Published on 12, July, 2020
A little disclaimer here. This is how I think, I’m not trying to tell anybody else how to think, the government or the powers that be do a good enough job of that, these are simply my humble thoughts. If you don’t think like me, great, like Temple Grandin once said, the world needs all kinds of minds, and I agree wholeheartedly. So I’m not trying to tell anybody what to think and I’m not trying to say that I’m right and others who think differently to me are wrong, I don’t even recognise right or wrong in this sense. All our thoughts, are right for each one of us no matter how different they are from somebody else’s. They’re all right, equal and they’re all vital to each of us. Nobody can tell anybody that they’re wrong. I’ve had 50 years of people trying to tell me that I was wrong, and they never succeeded.
Thoughts are like soldiers. The soldiers in the First World War were vulnerable and open to be taken out at any given moment when they were above the trenches, out in the open. My great grandad used to say that often when the men went out from the trenches, they were so cold, tired and hungry, that they almost welcomed death, they had lost the will to live let alone fight, at this stage.
However, when they were in the trenches, they felt a level of protection. They were hard to defeat. They would hunker down and were almost invisible to the enemy line and the longer they hunkered down, the harder they came to be removed.
If we deal with our thoughts when they appear, out in the open, vulnerable and fresh, we have the opportunity to take out any offending thoughts as they arise. However, when they hanker down and get deeply entrenched in our deeper mind, they become invisible to the conscious mind and are therefore harder to root out. However, although the deeper thoughts are now invisible, they are no less dangerous. In fact, like the soldiers in the trenches, they are more dangerous.
When I was younger, I used to be obsessed about getting to the bottom of these thoughts. Without realising it, all I was actually doing was burying them deeper and establishing them firmly in my mindset so that they eventually became beliefs on which I based the whole of my life. So after a while, I was seeing the world through the lens of these disturbing, unhelpful and even harmful thoughts. They coloured my world view and they became my world view and I couldn’t understand me or the world around me.
It’s taken me many more years to uncover and root out the destructive thoughts that held me captive and I now deal with the new thoughts when they arise, while they’re still fresh and at their most vulnerable. I no longer allow these thoughts to rule my life. I have reclaimed my own values and world view and no longer accept those of others.
For example, our society is based on the premise that money holds more value than human life. From this premise, it is easy to see the justification for wars and killing people. After all, the taking of a human life is not important compared to what is really important in life, money, and wars are always about power and control, i.e. getting more money. I never bought into this belief. I know many people, the majority of people in this society in fact, value money over human life and they are therefore quite justified for killing a man for his money. I never saw what others saw in money and I still don’t, but I don’t condemn a man for his love of money, to him, money is everything, as my understanding of what god is to me. I understand now why people love making money, how they love hoarding it, going to any lengths to get it and not caring who they hurt along the way. Why would they? ~ care about human lives that is. Human lives have little more importance than the dirt beneath their shoes (which is highly valuable (to me), but has no value to them as dirt probably costs less than a human life, which is already way down low in terms of what’s valuable and important in life), so what harm is it to take out a few people, or more, now and again, for whatever reason, it doesn’t even have to be about money. The human life is way down low, below most things in life but always below money. I see so many people clearly demonstrate their values in their everyday lives. They do jobs they hate, that make them miserable, that make them miserable to be around and they do jobs that reduce their health. Yet it’s ok, because they have their eye on the prize. The pay packet at the end of the month. They get their elixir. And I understand that now. Of course they don’t mind being miserable and unhappy because they’ve got the very thing they live for. I’m no different to them. I would go to any lengths to protect my integrity and would go to any lengths to help another human being. I have. And I have gotten into a whole lot of trouble for this. So now, it’s not that I would give any less of my life for another, but that I am learning to work smarter. And it’s easier now I understand that others really are just like me. They love their god just as much as I love mine and we would both go to any lengths to get and protect our gods. We are just the same, we just have different goals or values.
I was getting so entrenched with all these thoughts about money (that I still don’t understand but I do now accept that it is god for the majority of people and that is as perfect for them as my idea of god is for me) and the thoughts of wars and killings, that the very thoughts I was considering, we’re killing me from the inside enemy line, I just couldn’t see it. But I’ve cleared the decks now, I’ve got everything straight. Some people, the majority of people, so I wouldn’t even be able to argue that they were wrong, even if I thought they were, which I don’t, love money. Money is their god and coming close to that, is all the things they can buy with their money, all this new food type stuff that isn’t always made with just food, but other things as well, all the chemicals and pharmaceuticals that make them feel better after eating all that stuff that they call food, all the cars and houses and clothes and make up that they buy, whatever they buy really. I’ve come to see that it seems that whatever money can buy is good although it then begins to get confusing because some of these things have more value than others. Lol! I stop right there. I have learned to no longer interrogate the hell out of everything and accept that there are some things in life that I will never understand so I just have to accept them. And it seems the majority of the world understands the rules to where these things stand in the area of importance, like they know the rules of social interaction. I don’t understand either and my freedom came from realising that I don’t have to understand. Autism taught me that. Getting my diagnosis was a total game changer for me. I no longer have to try and understand people because it seems to me that we’re all the same, we simply have different values. The majority of people value money and all it can buy and I value human life and all it can bring. Everything seems to be an industry these days. Religion has always been one and now the market is open for the industry of spirituality. It all evolves around god, aka money. Everything makes so much sense to me now. I feel so much safer in the world. I don’t feel like I have to ‘get my point’ across anymore, to defend myself. And this love of money isn’t just at the heart of nt’s, it’s also at the heart of many nd’s and I could never make my autistic brother’s and sisters wrong, lol, even if at first I thought they were.
I think I’ve found my peace. We are all the same, we just hold different values or we hold different things to be of value to us and that is just beautiful. Before I got my diagnosis, I thought everybody thought the same as me. I only got my diagnosis in late October last year, and already the world has become much clearer to me. I was operating under the impression that everybody thought like me so I couldn’t understand why people would say the things they did. I understand them now and I apologies to everyone I’ve ever spoken to. I can see I must have looked like a total mad woman. But can you imagine, I thought people valued life over everything else, when they didn’t, they valued money. So I thought they were just being mean to me and trying to wind me up by saying things that clearly went against this value. Such as talking about the justifications for war etc. My poor brother in law. I had him pitched as the ultimate winder upper. I thought he was intentionally out to wind me up. I could never understand why people wanted to do that. What they got out of it. I felt persecuted, like the black sheep, the one everyone wanted to pick on and make fun of. But I see now that neither he nor any of the others were trying to get at me. They were speaking honestly, from their own values, which were not like mine so of course there would be confusion. I guess because nobody else thought like me I was also fighting with the possibility that I could be wrong, that of course money is more valuable than human life. How could I be so dumb! What I’ve realised is that nobody is wrong and nobody is right and we don’t have to fall out now, because I understand you. By understanding my autism and realising that not everybody thinks like me, I can see where our point of contention came in.
Phew! Glad I sorted that one out. I’m starting to feel that gentle compassionate and tender love for people, in a way that I witnessed when I was in Australia. WoW, this is pretty big. S**t, I think I’m gonna have a melt down. I think I need to take a moment. It’s ok , I’ve got this. This is not a meltdown, this relates to what I was saying in the beginning about our thoughts being like soldiers. My immediate thought pattern then, in less than a second probably. Was, OMG you’re going to be good with people now, that means you’re going to have to spend more time with them, you won’t have any excuse now. But I caught it. It’s not true. Just because I’m going to get along better with people from now on, it doesn’t mean I have to spend more time with them, it’s my autism that makes me not be comfortable being around too many people too often. It just means that when I am around people, I will get on with them a lot better. I will filter everything they say through the filter of money is god, and then, I’ll be able to understand them a whole lot more and I won’t just think they’re trying to wind me up! I feel like that person who’s suddenly horrified to realise that they’re the last person to realise they have this thing! Only I’m not horrified. I feel at peace. Maybe I’ll never speak at all, ever again (typical aspie mind, black and white). But seriously, what’s the point? I don’t mean that in a negative light, on the contrary, I’m quite delighted at the prospect. I have loved the occasions I have gone mute, but I’ve never been able to bring that on with conscious effort. I once taped my mouth up at work, but got told off for it and got told to take the tape off as it made other people uncomfortable and they didn’t think I could do my job properly if I didn’t participate in their endless complaints and trivia. They even thought I might not answer the phone to clients or that I was never going to talk to a client again. The clients weren’t the problem (mental health team), it was the staff. But they wouldn’t stop talking to me with all this atrocious nonsense, so I stopped talking. But it didn’t work. I managed only about half a day of luxury before they made me take off my home made mask. Humans are benefits driven creatures. What is the point of talking to somebody who doesn’t speak your language? The only benefit could be if the other person has something you want. Then it might be worth the effort to try to establish some level of understanding and communication between you both so you get what you want. You don’t have to speak the same language for that. I’ve been in places where nobody speaks my language (English) and I still got what I wanted. You could speak to another to learn more about their world but to be honest, I’m over that. I know the world that is ruled by money, in as much as I want to and my world is so far removed from most peoples that they wouldn’t even begin to imagine that they might want to know anything about mine, they don’t even think it exists, so they’re not going to want to know about a world that doesn’t exist! Lol! I understand that now.
Maybe I’ll just be the mad tree lady, who lives in the forest, talking only to the trees and birds, nature and the wild life and my dog and cat of course. I think Chris Packham got it right. Live in a forest, hunker in, like the soldiers, and you’ll be safe.
Hi BlueRay,
I think it was Carl Jung that said ‘Individuation enables unity…’ (or something similar.) And I have always understood this to mean that when we fully accept and acknowledge our own subjectivity (that there is no ‘One Truth...’) and upon doing so we therefore, in turn, then naturally appreciate and respect the subjectivity of others too, we become closer to everyone (humanity) as a result. I.e. upon Individuation, transcendence is inevitable.
AngelDust said:I.e. upon Individuation, transcendence is inevitable.
Regarding 'individuation', transcendence is as AngelDust states 'inevitable', but just as importantly transcendence is 'concurrent' as a process too.
I actually have no idea what any of that means even if I understood the individual words, I can’t understand them together in a sentence but I looked up the word ‘individuation’, and I think it means seeing yourself as an individual so I don’t think it does apply to me because I’ve never seen myself as an individual. I’m no different from any other person or a block of wood or anything else in this universe for that matter so I can’t see how it applies to me?!? And I don’t think I’ve trascended any limitations because I don’t think I have any. I know I have a body which could be seen as a limitation but I don’t see it that way, rather it’s a tool or vehicle I can use to express even more of me so I don’t think that word applies to me either.
If my thoughts are like soldiers, I think they've all been killed!
Thanks Tom, I am really glad its not just me.
You're not alone, Angeldust! This is way beyond the limits of my understanding now
I am actually quite lost and can't really keep up with this conversation now. I think it is the incongruence which does my head in the most.
And I really don't understand everything that is being said here, for example; I don't think I can walk through walls.
Oh, I do sing, dance and listen to chanting/devotional music/songs. That and meditation music is the only music I listen to really. I also chant the Namyoho chant and join their meetings when I’m living close to a group. I travel a lot so I will go to which ever Buddhist temple or whatever is around me at the time. It doesn’t matter what part of the world I’m in or how remote, I always find a temple or group of some kind to attend. I’m welcome at all of them and get specialist privileges at many of them. They’re beautiful, all of them.
I can’t understand most of what you said Deepthought. Sorry. We can come back to it. I would like to understand what you’re saying. Thank you for your reply. I really appreciate it and enjoy very much our conversations.
But you asked what do I see visually that gives me reason to think I’m not an individual being.
This is a good question. I have actually already got it written down to ask my support worker tomorrow. I asked the same question to my son last week.
The reason being, is that since I have realised that most other people don’t think like me, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe they don’t see, with their eyes, like me either.
So I asked my son to look at my living room wall and tell me what he sees. He didn’t hesitate. He said a grey wall.
So I asked him to bring his gaze back towards him a little and asked him again what he saw. He said nothing.
This explains a lot.
When I look at the wall, or anything, even when I am looking where there are no objects. I see the same thing. Millions of little particles of light that are so small yet full of the most incredible vibrant colours. They’re all dancing around, but not by mistake. Their movements are so exact and precise, it takes your breathe away. There are also things that look more like little worms. They move differently. They have a different order. There are others too.
They are constantly, ceaselessly yet precisely and effortlessly working together all the time, responding to all the messages that are also constantly working. These guys don’t ever stop. Not ever.
There is not one natural or man made thing on this planet that has ever or will ever come close to matching this in terms of consistency, preciseness and the ability to never stop.
I see distinctions, yes. I can see the accumulated action of this light and the colours to form what you call a wall. I can see it, but not in the way my son does. But if I concentrate on it, it never looks solid but I can work it out. I can see it’s there and it’s a wall.
But the beauty is in the light. It is so beautiful it breaks your heart. To know that something that magnificent exists, here, now, everywhere. You could bring me the most beautiful thing on earth. I have a deep love of beauty and find many things beautiful. But you could bring me the most beautiful thing on earth and it would not compare to the beauty that is before my very eyes now.
It is more intelligent than the human brain could ever conceive. Ever. Everything comes from this light. Everything is this light.
If I look at my arm now. There is no disconnection between my arm and the space around it. None. There is no place where my arm stops and the space begins. There simply is no separation.
That is what I see when my eyes are open or closed.
Yes, I present myself in this physical dimension, as being separate from the things and people around me and the space around me. But I am not separate. I am an expression of my consciousness or the life force, within me, in combination with the light and colours, expressing itself as a tiny fragment of the whole. An individual expression of the whole.
Superficially, this makes me identifiable, for example, as BlueRay. That is all good. This is how it’s supposed to be.
However. The rub comes when people think that this is all they are. That they are simply this body, this mind, this personality etc. Yes they are all of those things. But that is not all of who they are.
When they believe I’m this body, this person, this gender, this is my name etc then they instantly create separation. They separate themselves from others and more crucially they separate themselves from their love. From who they really are.
This is why this conversation about love has been so enlightening for me. I didn’t realise people didn’t have the love in them. It’s like they started from an empty bank account of no love and they built it up, from attributing it to people who pleased them in some way.
I asked the question, how do you unlove somebody. And I’ve realised the answer. By believing that you are the body, the mind, the personality etc, you have separated yourself from your love but sometimes, you meet someone or something that puts you back in touch with that love that’s inside of you. That is you.
But because you don’t realise that you are love, you project it onto the person who sparked it within you and you think you love them.
I couldn’t understand how you don’t love everybody and why you related it to feelings and people. I understand it now.
When you start talking about reciprocation and Newton, I get completely lost. My mind is struggling to make sense of it. Can you explain it in a different way because I’d like to understand it.
The body is a limitation in that it’s no so easy, for example, to walk through walls. It’s possible, but not so easy. However, it is possible to travel via astral travel etc and verbal communication is actually a very basic and crude level of communication and it doesn’t limit the expression of the soul or communication, not in the least. So although it’s not so easy to have the so called physical body walk through walls but neither is it necessary. If it becomes necessary, it will happen. So in that sense, I don’t see it as a limitation. It’s a pain in the ass having to feed it, it causes dreadful problems for me although they too are simply signs to guide me and with the luxury of this burnout, I think I’ve got a plan for feeding this damn body. I don’t think it’s a damn body but I don’t like feeding it.
None of that Buddhist stuff means anything to me. I know little about either of those traditions but I attend both, regularly for meditations, teachings, Christmas dinners, Mexican dinners, get togethers, all sorts of things. If you would care to explain the boat things, I would be very interested to hear.
Thank you for a lovely conversation.
I actually have no idea what any of that means even if I understood the individual words, I can’t understand them together in a sentence but I looked up the word ‘individuation’, and I think it means seeing yourself as an individual so I don’t think it does apply to me because I’ve never seen myself as an individual.
Individuation does not so much refer to you seeing the self of you as being an individual, but more describes the developmental progressions that occur through childhood, adulthood, parenthood, elderhood and going to seed ~ as teaches people in the ways of verbal mimicry and practical artistry to communicate individually from within themselves, and collectively as such to continue developing individual relationships beyond themselves.
As far though as never having seen yourself as being an individual then, what do you see visually that gives you reason to think or else how do you recognise that you are not an individual being?
I’m no different from any other person or a block of wood or anything else in this universe for that matter so I can’t see how it applies to me?!?
I mean I wholly agree with you not being individually different to any other person, block of wood or anything else amidst the universe that is as such individually different to you, and hence not you ~ for you would not be recognisable as you are; at least not as far as your individual avatar image, user name and writing style are here presented on the NAS Community Forum ;-).
Consider also perhaps for that dissimilarity (or individuality) is after all the result of 'reciprocation' ~ which is the universal principle of like for like equally. Newton's third law of motion describes the process of reciprocation in the sense of, "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" ~ hence we have repeating patterns of light waves being reflected back to us from mirrors, and repeating patterns of sound waves getting reflected back to us from hard surfaces, along with all those proverbs and sayings that follow the theme of 'do as you will be done by' and all that.
I know I have a body which could be seen as a limitation but I don’t see it that way, rather it’s a tool or vehicle I can use to express even more of me so I don’t think that word applies to me either.
Reciprocally then, with opposites attracting, we as individual human 'Beings' (i.e. entities of light or life due to living) harmonise with individual human bodies (entities of darkness or death due to dying), with their limits or boundaries being their shapes and sizes, and how much naturing and nurturing they need to work for however long ~ in the longer and the shorter sense of living.
When you state that the body could be seen as a limitation ~ I do not see it that way either, and if anything it is me that limits it really, only I tend think of it more like a complete specialised toolbox than as such a singular tool, and I also use the analogy of a vehicle but more often really a boat, ship or vessel.
Does the combined little boat of the Theravada tradition with the big boat of the Mahayana tradition meditation of Buddhism sound in any way familiar to you? With perhaps the golden love of the few (saints stylie) illuminating the wisdom of the many (everyone) sort of thing not excluding tonal chanting and singing bowls etc?
I couldn’t imagine and wouldn’t want to imagine a life without other people, I adore people. Relationships (for me) are what this life is all about, whoever the relationship is with, they’re all important to me. Whether that be with ourselves, our friends, family, strangers, shop keepers, bus drivers etc, whoever it is, everybody who I come into contact with, is a relationship to me and I serve whoever is in front of me to the very best of my ability at any given time. I open myself up to them and intend to listen to them, hear them and do whatever I can to enrich that person’s life. This is a selfish act I know, because I like to see other people happy, that makes me happy. If somebody is sad or hurting in any way, that hurts me and makes me feel sad too. That’s why I can’t listen to the news, in whatever form it is delivered, because if I hear of somebody hurting then I hurt and I have to do what I can to lessen that person’s pain. I simply can’t hear about people in pain. So selfishly, you could say, I intend always to do my best to bring love, peace and happiness into who’s ever life I come into contact with and even those I don’t. I have made several truly wonderful long term friendships with people I’ve met in the streets, just because we passed each other and I smiled and said hello, even when I wasn’t feeling up to that. But I have never tried to work out what they’re thinking or what their intentions are or what effect my words etc are having on them. Sometimes I can note a change in their behaviour and words when I’m taking to them (only sometimes) but I have no idea what that means. I don’t know when someone is bored with me or they want me to carry on talking. I have no idea. I guess I either rely on them to tell me to shut up (which thankfully they do) or I go back my thoughts (which are usually always wrong) and act accordingly. If I had to work it out I’d probably still be working on the first conversation or interaction I ever had.
I think if we communicate openly and honestly with the intention of hearing the other, it’s not necessary to try and work out what they’re thinking or intenting or how they’re reacting. Maybe they’re thinking, I hate you right now, and I don’t think they’d want me to know that. That could ruin our friendship when really, it was just a temporary thing while I was simply driving them crazy, which I do, frequently. And sometimes they do tell me they hate me but I have a good enough relationship with my family and friends to know that that is just a temporary feeling. I have an extremely large circle of friends, stretching all around the world, and not one of them has ever fallen out with me. I have had people leave my life without word. I just figured they just didn’t want to interact with me any more, I don’t try to work out why. You’re right, that could take me a lifetime and I could still not figure it out.
So from what you said in the last post, I’m still no clearer as to why it’s important to work out what someone is thinking, intending or how they are feeling as a result of something I said or did. I don’t know why somebody would want to know/do that. If someone isn’t telling you something, maybe they don’t want you to know. Why would you want to deny them that? Why do you need to know? How will it be of benefit to your life or theirs? And how can it be of benefit to you if it hurts them, i.e. it robs them of their freedom to think what they want and to keep their thoughts private?
I don’t think it’s possible to ever work out the impact our words and actions have on others
It does make it much easier if people tell you outright. I think this is perhaps where the ‘listening’ bit comes in.
and why would anyone even consider it or want to work it out?
I think this is perhaps where the ‘respecting what you have heard’ bit comes in.
I think perhaps that people do those two things (listening and respecting what they have heard,) when they want to be in a mutual and reciprocal relationship with someone or other people, such as having a friendship or even just communicating well with other people they work with, or on here, for example.
If you want to feel or find a connection with other people, I have found that those two things (mutual listening and respecting) can really help that connection to take place.
If you have no desire to be in a relationship with anyone else, I think there would probably not be much (or any) motivation to do either of those (listening and respecting) things.
Wanting or not wanting to be in a relationship with someone or other people is always a very personal choice, naturally.
I don’t think it’s possible to ever work out the impact our words and actions have on others and why would anyone even consider it or want to work it out? What difference would it make? I can’t see what difference it would make unless you wanted to change your words and actions to please everybody else or to control them or something(same thing)?!?!? Surely in a conversation it’s about mutual understanding and respect not about controlling your words and actions to control others? I don’t see it as any of our business what somebody else is thinking anyway, that really is the thought police at its worst. If I want to know what somebody is thinking, I ask them and if I want to know where they’re coming from, I ask them. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me but I like to keep things simple. It would screw me up not least it would exhaust me to try and work out everyone’s thoughts, intentions, where they’re coming from, etc especially if I had no input from them and why? Why would anybody want to do that? Please explain, I’m clearly missing something.
I can only suggest if you don’t like certain words and phrases that somebody uses, that you don’t speak to that person if it bothers you that much. I have some weird things (words and phrases) that I don’t like to the point that I can’t use those words and can’t communicate with somebody if they use them. I know it’s crazy but I know that if I really do need or want to communicate with such people, I will have to overcome my word fear thing and I know I can if I need to but so far (apart from with my Mum) I haven’t had to. With her, I’ve done something I don’t often do, I’ve come to a compromise because I want her in my life. She likes to tell me that she loves me, which I find repulsive, I don’t like anybody saying that to me and she likes to say it all the time. It’s like jeez, did you think I’d forgotten, you told me yesterday!!!! I don’t understand why people feel the need to repeat this phrase but she does so we’ve come to a compromise, she tries not to say it all the time and I try to deal with it when she does. So far so good, but I wouldn’t take this from anybody else. My sister and brother, of course, get fun out of teasing me with the words I can’t bare but that’s just sibling love, I take it from them and sometimes friends have a bit of fun and say the words and phrases to me, which again, I can take that. Most words and phrases (the ones I’m weird about) I can tolerate to some degree but if I was in a conversation with somebody who used them a lot, I couldn’t continue with the communication.
As for the phrases I use when talking to an audience, such as you guys, you people and your world (if I’m talking to people who live in a different world to me, which is most people lol), if you could suggest something else I can use I’m sure I’d happily use them. I’m more curious to find out why some people see it as a worthy cause to find out (without asking) what a person is thinking and would gladly change all my words to find out the answer to that curious question.
I agree, I think it can be really hard to know what other people might be thinking, and often harder still to understand where other people may be coming from. And, learning the impact that our words and actions have on others, usually takes a life time of trial and error, not least because everyone is an individual and responds to things in different ways throughout their/our lifetimes.
Perhaps the very best ‘tools’ for this job, that we have in our ‘toolkit’ (at our disposal) are; listening and respecting what we hear.
For example;
I (personally) don’t like being referred to as a ‘you people,' or 'you guys,' or 'your world' etc...’ BlueRay.
I don’t know how somebody could work out what impact your words or actions and behaviours have on others, can some people actually do that? Surely that’s a transient thing and there are too many variables to work out and you have to work out how they will react to you which could change day by day? And what business is it of someone how somebody else reacts to them? Why would they want to work that out? Isn’t that exhausting and hard work? And if I don’t take responsibility for myself then who will? I didn’t know this was a choice or level. How do you choose who is going to take responsibility for you once you stop being a kid with your parents? How can you not be self aware? Do people learn how to be aware of others first? Is that a level and then you move on to being aware of yourself? I have no understanding at all of the impact my words have on others, I wouldn’t know where to start so I clearly haven’t met that level and I haven’t met the level of deciding who has tesponsibity for me but that might be quite nice, I like people telling me what to do with clear instructions so if I chose someone to do this for me they would have to be able to give clear instructions that I could understand. But yes, I love that we all have different gifts and skills so maybe I’ve met that level which may be impossible for you guys who train kids to look and be the same. I’m not sure what you mean by personal growth? Everyone’s growth is personal isn’t it?
It’s true! Lol!
Good god no, I love that we are all different and individual, it makes every day a wonderful adventure, I am forever surprised that each new person I meet in life brings even more goodness into my life, I’m fascinated by just about everyone if not everyone I meet. We are all individual expressions, so individual that there is not another person like you in this whole world and even that thought alone fascinates and excites me. It seems like your world see individualism as negative. All the kids wearing the same clothes at school and out of school. People who don’t know me think I’m weird because I wear wellies with everything including my bikini. Your world seems to have an obsession with people being the same, you all go to school at the same age, you leave at the same age, you get jobs and have them for the same exact number of years before you can retire, you get married in the same way, you bring your kids up the same way, you go to the doctors when you’re ill. It is your government who tried to wipe out Ayurvedic medicine (which I follow) during their reign over India. They declared that the Indian people must now use western doctors and not Ayurvedic doctors like they had for probably the whole of their existence. They wiped out individualism and it wasn’t even their f*****g country. It’s like when they invaded Iraq or where ever it was where Sadam Hussein used to live. They don’t even allow different countries that have nothing to do with them to live the way they want. That blows my mind. Why would they care how a leader of another country leads his people? I’m different, I’m an individual yet you people slaughter me, on a daily basis if I let you. You tell me I’m wrong, I’m delusional, I’m bad, I should do the things that everybody else does at the same age groups. I don’t even know how old I am and to have to remember that all the time and remember what I should be doing now at each age would make my life not worth living. I think it is you people who think that to be individual is negative because you people never fail to tell me I’m wrong, for being different and an individual. I love individualism it seems you guys don’t.
Nothing is ‘important’ to me as you put it?!?! I don’t understand? How is one thing in life any more important than another? How do you do that? It’s like the unloving thing, how do you even begin to decide that one thing is important and another not? I don’t know how you do it? I don’t enjoy seperation at all, I don’t understand it or what that has to do with being an individual. This is where my head starts hurting and I start freaking out because I just don’t get it. I know I don’t know anything and you guys are out there, you know so much but surely it’s you guys who like everybody to be the same! I mean, who would dress their kid in clothes that somebody else wears, meaning the same things? What if they didn’t want to wear that? Are they then excluded from school? Isn’t that chasing away individualism? I would never put my kid in clothes somebody else told me he had to wear, never, I would never do that to him, I would never tell him what to wear.
Of course we all have different gifts, that’s what makes this world so amazing isn’t it? Otherwise what would be the point to this human life? That’s why I can’t undetstand why you guys don’t like that, you want everyone to learn the same things at the same time, dress the same, think the same, be the same. I told my son very little but made it clear to him when he said he liked school and wanted to go, that under no circumstances what so ever does he ever let any of those teachers tell him what to do or think, if he doesn’t want to do it, don’t let them treat you disrespectfuly and of course, he must not do the same to them but he must not get any ideas that they are somehow better than him or know more than him because they’re not and they don’t but neither is my son any better nor does he know more than anybody else. I’m startled by how much your world likes everyone to be the same. You can almost guess how old a person is by how they look and dress, each age bracket seems to look like each other, how weird is that! They had to be trained to do that, to all want the same look, or even know what the look is, because they do all seem to want to look the same ~ where do they get the training? It astounds me but it’s a cool way of guessing how old someone is. Maybe the training is from television, radio and magazines and newspapers and news things on the internet, because I don’t have anything to do with those things so maybe that’s where they all get the training from and how they know what look to have. I just thought they were all f*****g geniuses to know what the look is and how to do it! Lol! My sister used to try to help me but they all accept that I wear what I want now or rather I wear a their cast offs! I don’t see the point of buying new clothes from a shop when they’re always getting rid of clothes.
So you’re saying that ‘things’ are important but people aren’t, they’re just all of the same importance but some things are more important, much more important and are the things that are not important less important than people? You have so many complicated rules that I feel dizzy just thinking about them. It sounds like people are of little or no importance in life but things are either important or not, different from people, they’re all the same so they can’t change to be something more important but we can then all chose things that are important, so long as it’s not a person, because they can’t be important, they’re just all the same? Very confusing and we haven’t even got on to the criteria you use to decide what things are classed as something you can chose to be important.
The only way I have learned so far, to be separate, is to make all the superficial/transient things the most important things in life, such as money, clothes, houses etc, they seem high up on the list of importance for a lot of people, and then I can look and see if I have any of these things and if I haven’t then I can see myself as separate. But it doesn’t last for long lol because when I’m alone I don’t think about those things I just be without trying to fit myself into looking like others, which never works, I rarely pull it off. I do with my physical appearance but then I open my mouth and it’s all down hill from there. My son said I can clear a party in 30 seconds! Lol! Who’d want to talk to a delusional all loving idiot like me who knows nothing! I didn’t know I had a choice about who I am, as you seem to have, you seem to be able to choose who you want to be but I can’t seem to be anyone other than me. I can’t even manage that! I can manage being me I mean I can’t manage to make myself be something else. At least nature agrees with me on that. A tree doesn’t try to be a flower for example or some other kind of tree that it’s not.
I don’t think I can be matched up with any theory to be honest, which is ok
I think I might understand where you are coming from. I could be very wrong, but my understanding (so far) is that absolute equality (amongst people, animals, everyone, and everything i.e. blocks of wood…) is really important to you (which I respect,) and so perhaps you see individuation or separateness or 'being an individual' as a negative thing?
If that (above) is sort of correct then, I don’t see it quite this way as; I don’t see being an individual as a negative thing.Valuing people (animals, nature etc.) is really important to me too, but I also really enjoy my separateness and my individuality too.
I think everyone probably has the same sorts of feelings, thoughts, capacities, qualities, needs, etc but they present in unique ways in each of us, like we all have access to the same ingredients perhaps, but the quantities and the ways in which we use these ingredients means we are all unique cakes. And I like being a unique cake, haha.
In this way I believe that I can be a valuable and equal part of ‘the collective of life’ (and no more or less important than anyone or anything else in it, exactly as you say) but also, at the same time, I can be a separate and individual part within that collective too.
In this respect, I like to think I feel a part of ‘the collective of life,’ but I also value my differences, my individuality, and that there is only one me.
I don’t think I would want to be either one or the other (i.e. all individual, cut off, separate; or entirely collective) because I think both positions need and complement each another?
I don’t think I can be matched up with any theory to be honest, which is ok because I’ve got autism now, I just say I’m autistic which means I don’t have to try to fit myself into another thing such as the things Tom was talking about, realists and some other things. I’m happy with autism
I didn’t think it applied to me! Lol! What you said after that seemed to apply to me but when I looked up what imdividuation meant, I realised it couldn’t apply to me because I don’t see myself as separate from others, apart from the superficial level where we all look different.
I’m no different from any other person or a block of wood
I'm not 100% certain but I don't think a block of wood can experience Individuation .
I think its okay to think of Individuation as simply being 'a specific level of personal development.'
And if you have reached this 'level' (of Individuation) it tends to mean you have probably achieved certain qualities such as; taking personal responsibility for yourself, your actions and your choices; being self-aware; understanding the impact of your words, actions and behaviours on others (and vice versa,) appreciating that we are all different (subjective.) Those sorts of qualities really.
Transcendence (for me) simply means personal growth.