On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, Clint O'Dell wrote:
>
> I'm thinking about replacing pity with indefference....hmmmm.
> That would be harder to do ofcourse. What do you think?
>
In general, the more detached you are from something, the more
you can look at it from many angles which give you greater
power, or perhaps a better word would be seniority, over it.
Pity would generally be an emotional reaction created perhaps
as a defense mechanism for validating ones position. "That
poor fool, he just doesn't see that I'm right." Presumably
these emotional responses were used to justify risk-taking
behaviors that were disapproved of by the rest of the tribe
but which did offer some chance of success.
Indifference is difficult to achieve I would agree. The two best techniques that I know about are "self-observational" meditation and the "Stop" technique developed (or at least used) by the Russian(?) mystic Gurdieff. I'm not sure the stop technique (where a teacher requests that the student "stop" and notice the thoughts passing through the mind) can work on oneself. It would seem to require an isolated part of the mind that can produce random interrupts.
Robert