KEEPING YOUR SANITY BY KNOWING HOW TO TELL THE TRUTH
Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is one of the foundations of trust; lying leads to greater distrust. When we lie, we’re not as sneaky as we may think. People figure it out eventually, and they trust us less. Our relationships suffer dearly for it.
This is common sense, but here's where this can get tricky: I have colleagues who believe that if we don't express every feeling or impulse, that we're being dishonest. By this philosophy, the whole concept of honesty and authenticity becomes nebulous. By this way of thinking, if we don't express literally everything that goes through our mind, we can't be honest.
This is of course ridiculous. To be honest is not to be brainless. To be honest does not mean that we let fly anything that comes to mind.
Honesty is one facet of integrity. To have integrity is to integrate our thoughts, feelings, experience, values, and knowledge. In other words, real honesty requires consciousness.
THE MATTERHORN OF THE HIMALAYAS
This is Ama Dablam – “Mother’s Necklace” in Sanskrit – famed by climbers and trekkers as the Matterhorn of the Himalayas. Standing 22,349 ft, the favored climbing route is the southwest ridge, which you’re looking at face on. It towers as sentinel above the Tengboche Monastery of Nyingma (Red Hat) Tibetan Buddhism, and the famous trek to Everest Base Camp (EBC).
We were at EBC this morning, and shortly later flew by Ama Dablam in our expedition AS350B3 helicopter at 20,000 ft. It is from this altitude you can see the summit of Everest. And yes, that’s Everest on the left of the photo. In the shadow is Everest’s southwest face, in the sun the east face, the southeast ridge between them is the climber’s route to the summit. Breathtaking only begins to hint of what it is like to experience such a sight. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #202 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
UKRAINE’S NEWEST CULTURAL HERITAGE SITE
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – THE SHRINE OF SHAH-I-ZENDA
The Shrine of Shah-i-Zenda left an indelible memory upon me when I was first here on my first exploration of Central Asia in 1963. It is one of the many medieval wonders of the ancient Silk Road Oasis of fabled Samarkand. Preserved through the centuries, it is still here in all its glory. Come with me this September to experience it and so much else, like the Pearls of Shing, the Mountains of Heaven, and camping with Kirghiz nomads, in the mysterious and magical heart of Central Asia.
(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #201 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/29/22
Is Russia’s Nuclear Arsenal a Paper Tiger?
Jack Wheeler is in Khatmandu, leading a helicopter expedition to the top of Mt. Everest.
Guest Author Mike Ryan addresses this critical question as Putin threatens to use his nukes against the United States and Europe for supporting Ukraine.
We cannot afford to get this question wrong, but fortunately, the United States has brilliant physicists looking at the question from many angles.
We all watched the propaganda explode when Russia invaded Ukraine, and so did the rest.
In about two months, the consequences have included a collapse of CNN revenues and a change of ownership at Twitter. Zuck is in trouble, and Soros can’t get anyone to take his calls.
How did this happen? Zelenskyy introduced a new leadership style with politicians everywhere throwing out their late 20th Century neoliberal style.
But we knew this would happen because we talked about it on the forum at length. TTPers had a heads up long before the rest of the world.
We are running out of Jevelin missiles and can’t make them fast enough. This is a problem.
Kremlinologist Condoleeza Rice had a one-hour conversation on Putin and the war, turning out to be a replay of the Battle of Kursk.
All this and more in this weeks Half Full Report.
THE SACRED MONKEY FOREST OF BALI
Near the town of Ubud on Indonesia’s paradise island of Bali there is a Hindu sanctuary of spectacularly luxuriant rain forest providing a haven for over 1,000 Balinese long-tailed monkeys. Here’s one communing with a group of moss-covered monkey statues that dot the sanctuary.
This is a sacred place for the Balinese people, as it contains three temples over 600 years old, and is devoted to the Hindu principle of Tri Hata Karana – “three ways to reach spiritual and physical well-being” -- harmony between people, harmony between people and nature, harmony between people and the Supreme God.
There is perhaps no place on earth in which to better experience the blissful harmony of Tri Hata Karana than Bali. It is a marvelous privilege to be here and experience it for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #106 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYES LINKS 042822
Google is using G-Mail to tamper with the midterms, by tagging Republican campaign emails as “spam” 8.5 times as much as Dem ones:
Musk buys Twitter:
Elon Wins: Twitter to Be Sold to Elon Musk
The tears and fears are all about loss of 'Crat control:
The Apocalyptic Reaction to Musk Is All About Thought Control
More:
Twitter Locks Down Changes to Platform to Prevent Employee Sabotage After Musk Buyout
ZELENSKY – HOW THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD LEADS HIS COUNTRY
This account of Zelensky at war is based on interviews with him and nearly a dozen of his aides. His mission, he told me, is to make the free world experience this war the way Ukraine does: as a matter of its own survival.
He seems to be pulling it off. The U.S. and Europe have rushed to his aid, providing more weapons to Ukraine than they have given any other country since World War II. Thousands of journalists have come to Kyiv, filling the inboxes of his staff with interview requests.
My request was not just for a chance to question the President. It was to see the war the way he and his team have experienced it. Over two weeks in April, they allowed me to do that in the presidential compound on Bankova Street, to observe their routines and hang around the offices where they now live and work. Here is what I saw and learned.
THE WORLD’S MOST UNUSUAL GRAVES
East of Borneo in Indonesia is a large starfish-shaped Island called Sulawesi, where in the south-central mountains the Toraja people have created one of the most exotic cultures on earth. They bury their dead in caves carved out of vertical cliffs, with balconies at the entrances lined with clothed wooden effigies called a Tau Tau as guardians for the departed.
The Toraja live in villages composed of family long houses with enormous peaked roofs of wood and thatch, decorated with exquisite painted art and scores of buffalo horns. While Indonesia is predominantly Moslem, the Toraja are a blend of Christian-animist. They are a gentle, peaceful people, marvelously welcoming and friendly. It is a priceless privilege to spend time with them, as I was able to during the summer of 2016. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #49 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
POLITICS IS DOWNSTREAM FROM CULTURE… BUT WHAT IS CULTURE DOWNSTREAM FROM?
In classical, pro-God America, the inspiration for a civilization of freedom and equality came from the unifying assumptions of theistic belief. The assumptive belief in God and in the universal divine nature of all humans enabled the generation of a predominantly uplifting culture, which in turn was upstream from a generally lawfully and respectfully conducted political process.
That one nation under God has been irrevocably broken into two, irreconcilable American civilizations, one based in life and the other based in death.
Why did the civilization of this one nation under God, the greatest constitutional republic in world history, come to be degraded and broken by the Democrats and the Left? Here’s how: culture is now downstream from politics.