Hi Lucky:) I think part of Branden's concern with AS was that the heroes didn't often show feelings.The ability to turn off, if there is no conscious release going on, is taken to mean saying No to the feelings--or repression, at some point. I wish that Rand had read and tried out Patricia Carrington's book. It might have saved her much much agony, both with respect to her view of the culture and of everyone she excommunicated at some point. Lucky, I'm wondering: I'm getting a tele-class together of what I'm learning. So far I have 2 folks interested in participating. If you're interested as well, please email me at mikerael50@yahoo.com Best wishes, Mike

:)
Mike

Confession time- I make this up as I write.
The emotional out-poring of the moment.
'To everything there is a season'.

Hi Lucky, I have literally *no* time to reply this moment. But I wanted to take just a minute to say I appreciate the relatively detailed way you're looking at AS. More detailed than I have as yet, to tell the truth. I'll look this over later on today. But for now, well done:) Mike

Thanks for the good points, yes AS heroes are too busy to express emotions. A criticism is that they have put aside their humanity by self-repression. I'm thinking about Reardon. In the book and the film, when he was confronted by the SSI negotiator to give up his patents his face dropped, he picked up the pen and signed. He got on with life. Consider Sheryl Brooks, when she found the truth about James Taggert all she could do was kill herself. Yes you could say that was the result of repressed emotion. Should she have confronted JT with a screaming match? She may have lived and recovered, surely there would have been better responses?
That chapter with the torture in AS is tricky. Galt is able to turn off. It is JT who disintegrates.
It may be said that tears are the proper first response for women, for men punch bags. My point is, then what? There is no substitute for rationality.
Elsewhere H asks, what do I do when I hit my thumb with a hammer? The punch bag, kick the dog, screaming, tears, may help to get circulation going, or not, but if the event is not taken as a learning experience it will be repeated. The second time it happens, skip those preliminaries, put the thumb in ice or patch up the cut. Then think hard about the tools, the attitude, the concentration, the practice needed to do the job right.
Back to Rand's heroes. If Rand is promoting 'Do as I say not as I do', well ok by me (and the dog).

Good one, Hiraghm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf-d-Ka30...

Ok! Plato and Rand-no. also I'm a girl

Well, Khaling, I was being a bit metaphorical, amigo. It wasn't that there was an actual escape from an illusory pseudo-reality. I'm talking about people who see this reality as being a bed of pain. So they feel soothed at the thought that this isn't the "true" reality. They don't believe in a Christian Heaven. It's more like Plato's universe where the true things exist from which all the imperfect stuff we see here originated. But Khaling, I really really haven't read that much about the Eastern philosophies or religions. So if what I say interests, please take that as an invitation to do a little checking on your own, OK?
best always,
Mike

Mike, I am an Objectivist. "escape from illusion" is tantamount to a double negative which means it does not exist.

Hiraghm,
When do you experience bullying nowadays? As an adult, I experienced it once at USC due to a professor who was quite competent at teaching but who did not learn at that time what it meant to be a good person. Other than that, I don't recall experiencing bullying in my everyday life. How about you?

Khaling, what is going on, buddy? I talk about the fact that the motivation to do, say, yoga here in America is to lower blood pressure and to feel more alive. I say that folks who practice it in, say, India are looking for something very different. It is not Americans, generally, who do yoga or tai ching to escape from illusion. My sense is that you feel hostile to me. Is that true?
Best, Mike

so, you are suggesting we live in an "illusory world"? and you're bringing Objectivism home here how?

Hi Mike,
I agree wholeheartedly with you about yoga or tai chi. I have checked out Spring Forest Qi Gong (pronounced "chee gong"). put out by Learning Strategies. It is one of the very few of the oriental exercises that has had clear beneficial physical consequences. The explicitly stated philosophy I don't like for a variety of reasons, and for that reason I don't use the DVD I have of it. However, as you say, it is only one more tool available to me. If I had a serious illness, I'd put in the DVD and devote myself to it while ignoring the obvious fallacies of the philosophy.
When you talk about your experience in politics, you make me think of Harry Browne's contention ("How I Became Free In An Unfree World") that many folks in politics are seeking for external solutions to their problems instead of looking at how they might be responsible for sustaining those problems themselves!

Hi Khalling (what is your first name, by the way?) I am only talking by the seat of my pants about this, since I haven't really tried the eastern disciplines in depth. What I have observed is that the ruling reason Eastern meditation is engaged in is to escape the evils and pains of this "illusory" world. This, of course, would tend to stabilize any slavery that exists. In America, the main motivation is to get in touch more with one's body and one's feelings. Same external actions, but totally different motivations.

Rand got more than angry, Mike. Look at the way folks closest to her were excommunicated, one after the other!
I find that, in the process of trying out different ways to release my feelings, I get totally different ideas about what provoked the feelings in the first place. This is definitely not the forum to share such. I'll gladly share when a number of us get together in the tele-class I'll be creating soon.
Actually, according to Branden, the lack of expression of emotionality by the heroes of AS was a weakness. I tend to go along with it because I actually observed in his therapy groups that some Objectivists believed that they had to tamp emotions down, as by repressing them, because that is how the AS heroes seemed to act.

Hi Lucky:) First off, I don't say that the methods of Carrington and the methods I am currently developing will work all the time for all people. My intuition, though, whispers to me that about 80% of the time or better, when learning the various tactics of releasing both Carrington and of myself, the problem will be better than before. Often, in my experience at least, *much* better!
Anyways, do begin answering your question, Lucky, first you have to learn what releasing is and that it is natural to man. Next, if the emotion is very strong, I might begin by wanting to release only 1% of the emotion. The first way to do that sounds paradoxical, I know, but it is not contradictory. You ask yourself: Could I let go of 1% of my desire to rid myself of this anger? If you still have trouble releasing, you might change the question in this way:
Though it is perfectly reasonable to not want to feel this strong anger, could I let go of 1% of my desire to get rid of my anger? The ultimate reasoning behind this lies in the nature of emotional psychology. In the realm of emotionality, what you resist persists. If you can lower the urge to push away anger, even very slightly, that opens the door to a deeper acceptance of anger. In turn that permits the anger to run through your body and eventually flow out of it. That's what I teach in releasing. That's what I have used in my own life to dramatically change the quality of anger I have had--and for the better! About equating the release of strong emotions with tantrums: first, please be clear that this is not the kind of releasing I practice or teach (though I have found a symbolic expression of raw anger to be of help sometimes when put into a mental vision with the purpose of lowering my appetite!) I do not teach the deepest expression of anger because I have not been trained to know when is the best time to do so. The expression of anger by a couple in the presence of a trained psychologist is the opposite of giving vent to a tantrum. You are in the presence of someone who knows what to do to change things should that particular exercise not prove helpful to the participants. In any case, as mentioned, I do not engage in that work because I have not been trained to do it properly. There is no such thing as a bad emotion. Emotions, as Rand and Branden have said, are associated, in part, with the thinking one does or one does not do. One's past thinking might contain germs of knowledge not otherwise obtainable *without* experiencing that emotion. Reason, though, is the only means we have of *knowing* that the ideas that come to light when we experience an emotion properly (as when they are appropriately released) are, in fact, "knowledge."

John Galt never got angry, but Ayn Rand certainly did: recorded as fact. I think that you and I are in agreement, but only using different words to express a somewhat different approach to the same problem. It can be pretty easy to learn to dispel an emotion, but you still need to explore the reason for the emotion. Again, see mikereal's Introduction under "Education." This could be a helpful tool.

I don't think expressing anger is necessarily a "bad emotion." Often it is the catalyst to act or facilitate change-either personally or publicly.
If following eastern disciplines of mind over matter are so healthy-why do multiple millions continue to live as slaves under communist rule?
anger can be very good

Well Mike, there is something wrong with,
' denying anger, repressing it, does not make it go away.'
I prefer your statements,
1. 'On a more mundane level, we are told that it is good to express anger, to get it out, to vent it. In fact, the opposite is true.'
2. ' your emotions are a consequence of your thinking'.
and
3, ' not letting fear take control'.

What is wrong is the use of words 'deny' and 'repress' here. The victim, the person experiencing this destructive and unpleasant anger or whatever emotion it is, should neither confirm nor deny. They should just, let it go. The analogy is to look at yourself from outside and visualize the steam being released. You do not need it. It no good, you put it there, let it go. It is nothing. When a person has this anger, such thinking may not be possible unless they have the training, the attitude if you like, an outlook by which the mind can take control. Part of this is to understand the issue, then think about how to deal with it, and if cool, do it.
Did John Galt get angry?

If you are interested in a deeper discussion, then see MikeReal's "Introduction" under Education. A lot is going on here. We all seem to mean different things by "releasing" and "expressing." You can say by identification, "I feel angry" without actually throwing a tantrum. On the other hand, denying anger, repressing it, does not make it go away. You just get headaches or ulcers or depression or some other expression. My experience in politics is that a strong external focus on national and world problems really is an expression of something deeper. One of my hobbies is numismatics; and for about six months last year, my wife and I played weekly "Dungeons and Dragons." We both work in IT. In all of these I meet a lot of people who focus on things other than their internal selves. Over the years, in addition to the works of Nathaniel Branden, I have taken classes in yoga and taichi. I see these all as tools - just as a carpenter needs more than a hammer.