Lants
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2207
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| Childhood beliefs and the moment you realised... |
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Childhood beliefs and the moment you realised you'd been living a lie.
We had these childhood friends that I had known basically all of my life. We spent every school holidays together staying in these farm cabins out in the country. Horses, cows, open fireplace and yabbying. Anyway, one of the kids was named Joel. But my mum always called him Joelash. So we all called him Joelash (or eyelash when we were teasing him). I grew up thinking that all Joels were in fact Joelashs, like a Dave to a David. In my 20s (yes, it took that long to click), I called another Joel, Joelash and he laughed at me.
Then I realised I had been living a lie for 20-something years about Joels. |
Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:11 am |
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duxz
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 935
Location: denver |
God isnt real.
or Christianitys interpretation of it anyways.
my first philosophy class. |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:15 am |
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Lants
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2207
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nope, get that serious shit out of here.
you're not bringing down my lols with a debate about god.
learn to exist without trying to sound smart people. sometimes sillyness is good. jah. |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:21 am |
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Bob_ptmfus
Joined: 11 Jan 2007
Posts: 740
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Sad fact: I once as a kid asked my dad if George Clinton was Bill Clinton's brother. He laughed and said yes. I believed him way longer than I should have. |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:28 am |
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Lants
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2207
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you got a genuine LOL out of me then. you're alright kid. |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:29 am |
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futuristxen
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 19343
Location: Tighten Your Bible Belt |
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I think the concept of truth and lies is a faulty construct that is unfairly existant for the purposes of creating guilt within ourselves, and for clouding an understanding that embraces that both things can be true at the same time, and/or not.
I think every lie speaks to a truth, but we're supposed to believe that these are opposing forces, and that a lie somehow obscures a truth, or misleads away from a truth--but I think that's a very linear way of looking at it.
You're only living a lie if you want to believe that you are. You can be always you, you can be never you, and you can be sometimes you, sometimes not. There are narrative choices within our identities so that they are formed in a particular way of our choosing.
"I'm living a lie" is basically saying "I now wish to change my narrative in a way that negatively characterizes a part of my own being, for the purposes of making myself feel worse about myself to the end of shaping myself in some particular desired way".
This is an aspect of life that I've talked to with therapists before, because it comes up whenever I'm talking about my own life. The conception of most people coming from the outside looking in on a transgender situation is that well at one point you were this, and at this next point you were this--this is a change--can you explain why this, what appears to me to be a radical change, has occurred? But that's a false narrative. I didn't go from being one gender to being another. I've always been me. My life is a collection of singular moments formed into a particular narrative of my conscious and subconscious choosing, based upon an infinity of aspects. The only thing that changed in terms of my identity is how I've chosen to express it, or how I've come to express it. The change people are reacting to is in some ways the least consequential and unimportant--which is an aesthetic one. Which isn't to say aesthetics aren't important in identity--because I do think the aesthetics one chooses to express their identity has an effect on ones quality of mental health. I mean how could I not? Plus those aesthetics are sort of the by product of our relationship with the world.
Sort of got off on a tangent--sort of didn't. My short answer is that I've always been conscious of living a lie, but it took a lot of reading, thought, and living to become able of expressing that feeling. I feel like as adults we are only now gaining the language that makes dealing with childhood traumas possible. |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:49 am |
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Z-0
Joined: 28 Sep 2004
Posts: 700
Location: Sydney |
Bob_ptmfus wrote:
Sad fact: I once as a kid asked my dad if George Clinton was Bill Clinton's brother. He laughed and said yes. I believed him way longer than I should have.
i once asked my dad for advice regarding girls (i was very young at the time), his advice was "son, never be afraid to trade up". given that he'd been married to my mother for some 20 years at that point i figured my mother was the pinnacle of female humanity. i quickly realised she was flawed and my father was full of shit. |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:53 am |
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Elorza
Joined: 18 Sep 2002
Posts: 1000
Location: east coast |
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Sophomore year humanities (an honors english/history hybrid class with two teachers): I was the smart-ass kid who always had a comment but generally knew my shit, or I should say, specifically knew my shit. While my attitude perturbed, some the teachers and my classmates respected my apparent intelligence, until one day when we were talking about the U.K. and something finally hit me. My line of thinking was along the line of "man England's Navy was no joke, I wonder why they never built up their army like that...why were they so big on boats...they must be around a lot of water I guess....hooollldd ooonn..." I turn around to look at the world map behind me, dumbfounded, raise my hand and say "Wait a minute, England is an island?" Silence. On cue the entire class turns to look at me, pauses, then turns back with more than a few heads shaking in the process and the teacher just picks right up along where she was while I mulled over this astounding revelation.
One of my more humbling and enlightening moments in life. What's right in front of ya, innit? |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 2:25 am |
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Bicycle
Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Posts: 409
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Ive always given people the benefit of the doubt. I learned last year that I shouldn't do that all the time
I was in a band for three years. The guy who wrote most of the music always seemed like a nice and intelligent person. I ignored the strange sorta dark sensations I got from him. I picked him up one night and brought him to my apartment to work on the mix for our album. He was drunk. when we got to my apartment he told me he was gonna fuck around with my roommate and proceeded to do so with such skill that I didn't realize it was happening. Things started to get out of hand so I drove him home. He started talking all crazy and threatening to kill me if I left the band.
We got to his place and, being unsure of his mental state, I followed him inside. He started melting candles in a pot and talking more crazy shit and then placed his unloaded pistol in my hand and directed it towards his stomach telling me to pull the trigger. I pointed it away and pulled the trigger. He did that two more times and then said he was gonna go start a fire in the woods. I followed him outside. he talked some philosophical shit and threatened to kill me a few more times and then went back to his house. I left when he started loading the pistol
got kicked outa the band a week later. The full weight of the situation settled on me over the next few months as I began to realize what had happened. All the manipulations and mental fuckery that had occured over the years wed played together. I thought I was beyond that shit. I didn't think people could do that |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:18 am |
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Z-0
Joined: 28 Sep 2004
Posts: 700
Location: Sydney |
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futuristxen wrote:
I think the concept of truth and lies is a faulty construct that is unfairly existant for the purposes of creating guilt within ourselves, and for clouding an understanding that embraces that both things can be true at the same time, and/or not.
I think every lie speaks to a truth, but we're supposed to believe that these are opposing forces, and that a lie somehow obscures a truth, or misleads away from a truth--but I think that's a very linear way of looking at it.
You're only living a lie if you want to believe that you are. You can be always you, you can be never you, and you can be sometimes you, sometimes not. There are narrative choices within our identities so that they are formed in a particular way of our choosing.
"I'm living a lie" is basically saying "I now wish to change my narrative in a way that negatively characterizes a part of my own being, for the purposes of making myself feel worse about myself to the end of shaping myself in some particular desired way".
This is an aspect of life that I've talked to with therapists before, because it comes up whenever I'm talking about my own life. The conception of most people coming from the outside looking in on a transgender situation is that well at one point you were this, and at this next point you were this--this is a change--can you explain why this, what appears to me to be a radical change, has occurred? But that's a false narrative. I didn't go from being one gender to being another. I've always been me. My life is a collection of singular moments formed into a particular narrative of my conscious and subconscious choosing, based upon an infinity of aspects. The only thing that changed in terms of my identity is how I've chosen to express it, or how I've come to express it. The change people are reacting to is in some ways the least consequential and unimportant--which is an aesthetic one. Which isn't to say aesthetics aren't important in identity--because I do think the aesthetics one chooses to express their identity has an effect on ones quality of mental health. I mean how could I not? Plus those aesthetics are sort of the by product of our relationship with the world.
Sort of got off on a tangent--sort of didn't. My short answer is that I've always been conscious of living a lie, but it took a lot of reading, thought, and living to become able of expressing that feeling. I feel like as adults we are only now gaining the language that makes dealing with childhood traumas possible.
this is a small poem i wrote 7 years ago which i think hits on what you're talking about. if i wrote it today it would be very different (though most likely much worse), but i cant really be held captive by the thoughts of a then 24 year old.
"Within truth,
The lie finds its profit,
For truly it's purpose is of creation.
And for creation it extends limitless growth.
Within the lie,
Truth is shown most apt,
to disregard the pretense of appearance.
For it is born of faith above proof.
As light births the same:
That is to say,
"realisation"." |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:38 am |
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Mikal kHill
Joined: 29 Jun 2002
Posts: 6819
Location: http://mikalkhill.com |
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Bicycle wrote:
Ive always given people the benefit of the doubt. I learned last year that I shouldn't do that all the time
I was in a band for three years. The guy who wrote most of the music always seemed like a nice and intelligent person. I ignored the strange sorta dark sensations I got from him. I picked him up one night and brought him to my apartment to work on the mix for our album. He was drunk. when we got to my apartment he told me he was gonna fuck around with my roommate and proceeded to do so with such skill that I didn't realize it was happening. Things started to get out of hand so I drove him home. He started talking all crazy and threatening to kill me if I left the band.
We got to his place and, being unsure of his mental state, I followed him inside. He started melting candles in a pot and talking more crazy shit and then placed his unloaded pistol in my hand and directed it towards his stomach telling me to pull the trigger. I pointed it away and pulled the trigger. He did that two more times and then said he was gonna go start a fire in the woods. I followed him outside. he talked some philosophical shit and threatened to kill me a few more times and then went back to his house. I left when he started loading the pistol
got kicked outa the band a week later. The full weight of the situation settled on me over the next few months as I began to realize what had happened. All the manipulations and mental fuckery that had occured over the years wed played together. I thought I was beyond that shit. I didn't think people could do that
Got any demos from that group? |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 6:21 am |
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Flossin
Joined: 28 Jul 2009
Posts: 530
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When I was a very little kid, my brother convinced me that he could turn me off with the tv's remote control, like I'm some electronic device or something. He would threaten me with the remote control, saying he would put me on standby and I would panic. It didn't last long, but the short period of time when I was convinced that the remote control is my ultimate weakness was really shameful. |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 6:55 am |
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Z-0
Joined: 28 Sep 2004
Posts: 700
Location: Sydney |
Flossin wrote:
the short period of time when I was convinced that the remote control is my ultimate weakness was really shameful.
yeah i wouldnt tell folk about that...
...oh. |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 7:17 am |
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phataccino
Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 4769
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My dad used to work with this guy named Rick who we were told ate worms. Not just out of necessity or anything, but because he liked them. His wife would put them in his birthday cake for him, grind them up in his meatloaf, etc. Whenever I was at work with my dad and we'd find a worm, Rick would eat it. I saw him do it multiple times. At some point, well into my 20s, I mentioned something to my dad about Rick, who used to eat worms. Apparently all those times that I saw him eating worms he was doing the old stand-sideways-tilt-your-head-back-and-drop-it-down-the-side-of-your-neck trick. I never thought to question the fact that dude ate--and loved--worms. |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 7:25 am |
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Flossin
Joined: 28 Jul 2009
Posts: 530
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Z-0 wrote:
Flossin wrote:
the short period of time when I was convinced that the remote control is my ultimate weakness was really shameful.
yeah i wouldnt tell folk about that...
...oh.
That's nothing. I've learned to live 25 years with a middle name that sounds like it's straight from Lord of the Rings. I'm tough as nails, son. |
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 7:28 am |
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