Why Leave the Cell?

[Jenne]

It's the old, "better the enemy you know than the friend you don't" fear, really.

[AFK]

bump.  I was looking for threads to add to Faust's list and I'm not sure if this one is appropriate or not, but it had some good stuff and wanted to share. 

[Adios]

Jenne, a little late to respond but as you know I've been away a while.

IMO the first obsticle to overcome is for a person to admit their faults. Then we need to decide which of our faults we like and which ones we don't. "Breaking out" is a process of coming to terms with who we are and what we are going to do about it if anything. Earlier you mentioned that one had to want to know what was around the corner to look. I disagree. The normal propulsion of life will force a person around many corners in simple day to day living. Some corners we may chose to not look around but so many others are out of our control. It is not what we are given to work with but what we choose to do with it that helps in large part to determine who we are as individuals. Remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

[the last yatto]

theres a list?

[Freeky]

Bump for a pretty good discussion.

[LMNO]

LMNO - currently heading up the SSOOKN messiah/world teacher division.

This is the Most True post on this board, ever.

[Jenne]

I think we need revive some discussions on this sort of track.   BIP stuff was some POWERFUL juju.

[Jenne]

BTW:  thanks, Freeky, for unearthing this.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

[

Safety can be quite appealing.

Even if that perceived safety is in the jaws of a bear trap.

Totally.  It's this above that I'm talking about.  How to defeat the defeatist.

...and the trap springing may just be THAT thing. Maybe there just isn't anything else that'll do the trick. Anyways, legs grow back usually. So no big whoop, there.

Had a buddy who worked real hard to avoid being seen as the scheisty, conniving, manipulator he had somehow already convinced himself he was. I like poker, so I said fuck it, run your games on me, I've got this neat trick I want to show you. Every time he had that "gotcha" moment, where he knew he'd hooked me, I'd bite and leave a little bookmark, or whatever. Usually it involved saying or doing something fairly random that didn't seem meaningful in the moment, but was memorable in context. Other times I'd hint explicitly, say exactly what I was up to by way of some general chit-chat, "Yeah, I don't call bullshit when I see it, I call bullshit when I've got a reason to...so anyways, when did you say you were going to be able to do that thing with the stuff?" Not the first time I had played this trick, I already had some standard practices.

I like to think I set it all up (or let him set it up, as it were) and then carefully picked my moment to drop the bomb, but I think it's more truthful to say that I ran out of patience, and the hinting was getting boring, and the bullshit was REALLY getting on my nerves so I got a little under my own game and let irritation choose my moment for me. Either way, I wasn't much of subtle about it, and me and him and hyper-awareness and harsh-truth all had a bit of a moment of openness. I do enjoy the long-form prank, probably much more than Ann Landers would recommend, but this wasn't a grudge fuck. I genuinely cared about the dude and the efforts he went to to snow himself were taking a toll on him. He looked ready to "see the bars" and I had loosened him up well before we even got to that point, so when that point came I pretty much just had to point to a few specifics, let him piece the rest together, then sit down and shut up, while the birds and the wind and the chatter of the street and even the silence screamed the truth. I looked at him and smiled and that's when all hell broke loose.

He wasn't ready for a jail-break, he still was frantic trying to stay out of prison. I became  an agent for THEM. He'd covered all his tracks and burned every scrap and trace of everything that tied him to "the crime" but there was still the secret, and I must have been staring dead at it, because when he saw me, and the birds, and the wind and the chatter of the street and the silence all somehow screaming his secret in unison, torturing him into a confession, a judgement, and an execution, my smile read as a mortal threat and he acted accordingly. He gestured at attacking me, but decided to run instead.  He perceived safety in the jaws of the bear trap and saw only terror when confronted with a presence outside it. He had already sentenced himself. His BIP was a fugitive's flight path.

He eventually slipped up and found himself with 18 months to kill. He came out a bit rejuvenated, but still in the same bear trap. There's plenty of opportunities in county to run your games, even if it's just for extra Ramen noodles and a bit of privilege. He hit the ground running as soon as he was off paper. It looked like 18 months had been 2 minutes and the rest of his lifetime was pretty much where he was right at that moment. But then one night the bear trap snapped shut. He'd been playing with some guys who don't enjoy games as much as I do. He knew better, but what else can a scheisty, conniving, manipulator really do, after all. One night some of those guys were out driving and happened to see him riding his moped on the side of the road. They pushed on the accelerator and aimed...and they didn't miss.

It was pretty fucking gnarly as it was but he took about a billion times less damage than any human who's tasted Jeep-rage should expect. He lost a rad moped, which sucked, but his legs grew back as they usually do, so no big whoop there. Mainly though, it was THAT thing. In fact it was probably the only thing it could have been. I don't know that he could have closed his case on anything less, nor found any other religious awakening that would have allowed him to continue right on with his sinful ways.

No telling how to defeat the defeatist...but I think, maybe, the defeatist can't be defeated...only freed...by defeat. Maybe. Or maybe that's just another steaming pile of sound-bite I pinched off too amuse myself. Definitely something to ponder.

[Slurrealist]

I'm starting this thread because, truly, the answer is NOT as obvious as it's usually treated.

If you are USED to your cell, if you've decorated it, feted it, shared it with others on holidays, why leave it?  Sure, the destruction of your cell was fun, it was personal growth and whatnot, but if you have no plan of action, and you liked quite a bit about your cell...why leave?

IMO you can get enlightened, see how things really are, then return back to the cage, but now with a deeper understanding of the world around you.
"Before enlightenment you chop wood; after enlightenment you chop wood." That kind of stuff.

[AFK]

I suppose at least when you are armed with this enlightenment, if it is genuine, you are now able to see the way out when things look like they aren't working. 

But that's the problem with a lot of people.  They just can't see that they are stuck OR that there are other options, other paths, other directions, other possibilities, other environments, other contexts.....

And it is the cause of so much suckitude in this world. 

[Maddroxide]

You leave the cell because you can't smoke your cigarettes in them anymore.

[navkat]

I've always loved the minimum-security prison break, "you're ruining it for the rest of us" analogy. Does it matter whether there are 2 guards or 20? You ain't goin nowhere, fool.

You can't leave and go back in. The leaving itself is part of the illusion and and if you awake from it, you'll find yourself curled-up, fetal position, tucked into the very furthest corner from the entrance. Freezing.

There are a few things you're just going to have to accept: you are not any better than anyone else, prole number 23. You don't have shit figured out for certain. You're feeling around in the dark and as soon as you think you found an opening, if you're one of the smart ones, you'll realize that "opening" is your asshole and you've had your finger jammed up in it the whole time. I ran into this very problem in Nigel's race thread and it has a profound effect on me every time. A smart man pulls his stinking finger from his ass, recoils and goes "How..?" And attempts to carefully think about how to wash it off.

A stupid man tries to hide his stinkfinger in shame by placing it in his mouth.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I've always loved the minimum-security prison break, "you're ruining it for the rest of us" analogy. Does it matter whether there are 2 guards or 20? You ain't goin nowhere, fool.

You can't leave and go back in. The leaving itself is part of the illusion and and if you awake from it, you'll find yourself curled-up, fetal position, tucked into the very furthest corner from the entrance. Freezing.

There are a few things you're just going to have to accept: you are not any better than anyone else, prole number 23. You don't have shit figured out for certain. You're feeling around in the dark and as soon as you think you found an opening, if you're one of the smart ones, you'll realize that "opening" is your asshole and you've had your finger jammed up in it the whole time. I ran into this very problem in Nigel's race thread and it has a profound effect on me every time. A smart man pulls his stinking finger from his ass, recoils and goes "How..?" And attempts to carefully think about how to wash it off.

A stupid man tries to hide his stinkfinger in shame by placing it in his mouth.

  SUCH a vivid mental image.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I've always loved the minimum-security prison break, "you're ruining it for the rest of us" analogy. Does it matter whether there are 2 guards or 20? You ain't goin nowhere, fool.

You can't leave and go back in. The leaving itself is part of the illusion and and if you awake from it, you'll find yourself curled-up, fetal position, tucked into the very furthest corner from the entrance. Freezing.

There are a few things you're just going to have to accept: you are not any better than anyone else, prole number 23. You don't have shit figured out for certain. You're feeling around in the dark and as soon as you think you found an opening, if you're one of the smart ones, you'll realize that "opening" is your asshole and you've had your finger jammed up in it the whole time. I ran into this very problem in Nigel's race thread and it has a profound effect on me every time. A smart man pulls his stinking finger from his ass, recoils and goes "How..?" And attempts to carefully think about how to wash it off.

A stupid man tries to hide his stinkfinger in shame by placing it in his mouth.

  SUCH a vivid mental image.

I'm gonna remember that one.

It's up there with Oscar Wilde and Lao Tzu.  but srs.