The Facade of Power
Though I need to spend some time developing my ideas here, I will forewarn you guys that I will be talking about my bare ass here.
You see, when I was chatting with one of my buddies at work, he was complaining about how much he got picked on in school. Now he's a pretty big guy now. (6'7") And we weighs a pretty good size accordingly. So I can see where he would have been made fun of in school. Well as we were talking I remembered a few things of growth, spurred by Cherri, and a recollection of where the seeds of anti-authoritarianism began to grow. (Still don't know where they came from.) I recalled something that happened back when I was 4. I figured out, that the pain of spanking was always the same. (Happened alot that year.) Somewhere towards the middle, I made the connection that my mom was looking for the response of me crying. So at first I stopped. This earned a few more than usual. But then... the self-destructive side of me kicked in. I started laughing maniacally... I got the idea that if I gave the opposite response to what she wanted, I'd irritate her more. After all, I'm already getting spanked, and it always feels the same right? Nothing to lose. I might as well get some enjoyment by further irritating my mother... regardless of how much 'worse' the punishment got. (Now I know why some people are a bit afraid of having a boy as a kid. I know I'm not looking forward to it.)
Well, this behavior carried on into high school... when I started doing the whole goth/neo nazi type clothing; combat boots tucked into urban camouflage, normally with some kind of industrial or metal shirt. Strangely, the idea was about the same. I didn't know it on the cognitive level, but it was the same. I was controlling the nonverbal conversation about myself. It was something I could control, perhaps because I had no control over many aspects of my life, such as how many times we'd moved. And what difference was it if I got hit or beat up for it? Pain feels the same. Even psychological pain. Yeah I still got made fun of, but I'd reached the point where it really didn't matter... I'd more or less built an equation for words and they equaled zero. I no longer cared what people thought of me, for good or ill. Which was detrimental because it created a block towards criticism (which you need to grow) and prevented me from reaching my potential because I also had no respect for the teachers... b/c at that point I had done so much self-study that I had more rote knowledge than any of them, never mind that I didn't have the tools of synthesis... just intuition--which can only lead you so far.
So though I will never answer the question on where my curious anti-authority thing came from, I'm beginning to notice a certain pattern of potentially self-destructive behavior that manifested itself until I learned over the course of years to be much more accepting of others' thoughts and opinions, especially of myself. To a large extent, we all lived in our own world... not really considering the 'other' world that comprises the emergent quality of human life.
You see, when I was chatting with one of my buddies at work, he was complaining about how much he got picked on in school. Now he's a pretty big guy now. (6'7") And we weighs a pretty good size accordingly. So I can see where he would have been made fun of in school. Well as we were talking I remembered a few things of growth, spurred by Cherri, and a recollection of where the seeds of anti-authoritarianism began to grow. (Still don't know where they came from.) I recalled something that happened back when I was 4. I figured out, that the pain of spanking was always the same. (Happened alot that year.) Somewhere towards the middle, I made the connection that my mom was looking for the response of me crying. So at first I stopped. This earned a few more than usual. But then... the self-destructive side of me kicked in. I started laughing maniacally... I got the idea that if I gave the opposite response to what she wanted, I'd irritate her more. After all, I'm already getting spanked, and it always feels the same right? Nothing to lose. I might as well get some enjoyment by further irritating my mother... regardless of how much 'worse' the punishment got. (Now I know why some people are a bit afraid of having a boy as a kid. I know I'm not looking forward to it.)
Well, this behavior carried on into high school... when I started doing the whole goth/neo nazi type clothing; combat boots tucked into urban camouflage, normally with some kind of industrial or metal shirt. Strangely, the idea was about the same. I didn't know it on the cognitive level, but it was the same. I was controlling the nonverbal conversation about myself. It was something I could control, perhaps because I had no control over many aspects of my life, such as how many times we'd moved. And what difference was it if I got hit or beat up for it? Pain feels the same. Even psychological pain. Yeah I still got made fun of, but I'd reached the point where it really didn't matter... I'd more or less built an equation for words and they equaled zero. I no longer cared what people thought of me, for good or ill. Which was detrimental because it created a block towards criticism (which you need to grow) and prevented me from reaching my potential because I also had no respect for the teachers... b/c at that point I had done so much self-study that I had more rote knowledge than any of them, never mind that I didn't have the tools of synthesis... just intuition--which can only lead you so far.
So though I will never answer the question on where my curious anti-authority thing came from, I'm beginning to notice a certain pattern of potentially self-destructive behavior that manifested itself until I learned over the course of years to be much more accepting of others' thoughts and opinions, especially of myself. To a large extent, we all lived in our own world... not really considering the 'other' world that comprises the emergent quality of human life.