(no subject)
I did something today that made me ashamed, but was a good wakeup call to make me think about my actions and how I respond to things. Lots of people were pilling on about NCT on FB, and it stirred up a lot of old feelings about the place that I had almost forgotten. Especially about working for Gary and how angry at him I was. I attacked NCT, but attacked him especially. And this guy Casey who worked there called me on it. While I think Gary is one of the biggest narcicisstic assholes ever, I went too far trash talking him publicly. He said a lot of racist, sexist bullshit and was shady and exclusionary, but I didn't call him on it or speak up, so in a way I co-signed it.
I want to live my life in a way that follows the Tao in a positive way, but sometimes the negative impulses in my personality just completely derail that. If I analyze what caused it, I think that loneliness and bitterness about my life in general makes it easy for other, smaller things I'm bitter about to flare up and engulf me in anger. So maybe the answer is two-fold.. that I need to work on fixing the loneliness and bitterness in my life, and then I need to forgive and otherwise deal with these small areas of bitterness.
The hardest thing is figuring out how to actually do those things. I'm so afraid to change my life into something else.. I've been living in this solitary security blanket for so long that I forgot what it was really like to come out of it for any extended period of time. I do appreciate that Burning Man was a small experiment in doing that, and I think it went really well. I'm just not sure what the follow-on experiment is, and how I take what I need to change and improve myself from it. I'm not sure what BM did to improve me per se, perhaps other than just showing me I could be self-sufficient in many ways, not just in physical survival but also in emotional survival.
I think I'm really starting to see that I need to change though. The security blanket is becoming dirty and frayed, and I need to find something new that's safe. I look at some relationships in the past that could have provided amazing structure for me, and at least they serve as models for what I could possibly achieve if I work hard. I just need to work hard enough to be able to actually maintain and appreciate those forms of shelter.
With Hilary in particular, I was essentially "homeless" and living in the emotional equivalent of a solar blanket - keeping away the most harsh elements, but completely unstructured and untethered in terms of self-esteem and sense of self. I was offered the chance to come into a "home" that was beautiful, stable, structured and safe, and I wasn't ready. I didn't have the skills, the courage to change, or the faith in her or myself that I could survive or thrive in a permanent relationship with her. While I don't think she was my only "soulmate", I do think that not being open and brave with her, and trying as hard as I could to go as far as I could with that relationship will likely be the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.
I don't want it to be the last *chance* I have in my life, though.
I want to live my life in a way that follows the Tao in a positive way, but sometimes the negative impulses in my personality just completely derail that. If I analyze what caused it, I think that loneliness and bitterness about my life in general makes it easy for other, smaller things I'm bitter about to flare up and engulf me in anger. So maybe the answer is two-fold.. that I need to work on fixing the loneliness and bitterness in my life, and then I need to forgive and otherwise deal with these small areas of bitterness.
The hardest thing is figuring out how to actually do those things. I'm so afraid to change my life into something else.. I've been living in this solitary security blanket for so long that I forgot what it was really like to come out of it for any extended period of time. I do appreciate that Burning Man was a small experiment in doing that, and I think it went really well. I'm just not sure what the follow-on experiment is, and how I take what I need to change and improve myself from it. I'm not sure what BM did to improve me per se, perhaps other than just showing me I could be self-sufficient in many ways, not just in physical survival but also in emotional survival.
I think I'm really starting to see that I need to change though. The security blanket is becoming dirty and frayed, and I need to find something new that's safe. I look at some relationships in the past that could have provided amazing structure for me, and at least they serve as models for what I could possibly achieve if I work hard. I just need to work hard enough to be able to actually maintain and appreciate those forms of shelter.
With Hilary in particular, I was essentially "homeless" and living in the emotional equivalent of a solar blanket - keeping away the most harsh elements, but completely unstructured and untethered in terms of self-esteem and sense of self. I was offered the chance to come into a "home" that was beautiful, stable, structured and safe, and I wasn't ready. I didn't have the skills, the courage to change, or the faith in her or myself that I could survive or thrive in a permanent relationship with her. While I don't think she was my only "soulmate", I do think that not being open and brave with her, and trying as hard as I could to go as far as I could with that relationship will likely be the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.
I don't want it to be the last *chance* I have in my life, though.