Discourse 6: The War for your soul?ñQuote from: Bon JoviYou pay the cost
like it's your cross to bear
But are we the one's who put it there?
And would you scheme for it?
Scream for it?
Bleed for it?
She asked me: "Do you think highly of yourself Trollax?"
I floundered for a moment then said "No."
She turned and looked at me, giving me the fierce stare again. "Are you proud of yourself?" she asked, her head bowed, that same stare glancing up at me like she were eyeing me up for a charge.
I hesitated and stammered a "No." what had brought this on anyway?
She walked up and backhanded me across the face. I staggered back against the wall and she pinned me there with one forearm across my chest; the other hand grabbed my protesting right arm and pinned it against the wall as well.
"Liar!" She hissed. "I know you have pride in yourself Trollax." She growled "Do you want to know how I know? Because I do! Everyone does! But no, they tell you it's not right it's egotistical to think well of yourself, that you are worthy and deserving, you have to sell yourself short, that you have to believe that somewhere you are inadequate and keep that hidden from the world as well. Why? Shame Trollax."
She was speaking so fast now that I could barely follow her, but I was too scared not to.
"They want you to believe that you are inferior that you cannot hope to know anything, that your reasoning will always be flawed that someone else can say it better. Why? Because If you don't have a personal identity they can take you Trollax, lead you down that long dark spiral to purgatory where you can whine and holler and complain but never stand up and say I am the one. They can get you to trade your very soul for empty promises and broken dreams."
I wanted to argue with her, protest about her treatment of me but something in her words made me stop, she was driving something home here, she wanted me to remember this moment. So what to say?
"Why?" I choked out between her pressure on my chest and my own tears of realisation. "Why?"
"Because if you declare that you can have a valid opinion and draw correct conclusions you can't be controlled, if you believe in your own words, right or wrong you're your own person Trollax. They cannot take you, cannot claim you, you are no longer a part of the equation and they hate that because that means that you are one soul that they can no longer play with."
She stopped leaning on me and I fell down, mainly because I was struggling to breathe, though part of me wanted to un-hear what she had just said, strike out at her. I did nothing for the moment.
"Who are they?" I asked, wiping my eyes.
She turned as though I had struck her, "Memes Trollax! Nothing more than behaviours passed from person to person, unconscious formations of convention that choke and degrade us with all the brains and intelligence of weeds. Our souls are eaten alive by our minds Trollax, and yet we defend these self-destructive patterns with our lives."
I remembered an old quote I had read somewhere?ñ "And prepare to defend your shoe-size with your life." I said blankly.
She nodded "Yes."
?ñ
Quote from: Green DayWho the hell are you to tell me,
Just what I am and what's my master plan?
Egotism, Self-centeredness, Arrogance?ñ
Sense of self, Self-consideration, Self-esteem?ñ
All of these words relate to the self's opinion of itself, yet the first three have negative connotations attached to them; the second three are more clinical and ambiguous than positive. Where are the positive valuations of self-opinion? Where is a word that instead of meaning "
I consider myself superior to all others" means "
I consider myself equal to others" :?: :?: :?:
Is there such a word or have we been lead unwittingly into an Orwellian nightmare that while different in structure, is exactly the same in form as 1984 or Brave New World?
Consider that in 1984 language has been engineered so that the word "Protester" is synonymous with the word "Liar." The same is true of the world today, where the word "Pride" is synonymous with the word "Arrogance" or "conceit" or "Self-centered" and there are far more negative connotations than positive ones.
Even in our allegedly individualist western society a high self-opinion is considered a negative thing. Why? Well once again in 1984 the word protestor is synonymous with liar because the powers that be don't want dissent getting around. In the same way that here valuing your own opinions and judgements means that you are less like to stick to convention because you can make up your own mind.
Quote from: John RzeznikAnd what do you think you'd ever say?
I won't listen anyway.
You don't know me
And I'll never be what you ant me to be.
A real individual is someone who does what they do because they have made their own judgements and determinations about something, without deferring their opinions to others. Someone who says that the glass is neither half empty nor half full, instead they pick it up drink its contents and then form their opinion based on that.
Why is this a bad thing? It is not but it makes us harder to control, harder to manipulate harder to guilt and shame and herd like sheep around the place, as
'she' says in the quote:
Quote?ñthat you have to believe that somewhere you are inadequate and keep that hidden from the world as well. Why? Shame Trollax.
We use shame all the time, we are versed in it from an early age:
"
Don't do that you'll hurt yourself!" OR "
Why don't you want to come to grandmas? She'll miss you if you're not there."
What relationship has this to sense of self? If you have a high opinion of yourself you cannot be guilted and scared into doing things, why? Because you do not rely on the valuations and judgements of others to form your own personal identity, you do not need to be validated and held up by the opinions of others in order to have self-esteem. In other words you do not rely on things that can be attacked or taken away from you to give you confidence. When you have confidence in yourself, you get confidence from the positive feedback of your own self-evaluation.
This is an anathema to the social organism, why? Because while you may be part of a group, you cannot be lead by it, you cannot be placed into a hierarchy, be easily categorised, or even excised because you are there of your own free will and can have nothing taken from you. I.e. the social organism cannot have a power over you. And people who act like this are often treated worse than unpopular people in social situations, something I have learned from personal experience. Back in high school I came up with this question to gauge people's ability to think outside the square, I would simply walk up to them and ask in an interrogation-like manner:
"When were you on the night of the 12th?!?"Those that actually picked up the temporal anomaly in that statement usually just sneered and said "The 12th stupid!" and look at me like I was crazy. Only one person I know ever answered differently, and to this day we are still firm friends. :D
(NOTE: I am crazy, but only according to convention not clinical diagnosis.)OK so why is this a war for your soul? Many reasons actually.
One is that without a proper self-opinion we are always subject to the whims and conventions of the social animal. Experiments were conducted in the 1960's at Yale University in order to see if people would obey orders from an authority figure to harm another person shed some light in this area.
A subject would arrive at the university the same time as the confederate (a guy who was in on the act) and they would both get to talking and whatnot and then the experimenter would come out and "explain" things to them:
"
We want to see how punishment affects memory, we've got a device here that administers electric shocks of 15-volt increments up to 450 Volts. What we want the teacher to do is read out multiple choice questions and the learner will supply answers. When the learner gets a question wrong they'll be given a shock increasing in intensity every time they get one wrong."
The subjects then took part in a rigged ballot in which the confederate was always the learner and so on. The confederate never actually received any shocks but was kept well appraised of the voltage level and was required to give certain responses when certain shocks were administered.
Ultimately 65% of people obeyed up to the maximum voltage level even after the confederate gave screams of pain and complained of a heart condition, then refused to answer any more questions. They allowed themselves to be prodded on by the experimenter into committing what would have been an act of torture had the false premise of the experiment been real.
Quote from: Collective SoulWhen you're willing to render
to the guilt you concede.
When truth is your reason
Then lay the blame on me.
The second is self-ownership. Without self-ownership the causes and reasons for our actions are rationalised to the behaviour of others: "
It's her fault I hit him! She made me angry!" OR "
It's his fault, he knows what I get like when I drink!"
Yet who got angry and who accepted the drink? We are all ultimately responsible for all of our actions, there are many causes and situational factors that affect our choices but they do not constrain us. This another socially unpopular notion because it removes part of our ability to guilt and shame, once we know who is responsible for our actions and thoughts, blaming them on others becomes wrong internally.
The third one is transparency to yourself, this helps to reduce and negate the negative aspects of egotism, it allows us to see the errors of our ways, when we are making mistakes and correct them. Yet this is not a rampant self-doubt, it is a kind of honest rapport we have with ourselves that seeks not to prove our own reasoning wrong but establish in a fair and equitable fashion if we are wrong at all, and if we can not in the present moment find anything wrong with our reasoning we leave it as is.
Quote
A true warrior is one who has the strength to make a decision, the conviction to back it up, and the courage to admit to being wrong.
Quote from: EminemThey say music can alter moods and talk to you,
But can it load a gun for you and cock it too?
Well if it can then the next time you assault a dude,
Just tell the judge it's my fault and I'll get sued.
This is the war for our souls the battle between acceptance as our role as our own saviors, the only people who can truly declare or define us as anything and the only people capable of saving ourselves, because in the end your opinions are your own, your judgements are your own, how can someone else's opinion of you really change what goes on deep in your subconscious? How can you even hope to use those words to effect change if you are unwilling to probe that dark yawing gap in yourself that consists of everything you wish to deny?
Quote from: Mark TwainEveryone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
I'm not saying here: "
Go out and have a cathartic experience every five minutes." In fact when it boils down to it I'm not advocating anything. What I am saying is that there are certain things which we are lead to believe by the world around us that are false, not only that they are dangerous to our mental well-being you may disagree with me on that point, but even though nothing is truly universal and totally applicable. I believe that there
are things that can be applied to the majority of humanity present in this universe on this planet in this space and time.
Quote from: Trollax~Quotable Trollax~
Word.
Really, there absolutely nothing more I can add to this subject...
Respec'
Bump.
I'm gonna keep doing this shit until my demands are met.
-100 points for quoting Bon Jovi and Mark Twain in the same rant.
Quote from: My Lady is a Cantaloupe on December 12, 2011, 06:37:13 PM
-100 points for quoting Bon Jovi and Mark Twain in the same rant.
And another -500 points for including Collective Soul and Eminem.
-700 for including Green Day.
-gazillion for being Trollaxe.
Deduct further points for this:
(NOTE: I am crazy, but only according to convention not clinical diagnosis.)
I AM SOO OUTRAGEOUS AND WACKY!! WOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Quote from: Mangrove on December 13, 2011, 03:20:12 PM
Deduct further points for this:
(NOTE: I am crazy, but only according to convention not clinical diagnosis.)
I AM SOO OUTRAGEOUS AND WACKY!! WOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps we should direct every "I'm so crazy!" n00b (which is all of them) to this thread.
Quote from: Nigel on December 14, 2011, 01:56:52 AM
Quote from: Mangrove on December 13, 2011, 03:20:12 PM
Deduct further points for this:
(NOTE: I am crazy, but only according to convention not clinical diagnosis.)
I AM SOO OUTRAGEOUS AND WACKY!! WOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps we should direct every "I'm so crazy!" n00b (which is all of them) to this thread.
Not all. Waffle Iron is cool.
Quote from: Luna on December 14, 2011, 04:18:10 AM
Quote from: Nigel on December 14, 2011, 01:56:52 AM
Quote from: Mangrove on December 13, 2011, 03:20:12 PM
Deduct further points for this:
(NOTE: I am crazy, but only according to convention not clinical diagnosis.)
I AM SOO OUTRAGEOUS AND WACKY!! WOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps we should direct every "I'm so crazy!" n00b (which is all of them) to this thread.
Not all. Waffle Iron is cool.
Waffle Iron isn't a noob. I'm sure he's been here for ages.
Quote from: Luna on December 14, 2011, 04:18:10 AM
Quote from: Nigel on December 14, 2011, 01:56:52 AM
Quote from: Mangrove on December 13, 2011, 03:20:12 PM
Deduct further points for this:
(NOTE: I am crazy, but only according to convention not clinical diagnosis.)
I AM SOO OUTRAGEOUS AND WACKY!! WOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps we should direct every "I'm so crazy!" n00b (which is all of them) to this thread.
Not all. Waffle Iron is cool.
And dimo knocked it off after a while.
Quote from: Science me, babby on December 14, 2011, 05:42:19 AM
Quote from: Luna on December 14, 2011, 04:18:10 AM
Quote from: Nigel on December 14, 2011, 01:56:52 AM
Quote from: Mangrove on December 13, 2011, 03:20:12 PM
Deduct further points for this:
(NOTE: I am crazy, but only according to convention not clinical diagnosis.)
I AM SOO OUTRAGEOUS AND WACKY!! WOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps we should direct every "I'm so crazy!" n00b (which is all of them) to this thread.
Not all. Waffle Iron is cool.
And dimo knocked it off after a while.
Dimo's been here forever. Same with Phox. (They were here when I got here, so they must have helped found the joint.)
I really don't understand why all of the n00bs have to trot out the mental illness thing, as if it's going to somehow impress people.
I think it's a natural step in their development. I know I once trotted out the "I'm crazy, just... CrAzY!" routine, because I felt like I didn't fit in, had ideas that it seemed other people didn't, and wanted to present myself with a sense of danger out of an instinctive defense response. I didn't have the words or the knowledge to properly phrase my thoughts, so I went with "crazy".
Of course, that more or less stopped the instant I encountered actual mental illness.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on December 14, 2011, 06:35:10 PM
I think it's a natural step in their development. I know I once trotted out the "I'm crazy, just... CrAzY!" routine, because I felt like I didn't fit in, had ideas that it seemed other people didn't, and wanted to present myself with a sense of danger out of an instinctive defense response. I didn't have the words or the knowledge to properly phrase my thoughts, so I went with "crazy".
Of course, that more or less stopped the instant I encountered actual mental illness.
I guess this makes a certain amount of sense.
The thing is, this is really the wrong venue for that kind of thing.
Everywhere is the wrong venue for that kind of thing. But it happens, like it or not.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on December 14, 2011, 06:43:02 PM
Everywhere is the wrong venue for that kind of thing. But it happens, like it or not.
True.
Quote from: Nigel on December 14, 2011, 06:24:51 PM
I really don't understand why all of the n00bs have to trot out the mental illness thing, as if it's going to somehow impress people.
LOOOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I'm the main character. :)
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on December 14, 2011, 07:19:37 PM
Quote from: Nigel on December 14, 2011, 06:24:51 PM
I really don't understand why all of the n00bs have to trot out the mental illness thing, as if it's going to somehow impress people.
LOOOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I'm the main character. :)
Haha!
Hahahahahaha!
AAAAHAHHHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Mental health issues still have a lot of stigma attached to them, even in this day and age. In the real world, it just isn't something someone is generally going to go out of their way to trumpet or promote. I don't know why some internet-types think it had this edgy-cache to it, but it doesn't work that way IRL. Speaking as someone with a brother who has some pretty significant mental health challenges.
Quote from: My Lady is a Cantaloupe on December 14, 2011, 07:50:40 PM
Mental health issues still have a lot of stigma attached to them, even in this day and age. In the real world, it just isn't something someone is generally going to go out of their way to trumpet or promote. I don't know why some internet-types think it had this edgy-cache to it, but it doesn't work that way IRL. Speaking as someone with a brother who has some pretty significant mental health challenges.
THIS!
I think the people who actually have these challenges are the last to annouce it to everyone. I know I never want anyone to know just how fucked up I'm fairly certain I am.
One of my closest inner-circle friends (the children of the members of the smuggling ring my father was part of, all of whom have known each other since birth) committed suicide last month.
As close as we all were, none of us knew he had been struggling with schizophrenia until after he died.
Now, I don't get personally bent when people pull the "LOOK HOW CRAZY I AM!" routine, but it sure makes it obvious that they have some growing up to do and/or don't understand the gravity of actual mental illness.
Yep. But for some reason, online, especially on any kind of "alternative religion" site, people are all about "I'M CRAZY! SO LOONY AND UNBALANCED! AND THAT MAKES ME A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE!!!"
I suspect that sites like this tend to attract more than their fair share of people who are naturally of above-average intelligence and below-average emotional maturity.
God knows I fit that profile when I first showed up here.
Thankfully, I'm alot dumber now.
And we're all better off for that.
Perhaps. It appears that my growing stupidity is now threatening the underlying tone of the board because I'm too dumb to just angrily lash out at anyone who stumbles in here without even trying to understand them, educate them, or give them a chance to stand on two legs.
I move we abandon the 50-post suggestion and replace it with the one-post suggestion.
Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on December 14, 2011, 08:43:38 PM
Perhaps. It appears that my growing stupidity is now threatening the underlying tone of the board because I'm too dumb to just angrily lash out at anyone who stumbles in here without even trying to understand them, educate them, or give them a chance to stand on two legs.
I move we abandon the 50-post suggestion and replace it with the one-post suggestion.
Stop whining, it's embarrassing.
Nobody has jumped the guy. Several people, myself included, have made encouraging comments toward him. But he's been a little bristly and people are bristling back.
Tons of people show up here and are received warmly. Little or no comment is ever made about that. What the fuck is the difference? Do you think it's just that Roger's having a bad hair day? No, usually it's because they didn't set our to "impress" everyone with their unique brand of wackiness. In short, they weren't obnoxious.
I missed the part where Khore was being obnoxious.
All I saw was the part where he posted an essay in Spanish, attempted to translate it into English, and was promptly torn apart for not following the party line with no consideration given whatsoever for the language barrier.
And the part where we're all so hell-bent on our own way of thinking about things that we can't be bothered to tone it down for any reason, even a reason as potentially important as attracting some of the 6 billion or so people on earth who don't speak English fluently.
But fuck it, right? I mean, it's WAY more important that we let everyone know that we're not nice AT ALL.
DISCORDIA: GET TUFF OR CRY TRYING.
I think that some of us posted in support of the OP (cram and mangrove especially), and then the thread drifted into general snark and bitchery. I didn't see it as a direct attack against him. Then again, I became one of the bitchy snarkers, so maybe I'm deluding myself.
*shrug*
Perhaps I'm just placing too much importance on opening our doors to the rest of the world. I'm willing to consider that possibility. But the idea of PD.com catching on outside of the Anglosphere is an exciting idea to me.
Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on December 14, 2011, 08:50:32 PM
I missed the part where Khore was being obnoxious.
All I saw was the part where he posted an essay in Spanish, attempted to translate it into English, and was promptly torn apart for not following the party line with no consideration given whatsoever for the language barrier.
I think things went south when he started talking about eating the fnords. But things never really went all that far south... there was some fairly gentle ribbing, which he seemed to be handling pretty well. And my comments in this thread aren't even about him.
"Torn apart" seems like a really extreme description of what actually happened.
Dude presents a somewhat inflated image of his own special shaman-like uniqueness, Roger started funning on him, and a couple of other people found it humorous. That's tearing someone apart? Maybe you might want to read that thread again. It's funny, and not at all mean. I should hope the kid has the brains to see that it's humor even if his English skills are imperfect.
Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on December 14, 2011, 08:59:38 PM
*shrug*
Perhaps I'm just placing too much importance on opening our doors to the rest of the world. I'm willing to consider that possibility. But the idea of PD.com catching on outside of the Anglosphere is an exciting idea to me.
Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on December 14, 2011, 08:59:38 PM
*shrug*
Perhaps I'm just placing too much importance on opening our doors to the rest of the world. I'm willing to consider that possibility. But the idea of PD.com catching on outside of the Anglosphere is an exciting idea to me.
Indeed, it's so refreshing to communicate with others than just us Americans! :)
And on topic: I don't think we need to immediately jump on a n00b for quoting some bit from the PD. That's the book this site is based on, after all, it's a bit of a strange "gotcha!" to taboo it like that. This is exactly what the 50 post suggestion is for. If it turns out they don't do anything but nonsense, no one disagrees, but just one line?
Quote from: Triple Zero on December 14, 2011, 09:24:59 PM
Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on December 14, 2011, 08:59:38 PM
*shrug*
Perhaps I'm just placing too much importance on opening our doors to the rest of the world. I'm willing to consider that possibility. But the idea of PD.com catching on outside of the Anglosphere is an exciting idea to me.
Indeed, it's so refreshing to communicate with others than just us Americans! :)
And on topic: I don't think we need to immediately jump on a n00b for quoting some bit from the PD. That's the book this site is based on, after all, it's a bit of a strange "gotcha!" to taboo it like that. This is exactly what the 50 post suggestion is for. If it turns out they don't do anything but nonsense, no one disagrees, but just one line?
Nobody jumped on the n00b.
Many people engaged with him positively.
Roger started riffing on him in a way that was, actually, pretty hilarious.
N00b doesn't seem too nonplussed by it.
For some reason ECH freaks out on how we're "tearing apart" the n00b.
WTF.
EVEN THE N00B GETS IT: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=30994.msg1126217#msg1126217
Also, I do believe it was the "if you don't know what a fnord is, shut up" comment that led to the funny. Which was very funny, and well-earned.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on December 14, 2011, 06:43:02 PM
Everywhere is the wrong venue for that kind of thing. But it happens, like it or not.
I've had the bright idea, from time to time, of dropping it as a cautionary tale. It's never failed to miss the mark.