Thoughts are like soldiers

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 understand your meaning of equality in the sense you express it.  It is a transcendent equality.  I base my understanding of inequality on other criteria, of course.

My struggle in life is with the way many people take one standard of experience and judgment - their own - and apply it to everyone.  Those who cannot accept that we all have differences, and each of us will respond to things in different ways.  People who refuse to see that there is always a backstory.  People who condemn the homeless, or addicts, or anyone else, for what they perceive to be 'imperfections of character', 'lack of willpower', or just plain 'laziness'.  Society is full of such judgmental people.  People who will say to a homeless person 'just go get a job'.  People who are seemingly indifferent to difference.  People who lump others together in a dismissive and ignorant way.  'Damn foreigners', 'welfare spongers', etc.

I also struggle with those who appear to have an indisputable claim to the 'only truth'.  Those who are hidebound by ideology or belief.  Jehovah's Witnesses, Marxists, other fundamentalists.  If you try to rationalise with a Marxist, it's because your thinking is 'bourgeois'.  I've invited Jehovah's Witnesses in sometimes and spent time discussing their beliefs.  And it is impossible ever to make any headway with them beyond what they themselves believe.  There's no room for discussion.  This is the truth, and it's absolute, and anything else is wrong.  Such people grind me down, demoralise me, lead me to lose my own faith in humanity.  There doesn't seem to be any openness to the true richness and diversity of life and experience.  At the same time, I don't dislike these people.  I have to embrace them.  Hatred and division can only breed more of the same.  So... unity, through individuation.  I disagree with them.  But that doesn't mean I'm any more 'right' than they are.  I accept that.

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.

Oh, and not everybody has to find the universal truths within them, if they’re happy with their truths, that is ALWAYS, without question, good enough and no wise person would ever try and tell them any different. Everyone is equal and that includes their understanding of truth. 

What you write makes total sense Tom and I can’t come up with theories either nor can I really talk about them, I don’t understand all the big words they use, they serve only to confuse me, I can’t understand them but I am confident when I speak because I speak from truth.

For something to be true, it has to be true for every living person, it is unchanging, it is definite, clear and precise, it’s scientific and it can be measured and demonstrated, to ANYBODY, who wants to know the truth, regardless of their background, education, social standing or whatever. The truth is available to all who seek it. It’s the truth that sets a person free, that gives that unshakable inner confidence that no man could ever take down no matter what the situation. I will stand in front of any man and hold my truth or the truth and be confident. On a person’s journey to truth, they will play with and grapple with their personal understanding of truth. A truth which is true for them, at that time, with all the wisdom, experience, education etc that they have available to them at that time. But if they are sincere about finding the universal truths, they will use their idea of truth to help them on their journey towards the greater truths, meaning universal, not ‘better’.

None of us knows nothing, we might know one thing one day and the next, we find out our understanding is no longer correct. Things in the material world are always moving, always changing, things are transient, but truth is never changing, never transient and always available to any person anywhere who seeks it sincerely.

Nobody is right or wrong, nobody better or worse, more intelligent or less intelligent, more wise or less wise. We all share the same race consciousness and we all share the same consciousness of infinite intelligence.

Truth unites and never separates. It brings peace, harmony, joy and unlimited abundance, more than we could ever achieve by our own human efforts. But when truth is your god, when love is your guide, that is what you see everywhere, despite appearances. I ‘appear’ poor, exhausted, weak, without the capacity to work, lonely, spending most of every hour of every day alone, not eating regularly, having no interest in the things that usually interest me, no motivation to do anything, not even to wash. But that’s only what people see on the surface, that’s ‘their’ interpretation based on what they can see in my outsides and based on what they consider poverty, for example, based on their belief that money is god, so in that respect they’re right, I am all of what they think I am, I am poor etc. But in truth, I feel deeply honoured, privileged, rich beyond compare to have this opportunity to experience this burn out in a warm house, in a place that I’m familiar with, this could have happened in a part of the world I wasn’t familiar, I feel so grateful, so lucky, so looked after, so cherished, I feel very special and I am so grateful that not a day goes past when I do not give time to say thank you and express my gratitude for the privileged position I find myself in. The first thing I do when I open my eyes in a morning, even before I consciously realise I’m in a warm comfortable bed, I say thank you, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I then proceed to give thanks for all the other blessings and gifts I have in my life, including snow, that gave me a chance to go out for a walk as there weren’t so many people around and the slippy ground meant I had to be careful and take my time. I have so many things to be grateful for that it would seem extremely disingenuous to think of myself as poor. And in my understanding based on my values of human life and love, I have plenty of both of them so how could I be poor? How could I push and squeeze myself into that label and how would it help me or others or the world?

Oh, and everything you said makes sense and you most definitely did not take up too much space. 

AngelDust said:

I have this belief that depression is really a type of grieving; a deep hearted, soul raking, mourning. Mourning the absence of meaning. And that the losses we are grieving that robbed us of meaning, that can steal away our very reason to be here, can be obvious, like losing a job, a house, friendships, relationships; but our losses can be less obvious things too, such as loss of a belief, a hope, a dream, a facade, a persona, an ideal...and that these losses are just as important, if not fundamentally more so, but can be much harder to pinpoint and navigate our way through.

Yes, again.  I feel such a sense of loss just lately, too.  Most significantly, I lost the only true friend I've ever had when I lost my mother last year.  The one constant in my life.  The one source of true, unconditional love.  And I suppose, in some ways, that loss has taken a sense of meaning away.  I still cling on hard to my hopes and dreams.  I work to bring them to realisation.  But an energy is missing.  I laid awake in bed last night, in the dark - a perfect condition, with no distractions, to pull all my thoughts together and to try to attain some sense of things.  Without my cat, Daisy, to be responsible for - and she is now the focus of my love and concerns - I do really wonder if I'd find any compelling reason to go on with life.  She's like a guardian angel in that sense.  She gives me a reason.  And as long as I have that, I can find other reasons.  In thinking that I've managed my colossal loss well - even writing a book in the process, which has been a huge part of the process - I realise that I'm very much in grief.  It's a grief that will attenuate as time goes on, but it will never leave me.  So much about life seems meaningless and without purpose.  I pass through my days on a form of autopilot - going through the motions, because it's what I have to do.  And I can't help wondering sometimes just why it is that I have to do it.  It will take me to the same place in the end, whenever it comes.  I feel like a lonely voice, crying out in the middle of a desert.  No one can hear me.  The world is indifferent to my existence.  In the grander scheme, my loss will mean nothing.  My mother had a hard life, full of struggle and heartache and broken dreams.  She carried all kinds of burdens - psychological, emotional, physical - but she carried them with great fortitude.  She was so loving and all-embracing.  She never judged or condemned.  She looked for the good, rather than focusing on the bad.  And at the end, she would sit looking at it all in utter confusion and bewilderment.  What was it all for?  It all seemed to make no sense at all.  It was the most heart-breaking thing of all for me to witness.  Of course, though, it was for something.  It was for many things.  She brought love and light and beauty and understanding into the world.  She touched many lives.  Her life had great and profound meaning.  And through it, she gave life to me.  She brought me to where I am now.  She'd want me to go on, too.  I have to keep that in mind.  And take all the other reasons I can find to help me along the way.

It's a time of change and transition.  And grief is a large part of that.

Yes deppthought, that very one. Have you read it? 

I certainly have ~ which was really intriguing for me as I had read quite alot of the treatment methodologies he described in the Book ~ some which I read bit by bit or wholly and others more or less partially over the years involving abstracts, quotes, papers and books from other sources too.

All the previous stuff was as such in part or whole episodic summations, with the memoir stuff being the final conclusion, sort of thing.

AngelDust said:

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.

Yes.  I like this, and believe it.  There is no 'one truth'.  You could almost say that there are no truths at all, only perceptions.  What's true for one person isn't true for another, for any number of reasons.  I stick by the idea that we are all composed of so many things: our genes, our background and upbringing, our experiences in and of the world.  And these are all variables.  No two people will respond in the same way to anything.  There are so many other factors to account for, too: individual neurology (whether typical or diverse) to name an obvious one.  Conditioning.  Trauma.  Some will be raised in difficult circumstances and experience abuse and trauma, yet come through it, survive, flourish.  Others may buckle and break down, never to recover.

I believe it and hold to it.  Yet I realise it's something I still need to learn, too.  I struggle with being challenged, as we all do.  I'm not so robust in my thoughts and views that a challenge won't faze me, and send me into retreat and despair.  Completely undermine me.  So - as, again, many of us do - I become defensive, hide away, lick my wounds.  Try to heal again by cutting myself off.  It's something I've always done, since I was a very young child.  From very early on, the world seemed a confusing (at best) and hostile (at worst) place.  Everything - other people, institutions, even my own emotions - seemed designed to attack me, cheat me, catch me out, put me down.  Such challenges can almost feel like the world is being pulled out from under me; that the very basis of my entire existence is nothing but dust and ashes.  It's hardly surprising that depression has dogged me for much of my life.  My experiences - at school and elsewhere - led me to believe that everyone else was right, and I was wrong (often, these people were right, of course - I acknowledge that).  Even now, when I find myself in a position of being challenged, I tend to buckle under and give ground to the other person.  I can't rise to it.  I suppose it's why I'm now pretty much a hermit, shutting myself off in my comfort zone, communicating in the only way I really can - through writing.  In this position, I have time to marshal my thoughts.  To consider a response that doesn't leave me looking like a babbling idiot - which is how I would be out there, amongst other people.  I may come across as confident and in command of my thoughts here - but out there, I feel like a drowning wretch, tossed by the tides against the rocks.  I'm a nothing man.  A cipher.  In the words of Ralph Ellison's protagonist in his great novel Invisible Man, 'I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fibre and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind.  I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.'   

In good part, I struggle to hold my own because of a lack of education.  Or, shall we say, a lack of the knowledge that most people use to back up their position.  I can't come up with theories, facts, figures, events.  I don't have it.  All I really have is intuition, feelings, impulses that are the very essence of me.  The vital, core thing.  The 'humanity' element, if you like, which connects me to my fellow beings - even though, in many senses, I feel 'apart' from them, and always have done.  In some ways, I think this is all that's needed.  And no matter how much that's attacked, it will never be destroyed.  Unless I destroy it myself.

When I say I lack education, I mean formal education.  I went to university, yes.  And that was where I got my true education.  Not in what I learned about my subject, but in what I learned about myself (though literature and philosophy were certainly useful enablers there - more so than many other subjects I might have taken).  University opened up my mind in a way nothing else had ever done.  And in that sense, it got to the core of me.  It refined the essence, and threw off the things that had been covering it and hiding it.  Before uni, my closest 'friend' had been my older brother, and my belief system was largely shaped by those around me at the time: family, people at work, etc.  I tended to accept what I was told, or what I heard, and use it as the basis for my own 'opinions' - which were really nothing more than petty prejudices and ill-informed nonsense.  Without being overtly homophobic or sexist, I nevertheless held onto a predominantly '70s, culturally-conditioned mindset that saw homosexuality as something to laugh at or be suspicious of - even think of as vaguely perverse.  And although I never regarded women as inferiors, and actually preferred being with them and working with them, I still held onto archaic views about them and their place in the world.  University refined all of that out of me.  By the time I left, I was a vocal advocate of gay rights and women's rights.  Human rights.  I was a staunch defender of all minorities: the poor, the homeless, the dispossessed.  Animals, too.  I got involved in the animal rights and environmental movements.  I went on demos, sat in fox holes, denounced exploitation in all of its forms.  These things, as I've said, were always there inside me.  University gave me the confidence to bring them out.  All of this endures with me to this day.  It will always be there.  It always was.  Hardly surprising, therefore, that it served to distance me from my former 'closest friend'.  My brother is still the person he was.  The things that once bound us together - the common beliefs - soon pulled us apart.  We are no longer close in any sense.  The only thing we share is our blood.  He doesn't understand me, and doesn't seem to want to any longer.  In good part, his wife has abetted this.  He has gained strength from her approval of him as he is.  She shares his beliefs.  She not only disdains mine, but is hostile to them.  I have to accept them for the people they are - as I try to embrace all of humanity.  If they could only accept me for the person I am in return.  Which they don't seem able to.  And so... we are apart, and - since the settling of my dear mother's affairs after her passing - we no longer have contact.  They see things in black and white only.  I can't hold to that.  I can only see a spectrum of colour.  I see the grey areas, too.  Out of self-preservation, if nothing else, I need to keep that view.  The day I lose it is the day that I myself will be lost.  And there will no longer be any point in going on.

But I'm imperfect.  I hold much store by the old saying There's so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best - let the one not find fault with the other.  But I realise I do not always keep to that principle.  I look around the world and see what others do to one another.  The greed, the bullying, the fighting.  Power-brokers treating human life with indifference; treating innocent people as nothing other than pawns in their game - things expendable in the pursuit of their own aims.  Yet these are humans, too - presumably with thoughts, feelings, emotions.  People who also care about things, in their own ways.  I used to ally myself only with those who seemed to think as I did - politically, socially, spiritually - but have now wearied of that, with all the partisan hatreds and divisive talk.  The bunker mentality which seems to pervade all human discourse.  It's so destructive - if not to people, then to one's own psychology.  I have to be independent.  I've never been a joiner in any sense, anyway - so it isn't difficult for me.

Perhaps, then, it's understandable why I react in the way I do whenever I come up against something that goes against everything I believe.  My world-view, and my beliefs and ideals - my love, if you like - are what keep me in the world.  If all of this is challenged, then it feels as if I no longer exist.  I need to look beyond this, though.  I need to transcend it.  I don't mean that in the sense of being morally or intellectually superior.  I mean in being receptive to it, acknowledging it, learning what I can from it, taking any sustenance from it that I can.  Seeing where there might actually be wisdom in it - something that I can add to whatever store of wisdom I myself possess.  See it as a form of energy and strength - not as something that weakens and enervates.

This is reason enough to go on with life - in my darkest moments, I have to keep telling myself that.  Not always looking for truths and answers, because there are so many, and not all of them will be congenial or compatible.  But seeking transcendence.  An inner truth.  The truth of my being.  A truth that embraces all, in spite of differences.

Forgive me... I have taken up too much space.  I hope some of what I've said makes sense.  It may be fraught with contradictions.  But I accept that, too.  As Walt Whitman said: Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then - I contradict myself.  I am large.  I contain multitudes.   I'm not as large as Walt in any sense of the word.  But I think I contain multitudes.  I try, anyway...

Yes deppthought, that very one. Have you read it? 

I’ve got Carl Jung’s biography, which is really interesting, but I haven’t finished it yet.

Might that be the 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections' one ~ perhaps?

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, I also use my approach (obviously because it’s the only one I have! Lol) with my social work clients which is working at a very practical level indeed, with things such as bereavement, poverty, mental health problems, family issues etc, we get the whole lot in social work, when others can’t deal with the issue they send them to us, even the police send people our way. It’s almost like putting a plaster on things but even within that framework, I still find ways to help my clients make the progress they want or achieve whatever it is they want to achieve. I use the same law that the local authorities get us to use to limit peoples access to services, to guarantee services. I understand the law and I write it in my assessments so it’s impossible for my managers to refuse what we’re asking for. I always get my clients what they want and I also somehow always please my bosses as well which is evident because they are happy to pay me more money than they pay anybody else, just to work for them when they could get somebody much cheaper. But I think it balances out, because in some situations I won’t give any services where others might, if I think the person wouldn’t benefit from them. Just because somebody meets a tick box assessment criteria, doesn’t mean they need that service. If you do a thorough assessment, involving the person all the way and meeting their needs as definite by them, they sometimes don’t need services, you can help them in other ways. Colleagues and managers don’t know how I do it and it’s took me years to work out what it is that I do actually do differently, but I’m happy to have worked it out. I was happy anyway but after many comments I was curious to know what I did differently too. I knew I got different results, I just didn’t know how or why! 

Thanks, AngelDust.  I'm a little recovered now.  Closest to a meltdown for a long time.  I'll post something later

Now we’re getting somewhere deep thought. Yes, I recognise and acknowledge all the types of poverty that you mentioned, including financial poverty, but to just say ‘poverty’ to me, it means nothing. When you qualify it with something else, such as financial poverty, then we’re getting somewhere. When you are clear about the situation then you will be met with a clear response and each of these situations can be met with the relevant response. 

As for me. I most certainly come under the heading of financial poverty and many people in a similar financial situation to me think they are poor. And I’ve seen what happens in the lives of such people. They don’t eat out, they limit themselves in lots of ways because they say, I can’t do that I’m poor. Because I don’t see myself that way, and I’m not deluding myself, and I’ll show you why I’m not, but because I don’t see myself like that, I don’t limit myself. I still go out to eat and do all the things I want to do. How, you might ask if you’re poor. Well here’s a couple of examples. 

Last week, just as my autism group was finishing, I realised I was hungry and that I wanted to eat something. I had very little to no food at home and in any case, I didn’t want to cook, I was too tired, just leaving my house, even for something as enjoyable as my autism group, wears me out, at present. So I decided I would eat out. Would a poor person decide to do that?

So I said to my friend, as we left the group, that I was going to go for something to eat. She said would you mind if I come with you, I’d love to go for something to eat. I said sure, that would be lovely, have you got anywhere in mind. She said yes, there’s a lovely place she goes to with her son and she would love to treat me to my dinner there. She said she is grateful that I go out of my way every week to pick her up and take her to the group and this week she got a little extra money and she would love to treat me as a way of saying thank you. She said I know you don’t ask for anything or that you wouldn’t take any money from me for all the lifts you give me but that she would be grateful if I allowed her to do this for me. I didn’t know she had some extra money, there was no way I could know that and I wouldn’t know she could spare the money to buy me or even her something to eat, even if I knew she had the extra money, but she did. I had no idea how I would get to eat out when I made that decision, I just knew I would, and as always, my ‘knowing’ didn’t let me down. She enjoyed going out so much that she asked me if we could do this every week and for her to pay, she said I would be doing her a huge favour as she gets so much out of it (she’s normally at home alone or with her autistic son, she’s autistic and finds it difficult to initiate such outings) and she said it would make her feel so much better if she could do something for me as well as I have to go quite far out of my way (according to her, she’s working on physical distances, I’m not) to pick her up, take her to the group then take her home again each week. So now I have a meal at least one day a week. I didn’t know that was going to happen but I knew I would eat out that day, I just didn’t know how and I never in a million years expected it to come the way it did, I didn’t think this girl even liked eating out that much and I know she thinks she lives in relative poverty and is very careful and absolutely amazing in fact, at managing her money so I would never of imagined that she would offer me such a generous gift.

My son gave me £30 the other night when he called round, I was going to buy some food with it but the next day his girlfriend called to say the kids school was closed due to the weather and could I look after the kids, which I happily agreed to. After talking to the kids about what we would do for the day we decided we would do something lovely for their Mum and stepdad (my son). So we went shopping, we spent most of the money on the ingredients to make them a huge beef stew and dumplings in their slow cooker and some dessert. I got them lots of ready cut fresh fruit and although I made meat in the stew (I’m vegan) I put less meat and added healthy beans and they loved it. The girl made the bedroom all lovely, she made their bed and hoovered and made a heart with sweets on the bed and put wine glasses and a bottle of wine in there. Me and the boy cleaned the kitchen and the living room. The rest of the money we spent on treating ourselves to huge hot chocolates and marshmallows and flakes for the kids and coffee for me. We had a great day and my son and girlfriend were so happy to come home from work to a hot meal and a clean house. The daughter went to stay at her dads so I said the boy could have a sleep over with me so the parents could go out and watch football at the pub. I left so they could have their tea etc and they dropped the boy off with me on their way out. If I thought I was ‘poor’, I would have spent that money on me for food as I would think I needed it. Instead, I had nothing to eat that day, I was exhausted because I had worked so physically hard, fortunately I had pain killers to take the pain away but I was blissfully happy. The kids were happy, they had previously been falling out, that’s why I suggested we do something nice for somebody else because even though I had told them they could do anything they wanted that day, we were going to buy sledges and go sledging, they were still being mean to each other. So they were happy, my son and girlfriend was and so was I. I suppose it meant I had no money again but to me, that didn’t even enter my head. I had lost nothing and gained a whole lot more. My son and girlfriend came home and because they weren’t stressed about who’s making tea or tidying up etc, I had a lovely pleasant, relatively normal (for me) chat with my daughter in law and I went home with my heart bursting with love, and prepared myself for round two, the little boy, my grandson coming to sleep for the first time. No amount of money could equal that. Even without a penny in my pocket, I don’t consider myself poor. When I was living on the streets I turned people down for their offers of a bed etc because I wasn’t in a fit state mentally, to accept their offers, I would have somehow upset them and because I wouldn’t know how not to because I didn’t understand when I did, I thanked them generously from my heart but declined their offer. Sometimes I’d let them feed me or let me take a shower or get some clean clothes from them and I wouldn’t walk the streets all night thinking poor me, I’m so poor, I would walk the streets at night giving heartfelt thanks for the wonderful, kind and generous people that I meet and for how lucky I am that I have legs and can use them to walk the streets because I felt safer doing that than sleeping in doorways or even in the night shelters, if you could get a bed there, so I wasn’t thinking of how poor I was but how fortunate I was to have legs and to live amongst such wonderfully kind and non judgemental people. They could have seen me as a poor dirty person, worthless with no value in society because I wasn’t working, but no, they saw that I was simply having a hard time and they wanted to help me and that was enough love kindness and generosity to keep me from ever thinking I was poor. I’m not good, practically with money, when I’m working I bring home, with ease, well in advance of £1000 a week after tax etc. That is very little compared to my friends who are millionaires and one who is on his way to being a billionaire and it’s quite a lot to my homeless out of work or prostitute friends and to me, it is what it is, it’s either £1000 or less or more or whatever it is, it has little value to me. If I had just got paid and you said I need £1000 I would just give it to you with no thought about the coming week. I used to drive my son crazy with this when he was younger. He would say no, we can’t afford a pizza, I would say look, we can, and I would produce the £10 and he would look at me in despair. He would say what about the rest of the week, which I thought was a totally random thing to say when we’re about to decide what pizza to get and then he would explain that we needed to buy enough food to last the week. So like a sulking teenager, I’d relent and we’d go and buy vegetables and beans and make some hearty soups and bread. But even with all his help while he was growing up, I still haven’t learned to place the same value on money that many others do so o guess that’s why I struggle to see myself as ‘poor’ but of course I see others struggling to manage on little money and I help people out when and where I can, I wouldn’t say to them oh your not poor, pull yourself together, it’s all in your mind, it’s your faulty thinking system. Instead I go find hot food and buy it for them, I ask them if there’s anything else I can do and they will never take money from me. The other night when I was walking in the snow I decided that if the homeless guy I usually buy food for is on the street in his usual spot, I would offer him my bed for the night or for however long the cold spell lasts. If he took everything I had, it would only be physical things and I would still be happy that I was able to provide him with a bed and seemingly some extras. Starting again with physical things like furniture etc is what I do regularly as I move around the country/world or just because I’ve given stuff away. My needs are always met but then I have simple needs.

Hi Martian Tom,

I am devastated to hear that as I would have dearly loved to read what you wrote and learn your thoughts, opinions and experiences about this.

I realise it is indeed of no help or comfort whatsoever to gently offer that, when I am writing a large reply to someone, I tend to now write it in Word first (and then copy and paste it,) to avoid it being lost as I have had that exact same frustration happen to me many a time too.

Perhaps you may feel inclined to try again later, if the passion takes you there again. I do hope it does. 

.

Making total sense Endymion and you word things much better than me. When I’m working with somebody, I always meet them where they’re at, always. Yes, I live on a different plain to most people but a big part of that has come through years and years of relentless and diligent hard work. For example, before I could live with absolute ease, I spent the best part of one year asking myself hundreds of times a day, is there is ease in what I’m doing now, and when there wasn’t, I would simply stop what I was doing and address it until eventually, I now notice, more or less instantly, if I am not at ease, I no longer have to repeatedly ask myself that question. And when I was doing that work, I was working in a mental health team working with people who had severe and enduring mental health problems and I still got excellent results with my clients, it didn’t interfere with my work, in fact it enhanced it. 

I work with people with all sorts of practical problems, from health, wealth (or financial poverty), anything and everything really. Although my work always has a metaphysical basis, I work at a very practical level as well. I have a massive tool kit which I use with myself and my clients and they’re all very practical and they are different, to suit different people or needs, but they all bring the person back to the same place of peace, happiness, ease and joy. 

So yeah, you make total sense and when I’m working with somebody I always meet them where they are. If I’m just having conversations, like on here, and a person wanted to get something from what I have said, if they tell me what their understanding is, I will always meet it. There is no hierarchy in our levels of awareness and understanding, all levels are equal, equally valid and they all have their individual merits but no one is better or higher or lower than another. It’s just where we’re at and if you can accept where you’re at, life is always perfect. I guess a lot of what I teach is acceptance of what is. Whatever your situation, wherever you are in life, it’s where you’re supposed to be so it’s always perfect and if you can accept where you’re at, then you can do things to change it, if that’s what you want. There isn’t a person on earth who can’t be helped, if they genuinely want help, no matter how long it takes to get that help. I would never talk like I do in my everyday life to a client or somebody who comes to me for some help, that wouldn’t help them, not in the least, but on here I’m just chatting, I don’t know where everybody else is at but if they want to engage with me, and they tell me where they’re at, I’ll meet them. 

Endymion said:

I have been but one glaring omission in most studies, such as Neuroception or Polyvagal Theory, is that they assume neurotypical responses / affects / interpretations and these are then simply extrapolated to explain a neurodiverse perspective. I don't think that works. 

In Neuroceptive or Polyvagal terms, as involves people's biological tendencies to react to internal and external threats or stimulus ~ by way of physiological drives and psychological compulsions to freeze, flight or fight ~ this research is very relevant for understanding both neurologically typical, atypical and divergent mindsets.

Simply though using a neurotypical framework or model alone to comprehend neurodiverse mindsets ~ is like attempting to translate Hebrew or Greek into English; whilst not in the first place understanding Hebrew or Greek in either of the spoken or the written forms.

Endymion said:

I'd like to understand the processes behind my thoughts and the feelings and responses, not the neurotypical processes. I don't see any value in me learning those. 

Well the only difference been neurologically typical, atypical and divergent personality or personae types ~ is being more or less the same, characteristically or behaviourally, to lesser or greater extents or degrees along a spectrum of many spectrums ~ and not just one. 

A simple analogy of human similarity is that autistic meltdowns or shut-downs can occur on a monthly, weekly or daily or even an hourly basis, whereas the neurologically typical or atypical versions can occur on a monthly, yearly or multiple of years or even decades basis.

The biggest problem though in psychoanalytical terms for neurologically atypical and divergent people ~ regarding personal, familial and social problems ~ is when Societal Normalisation Therapy (or S.N.T.) is attempted more proportionally for societal productivity, rather than so much Personal Individuation Therapy (or P.I.T.). 

Wanting to understand the processes behind 'your' thoughts, feelings and actions requires obviously more P.I.T. work, which involves coming to a personal understanding and comprehension of our individual consciousness ~ as in principle vitalises our collective experiential selves and generates our developing awarenesses of which internally and externally ~ in environmental terms receptively, protectively and projectively.

Being too protective and projective for instance stops us from being receptive enough to our surroundings ~ whether that be psychically, mentally or physically; just as being too receptive and protective either way can stop us from being adequately projective ~ meaning that we are not then as able to make reasonable plans or befitting suggestions and all that, which I may have exemplified too much here perhaps ;-) ?

I have been but one glaring omission in most studies, such as Neuroception or Polyvagal Theory, is that they assume neurotypical responses / affects / interpretations and these are then simply extrapolated to explain a neurodiverse perspective. I don't think that works. 

I'd like to understand the processes behind my thoughts and the feelings and responses, not the neurotypical processes. I don't see any value in me learning those.