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.
Honestly, this is how I feel. I have never heard this quote before. Today, when I realised that it was simply just that I was coming from a different value base from everybody else, it’s like I felt this, I want to say overwhelming rush but it didn’t feel overwhelming or like a rush, of such sweet and tender love towards others, that I haven’t felt before. It’s the same kind of love I witnessed when I was in Australia last year and I honestly felt I would never feel that way towards others. But today, it just came over me.
Once I realised that my life was simply based on different values to most other people, it’s like everything changed. I never thought that I was right and they were wrong, it was just all so confusing to me, I thought people were out to get me because I honestly thought they all thought the same way as me and held the same values as me. Now I know they don’t, it’s like everything has changed. Like a barrier has been removed. I feel so calm and peaceful. I feel like I can really begin to enjoy my burnout now, now the crazy mind chatter has calmed down! Lol!
I still think there is only one truth but I also see that other peoples views and values are equally right and valid. It’s not that I never thought they weren’t, just that I had no idea that anybody actually did think differently from me! Lol! I didn’t know there was another view point. I can see now how I let their thoughts get so mingled in with mine. I thought we were all coming from the same premise. I highly appreciate and respect the subjectivity of others, it is through others that I have come to know myself and today was something else!
I’ve got Carl Jung’s biography, which is really interesting, but I haven’t finished it yet. I can’t read for too long before the words and the letters start dancing around and refusing to let me read them! lol! It’s been highly interesting so far though. Thank you, again
p.s. when I said I’d never felt such tender love for others before, that doesn’t mean I didn’t before love everybody, on the contrary, I don’t actually know how not to love someone. Even when somebody has done what we would all consider a terrible thing, I still can’t stop loving someone, I don’t know how to. I’ve worked with peadophiles and murderers and I don’t love them any less than I love my son. The feelings I was getting was more of a human kind of love which is more tender and it somehow feels kinder but it doesn’t actually make me love people more than I do or mean that I loved them any less before I had that feeling. I love all people equally, I always have and always will. I know Former Member that you think I should be open minded about this and that I should learn to love some people more than others and not love some, that I’m wrong to love all people, I understand that and I promise you I’ve tried but each time I did, I ended up suicidal and in a bad way mentally. How do you teach yourself to not love somebody, to love only particular people and to love money more? And to be honest, I no longer want to try, that’s why I said after 50 years they didn’t succeed in teaching me this lesson and I no longer wish to try. I don’t think I’m right and your wrong, but trying to love some people and not others, just doesn’t work for me, I don’t think that makes me wrong but if it does, so be it, I’m a wrong loving person.
Oh yeah, yeah, I love him too. He definitely needed love. If we have to come back to this earth and keep living our karma, that soul sure is going to have a lot of lives.
Himmler (not sure who he is)
The architect of the Nazi holocaust, who oversaw the murder of at least 6 million jews.
Heinrich Himmler
Feeling nothing but unconditional love for the whole of humanity isn’t a laudable thing, it’s how your born, isn’t it? It’s how I was born and I thought it was how everybody else was born. I didn’t know people were born without love, I don’t understand. To me, Love is life!
I’m starting to understand you now. Because I don’t put conditions on love, I therefore appear to have transcended the conditions. But I never put any conditions there in the first place, so I couldn’t of transcended them if they were never there to start with. So I can see where you’re coming from, I understand that word now ~ thank you, I have always wondered what that word meant, especially as I apparently did transcendental meditation, so thank you for that. But the thing is, I never made any conditions so there wasn’t any for me to transcend.
Yes of course my love extends to people like Stalin, Himmler (not sure who he is) and Mugabe. Those people need more love than most. They are so blinded by some false idea of god, such as power, control, wealth and riches. My love pours out to them even more. They need so much love and so much help.
I am a Christian Scientist, my church is the First Church of Christ Scientist. We’re not Scientologists as some people think but we don’t go to doctors or anything for treatments, we treat ourselves or rather god heals us. But I didn’t get my views or thoughts from them, not in the least. I only found them by chance a few years ago and they seem to think like me, I haven’t found anything yet (like in all the other churches and Buddhist centres) that goes against my way of thinking, so for now, that’s my church. But I go to any church or Buddhist temple to be fair, if I want some Church time. But Jesus most definitely is and always has been my teacher, even though I have barely read a word of the bible and I’ve never had bible lessons or anything like that, but I know his word, I always have, it’s within me. I knew it even before o could speak, I thought everyone did?!?!? I thought people just learned to not love and to be choosy over they did love, I thought they had a secret code until I realised their secret code doesn’t bring them complete and total happiness and bliss, confidence and enduring love and wonderment. So I stopped trying to love some and not others. It never worked for me anyway. People tell me to shut up if they want to say something about somebody before I have chance to tell them why that person did it and to understand why and forgive them. It doesn’t make sense to me to rest with some kind of resentment or irritation in the heart. It doesn’t feel comfortable to me. If I don’t love somebody then I will stop at nothing to find out where in my heart am I holding such feelings and why. Nobody outside of me has the power to make me feel anything but total love, 100% of the time so I know that if I don’t feel that way, I am harbouring some thought or hurt within me so I find it and deal with it. It doesn’t feel easy to me to rest with anything less than perfect love in my heart.
Thank you for helping me understand that word, transcendent.
Then, if you can feel nothing but unconditional love for the whole of humanity, that's a laudable thing. For me, though... I can't do that. I can give understanding, empathy, etc. But I can't love everyone unconditionally. If I were given the unenviable task of making a choice between two people, which should die and which should live, and one was someone very close and dear to me and the other a complete stranger.... it wouldn't be easy in one sense, of course. I wouldn't want to condemn anyone to death. But if I had that choice... I could only choose the person closest and dearest to me. Okay, that's a purely hypothetical example - but it could happen in life if, say, you had to choose who should receive heart transplant, knowing that whoever didn't receive it would die. If I were the surgeon making the choice, and one of those patients was my mother, and all other conditions were equal... well, I know who I'd choose. But this is why I think you can only mean a transcendent love. Because it transcends any conditions that others set on it.
Does your unconditional love embrace all of humanity? Even people like Stalin (dead now, of course), Himmler (also), Mugabe? People who killed millions of others under some warped ideological principle, or to consolidate personal power and wealth? If so, then that's compatible with a Christian love. If the whole world felt the same, it would be a far better world. I wouldn't want to kill anybody, I don't actively hate anybody, I would do my best to help anybody who needed help - and for no other reason than that they needed help, and I could give it. But I can't love everybody. Sorry. To my way of thinking, that would devalue the entire meaning of 'love' - or render it obsolete, even. But then, as I said, that's only to my way of thinking. Not yours.
I don’t know what a transcendental love is and when I see somebody hurt somebody else or me, I can’t not see their backstory, I can’t not see what brought them to their actions. I can’t not love somebody so I will do whatever I can for how ever long it takes to understand their actions and always I lead to a time when that person was hurt in some way by somebody else and they’re still holding that hurt inside them. I can’t stop loving a person because they were hurt and never learnt how to come to terms with that hurt so it stops repeatedly hurting them in ever more different ways. I know only two loves. The love that I see as real and conditional love, where people put conditions on the love, such as, if you be nice to me I will love you and if you be mean to me I won’t, or some other condition which I don’t understand, I can’t match it up with what I feel, see and experience as love.
Don’t worry, nothing in life dissapoints me, it only ever continues to surprise me with its infinite flow of love. But it’s this conditional love that has caused me problems in my life, I tried to understand but I couldn’t and don’t. I don’t know where people get the conditions from and how they unlove people or didn’t they love them in the first place? Do you only start loving someone once they start meeting the set conditions? That would mean that you start off from a place or not loving? Could that be possible? Is that really true that some people start off without love? If that’s true, things are starting to get a whiole lot clearer for me. I wish I didn’t have to go. This is gettimg really enlightening for me.
Take your sister in law for example, do you love her, wholeheartedly as much as you love your mother? If you don’t, I don’t know how you do that? I can only conclude that you have set a president or you have a list of things that a person must or must not do before you can either love them or not.
No, I can never love my sister-in-law as much as my mother. My sister-in-law has done a lot of damage in our family. She's destroyed relationships. I can never love anyone as much as I loved (and love) my mother. What I can do is accept my sister-in-law for the way she is, and for what she does in other ways. For me, you see, embracing and understanding humanity isn't the same as loving everyone equally. Again, you're talking about a different definition of love. A transcendent love. Such as the love that Jesus had for humanity. I don't have that. I can aspire to it, maybe. But not right now in my life. I'm sorry if that's a disappointment, or seems to contradict what I said earlier. In no way was it meant to imply that you should love some people more than others. I wouldn't dare to tell anyone who they should and shouldn't love, nor how much.
If you re read you recent, long post, you will see that that is exactly what you’re saying. Take your sister in law for example, do you love her, wholeheartedly as much as you love your mother? If you don’t, I don’t know how you do that? I can only conclude that you have set a president or you have a list of things that a person must or must not do before you can either love them or not. That freaks the hell out of me because how do you decide? It seems such hard and confusing work, and I have never been able to understand it. For me, love is undeniable, things like poverty and such swap and change, what is considered poor in one part of the world at a certain point in time, is not considered poor in another part of the world at a certain point in time. It hurts my head. What reference are people using when they decide they love one person and not another? What makes one person more worthy over another to receive love? I don’t know how to unlove the people who we are not supposed to love. I don’t know how to unlove anybody. If you can tell me how to do that then please do.
I know Martian Tom that you think I should be open minded about this and that I should learn to love some people more than others and not love some, that I’m wrong to love all people, I understand that and I promise you I’ve tried but each time I did, I ended up suicidal and in a bad way mentally.
I don't think, BlueRay, that I've ever said that - though maybe it might have been inferred from something else I said. My recent, long post will probably explain my position better. My concern before was more with denial of the existence of things that, to me, are undeniable.