NationStates Jolt Archive

This isint another Religion thread, this is a thread about the things that have influenced the way we think. What has happened in your life to make you think the way you do?

I am a christian but im not a part of a denomination, i have sperated myself from Denomination's because they dont belong in the church and cause chaos, this is because Denominations usally teach about how superior there Denomination is, i remeber hearing my dads church say "isint our church great"
I also have been listening to John Lennon (my dad was a mod) and what he said no matter how far fetched makes it's point.

I dont want a religous arguement this is simply asking what has influenced your life. DONT GO LOOKING FOR A ARGUEMENT.

So what in your life has influenced you?

Empathy. All my opinions and many of my actions are based on it.
I don't follow anybody's teachings, although I was brought up Catholic. I'm trying to understand humans and help them achieve what's best for them.

What happened in my life to make me think the way I do?

It's hard to say. Part of it might stem from the fact that I was abandoned by my father at a very young age and physically abused by my stepfather. So I, in my determination to never be like them, have taken it to an extreme by taking pride in not being like anyone. In any social dynamic, I feel a need to be the one acting differently, moving against the grain or just in generlly tackling any idea from the opposite direction.

On the other hand, it might just be the result of numerous blunt traumas to my head. :)

Jazz, playing it and studying it. Some of the approaches to playing it, or looking at it, or thinking about it influenced a lot about how I function. People like Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus. I don't neccisarily think like them or aspire to them, but I think I'll get to that through the next group.

I got into the Beats at first to be funny. I was a jazz saxophonist who had started to collect recordings of poetry because i was looking for a recording by e e cummings. I might have had a stick up my ass or something, pretentious little dude. I was kinda trying to defuse that, make fun of myself a little and got the Beat recordings. But I started to dig that stuff, too. Kerouac naturally but mostly Burroughs and Lenny Bruce. It's not that I think they where on to something, and this goes for the jazz guys I mentioned, I think for the most part that they had some goofy answers to some relatively good questions. It got me into looking at American generations in the 20th century, but that's really only interesting to me.

The biggest would be my friend who would argue every point on you, I mean every one-"I want a soda." "No you don't." Just grill ya, and you'd never see it coming. And the thing was if you relented he'd switch sides and argue you back. He was just bent on interogating whatever was said to him to make sure that when you talked to him you where straight. It was weird, but I didn't know that at the time. I just learned to not say shit without being prepared to back it up. Sometimes that would lead to silly places (Where else can you go with "I want a soda?"), but that was fun so whatever. It also taught me to grill a statement, where to question it.

The last one would be my last music instructor before the fatal switch. He was fond of saying "It's a sin to wanna." He was talking about improv, where you reach that point where you realise you can use any note anywhere, but the point he was making was you can't 'just play any note...,' you have to know why you're going to do it, know what you're doing and "I wanna" isn't a reason. It informs most of what I do.

I'm not perfect in any of that. I don't always successfully perform any of the things that those things influence, they really just guide approach, the angle of view. I'm trying to back pedal, somehow I think this comes off as backpatty. Ah, fuck it. There is no power, I'm running out my backup batteries. I'm bored enough to come off as a self-satisfied ass.

Too many to list. Because I get a strange feeling that everything and everyone has some influence on you, no matter how big or small the detail is.

Think of yourself on a sandy beach. There's a tempest. Millions upon billions of sand grains are smashing against your body. When you get off of the dunes and into shelter, assuming you clean yourself, you find sand in your hair, eyes, armpits, shoes, and numerous other places. All of those little grains of sand did something to you. You carried them with you. That's how people influence eachother. But, there's always a difference. Some people are sand grains, some a pebbles, others stones, rocks, and boulders. Others are undeniable rock slides.

Lots of people have influenced me, and I'm not going to go about naming all of them.

My parents encouraged me to think for myself and to have my own beliefs, as long as I knew why I held them.

My dad is a retired minister, and is not at all bothered by the fact that I am fairly strongly against organized religion. He understands my beliefs, and supports my right to them.

So the answer to what influenced me? My parents.

My parents, my brother and sister, my school, my church (when I ws younger and went), my friends.

Not in that order.

"There are places I’ll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them all...."

-The Beatles.


"All you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be."
-Pink Floyd.

Just like Cannot think of a name mentioned, I would say Jazz has influenced me the most. Cats like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastores and John Coltrane. The Piano itself has influenced me quite a bit.

Death is the only other thing that has influenced me as much as Jazz. Not my own, obviously, but those of other people.

I don't know how to pick apart how I have been influenced and by whom. There are so many things that have happened to me to make me who I am today. I would suppose that I am who I am because of who I am.......if that makes any sense. (it does to me)

Let's try again. I am who I am because of how I have reacted and coped (although up until about 7 years ago, the answer would be poorly) with life in general. I had a pretty rough childhood, I had to grow up too fast. I didn't deal with any of that well. I screwed up my own life. One day I woke up and realized that all the crap in my life was my fault, even if everyone else was going to be an asshole, I didn't have to let them, I didn't have to hang out and take it.....

yeah. I influenced me.

Traveling has probably influenced my views - to include my religious views - the most. It's so easy to stick your head in the sand about what other people go through, especially when you're a middle class American. I think people need a personal understanding of concepts such as poverty and opression in order to light a fire in them, and make them want to change things for the better.

When you go out in the world, open your eyes and take a look around, what you first thought of as morality starts looking more and more like common sense.

In the few years my father lived with us, him. Luckily not him afterwards, though I still have some residual behaviours/beliefs that came from him (some good, some not so good). My mother, in a much more positive light.

I suppose both primary and secondary school, and the friends I made therein (my two closest friends from grammar school are still my two closest friends), and to an extent both universities I've attended (though less so than school). But moreover, just thinking about things, weighing up the pros and cons of them, and coming to my own conclusions.

Two words: Cloud Strife.

Can't imagine a better role model to grow up with.

What happened in my life to make me think the way I do?

It's hard to say. Part of it might stem from the fact that I was abandoned by my father at a very young age and physically abused by my stepfather. So I, in my determination to never be like them, have taken it to an extreme by taking pride in not being like anyone. In any social dynamic, I feel a need to be the one acting differently, moving against the grain or just in generlly tackling any idea from the opposite direction.

On the other hand, it might just be the result of numerous blunt traumas to my head. :)
Don't forget the multiple attacks on your genitalia!

Just like Cannot think of a name mentioned, I would say Jazz has influenced me the most. Cats like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastores and John Coltrane. The Piano itself has influenced me quite a bit.
If piano and jazz, why no mention of Thelonious Monk?
Other than that, great choices.

Friends mostly. I've changed into a better person overall thanks to my friends over the years. I'd elaborate but there's too many details.

my dad: who taught me to always question authority and think for myself
my mum: who taught me to always believe in myself
my best friends: who accepted me at a time when i thought no-one would allowing me to open up and find my inner extrovert :D
my flatmates: who's banter and joking allowed me to find and develop my sense of humour
childhood bullies: who taught me to turn the other cheek to malicious comments and see that the ostracism i experienced was actually a social advantage :p
being dropped on my head when i was a baby: left me with a permanently confused expression and slowness :confused: (probably)
travelling: opened my eyes to the world outside the little island on which i lived
but most of all, music, alcohol and weed: without which i definitely would not be the person i am today ;)

i think i've probably been influenced by every person and every experience i've ever encountered to some degree though.

I am almost permanently under the influence.

So what in your life has influenced you?
\

well computer games in somewaht way, i mean in the tactical way such as paintball games etc, umm... what else... my brother he has influenced my life quite alot such as in the art of poking people :D :D :D it has influenced my power in the class :P :D and hwo the way ppl treat me so i have been abit more free also my mum has had a big roll in my life she has taught me to choose write from wrong and how to handle under presser

So what in your life has influenced you?

Women.

Ritchie Blackmore
Jesus Christ Superstar
my wives

This isint another Religion thread, this is a thread about the things that have influenced the way we think. What has happened in your life to make you think the way you do?
Sunday school
kidney stones
chasing after ants
Negasaki and Hiroshima
the first moon landing
playground precognition
gopher holes
getting lost, and found
an enormous orange moon rising over the skating rink
love
death
magic
Anne MacCaffery
Joseph Campbell
Geoffrey Cornelius
the sky above and the earth below
me in the middle

What has happened in your life to make you think the way you do?
The list is long. A few of the most influential:

* Having had a father who insisted that I think.

* Helping to raise five children.

* Having been in combat ( Two years in Vietnam ).

* Having been an omnivorous reader.

* Having been educated "beyond my intellect."

* Having been raised as a Southern Baptist.

* Having to think my way out of having been raised a Southern Baptist.

* Being a grandfather.

* Having been a personnel manager in two of the largest corporations in the world ( GE and Exxon ).

Negasaki and Hiroshima
Huh? Unless I miss my guess, you weren't around when those happened. How did they influence the way you think? :confused:

Warfare.

oh yeah...
and
Drugs, guns, fast cars, and women. (respectivley)

Huh? Unless I miss my guess, you weren't around when those happened. How did they influence the way you think? :confused:
Sitting in a playground, swinging on a swing, contemplating the inconceivable inhumanity of humanity.

Sitting in a playground, swinging on a swing, contemplating the inhumanity of humanity.
Ah. An ephinany then. :)

Ah. An ephinany then. :)
Just so.

If piano and jazz, why no mention of Thelonious Monk?
Other than that, great choices.

To be honest, I'm not as big as a fan of Monk as I should be. I love most of his compositions, but I prefer to hear someone like Herbie play them rather than Monk.

This isint another Religion thread, this is a thread about the things that have influenced the way we think. What has happened in your life to make you think the way you do?


We are all the sum of the events leading up to the present moment (mixed with an underlying "true self" that I am still trying to understand). So everything significant that has ever happened to me has influenced me; particularly all of the books I have read and all of the subjects I have studied.
I have been greatly influenced by my study of politics/current events/history (the three are too intertwined for a true seperation); my study of personality types rooted in Jungian typology; my study of psychpharmacology; anthropology; and philosophy. The things that have probably influenced my thinking the most are reading H.P. Lovecraft (and the writers who followed him) almost obsessedly during high school (it doesn't seem like reading fiction would alter your world view but in this case it did), reading and studying the works of Nietzsche, my experiences with psychedelics, and just spending alot of time thinking.

* Having been raised as a Southern Baptist.

* Having to think my way out of having been raised a Southern Baptist.


Lol ... that made me chuckle. Good list, btw.

When I think carefully, I can only think of three major influences in my life.

My parents, who taught me that no matter how hard it gets, how much it hurts, or how many enemies you make, the only real failure is submission.

My life has taught me that struggle and conflict are not to be avoided but embraced, because you only really learn whats important when your back is against a wall.

Finally, there is music, which has brought me closer to the divine than any church and shown me that beauty can be found in even the most terrible places.

Words. I'm a writer so words are how i make my way in the world. I think they have power, and the greatest weapon i will ever wield is my pen, as cliche as that sounds. Sometimes writing things down is the only way i can truly express myself, is the only way i can make sense of what goes on in my head. I also read voraciously, and i have since i was three. Books showed me the world long before i was able to go out and see it for myself. They introduced me to other cultures and people, and to literature. One of my favorite books as a kid was "A Child's Garden of Verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson. They helped me see that there is an entire world beyond my front door, so that when i got older, i was ready to explore it.