Yes!  Absolutely.  Without long French meals over plentiful carafes of wine perhaps Jean Jacques Rousseau would never have stumbled upon his fine ideas regarding humanity....

Count me in!

Let me know when the first session is!

Well, Solid_Light, that's where you would be wrong!
 I'm really glad you found us, and I hope that you have had time to browse our website.  It is true that it would seem that not many others use the same keywords as yourself!  
 Among our trustees are several people who actually knew Schweitzer and I shall bring your post to their attention.  I do want to point out our other open discussion forums, in which we are trying to spark debate about real-world current matters.  We are all adherents of Schweitzerian thought, and I hope that we can help you to find the type of discussion you are looking for.

Hi solid light
Yes, encouragement not pessimism and lots of good action. Schweitzer practiced. Walked the talk.

ok, with this subject line, about philosophical, this also fits now what I want to write first about myself and about philosophy, connected with it..

for me, my whole life has completely changed the last few years!.. I have been having a completely different awareness, and consciousness, about which I am so happy about!.. so much has changed for me, am so glad that I have this consciousness now.. it is like thinking consciously about life, about us humans, about animals, about nature -- I just mean about EVERYTHING!!

as best as I can I want to kind of sum up now somehow my thoughts, feelings somehow..
now since a few years I have thought much about philosophy, about life, just completely consciously.. and every day I wonder like about 'everything'... and sometimes my mind just goes 'crazy'.. because I have all these thoughts, and like 'questions' about everything... and with all this I have thought that I have come to like one conclusion about which I would think that this is sure -- that I can only be certain that I don't know anything for certain... I just wonder about this all, and I find it so 'strange' this all, confusing, and also at the same time amazing... amazing about life, and about us humans, about animals, about everything that exists.. and then I am thinking about thinking, and then I can think about this itself that it is amazing....

about this all, thinking about everything, observing, knowing everything consciously, thinking about life, about us humans, animals, our planet, the whole universe everything...-- I just find it totally 'strange', and totally confusing, yet also totally amazing, as I have said.. there is just then kind of a 'limitation' where I can't 'continue' thinking, because I am like 'stuck' -- like I mean it in this way, that I don't have any 'answers' to all these questions, and like also for example one thing that I can't imagine infinite, it is just like unimaginable for me.. and yet again amazing that still we can think about it though.. but really like imagining anything infinite, like the universe, or life.. this is like that I can't imagine somehow that this exists, something being infinite!.. but also I somehow can't imagine something having a 'border' or so, because then I would think but still then something must be beyond that in some way.. and somehow can't imagine 'nothing' existing also.. it really is so strange!...

And everything about us humans.. how I feel myself, experience myself.. and that I am like 'captured' in a body.. and what is before our lives? and what is after our lives?.. all this...

So with all this, my thoughts, feelings,.. I often feel somehow uneasy, and confused, and find it strange.. but well, I guess I am anyway somehow 'stuck' with this.. and can only continue thinking about it, but not knowing any 'answers'...

But now for me it feels liberating that at least I can talk with 'like minded' people, friends about it!.. and philosophize about this all!!..


And what I also want to mention now is that I especially feel totally, completely connect with animals!.. and also with younger humans, with children.. I just feel it intiutively that there is 'this something' - concerning a few things, feelings, thoughts, behavior,.. - which is naturally in us, since our birth, and then still as kids..
and about this I am angry -- that unfortunately through like our conditioning with language, behavior, culture it is terrible I find (like with this is connected unfortunately judging, blaming, doing things out of fear, shame or guilt,..).. then it somehow gets that we humans can become 'unnatural' in a way.. but I am soo glad and happy now that I at least have now a conscious awareness about this all!..
and what I also want to mention related with this is Nonviolent Communication.. I don't know if anyone of you knows about it? it is most common sense to me!! being conscious of this! I really feel that if everyone has this awareness about NVC it can chance our whole lives completely!!! so I am hopeful that also this awareness spreads around..

and now connected with all this I also feel completely connected now to "Law of attraction", does anyone of you also know about it? for me now what has been happening concerning several things the last several months especially, this has been like completely it for me.. I have been attracting certain things, everything that has been happening for me!.. and also with this has been that about a few things I think now that it has happened exactly as it is 'supposed to be'.. although I don't have any 'answers', but at least then in a sense now some things make sense to me.. so about this I am sooo happy and touched!!
like what I am right now especially most happy about is also that my path has led me to the actor, comedian and musician Hal Sparks, and to the actor Robert Gant -- they are really true souls!!  -- and also in a way this has led me on now to this forum even, it has also been connected in a way.. (wave @ Megan )..

ok, I guess that was all I wanted to write right now..
am soo looking forward to talking with you all about everything!!....

Whow! Faen, I've just read your piece and am soooo stimulated by it! Your amazement and sense of discovery of consciousness and the ability to think deeply about things in a real live way, - not a stoggy boring way, - is quite infectious.
I'm affraid I don't know NVC nor the two actors you mention ( but shall look out for them now) but I do know a bit about the "law of attraction" and how we attract things, events and people by our own thoughts and feelings and our will, and how that attraction can be directed one way or the other way and how that is one of the few really free choices we have. - Like when we call a glass that has some water in it either "half full" or "half empty". That choice is ours. - Free Will can operate there.

And yes!!!!!!!! isn't it amazing that we can think about infinityand eternity, - that we have words for them, and yet we can't imagine either of them, because as soon as we think of time stopping, we have to think of what caomes after that; - and as soon a s we think of an end to the universe, we have to think of what is beyond that.
And yet, we can't think of something going on for ever either, can we?

I have found that if you take your mind to that space and let it rest there for a while you get the feeling, that you are on some sort of threshold, some sort of line in the sand, - if you could step over it, you would be in the land of "answers".

I haven't quite managed it yet, but I keep trying and I think I'm close. I'd love to know how you get on with this....?

And I say "welcome" to you Eliza! do keep feeding on feeding us with accounts of your discussions with vegetarians. It is my experience too, that many vegetarains get quite narked by Schweitzer's philosophy which does not accept a dividing line between animals and plants, but calls them both "LIFE", and sees no difference between our responsibility towards them. For him, our situation in life is a tough one: we have to eat and we have to eat other creatures! But reatraint is called for. We can be on the lookout for doing the least harm when we gather our food. Can't we?
It's a nice thought with which you end, Eliza, but that is one of the things I find myself in two minds about the internet: that we don't know where anywone is!?
We'll just have to leave it as a "meeting of Minds......."
Percy

hi back to you Percy and Eliza..
thanks for your answer Percy, really just want to express right now again how totally happy I am that I can talk with you all about this all!!
(one site where you have kind of 'main information' about NVC is for example this site: http://www.cnvc.org.. I also had the pleasure of meeting Marshall Rosenberg, who developed NVC, now in July, was in a seminar with him, he was in Austria!..)
(and also is easy to find more information about Hal and Bobby when entering their names, they also have their own sites, www.halsparks.com,  www.robertgant.com (and also Hal has his own MySpace site (http://www.myspace.com/therealhalsparks), I think you need to have your own site though to be able to read blogs))

do you mean with writing about this kind of threshold, that you feel that there is something somehow, like a border, and if we would just know a bit more in some way, then we would have 'all answers'?
the thing is, as I have already expressed, I could not even imagine now that we 'could' have any answers, you know, that is the thing.. or IF it would be that we COULD have 'answers', and that then everything would be clear about our lives, I could not imagine now HOW this could be in any way or so, you know.. or that there even could be an explanation for all this.. I could not imagine this now.. because as far as I can think somehow with my thinking about life and about thinking and about everything, I can't imagine in my mind somehow a 'reason' how everything could be, you know..
and one of the directions with thinking where I am 'stuck' also is, really about this all, 'who' or 'what' could create us humans, animals, and everything else, and our planet earth, and the whole universe? it is just one of the things like most impossible somehow to imagine.. that is all, as I have already expressed, which drives me crazy!!.. that really I have no 'answers' concerning all this..
but well, as I have also already written, I anyway right now have 'only' this choice, to accept it, and live how I am right now.. I also have had the feeling that somehow I would like to experience something else, like how it would be, being out of my body, and being 'someone' or 'something else' however this could be possible, or even if..

now I want to ask you, if you also have these similar thoughts and views, concerning all this, and that you also think about this all, and are then 'stuck' with thinking and imagining, do you have anything which then can kind of 'calm you down' or that you can at the moment just 'accept' it.. I mean I guess what has also helped me in some way at least is meditating.. I mean through this I also haven't found any more 'answers' or so, but at least I guess somehow a way to then 'calm' my mind somehow, when it is then going 'crazy' like this again, with all the thinking about thinking and life and so on..

now I am also curious connected with all this about Albert Schweitzer -- do you know if he maybe also had similar thoughts and all these questions as I do and have? and if so, do you know how he kind of 'coped with' it, or what he then thought about this all?

@ Eliza: am also so glad to read that you also can relate to my views, thoughts, and what I have expressed.. I have already heard of Indigo Children, but actually haven't gotten to know more about them yet..
and concerning religions what you write, for me it has been now since several years that I know for sure for me that I am not completely with any religion, that for sure.. for example there might be some parts with which I can relate, like with Buddhism I could imagine, but with no religion everything completely, that for sure NOT.. I have my own thoughts and views, as I have expressed them now, and that's it.. now concerning religion I am catholic, but now I don't feel connected with being this in any way.. so anyway, it is that religion has 'no meaning' to me specifically, if you know how I mean it.. but ok also more about this I still want to continue writing more another time..

ahh, and concerning vegeterian, I also want to write as soon as I get to it muuch more!! this is also one of the most important things for me, related with animals, and concerning this,.. I am vegetarian by the way.. ok, more I write about this also as soon as I get to it!!...


now a bit off topic, but need to mention to you -- I will do an Au Pair year in California, and I will leave next Monday, on 13th August! (and first I will be in NY on Long Island at an uni with other Au Pairs, Au Pair training school, until 17th, then on 17th will go to CA).. just that you know that it might be that now the next three weeks or so I maybe don't get to write here.. I can look internet with my family in CA, but don't know now yet of course when and how long then and so on.. then first is important mostly that I get settled in, and as soon as I can sit down longer being online and have the time to write more again, then of course I will come here immediately and do so!!.. and of course I hope much that I get muuch time and can still come here often of course and stay in touch with you all as long and often as possible!.. right now by the way this has become for me (beside Hal and Bobby fangroups, forums) my most important group/forum anyway!..

ohh and you can say Irene to me, by the way (I also don't mind Faen since I chose this nickname).. but you can say Irene, my real name

ok, bye for now you all..