Self Expression

[eighteen buddha strike]

this kind of started as a response to I am no longer here.

but I've decided to post it in its own thread in respect to its length, and giving other people room to respond to Sepia.


I'll begin with how I discovered Discordia, or rather... who I was when I discovered it. I was a youth in the wilderness, I was angry and I was confused, I guess if were to label myself then I might have called myself a punk as its analogous to the crowd I ran with, the tribe I affiliated myself with... except that even back then I was aware of the danger of labels, and their use as tribal affiliation. I was however, frightened of the world and its traps, I was failing in school because of simple frustration, and the psychological torments of my childhood were finally beginning to rise from their dwellings within my subconscious and manifest themselves in awful ways. They tortured me, and at the very beginning, I feel that I was without identity except for those issues... they defined me, and they steered the ways in which I defined myself. Outside of school, I read prolifically, and I wrote not-quite-so prolifically... but it was raw and savage, steered by my desire to turn my frustration into a kind of beauty... I desired creativity more than anything, or rather, I was a bundle of raw energy that steered its fury into various mediums, I made arts, I put words together, and I projected it through the speakers as a garbled mess. I went on loooooong night walks through the city, to witness sometimes its horror and its beauty, but also the simple beauty of being alone. I imagined things, terrible things, the spiders would talk to me (dead fucking serious, about this, actually) and I usually didn't like what they had to say. The wind in the trees menaced me, I was haunted by unseen voices, my subconscious was truly a terrible miasma which plagued me. I rarely took drugs, suffice to say a certain amount of mental illness runs in my family, and I had suppressed a great deal of pain. I was never abused, I just had some interesting life experiences, which effected me more profoundly than I realized.

Over the years, I've dealt with the traumas of my youth, I've become a more stable person... but I'm not ready to skip ahead to this point yet. We're still pre-discordia in my narrative, although back then I believe I was a true discordian in spirit, but I had not yet discovered this particular tribe. Initially, Discordia approached me, or rather a manifestation of Eris... A girl, a good friend, who provided the initial strife which shook me awake. I ditched the one sided, soul sucking, co-dependent relationship I was in and fell deeply in love with this friend. My overtures to her took place over many years, and we were occasionally more than friends, but what I wanted from her... simply to be with her and no one else, to dedicate myself to her completely and serve her loyally, to use her basically in order to identify myself; this was not congruent with her wishes, and simply was not possible. So for a second time, she became the embodiment of Eris, she violently jarred me awake from my waking dream, and told me firmly "Think for yourself, Schmuck"

... and after that, she became my muse. She moved away, driven by a fury similar to but also dissimilar from my own, although we kept in touch and (remain friends to this day). When I say she became my muse, I mean this quite literally. At times, when I was driven creatively... my internal dialogue spoke with her voice, I'd sense her presence in the unseen patterns of this universe, I tasted her scent on the wind at times and it drove me mad. Of course I knew even back then, that these phantasmagoria are subconscious projections, but this was the shape and form of them, and my love for this girl continued to drive me, albeit in a different form. Maybe its simply that I didn't want to let go, the sound of her voice, her smell, her passion & drive, the idealized version of her that existed in my mind was a way of holding onto the bliss I felt when I was with her... but it was intermingled with her message, the one that said that I needed to realize for myself, it was driving me towards expression but also towards self awareness and definition. I was aware of the divergence here, that this muse was not the thing it represented itself, but a kind of abstract creation which was sparked into life initially by my worship of her.

So that's how I found Eris. Shortly after this, I found Discordia.

At this time, I was post high-school. I was out in the world, I lived in many different houses with many different people, but never alone. I could never afford solitude. I don't know if I ever wanted it. I still externalized my internal strife by putting myself, intentionally, into chaotic situations and surroundings. I had quite a few interesting experiences in this time, and I may have been more sure of myself than I was a few years ago, but that was still the omnipresent factor in my life. I could never avoid it, because it was at the core of my being, but the way it manifested itself in my life was overpowering.

When I found these boards initially, they were much different, and so was I. I was more Erisian, which is to say that I deified Eris, because she was analogous to my muse. The posters were different people, even those that still post here, although if any of you (besides Roger, whom I'm certain has always been here) are the same people from those days... I might not even know, since the changes in user names and tenor of this board has been difficult for me to keep track of. Back then, I might have been more willing to speak, and I probably spoke brashly without consideration of the consequences of speaking. Self expression was something more unrestrained for me back then, although to be honest I made few attempts at it here, because the chaos in my life was the venue of my expression... and when I came here, I mostly listened. It was good to see a structure of belief that fit me well on multiple layers. As a child, I had been deeply influenced by eastern religion, the closest thing to a religion that I had to a religious affiliation was Taoism, although my parents were both rabid born-again christians... probably the thing that initially led to my love of A:Horror films and B: Death/Black Metal. I considered myself to be a Taoist Pantheist, and still did even after "converting". Anyway, the point is I found these forums, I read our literature and liked some of it... I thought the Principia itself was something I had been looking for for a long time, kind of a modern absurdist taoism, and I embraced it fully. I was never really taken in too much by the fnords and all that junk, so when the rift between the pinealists and the rest of it happened, it wasn't hard for me to avoid that trap. Besides, by then I had begun to grow up a bit more.

As for what Discordia meant to me then, its difficult for me to put into words precisely, I know who I was back then and communicating that is probably the best I can do. As far as what Discordia means to me NOW, well, I think I agree with Sepia quite a bit here... I can see why I was intimidated a bit by you, and why our styles seemed so similar to me. We come from a similar place, from Burroughs fringe, the primary work of discordian literature, for me, was NAKED LUNCH. It, I felt more than anything, was raw human experience... and it illustrated precisely, I feel, the role of the machine in our day to day lives. It was, of course, Burroughs personal filter... I'm sure (Sepia) you and I see the world through a different filter, I feel that we share a great deal of the same reference material. It is a shared subconscious belief, in that you and I most definitely agree, and its one that we've all been actively participating in shaping. We can try very hard to define it, but its impossible to define absolutely, because by our own faults of humanity we will always project ourselves into it... how can we do anything else?

So now I've shared story, a long story, not the whole story, but a story with you none-the-less. In doing so I'm breaking one of my cardinal rules, KYFMS, you see... I don't like to share. I've learned that this level of sharing, this kind of openness, makes one vulnerable. It leaves you open to attack. This place has taught me that just as much as the rest of the world. Sometimes, we have to break our own rules, sometimes we have to break out of our own molds. My own manifestation of Eris taught me that many years ago, and I'm still learning that lesson every day. In order to advance, in order to learn, we have to leave our comfort zone... the time when my comfort zone was chaos was a long time ago, it seems, and I'm a better person for having moved past that.

Since then, there have been times that the tenor of this place has been too violent, too confrontational, too abrasive... for me to really actively seek participation. So Lurked Moar, and Moar, and Moar, and Moar... until finally I was silent, or when I did speak it wasn't so much to contribute as much as to just assert that I'm still lurking. I still find it worth my time to come here, because amidst all the braying noise, there is meaningful content... lights that shine so very brightly through the din, and Sepia, you are one of those lights.

LA Dee Dee Da Dee Dee Da....

Oh, and as for my friend, we still keep in touch and we're still very close friends. She lives in D.C. now, pursuing a career. There is a reason I chose her as my muse so long ago, because she's brilliant, flawed (human like all of us), but brilliant. As for my muse, well, I don't hear it quite as loudly anymore... and it very rarely wears the same shape and form that it used to. Sometimes it makes me sad, and I wished I could have held onto that thing forever, but I can't remember that smell, and that voice isn't appropriate anymore for the purpose it once served. I have my own voice now.

Besides, there is another woman in my life now, and I think she dislikes sharing just as much as I do.

[Doktor Howl]

When I found these boards initially, they were much different, and so was I. I was more Erisian, which is to say that I deified Eris, because she was analogous to my muse. The posters were different people, even those that still post here, although if any of you (besides Roger, whom I'm certain has always been here) are the same people from those days...

Well, not always.  I was banned once for a few weeks, and I wasn't here until a couple of weeks after the board was started.  I am the oldest remaining member, but if Verthaine ever comes back, he has me by a week.  The other two Ancient Wiseguys went batshit and exploded in the street.  It was a hell of a mess.

There's a few users from those days that I really miss...Poib, who only posted for a few weeks, but was the world's nicest guy.  Velvet Jesus, a young lady that was unfortunately also smokin' hot, and was driven off the board by a guy named "Admiral Lexington" within days of posting her pic.  He was also the first recipient of a full-out TGRR freakout, and left, claiming that I wasn't a REAL Discordian, because I disapproved of his stalking (first known case of REALLY REAL DISCORDIANISM).

But, by and large, I think this is the best crowd we've ever had.  But if you tell anyone I said that, I'll call you a liar and kick the top of your skull off and shit on your brain.

[East Coast Hustle]

I really dig the OP. Provides not only a cool insight into the inner workings of someone I've considered myself richer for being friends with but also an interesting general insight into how and why this place and this "ideology" (for lack of a better word) attracts the people it attracts.

[Eater of Clowns]

Wow.  Thanks for sharing, it was a good read.

[Cramulus]

yeah man, thanks for posting that

good read