A Fond Farewell.

[Simon E.]

During a recent discussion it was brought home to me that I am of a different generation to most members, and that this had an effect on my thinking..My first reaction was a defensive rush.but I had already said that I would post no more in the thread..so I did not respond.
I later began to reflect on my membership of the forum. And I realised that the other person was right.
I am an ageing Englishman. My world view was shaped in different times and in a different culture to the majority here. And that this severely limited my ability to communicate clearly with that majority.
What seems like a humorous aside to me, is seen as offensive. What is humorous to others leaves me baffled or offended.
The world has changed as worlds do. Cultures rise and fall.
I am not going to do the linguistic equivilent of buying a baseball cap and wearing it back to front to ' get down with the kids..'
So I will acknowledge the reality. The baton has been handed over to a new generation.
I apologise for all offence I have caused.
I will attempt to practice what I bang on about.
This is by far the best Buddhist forum on the www.
Metta to all, may all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

[Nemo]

That will be a hefty loss. If all people here agree it is rather stifling. I may seem married to my ideas but even against my will I consider any alternatives brought to my attention. As I consider my opinions only the best I can come up with at a particular time I am happy for the opportunity to debate thoughtful people like yourself.

I am strong on my environmental science and the academic debate about climate change was big for me in the 80's. That debate ended about 10 years ago and the real science is mostly settled. In the last 20 years living in a city with a very large cadre of government funded climatologists telling me terrifying things about arctic ice receding and warming trends in the far north over beers and at BBQ's was also very enlightening. They were unable to speak publicly or they would have been fired and blacklisted. The oil sands funded party in power threatened them constantly and eventually this year fired most of them. My outrage sort of peaked about 7 years ago when a local geology professor who specialized in the carboniferous period(coal) accepted a large chunk of cash from the Heritage Foundation and starting pretending climate change was a lie. Like all cowards when confronted he recanted 90% of his bullshit to keep his tenure. But the damage had already been done. His links to the Heritage Foundation were meticulously removed. I saw them with my own eyes. I am still angry. Sorry you may have had to take a blast meant for Tim Patterson.

[KonchokZoepa]

if you dont feel that you are wasting your time here on this forum, i suggest as 21 year old human to reconsider. i dont think its a valid reason to say that the new generations something something. if something, its the problem that us youngsters are immature and the fault is not coming from your side. it would be nice in my opinion to have older people here with wisdom of ageing and life to be here. whatever you described even though i have not had many conversations with you i do not seem to have that problem with you. i am sure people appreciate your being here and you can contribute to people here on this forum so reconsider.

[KonchokZoepa]

[Knotty Veneer]

Sorry to see you go Simon.

I think we often can do with input from older and wiser heads in this forum. I have appreciated your posts.

[Grigoris]

Too bad you feel that way Simon E. Not being all that young myself (45) I sometimes feel this difference, but have been taught by my teachers that patience is the only way to deal with it. Actually patience is the key to dealing with all types of differences (age, culture, sex, etc...), that and not taking tings too seriously (a lesson I learnt over the past year or so).

Anyway, it's been fun butting heads with you, and look forward to doing so again in the near future.

Greg

[Schrödinger’s Yidam]

How are are you? I'm currently 58. I haven't seen a generational gap between us. Does that mean I should go too?

[KonchokZoepa]

seems that there are more older people here than younger people of the active members. fairly few seems to be under 30. and at that age you should already be quite mature compared to 20s.

[seeker242]

During a recent discussion it was brought home to me that I am of a different generation to most members, and that this had an effect on my thinking..My first reaction was a defensive rush.but I had already said that I would post no more in the thread..so I did not respond.
I later began to reflect on my membership of the forum. And I realised that the other person was right.

Who cares if they are right. If you like the forum and enjoy coming here, I think you should stay. But if not then good luck with whatever you do.

Namaste.

[LastLegend]

I had received a few messages from mods and admins in the past, and there was a lot drama going at some point. Though I did not directly partake, I feel like I had participated. I will continue to stay here as long as I don't get myself banned. Even if I am banned, I will still be lurking. There is no stopping me . No, I personally don't make post or tell anyone that I am leaving because I am not. So if I die, you would not know either. I am here to learn applicable thoughts from others and also post some thoughts here and there. And most things people here say don't bother me or not so much. You like me now?

[greentara]

Sorry to hear you're leaving. All your posts were interesting and sometimes even thought provoking. i've got a feeling you'll be sadly missed.

[Lindama]

Simon, that's a great insight to have about our generational perspectives. I think it frees you up to make some good contributions and perhaps learn something. The ancestors are always a source of wisdom and I'm not all that sure that there is agreement within any generation. So goes the world. I'm not too familiar with this forum but I could probably compete with you on age (67), here's a piece that I recently wrote on another forum:

it's important to realize that the wave of the future is with the young, they will manifest in ways that the elders won't understand... it's their world. The legends and the stories will be re-written at some point. So best the young take themselves seriously with a light heartedness. Imitating the past just isn't working anymore.

Still, a good practice is resilient to the differences.

[michaelb]

This is by far the best Buddhist forum on the www.

Yes, but if it was just full of twenty-somethings that know <edit> all but posted on every thread as if they were an expert it would be really shit. Reconsider, Simon.

[Johnny Dangerous]

During a recent discussion it was brought home to me that I am of a different generation to most members, and that this had an effect on my thinking..My first reaction was a defensive rush.but I had already said that I would post no more in the thread..so I did not respond.
I later began to reflect on my membership of the forum. And I realised that the other person was right.
I am an ageing Englishman. My world view was shaped in different times and in a different culture to the majority here. And that this severely limited my ability to communicate clearly with that majority.
What seems like a humorous aside to me, is seen as offensive. What is humorous to others leaves me baffled or offended.
The world has changed as worlds do. Cultures rise and fall.
I am not going to do the linguistic equivilent of buying a baseball cap and wearing it back to front to ' get down with the kids..'
So I will acknowledge the reality. The baton has been handed over to a new generation.
I apologise for all offence I have caused.
I will attempt to practice what I bang on about.
This is by far the best Buddhist forum on the www.
Metta to all, may all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

Ah man, I like your sense of humor:( Well, have a good one, carnist.

[TheSpirit]

For some reason I feel like there are probably more older members in thus forum than younger one. And when I said that I am making a comparison base on my age which is only 20. Everybody at work call me still a baby.

I do believe it is important for younger generation to understand and know the world of the generation previous whether it is the culture if the way they think. After all, without previous generation, there won't be younger generation. Our perspective o, life is a continuum of generations before us. We are, though different, is the product influenced by those that came before us.

[padma norbu]

What? I actually really enjoyed all of your posts up until that thread and wasn't particularly offended in that thread at all. This is a good demonstration to me of what the Buddha meant by avoiding idle chit-chat and gossip. I have been curtailing my verbosity over the past year or so and was just thinking about cutting back even more, particularly after some of the vegetarian debates. My comments weren't even aimed at you, as I was actually thinking of the typically privileged white Republicans I saw all over Facebook, etc. making fun of Russell Brand in that interview. If it is any consolation, there are many people who are my age and younger on the wrong side of that generational divide I was referring to, as well. For example, my brother-in-law, who is 3 years my junior and makes a salary of $1million/year. Believe it or not, he thinks all you have to do is work and you will succeed. Nevermind that he grew up in a well-off family in the richest county in the USA and had his parents pay for college and lived at home after college to save up several thousand to buy his first house by 30 in one of the neighboring wealthy towns. And I know plenty of other people who are poor as anything who still support Republican thinking because they hold on to the dream that one day they can be rich, too, and by golly if they're going to stand for the idea that someone will then try to take their hard-earned money away from them.

Really, I think you misunderstood me in that thread. There were no hard feelings on my part and if we disagree on such a trivial matter, what difference does that really make? I don't even come to dharmawheel very much at all.

[padma norbu]

btw, if you did catch my reply in the WHY? !!! thread, that wasn't a mockery of you. Only now I am seeing how it could come across that way. I started off innocently enough asking Jikan about a punctuation rule and then got the idea in my head that it would entertaining to create as confusing a post as possible about various punctuation oddities. Then, for good measure, I threw in some absurdist elitism about ellipses to suggest maybe that such things weren't really all that important considering what a mess it is. All this really had nothing to do with your complaints about exclamation point usage. I agree with you on all the points you made.

In fact, I know an Australian woman who took a great many American emails the wrong way because she read every exclamation point as an ANGRY resopnse when they were in fact no such thing. She was getting very upset with her clients and vendors. To make matters worse, she would write FU in her subject headings!!! To her, that clearly meant "Follow Up." We all about hit the floor laughing when she told us this, after hearing her having such a rough time with everyone on the phone for a good 2 years, we finally heard these two misunderstandings at the same time. It was hilarious! FU in America does not typically mean "follow up;" It means Frak You. And exclamation points don't mean people are angry with you over here, either. In fact, people use them for almost no reason at all. There is also a rather funny Seinfeld where Elaine is getting very upset about this exact same issue.

[JKhedrup]

Simon,

It is a shame you are leaving. Despite major differences in opinion regarding monasticism etc. I always thought you posted intelligent information and enjoyed hearing your stories about the old days- meeting great masters etc.

I think the greater diversity on the board the better- including diversity in age. I enjoy my job more when people of a variety of backgrounds, ages and viewpoints attend the courses because there is always a more interesting variety of questions they ask the Geshes.

all the best,
khedrup

[lisehull]

Dear Simon, I am normally a lurker on these boards, but I felt I had to write and say that you are a valued member of this forum. I am 59 and appreciate what you, and the others - no matter their age - have to say. Please reconsider your decision to leave.

Lise

[Ayu]

I can never sense any age out of what is written in forums. I'm 51 now and I have got teachings from 19 year old boys...
It is narrow-minded to think of the person in his age.

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