I didn't even know it was a hipster thing*tongue emoticon
Raised Methodist. Grandmother was into Edgar Cayce, ancient
astronauts, Star Trek + Dr Who. I didn't follow her on the
Theosophical stuff, although I played around with some of the
concepts in middle school. Lucid dreaming has proven helpful in
having my dreams available to me when I wake up so I can
psychoanalyze myself and figure figure out where it got all the
pieces for the story from.
[I find metaphor fascinating but I like figuring out the
concrete behind the metaphors].
Went Unitarian, Quaker, Vipasanna, even checked out Islam,
Judaism and nearly Roman Catholic. Finally ended up Eastern
Orthodox for 5 years. Had my fun with that, picked up a little
Osho, and then went Mr. Science for 10 years 'til the New
Atheist baggage started completely taking over the Science
channel... and the projection of SCIENCE=THEORETICAL
PHYSICS=SCIENCE was getting to be too religious for me.
Been a fun journey so far. Cant' complain. Ooh Pentecostal.
Sorry*smile emoticon*I didn't meet my first pentecostal 'til I
was in my early 20s. I probably have aspergers or some form of
high functional autism as well. Nice to meet you*smile
emoticonThey diagnosed me with cerebral palsy, went to great
preschool just for that, ended up going to regular school. 1/2
deaf/1/2 blind (premature) yet perfect pitch, and a natural
affinity for computers and programming.
I think it's because i could relate to a computer's input/output
system, because I had input/output flaws, as well as some
cognitive difficulties such as comprehending "inferred meaning".
I can do it now, but it takes conscious "going through a list"
effort. Same with social cues. Long lists of mental rules I run
through VERY quickly, all 100% conscious but I can do it very
quickly.
I guess my experiences were all positive, never negative, so I
had no need to really affirm nor deny anything. The God
presented to me as Methodist was pretty basic, totally
compatible with all things Science without contradiction,
Bible-is-metaphorical, Jesus shows a good example of how to
life, and if you're a good person and do good things, your life
will be enriched. Not much about heaven, nothing about hell.*
Basically, do good, be good 'cause it's good. Yeah, the
hippy-dippy woowoo is pretty much what I was raised with from
every angle. My own mother says, "Religions is a bunch of man
made rules", yet she goes because she believes in some kind of
reincarnation/karmic heaven thing. Totally her own. Yet she goes
to the Methodist church because the pastor is also in a band and
plays rock music and is a comedian for his sermons. It's
entertainment for her.
[mind you, the rock-music church isn't really a methodist thing
- it's just that particular pastor in that particular church. He
also gets in trouble with the bishop a lot for some of the weird
things he tries].
So yeah, you nailed it James. It _might_ but one must remember
not to mistake the measuring tools for the thing being measured
either. That's a gap we can't fully cross. Going by what we've
talked about here, I think it's likely that if I had been raised
in a Pentecostal environment, I could very well have ended up
embracing a similar system that you espouse. I don't think we're
all that far off, just using different measuring sticks.
Main difference I have is the certainty factor. There's a gap
there I don't generally cross over for much of anything really.
I see things in terms of systems rather than solids. I'm a part
of them and the best I can do is try to comprehend them as best
I can. Their truth-values can get stronger and weaker, but
reaching 100% certainty? Rarely does. Very similar here.
Wrapped up in myself forever, but speech therapy in 3rd grade to
correct a stutter was my first hint of being aware of my own
mental processes and physical movements and how to control
things very early on in the concept --> speaking phrase.
Then around 11, a very strong empathy kicked in after going to
biofeedback training to control "inconsolable" states I'd get
into.
11 years old, 1983, controlling a computer with my mind/body?
[making tones go up and down]
Yeah, it was really cool*smile emoticon*Led to life of computers
and a strong sense of empathy. People replaced the biofeedback
computer for me and learning to 'read them' utilizing whatever
limited input I got from them was important. I found if I
managed my emotional states, it helped them manage theirs as we
communicate.
So, it's my own kind of empathic I guess; and I've had to
actually guard against being pulled in. Whether it is the
emotional pull of an ASPCA commercial with sad music and sad
dogs, or the emotional pull of certainty from a documentary, or
the emotional pull of a good logical argument... I have to fight
it. I "feel" myself agreeing and I can sense when my own beliefs
are beginning to shift as they're shifting.
There's no one to argue with because they're one way.
And that's when I apply the brakes. It can be a single sentence,
something that doesn't fit, or some "pull" in a direction that
just "isn't right".*
I'm still the observer. Like an alien plopped down and having to
give ongoing reports as to the state of the world from my own
perspective. I love it though and wouldn't change a thing about
my past or my present. I love the anthropology angle too. In
my case it's more like being an alien of some kind. I don't see
myself as better or worse than the rest of humanity though
because I can't help but see myself in their worst parts as
well. When I see Hitler I think, "yeah, given circumstances,
could've been me." When I see shirt and tie businessman going to
work each day, I think, "Could've been me". But yet, here I am
and I'm good with it.
I was fascinated by Autism since middle school. At the time
Autism was boys spinning plates and rocking mostly. Saw a
documentary in school, a TV special at home and I was like,
"Yup. That's me there." First exposure to Kim Peek and I
thought, "yup, turn up the oxygen in the incubator too much, and
that would've been me". Worked with kids with cerebral palsy in
my early 20s; muscles overcompensating so much that they seem to
freeze, intelligence 100% intact. could've been me.
So gratitude is always there with me. I could give 1000 reasons
why I shouldn't exist. Yet, I exist. I look like everybody else.
Act more or less like anybody else (I can fake it just fine) and
I'm enjoying the ride so far. *I was raised in a house of women.
Definite chaos. Sister a nutcase [she's more or less fine-ish
now] mother always needing a rational voice to help her see
things.*
So, always in a service role. I subject my needs to the needs of
noisier people but I'd hole myself up behind my video game, my
piano, or computer and they'd let me be. I strove for peace as
best I could in that environment; always my main goal, because I
hated getting pulled into another people's emotional dramas.
Yeah, I was very lucky. I think the only hatreds I developed and
still have are:
a) bullies/meangirls/emotional manipulators
and
b) the education system as it's constructed
I feel for the bullies; they can't help being sucked into a
system that wasn't their creation and yet, they're still
responsible for their actions in my estimation. *I'd forgive
bullies before the age of 7. But around the age of 7-8, there's
some kind of cognitive awareness shift; you realize COMPLETELY
that your brain is not someone else's brain, and that people can
be led/mislead easily. Seems to happen en masse in a big way
around that time.
So from that point on, I'd hold them responsible and capable of
changing their behaviors through introspection and awareness. I
think it's supposedly around the age of 25 isn't it? That seems
to be the age that puberty is finally over with. [they can give
it other names, but to me it's just a long-ass puberty]
I remember when it happened to me. I suddenly saw myself
entirely from someone else's point of view as if a stranger. I
could do it before somewhat, but like the snap of a finger, I I
saw a whole long series of consequences that just weren't there
before that. I knew what I knew before, but after it was
entirely different.
Ken at 23 was different than Ken at 25. When I saw the reports a
few years ago that showed brain scans and proclaimed the drastic
shift that happens around 25, I wasn't surprised because I
remembered it happening to me.
I think the capacity is there, but it's a case of willful
ignorance at that point and if you allow yourself to be sucked
into an ideology, it can be hard to extract yourself from it,
placing the map provided to you of reality on top of your own.
I don't think it takes away the natural cognitive capacities
that you develop naturally through the shifting of the location
of the brain-parts through gravity or whatever.. but it can
squish them for a while in their outward expressoin. Oh that's
awesome; I see ideologies as mazes as well.*
The hardest thing to deconstuct though, is one's own
indoctrinations at ANY given point of one's existence. I've been
going through the process for about 2.5 years as an experiment.
For example, you say, "Such and so is true." It's not even a
question. It's just is what it is.
But WHY is it what it is? Who was the first one to say it?
For example, it was only a few months ago that I realized that a
lot of my assumptions about "the way things are" that I've
carried with me THROUGH trying on the vestments of different
ideologies, stemmed from the Positive Psychology movement.
I already knew about Carl Sagan, Joseph Campbell and George
Carlin's influence on my assumptions about things, but didn't
idenity the infliuence of the "I'm ok / your ok" / "scripts
people play" pop psychology movements of the time on the
assumptions I carry around with me, even to this day.
