Just Another Victim Or: The PSEUDO SPIRITUAL
This fucking asshole. For the purpose of this exercise, we will use my cousin as our example. So, the pseudo-spiritual person will sound amazing. This person will behave like they have all the answers. Anyone familiar with my first book? It has all the answers in there, that was part of the gimmick. And would you look at that… gimmick. What is a gimmick?
As a fan of professional wrestling, I learned one definition or version of a gimmick. It’s a persona. A character. And you pick that up to play a role. And then I guess the point is to make money. But spreading joy is also a total possibility. The trick is doing both. Making money while spreading joy. Well, either way, a gimmick is basically a persona and a character and is used to play a role. In wrestling, your gimmick will help determine if you are a good guy or a bad guy. And psychology plans an enormous part in all of this, I’m not going to get into it.
So, we’ve got a person and they’ve got a gimmick of being spiritual. So they present themselves as being worldly, wise, experienced. They’ve seen some shit and learned some shit and that allows them to put theirself on this different level of understanding. All of this is bullshit, but it does not prevent a person from doing this.
My cousin was going to join the Catholic church. And he got up to some gay stuff with a priest. A shock to none except those living in denial. He was offered therapy, eventually, as the church acknowledged wrong doing on their part. But he hasn’t elected to receive therapy. Nope. But he did continue the journey he started in the Catholic church. He traveled around the world, having lots of gay encounters with many different partners, over a thousand. And he didn’t have a clue in the world that his behavior was abnormal. Huh. Notice I didn’t say immoral. That’s really not for me to judge. But when you’re being honest with yourself, there’s no reason, need or want to judge. So let’s see how well we do here.
My cousin travels around having escapades and learning some really really awesome stuff. Really empowering stuff. Like, you are your own religion. Now, he didn’t say that to me or anything, but that’s one of those weird truths. You are a master of your own destiny. Are you THE master of it? As much as everyone else is with their free will. So yes, you are.
What do you do with your new found knowledge and wisdom? Why, corrupt the youth, of course! What else? Well, I guess you could be incredibly honest about everything you’ve learned and apply it to yourself and let all of those amazing things you’ve heard about, let them happen to you. And that is when transformation is allowed to take place.
I wasn’t aware or wasn’t completely honest with myself about the path I was on. It’s weird when you’ve spent years internally belittling yourself and then you’ve stopped and start feeling really good. There’s so much that comes along with that, and it’s mostly mental and so it can be really hard to express. Expressing stuff, Jesus Christ, so goddamn important. But, alright, I had been on this path of honesty, and a lot of it was internal. Then my spiritual cousin winds up in my life. And that was awesome, because talking to him, a family member, honestly about enormous life and death things was more than a glass of water and more than a breath of fresh air. It was basically everything, at that point. It had so much meaning. He had even done a workshop with this author from the only self improvement book I had ever read all the way through. Christ, and things being what they are, I had just reread that book before he came into my life.
It’s called The 5th Agreement, the follow up to The Four Agreements. I never read The Four Agreements, but have read The 5th Agreement at least twice now. Here’s the silly secret part…. I had forgotten about that book, that I had ever read it, but when I wrote my book I was 100% following instructions, basically. I had to write my truth, and I had to understand that it was mine and it was not necessarily anyone else’s. But it was mine. And I felt like I 100% needed to share it. And so I did that without fully being aware that is what I was doing. And I did the best I felt comfortable with doing. So that’s not bad. The author, by the way, is Don Miguel Ruiz and his son, Don Jose Ruiz. There is something so super cool about writing a book with your child. Maybe it’s just the family member aspect. But it seems like a super neat thing.
Okay, so I’m talking with my cousin now and he just thinks I’m the neatest thing in the world and I think he’s pretty swell too. The whole gay thing doesn’t bother me, and that turns out to be an unusual thing in our family, but not surprising, unfortunately. And that’s maybe more common than not, I don’t know. We talk and get along. At some point here, I make the Higher-Self connection and everything changes.
After everything clicked for me, I didn’t know what the fuck to do at all. I reached out to different people, looking for help, basically. And I had a friend who took what I was saying seriously and set up a meeting with a medicine woman for me. Just, amazingly perfect. It was a conversation that I required. I wasn’t a bad thing. That was basically all the reassurance I needed. She saw some person, not some wacked out fucked up demon-thing, so it’s all good.
My cousin, though, I don’t know what the fuck he took seriously. Because after I experienced and felt the changes, he was the same. I really tried to get across to him that I had figured out the secret to world peace and needed to share it with the dude who I got the riddle from in the first place. By the way, the secret is basically imagination, but it’s so much more beautiful and amazing than that and sounds so much more sillier when I get in to my personal details of how it’s achieved. But regardless, it’ll be achieved because we know about it and know how, it’s just a matter of acceptance, I suppose. Time and brains and trauma and conflict. It all comes out in the wash, everything does. And here’s a bonus secret, if you disagree with this world peace idea, there’s another way where no one gets hurt and you know exactly what it is.
After the Higher-Self connection, and the Universe being what it is, things around my life ended up not working out, in a way. I was expecting a friend from Mexico to come and visit for a month or more. And that didn’t happen and didn’t even come remotely close to happening and I learned about that about a month before it was supposed to happen. There was no plan, no action, no desire. But there were some words. My friend did not come to visit. But all things being all things, my cousin ended up coming to visit. And holy fuck was this a meeting of two very different worlds.
Motherfucker comes dressed in light fashion, looking as immaculate as he possibly can. Like, he’s done up and nervous. I’m casual and relaxed. Until he walks up to me. We hug and that’s great and awesome but then this fucking dude does not exit my personal bubble. What the fuck is this? Step the fuck back. I invite him in and he meets my dog and that’s red flag number two. How a person treats a dog. As it turns out, I guess I’m a massive dog person. Like, they’re just like us, but different, just like us and everything else. That does make sense, if you’re being honest. So, he doesn’t ignore my dog, but it’s goddamn close. It’s the…. You’re down there and we’re up here kind of mentality. Superior? Superiority? Anyway, it’s bullshit and an illusion. Most shit is. He paid like half a second of attention to her.
I really want to share my experience with him, the same one I’ve shared with you. I want to tell him all about it in all the gory details. And this motherfucker could care less. Or maybe he couldn’t, because the caring was so low. He was hungry and he also just really wanted to take me out for drinks. That was fucking hilarious because a big goddamn aspect of our relationship was me sharing with him how I had a drinking problem and I had stopped drinking. Yeah, that’s a pretty big goddamn thing. Well, not to this pseudo-spiritual piece of shit. Getting some fucking alcohol in me was the much bigger precedent to him. So, we went across the street and got some food and some drinks. My upsetness was quickly rising.
The in person conversation was very weird. Everything I shared with him he countered with a book that I should read. Okay. We could also talk about the thing I’m trying to talk about. But changing the subject to something he was comfortable with or something was more important than learning about a new thing? I really don’t know here, or again, I’m just not being honest with myself. He had experienced a bunch of stuff in his life, but had not experienced a thing like I had. That was unfortunate for both of us.
We went back to my place and I’m now getting, like, forceful with him giving a good goddamn about me and what I do. I was producing a scripted podcast at the time and had at least one episode available to listen to, with a couple pieces of art to go along with it. So I put it on. I think it was around 40 minutes. Anyway, dude fell asleep. He could not pretend to be interested in the fun thing I had created. But, he still wanted to take me out for a nightcap. Jesus fucking Christ. This fucking guy.
So I woke his ass up and we went out for a nightcap. I think it was basically a beer and a shot of whiskey. And I don’t know where the fuck I’m at mentally anymore with any of this. I’m disappointed, that’s for sure. I didn’t know what I was expecting, well, yeah, I do. I was expecting to be taken as seriously as any other human being. And maybe I was by him. And I learned that a person’s trauma and own ego can be more important to a person than any other living thing. And that’s a fucked up small truth and you’ve basically become the devil or satan or whatever classicly evil thing there is. Because you are choosing anything else over unconditional love. It really is that fucking simple. But you’ve got to remember or learn or experience unconditional love in order to start going that way. And that will happen for you, if it already hasn’t, guaranteed, with all of my heart and soul. That’s a taste of the power of positivity there. It’s incredibly sexy.
We got back to my place, again. The only goddamn thing that’s clear to me now is that this dude is attracted to me and wants to do something sexual with me. Well, I am a fearless spiritual warrior now, so I will demonstrate my fearlessness. I make out with my cousin. I play right into his plans. Except, we both know how much deceit and dishonesty went into this. And that is incredibly troubling. I go into the bathroom and throw up immediately. He sleeps in the guest room and I sleep in my room.
The next morning I woke up and guess what? I felt incredibly pissed off. Like what the fuck was that and why does this dipshit pretend to care about me when he doesn’t give a fuck about my drinking, my creating, my mental well being, my spiritual experience, none of it. But he cares the goddamn fucking world about whatever the fuck I think about him. That is absolutely batshit fucking crazy. Giving a moment’s moment to an inkling of a thought about someone’s POSSIBLE thoughts towards you is just an exercise in madness, so for every living thing’s sake, please please knock it off. Psychic everything is real, 100%, but it’s not how you think. Because your goddamn ego and trauma get in the way. Maybe more, but that’s where I’m at with it.
He wanted to go and visit Hearst Castle. Well holeymoley gee oh my. That’s a thing I wrote about in Dangerouser. To be blunt, I’m not the biggest fan of how the Hearst family handled things. But it’s clear now that it’s simply part of our process. But, I wrote about a castle being built while a depression was going on and how that seemed dumb and now depressed people pay money to walk in the castle. I don’t know, at least that’s some kind of jist of it. Regardless, there was some weird cosmic irony going on here for me. My spiritually intelligent cousin wanted to take me and visit a castle I had no interest in seeing and possibly even had resentment towards. So going there was a step in my spiritual journey. I can appreciate this thing or whatever that I was not appreciating. So we drove up the coast to the castle.
I was pissed but internalized it the entire time. And my cousin didn’t know about it or ignored it. So he’s an idiot or I’m damn good. Hey, maybe a little of both. But in actuality all four. Okay, we visit the castle and he takes a bunch of pictures and I’m for sure blown away about the construction and architecture. It’s really great, very well done. But, the picture that I took was of a lily pad and a flower. It’s weird or maybe not but that was where the hidden gold was while we were surrounded by it. Like, there is a golden pool there. That just seems so goddamn silly.
We finish our tour and go back to the car and we head to this little seaside town called Morro Bay. It’s a really wonderful place, small and beautiful. I’ve got nothing but nostalgia and rose colored glasses about that place that deserves all the cute little cliches. And yeah, it’s got problems, like most everywhere, I imagine. We go to this place called Haufbrau that overlooks the bay and specializes in French dip sandwiches. Kinda a local thing, one of those truly awesome open secrets, if you eat meat.
So, while having lunch is when I cannot take the fakeness or whatever the fuck is going on anymore. I start yelling at him, but it’s controlled, not even really yelling just amazingly expressing anger. We are in a very public place. I talk about what happened last night, with him showing up and wanting to get me drunk and how that was the most important thing to him and it wasn’t getting to know me and what I’m doing or creating or even what I had experienced, but it was something else that he had come up for and that was no fucking good. And I gave it to him because it was so blatantly obvious. And he tells me a couple of things here.
He tells me that he had learned in his experience that is was better to let something go and not talk about--and that thoroughly pissed me off again, even now reimagining it, because that flew right the fuck in the face of my theory that EVERYTHING should be talked about. And he knew that and agreed with it.
It doesn’t mean all has to be brought up and happen at once or right away, there was an order that could or should take place so that things are both said and understood correctly, whatever that may be.
So, he says things are better left unsaid. Jesus fucking Christ. Next, there’s some stupid bullshit about how when someone loves someone so much they just want to sexually please the other person, even if they aren’t sexually attracted to them? See, this falls apart for me here, because I wont play devil’s advocate that far in that direction anymore, because it just goes on, I believe, to defend a form of coercion. Basically talking someone into something. Which, okay, coercion is like everywhere and in everything so if you try and remove it as much as you can then you get as close to free will as you can and oh wow hey that’s kinda neat. But when you fucking know it’s there and then aim it at something that’s sexually gradifying, you start going somewhere.
So I’m like, no, all of this shit is not cool and I do not agree with any of this. And he’s sorry and apologetic and I’m okay with moving past it too and him growing as a person. I also had to flat out explain to him that with some like either spiritual or universal law of doing what you say you will, I was set up with a belief for a visit from a girl and she did not follow through but then my new awesome spiritual cousin did follow through and when he showed up it turned out to basically be one of the biggest disappointments of my life. And he was still the most awesome of my family at that time. Oh jeez.
We drive back to my old home and he drops me off and then he’s basically gotta get back to where he lives in Arizona. Back to his folks house. That was another thing we had in common, we both lived back home with our folks. And we both viewed it the same way, as caretaking. But man, shit is just fucking weird with what really goes on. The stuff beneath the surface. We hug and it’s a good goodbye that we share. I feel like he will be taking me more seriously as a person, now that I stood up to him and expressed that I did not share the same mutual feeling towards him that he did me. Like, there is a difference between unconditional love and sexual love. The sexual love is in there, sure, but the unconditional is much more powerful and strong and awesome. It overwhelms sexual love, envelops it, consumes it. Like a phoenix, seriously, it’s strong and so so so amazing. It doesn’t mean the sexual love is gone, it is just finally joined in harmony with all the other love types and it’s not trying to dominate the unconditional love. You know what I mean or you will. My cousin drives back the eight or whatever hours and gets back home safe and sound and I am very glad. I also had no idea at the time I would be making that drive myself, several times.
We kept chatting and messaging and remained close. He was an easy person for me to talk to and share with and he gave some good advice and encouragement. He also gave a lot of bad advice.
In one of our conversations he talked about having free therapy offered and how he should or is going to take it. I brought that back up to him, because when he expressed that, it felt huge. Like, therapy was a thing I had long desired and never received from an official source.
He decided that he doesn’t need therapy as long as he has certain special people that he can have certain special relationships with to talk about certain special things. Well, okay, sure, maybe, yeah. That sounded pretty normal or just like, regular or whatever. But it means you want to talk with your cousin about your weird sexual feelings and not talk to a professional counselor about them. Well, as a spiritual counselor, my advice was to follow what you said, and that was to go and talk to a therapist. When you backtrack on that, and have already gone back on other beliefs that we had established were the positive and higher ways of moving forward and progressing, you have backtracked on everything that was mutually established and agreed upon.
All beliefs or values were thrown out the window or were superseded by whatever value in the current moment benefited his ego--not soul or spirit--the most. And my being able to see that seems fucked up and weird. I don’t believe this to be a judgment. Because I’m not trying to call him fucked up and weird. Just his thoughts demonstrated through his words and actions. And it’s not uncommon. Donald Trump. Joe Biden. Hilary Clinton. Many Evangelical Christian leaders. So so so many others. And your thoughts aren’t even fucked up or weird necessarily. It’s how your brain has attempted to defend your soul against stuff that has happened that was disagreeable, to put it in the absolute lightest of ways.
I’m not really trying to judge. This totally sounds however it sounds. This is an observation being communicated, that is the intention. But it is so below the surface, it’s wacky, I get it. Everyone or at least most people have stuff they have to get through. It is part of life, but it’s built on. Like, it’s natural but it can become less so, or there doesn’t have to be so much of it and not so much to it. The connections can be as many or as few as we choose. Complicate or complex. We see the design however we see it.
Here is a message I wrote him back in early/mid 2020. He took none of this to heart.
***
I’ve realized a lot and it’s hard to put into words. Like I said, we are all predators and prey. There is no judgment here. There is awareness.
You have mentioned some stuff that would be considered inappropriate. I’ve done the same. When I do so I do so from a place that is not “oh this gets me off.” And you know what I mean. I mean a place of sexual stimulation. Of sexual thought or desire. And the seed it is birthing from is not from love but from corruption. It is seen in how situations are handled and actions taken.
When we were drunk and kissed and I very much directly brought it up the next day you said you had learned that it was best left to let things go by without ever being brought up or addressed. These were not your exact words but these are very close to them.
Dude. Brother. Cousin. You cannot possibly be serious that you have learned that silence and secrecy is the best course of action when something happens under the influence of an impareer. You know what I mean. And I am fully aware that I was the one who kissed you. And I am fully aware that I had already stopped drinking and had talked to you about all of that because of absolutely everything that had been happening in my life leading up to everything.
What I’m getting at here man is you have expressed things to me, intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously, that have made me feel the need to say I am not in love with you and I am not sexually attracted to you and I do not have sexual thoughts about you at all. This is not damaging to your spirit in the slightest bit but your ego will tell you otherwise.
I love you. Unconditionally. And I will tell you anything and everything I please to as you have stated I can on several occasions. I will not extend the same courtesy to you until I believe I see some kind of change take place. I don’t even know how to describe it. One where my hug economy doesn’t inspire a sexual fantasy or sexual stimulation when it is first mentioned. Your initial reaction was something along the lines of “I’d take a 1000 hugs from you.” This is obvious and unnecessary and honestly makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m sorry if I can make you feel the same way.
***
I actually moved to Arizona, following his advice, during the end of the first year of the pandemic.