Do you feel guilty?

[redhawk]

I decided......... Hawk's one argumentative pain in the ass. There, I said it.

I don't even feel guilty for saying it

Hey, It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it!!

[Beeblesticks]

OK...so to summarize what I just learned about the "anti-guilt" side of this exercise:

I am entitled to happiness, or a guilt free existence, therefore I should always pursue the path of least resistance to ensure my ease of existence?

[chairrock]

Or just go downhill all of the time...thats easy too.

[Neil]

OK...so to summarize what I just learned about the "anti-guilt" side of this exercise:

I am entitled to happiness, or a guilt free existence, therefore I should always pursue the path of least resistance to ensure my ease of existence?

How did you come up with such an interpretation? I would think that the path of least resistance leads most commonly to going on welfare.

[Zer0-G]

guilt --- (off topic?)

So, guilt...A lot being said about guilt...I was cogitating upon "What Guilt is".

Boiled down to it's most basic component, this many faceted , over thought, overwrought and highly dramatized "thing" (thing because it is not a feeling) is most simply put, so my mind can begin to "not" think about it, as the avoidance of "This is it."

Meaning, we are constantly hidden in the delusion of "this isn't it" and "there must be something better" which implies that "this" and the "I" are intrinsically bad.

(Hmmm, the Concept of "Original Sin").

So, our lives are constantly driven by guilt (because we feel bad and are suffering from it) which derives from the helplessness of living in the delusion of "This isn't it" which causes the avoidance of all we are rather than the acceptance of our true nature and the acknowledgment of "This is it". i.e. there is no bigger car that will make me see that this car is the last "it" in a long chain of "this isn't it"'s.

(This may not make sense to anyone. So what!)

Uggh! I and this could go on for a long time, I'll spare my self the agony and stop here.

So, Neil, pass along those blueberries, I bet they'll taste good no matter which peak I'm on...Old Clump or Marcy.

Take your pick.

So, in the words of one of my favorite philosophers -

If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you what to do, then YOU DESERVE IT.

- Frank Zappa -

[Beeblesticks]

How did you come up with such an interpretation? I would think that the path of least resistance leads most commonly to going on welfare.

Yes, I would agree with that point. So unless all of your all of your inherent motivations and desires are harmless to you and to the world around you and others, how does the mindless blueberry free for all end in anything other than welfare (or obesity, or scerosis, or lung cancer, or strip mining, or deforestation, or slavery, or...)?

[Neil]

What are inherent motivations?

How will mine lead to what you allude to?

[Neil]

Guilt fodder:

Can anyone tell me how many kilograms of carbon dioxide my car will release while I drive 500 kilometers from my home to the Dacks and back?

Neil, those kind of computations are right up my alley. Just give me make, model and year and I'll provide you with all the data it'll take to make sure that every last minute of your trip is misery. I'll even let you know how much rubber you've consumed, just to make you feel worse.

2001 Volvo V70 wagon. 2 WD, non turbo, not a cross-country. Has a Thule enclosed ski rack on the roof.

It usually takes me 40-50 liters RT.

Gasoline is a mixture of hydrocarbon chains of various lengths. Since I don't know what's in your gas, I'll have to assume it has an average formula of C8H18, otherwise known as "octane". There are about 6 moles of isooctane to a liter, and since each molecule in the mole has 8 carbon atoms and each molecule in a mole of CO2 has one carbon atom, 1 liter of gas will produce 6 * 8 = 48 moles of CO2. A liter of gas at STP (standard temperature and pressure) = 22.4 liters, so you would produce 48 * 22.4 = 1075 liters of CO2. A trip that uses 50L of gas would produce 53,760 L of CO2. Since oxygen combines with both the carbon and the hydrogen in the gasoline, even more oxygen is consumed. About 75 moles of oxygen combine with each liter of gasoline to produce 48 moles of CO2 and 54 moles of water vapor (H20), which means you are also depleting the atmosphere of about 84,000 liters of oxygen during the trip.

Not only that, you used up a lot of energy during the climb. If you want, I can figure out about how much C02 you produced and how much oxygen your body used, but I think you're already feeling guilty enough by now. Besides, at least your food is a renewable resource. But... to add to your guilt trip, an average tree only removes about 14 pounds of carbon/year from the atmosphere. At the rate you're going, you might need a couple of acres of hardwood to erase your carbon footprint. :wink:

[DRIFTER]

Between working a couple of days a week 230 miles from home, which means 230 miles to get back,[460], and burning a tank of gas after I get there,[ another 15.5 gallons], and close to a tank when I get home playing kids taxi and driving 25 miles each way to go food shopping, I feel more victimized than guilty!........I'm good on sitting home if anyone is willing to pay me carbon offset $$$ to relieve their guilt!!!!!

[backwoodsman]

Good Lord,keep it simple,tread lightly,pack out what you pack in(I always pack more out)try to improve the path you walk,at the same time realize that the earth won't last forever and neither will you.

[colden46]

Can anyone tell me how many kilograms of carbon dioxide my car will release while I drive 500 kilometers from my home to the Dacks and back?

Since the person who responded never appeared to actually answer your question, here goes: a gallon of gas weighs 5 or 6 pounds, and when burned releases 19.5 pounds of CO2 -- the extra weight comes from the oxygen in the atmosphere. Converting to your funny units and assuming 45 liters of gas, that's around 105 kilograms.

(I can't make fun of your currency for being Monopoly money anymore, so I'm clinging to making fun of the metric system I'm just joking around, I really do like Canada)

As for CO2 you produced breathing, as s/he hinted it's a non-issue. Plants convert CO2 (and other stuff) into sugars via photosynthesis. We eat the plants, or we eat animals that eat the plants. Our bodies then burn those sugars, which releases the CO2, which is exhaled back into the atmosphere. So breathing is a wash -- at least you don't have to feel guilty about that!

[Homesick65]

Talking about guilt... Should there be any guilt for a person who decides to return to his childhood home of the Adirondacks (after realizing early on that the DAKs are in perma-recession) with hard earned/saved money to buy what most locals would consider a luxury residence?

Although the person is a proud son of the region, and will be eager to share his home & heart with his neighbors and friends, he can't escape the fact that he added to the land valuation problem... Although he shares the same history with his buds who never left the region, is there any hope that this person will be accepted back into the fold?

[redhawk]

Talking about guilt... Should there be any guilt for a person who decides to return to his childhood home of the Adirondacks (after realizing early on that the DAKs are in perma-recession) with hard earned/saved money to buy what most locals would consider a luxury residence?

Although the person is a proud son of the region, and will be eager to share his home & heart with his neighbors and friends, he can't escape the fact that he added to the land valuation problem... Although he shares the same history with his buds who never left the region, is there any hope that this person will be accepted back into the fold?

Probably Not. But it's not just an Adirondack thing.

I often return to the reservation where I was raised until I was six years old. However, I am considered an "outsider" by many non-Traditionals because I grew up and lived primarily off the rez and didn't "Pay my dues" so to speak.

The fact that I have been beaten with nightsticks, been jailed, etc for standing up and being counted in protests over Native American treatment in several instance, makes no difference.

The fact that I have been actively involved in charities for Indians, especially the Lakota (Sioux) and most specifically the Cheyenne River Reservation, makes no difference.

The fact that I have been involved in getting coats and blankets for Indians to help avoid freezing to death in the winter makes no difference.

What seems to matter is the fact that even when I get back into talking Lakota I do it in a "funny accent" and that I have a car with all four fenders, don't drink and believe that anyone can work out of their own miseries. And that alienates me.

So, "If you ain't from here OR didn't stay here, you're not totally accepted here" seems to be applied equally.

Just know who you are and be yourself, and what anyone else thinks or says shouldn't really matter.

Hawk

[Mavs00]

Just know who you are and be yourself, and what anyone else things or says shouldn't really matter.

Pretty damn good advice.

[pico23]

In the US the biggest guilt is to be white and male. How we can repay other races/genders for things we didn't do as indviduals.

For instance, my heritage is italian, my family first arrived in the US in 1890s. We owned no slaves, as a matter of fact, the social standing of italians was very close to that of "minority" races. Even worse if you had Sicilian heritage. Trust me, even today, in some parts of the south having a name ending in a vowel is not a good thing, worse if it's a multi sylabel name. Some places they still say eye-talian which to me is the ultimate redneck, holy ****, I got to get out of here way of saying it.

The guilt trip is largely media driven. Don't get me wrong, not everything is perfect, but show me a nation in the world where everyone lives in perfect harmony, and I'll show you 20 where they don't and we are somplace closer to harmony than chaos. The other issue is that at this point a kid born in the 1980s is thinking WTF, what did I do to have to pay reparations for something that my family didn't even do. What happens? Resentment. So now, you haven't fixed anything, you made things worse. Mix forced guilt, with genuine resentment and you have some real issues.

Based on the media, I feel compelled to have guilt about the atrocities of the American Caucasian on other races. Unfortunately I don't, but I have to remind myself that I shouldn't either.