Exceptional meeting of the minds?

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Have you ever had one of those? Where you talk to someone for the first time and you’re so on the same page with your views on everything you’re finishing each other’s sentences? That hasn’t happened to me for many years...it’s the first time in recent memory, and maybe the first time ever in my life, in this city. This person’s name was Chris, he was homeless, and we had exactly the same worldview in terms of the big things: capitalism, systemic prejudice, disability, mental health, workplace culture, greed, class struggle and privilege, trying to make square pegs fit into round holes so as to be money makers for the business class. He also grew up here, in an upper middle class neighbourhood, and went to the same school, but he’s ten years younger. The place hasn’t changed much, so I could relate. It was uncanny. He told me he developed an alcohol problem about ten years ago (I never got addicted to drugs and alcohol to cope but I can understand why people do), is highly sensitive and gets debilitating anxiety, and he can’t work. He gives up on jobs and walks out because he doesn’t fit. I can relate to that except the walking out part. I’ve never actually done it. My ex did. He got tired of being treated like a “stupid immigrant”, because he’s probably 10x smarter than his bosses - and he won’t be pushed around by bosses. This guy, similar. Chris told me some of the most gifted people he’s ever met are homeless and I believe it. I feel the same way, but I am fortunate enough to have housing. We were right on the same page with the attitude here in this city of appearances of being progressive, but it’s all disingenuous. He told me he hadn’t been in this neighbourhood in awhile and he dressed his best and wore a mask, so nobody recognizes him - especially as the guy who collects cans. I can relate to not wanting to be recognized by high school friends, their parents, etc. And dressing to fit in (with nice value village clothes) so people I might run into don’t know I’m poor. So, I blend in enough to be passable. It was the first time I connected with someone that much in years. And I bumped into him just as I was posting a critique of privilege in the “outrage” thread, and had been saying some of the things he brought up.
 
Totally. Isnt it cool when that happens?

Thats one of the ways I know I am in tune or harmony with reality

This one time I was at Powells where I had discovered an Alan Watts stash; I wanted to know the guy instead of relying on other peoplrz thots.

So there I was reading in the cafe and this total stranger comes to me and asks me if I believe what Alan Watts has to say.

I don't know how long we talked for. I mostly listened. He opened his life to me. It ended up with him giving his number and told if I was ever in Las Vegas to call him.

I have had quite a few experiences like that. When I am in tune with the reality wave.

#MutualAid
#BeNotAfraid
#SystemicWhimsey
#JoyPrivilege
 
Have you ever had one of those? Where you talk to someone for the first time and you’re so on the same page with your views on everything you’re finishing each other’s sentences? That hasn’t happened to me for many years...it’s the first time in recent memory, and maybe the first time ever in my life, in this city. This person’s name was Chris, he was homeless, and we had exactly the same worldview in terms of the big things: capitalism, systemic prejudice, disability, mental health, workplace culture, greed, class struggle and privilege, trying to make square pegs fit into round holes so as to be money makers for the business class. He also grew up here, in an upper middle class neighbourhood, and went to the same school, but he’s ten years younger. The place hasn’t changed much, so I could relate. It was uncanny. He told me he developed an alcohol problem about ten years ago (I never got addicted to drugs and alcohol to cope but I can understand why people do), is highly sensitive and gets debilitating anxiety, and he can’t work. He gives up on jobs and walks out because he doesn’t fit. I can relate to that except the walking out part. I’ve never actually done it. My ex did. He got tired of being treated like a “stupid immigrant”, because he’s probably 10x smarter than his bosses - and he won’t be pushed around by bosses. This guy, similar. Chris told me some of the most gifted people he’s ever met are homeless and I believe it. I feel the same way, but I am fortunate enough to have housing. We were right on the same page with the attitude here in this city of appearances of being progressive, but it’s all disingenuous. He told me he hadn’t been in this neighbourhood in awhile and he dressed his best and wore a mask, so nobody recognizes him - especially as the guy who collects cans. I can relate to not wanting to be recognized by high school friends, their parents, etc. And dressing to fit in (with nice value village clothes) so people I might run into don’t know I’m poor. So, I blend in enough to be passable. It was the first time I connected with someone that much in years. And I bumped into him just as I was posting a critique of privilege in the “outrage” thread, and had been saying some of the things he brought up.

Such is the value of the bottom line ... totally UN red compared to what people at the point are dizzy about!
 
Totally. Isnt it cool when that happens?

Thats one of the ways I know I am in tune or harmony with reality

This one time I was at Powells where I had discovered an Alan Watts stash; I wanted to know the guy instead of relying on other peoplrz thots.

So there I was reading in the cafe and this total stranger comes to me and asks me if I believe what Alan Watts has to say.

I don't know how long we talked for. I mostly listened. He opened his life to me. It ended up with him giving his number and told if I was ever in Las Vegas to call him.

I have had quite a few experiences like that. When I am in tune with the reality wave.

#MutualAid
#BeNotAfraid
#SystemicWhimsey
#JoyPrivilege

Reality is virtually different than what goes on in the mind ... described as an abstract state that is much un-conjured among those despising alien information and foreign intelligence ... thus knowledge leaves us as brain drain and no-headers!
 
Sounds like a long and wide ranging conversation you had Kimmio. Glad it felt satisfying for you. Always interesting to me when I come across someone who shares some of my own views or experiences.
 
Unfortunately, one of the last interactions that went like this turned into something of a con man, briefly my boarder, then briefly Margaret's boarder. He was a disbarred lawyer, smooth talker. In the end, no real harm done. He vanished, leaving no trace, but some sorta funny memories of the guy Margaret and I ultimately called The Pool Boy.
 
Unfortunately, one of the last interactions that went like this turned into something of a con man, briefly my boarder, then briefly Margaret's boarder. He was a disbarred lawyer, smooth talker. In the end, no real harm done. He vanished, leaving no trace, but some sorta funny memories of the guy Margaret and I ultimately called The Pool Boy.
That’s too bad. I’m not saying I’d let this guy close enough to be best friends right away. It was just interesting talking to him. He asked nothing from me, and I got no sense that he was any kind of opportunist. He was not overconfident or even necessarily confident enough (too much self confidence is a tip off for me to be extra careful - it puts me off.) If anything he was under-confident and genuine about expressing it. He never got very high on the ladder to begin with. It was just a conversation; we exchanged names and then parted ways.

We were actually discussing opportunism, in the workplace context - and how competitiveness lends itself to opportunism. He has been picking up cans and bottles for awhile - and I guess he got a job with the bottle depot or one of the bottle recycling businesses, he was getting a guaranteed minimum wage - and whoever was coaching him to succeed wanted him to produce...which meant, bring in every bottle and can he finds. Whereas, having done it for awhile and knowing there are other people on the street who do it because they need a few bucks and are even less able to attempt a real job than he was at the time - he would take some and leave some for others. That didn’t go over well, so he quit (or maybe got fired - it was a mutually unsatisfactory job) - that viewpoint is very rare to non-existent in the culture of commerce human beings have created (no it doesn’t have to be that way, it’s not inevitable it’s chosen) - and went back to doing it on his own. Greed makes him anxious. We both said at the same time, that what the recycling job did with staff (many of whom are/ were homeless), by creating that job and the way they ran it, was exactly the same business model that exists at the top. But it’s seen as a “progressive” thing by the mainstream, that this job is giving people opportunities, when it’s still modelled on greed. Too many jobs groom people for greed, under the false pretence of being helpful.
 
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Confidence and excesses is discussed in an old book on the theme of Psychology of Self-Esteem. You may be familiar.

Then theme is anther metaphor for conspiracy and it all runs together in a potion in my mine' d! Just another whole in the ground level like Jacobean ...
 
I’m wary of anything Rand had a hand in. Was it she, her philosophy in particular, who was the seed of the insidiousness of the self-help (ego-centricism) industry? Three guesses at who the target market for that was, and remained so, for decades. Funny, listening to Dr.Drew. He’s become woven into that patch of fabric pretty substantially, too - yet, I can tell his intentions have (mostly) been good.
 
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Consider it a parallel for why Attica Finch joined the KKK ... to be one of them or see what went on inside the system?

Then there was the lesson of Machiavelli ... and how the powers smudged his revelations about power!
 
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