But fear is a product of thought, except for instinctual fears like falling, loud sudden noises, etc. If we want to get at the ‘first cause’ of what eventually snowballs into a full-fledged reaction to something like the Ukraine situation, we need to find out what precedes fear.
Cognitive dissonance as a first cause remains a good possibility for me. Something is off, does not compute, there is a disturbance in the force.
Alright, I am attacking myself. Put it that way, if you prefer. But there is still an attack.
I am calling it ‘fear’ but it may be something else. It may just be violence. In other words, I react to violence first with violence.
Are you suggesting our initial response, before thought storms in, is to mirror? If we encounter joy we react with joy, if violence we react with violence, if clarity we react with clarity? We are, after all, hardwired to mirror and empathize.
hiya aph,
Yes, “I am the world and the world is me”… hence, one can say, “I am you”…
nobody,
No, we are hardwired to identify with and seek comfort in and with someone who has the same beliefs and conditioning. Not everyone has the capacity for empathy, eh? There are many who have no kindness, no sympathy, no empathy, no compassion, eh?
What I said reflects the results of research I found online from what I took to be reasonably reliable sources. If you’re interested, searches for ‘are humans hardwired to empathize’ ‘are humans hardwired to mirror’ provide interesting results.
But, sure, I agree: Some people are (or at least seem) quite unempathic. Maybe: Homo sapiens as a whole tends towards being empathic, but there are exceptions. ?
You are suggesting this, not me. I am bereft of suggestions. But what you are suggesting may be so. Therefore we have to be very careful not to get carried away by any suggestion or idea before we have looked at all of this thoroughly.
The word ‘violence’, what does it convey?
Yes!
Doing or wishing to do harm.
Dan - there is no becoming in technical thinking as it is an interrelationship between perception and thought technically; here it is the measured - not the measurer - that is measured, as the measurement is mitigated by pure perception as reality - hence no division and no conflict and no becoming, as the self is not involved.
Psychological measurement - as becoming - measures the measurer (self) and not the fact of the measured as actuality.
Are you winning Paul? 
First of all, there is a sense of lack of control, isn’t there? Some force or energy has entered or invaded the mind, an energy which is stronger than anything else. Is it that I am then reacting to this energy, rather than reacting to the world outside? The reaction to this energy is through the formation of thought. After all, it is thought itself that is under attack. For example, the image of how peaceful and perfect the world can be is being attacked by a totally brutal reality that contradicts my imagined construction.
But there is much more to it than that. The brutal reality is as much a product of thought as is the imagined paradise. We are not watching a tiger chasing a deer, or the devastating effects of a natural disaster, but we are watching people hurting other people. When this takes place, ideas are always involved, aren’t they?
No, there is an attack. Humanity is attacking itself. Clever words don’t seem to stop this. Just saying, ‘It is a trick of the division of self,’ doesn’t stop it.
Paul - when the brain has understood the movement of self, all division, conflict and disorder ends.
Maybe I don’t understand your words, I am saying that technical thought is all about ‘becoming’ in the literal sense of the word. The self is not involved or need not be involved. For a vaccine or a bridge or a bomb, etc to ‘become’ a reality there must be time, knowledge, logical planning, experimentation, imagined scenarios, intuition…it is a process with a beginning , middle and end.
But does this process have any place in the human mind? In the ‘psyche’? It doesn’t does it? But being misplaced, it attempts to solve psychological ‘problems’ using ‘time’ as in the technical mode i.e. I am not ‘free’ now but I will ‘become’ free in time if I do such and such…K says Freedom is at the beginning not the end and also points out the fallacy of psychological thought when he says “Real change is the denial of change”.
I say I am afraid. Are you reacting to what I am telling you and therefore throwing at me whatever words you think may help? Or are you listening to me?
Dan,
No, Dan, that is false. All becoming is psychological, the original meaning (etymologically speaking) was: “change from one state of existence to another” from the 12c. Charley had an insight, a true insight, which effectively negated all “becoming”. Charley discussed this elsewhere on this site, which had to do with seeing while sitting on one side of the river, that no matter what one does, one could never get to the other side.
As Patricia posted correctly earlier:
Most excellent understanding, Patricia.
Later, Dan posted:
You misunderstood this quote. Negation implies insight, true insight. Hence, one negates all psychological “becoming”, because becoming involves the idea of change, which is entirely false.
Paul,
A response is not a reaction. Listening is a two-way process required in communication - You don’t listen to anyone, but expect everyone to listen to you.
Yes, indeed, you are the one who is afraid, and what you are unaware of is that fear, that “I” is posting out of this fear, that’s all. Your fear also dictates what you post, and the fact that you are the one who isn’t listening. In other words, because of that fear, you alone is the one having a reaction.
What do you mean, I don’t listen to anyone?