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The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions
I was brought to the practice of mindfulness more than two decades ago by the death of my first child. Aaron died two months after he was born, never having left the hospital. Shortly after that, a friend introduced me to a teacher from whom I learned the basics of Vipassana meditation: how to breathe mindfully and meditate with “choiceless” awareness. I remember attending a dharma talk in a room full of fifty meditators. The teacher spoke about the Four Noble Truths. Life is inherently unsatisfactory, he said. The ego’s restless desires are no sooner fulfilled than they find new objects. Craving and aversion breed suffering. One of his examples was waiting in line for a movie and then not getting in.
I asked: “But what if you’re not suffering because of some trivial attachment? What if it’s about something significant, like death? What if you’re grieving because your baby was born with brain damage and died before he had a chance to live?” I wept openly, expecting that there, of all places, my tears would be accepted.
The teacher asked, “How long has your son been dead?” When I told him it had been two months, his response was swift: “Well then, that’s in the past now, isn’t it? It’s time to let go of the past and live in the present moment.”
I felt reprimanded for feeling sad about my son’s death. The teacher’s response baffled me. Live in the present? My present was suffused with a wrenching sorrow—a hole in my heart that bled daily. But the present moment, as he conceived of it, could be cleanly sliced away from and inured against this messy pain. Divested of grief, an emotionally sanitized “present moment” was served up as an antidote for my tears. However well meaning, the message was clear: Stop grieving. Get over it. Move on.
This is a familiar message. Its unintended emotional intolerance often greets those who grieve, especially if they do so openly. I call this kind of intolerance “emotion-phobia”: a pervasive fear and reflexive avoidance of difficult emotions in oneself and/or others. This is accompanied by a set of unquestioned normative beliefs about the “negativity” of painful feelings.
Emotion-phobia is endemic to our culture and perhaps to patriarchal culture in general. You’ll find it in sub-cultures as different as spiritual retreats, popular self-help books and psychiatric manuals. In fact, my teacher’s supposedly Buddhist response was very much in line with the prevailing psychiatric view of grief. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (the “bible” of psychiatry), the patient who is grieving a death is allotted two months for “symptoms” such as sadness, insomnia and loss of appetite before being diagnosable with a “Major Depressive Disorder.” Grief, perhaps the most inevitable of all human emotions, given the unalterable fact of mortality, is seen as an illness if it goes on too long. But how much is too long? My mother, a Holocaust survivor, grieved actively for the first decade of my life. Was this too long a grief for genocide? Time frames for our emotions are nothing if not arbitrary, but appearing in a diagnostic and statistical manual, they attain the ring of truth. The two month limit is one of many examples of institutional psychiatry’s emotion-phobia.
Emotions like grief, fear and despair are as much a part of the human condition as love, awe and joy. They are our natural and inevitable responses to existence, so long as loss, vulnerability and violence come with the territory of being human. These are the dark emotions, but by dark, I don’t mean that they are bad, unwholesome or pathological. I mean that as a culture we have kept these emotions in the dark—shameful, secret and unseen.
Emotion-phobia dissociates us from the energies of these emotions and tells us they are untrustworthy, dangerous and destructive. Like other traits our culture distrusts and devalues—vulnerability, for instance, and dependence—emotionality is associated with weakness, women and children. We tend to regard these painful emotions as signs of psychological fragility, mental disorder or spiritual defect. We suppress, intellectualize, judge or deny them. We may use our spiritual beliefs or practices to bypass their reality.
Few of us learn how to experience the dark emotions fully—in the body, with awareness—so we end up experiencing their energies in displaced, neurotic or dangerous forms. We act out impulsively. We become addicted to a variety of substances and/or activities. We become depressed, anxious or emotionally numb, and aborted dark emotions are at the root of these characteristic psychological disorders of our time. But it’s not the emotions themselves that are the problem; it’s our inability to bear them mindfully.
Every dark emotion has a value and purpose. There are no negative emotions; there are only negative attitudes towards emotions we don’t like and can’t tolerate, and the negative consequences of denying them. The emotions we call “negative” are energies that get our attention, ask for expression, transmit information and impel action. Grief tells us that we are all interconnected in the web of life, and that what connects us also breaks our hearts. Fear alerts us to protect and sustain life. Despair asks us to grieve our losses, to examine and transform the meaning of our lives, to repair our broken souls. Each of these emotions is purposeful and useful—if we know how to listen to them.
But if grief is barely tolerated in our culture, even less are fear and despair. The fact is we are all afraid and act as if we’re not. We fear the sheer vulnerability of existence; we fear its unpredictability. When we are unable to feel our fear mindfully, we turn it into anger, psychosomatic ailments or a host of “anxiety disorders”—displacements of fears we can’t feel or name.
According to experts, some 50 million people in this country suffer from phobias at some point in their lives, and millions more are diagnosed with other anxiety disorders. One reason is that we’ve lost touch with the actual experience of primal, natural fear. When fear is numbed, we learn little about what it’s for—its inherent usefulness as an alarm system that we ignore at our peril. Benumbed fear is especially dangerous when it becomes an unconscious source of vengeance, violence and other destructive acts. We see this acted out on the world stage as much as in the individual psyche.
As for despair, how many among us have not experienced periods of feeling empty, desolate, hopeless, brooding over the darkness in our world? This is the landscape of despair. Judging from my thirty years of experience as a psychotherapist, I would say that despair is common, yet we don’t speak of despair anymore. We speak of clinical depression, serotonin-deficiency, biochemical disorder and the new selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors. We treat the “illness” with a host of new medications. In my view, “depression” is the word we use in our highly medicalized culture for a condition of chronic despair—despair that is stuck in the body and toxified by our inability to bear it mindfully. When we think of all despair as a mental disorder or a biochemical illness, we miss the spiritual metamorphosis to which it calls us.
In retrospect, a more helpful answer from my meditation teacher (and one more in line with the Buddha’s teachings) might have been, If you are grieving, do so mindfully. Pay attention to your grief. Stop and listen to it. Befriend it and let it be. The dark emotions are profound but challenging spiritual teachers, like the Zen master who whacks you until you develop patience and spiritual discipline. When grief shattered my heart after Aaron’s death, that brought with it an expansion, the beginning of my experience of a Self larger than my broken ego. Grieving mindfully—without recourse to suppression, intellectualization or religious dogmatism—made me a happier person than I’d ever been.
What I learned by listening closely to grief was a transformational process I call “the alchemy of the dark emotions.” Many years after Aaron’s death, after a second radiantly healthy child and a third who was born with a mysterious neuromotor disorder, I began to write about these alchemies—from grief to gratitude, fear to joy, and despair to faith—that I had experienced in my own life and witnessed countless times in my work as a psychotherapist.
The alchemy of the dark emotions is a process that cannot be forced, but it can be encouraged by cultivating certain basic emotional skills. The three basic skills are attending to, befriending and surrendering to emotions that make us uncomfortable. Attending to our dark emotions is not just noticing a feeling and then distancing ourselves from it. It’s about being mindful of emotions as bodily sensations and experiencing them fully. Befriending emotion is how we extend our emotional attention spans. Once again, this is a body-friendly process—getting into the body, not away from it into our thoughts. At the least, it’s a process of becoming aware of how our thoughts both trigger emotions and take us away from them. Similarly, surrender is not about letting go but about letting be. When you are open to your heart’s pain and to your body’s experience of it, emotions flow in the direction of greater healing, balance and harmony.
Attending to, befriending and surrendering to grief, we are surprised to discover a profound gratitude for life. Attending to, befriending and surrendering to fear, we find the courage to open to our vulnerability and we are released into the joy of knowing that we can live with and use our fear wisely. Attending to, befriending and surrendering to despair, we discover that we can look into the heart of darkness in ourselves and our world, and emerge with a more resilient faith in life.
Because we are all pretty much novices at this process, we need to discipline ourselves to be mindful and tolerant of the dark emotions. This is a chaotic, non-linear process, but I have broken it down to seven basic steps: 1) intention, 2) affirmation, 3) sensation, 4) contextualization, 5) the way of non-action, 6) the way of action and 7) the way of surrender.
1. Intention
Intention is the means by which the mind, heart and spirit are engaged and focused. Transforming the dark emotions begins when we set our intention on using our grief, fear and despair for the purpose of healing. It is helpful to ask yourself: What is my best intention with regard to the grief, fear and despair in my life? What would I want to learn or gain from this suffering?
2. Affirmation
The second step in using the dark emotions for growth is affirming their wisdom. This means changing the way we think about how we feel, and developing and cultivating a positive attitude toward challenging feelings.
3. Sensation
Emotional intelligence is a bodily intelligence, so you have to know how to listen to your body. The step I call “sensation” includes knowing how to sense and name emotions as we experience them in the body. We need to become more familiar and friendly with the actual physical sensations of emotional energy. Meditation, T’ai chi, yoga and other physical practices that cultivate mindfulness are particularly useful. How does your body feel when you are sad, fearful or despairing? What kinds of stories does your mind spin about these emotions? What happens when you simply observe these sensations and stories, without trying to understand, analyze or change anything?
4. Contextualization
In step four, contextualization, you acquaint yourself with the stories you usually tell yourself about your emotional suffering, and then place them in a broader social, cultural, global or cosmic context. In enlarging your personal story, you connect it to a larger story of grief, fear or despair in the world. This gets us out of the isolation and narcissism of our personal history, and opens us to transforming our suffering into compassion.
5. The way of non-action
Step five, the way of non-action, is the skill that psychologists call “affect tolerance.” This step extends our ability to befriend the pain of the dark emotions in the body. When you can tolerate the pain of grief, fear and despair without acting prematurely to escape it, you are practicing the way of non-action. Again, it is helpful to meditate on your emotions with the intention of really listening to them. What does your grief, fear or despair ask of you? In meditation, listen to the answers that come from your heart, rather than from your analytic mind.
6. The way of action
The dark emotions ask us to act in some way. While the way of non-action builds our tolerance for dark emotional energy, step six is about finding an action or set of actions that puts this energy to good use. In the way of action, we act not in order to distract ourselves from emotion but in order to use its energy with the intention of transformation. The dark emotions call us to find the right action, to act with awareness and to observe the transformations that ensue, however subtle. Action can be strong medicine in times of trouble. If you are afraid, help someone who lives in fear. For example, volunteer at a battered women’s shelter. If you’re sad and lonely, work for the homeless. If you’re struggling with despair, volunteer at a hospice. Get your hands dirty with the emotion that scares you. This is one of the best ways to find hope in despair, to find connection in a shared grief and to discover the joy of working to create a less broken world.
7. The way of surrender
Finally, step seven, the way of surrender, is the art of conscious emotional flow. Emotional flow is something that happens automatically when you know how to attend to and befriend your emotions. When we are in flow with emotion, the energy becomes transformative, opening us to unexpected vistas.
When we look deeply into the dark emotions in our lives, we find both the universality of suffering and how much suffering is unnecessary, the result of social inequities, oppression, large scale violence and trauma. Our awareness both of the universality of suffering and of its socially created manifestations is critical to the healing journey. Knowing how our grief, fear and despair may be connected to larger emotional currents and social conditions de-pathologizes these emotions, allowing us to accept and tolerate them more fruitfully, and with more compassion for ourselves and others. We begin to see the dark emotions as messengers, information-bearers and teachers, rather than “negative” energies we must subdue, tame or deny. We tend to think of our “negative” emotions as signs that there’s something wrong with us. But the deepest significance of the feelings is simply our shared human vulnerability. When we know this deeply, we begin to heal in a way that connects rather than separates us from the world.
117 Comments on "The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions"
dave thompson on Tue, 10th Oct 2017 8:28 pm
Great article however this has nothing to do with peak oil news.
makati1 on Tue, 10th Oct 2017 8:44 pm
dave, how much conversation is left in the realm of peak oil? Price guesses? Billions of barrels left in the ground? Nothing new and nothing that is important.
However, the rest of reality is very interesting and changing for the worse. Climate change, ecosystems collapsing, chaos, war, the end of the way of life we all have gotten used to. All more interesting than “peak Oil” or even peak energy.
makati1 on Tue, 10th Oct 2017 8:48 pm
“Well then, that’s in the past now, isn’t it? It’s time to let go of the past and live in the present moment.”
That one sentence is all that is important today. Today. Not yesterday or 10 years ago. That is past. Unchangeable. Learn from it but do not dwell there.
I live for today and plan for tomorrow. The next minute of our lives is unknowable. Why worry about it? I don’t. Nor should you.
Apneaman on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 2:05 am
Those Buddhist are just so fucking smart and peaceful, aren’t they?
Sickening beating of sobbing young Buddhist monk caught on camera in vile temple video
WARNING: UPSETTING CONTENT: Netizens are trying to hunt down the monk responsible for the beating so that he faces disciplinary action
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/sickening-beating-sobbing-young-buddhist-9154271
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjSUOk3rFFQ
Cloggie on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 3:41 am
Buddhism is systemic nihilism enshrined in a religion. Their prime conclusion: life basically sucks bigtime. The best thing to do is to sit on a pole all day and work on killing all desires.
The result: f* India.
And as such it would be the perfect religion for apneaman, the self-defined forum nihilist, when after 2025 or so the last communist=globalist shit pile on this planet, I mean the (((US))) lead West, will have collapsed and judaism will be forbidden, just like happened in Spain after 1492 and the Spanish 16th century began.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2016/06/11/20160612_nothing.jpg
Boat on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 4:26 am
More human crap written about by another human. This human likes to think he/she knows how to be a preacher, radio shock jock or politician. But hey for every cult conspiracy that has it’s hands on your nuts/solutions for yearning, there is an audience.
oilmansbluff on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 5:59 am
I think using modern psychology together with ancient religion breaks through barriers in both as one sees in his story.
We all know the idea of overcoming a phobia by desensitization. Get past fear, control it, move on. Same with hate, anger, grief. Hate and love are neutral +/- so if we deny hate we will be pretending happiness., typical hypocriitial churchgoer. If we are cynical and deny love we will be like scrooge. Balance is better. That seems to be essence of buddhism, maybe also greek philosophy.
Davy on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 6:09 am
“Buddhism is systemic nihilism enshrined in a religion. Their prime conclusion: life basically sucks bigtime. The best thing to do is to sit on a pole all day and work on killing all desires.”
Complete rubbish cloggie. I have multiple books on eastern religions and Buddhism is a wonderful look on life westerners should be exposed to. Those who tend to be well rounded and educated read other religions and there is a reason for this. It is called enlightenment. Buddhism is a higher level of understanding of life that educated people dwell on. I am not into organized religion but I respect it unlike so many here. I am a spiritual person who enjoys the reading of comparative theological thought. I have given up on understanding the deepest aspects of life but that does not mean I have stopped learning about them. Many here are completely empty egos on the verge of suicide so no wonder they constantly disrespect anything that threatens their existentialism of being on the cliff edge of oblivion that the isolated naked ego is perched on.
sunweb on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 6:44 am
Another way of dividing emotions is possible. Although not mutually exclusive, emotions can also be seen as expressions of either conflict or of bonding. Emotions of conflict describe situations that need changing; situations that are threatening. We feel fear at finding a snake in our path or perhaps we feel anger at having been passed over for a promotion. The emotions of conflict are designed in the body to persist until we change the situation. The persistence of conflict emotions until removal of the conflict originally had high survival value. In the modern world so condensed in time and space and with no safe outlets for these conflict emotions, this persistence represents a serious problem of adaptation and health.
Excitement, joy, curiosity are examples of emotions of bonding. These emotions are designed not to persist. They occur with nursing, with play, with laughter, with intimacy. For a highly social animal, the need to regenerate bonding emotions by seeking situations that elicit them also has survival value.
Metaphorically, conflict and bonding emotions can be compared to fat soluable and water soluble vitamins. The fat soluble vitamins are necessary but too much of them in the body are toxic. The water-soluble vitamins pass out of the body very quickly and must be replenished.
There is a further corollary involving emotions of conflict and bonding. Most of us have known the persistence of fear, sadness or anger in our life. These emotions were originally designed to persist. They may persist in humans because of psychohistorical events. Then when we feel joy and it does not persist there is a tendency to blame ourselves and feel like we are failures. We are being unfair to ourselves. We are comparing apples to oranges.
Emotions are timeless. When we tap into our sadness, we tap into all the sadness we have ever or will ever feel. This is a hard one for cause/effect types like myself. It is easier to appreciate by separating the content of a sad event from the unique bodily experience of sadness. The content of sad events will vary in the future; not our personal, internal domain of sadness.
We have joy within us as a natural response. When we experience joyfulness, we move into a sensual mind field that is neurological and biochemical. Within this field we move outside the realm of clock time. When we feel joy we open ourselves to our universe of joy.
In the broadest sense, our emotional reactions to the continuing events of our life are the thread that gives us a personal sense of history. Emotions give meaning to experience in the moment and connect us to our memories. Our memories give us our history. Emotions shape our experience of the self.
Let me add one final point. Love is not one emotion; it is all emotions. A white light when passed through a prism becomes a rainbow of colors. Metaphorically, love is the white light of emotions. When passing through us, love is the many hues and blends of the various feelings socially shaped and expressed as emotions.
This perhaps gives us some clarity as to why it is so difficult to love ourself and others. Love is all the emotions. Emotions are timeless. With love, we tap into not only our joy but also our fear and sadness from now, before, and in the future. At times this makes it painful to have love for ourselves and/or others.
When our emotions are affirmed, nurtured and guided, the structures and meanings of the developing self are connected internally and socially. There is belonging.
Love is the energy of life speaking to itself. We are the crystal and love comes from within us and through us. Love, as all the emotions, as the white light, stands as the grail of human spiritual endeavors. To love is to celebrate living. It takes great courage.
From: THOUGHTS ON EMOTIONS
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2016/08/thoughts-on-emotions.html
Davy on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 6:51 am
What about hate, sunweb? Is hate that white light of inner isolation? Is it our defensive mechanism to ensure we are not destroyed by an adversary? Good psychological summery above we should all dwell on.
sunweb on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 3:18 pm
Davy – need to think/feel further about hate. Wonder if it is not some combination of anger/sadness/fear.
fmr-paultard on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 3:21 pm
it is fear.
yoda said, fear leads to anger
anger hate
hate suffering
-yoda
Apneaman on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 4:47 pm
clog, you and your denial bum buddies are the nihilist. The most destructive ones the world has ever known. Humans and their world are being smashed to shit in front of all our eyes and you all only care about your petty politics and fragile egos. Oh ya, having your worldview smashed to shit is worse for you than AGW doing it. You and your denier buddies are wrong wrong wrong. All the predictions have come to pass and then some and then there is going to be some more. Way fucking more.
Northern California wine country fires: 21 dead, 670 people missing, 3,500 structures burned
http://abc7.com/670-missing-3500-structures-burned-in-norcal-wine-country-fires/2519538/
This Isn’t ‘the New Normal’ for Climate Change — That Will Be Worse
“Both hurricanes and wildfires are made worse by warming, with as much as 30 percent of the strength of hurricanes like Harvey and Maria attributable to climate change, and wildfire season both extended and exacerbated by it. As the journalist Malcolm Harris put it blithely on Twitter, “There didn’t used to be a major natural disaster every single day.””
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/why-this-isnt-the-new-normal-for-climate-change.html
Now get on your keyboard nihilist clog and spread your counter message of reality denial. That way when the next disaster hits, those people will be unprepared too and a big part of that is because of denier politicians and true believer soldiers like your. You would see them all destroyed as long as your dumb fuck politics and worldview are protected or you think they are. I cannot think of any group more nihilistic then you sub human monkey deniers. Deniers are nihilistic killers and your day is going to come. Don;t forget clog that denial is what those in power – .01%, 1%, 10%, deep state, MIC, Empire & financial overlords want. They fund it and create true believer disciples like you. Climate denial is the single most successful propaganda campaign in history and you are their servant dumb ass. Power fears change.
makati1 on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 6:53 pm
“The United States is a country founded upon and sustained by gun violence. It was guns that were the primary weapon that nearly annihilated the Indigenous population of what is now the continental United States. It was guns that were used by Southern militias — slave patrols — that tracked down and terrorized fleeing slaves. …
White male gun violence in the United States cannot be disentangled from the history of a nation that established “freedom” by using firearms to murder and control Indigenous peoples and slaves. Massacres are in this country’s DNA. …
Nevertheless, until the US comes to terms with its historical embrace of state violence as the key to so-called “American exceptionalism,” the horrifying nightmare of gun violence will continue in this country, as the result of white masculine rage and domination.”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/gun-violence-created-the-united-states/5612098
What goes around, comes around.
Boat on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 7:56 pm
mak,
“American exceptionalism,” using firearms to murder and control Indigenous peoples and slave. Who were they? Germans, English and Irish.
This would be the axis of evil to the indigenous peoples and slaves. Your German, right?
Boat on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 8:13 pm
the legacy of the European invasions of the past 500 years. Indigenous people north and south were displaced, died of disease, and were killed by Europeans through slavery, rape and war. In 1491, about 145 million people lived in the western hemisphere. By 1691, the population of indigenous Americans had declined by 90-95 percent, or by around 130 million people.”[28]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples#The_question_of_colonization_and_genocide_in_the_Americas
Now add WWI and WWII to the crimes of Germans. This is why Germans have to be watched closely.
GregT on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 9:15 pm
Your stupidity is showing again Boat.
makati1 on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 11:16 pm
Boat, Columbus was Spanish. The pilgrims were English and Dutch. Please read this and see if you can find Germans mentioned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_colonization_of_the_Americas
You are a perfect example of the saying: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
makati1 on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 11:18 pm
BTW: they are mentioned as coming later. AFTER the indians were about wiped out by Western Europeans.
makati1 on Wed, 11th Oct 2017 11:44 pm
“There’s syringes, there’s human feces, there are dead animals, rats alive, and dead rats … pee bottles, five-gallon buckets used as toilets…We’re definitely concerned about this added threat of hepatitis A.”
Manila? NOPE! San Diego, USA. Third world America is blossoming.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-09/san-diegos-deadly-hepatitis-outbreak-turns-statewide-epidemic-outbreak-could-last-ye
“A cop shoots an unarmed citizen for no credible reason and gets away with it. A president employs executive orders to sidestep the Constitution and gets away with it. A government agency spies on its citizens’ communications and gets away with it. An entertainment mogul sexually harasses aspiring actresses and gets away with it.”
The Philippines? NOPE! The USA. LMAO
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-11/power-corrupts-culture-compliance-breeds-despots-and-predators
And the slide continues…
Cloggie on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 12:07 am
Columbus was “Italian” or from Genua rather as Italy did not yet exist as a country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus
“AFTER the indians were about wiped out by Western Europeans.”
I would swear they were defeated by Americans, the descendants of the underclasses or Europe.
“Now add WWI and WWII to the crimes of Germans. This is why Germans have to be watched closely.”
WW1 was the work of the British who wanted to stop the economic rise of the Germans, WW2 was the work of US Jews who used the giant oil-based US economy to try to conquer the world, until today.
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/chamberlain-and-the-forrestal-diaries/
Anglos need to be watched. Or perhaps not anymore as they are being wiped out through mass immigration from the third world, organized by the same US Jews.
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/paul-krugman-white-americans-are-losing-their-country/
And third world countries are not going to rule anything. Once the role of the US dollar will be diminished it will be game over the AngloZionist world conqueror wannabees.
You can’t get them more stupid than boat.
Cloggie on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 12:49 am
Further signs of J-power decline: they finally dare to bring down top media harass kike:
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/leute/skandal-um-harvey-weinstein-us-medien-ringen-mit-ihrer-schuld-a-1172526.html
Davy on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 2:53 am
“Manila? NOPE! San Diego, USA. Third world America is blossoming.”
http://tinyurl.com/ycrlvnk9
Davy on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 3:20 am
“Death of the Nile”
http://tinyurl.com/ydcfsudx
“Booming populations have dirtied and drained it, while climate change threatens to cut its flow. And some fear that competition over its dwindling waters could trigger a regional conflict.”
“The Nile’s final stretch is so poisonous that even out on the open sea, around the river mouth, few species can survive, fishermen say.”
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 3:35 am
https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=C111US91118D20160510&p=Pictures+of+American+trash+dumps
Davy, you forgot the syringes, human feces, dead animals, rats alive, and dead rats, pee bottles, five-gallon buckets used as toilets, that are found on the American streets. Not to mention the Hep.D, the killer cops, a dictator president, and the FBI, NSA, and CIA looking over your shoulder 24/7/365. Not to mention over 600,000 laws and a lawyer for every 300 Americans. LMAO.
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 3:37 am
BTW: I have only seen two dead rats in my nine plus years here and no live ones. Nor the other items mentioned. They seem to be American problems. I have seen a few times that people didn’t curb their dogs so you have to watch where you step. lol
Cloggie on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 3:50 am
Makati, you are living in the business quarter of Manila. I’m sure everything is hunky-dory there.
http://tinyurl.com/yb8u5wz7
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 4:25 am
Cloggie, i live there, but I travel all over the city. I have seen most of Manila over my stay here. It is a large place with many levels of income like any other city. I saw the same in Philly when I lived there. People trying to survive.
You seem to base your views on a wasteful Western economy of greed, not one based on family, friends and community, like here. I’ll take here over America (or Europe) any time. You could not pay me to go back and live in Police State America.
Davy on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 4:35 am
Mad kat, quit your phony Manila is a shiny city and US cities are rat infested. It is a lot more in depth than that intellectually lite BS.
I will take my farm over you Manila any day. How does that enlighten people mad kat? It is just a useless opinion.
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 4:37 am
BTW: Did you bother yo look at what and where those pics were taken?
Florida, India, (“Flippin Manila” is not Manila, it is in the US. There are no houses like that here). The kids playing in the water are Filipino, but the rest of the pics are NOT the Ps.
Do your homework before you try to prove something.
Davy on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 4:40 am
Mad kat, your yahoo search is bogus. It shows a mix of locations. People are not allowed to scavenge landfills in the US. Several of the photos are of the 3rd world. Properly administered landfills are the same all over the world and they use heavy equipment like the photos. Could be any developed nation and many developing nations.
Davy on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 4:49 am
“BTW: Did you bother yo look at what and where those pics were taken?”
Mad kat, you do realize a broad google search is going to catch a variety of subject matter. If you go back and study the reference you will see the majority are of Manila in the beginning. Go to the images section. That should suffice to prove my point that your intellectually lite comments just go nowhere. You are a complete dumbass that pollutes this board with polarization for no reason other than your personal agenda. I do not deny American cities are dirty. I would be like you are to deny a fact like that. I don’t live in your fake binary world of extremist agenda. I have been to dirty cities In Europe and South America. Are you just now figuring that out after 75 years on this planet?
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 4:50 am
It is not”my city” it is a Philippine city older than the US and city in the US by centuries. If the Ps are so bad, why have hundreds of thousands of Americans moved here? Why do young people from all over the world come hereto study at the colleges? Why is it booming and not dying like America? Answer: Because it is better place to live and offers opportunity and a safe, free lifestyle.
http://www.ateneo.edu/news/features/number-foreign-students-philippines-increases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_in_the_Philippines
I hope you never leave your farm. You would be a danger to any sane person.
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 4:53 am
Then he better check what he posts, Davy. He obviously just saw some pics and ASSUMED that they were of the Ps. Made him look like a fool.
I could show him pics of any city in America that has the same conditions and income levels.
Your ignorance and immaturity is showing in that you have to try another weak putdown. LMAO
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 4:59 am
Bullshit Davy! Have you personally been to a landfill and observed the conditions? All you have to go on is here-say and propaganda about what the US ‘allows’. There are dumps all over the US that are open to the public anytime they want to go there.
I have savaged stuff from them myself. I got some nice “used” apartment furniture that way when I live in Philly. Americans throw away perfectly good stuff all the time. Not here. it is all recycled until it is totally useless.
Cloggie on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 5:02 am
You seem to base your views on a wasteful Western economy of greed, not one based on family, friends and community, like here. I’ll take here over America (or Europe) any time. You could not pay me to go back and live in Police State America.
I’m glad you are happy there. I used to make fun of the choice your location from a survival point of view a few years ago, when I still thought that this peak oil baloney was an immanent problem.
Today I have changed my mind. If you are alone with a medium Western retirement income, a country like the Ps is indeed not too bad, where the $ still rules and you can live like a king, sort of. And the climate is fine.
My expectation for the first calamity/blessing the world will have to deal with will be that the West will approach its own 1989 and subsequent downfall of the US empire and major upheaval in the US itself and the likelihood of the emergence of violent conflict between Washington and secessionists. You don’t want to be in the US when that happens, so the Ps are oké as long as you have created a sufficient social safety net (“The Farm”).
I’ll stay in Holland if you don’t mind.lol
Davy on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 5:16 am
“If the Ps are so bad, why have hundreds of thousands of Americans moved here?”
Where did I say Manila is so bad? I showed by a reference that it is not Shiny “only” like you say. You imply all US cities are slum holes and this is not true. Then you have the bold face to say there are no rats in Manila. LOL. Dumbass, I have field rats on the farm here.
“Why is it booming and not dying like America?”
Mad kat, American cities are alive, growing, and dying. Go climb back in your hole.
“Because it is better place to live and offers opportunity and a safe, free lifestyle.”
Opinion of an old man with dementia
“Then he better check what he posts, Davy. He obviously just saw some pics and ASSUMED that they were of the Ps. Made him look like a fool.”
Mad kat, go back to the reference mentally challenged old man and go to the image section of the search and go through each pic and you will see most of them are Manila bay. Eventually, as with all google searches, they drift into irrelevance.
“Bullshit Davy! Have you personally been to a landfill and observed the conditions?”
Yes, I have mad kat. I help the financing with an equipment company for a local landfill more than once in the 90’s. That was back when landfills were just starting to be tightly regulated and large corporations taking them over and creating regional landfills. One thing about landfill, like sewers, they all smell the same. Mad kat, a better question have you ever been to a landfill? WTF, do you even know about landfills?
“There are dumps all over the US that are open to the public anytime they want to go there.”
Yea, mad kat, to dump trash. The general public is allowed to dump trash at certain landfills. Landfills are tightly regulated now and safety regulations and insurance requirements do not allow people to go into them and scavenge. OF course, you can find extreme examples like the world you live in.
Davy on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 5:22 am
“subsequent downfall of the US”
Ya, but Europe is showing the first signs of break up. We see what is going on lately in the news and that is just a taste of what is ahead. The US has always been a mess and will continue to be a mess but your major calamity wish may or may not happen for a while. I love saying this because you hate hearing it, we may be the last man standing or the first to go down. You have no idea nor does anyone else here. I will tell you this if we go down you go down. I can assure you of that. Your grand dumbass Euro fantasy army that will come and pick through the pieces is just mental masturbation.
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 5:41 am
Cloggie, I am glad that you have “come around” to the fact that the Ps is a good place to be when the SHTF. Your country may also be a good place. I have never been there. We shall see. I hope so for your sake. It has to be better than the US.
The future of the US that you outlined is close to my take on the situation. That is why I became an expat here. I moved my resources here over the last 10 years slowly so the greedy government didn’t get any. I didn’t break any laws or trip any reports required by the US government. It is going to be harder and harder for Americans to leave when the SHTF and the government closes the gates totally. “You can leave but you cannot not take anything with you” kind of gate.
Davy has already thrown in his “exceptionalist/indispensable” propaganda bullshit, I see. Meaningless babble. He has no idea how the rest of the world operates, just US propaganda. Or that the rest of us will be just fine after the US goes down. Imagine a world after the US goes down where it is not able to meddle in places it does not belong. I look forward to the day.
Davy on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 6:05 am
“Cloggie, I am glad that you have “come around” to the fact that the Ps is a good place to be when the SHTF.”
Mad kat, it depends on what happens. Your population densities ensure you will have food and material supply issues. If NUK war hits yea, I am screwed, but the world is full of bad events. Do I need remind you of how overpopulated your Island of Luzon is?
http://tinyurl.com/yc8ehp9q
I have both you and the clog beat on population density. Both your countries are wall to wall people. Mad Kat, you have typhoons, earthquakes, and Volcanos and you want to tell me you are in a refuge. LOL.
Mad kat, we are doing OK in the US. There is decline and decay but nothing as dire as you preach. Nothing like your daily emotional pleadings of how horrible the US is. Quit polarizing this board with your personal emotional agenda and I will quit making you look like a fool.
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 6:48 am
Davy, the “decline and decay” is only beginning there. Americans have a long way to fall. All I post is true and it is obvious in the headlines everyday. For one, you will never be able to ‘retire’. You may not even have a farm by then. SS will no longer exist. The ‘retirement plans’ will have died long before. There will be an ongoing depression and chaos that will make the 30s look like a picnic. Americans have not idea how far they will fall. None. Drugs, obesity, immorality, greed, sloth, and on and on.
I am not the emotional one, you are. I state facts and can prove any of them with refs. America is being ‘put down’ by the rest of the world as the mad dog it is. Only the time line is still optional, but not much longer. The only choice the US has is decline or nuclear war. It is in a corner of its own making that has no way out. Americans have allowed it to happen because they want more, more, more at any cost, preferably the cost paid by others as has been their method for decades. They deserve what is coming.
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 7:01 am
Today’s American headlines:
“Your Pension Is A Lie: There’s $210 Trillion Of Liabilities Our Government Can’t Fulfill”
“Power Corrupts: A Culture Of Compliance Breeds Despots And Predators”
“San Diego’s Deadly Hepatitis A Outbreak Turns “Statewide Epidemic” As “Outbreak Could Last Years”
“One Angry American Rages: “Obama Lied, My 4th Health Plan Just Died”
“Millennials Have Never Been More In Debt, And It Is Creating A Major Risk For The Economy”
“Empire-Destroying Wars Are Coming To America Under Trump – Part 2”
“”This Is The Craziest Mortgage Scheme I’ve Ever Seen””
“Illinois Debt Crisis Deepens As Comptroller Admits No Idea What True Balance Of Outstanding Bills Is”
“Kentucky Pension Crisis Goes Nuclear As Teacher Retirements Surge 64% Over Last Year”
“The Consent of the Conned”
“Our Protected, Predatory Oligarchy: Dirty Secrets, Dirty Lies”
“America’s Urban War Zone: Baltimore Doubled Chicago’s Homicide Rate In 2017”
“Americans are more terrified of student debt than North Korea’s Kim Jong Un”
“Chief: ‘The Army needs to get bigger'”
and on and on…
Cloggie on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 7:12 am
Ya, but Europe is showing the first signs of break up.
Yeah? Like which signs? Brexit? Good riddance to them. The British establishment got wrong-footed by their own population. Wrong-footed, because the British elite failed in destroying the EU from within over the past 42 years, which was the only purpose why Britain joined in the first place (“if you can’t best them, join them” –> 1975). French president general de Gaulle understood that completely and resisted their entry to the common market, but he died too early (1970).
Senior conservative Heseltine knows that Brexit is a strategic disaster for Britain.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/24/germany-will-win-the-peace-in-europe-because-of-brexit-says-lord-heseltine
[part 1]
Cloggie on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 7:12 am
Not because he loves Europe so much (he doesn’t) but because Britain will become totally isolated in the world and it will give Europe to the Germans and French. Now the talk is to become member of Nafta.ROFL
Here is were British export go to:
http://exportsapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/UK-Trade-exports-graphic-001.jpg
By far the most goes to continental Europe, the very place they broke relationship with. How smart is that? Export to the US is not very big (=Ireland + France), Mexico isn’t even listed, Sweden larger than Canada.
Now the way is open for major desired conflict with Britain (hard Brexit), which could lead to the estrangement between continental Europe and Anglosphere. Exit West and continental Europe opening up to Russia and prepare for WW3, with the endgame on North-American soil, where a considerable part of the remaining white population will prefer being a member of the white world, rather than drowning demographically into third world USA.
Europe is busy creating the necessities for an intervention on North-American soil, when that continent will descend into chaos (but by that time you will be high and dry in the Italian Alps busy learning Italian.lol):
[part 2]
Cloggie on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 7:12 am
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/emmanuel-emmanuel-macron-eu-army-joint-defence-budget-french-president-nato-britain-brexit-russia-a7968346.html
Support for the EU is solid. Even notorious Europe haters like the British only narrowly rejected EU membership with 48-52. The younger ones were pro-EU, only the elder nostalgic British Empire dreamers voted against.
And we have the correct energy policy in place, that is going to make all the difference. America is a has-been hegemon wannebee, artificially kept afloat by the dollar. Once that is torpedoed, it is good-bye empire and USA itself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM9_PrBoq9Q
LOL
Is the downfall a done deal for America? US empire yes. But there is still a nightmare scenario that Washington will manage to crush a white-constitutionalist secessionist movement and swap Europe for China. They accomplished something similar when they teamed up with the USSR in the thirties. White American sense of identity is extremely weak and Europe should never rely on “white solidarity”. The art of geopolitics for Europe is to wait and NOT make the first move and instead wait for a clash in the South-China Sea or a serious uprising in the US after Trump will have left the White House and a president Mark Suckerborg will have white America XXL bills coming in (universal health care and a European welfare state, c.q. universal basic income).
Until that moment, European should be patient and play the loyal western ally.
[part 3]
Davy on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 7:16 am
mad kat, it is a good thing you have an American critical site like Zerohedge to draw all your critical articles from. The US is “THE” most scrutinized country in the world and you anti-Americans love the wealth of data you get. Mad kat, I remember when you tried to tell me Zerohedge was part of the ministry of propaganda. LOL.. Now it is your primary go to site. BTW all those references above don’t have any links. Until they have links they are bogus. You are a real wing dinger mad kat and a disgrace to the truth. So mad kat, are you saying there is no positive news in the US? Why not be balanced and show some positives. Is there no negative news about Asia? Why do you never give any negative news about Asia? Until you balance your BS you are a fraud and I will treat you like one. Go back in your hole, you grotesque creature.
Davy on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 7:20 am
cloggie, your goofy 3 part series is nothing but opinion from twisted facts from an extremist anti-American. It is not even worth my time. Both Europe, US, and Asia are in economic and cultural decline. You are a fool like mad kat if you don’t see that. Two old men with early onset dementia is what I am seeing.
Hello on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 7:25 am
>>>>> Support for the EU is solid
So you’re saying nothing can safe beautiful europe from itself? 🙁
Macron is pro EU, especially for one where he is electd dictator. After all “La Grand Nation” needs “La Grand Armee”. He woundn’t be french if it was otherwise.
And yes, the young are pro EU, the same they are pro kumbaya around the camp fire. It takes a few years to realize that not all is campfire romantic.
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 7:31 am
The 12 year old replies: ” Go back in your hole, you grotesque creature.” LMAO
Truth is truth. Shooting the messenger does not change it. They are only two of dozens of sites I visit everyday. I just used those as they are good sources of articles from all over the world.
Denial does not change anything. I could post thousands of examples of the collapsing America if I wanted to bother. USMSM sites are mostly US propaganda or social fluff for the masses. Not worth my time.
makati1 on Thu, 12th Oct 2017 7:32 am
Davy, the 12 year old replies: “Go back in your hole, you grotesque creature.” LMAO
Truth is truth. Shooting the messenger does not change it. They are only two of dozens of sites I visit everyday. I just used those as they are good sources of articles from all over the world.
Denial does not change anything. I could post thousands of examples of the collapsing America if I wanted to bother. USMSM sites are mostly US propaganda or social fluff for the masses. Not worth my time.