Are you prepared for me to wander around in your head? Am I welcomed there? You've been in mine all day, and I now have time to respond to your posts in the chat thread. Your thoughts are focusing me, that's the material we all experience and what this board is based on, and what I have to say may sound unconventional and strange, but I'm not out to make you wrong, and this isn't a trial or competition, but a welcome chance to have a substantive and I hope stimulating conversation. Let me know your experience, whatever you feel is legitimate, including boredom (I can have this effect), anger, impatience, sadness, feeling invalidated at any place is something I'd especially want to know, and feel free tell me too if I'm confusing.
So I'll just jump in starting with your first post about the fighting you saw at the bash/gossip boards:
You say you thought. That's right, and what you thought was not factual, your thoughts are your stuff, beliefs and expectations of the mind, a fantasy. And it caught you by suprise that these people were not behaving as you thought they would behave. Do you believe so much in what you conceive? Now, let's talk about what you perceived.
Look what happens when what you conceive with your mind conflicts with what you perceive with your eyes. You become upset, indignant, judgmental, saddened, disgusted. And if you're like most of us, you won't accept what's happening, you want to control what's going on, improve the situation, etc.
Let me go back and ask why you thought the people were sane. This is an assumption. It's not a bad assumption, and it's not bad to have them. You can read every self-help book on the planet and have a decade of therapy and your mind is still going to make assumptions. What we can do is become aware of them, get to know what assumptions look like and what they do, and how to counteract them when the evidence is contrary to what we think should be.
Is this thought that the people in question should behave differently based on knowing them? Are we talking about people you're friends with, and suddenly they are acting out of character, and have been sane, fair and lucid up til now? If so, I'd wonder why you don't go over there right now and ask these people what the hell is going on, why they are acting crazy all of a sudden?
I'll tell you what first came to mind when I read those words, I thought that you may have done what many people do, assume that people are sane and rational, and when they see these people being irrational they are suprised and upset, as if they'd been lied to or cheated. But the more I thought about it, the more I have a sense that you know these people, you are friends with them or have a history with them, and if that's the case I still wonder why you don't talk to them and tell them what you think about their crazy behavior.
Even best friends and cool people have their angry, irrational days, their moments of turning on each other. Can you trust these people? I think you can trust people to continue to act in the ways they usually act, and it can take a long time to get to know someone, and see that they are sometimes unpredictable and mean. And when that happens, that perception goes into your framework of what this person is like: I can trust X to have these spells where he is mean and crazy and attacks his friends on ezboard.
You tell me, is this a particular individual? What is going on to create all this emotion in you?
Say it's X who is doing this and has done that to you before, you may have unfinished business with this guy, something is going on order for this emotion to come up in you... Or maybe the poster or posters remind you of someone else who has hurt you in the past, "screeching monkeys" is pretty symbolic language. I want to suggest that X is not the people from the past, and he is not even the demented savannah you take him for. It's natural to make people your mortal enemy when you are mad at them, I wonder if you are mad at this person, and if so, why don't you go tell him? Tell him you think he's being an ass-hole, it might clear the air.
You closed by saying something about being a well-adjusted person, and that compared to what you've seen at FI you may be one. I hope not, well-adjusted people are withholding, miserable, disconnected and alienated phonies.
Which brings me to my next topic, "the high road". The high road is a lonely path, lit by angry, judgmental "shoulds." For now I'll leave you with the question, what happens to a person when they take "the high road?" What happens to the relationship?
So I'll just jump in starting with your first post about the fighting you saw at the bash/gossip boards:
Quote:
I see people who I thought were mostly sane acting, well, not. At all.
You say you thought. That's right, and what you thought was not factual, your thoughts are your stuff, beliefs and expectations of the mind, a fantasy. And it caught you by suprise that these people were not behaving as you thought they would behave. Do you believe so much in what you conceive? Now, let's talk about what you perceived.
Look what happens when what you conceive with your mind conflicts with what you perceive with your eyes. You become upset, indignant, judgmental, saddened, disgusted. And if you're like most of us, you won't accept what's happening, you want to control what's going on, improve the situation, etc.
Let me go back and ask why you thought the people were sane. This is an assumption. It's not a bad assumption, and it's not bad to have them. You can read every self-help book on the planet and have a decade of therapy and your mind is still going to make assumptions. What we can do is become aware of them, get to know what assumptions look like and what they do, and how to counteract them when the evidence is contrary to what we think should be.
Is this thought that the people in question should behave differently based on knowing them? Are we talking about people you're friends with, and suddenly they are acting out of character, and have been sane, fair and lucid up til now? If so, I'd wonder why you don't go over there right now and ask these people what the hell is going on, why they are acting crazy all of a sudden?
I'll tell you what first came to mind when I read those words, I thought that you may have done what many people do, assume that people are sane and rational, and when they see these people being irrational they are suprised and upset, as if they'd been lied to or cheated. But the more I thought about it, the more I have a sense that you know these people, you are friends with them or have a history with them, and if that's the case I still wonder why you don't talk to them and tell them what you think about their crazy behavior.
Even best friends and cool people have their angry, irrational days, their moments of turning on each other. Can you trust these people? I think you can trust people to continue to act in the ways they usually act, and it can take a long time to get to know someone, and see that they are sometimes unpredictable and mean. And when that happens, that perception goes into your framework of what this person is like: I can trust X to have these spells where he is mean and crazy and attacks his friends on ezboard.
Quote:
Hyenas sit by and chortle crazily while a rogue lion rips apart his prey. Screeching monkeys scamper down from the trees to take swats at the wounded, thrashing creature. Vultures swoop down to land a few painful pecks about its face and eyes. What kind of demented savannah is this?
You tell me, is this a particular individual? What is going on to create all this emotion in you?
Say it's X who is doing this and has done that to you before, you may have unfinished business with this guy, something is going on order for this emotion to come up in you... Or maybe the poster or posters remind you of someone else who has hurt you in the past, "screeching monkeys" is pretty symbolic language. I want to suggest that X is not the people from the past, and he is not even the demented savannah you take him for. It's natural to make people your mortal enemy when you are mad at them, I wonder if you are mad at this person, and if so, why don't you go tell him? Tell him you think he's being an ass-hole, it might clear the air.
You closed by saying something about being a well-adjusted person, and that compared to what you've seen at FI you may be one. I hope not, well-adjusted people are withholding, miserable, disconnected and alienated phonies.
Which brings me to my next topic, "the high road". The high road is a lonely path, lit by angry, judgmental "shoulds." For now I'll leave you with the question, what happens to a person when they take "the high road?" What happens to the relationship?
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Looking for a man with a focus and a temper who
can open up a map~ Sonic Youth
Our Common Condition
Looking for a man with a focus and a temper who
can open up a map~ Sonic Youth
Our Common Condition
