You can perceive things without actually looking for it. Change is based on perspective… how we observe and how we quantify things. This is why, we as people, create standards and practices. Things such as language, laws, etc… we’re conditioned, acculturated and indoctrinated from birth to share this unifying perspective. If you fail to be assimilated, you’re punished for being divergent.
I mean that in-general, people are conditioned/accultured/indoctrinated to be concerned with the mundane. As a result, my existence is a lonely one… not because I lack social interaction, but because the majority of my interactions are nothing more than “small talk” and the like… very few people are comfortable discussing more meaningful concepts/ideas, even fewer openmindedly.
Good/Evil, Right/Wrong, Positive/Negative… are all biased and subjective. We all have preferences, which you can categorize in such ways, but there’s no universal morality. I have my own personal ideologies (i.e. preferences), which I attempt to live in accordance with. For instance, if I feel my life threatened, I will have no issue taking a life if I have to (just as we see in Nature). I will live and let live, until it directly affects my ability to live. I will never choose to impose my ideologies on others, like we’re prone to do in Society, as a manner to validate my beliefs.
Not evaluate, but accept. Evaluation leads to rationalization and justification, acceptance leads to freedom. For instance, if you truly accept Fantine, you do not view her as a prostitute… you view her as Fantine… regardless of all the biases we have about her actions.
Compromise only means both sides suffer, instead of one. It is an unnatural concept, animals don’t compromise. There is a conflict between my ex and I, if there’s a compromise, we both suffer for it. The stronger specimen will take it’s place in the heirarchy of the species… whom that might be is yet to be determined. If a weaker bear challenges a stronger bear for a superior fishing spot, there are consequences for such an action, the bears do not compromise. I will not shoulder the injuries I’ve endured any longer, because of compromise, this means being true to my Nature… if she cannot handle the consequences of her actions, she shouldn’t have done said actions. And no, I don’t plan to respond with violence, I intend to simply share my story as I perceived it. This will likely inflict pain and suffering on her (others might be influenced by my words to judge her for who she actually is, as opposed to the persona she presents to the world), but I cannot be held accountable for her actions. I can only be held responsible for my own actions, which I’m willing to do, since I’ve been taking responsibility for others my entire life.
It’s my responsibility that my sister and cousin molested me when I was 6, it’s my responsibility that my mother and oldest brother used to beat me for most of my childhood, it’s my responsibility that some teacher put a megaphone next to my ear when I was 6 and traumatized me in front of the entire class, it’s my responsibility that I left myself emotionally vulnerable to my ex and she took it as an invitation to cut me to pieces for nine years (which lasted as long as it did, because the cycle of abuse was normalized to me as a result of my childhood)… I accept what happened and I understand that those who abused me, were abused themselves… but fuck them, because they refuse to take any responsibility at all. I’m the “bad” guy because I refuse to merely internalize it and let it eat away at me like they choose to do. I should instead seek to distract myself from all of it, as I did my entire life, even though that only made me depressed and apathetic. I’m not allowed to live, the way I want to live, because it’s considered “wrong” to want to confront my demons. I even take responsibility for my own actions, which is why I reached out to the people that I hurt and apologized for my actions, offering whatever was in my power to make it “right” by them… even to those that hurt me.
You misunderstand me. The fact that you’re asking questions and willing to have a back/forth, shows open-mindedness (i.e. a willingness to adapt). This is an uncommon characteristic, at least from my anecdotal experiences. We’re not perfect and sometimes emotions get the better of us, for instance, this thread started as a result of emotions getting the better of me. Disagreeing with a poorly thought-out argument, isn’t taking a hard stance… denying or being stubborn in the face of evidence/reason/logic is a hard stance.
It’s all beliefs IMHO. We all have them, but some of us are fluid in the process and most are stiff. I’m fluid because I realize that I do not know as much as I would like to think I know, therefore, new information is contemplated and my beliefs are adjusted accordingly. Many, for various reasons, don’t reflect on beliefs after they’re formed.
Don’t let ego get in your way here. Psychology isn’t as complex as some make it out to be or maybe I’m gifted in this area… I can tell a lot about people based on very little, not usually particulars, but generalities for sure. I’m not trying to encapsulate the entirity of your being, based on a superficial amount of information, but I have already figured out a lot about your thought-process from these short exchanges. I may not know the causes behind the effects, but I know psychology well enough to glean out certain patterns and based on those patterns I can “ballpark” things well enough.
See above.
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Agreed, it’s not easy. It took me almost 40 years to finally figure it out and it’s going to take years to recondition myself to be the way I desire to be.
Anger was before apathy. I got to a point where it was either let my anger manifest in potentially terrible ways or to simply stop caring. Actually, the reason I’m good at what I do, is because I suppress my emotions. I have empirical experiences in such matters, so I can understand and empathize, but if I let my emotions interfere… I would be highly unstable, just like the students… it’s my stability and my understanding that makes them feel comfortable around me and respect me enough to do what I ask.
I’m speaking of everyone who was involved in my life.
I’m protected under the 1st ammendment. They have to prove that my writing is false, I don’t have to prove that it’s true, if they seek to pursue libel… but a disclaimer will legally protect me, in any event. Your interactions with others, outside of specific circumstances, has no expectations of privacy… to illustrate, if I rape someone, does the victim not have the legal right to reveal my action? (i.e. the right to reveal what we want about ourselves vs what we reveal about others)… can the victim only reveal that they were raped, but not who did it? Actions have consequences… I may not have legal or civil recourses, but I do have the freedom to honestly tell my story.
I don’t have total disregard for those who abused me, but where does my personal regard stand vs my regard for them? At some point, a decision must be made… do I hold more regard for myself or do I hold more regard for them? They chose to regard themselves more than they regarded me, when they abused me and still they chose to not take responsibility for it. I at least am willing to accept my responsibility, even if it means being estranged from my family.
It’s a possibility as I was vulnerable at the time, but based on all the information, I would disagree. I witnessed the exact moment that her defenses came up, so logically speaking, lowered defenses means vulnerability.
I met her 3 years before Bosnia, but I didn’t really get to know her until a month before I left (I spent about 10 days with her on leave, then 2 weeks back in Texas before going to Bosnia). I specifically told her that if she wasn’t into me or found someone else, just to let me know… cheating on deployed soldiers is very common and I knew this, which is why I made it very clear to her that I would have no hard feelings if she couldn’t handle the situation, just to give me the courtesy of a heads up.
The person she was without the defenses up (i.e. before the women made the comment).
Yes, I said as much in that same quote. It obviously isn’t her, which I’ve come to realize and accept now.
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The current reality, with reference to her, is that she is heavily damaged and not the kind of person that I want to associate with. I feel sad for her, she is a miserable person from what I could analyze in our recent conversations. She works all the time, escapes in World of Warcraft, hasn’t had a meaningful relationship since, only surrounds herself with people who do not challenge her, she seeks to escape her past by disaccosiating from it and displayed emotional outbursts when confronted by something that supposedly doesn’t affect her or have power over her any more (which is complete hypocrisy), etc… I was fighting it for a bit, but I have come to accept it. The process is on-going and part of the process for me is to write my story.
Love is a feeling, it’s a part of our biology, used to form strong bonds. I do see a difference between love and being “in love” though, being “in love” is a much stronger chemical mix, to aid the reproduction process. Love on the other hand, is something that we feel towards others in our species… like animals that are social, why don’t they kill one another for food or safety? I mean, some do, but it’s purpose is based in biology… like when animals kill the young of other males to put the female into heat, so that he can spread his own seed. Unfortunately, our Nurture has manipulated our Nature in this regard. We have created a lot of conflict in ourselves over it… leading to a lot of dysfunction and mental illness.
This is your Nurture speaking. We all know how to love (besides the few cases of mutation), it’s in our DNA. It’s our conditioning that influences us to rationalize/justify our feelings towards others. If you see a person suffering, do you not feel empathy and compassion? What about if you find out later that they were a pedophile? One is Nature, the other is Nurture.
No, I understand that we’re all imperfect. We’re not defined by a single action, we’re defined by all of them combined. I may not respect that he murdered someone, but I would still respect other things that he did… respecting aspects of someone is still respecting the person, it doesn’t have to be absolute… although a lack of respect must be a complete absence of respect.
Why do you have a problem with the term “damaged”? Imagine a new TV, over the years of use it becomes worn, but eventually from misuse it develops a defect (i.e. becomes damaged, not inoperable)… apply the same logic to a person… you’re born new, over the years of responsible use you become worn, someone/something mistreats you and you develop a defect as a result (i.e. become damaged). That defect might be something like being emotionally hurt and it forces you to develop defenses, which as a result prevents you from treating the next person the same way.
It was a change in my Army experience, not myself. I went from basic training into a regular unit, two different environments, which made those issues more glaring and they began to affect me directly.
Thought is Natural. There’s nothing wrong with it, unless it’s dysfunctional. It’s about maintaining balance, in all aspects of life. Being physically fulfilled, being mentally fulfilled, being spiritually fulfilled… if one of those is out of balance with the rest, it’s dysfunctional. You must make time for each aspect… thinking all the time, is just as dysfunctional as working all the time… meditating all the time, is just as dysfunctional as thinking all the time.
To a degree… nurtured enough to be unhappy, not nurtured enough to fit into my environment blissfully ignorant. I’m able to see both the beginning and the finish, I’d rather go back to the beginning than attempt to reach the end… I’m too aware of what we are to be content with what we become. I talk about retraining, because we’re speaking about states of being… if you take a domesticated dog and toss it back in the wild, it will have to adapt to the new environment (i.e. retrain itself to the new lifestyle). No different than a muscle, if you train your muscles to sit behind a desk all day and type, it will require retraining to go out and bench press 500 lbs.
We’re similar to animals, but we possess consciousness. My point was that an animal can retrain itself while lacking consciousness, meaning that with consciousness (i.e. a human), I should be able to accomplish such a feat easier.
Is there? You keep asking me about right/wrong, I don’t think in such terms any longer. Can practicality be harmful? Absolutely. Can practicality be beneficial? Absolutely. Wisdom is the ability to judge such things… if you’re using practicality to justify/rationalize things, it’s probably more harmful than beneficial.
Why would I change my username? It is a part of me, just as is the harmful and beneficial experiences I’ve had. I don’t need to run away from those things, because I don’t need to run away from myself. I’m content in myself, I’m content in my past.