Insights about Trauma
You are the traumas that you have not transcended. Some traumas can be denied, but never be transcended. In most cases, religion becomes about denying that trauma ever happens: nobody really dies, pain happens for a reason even if we do not understand it, God is in control and he has a plan. I can understand there's a serious temptation to believe it (although most people inherit a religion and continue it out of habit) but it's all a bunch of bullshit, tulle and silk covering up the monstrous truth. Those are my insights as I get into the 5th Palahniuk novel that I have read so far: Diary, Fight Club, Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Choke.
I came to Palahniuk by way of author Christopher Moore's reading list. I have a cult of my own known as the Meat Thinkers, which I think of as the atheist version of the Gideon's Society (you know--those Bibles in hotel rooms that say "Placed by Gideon's"). I'm all about variety, and giving people a choice of what to read when they contemplate suicide in some hotel room. With a good book, at least you're apt to keep reading to find out how it turns out--a temporary raison de etre, nes pas?--but I assure you that never happens with the Bible. Although, I did get lots of laughs over the painstaking detail of pomegranites, purple, red, and silver threads and just-so instructions for the construction of the Ark. Jehova missed his calling as an interior decorator.
This is a really good idea.
[QUOTE=Popcultjunkie]hello.
so you believe in n.e.r.d.?[/QUOTE]
Not if you mean [I]No one Ever Really Dies.[/I] I believe in meat, that our minds are made out of meat and cannot exist without the meat, never mind the [I]soul[/I], which doesn't exist at all. We need to redefine that so-called [I]spiritual[/I] experiences are really [I]human[/I] experiences. I go to drumming circles and bang a drum so that I never forget that [I]anyone[/I] can induce a state of ecstasy and it is a function of [I]meat chemistry[/I] and has nothing to do with the supernatural.
OOBE and NDE are pure meat chemistry, fluid dynamics, eating up of oxygen, tissues consuming themselves and reaching equilibrium. The most brilliant, peak experience of your life is pure meat chemistry, and not all [I]revelations[/I] are true or to be trusted. Hitler probably had a peak experience when he wrote [I]Mein Kampf[/I] but I would argue that what he said was unethical and wrong. Inspired does not equal Inspired by God does not equal The Truth. People have been inspired to commit atrocities and cannibalism at least as often as to do good.
We can leave a legacy, and have an impact on other peoples' lives, but that is the long and short of it. Dead, rotting meat is the end of the story.
PS it's also a crock of shit that the meat cannot live without the mind, or that if you die in a dream, you die in real life. People give the mind too much credit for having an impact on physical reality. Thoughts in your head can shape your actions, and affect the chemistry of your meat, but they have no other impact on the physical.
This is a really good idea.
"pure meat chemistry" is a great name for a band. Welcome.
[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]"pure meat chemistry" is a great name for a band. Welcome.[/QUOTE]
Soon to be known as [I]PMC[/I] unless that's already taken. My vote's on [I]Medicine Head[/I] that was the gimmick from some cough syrup commercial.
I think I see now where popcultjunkie got the idea that I believe in n.e.r.d. but what I was really saying is that I can understand the [I]temptation[/I] to believe in n.e.r.d. while I abstain from it myself. The Incubus song [I]Drive[/I] was one of my personal anthems: Do you let your fear (of death, for example) drive you? Or do you try to direct your own life? But lately, it rings a bit idealistic and naive to me. I once thought that you could have control of your life like you can have control of a car, but life seems more complicated to me these days. I think it's called [I]the 30's[/I].
It's a struggle just trying to get control and mastery over my own behavior. See also Matt Berry [I]Self-behaviorism.[/I] See also Matt Berry [I]Post-atheism.[/I]
Lately, I'm jamming mostly to Linkin Park and TRUSTcompany. Jurassic 5 is next on the list--I love Chali 2na's version of Frgt-10 so thought I'd check them out. Most of my life, I internalized anger--a coping mechanism for dealing with an obsessive-compulsive parent--so LP (as well as Palahniuk) has been therapeutic for me, first recognizing that I have certain body sensations, then recognizing that those body sensations are called "anger" then learning to be OK with experiencing it.
I don't want to dwell on it or sulk or stay angry, I just want to let the flames consume it and move on. My mom just thinks I've gone insane now that she can't control me anymore, now that I don't comply with her insistence that I should do or believe a particular thing, now that I reject the mental implants like that my wife is making mistakes in raising our daughter. I finally woke up and said, [I]Hey, wait a minute, those are her thoughts that I internalized, not my thoughts.[/I] It was so weird, still weird talking to my parents now on the phone, alien, disconnected. Things aren't the way they were before...
But coming back to the trauma, my grandfather's death is the trauma that I have not transcended yet, and that was almost 12 years ago, a seriously fucked up year that was. My grandfather died from metastatic prostate cancer after about 4 years of remission, and now my father is in remission from prostate cancer, too, and I'm not dealing with it well. It's easier to be angry than to be hurt, I find, than to experience loss or fear.
This is a really good idea.
I haven't had enough coffee yet to think properly and it being Monday morning is another whammy, so the only things I have to say for now are:
1. Hi and welcome aboard.
2. I love pomegranates.
A Vendetta production. <3
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v651/Vendetta_M/batboy.jpg[/IMG]
[SIZE=1]Sitting like a princess perched in her electric chair[/SIZE]
Sitck around fella.
HaHa!
What a goon!
hello.
so you believe in n.e.r.d.?