by RichieRich 37 Replies latest jw friends
It's ok to dislike people, just not OK to be disrespectful or cruel to them. It's OK to be disliked, you can't please everyone, nor would you want to. It's OK to decide that some people cost too much in energy, time, money, emotions, and cut them off. It's OK to be selective about your friends - in fact it's wise.
by the way, it isn't just bad luck that gets people in jail. Often it is bad choices, which a lot of them refuse to recognize. Nothing is ever their fault.
You are a great person.
Thank you.
Everybody you encounter in life, including you and I, want something from each person we deal with. It could be as simple as personal validation, or it could be your bank account.You are tuning in and determining you dont want to buy what some people are selling. Some people can be emotional vampires or lead you to caustic relationships.
That would be how I have been rationalizing things, but I just wonder what it stems from. Is it because of my family, my former religion, or because of my own experiences alone in the world?
It's ok to dislike people, just not OK to be disrespectful or cruel to them. It's OK to be disliked, you can't please everyone, nor would you want to. It's OK to decide that some people cost too much in energy, time, money, emotions, and cut them off. It's OK to be selective about your friends - in fact it's wise.
Without a doubt, Hortensia. My dislike for people only stems to individuals, not to groups. My strong personal distaste for hategroups and intolerance is something I don't speak much on- since that makes me appear to be a hypocrite (I only hate hategroups, and I can't tolerate intolerant people ???)
by the way, it isn't just bad luck that gets people in jail. Often it is bad choices, which a lot of them refuse to recognize. Nothing is ever their fault.
bad choices are what I call lack of foresight, and that goes in the blender first. Bad luck is just added to taste, anywhere from speeding past a donut shop to jumping a fence and meeting a pit bull on the other side.
RichieRich:
But my thoughts and opinions on people have changed- dramatically. I now classify people into three categories. Love them, Hate them, or Don't Need them.
Instantly, upon meeting someone and getting to know them a bit, I either feel strong adoration for them or complete contempt. Everyone else falls into a hole dug by apathy.
These two lines of thought are complimentary, really saying the same thing. With both statements, you have chosen to compartmentalize people you meet into one of three categories: (love/strong adoration; hate/complete contempt; dont need/apathy). The question is: Who are what are you protecting by compartmentalizing people in this way? Your heart? Your mind? Your emotions? All three?
Be careful that you do not slip back into your previous JW mindset: an either/or for/about people (i.e., Either you believe Jah/WT or you dont believe. Either you slave for Jah or you are Bird Food at the Big A.) Your mind was closed to people not like yourself. You said that you were closed to communities/classes of people, yet open to individuals. What were you really closed about? Who people were or how they acted?
I am perfectly content to live and let live.
RR, you say this, yet you then contradict yourself by espousing your two opening quotes of this post. Yet, I think that is the conundrum. We as humans are just that: contradictions. Can we say one and the other and not be hypocritical? I think so. I believe that our minds are so complex that we can hold both views, believe both views, without being hypocritical.
I just feel like somehow I'm compartmentalizing my emotions for someone's benefit- but who's?
You asked this question. While those of us reading your eloquent words and hearing your thoughts may have ideas to the answer...we dont have the answer itself. Even if youpersonally believe you have the answer, it is based on your mindset and environment that you are in at the moment you formulate the answer. Come back to your post a week, a month, a year from now. I am guessing that your answer will have evolved or out right changed based on your new mindset and environment of your life.
Maybe I will post separately on where I am with this same question. For now...
SnakesInTheTower (of the Philosophical Sheep Class)
When I was young, my father told me about how prisons were constructed. (this may or may not be accurate, but bear with me)
There's the building itself, then the yard, but it's surrounded my fences with razor wire. Outside of the razor wire is another fence, and the lane created within has vicious dogs that roam it. The next fence is charged with electricity. Once you climb that fence, there's one more, and when you cross that fence, the guards will shoot you.
Sometimes, I feel like I put myself in that situation. In order to really get to ME, there are a series of obstacles that must be traversed first. I compartmentalize everything, hoping that few make it through.
But as I continue to grow and occasionally pause for self reflection, I realize that compartmentalizing might be providing obstacles for me, not just everyone else.
What happens when I want out? I'm bound in the walls that I myself built.
I'm honestly not saying that what I do is entirely bad or wrong- but I try to understand why.
Richie,
Couldn't it just be as simple as your intuition towards people? Like they are giving off good or bad vibes?
Compartmentilization, no matter if you do it to yourself or others do it to you, IMHO is not good. I hate it.
Richie:
What happens when I want out? I'm bound in the walls that I myself built.
I'm honestly not saying that what I do is entirely bad or wrong- but I try to understand why.
Richie, what you are experiencing is very profound. You are becoming aware of the walls that you built yourself. However, it wasn't really you that built them, so much as the mind's construction of "self", a false self, that is the ego.
The ego is nothing but a box full of beliefs, memories and pictures that the mind weaves into a "self", a "me". In support of the belief that our beloved box-hood is legitimate, the mind places everything and everyone else in a box: "See. my box called "me" is real, because you're a box too". Of course this is absurd. The existence of one lie does not prove another lie to be true.
Perhaps asking "why"? will only give the mind further opportunity to create a box-story to support the box-world. I have found that the house of cards collapses merely by nonjudgmentally (there are no enemies here) watching the dynamics of the mind and so seeing clearly the illusory aspects which we before thought were significant and real. Does this make sense? it's about being acutely aware of the mental commentaries and structuring that is going on; and it is in this sincere and open observing and witnessing that the answer is revealed by simply seeing there is no real problem other than we were ignorantly living a charade. It's that simple. Your awareness will reveal all.
Calmly watch the mind as it weaves the story of "me" and "other". Is that which is closest, the actual awareness of the story, in anyway truly part of the story? Do you see where we're going with this? We are using clear observation to uncover what you really are. Once this first and most important piece is in place, then the rest of the universe is seen through clear and true eyes. As long as we are behind the prison walls, in the box, looking through box-eyes, only a false box-world is seen. See true and clear and your prison walls evaporate, for both you and the universe around you......others may still see walls, but you unequivocally know they are unreal.
Continue to question and quietly observe.
j
Excerpt from "Free Therapy" that fits Richie's situation:
As the Doors to your Mind
swing open,
don’t cringe at the scene revealed.
Grab a broom,
and sweep the Room,
of all that Filth they concealed.
Dust off your Truth and Peace and Love
So they shine in the Darkest Night
Give your In-te-gri-ty
Some T-L-C
and hope your “Crib” stays bright!
Richie, have you ever taken any psychological tests such as the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Inventory) or the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)? Many people have, but I didn't until I was middle-aged. It gave me a lot of insight into myself and others. They can't measure everything because beliefs, family background, education and other factors affect us as well.
Anyway, I learned that needing time alone is normal for my type and that I have an internal standard of perfection that makes me go over the top when just adequate will do. I also learned to observe others and figure out which type they were, increasing my understanding of how to talk to them and relate to them.
On the MBTI, I am an INXP (partly INTP, partly INTP). Do you know which type you are? It would be fun to know.
Regards,
SandraC
Rich, have I moved from apathy to contempt yet?
Philip
Richie, after I got out of the borg, i spent some time in therapy to get a handle on all of the crap in my mind and heart, and one thing she said to me that has proven true with time is that when we leave a controlling situation, we are like springs or a pendulum suddenly let go without control.........we swing wildly in our views and want to try things out, taking risks, etc..........this is TOTALLY NORMAL behavior...........actually kids do this in their early teens, testing boundaries and limits set by parental authority..........well, in my case, i was in the borg at a young age......14, and was not allowed to spread my wings and test things i really wanted to, so i did it as an adult...........however, with time, my "pendulum" as the therapist said it would, has begun to come back towards true center.........as i experience, read, watch, etc. life, i am learning what i like, what i don't like, what benefits me, and what really doesn't........so, swing away, Richie, as i said before, you have good instinct and street sense, it seems to me, and are quite wise for your years.
terri
