Grex Directions Conference

Item 5: Who's Influenced You?

Has any one person had an influence on your personal philosophy?  

How so?

One writer that has influenced my personal philosophy is Alan Watts.
I grew up at a time when his books on eastern philosophy were very
popular.  He had a very engaging writing style, and his books made a
lot of sense to me at that point in my life.

I guess for me it's not so much a "person", but a culture.  The fact that
I have spent so much of my life overseas has drastically influenced the
way I view the world, both positively and negatively.

Ja, und die Frage ist nur: "Welche Wirkung hat deine personliche Philosophie
im Moment?  Eine Negative oder eine Positive?"

Good question.  At the moment?  I guess neither.  No, I'd have to say a
positive one.  If I weren't so anal-retentive, I couldn't get three papers
done in a week when faced with a family crisis.

Alan Watts was great.  He took esoteric  concepts and packaged them so that
someone like me could get interested in them. He was a good storyteller, as
I recall. For a time, one of the old alternative stations ran his programs;
they were very entertaining.

I found many other authors to be helpful to me.  Among the most influential:
M. Scott Peck, _The Road Less Traveled_, _People of the Lie_
Robert Fritz, _The Path of Least Resistance_
William James, __Psychology_ ( and a few others:))
P.D. Ouspensky, _The Fourth Way_ ( My very favorite crazy person )
Don Van Vliet, musician and artist 

For political philosophy, it was Jean-Francois Revel.

Dr. Seuss

My most influential was Paul Goodman.  I was in college in the sixties, and
he was widely read then.  He was a philosopher, architect, city planner, poet,
and anarchist.  His most famous book was "Growing Up Absurd", but authored 
many others, including: People or Personnel, Like a Conquered Province,
Communitas, a set of utopian/anarchist community schemes, Hawkweed (poetry),
and Making Do (a novel).  He was a prof at Columbia, died about 1972.
You can find alot of his books at used book stores around AA.
Chicago Taxi Willie.

Over time I collect new "major influences" ... the first I can remember
was Sammy Davis junior.  I read his auto-biography when I was in 5th grade
and was mesmerized.  I fell in love with show-biz from reading his book,
and came to a clear understanding that people un-like me were still very
much *people*.  He was a Star.  He still had things go wrong in his life.
He was Jewish (I was brought up a sheltered Catholic) and he was as spiritual
and thoughtful as anyone I had encountered to that time.  He was black.
I was a sheltered little white girl. I'd seen maybe 2-3 black people in
my life to that point.  He was a person with emotions I could identify
with.  In many ways we were very different, but I could empathize with
what he went through ... that had a major impact in my life at 10.

Then, much later, I read Abbie Hoffman's autobiography.  I had grown up
in the late 60's and early 70's in a military household.  I thought that
hippies were an artifact of history, like the pioneers, but crazy.  I
only came to understand what the whole movement had been about much later.
I went through a prolonged "activist" stage, at that point.

Much later, again, I began to read feminist authors.  Overall, I can't really
name one who has more influence on me than the others -- unless I just name
the most recent.  ;)  But as a group, they have has the most far-reaching
impact.

Except, my mother.  She told me often when I was growing up that

"You're only as happy as you decide to be"

or my father.  He told me

"If it needs to be done, do it.  If you wait for soemone else to get to
it, nothing will be done.  Take responsibility for what you can do to
make a positive difference in your world."

(He was refering to housework and job attitude, but it makes alot of
sense as a life's philosophy, too.  He discovered that, too.  At 61,
he's a neighborhood activist fighting for better conditions in his part
of the city, including environmental clean-up, better police protection,
and more responsible political representation.)

Aleister Crowley.  Before you assume that he was a Satanist and completely
evil, browse through his works.  Once you get past his public persona you
will realize that he was a brilliant mystic way ahead of his time.

Madame Blavatski.  Great insights into eastern religions.

Robert Anton Wilson.  The first to really open my eyes to anarchist phiosophy.

Carlos Casteneda.  Moral relativism, uniting with your dark side.

Anton LaVey.  The strength of the dark side!

Carl Yung.  Nuf said.

My father said:

If you keep doing that I'll give you a spanking.

I heard someone say that once, but I think it was in a X rated movie.

Re 11:  ...so, vishnu...did you keep doing "that", or did you stop?

Um.. Well, he said it more than once so I couldn't recall
what i did on each seperate time.  If i believed it was right,
I kept on doing it.

Robert Anton Wilson's "schroedingers cat" and stravinski's "rite of spring"

The *one* person would be William Lunnon, a friend I went to school
with a long time ago.

Sharing the limelight: my parents, a few teachers whose names I can't
recall, Rick Cassidy (a teacher whose name I do recall), M. Scott
Peck (an author), John Bradshaw (an author), Lao Tsu (an author),
Kushida Sensei (a teacher), several other people and/or schools,
and myself (a good friend).

Also for me, Jim Coleman (god).

Carla Jung and Joseph Campbell

Me too, I loved Ed Wood's movie _Carl Or Carla_.

Of course I was refferring to Jung's anima "Carla".

My hate for the soviet union, 
george orwell, influence me a lot and 
a long time ago bakunin, proudhon, now ayn rand, nietzsche, 
anatoli Rybakov.

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