DooDiligence

That's a pretty simplistic (NTM insulting), take. Just the kind of thing to firm Euro resolve.

I have a jewel in my hand.

It's more interesting in the telling. The reality is a slog. As with all of us.

He acknowledged the debt and actually tried to refuse the payment. I made him take it plus a late fee. On another note, although gold prices have increased, sadly labor remains pretty much the same as it was 15 years ago. Bench jewelers have quite the learning curve. It takes a lot of experience and you're exposed to many toxic chemicals. All to promote a myth. As a lot of people here know, many parts of the world shun 14K and even 18K. It makes a lousy store of value. .

Time to get busy right here.

Which way to go? Maybe be the undertow.

Standby while the bulls parade? Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library Line up to the mind cemetery now What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin' They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells Rally 'round the family, pockets full of shells

Absolutely. Another CoBF'er sent me a link to the story of Maggie Doyne who bought land in Nepal and established a school / home. Part of me wants to do something similar but I know that's just the desire to get far away from the insanity here in the US. The change that needs to be effected is right here and to leave would be cowardly. We are the wellspring of much of the world's sentiment and are currently exporting a lot of fear and hate. I want to figure out how to change that so that it spreads for the good of humanity. I'm afraid that I'm too late. The opposition seems insurmountable. We are swiftly spiraling into an abyss largely through the efforts of a few ill intentioned demagogues. .

Life is suffering. Suffering is caused by desire. Reduce the attachment to desires and you reduce suffering. Eliminate clinging and eliminate suffering entirely. Asceticism is not the answer. Mindfulness and understanding is the key. Observing the rising and falling of desires makes them understandable. It's not a matter of faith, but one of seeing truth. "If I tell you I have a jewel in my fist, you either believe or not. If I open my hand and show you the jewel, you know." - Siddhartha Gautama I'm trying but external events are saddening and maddening fetters. They hate so much and my ability to tolerate it comes and goes. I challenge those who doubt any of this to sit quietly and think about nothing but your breath. === An ethical life requires: Right speech, right action and right livelihood. Wisdom is developed through: Right understanding and right thought. Mental discipline is built with: Right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. === I remember hearing Earl Nightingale say, "you aren't always what you think you are, but what you think, you are." I don't want to be an asshole who contributes to the misery of others. I don't understand how anyone could claim to be a follower of Christ and worship a politician whose entire life has been the exact opposite. .

I took a Grab to the guys manufacturing facility. He used to be on Charoen Krung road, where a lot of jewelers are concentrated, but he'd moved the operation into his home (it's a big place). The downstairs area is all booths with workers sorting stones and bench jewelers doing their thing. It's on the west side of the Cha Phraya river in a neighborhood with very narrow single lane streets and stone walls on both sides. The streets were so narrow that in order to make it around some of the corners, the driver actually had to do little back and forth's a few times. This is not a Bangkok slum in any way shape or form. We arrived at the address and I saw a polished brass plaque with the name of the business, and another one next door announcing a different jewelry manufacturer. I told the Grab driver he could go and then rang the bell. A guy came to the door and asked if I had an appointment. I said no but that Hmong would want to see me. The proprietor came to the door and didn't recognize me (I have a beard now), until I said "I owe you money, and I apologize for not paying sooner". He laughed and asked why I didn't call ahead. I told him that long forgotten debts should be paid by surprise. As it turns out, he and I are on a similar journey. I found this out when he told me that he doesn't do the nightlife thing any more for clients. He thought I might be interested in partying like we used to do before. I told him about my recent meditation experience at Wat Mahatat and attempts to get on the path. We understood each other completely from then on.

No, I am not. It was just part of the story about my trip.

I used to think that introversion and extroversion were defined in small part by whether you looked internally or externally to solve problems. I thought I was an introvert who displayed qualities of an extrovert. I took an intro to psychology class a few years ago and got corrected on that. I'm definitely an extrovert with an internal locus of control. I tend towards a very strong sense of personal responsibility (despite the unpaid invoice) and can't fathom how anyone could chronically and habitually refuse to accept personal responsibility, especially when in a position of leadership. Recent events have been very distressing to me. I know that I am not alone in this.

I recently spent 5 weeks in Thailand. I had 3 items on my agenda; go to a meditations retreat, do an assload of hiking and settle a debt with a jeweler I'd done business with a long time ago. The jewelers invoices were 15 years old and he'd stopped dunning me 12 years ago. They were for a series of orders involving a specifically sized diamond eternity band. The ring came and my client said it didn't fit their customer. This went on for multiple deliveries until I finally gave up on the clients order. I rationalized that I didn't owe the money because none of the rings ever worked for my client. I know, I'm an asshole. Anyway, these were my only goals for the trip. I wasn't there to get drunk, stoned or laid. In the process of doing all this I came up with an idea about how to counteract all the fear, hate and divisiveness that's being created in the world today. Random acts of kindness with no desire for recognition or reward. I'd read Walpola Rahula's "What the Buddha Taught" on my Kindle before the trip, and found a paper copy in Bangkok at the Chatuchak weekend market, which I read and started highlighting and making brief notes in. I ordered another copy on Amazon which arrived after I came home (I gave the 1st copy to a yoga classmate who asked about the subject). I've read through the 2nd paper copy and marked it up to be passed on as well, and now I've got a 3rd (technically 4th) copy that I'm re-reading again. I find that reading this book again and again makes the ideas clearer and easier to maintain (hold on loosely). I feel like someday I won't need it. The big takeaways I got are; being more mindful leads to better understanding, and better understanding leads to more kindness. There's more to it, but it's unnecessary here. Random acts of kindness here can literally affect someone on the other side of the world. You're only a few degrees of separation from someone who's going on an international flight. You do something nice that affects someone who's headed to the airport, and then they do something nice for someone who winds up in Europe, and they pass the feeling on to someone who's headed to a war torn shit hole, and instead of chopping some guys arms off, that person shows mercy, and since the guy still has both his hands he winds up writing a Pulitzer prize winning novel, and on, and on, and on. All maybe because you were kind and understanding with someone. There are a lot of people who are unhappy with whats going on in US government right now. I believe that violent protests and peaceful protest will both be largely ineffective. Both actions will do nothing but attract violent opposition. My solution is to join neither faction and instead, go around performing random acts of kindness. It can be as simple as sending an anonymous cash donation to a daycare facility to help someone who can't afford their bill this month. Picking up trash as I hike around. Letting someone ahead of me in a checkout line or smiling and being patient with a slow witted checkout clerk, and figuring out a way to give them a genuine compliment when they finally get things sorted out. So I started doing all this before I got back to the US, and about a month after I got home I made the mistake of dipping into the news cycle and fuck me, I started feeling the pull towards the dark side. Anger, hatred, violence. They're so seductive. It was so effortless to hold that mindful kindness before. Now I'm trying desperately to not dip into the political threads on here (I rarely have in the past but the lure is strong...), and I'm trying to NOT dip into what passes for news these days. Mental discipline is tough to develop and I'm weakening to often now. I imagine some of these concepts to be like an undertow at the beach that's taking you away from all that satisfying hate. It's scary but don't fight it. There's a lot of sharks but they only go after the weak so just swim strong and eventually the undertow will let you head back towards the beach. There'll be a different crowd there who've all been through the same struggle. Crazy I know, but imagine what it would be like if everyone was batshit crazy (in a good way, not like thirsty billionaires). === I just realized this is a bunch of bullshit. MAGA will never let it happen.

The new rallying cry will be Make America Go Away and its top promoters are Donnie and Leon stone walls with crushed glass on top coming soon to neighborhoods near you .

Not a reader of this thread so this might have already been posted. Fidelity had it on the front page today. Anyone invested in this? https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/how-trump-family-took-over-crypto-firm-it-raised-hundreds-millions-2025-03-31/ Nothing to see here. Just another Russian laundromat. Great idea for locking up capital though.

I find it very useful alongside YouTube for lessons, DIY's and more. Probably should be a thread here?

It's all about the he said she said bullshit.

For the LLM angle?

Not technically a joke, but I always found the story of Harry Bottle to be hilarious. At one point, he had a white line painted on the wall of Dempster’s warehouse, ten feet above the floor. He warned management that if inventory ever piled higher than that line, everyone in the warehouse - except the shipping department - would be fired. https://jimmysjournal.substack.com/p/dempster-mills-the-first-company

I doubt it. Blame everything on the libs. The sheeple will eat it up. Num num num...

Someone on Reddit (a self proclaimed noob) asked how to apply Grahams criteria in todays world. This was the best answer I could find. RIP you old GOAT!

Brain smoother extraordinaire.

I believe more could be accomplished with messaging centered around integrity, altruism, hope and fraternity, with a generous dose of good old Japanese frugality to address mindless consumerism. Fear, hate and divisiveness are the tools of despots. It never goes or ends well for the people.