Meanwhile, US economic power continues to wane globally

And US munitions with no quick way to ramp up production capacity.

On paper there are some philosophical similarities but I ended up having a negative experience and impression of Buddhism after being a serious practitioner for almost 4 years and started training to be a priest. Imo it's ultimately very idealistic and I personally wouldn't be able to reconcile the two without discarding enough of the practice that it didn't resemble Buddhism much anymore.

But my experience with it was as an authentic imported organized religion. As part of training to be a priest I was taught secret mudras, mantras, and visualizations that I'm supposed to keep secret because they're considered dangerous for people who aren't ready, for example.

I also witnessed all of the non first year attendees perform a devotional practice of doing 1,000 full body prostrations a day (in a row with basically no breaks) for three days in a row. People's knees were bleeding through their robes. There was a lot of stuff like that which ultimately really turned me off from Buddhism. This was all Tendai Buddhism by the way.

The training was very much like boot camp and designed to break you down and mold you differently. Sometimes when I'm drunk I still feel like I need to return to it and will start reciting sutras and wanting to reach out to the temple, even though it was 14 years ago, then wonder wtf I was thinking the next morning. Luckily that almost never happens now.

I guess I'm writing this because most people's experiences with Buddhism in Western countries was very different than mine. Many people see it as a secular practice but that was not at all my experience.

What's JDPON? Searching brings up Maoism Third Worldism which I'm familiar with but I can't figure out what the actual acronym here is.

Gotcha, agreed there for sure.

Definitely, not arguing against the outcome either way

Do they actually care if they lose, is it really a punishment? Feels like they'll just continue Republican policies whenever they're next in power and keep willingly being dragged to the right.

35 here and not in any danger of becoming fash. Wish I had time to read theory more and get back to organizing but have two young kiddos I'm going to do my best to raise without liberalism.

Huh interesting, I was prescribed clonodine before bed to help with restless sleep from ADHD. Might be interested in naltrexone for the alcohol?

You can really see how loved he was in those pictures. I'm sure he had 4 good years because of you and I'm sure he knew he was loved. I'm so sorry for your loss and know how hard it is.

I lost my dog of 14 years just a few weeks ago. He apparently had cancer and was hiding it until he couldn't. It was very sudden and still very painful. I'm trying to find a good picture for his urn but it's still too hard. I think I'm going to write him a letter to process my feelings, sort of like you've done here. My condolences again.

https://archive.ph/vF6p5

When my wife gave birth, the delivery room had a sign saying any sexual comments, said jokingly or not, would result in you being immediately kicked out. I couldn't believe they needed to put up a fucking sign for that at the time so that makes this post a bit less shocking to me.