A conversation to save

I invest far too much importance into these strangers

as if one of them saying no to me might result in the

word "reject" being branded on my forehead for

everyone to see

Why do you feel it?  I'm really curious
because you have proof right there that
people love and want you. I'm not downplaying
the fact that you feel it, I just am wondering
where that feeling is coming from

It doesn't transfer from them to me. I can't accept

myself, when I believe that I should be rejected,

that I'm unsafe for people

Hugs

Because my self-loathing and fear of myself is

internal, externalized love from other people

can't make that go away

It's between me and me

not them and me

I understand

Much, most, of it is about my mother

as I suspect is most of yours

rejection from the day we were born, babe

We've lived under threat to our very survival as

tiny little babies, how could we not?

We learned that that threat to us WAS us

I was unsafe for my mother, I became an unsafe

person to everyone.

When we were born we separated from them,

we had different needs than them, and our

stupid little baby heads didn't understand that

we were supposed to take care of them

When we finally learned that, we were so much

older and the damage was already done

We'd already failed

and we carry that burden and don't know how to

let go of it yet

I was lectured the other day,
he told me I need to let it all go
and that I alone am responsible
for my happiness
Right in the middle of lunch
I felt like crying

That's a very nice sentiment, pop

psych person, (rolling my eyes around,

shooting out sarcasm rainbows) but that's

far more advanced than we're ready for, and

to my mind completely ignores the damage

done to us.  We have a lot we have to do before

we can tackle that lovely concept

Let me know if I project my issues onto you

too much, btw

You are pretty damn spot on

But the first thing that you and I have to do,

being oldest children, having the types of mothers

 we did who witting and unwittingly did their specific

brand of damage - what we have to do is get

to a place where we can even look at the damage

done to our little baby selves, where we were NOT

taken care of FROM THE BEGINNING

Take care of ourselves, wtf?

we don't know how that's done!

It wasn't done for US, so how could we

have learned what that looks like???!!

And then, just maybe, after facing that truth,

we have to wade through ALL of the abandonment,

rage, grief, in an emotional, not just strictly

intellectual way

and JFC if that's not going to be a BITCH

And THEN

I know
My massive breakdowns in therapy are
just the start for me heh

and only then can we even begin to put

the pieces together to imagine what we

might have wanted, might have needed,

breaking down years of suppression and

repression and oppression, and going

through that grieving process, mourning

that loss

and THEN, working our way toward figuring

 out how to let our adult selves take care of us

so yeah, lol

Make your own damn fucking happiness

that just makes me rage

It's like I want to be sad?

EXACTLY, I KNOW, RITE?!?!?!

It sounds like it will never get there 

Nah, we will

I've spent the last year blocking myself from
feeling anything just so I can be content
And maintaining those walls, last year, it's
just too fucking hard now

yep, that's actually why we'll succeed, and

probably faster than we expect

Because the thing is - you and me - we grow,

it's who we are. We're crazy strong.

Have you seen that owl picture - the

depression one, beating at it with a stick?

Oh yes

So we're that kind of strong

and smart

And whatever it is about us, our temperaments,

personalities, souls, whatever you want to call it,

we are the kind of people who get there

Take a look at your family... content in their

ignorance, narcissism, bigotry, and look at you

you didn't stay in that

you grew

you fight for yourself and the survival of your soul

and that is why you'll get there and probably

faster than you think

Oh my god
Yes

Man, can you imagine us when we've been

able to set down those strength-sucking issues?  lol

FABULOUS

Lol

That's my take on it.

Pretty sure I'm right about it.

Of course I would.

But I'm still right.

Lol I love you

Love you too. 

Meanwhile, in another Universe, Danger Mouse tucks the Friendly Lion into bed.

I read A Brave New World last night for the first time. I like to space my dystopias out over the span of as many years as possible, as I'm prone to depression and can often just not bear the misery. But I do like to think, and dystopias are great for making you think alongside all of the "feels". Honestly, after reading it, all I really had to read was the quote at the beginning by Nicolas Berdiaeff about how we should do everything in our power to make sure Utopias are never arrived at.

Well, duh, I read the Bible too. And The Lord of the Rings.
Wasn't that the message of both of those stories or was that just me?

I perhaps do injustice to the story's impact by having received the message from other authors who incorporated its message into their own work. They conceived of the grain of gold and pulled it out from the terribly irrelevant "science" and passed it on.

Having received the message and already integrated it, I was left to only learn the stuff that makes no sense from a social-historical, neurological or even biological standpoint.

It made a terrible, terrifying sense when he wrote it, when the Industrial Revolution, Communism, Nazism, and "Better Living Through Chemistry" was new, it pulled at the fears of the day. But, unlike 1984 those fears aren't supportable anymore. The fears tugged at in George Orwell's book are still all too easily imagined and made more real as the technology develops.

I am also a teensy bit weirded out by the "bliss pill" concept. I'm bipolar and take meds for stabilization. Seriously, I actually am taking a pill to make me happy when my neurons are shouting at me "No, everything is wrong!". So how weird to read about a pill that makes the point that, well, everything actually is wrong and you are just using a pill to make you "happy" anyway. Any person using meds to mentally stabilize struggles with the strangeness of this on a daily basis - "Am I still me?"

Where William Gibson (@GreatDismal, Neuromancer and others), Neal Stephenson (Snowcrash) and Tad Williams (Otherland)** took many of the most compelling priciples of Brave New World is, I think, the natural progression given the development of the science and tech since then. In their stories, the opiate is "online". The content is generated and compels consumption that is used by power/corporations/elites to maintain order and stability. Their stories are all much more complex and layered, with a lot more in there than that single sentence, but the principle is still there.

What those stories don't address is the fundamental nature of Utopias being inherently, inescapably Dystopian. While I certainly haven't read even most of the literature even in my favorite genre, I haven't heard of any other story that makes this point so well, other than religious or political texts. Trying to create an orderliness out of disorder is a task given to the gods and politicians and kings. When men (historically, with a few exceptions) have acted to bring it, they are imbued with a mantle of "righteousness" or "great leader". The dystopia is not examined in the text, just in the wars, persecution, prejudice, judgmentalism, condemnation, the "othering" in daily life.

**True confession I haven't read a lot of these writers' more recent works, although I've the intention to soon. I'm combatting my extremely reduced attention span caused by my Twitter addiction, see "online content".

When I discovered my Religion, developed my understanding of Economic Theory, and That Bright Shining Moment

For a lot of people it was the stories of Ayn Rand. She was the person who told the story that touched their souls, helped them understand their place in the world and the world That Could Be.

For me it was another story. We were visiting my aunt and uncle. My cousin Matthew rushed me to the kitchen table, "You have to read this story!"

I raised my eyebrows, I'd never understood his taste in literature even though we both preferred the same genres.

"It's not long, read it." I took the stapled pages, obviously a high school assignment handout, knowing that in his notebook would be the accompanying "Write three paragraphs about your understanding of this story." Ick... Teachers didn't usually assign stories with elves...

"With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea..."

So now I say, "Read this, it's not long."
Ursula Le Guin - The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas


I stood at the kitchen table and read this not-long story. And at the end, hands trembling, pulled out a chair and sat and read it again. And again.

It was That Bright Shining Moment when I understood that Terrible Beauty, my world crumbled and was rebuilt in those moments. I walked through the fire, I had my moment on the Damascus Road, I beheld an old man, I emerged from the cave.

I was 16, I think. That's a good age to have some morality smash it's way into a human being's soul.

Throughout my life I was informed of the general principles of objectivism, given that they were the guiding forces of the terribly destructive "self esteem" social experiment that started on my generation, and then hideously refined with the succeeding one. I understand the comfort of those principles, given the radical social changes in such a short amount of time. There were no existing guidelines and social structures that could teach us how to understand what birth control was going to do to our society. The codified principle of following one's instincts must have been a huge relief.

I could understand objectivism, but I've always felt that objectivists can't seem to grapple with the child, and each person's responsibility for the child, to oneself, to everyone else. This question cannot be answered or contemplated using objectivist principles without a complete denial of responsibility to anyone.

We don't live in Omelas. We aren't shown the child as a rite of passage.

But the child is still here, everywhere. Do you take responsibility, understanding deep within your soul that every action has a cost, that every act of goodness, kindness, gentleness, graciousness can be a way of honoring and thanking the child?

"Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free."

I have wavered back and forth over the years, but right now at my time of life, I'm pretty sure I would not walk away. But I never stop thinking about it.

"Sometimes also a man or woman much older..." and how not?
The responsibility can be heavy.