the day after melbournes earthquake wednesday, page-15

Chris' XJO posting philosophy:

Look at it on the basis that there is no one here but you. Your mind is generating all this stuff itself. There is not really anyone else out there. There is you and the screen and your mind. Your mind sometimes generates some interesting analysis, which appears on the screen in front of you under the name of some poster you created in your mind. In your mind, you have a story going about how this poster really exists in the world, and you picture the poster sitting at his screen tap tap tapping away. That poster doesn't really exist. I don't really exist, I am just a creation of your mind. There is no "Chris" out there in the world. Your mind is generating this to appear on the screen in front of you. So when you post something, there is no one out there to critically appraise your contribution. There is only your mind generating seemingly real responses, or no response at all. If your mind generates no response, then it will start to tell you a story about how no one is interested in what you posted. Your mind has created all these fictitious characters "out there" and now it is telling you that none of them are interested in your contribution..."No thumbs!"

My approach to posting on XJO is this: If I post something, it is for my own entertainment. It is like I am talking to myself, and also waiting to see what response (if any) my mind will generate and present on the screen in front of me. I then watch my mind tell me this story about this response and who it came from and what it means.

I am just a detached witness here watching all this stuff happen around me, unaffected by the fluctuations, be they presented as "positive" or "negative".

If you adopt this approach to posting on XJO, you will be fearless and unaffected by outcomes, one way or the other. If you adopt this approach to life in general, well, now that would be something special.