door. It's satisfying to put in a bit of effort to get something, plus it forces you to have to get up off your bed and actually move around, and that's something that benefits all of us. Movies are another thing that used to require a slight output of energy. If you wanted to see a movie, you had to physically go to a theater to see it. But now, most movies are available to stream at home, so it's another reason you don't have to expend even a modicum of energy.

There's a reason why people were thinner in past decades. The less energy we have to expend in our daily life, the larger we become.

Happy Birthday William Pickard!!!

William Leonard Pickard October 21, 1945

William Leonard Pickard studied neurobiology at U.C. Berkeley, and later graduated from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard with degrees in chemistry and public policy. For a couple of years he worked as the deputy director of UCLA's Drug Policy Analysis Program. Within the psychedelic community, Pickard's notoriety stems from his arrests related to illicit drug manufacturing, concluding with the infamous "Kansas missile silo" bust in November of 2000, when he was arrested on charges of conspiracy to distribute LSD and possession with the intent to distribute and dispense LSD. After being found guilty at trial, his partner Clyde Apperson received a thirty-year prison sentence, while Pickard got two life sentences. The arrest came about due to their associate Gordon Todd Skinner, a DEA informant. (In matters not directly related to the missile silo case, Skinner was, himself, later arrested and convicted of assault, kidnapping, and conspiracy charges, receiving a "life plus 90 years" prison sentence.)

In a March 31, 2003 DEA press release it was claimed that the Pickard/Apperson bust represents "the largest LSD lab seizure ever made by the Drug Enforcement Administration", with "approximately 41.3 kilograms" of LSD having been seized. These ideas regarding the magnitude of the lab's LSD production have been widely reported and often repeated, yet they appear to be vast exaggerations. Although a DEA forensic chemist's testimony later revealed that the "actual amount of all the exhibits containing LSD was 198.9 grams of LSD", it has been pointed out by one reporter that even that figure was an extrapolated estimate rather than a known quantity. And despite the November 20, 2003 testimony from the aforementioned DEA chemist, the "approximately 41.3 kilograms" figure remains posted on the DEA's website. Within a paper delivered in absentia at the World Psychedelic Forum in March of 2008, Pickard's own thoughts regarding "International LSD Prevalence - Factors Affecting Proliferation and Control" were voiced.

From behind bars, Pickard continued to fight for his freedom and to draw attention to the ways in which the DEA maintains records on U.S. citizens. In 2011 he published an article about the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Information System titled "DEA's NADDIS System: A Guide for Attorneys, the Courts, and Researchers". In July 2020, his term of imprisonment was reduced to time served.

Does anyone know who did blotter art?

#PsychedelicSynchronicity