Chris.B wrote:
On Sunday, 10 April 2016 20:48:28 UTC+2, lal_truckee wrote:

You hope to engage The Snell in a battle of bonne mot? a clash of wit?
an exchange of humour?

Bon Chance.

It was only a tentative suggestion. You can take an ass to water... ;-)

Holding up a non-distorting mirror ought to be the greatest kindness one
can possibly bestow on a person.. And the one free favour no despot will
ever accept. Has there ever been a single despot throughout history which
did not surround itself with Yes Men? The Yes Men are the despot's worst
enemy. For they have no respect for their leader and will often guide
their leader astray. Simply through fear of making a catastrophic error
which reflects badly on themselves. Embrace the bold, outspoken critic
but run in terror from the armies of timid sycophants who shower you in flattery!

Many extremists surround themselves with like minds for exactly the same
reasons: Amplification of their psychological distortions through
positive feedback. Extreme group isolation and the exile, or punishment,
of doubters or non-believers is the usual paranoid scenario. Each new
voice piles on the lunacy as they each bathes in the false, self-flattery
of agreement with the primal message. This holds whether it be racing
downhill in shopping trolleys or blowing up innocents.

Young men are particularly prone to it as they each compete to be more
extreme than the last. All it takes now is one charismatic leader to lead
them by the nose into battle with the entire world! The threat of
exclusion is always the master key to absolute obedience. Fear of showing
disloyalty the unbreachable wall against leaving or ever arguing the toss.

Not that Snelfish comes across as young. More a bitter old man with very
fixed and narrow ideas and obsolete, habitual thinking. A day when you
can no longer change your mind about anything [at all] is the day you
might as well pull your own coffin lid closed. The lights have already
gone out. Why prolong the misery?

It doesn't have to be like this! Embrace the sunshine, breathe in the
fresh air and determine to change your mind about something completely
trivial. Your first step on the long road to recovery. Deliberately seek
out dissenters and free thinkers. That way you avoid the mind trap of
swallowing the Party propaganda hook, line and sinker. Above all, avoid
the cloying, perpetually closed circle of absolute group loyalty. History
is made by small people with fresh, new, constructive ideas. Nobody ever
remembers the countless extras on the stage of life.


I welcome your abandonment of pessimism.