Stagnant | ilikeitraw's Blog

Every day is the same, more or less. My weekends have gotten a thousand times better with the addition of a deck on my home, though. Makes for the best stay-cation I've ever had! Other than that, life is as it has been for the last several months. I'm trying to spice things up a titch, however, by doing some things I enjoy. For instance, I'm slowly working on a collage, I enjoy organizing images and offering a new perspective with it. Then, today, I decided to start learning how to juggle. I didn't have anything to juggle with... so I then learned to make rubber band balls. I'm far from amazing, but I'll give it some more practice tomorrow.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with/in my life, and it is easily the most challenging pursuit I've faced. I feel like I need some guidance or something to help me find my direction, so I am seeing a hypnotherapist. Hopefully that turns into something useful... He already, with my first (and so far, only) session, helped me overcome my intense and irrational fear of spiders. He claims he can help me with the rest. so I'm really hoping he comes through with that claim.

I've pretty much accepted that I don't have any real friends right now. Which kind of sucks. At the same time, it's been so long since I've had any regular contact with someone other than comrade, that I am out of touch with what the experience of having friends is actually like. It's such a distant experience that it's easy to not miss it. Another thought, is that I'm seeing for the first time, that none of  them ever were really my friends. None of them have been there for me emotionally when I needed someone most, and none of them are interested in me--at least not enough to talk to me unsolicited. So really, it's hard to miss something I never had. Oddly, this doesn't make me sad. It just is. I'm the only one who has a genuine interest in myself, and I've recently discovered that I am obsessed with myself. Which is why I constantly have imaginary dialogues with Brian Warner, wherein he is listening to me talk about myself. I mean, sure it kind of makes sense he's not talking about himself, simply because I don't know him enough to imagine what he might say, but it just recently occurred to me that it's an extremely self-centered practice in stroking my own ego.

I'm learning that I'm not at all special. I just am. Nothing is special. Some things may be popular, and popularly regarded as special, but it is merely an illusion. Everything will eventually become dust, be forgotten, be worthless. Attempting to preserve anything is a futile exercise. Nothing stays exactly the same. What makes things special is what also makes them mundane. If every single snowflake is unique, then when someone presents you with a snowflake and tells you "It's one of a kind," you may easily respond with, "No shit, they all are."

Something else I've recently thrown around in my mind is the alleged unethical action of murder. I don't have any desire to hurt anyone or anything, but I'm thinking on a larger scale and questioning if it's really 'wrong' to kill someone. I mean, some people think it's OK to kill animals, and pretty much everyone thinks it's also fine to kill plants. What's really at the heart of these thoughts is that we don't have a real understanding or grasp of what consciousness is. We easily dismiss the life of plants and some animals, but (and oh, how convenient it is)  not the life of the particular species we call humans. Human life is paramount-- QUITE the coincidence that it's humans that decided this... Not only are there exceptions for certain species, but there are also exceptions for war, self-defense, or when someone does something popularly deemed unforgivable. I can see that these ideas are highly flawed, and because of this, I don't know where a line can be appropriately drawn, if at all.  This doesn't make me think I'd be fine with offing someone, but it makes me think that I'd have a much more difficult time hating a 'murderer.' If a murderer is anyone who takes away innocent life, (I think 'life' on its own is more appropriate) then we all are murderers. Every fucking one of us.

I also think that rape is made out to be much worse than it actually is. We might pretend that only humans rape, but other animals rape each other too. Sure, it's usually an extremely unpleasant experience, but it happens. Shit happens.

The fact that there are laws against rape and murder doesn't make any real impact on whether or not they will happen. There may be a few people out there who would go out and murder and rape if it were legal, but I imagine that number is insignificant compared to those who won't. What I'm really driving at here, is that laws supply an illusion of safety. They merely create a middleman to deal with our issues. Not only that, but in the end, when all is said and done and laws have been enforced, the issue has never actually been resolved. People are still getting raped and murdered everyday. Even the people who are serving their time behind bars; they still commit crimes and harm people who are arguably undeserving. All the laws did was literally box up and move the issue somewhere else. Out of sight, out of mind. Since we don't see the atrocities on a regular basis, we all live on complacently. No one really stops to think about the fact that these laws aren't stopping the people who've already committed crimes from committing more, or the fact that these crimes are still being committed by someone on the outside every day. Until we REALLY understand that no one can be completely controlled, we will keep trying and failing to control everyone, and progress will not be made--only more illusions. Fortunately, nothing stays exactly the same, so someday we will maybe learn and make progress, or we'll hit rock bottom and be forced to rebuild ourselves in a new light. Hopefully, a progressive change will come soon. Once we know that we cannot control anything but ourselves, people will start to let go of judgements, competition, and expectations, and then we can all move towards being an enlightened society. Attachments to ideas of actions or experiences being 'right' or 'wrong' will only hold us back, right in the place from which the ideas came. The only growth will be limited to improving the lower state of our consciousness, as opposed to improving and growing into a freer, and less painful state of awareness altogether. We need to be loving, and not afraid. We're all so afraid that our neighbors are going to kill us, rape us, jew us, or do some other unpleasant thing that we WANT to be controlled, and we want everyone else to be controlled. Problem is, what's popularly considered unpleasant or right or wrong changes all the time. Demanding more limitations, more control. However, anyone with the will and capacity to break any given law, will do so. Once you understand that completely, you'll see how much of an illusion of safety laws are. You'll also discover that your fears aren't even all based in your own experiences nor do they accurately reflect reality. All we can control is ourselves, and if we want to make this world a better one, then we'll make ourselves better. It's all we can do. Be the change we want to see. You notice someone else doing something you don't like, then don't do it yourself. That's it. Rid yourself of the judgements you might pass on someone doing those things, don't expect anyone to act the way you do, no matter how obviously 'right' or 'superior' it may seem. Actions speak louder than words, and lecturing people or locking them away is an ineffective, and at best, extremely inefficient way of teaching others to be loving. Only when, as a whole, we individually shift our focus away from what others do and trying to control their actions and thoughts, and shift it towards improving ourselves, and only ourselves, will we know peace.

Well, shit, this turned into a long, and poorly constructed essay...

It is what it is

Love & Peace