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I don't get all that wrapped up in religion, as long as I am fed red meat often enough.. And since the best steaks in the world are found on the central coast, I have reached Nirvana, here is the very livable state of California.
How's your colon?
As long as you've got good digestive fire and are pooping good ... no problem ... for you ... as for the cows ... well, god bless 'em.
Moo.
It is a concern ... some crazy, "liberal" hating, CA "hippie" hating, "intellectual" hating, savage lunatic could read enough of my posts and wanna kill me.
And if i provided enough information in little bits and pieces on various forums, it's possible someone could find me ... or anyone.
These days, it's not a far out scenario i suppose. Weird!
Buddha:
Poseurs are everywhere and they often flourish rather clearly and obviously (and odiously) in the fields of religion / spirituality.
The so-called Christian with a plastic smile and hatred and intolerance in his heart is a common example and yeah, there are Buddhist poseurs as well but so what?
To dismiss the essence of Buddhism (or the essence of Christ) 'cause of stupid humans is a mistake.
And the historical Buddha, ie; Siddhartha, (Buddha mean "awakened one" - a Buddhist maintains that there are countless Buddhas in the phenomenal world (not necessarily "here") and that we all have Buddha nature ... we all have the potential to wake up) unlike Jesus, disseminated a tremendous amount of teachings, while he was alive, to suit so many different natures.
I believe those many, many teachings remain intact and were "recorded" during his life.
I'll check with my Buddhist buddy on this for more accurate info.
That other stupid humans make stupid religions out of essential teachings / principles .... ho-hum ... what else is new?
And finally, no i don't feel or see or intuit that Siddhartha had the kind of pride that you speak of.
That's the guy under the redwood tree trying emulate him ... but it's not him.
And by the time Siddhartha got under that tree he had basically given up any spiritual "ambition" and was done with the austerities, the "rules of spiritual engagement", "systems of improvement", etc., etc. and just sat there, refusing to budge until It happened ... which apparently it did but i dunno.
I don't need to.
Sorry to hijack this thread and i know it's not the religion&philosophy forum but i have to correct myself.
The teachings of the historical Buddha were actually not "recorded" during his lifetime but were indeed transmitted orally and back then, they knew how to do that well.
Anyway, it wasn't until about 500 years after his death that the teachings were written down.
Unlike Jesus who taught for a relatively short period of time, the Buddha gave his teachings to countless people over the course of about 45 years.
That's all.
Thank you.
Brand new CA resident here. Hope the stay is real short. You can have your golden state paradise. Yack
Near 10% income tax
Near 10% sales tax
Tax on beverage containers
20 days to register your car when you move in or over $130.00 in fines
Online DMV appointment scheduler backlogged about 15 days
Drive by shootings
Gas over $3.00 per gallon
300K and more for a fixer
200K for a fixer where they might shoot at you
Water shortages
layer upon layer of rules
Forclosures up the nose
unemployment over 10%
God forbid you like GUNS. Oh no
Schools full of angry go no where useless tax consumers
I5 during rush hour
It is a great place to be homeless. You can live under a bridge and not freeze to death
I love the picture posted of the inland empire. Near desert, water shortages yet there in the pic. Nice green grass. Simply brilliant.
CARB on the one hand because of all the air pollution. But on the other hand, a 55MPH speed limit on a county road (S13 in San Diego County) with stop signals. Oh yea, the air quality is important, that's why CA drivers virtually drag race to their next brake check 200 yards ahead.
This peculiar CA habit has me the new CA resident baffled. Why "race" to the next light again and again and again? It's a waste of fuel and brake system components in addition to being extremely polluting.
I currently live in Mira Mesa and couldn't agree with you more. I've been in California almost my whole life besides the times when I was stationed in other areas when I was in the military. I just can't cope with the idea that all the houses that are somewhat decent are over 400k and that's with a subpar school district. Now me and my finance make over a 110k a year but there is no way I'm going to mortgage my life away to a house that 1500 sqft and built in 1970. What really woke me was when I talk to other people from other states saying their house was like 220k 2200sqft and they still have money to travel on vacations. California is all about look but can't have but you better work hard so your tax money can go to the lady that has a hundred kids and can get everything for free. lol This is totally backwards. I mean come on I pay 150 every two months for water and my last electric bill was 140 dollars and I live in a 750 sqft apt. That's why me and my finance have determined that were going to Albuquerque for ten years and if we decided to come back we will but atleast I will have saved money and lived in a nice house before I decide to enslave myself to this cost of living again.
I wish a few more million people felt like cycle etc., and would leave too. This was an even greater state when it had 10 million people.
You know who needs to leave this state is all the people on welfare that don't use it to better themselves. If your on it you should be trying to find ways to get off of it in the future instead of just looking for ways to scam the system. In the two areas I've lived while growing up in CA that's all I ever see is people scamming the system for free money and the going to Louie B's to get drinks and find a way to get pregnant again. This stuff has got to cease. Really I made the determination while living in SD that I can't afford it here even though my girl and I make a combined income of over 110K. If I can't make it here how can all these other people on public assistance make it here. They should be moving to cheaper areas where they can afford it. Nobody has the right to live anywhere you only have the right if you can afford it. If 20 percent of the population that can't afford SD would move housing would decrease due the supply going up. So I'm going to Albuquerque for a about 10 years and coming to my home in the Central Coast to slow down a bit and enjoy TRI-Tip. I have a plan to afford this place in the future why does everybody else just expect the entitlement to be there.
Heck, when you have abused your body as I have, afflictions of the body are part and parcel, and when you, like some of us, went through that mess in Vietnam, inner afflictions of the spirit etc. are again, part and parcel, but these things are fought against, and it is the fighting against them that makes the man, or, the woman.
You may notice, that on this forum, it is those who complain who get my ire up, they all have a pulse, and I suppose most have a paycheck, beats the heck out of being cold and 6 feet under. If one complains, it is only because one has not the gumption to fix the problem, and that, is unmanly, or unwomanly.
Oh, I am not externally driven, I am internally driven, a far harder task master. George Mallory, who died in 1924 on what was possibly the first ascent of Everest stated, "To Struggle is to understand, never the latter without the first" It is exactly that struggle within oneself that creates one.
I hope, that in my words on these pages, that someone wakes up, and sets out on that hard road to find where they belong and who they should be, that a life in Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or Sacramento etc, is not the life of the self actualized.
Too many Americans are soft, they avoid struggle, as your neighbor down the road in Carmel, Robinson Jeffers wrote in Ave Caesar;
No bitterness: our ancestors did it.
They were only ignorant and hopeful, they wanted freedom but wealth too.
Their children will learn to hope for a Caesar.
Or rather--for we are not aquiline Romans but soft mixed colonists--
Some kindly Sicilian tyrant who'll keep
Poverty and Carthage off until the Romans arrive,
We are easy to manage, a gregarious people,
Full of sentiment, clever at mechanics, and we love our luxuries.
Spoken like a true champion. I may have started commenting here negatively but I do have a plan of what it takes to get to what I want and my end goal is to be comfortable in the Central Coast but I realize for me to get to that point and to not worry about the lesser things in life that I will have to follow the path of least resistance to achieve my end goal.
I agree wholeheartedly, with the comment by Relevated. California SUCKS! I lived in LA a few years ago, and couldn't deal with the smog, culture of phoniness and obsession with personal appearance, high housing costs, etc., etc. After dealing with LA for a couple of years, I decided that moving to the Bay area, would be a nice change. Boy was I wrong!
I lived in the Bay area, just two years ago. And it's undergone a 280-degree turn from its enlightened, progressive character, that was its signature zeitgeist in the 60s and 70s. It's become positively inhumane! It's been overtaken by affluent Yuppie WASPs, who have driven the price of housing to astronomical levels. As a result, homelessness is at epidemic levels there. So is unemployment. Even the most highly educated people, have to beg for low-wage jobs there.
Racism now plague the once warm, and tolerant Bay area too. The High tech WASP geeks are the new gods of the Bay area, and everyone else there is regarded as useless. Those that are in the arts professions, and Bohemians of all stripes, are no longer welcome there. They can't afford to live there anymore, anyhow.
If all this isn't bad enough, California is no longer a progressive haven for gays and lesbians. The increasingly conservative populous there, voted against gay marriage recently. And gay-bashing has become quite prevalent, even in the Castro area of SF. I'm a lesbian who moved to Massachusetts. It's a much better place for gays and lesbians, than California is now. And gay marriage is legal in Mass too.
Now, California is only liveable for the affluent WASP Yuppies. I certainly wouldn't recommend living in California, to anyone else these days.
Last edited by artwomyn; 02-14-2010 at 03:36 PM..
Reason: misspelling
I agree wholeheartedly, with the comment by Relevated. California SUCKS! I lived in LA a few years ago, and couldn't deal with the smog, culture of phoniness and obsession with personal appearance, high housing costs, etc., etc. After dealing with LA for a couple of years, I decided that moving to the Bay area, would be a nice change. Boy was I wrong!
I lived in the Bay area, just two years ago. And it's undergone a 280-degree turn from its enlightened, progressive character, that was its signature zeitgeist in the 60s and 70s. It's become positively inhumane! It's been overtaken by affluent Yuppie WASPs, who have driven the price of housing to astronomical levels. As a result, homelessness is at epidemic levels there. So is unemployment. Even the most highly educated people, have to beg for low-wage jobs there.
Racism now plague the once warm, and tolerant Bay area too. The High tech WASP geeks are the new gods of the Bay area, and everyone else there is regarded as useless. Those that are in the arts professions, and Bohemians of all stripes, are no longer welcome there. They can't afford to live there anymore, anyhow.
If all this isn't bad enough, California is no longer a progressive haven for gays and lesbians. The increasingly conservative populous there, voted against gay marriage recently. And gay-bashing has become quite prevalent, even in the Castro area of SF. I'm a lesbian who moved to Massachusetts. It's a much better place for gays and lesbians, than California is now. And gay marriage is legal in Mass too.
Now, California is only liveable for the affluent WASP Yuppies. I certainly wouldn't recommend living in California, to anyone else these days.
Sounds like your biggest concern was with the housing costs. Housing prices are coming down, they're still high - but that is sort of due to the wacky loans but it is also due to supply and demand. Face it, a lot of people - especially this time of year, want to live in a more moderate climate. It's 82F in LA today - in February. I went swimming in LA yesterday, outdoors, and there were tons of kids in the pool. In February. I went on a run this morning - past orange trees with big juicy oranges hanging from them.
Also, I doubt the political differences between MA and CA are that noticeable on a day to day basis. In fact, getting along with your next door neighbor has a lot more to do with chemistry than it does on how he voted on Prop 8.
Finally, not all of CA is expensive. Sure the big cities or the coastal cities are but not in the medium cities. I'll bet Sacramento, Bakersfield, Modesto, Oxnard, Fresno, Redding and Stockton are more affordable than most places in MA.
I beg to differ with you, regarding housing costs in California. They are still way out of line these days. In Mass where I live, housing costs are much less than in even the smaller cities, that you mentioned in California.
Also, as a lesbian of color, I have had to deal with triple discrimination (race, gender, and sexual orientation). I've found (as have others I know, who left California), that the East
coast areas are much more progressive than California, regarding these issues. For me,
having to cope with these issues isn't trivial-they are important factors that directly affect
my life personally.
So I'd say, the 'political differences' between California and Mass, are indeed very wide. Here in Mass, they really care about people like me, who are underdogs in society. Chemistry between 'neighbors', isn't the point. In California, they seem to care much more about animal rights and the environment, than the rights of disadvantaged people these days. California may be your bag, but it's definitely not a place I'd live ever again. To me, Massachusetts is better than California, by leaps and bounds.
Last edited by artwomyn; 02-14-2010 at 08:25 PM..
Reason: paragraphs
It was a nice 80 degrees here in the San Fernando Valley (LA), and me and some friends went hiking in the desert near Palmdale, then went up into the mountains to have a snowball fight and go sledding. The only thing we didn't manage to do was go to the beach, because I was way too tired.
To the rest of this thread; there's a whole lot of tar brushing and not enough factual things.
I'm pretty content, and I'm only 20! It's hard to make people my age satisfied..seriously!
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Would never live in California again!
