Seleneccentric

I'm so sorry, LB. Please don't give up.

My apologies for this post, it was a hasty projection. Thank you for responding with such even-tempered regard.

When I was Catholic, every time I took a non-Catholic friend to mass, it was traumatic for them. I always took pains to thoroughly describe what would happen and how they should behave, knowing full well the level of social opprobrium leveled at me every time I made some kind of mistake in the past, and seeing the issues people I'd brought had encountered previously. Even with this kind of preparation, without exception, I never succeeded in steering someone through a ceremony without incident. Bringing someone to any mass, let alone mass held for a special ceremony like a baptism, and telling them "it will be easy" is so staggeringly foolish that it borders on malice. If it's any consolation, my guess is that when you handed the guy the communion wafer, you completely blew his mind (Catholic minds are easily blown, in my experience). On a less positive but equally interesting note, there's a good chance he's probably self-attacking this very minute over having been handed the wafer (I guarantee you he would not self-attack for accosting you, however).

Edit — removed the post, not qualified to speak on the subject

edit — removed the post, not qualified to speak on the subject

Edit — Removed

Thank you all for writing. I may try. cynicist, thank you for your post — I took a lot from that. That's a striking point, thank you, I'll consider it carefully. luminescent, thank you for the recommendation. Very powerful words, thank you for posting. I appreciate the community being so sensitive and supportive. It's hard to know what to expect. I'm having a hell of a tough time making progress, but I keep the things said here in mind as I go.

So, I have come to a slow emotional awakening over the last half-year, and felt the joy of being alert and alive in the world. But now there is a terrible storm wall before me — the thing that I feared so greatly that I was willing to imprison and torture myself, apparently indefinitely, in an emotional cell of my own design. If it only threatened to wound me, I wouldn't now be so afraid. Rather, it is threatening to put me back to sleep. If I can't find a way to live through this, I'm afraid that I'll slip back into the world of black illusion that emerged from.I am myself a corrupt person. I am exactly the kind of person that I've been removing from my life — abusive, self-absorbed, bullying, manipulative... but with the awful difference that I have kept all my wrongdoings concealed.I molested both of my younger siblings. It started when I was thirteen and I did it for the last time when I was twenty. It happened about a dozen times in total, though it's difficult to count, because the traps I set in my own mind are dutifully shredding the memories as I try to reach them. As you would expect though, in the end it wasn't limited to them and it wasn't limited to just this type of abuse. I've cheated on people, lied, used people's emotions against them. All the while I cultivated an untouchable public image of moral perfection. I used to see people admire me and it would make me physically sick, because I knew what I was inside.I've reached out to my siblings, and told them how sorry I am for what I've done. I've given them a commitment to help them in any way that I can as they try to recover from the destruction that I caused. If things go as planned, I'll be paying for therapy for one of them starting in the Spring, and it gives me joy to be able help them even in so insignificant a way. They're both strong. I have justifiable hope that they can be healed.But how can I be healed? Can I be healed? Should I be healed?I used to think, "If anyone knew the truth about me, the right thing for them to do would be to kill me." I have no idea any more whether that is just, but I know that I do want to live — but how? Is that even, at a fundamental level, possible? Am I cut off from virtue? I'm going to therapy. I've got people in my life who support me. I'm healthy and safe. I've removed hurtful and abusive people from my life… all but one. I journal and write and I've tried to pull the pieces of me back into some kind of semblance of a soul. I want to live. I want to never hurt anyone else like I hurt my siblings. I want to stop being a bad person. What can I do?

Wow! Congratulations on so many big breakthroughs! Your courage is inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing.

Thanks all for the advice. I really am trying to be realistic about my ability to improve the situation. I think that I will take the route of simply trying to intentionally be a positive in their life, and open up the space for a conversation if it becomes possible. Oddly, the prudent and responsible route seems to be more onerous than the rash one, but it also seems well worth doing.

I've run into a tricky question that I don't quite know how to answer to my own satisfaction. A coworker of mine has been missing from work for nearly a week, and they recently showed back up with a recovering black eye, a cut on their cheek (that I have the experience to identify as one having likely come from a closed-fist strike), and generally looking humiliated and depressed. My instant gut reaction was that this person has been hit, possibly by their partner, who I believe is somewhat emotionally unstable. Of course, no one said a word. As far as I know, this person is unlikely to be receiving any support, and it is killing me to be a part of the wall of silence that imprisons victims.I had an impulse to bring the issue up directly, but decided that this might be too frightening, my coworker being somewhat skittish and shy. After some reflection, I considered leaving an anonymous note along the lines of the following: The question in my mind is whether this action will do more harm than good, or whether there is a still better course of action to take. Furthermore, I question whether I have any specific responsibility to act, or whether this aversion that I feel is in fact cowardice. I'm hopeful that the community here might have some helpful advice or similar experiences to share. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

I've been debating whether or not to respond again, but I believe that I do want to speak up before the message goes completely stale. When I read your piece, I was struck by how similar your Authority was to my own internal voice that I've been struggling against for many months. Same arguments, same tone, same intentions and goals. As a matter of course this agent must behave hypocritically, in the way you describe, in order to satisfy its mission. Putting my own foot down against this force has been a massive struggle, and by no means always a winning one. To some extent these might be patterns that are shaped by the words and actions of others, but would they behave as they do unless the behavior has been modeled by their own internal dialogue? More and more I understand that the state is a state of mind.

I'm so sorry, Slavik. Thank you for sharing this, though. I go through so many of the same things, and it's always good to know you're not alone. As Rilke says a "whole constellation" of things must go right for one person to advise another, but I say this because it helped me... if there is any way you can struggle against this power in you... do your best to not feed it. Even one morsel snatched away is a victory. Strive for that with everything you have. I wish you luck, my friend.

Based on my experience with pangender/transgender/queer-identified people, I would not say that everything is perfectly clear to them right away, or that they feel an unchanging, deep conviction that they are one way or another. Confusion seems perfectly understandable. Aren't we all on a strange, twisty path to understanding what and who we are? If you haven't already pursued it, you may be surprised by the amount of support in that community. However, I would add that personally, I have found self-delusion, unprocessed abuse, etc. to be just as common there as anywhere else. You have my sympathy for having to struggle with something so complex and confusing — but taken another way, it is an exciting opportunity. You might have lived your whole life without getting the opportunity to face these possibilities, but now you at least have a chance. I wish you the best of luck.

Holy crap, magic mushrooms are less intense than DMT? I've never tried Ayahauska or any DMT product, but psilocybin mushrooms, for me, were a really important part of finally coming out of depression. However, based on how intense I found relatively small doses, if Ayahauska is more intense, I would exhort anyone without previous experience with these types of substances to avoid it unless they had a very experienced guide.

Am I understanding rightly that you see sexuality as inconsistent with spirituality? Do you think you could explain that a bit more?

You can't feel empathy if you're emotionally dead. Violence is fun and exciting, if you are so mutilated inside that your mind is practically swimming around in a soup of your own blood and offal. -- edit: that came off more graphic than I intended, suffice to say I share your feelings of revulsion toward this kind of depravity.

Pardon me, but we already have the system you describe. When I get a bill at a restaurant, the waiter accepts a piece of plastic which communicates to him all of the faith and value that my employers and customers place in me. The plastic card informs him in fact, of the sum total of value that others have assessed for my work, less that which I have already spent elsewhere. The price system takes care of all of this business about "levels" and "credits" by aggregating everyone's needs and desires, with a little bit of information exchanged with every purchase, hire, and loan.

Thanks for this, this really spoke to some of the things I've been dealing with myself. I noticed something about the structure — it opens like an essay but quickly becomes a dialogue between the narrator who asks "does humanity have a right to be free?" and the "Authority". I think the dialogue is fantastic. You might get an interesting result if you retooled this to focus exclusively on the dialogue. Secondly, if it's not too invasive, may I ask who the "Authority" is, from your perspective?

Hi Slava, thanks for posting. I don't know of the podcast in which Stefan discusses this subject, and I would also love to listen to it if someone knows which one it is. However, I recently experienced an improvement in my own patterns of eye-contact that perhaps you might find interesting or useful. After having become much more self-aware and involved with life, I make eye contact much more easily and for longer durations. In fact, I find that I actually crave eye contact quite frequently. Formerly, I intentionally avoided eye contact in most situations, often talking to someone while looking away, or breaking eye-contact very quickly, especially if it was accidental. Oddly, while alone with a romantic partner, I felt an intense need to be seen, and I'll admit that I would sometimes get childishly upset if they didn't give me enough attention. As for the why... for me, it felt like it was coming from a place of fear. Avoiding eye-contact was just one strategy among many for receding entirely from the world and going utterly unnoticed. If you're perpetually afraid that other people will hurt, scorn, or mock you, it makes perfect sense. Now I just have far less of that fear, and making contact comes that much more easily. I obviously don't know if that speaks to what you are interested in, but I hope that it might. Once more, welcome and thanks for being here.

I read most of Gyn/Ecology a while back. It's so interesting to see people discussing it here. I think Daly is an excellent story teller (her interpretation of subtle shades of meaning in word-choice is stellar) but the story could go another way — maybe men crave emotional and physical closeness with their children as much as women do, but because they are taught to not show affection, they pour that energy into other areas — technology, projects, art, etc. Aeonicentity, do you mind if I ask why you say that it is necessary for both parties in a relationship to make sacrifices in order for it to be healthy?

I would be mildly surprised if the film were pro-war/propangandistic. The book was downright subversive — a kind of proto-Fountainhead for preteens. The kids knew that the adults were manipulating them, turning them against one another, and psychologically brutalizing them. I was particularly struck by a passage in which one of the characters notes that some areas of the space station seem to exhibit artificial gravity (an otherwise unheard-of technology — in other words, the adults are hiding important secrets from the children, and use those secrets to disguise the fundamental nature of the world. If I recall correctly, the character cited the passage to the battle room as chief among these areas. What a great metaphor. The book is probably still worth reading, as are the sequels. The series is a tragedy, as others have said. Quite different from the impression I got from the trailers and some of the reviews out there.

Thank you both/all for your kindness and kind words.

Please don't take it the wrong way, but I find that beautiful. It's extremely rare for anyone to search for a way to identify themselves other than picking up and applying the random labels that they find lying around. It's very cool that you are searching that out and trying to figure out your own answer. If you want to be a Libertarian monk, do it! I don't think anyone is going to stop you. If I could ask, why do you think you say that you're not a fan of communities?

Wow, congratulations on making it through so much insanity to find your way here! It sounds like you made a strong decision to distance yourself from people who were using and threatening you. That's very admirable. I found your story fascinating and tragic and funny and inspiring. Thank you so much for opening up and sharing.