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Discourse 6: The War for your soul...

Started by Trollax, March 31, 2003, 05:51:34 AM

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Trollax

Discourse 6: The War for your soul?ñ
Quote 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."

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~

Lister

Word.

Really, there absolutely nothing more I can add to this subject...

Respec'
When I was a little man
Playdough came in a little can
I was Star Wars' biggest fan
Now I'm stuck without a plan
GI Joe was an action man
Shaggy drove the mystery van
Devo was my favorite band
Take me back to my happy land

The Good Reverend Roger

Bump.

I'm gonna keep doing this shit until my demands are met.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

AFK

-100 points for quoting Bon Jovi and Mark Twain in the same rant. 
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

The Good Reverend Roger

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.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

President Television

My shit list: Stephen Harper, anarchists that complain about taxes instead of institutionalized torture, those people walking, anyone who lets a single aspect of themselves define their entire personality, salesmen that don't smoke pipes, Fredericton New Brunswick, bigots, philosophy majors, my nemesis, pirates that don't do anything, criminals without class, sociopaths, narcissists, furries, juggalos, foes.

LMNO


Mangrove

Deduct further points for this:

(NOTE: I am crazy, but only according to convention not clinical diagnosis.)


I AM SOO OUTRAGEOUS AND WACKY!! WOOOO!!!!!!!!!
What makes it so? Making it so is what makes it so.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

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.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Luna

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. 
Death-dealing hormone freak of deliciousness
Pagan-Stomping Valkyrie of the Interbutts™
Rampaging Slayer of Shit-Fountain Habitues

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement."

Quote from: The Payne on November 16, 2011, 07:08:55 PM
If Luna was a furry, she'd sex humans and scream "BEASTIALITY!" at the top of her lungs at inopportune times.

Quote from: Nigel on March 24, 2011, 01:54:48 AM
I like the Luna one. She is a good one.

Quote
"Stop talking to yourself.  You don't like you any better than anyone else who knows you."

Pæs

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.

Freeky

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.

Luna

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.)
Death-dealing hormone freak of deliciousness
Pagan-Stomping Valkyrie of the Interbutts™
Rampaging Slayer of Shit-Fountain Habitues

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement."

Quote from: The Payne on November 16, 2011, 07:08:55 PM
If Luna was a furry, she'd sex humans and scream "BEASTIALITY!" at the top of her lungs at inopportune times.

Quote from: Nigel on March 24, 2011, 01:54:48 AM
I like the Luna one. She is a good one.

Quote
"Stop talking to yourself.  You don't like you any better than anyone else who knows you."

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

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'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


LMNO

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.