Why I Choose Peace

[earlofspark]

What a mixed bag of responses! earlofspark tries to crack a joke but fails (believe me, I built my reputation here on being funny and that wasn't funny). That's one of those lines they feed you over and over again but they don't tell you that the 'war on drugs' is really a war of drugs and you are the target.

Keep your knickers on there Betty.

A couple of points...
1) If I think something is funny then in it goes, if others don't find it funny then fine, humour is subjective.
2) I am English and we have a fairly unique SOH and sometimes it is lost in translation, that is fine to.
3) You talk about your having been funny in the past tense, from what I have read that is abundantly evident.
4) I could have ripped your post to shreds, I didn't...I'm not like that.
5) I stand by my comment that posting this thread in a forum of what is essentially a war game is a little off kilter.

Peace.

[Rodri]

First up, earlofsparks. If you think you can rip my posts apart, go ahead and do it but realise this - I started playing Evony when server 5 opened. That's when Civony came out of beta and the name changed to Evony and the game first went public. I joined the forums not long after that and I have been through it all, stuff that you couldn't even begin to comprehend. I was doing battle mechanics with the pioneers of battle mechanics, I was discussing the deep and meaningfuls with guys who can best be described as brilliant, or legendary. What you see of these forums now is a shadow of it's former life. Even I am just a ghost here now in many ways.

Grito97, you say this is the wrong place because it's the forums for a war game. This is Off-Topic and in this section we discuss everything and anything except the game. But seeing as you brought it up, this little war game called Evony, let's look at that. Like I said, I started on server 5, I beta tested age II and played on na43. I have been a host, a vice-host and been in top level alliances with some of the best players in the game and earned their respect with my game knowledge and skills. But the game is broken in many ways. it's full of bots and alts and cheats and the base code has been messed around with so much. The old servers lag badly, but players still insist on logging in, trying to do stuff and getting frustrated and angry but they just can't quit. It's worse than a drug for a lot of people but it's messed up. Obviously they get something from this messed up game that they just don't get in real life and that's something to think about.

Some of you guys want to project your thinking onto my words. Jurnis even claims I am trying to start a fight by talking about peace. That would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Sorry Jurnis, it's not going to happen and I'm sorry I checked you so hard in the bar but you were trolling and you pushed the wrong button once too often and you got me at the wrong time on the wrong night, so to speak.

Reasoner, I've been around long enough to know what can be posted and what cannot be posted in this place. I have the infractions and suspensions to prove it. I'm walking a tightrope as it is, trust me on this.

Back to the subject. Everyone seems to think peace is a good idea, but...
... and everyone has their own but's and yes it's true, there are many things that get in the way of real peace, even internal peace. That is the nature of this world. But what if I was to tell you that this world is an illusion and even the universe, as we percieve it, is just an illusion?
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages." William Shakespeare
"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." Tathagata Buddha

So anything that gets in the way, anything that causes problems is illusory as well and these illusions can be overcome, in time, with right thinking. That's why the journey is an inner journey for the most part. That's why it is difficult for others to understand. We see and touch and hear and taste and smell this world through our senses and we process that information in our minds and it all seems very real, very solid and sometimes, very painful.

But what is mind anyway? Is it the brain in our head? Is it that small? In many ways, the mind is a trap. We get stuck in our own heads sometimes, we forget that we are more than what we appear to be. We forget why we are here and we forget where we came from. We forget so much but memory is never really lost. The business of the world occupies our immediate thoughts for much of the time and when we seek relief from that, many prefer to enter realms of fantasy and play a role there, such as an online game like Evony, or we just wish to lose ourselves for a while in the television or video and switch off. (That switching off in front of the box is a bad thing to do because when you do that you enter a type of hypnotic state and you become very susceptible to the messages that flicker across the screen.)

We are slaves in many ways because we give up our freedom for security and we let others make decisions for us so we don't have to be responsible. That is the truth about freedom. When you are free you are then responsible for your every action and inaction and that is a huge responsibility. So we give our power to others but power is like a drug and power can corrupt and power can become a goal in itself for some people who care very little who they hurt to get what they crave. Did you know that at least 6% of the world population is psychopaths? You will have to do your own research about what a psychopath is and what that means to the rest of us but understand this - if you have 100 friends, statistically 6 of them are psychopathic by nature. Then there is a large percentage of the population who are followers or true believers. They accept the messages they are given by 'higher authorities' on faith, based on their beliefs and they will do things based on that 'faith' that they would not normally do if they were left to their own devices.

So, peace. It has to come from inside and it has to be worked for. I can't tell you much about it because I don't really have the words. I can't force it upon anyone else either, so I can't even really describe how a peaceful world would operate. That's not where my head is at. I can tell you that you must break the chains that bind you first and then seek the peace that is on offer after that. A peaceful slave is a docile slave but still a slave. So get free first, then seek peace. When we get enough people thinking about peace and wanting peace, then the answers will come. Until then, stay real.

[tipperary1]

Like I said, I started on server 5, I beta tested age II and played on na43.

sorry to derail, but you were on 43 too?

[Grito97]

Where did I say this was the wrong place?

[Rodri]

sorry to derail, but you were on 43 too?

Yes I was.

Where did I say this was the wrong place?

Apologies, that should have been directed at earlofsparks.

[Grito97]

No problems dude I was actually wondering if I was going blind looking through my posts

[tipperary1]

Yes I was.





Apologies, that should have been directed at earlofsparks.

arbalest is na32 not 43 lol

[acer5200]

Peace sells... but who's buying?

That's right!

Nobody with enough money/power to cause it!

Let's face it. The system's broken and there's no way to fix it. Sure, a popular revolution could happen. Sure, that could fix it for 10 minutes. But then it would just fall back to greed and the decadence of the human population will continue.

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.

[Rodri]

Tipper, it was a long time ago. I quit I didn't keep track. Tbh I was thinking of joining 43 when it opened but I gave myself an uppercut and came to my senses.

Acer, are you showing your true colours now? I don't have anything to sell, it's not a marketing scheme. That Matrix quote is wrong. There were plenty of people, still are in some isolated places, who have found a balance between population and resources and they live/lived in harmony with their environment. If there is a disease, a virus amongst humanity, it's the civilization and empire builders, the resource exploiters, the power-trippers and the greedy mo-fo's who want to own more than they could ever need. But their time is coming, that's obvious to anyone who is paying attention. I don't have to do anything about them, they will destroy themselves.

[tipperary1]

Tipper, it was a long time ago. I quit I didn't keep track. Tbh I was thinking of joining 43 when it opened but I gave myself an uppercut and came to my senses.

wise of you, i however broke my retirement and returned starting 43 on request of some friends