Archive for July, 2016

6 results.

Philosophy of Life

Jul21
by on 21July16 at 1840

I have read many philosophies of life, most of which are true. Here are a few:

  • Life isn’t about how many times you get knocked down, it’s about how many times you get back up. -Col George A. Custer
    • It’s been stated a few different ways, including taking hits and falling down, by different people, but it’s the same sentiment of moving on with your life, the game, the show, etc..
  • This is a good one, but it’s true and false:
    • It isn’t about whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. -Grantland Rice
    • I think this one explains the sentiment better:
      • What matters isn’t how well you play when you’re playing well. What matters is how well you play when you’re playing badly. -Martina Navratilova

I just read a beautiful one.

  • A father, in an effort to explain the value of life and how dealing with it is important, boils potatoes, eggs, and coffee. The hard potatoes become soft, the fragile eggs with soft innards become hard, and the coffee changes the water into an aromatic drink (thus changing its environment).
    • Each person decides what kind of person they will become by how they choose to respond to adversity (the boiling water). You can become soft, you can toughen up, or you can change the world around you. Your choice.
      • Author Unknown (If you know the originator, please let me know.)
      • Also written with a carrot instead of a potato.

Please share your “Positive” philosophies regarding life on this article on thewilesway.com. There are plenty enough other sites that indulge in negativity, that we do not need to do it here.

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Philosophizing

Jul21
by on 21July16 at 1744

Philosophizing is the act of considering reality, how things work, why things work, and how these things interact and relate to each other. These “things” include geology, the stars, emotions, thought, human relations, animal relations, love, war, and anything else you can dream of.

  • Relations: Relationships, including interactions with each other and other species.
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Big Fat Lies to little lies vs The Truth; Harsh or Otherwise

Jul11
by on 11July16 at 1746

So, you’ve been telling lies and suddenly someone caught you in it. Now don’t you wish you hadn’t started down that path to begin with?

For the sake of clarity, lying is not simply telling an untruth. Lying is telling an untruth, with the foreknowledge that it is not true.

The embarrassment, shame, and horror you feel come (some say) more from the fact that you were caught than that you lied in the first place. I disagree. The pain of being caught in a lie comes from the fact that you’ve lost the trust of the person you lied to and often your reputation with everyone you deal with suffers the same hit.

Granted, that people will grant some slack for a lie to someone in poor health about someone or something they care intensely about, if telling the truth (or not) might be a life or death situation. People are not generally so forgiving in other situations. How can people trust you if you are willing and able to lie to them? Generally, the more senseless the lie, the less trustworthy the liar. Lying when the truth would have served the situation better is the most senseless lie and is often committed by pathological or compulsive liars (this is a psychological issue). The type of liar who commits this type of lie is most often a pathological or compulsive liar.

Lies grow and change, getting bigger and harder to remember over time. Liars sometimes do not even realize when their stories have become too fantastic to be believed. Have you ever heard of someone being trusted… to meet an expectation? I would far rather someone have an expectation of me that I am reliable and even a little ruthless in telling the truth, than as a person expected to lie.

For all that, the biggest problem with telling lies is that if you tell a lie often enough, you will no longer recognize it as a lie. Lying to yourself is a deadly dangerous game, which leads to madness. Especially when you are finally caught in the lie and doubly so if someone you care about was hurt, physically or mentally, because of the lie.

Granted, that some truths cannot be said without some serious repercussions. Example: Honey, does this look good on me? No dear, it doesn’t hide the bulges well enough. (There’s brutally honest and then there is plain stupid.) A far better answer would be: No dear, it just isn’t right for you. The cut is all wrong.

You don’t have to be brutal to tell the truth and the truth does not have to always directly answer the question. It isn’t always a lie to tell someone something nice from a different perspective than what the question asked for. It isn’t nice, however, to let poor fat me go on thinking I’m not fat, because it isn’t healthy to be overweight for long periods of time. A better place, time, and approach to the subject can provide a whole different outlook for both parties.  Example: Honey, I love you dearly. You are my beautiful rose and would hate to be parted from you. I am worried for your health (this works better if you can include yourself using “our health”) and I think we need to start walking (running, going to the gym, etc.) and cut a few bad things from our diet.

Anyway, back on topic.

I will admit, people lie. They will lie out of fear, concern for another, to impress someone, for ambition, for personal gain, and for many more reasons (that usually sound good to the individual at the time). I know of no one who has never lied, accidentally or otherwise.

Examples:

Truth by answering a different question –

  • Daughter – Dad, can I go out with some friends?
  • Dad – Are you going to a party? (If the answer is yes, dad’s answer is NO and daughter knows it.)
  • Daughter – (Who knows the definition of a party is generally ‘a social gathering, with eating, drinking, and entertainment,’ but also knows dad won’t object to a small party of her friends.) Dad, it’s just me and (names off invited guests). We’re going to watch a movie at X’s house. There will be no alcohol involved.
  • Recommended  alternate questions for this situation:
    • What are your plans? (If that doesn’t elicit a satisfactory answer.)
      • Where will you be, who will be there, will there be drugs or alcohol (alcohol is a drug, by the way) involved, what is a good alternate contact phone number for someone who will be there, and when do you plan to return?

Lying by Omission (purposely leaving out pertinent facts, that would more honestly answer a question):

  • Same question from dad, but daughter’s answer is: Jana and I are going to watch a movie at her house. (Completely failing to mention that several other or a large number of people are attending and alcohol will be involved.)
    • Why is this still a lie? Because it doesn’t even attempt to address dad’s real concern.

Lying by Commission:

  • Daughter – Dad, can I go out with some friends?
  • Dad – Are you going to a party? (If the answer is yes, dad’s answer is NO and daughter knows it.)
  • Daughter – (Who knows very well that her plans include her dad’s definition of a party.) No Dad, it’s just me and (names off three or four people). We’re going to watch a movie at X’s house. There will be no alcohol involved. (When alcohol is involved and there are over 100 people invited.)

Lying by misdirection:

  • A truth: Politicians who tell the truth about their plans in a platform is considered a novelty.
  • A lie: A politician who told a truth on their platform is a reliable breath of fresh air.
    • The misrepresentation: Politicians who tell the truth about their plans in a platform have told the whole truth and can be relied upon to continue to tell the truth.

Lying by truth re-patterning, obfuscation, and/or insinuating a falsehood onto the truth (hiding or obscuring the reality). This is often used in books for plot twists and is often a lie of omission too, but not always. Truth re-patterning without omission is not easy, but quite possible.

  • Truth: John – I saw Jim at the bar last night, talking to Amber.
  • The Lie: The implication that Jim was having relations with Amber, when John knew very well that John only went to the bar to pick up a friend to make sure he got home and only briefly spoke to Amber to find out where his friend was within the bar. Most of this lie is accomplished with body language and tone of voice.

It is better, by far, to never lie at all, than to have to explain or try to excuse a lie. When you cannot answer a truth directly (such as when you have a legal or job-related obligation to not divulge information), I recommend that you answer with the truths you can say, answer a different question, or don’t answer at all.

This is not (in any way) to be taken as permission to take truths and twist them to your whimsy, so that the resultant pattern is a lie or to lie at all. If you make a decision to lie, on your own honor be it.

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Dental Advances: Re-Growing and Repairing Teeth!

Jul05
by on 5July16 at 1758

This is the most amazing news! I found three articles recently, regarding replacing or repairing teeth. Two of these articles state that you can regrow your own teeth and the third is a repair for small cavities that vastly outstrips current technology.

The articles that talk about Re-Growing teeth both use our own stem cells that are already within our jaws or teeth. One uses existing (bad) teeth as the starting point, the other builds a scaffolding that our stem cells can grow into. These are up and coming, in the near future technologies.

Using the Existing Tooth:

  • http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/05/31/scientists_have_figured_out_how_to_regenerate_teeth_with_lasers.html

Using a Scaffolding:

  • http://www.healthyandnaturalworld.com/how-to-regrow-teeth-in-your-mouth/

Repairing Small Cavities:

  • http://www.healthyandnaturalworld.com/toothpaste-fills-cavities-without-drilling/

And a home recipe, why not:

  • Read the first several posts. Don’t miss Dave’s post (down a ways).
  • http://www.permies.com/t/45249/toxin-ectomy/Natural-ways-regrow-teeth-save

Important Note: Please remember the rules for The Wiles Way. No one on this site is giving you orders. As an adult you are responsible for your own decisions and actions. If you are not an adult, you should be reviewing important decisions with a responsible adult.

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Progress or Regression: Articles of Interest

Jul05
by on 5July16 at 1655

Who determines whether a change is an improvement, a failure, progress, or regression? You and I do. But we cannot do this if we are unaware of what’s out there or if we hear a twisted or outright untrue representation of a situation or events. This is why fact-checking is so important.

I recommend using a search engine to pull up the same article from multiple vendors, especially from at least two news vendors with differing political opinions (yes, news vendors have political opinions) and (if applicable) from the political reporters/parties. You can tell a news vendor’s political opinion by comparing the differing reports of the same events. It is amazing how different the same story can be reported.

When I find articles of interest, I will post the links below this article (in the menu).

Example: Topics > Progress or Regression > 3D Printers

If I feel a subject is worth debate, I will find opposing viewpoints to compare the reports.

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Religion

Jul04
by on 4July16 at 0920

goodevil1

Good vs Evil or GOD vs DEVIL

Religion has the ability to provide social stability, a sense of community, a moral code (rules for appropriate behavior), basic education, and activities that bring people together as a community. Religious organizations often keep people out of trouble by providing such activities as dancing, sports, pot luck meals, sewing bees, and sales). Religions usually have rules for behavior and attitude, with rewards for good behavior and a punishments for bad behavior. In some cases religious law is/was indistinguishable from government rule, though the religion and or its laws might change with the head of such a government.

A religion is a belief in a creator god or gods. In the case of gods, these may have been gods from the same pantheon (organization or group of gods) or rival gods. Some religions include evil adversaries called demons. Some beliefs hold demons to be rogue gods (gods who no longer have followers and have gone crazy); spirits from evil thought fragments, lost objects, resentful dead animals, or resentful dead people; or fallen angels.

Historically religions have added to and taken away from education and art. Some religions have been known to destroy the art, texts, histories, and structures of other religions. Whether this activity was sanctioned by a religion, the activity of a  rogue zealot, or a group of zealots in a particular case, would require research. Unfortunately the records of specific incidents themselves may have likely been destroyed or hidden. For an overview of information on this topic, search for “destruction of religious”. The recommendation drop down provides options for art, sites, images, and shrines. These options are only the popularly searched topics. If you simply run that search as-is, you might be shocked by the persecutors and the persecuted.

Also in the histories is the shocking behaviors of various religions, which… after having been persecuted as a young religion, persecute other religions in their turn after becoming a more powerful group. A search for religious persecution provides inadequate information, because religions are often limited to thinking of their own experience or the timeline of their own beliefs and that is what they publish.

One resource that attempts to put information on religions in order by “important” events and includes more than one religion is Wikipedia: Timeline of religion, though I notice that it does not include pantheons, such as the Greek, Norse, and Roman gods, relegating these to mythology and therefore misses a huge number of religious events of note. There may be other better resources out there… still looking.

Another abominable practice, slavery, was not repudiated by some dominant religions or world power governments until very recent history. Read these interesting historical documents for some shocking information about slavery and religious persecution: SLAVERY: ITS RELIGIOUS SANCTION, ITS POLITICAL DANGERS, AND THE BEST MODE OF DOING IT AWAY, “In His Name” by E. Christopher Reyes, and Christianity and the Roman Empire.

The Image:

I do not believe that the it was a mistake or accident that changing only two letters in GOOD and EVIL leaves you with to GOD and DEVIL. If you remember the difference between the two and seek to  do good and shun evil in all your activities and thoughts, you will be far closer to heaven than any organized religion can help you get. Organized religions “should” be a group of people (large or small), who have banded together to share in their beliefs, support each other, and help others (as the last two are “good” things to do).

I find, however, that organized religions tend to be far more concerned with keeping that church (organized religion) in existence and with blotting out competition (other churches), than in helping people reach favor with a deity (a heavenly ruler).

In Summation: A religion has the ability to do great good or great harm, either through individuals, in groups, or as an organization. Some of the greatest good deeds and some of the most heinous evil deeds have been done in the name of a god. A religious organization is only as good as its members.

In my personal opinion, any religion that condones, abets, or encourages acts of evil (including slavery, murder, and inciting panic that leads to murder) and fails to openly and privately repudiate such actions and attitudes, fails to meet the basic definition of religion. As such, they should be denounced by every government and refused the protections/recognition allotted to a religion. (Especially when its members start embracing such evil notions.)

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