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flamingswordIn regards to holding other people responsible for them being who I thought they were, I guess I was kinda spoiled by my teens / early adulthood having been so wild. It may have been traumatic unpleasant, but I did learn a lot. After my friend Dave tripped off into the unknown one night on LSD and came back a totally different person the next morning, I got to mourn the possibilities of him that would never come to be, and to grieve the fact that our friendship not only didn't survive, but may as well have never existed in his eyes. From that, I got to understand that the construct of the self is not permanent even at its most fundamental layers. That even if we have a soul, that that's not the same thing as a personality. That we can be strangers even to ourselves, sometimes. It's a morally neutral thing about how I understand the universe, and it has been since I was like 19, even if I'm way more able to put it into words now.
Also corollary to that, I can't really assume that other people will, or even can, save me, no matter how well I think I know them. Even if my understanding of someone were completely accurate (unlikely), the world would still be built on disorder and happenstance and chaos. I used to make promises to do things at certain times for certain people, but half the time circumstances made a liar out of me. I try to avoid even the language of promises now, bc they imply a certainty about the world that I have to constantly remind myself is fake - that the feeling of certainty itself is intended only to calm the monkey mind and doesn't reflect reality. It's a story we as humans tell ourselves because we're not designed to deal with unaltered reality, it makes us anxious and jumpy to have to deal with that much vulnerability in our most mundane and everyday dealings.
I can't really hold other people responsible for living the twin questions of, "What is certain?," and "What is the self?". As Heinlein said, some questions are a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. Even the shape of the question is an illusion. That's not on me or anyone else, it's just a thing about the world ... or as I understand it and I could be completely wrong. ':)
I don't hold Ghost responsible for having been mistaken about who he was when we got together. I'm reasonably sure he misrepresented himself out of optimism instead of out of malice or a need to control other people. Most folks are like that: we want to believe that the things we have put some effort into are working out, like our being good to other people, our being sane or stable or whatever we're chasing after. It's not like I want for people to be more anxious about themselves or their lives just because it would be convenient for me, you know? I think maybe there's a Prisoner's Dilemma hidden in there somewhere. If I could choose to externalize all of my emotional uncertainty about my life onto other people, would I do it, even knowing that it would make their lives worse and would still lead to my life being overturned at random intervals by a chaotic and unfeeling universe? Lol, no.
Also corollary to that, I can't really assume that other people will, or even can, save me, no matter how well I think I know them. Even if my understanding of someone were completely accurate (unlikely), the world would still be built on disorder and happenstance and chaos. I used to make promises to do things at certain times for certain people, but half the time circumstances made a liar out of me. I try to avoid even the language of promises now, bc they imply a certainty about the world that I have to constantly remind myself is fake - that the feeling of certainty itself is intended only to calm the monkey mind and doesn't reflect reality. It's a story we as humans tell ourselves because we're not designed to deal with unaltered reality, it makes us anxious and jumpy to have to deal with that much vulnerability in our most mundane and everyday dealings.
I can't really hold other people responsible for living the twin questions of, "What is certain?," and "What is the self?". As Heinlein said, some questions are a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. Even the shape of the question is an illusion. That's not on me or anyone else, it's just a thing about the world ... or as I understand it and I could be completely wrong. ':)
I don't hold Ghost responsible for having been mistaken about who he was when we got together. I'm reasonably sure he misrepresented himself out of optimism instead of out of malice or a need to control other people. Most folks are like that: we want to believe that the things we have put some effort into are working out, like our being good to other people, our being sane or stable or whatever we're chasing after. It's not like I want for people to be more anxious about themselves or their lives just because it would be convenient for me, you know? I think maybe there's a Prisoner's Dilemma hidden in there somewhere. If I could choose to externalize all of my emotional uncertainty about my life onto other people, would I do it, even knowing that it would make their lives worse and would still lead to my life being overturned at random intervals by a chaotic and unfeeling universe? Lol, no.
Wisdom from Boy George
Date: 2024-08-07 09:16 pm (UTC)Bummer about things with Ghost not being what you were sold in the beginning. I've had to accept that I can't rely on anyone to save me, and all times when someone does I'm grateful but I refuse to expect that it'll happen again -- I take the gift of their aid or attention for what it is, a dot in a constant stream of dots that make up a life.
Re: Wisdom from Boy George
Date: 2024-08-08 02:41 am (UTC)I don’t expect that any one person will save me, but I have tried to network folks together so that more connections make it more likely for every individual to be saved, even if it’s not by me. So while I don’t expect that I will be saved from bad stuff ever happening, I do think it’s reasonably likely that I will get saved from the worst outcomes coming to pass. And I’m glad that you are here on DW if failbook is being fail, still.
Re: Wisdom from Boy George
Date: 2024-08-08 03:38 am (UTC)The first line -- about mind, thought, and consciousness. He mentioned it a couple of times in the book. It's useful.
Thank you for welcoming me back. My web has significant holes in it -- key people have died, or dropped contact, moved away, got involved with someone who doesn't like their partner having friends... all kinds of stuff. I've learned how to ask for help instead of feeling alone and neglected, but there is no guarantee someone will help So I try to expect nothing and take life as it comes. I don't know that it's the best survival tactic, but it's the one I've got.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-08 02:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-08 02:33 am (UTC)I just … I don’t know. I’ve never broken up with someone because I wanted to be happier than they were making me? It’s always been big things in the relationship breaking down or actual abuse. Ghost isn’t abusive, nothing here is wack or fucked up, I just … I’m not as happy with the relationship as I was. Plus, now that I’m acknowledging all the things that I feel, I have some more stuff to deal with.
I’m lonely. I’m sad about a lot of things that I feel I can’t do because it will strain the relationship, like getting more therapy, or like growing in certain ways that will make me question why we don’t talk about important stuff more than once a week anymore. I think about the paths available in our future together and I want to cry. I want to be with the people I love, but so many people are all over the country now, and it’s only going to get more scattered.
Plus there’s that whole thing where Abbott et al cannot be fucking trusted to listen to a black woman president, and no matter which way the election goes there will probably be civil unrest … and I’m not young and abled anymore. I’m actually anxious about my safety and that of other people, and it’s doing a number on my head. 🙆