[Whit Blauvelt]

Hi Andrei,

Recently retired from several decades of being a sysadmin, which I went sideways into after no formal computer education. My education back in the 70s was in the psychology and sociology of consciousness, followed by becoming a philosophy grad school dropout — philosophy at the time wasn’t ready for the questions that still fascinate me.

Krishnamurti impressed me greatly as a teen. He was raised to be a guru by the Theosophists, but early on dissolved the Order of the Eastern Star, which they’d set up with him as leader, explaining his frustration that nobody was getting it, and that the whole cultish setup was more an obstacle than furtherance.

I particularly like Krishnamurti’s view of “discipline” as openness to learning from attention, akin to an academic “discipline,” rather than a strictness of self-control where one “disciplines” oneself.

Whit