Emotional Baggage and being overweight

[Pharos]

Hallo Ruben and Sueblue,
I agree with you Ruben about quick fixes, and with Sueblue's description in the terms of Scientology.
It is no good 'brushing the dirt under the carpet, the carpet has to be lifted and everything underneath analysed and dealt with thoroughly, and resolved. Sueblue describes 'dsicharging the emotional charge' of the traumatising events, and having read the Scientology book ten years ago, on the whole I agree with it, it is very similar to Freud's analysis. The important thing is to analyse the events, bearing in mind that at the time, the vulnerable victim, usually a child, does not have the understanding to modify or qualify his 'instinctual reaction' (Suebblue's reactive mind). As a result the child remembers trauma, but cannot make logical connections or analyse the events in any detail to make them. The pressure can lead the child into almost wholly illogical conclusions, the intense 'theatre' of events compounding his difficulties. Then, later in life, these unresolved memories create havock with the possessor's life; the maniferst problems we are discussing. Some might even prefer to be immersed in the 'problems', rather than to be living in the moment and taking responsibility for themselves and their circumstances.
I have been a body builder for 25 years, (arguably started for esteem reasons), and was at my gym on Friday when a guy of similar height came up to me and asked me why I was so fat. I baulked, did not respond aggressively, but could feel the automatic tendency to go into the 'I am not OK' default mode. I ignored the insult, and remembered how I have been described as the fittest bloke in town for years, and have a 45" chest and a 35" waist. Intermittently I felt upset by this event for some hours, but realised that this guy must have a real problem. On discussing the event with others who could not believe his gauche and rude behaviour, they told me that he is 14 years younger than I am, a few pounds lighter, and in much worse shape.
So, there are people out there who not only want, but will relish the chance to push you back into that default position - for their own neurotic needs - to feel better about themselves by using illusion. I bumped into him again today, and he looked very furtive and resentful as he nodded. I chose not to confront him with his behaviour, and whilst walking home thought along the lines of your description Ruben, I live on the seafront, I own my own house outright, I have a lovely music studio and am financially secure, whilst others in this country are doing hours on motorways for jobs they hate, becoming unemployed, and losing their houses in the recession. Also a lovely cat comes to visit me, and I can hear the beatiful birdsong whilst eating very high quality food. How can I dare not be happy, when there are little boys and girls in Iraq, who have never done anything to contribute to that terrible situation, but who have missing limbs because of it? 
These things 'centre' me, they put me into my real self, not the contorted one that suits others for their own purposes. We should all be there, feeling a raw presence of life itself, an intensive, quality experience, engaged with our own pursuits of development. Pharos.

[RubenJames]

Pharos...

45" chest & 35" waist! YIKES!  

If we ever get to hang out together...I'll be SURE to NOT piss you off!

You're pretty good at this, dude!

You've been through the wringer and are a TRUE Seeker!

It's a Pleasure to get to know you!

You reminded me of my cat, Fu Man Chu.  I LOVED that cat. He's the ONLY proof I've seen that re-incarnation just MIGHT be real. He has GOT be be an ancestor! Too human!

On his last day, after 14 years, he came to me, looked up and told me that he was leaving. I stroked him and told him how much we loved him and will miss him. The little bugger was a fighter...but age took him in the end. GOD I miss him.

Jeez, I'm gettin' a bit teary here...us, Macho Dudes don't DO that sort of thing! Excuse me while I go blow my nose.

GOD...I miss Fooey!!!

[Pharos]

Hi Ruben, I am sure you are, (Ihope), joking  - I hate violence. Yes, I feel I've had it tough enough to say that I have been through the wringer, and I beleive that I am a true seeker.
I do seek both intellectual truth and spiritual truth in everything; for me there is nothing else. From an early age the word "good" to which we are subjected a lot as a child for numerous reasons, had two specific meanings, although not formally realised at that time.
(1) Intellectual; the ability to achieve any task, and, (2) Spiritual; one's treatment of others, animals and things.
This became formalised in my early twenties, and I have ever since pursued both; the pursuit of intellectual development is a spiritual cause, and the pursuit of spiritual development is intellectually governed.
What I have found is that most people do not pursue these goals, and think it rather weird to do so, or even to have the concepts as a guiding force in one's life, and only recently have I come to accept my difference from the 'populus' and feel OK about it.
This approach is inherently responsible towards everyone and everything, and thus minimises violation of all.
There are some exceptions, I eat other living things, and I am not prepared to go to the extreme of one religion, which forbids sleeping on one's back, because on one's side the reduced contact area with the floor, means that fewer microorganisms are killed.
Increasingly also, I have become aware of the tendency in us all not to dare to be be different from 'the group' and this is a terrible shame, it destroys so much creativity, and forces us by means of the need for social approval into ritualised behaviour.
I think that usually this suits the vested interests of some powerful minority.
A lot of useful work has been done on the need for social approval, notably by Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram, the former on conformity with group perceptions even when the individual's own, are different, and the latter on the willingness, or non willingness, to comply with authority figures who are instructing the subject, to subject another being to pain.
This work says so much about the problems of suffering in our societies, and our seeming inability to curtail them, but I feel more free than ever before in my life, free to be myself, challenge orthodoxy where I feel it relevant, and seek new truths, the result being the feeling of 'centredness', a coherence of all thought, and harmony of actions, and after the acceptance of the lack of ritualised approval of others, a vast increase in the quality of life.
Yes, having and losing a cat is very distressing, but they have such a good life; my visitor has just refused fresh roast chicken and some best stewed beef, looking at me demandingly, whilst I prepare an egg and bacon sandwich with bacon well past its use-by date.
Loving cats has always been with me; in fact I am now rather like the adolescent I was at 13 in some ways; I love music and have very good equipment, a lovely racing bike to ride, and a cat to stroke. I play the Shadows Hits on my system and am reminded of the tortuous adolescence I had, containing its imposed problems which prevented, rather than nurtured, my growth.
What I am missing above all is a lover and friend, but my cynical views are such that I feel mostly women want the money which men provide, in preference to any other qualities, and since I am now in control of my responses to a great extent, the wild passion for all that is feminine, largely based on physical characteristics, and encouraged to be so by our society, does not rule my actions.
I think that this is a healthy stance, and that many wrong decisions are made in youth which often result in disfunctional relationships. The obvious criticism of this may be offered that because of age I am losing potency, but I do not believe this to be the major factor.
Thank you for your kind complements Ruben, I hope we can interact to mutual benefit, and to that of all other members and visitors.
I have an instinctual feeling that a new era is beginning, with talk of the British public at last just being sick of dishonesty and inauthenticity. Perhaps with this medium, this ethos can be spread, and can reduce the tyranny which our rulers have for eons perpetrated on us, the proles. Pharos.

[RubenJames]

Pharos,

Of COURSE I was joking, ya big lug!

Oops!   Your being British...a "big lug" may mean something TOTALLY different than it does here in the States! I'd better back off with the slang...could cost me a cyber black eye!

Pharos, You are that Rare and Special Person that is the preverbial "One in a Million!"

So VERY few seek Truth...rather they seek Acceptance...Love!

That's why there's so many young people today look like those that used to be a side show freak in the old circuses. Tattooed and pierced and rainbow colored hair and pants hanging around the knees (here in the U.S.)! They're looking for similarly freakish looking types...because they KNOW that they have a MUCH better chance of being accepted...and just maybe, Loved!

I have an inkling of what you are saying. I have ALWAYS been considered an "Odd Duck!"...because I, like yourself, found it MUCH more important to find the Truth in ALL things! My father practically Hated me because I wasn't supposed to look for "truth"...I was to believe HIS truth...no matter HOW ridiculous his truth was. That made for a VERY stormy relationship!

Being the Odd Duck, pretty much meant being ALONE! Painfully Alone!! One of the reasons why I drank so heavily...to relieve the pain of Loneliness!

I Congratulate you for moving beyond the acceptance of the herd to be yourself...and be Happy! Imagine that!

When I got to the point where I could not care LESS of what others thought of me...I began singing out loud in grocery stores and danced in parking lots...because now I was happy! Imagine THAT!

One of the  Toughest things to do...like you found out...is to openly question Authority or the (glup!) Church! BOTH have been and still ARE cause for excommunication, jail and even DEATH!

Makes for even MORE cause for the vast majority of people to shun us...if not for Fear alone...fear of not being accepted or loved by the other slaves...or themselves being persecuted!

Like yourself...I LOVE being Young is Spirit!  And, there are those that DIED at adolescence...and just haven't been buried yet!  Never lived...squelched by the "powers that be"....and THAT is Sad!

I am SO fortunate to have found a mate that, like you and myself, MUST have Truth before ALL! Or ALL is a LIE...and to live a Lie is to waste a life...

Like yourself...I believe that a new era is beginning...and the opportunity to grow beyond our present constraints have never been more available.

That's why I'm here....and, I think, why YOU are here.

Cheers!

[Pharos]

Hallo Ruben, and all who find anything in this thread, I want to write a brief discourse on my psychological development, not to be indulgent, but to I hope, and if possible, help others.
I agree about the young, who in this country also are as you describe. The need to belong to a group has always been with us, and in my youth we all had long hair, flared trousers and 'mexican' moustches; that was our uniform. But we were also part of something much greater which for a few years seemed to be a burgening revelatory, and perhaps revolutionary movement. I remember well two particular phrases we used to use in discussion about the then orthodoxy; "Sick society", and, "Corrupt Capitalism", and we who used to talk like this were 'Heads', that is we were 'turned on', our brains were functioning and we saw through many falsites and contradictions.
In 1968, the French Government was within 3 days of resigning because of the protests of the students and farmers, and in the states you had massive protests; everything was being questioned. But it all subsided leaving a few groups fighting for disparate causes.
As a result of my early environment, I had difficulties in my personal relationships in my work, and a chap I got to know, with similar problems, said to me that if I did not do something about them by the age of forty, they could well become irreversible.
I started T. A. (Eric Berne), privately paid for and which was very expensive, but which did give at the time a great insight. This can be summed up as the discovery of 'crossed transactions' (eg. I love your expression in the States of; "Your actions shout so loud I don't hear your words" covert messages, and body language.
Later, when my then girl friend paid for my psychometric tests, in the report was included a parameter of 'Low personality integration'.
Later still, in the eighties I came across an American philosophy book called "Neotech". This refered to integration of all we thought and did, and I put a considerable effort into integrating all of my fragmented parts; we all have these because our sources of influence and aquired information are multifarious and disparate.
The next useful concept was that of the psychological 'audit'. Everything we believe, should meet certain criteria: the beliefs should all correspond with reality, our 'internal matrix' should be a correlate of both the instinctual, and the external truths, there should be no partitoning of the personality into fragnments, or multiple personalities, and there should be no purely internal conflicts, that is, there may be conflicts, but they should be only a result of externally mutually proclusive choices and trade-offs.
Next I discovered the concept of being "Internally directed", which is said by psychologists to be central to good mental health. This means making our own evaluations of the world, and then, our own choices about where to direct our energies and actions.
Our environment tends to make  us externally directed, we receive instructions from numerous sources, and they usually have their own agenda; parents, teachers, the church, politicians, and the big one we face now is corporate advertising, it telling us to consume a great deal of rubbish which is irrelevant to our fulfillment, and which tends to produce a neurotic cycle of consumption.
This also uses a factor in our evolutionary history; iconography. From very early on, the power to influence and control others with icons became recognised. There are  many examples. One which I remember from about the age of 9 is from a film, in which knights were ravaging a monastery and about to slaughter a monk, but he raised his crucifix from his neck-chain and held it up to the knight who then fell to his knees begging for God's forgiveness. Hitler's swastica is another example. When I reflect on my later teens, I remember with some affection three iconic symbols which I built into my choices; the Levi 501's red tab, the Coca-Cola bottle, and a Tamla Motown black labelled '45', in its paper orange envelope.
Athletes sometimes have a little symbol which they use to inspire them, surely an icon, but used for personal psychological reasons, and the star put on Jews in the second world war was an icon designed to reinforce discrimination and hatred. When they are a positive factor they are working as a Placebo, and when negative, they work as a Hex. In bodybuilding the concept of visualisation is used widely, and this is only an internally created icon.
So, to cleanse ourselves of involuntary behaviour, we have to ask; How many reactions do we have subconsciously to external symbols and objects which work as negative icons controlling our behaviour, and maybe even inducing phobic responses and wrecking our lives?  I do hope this account is of some help to someone. Pharos.

[RubenJames]

Pharos,

I'm curious, what happened to the chap that had similar problems, said you'd be bonkers by age 40?

I got the neotech stuff myself. It was kind of interesting, but the author was so hung up on proving that God doesn't exist that I lost interest after a while. I understand that someone continued right after him that said it's okay to believe in God.  Nice of him, eh?

The "audit" thingy made me smile...the word "should" came up 26 times...made me think, "Don't should on me, and I won't should on you!"   I gave up on psych stuff in college...it was all "should"...but, in the end...it DIDN'T Work!!!  Now I've got a degree in that stuff and never used it! Found my own that DOES!

Interesting take on icons.  I have pictures of Nazi Germany my parents brought over, with swatikas everywhere. To the Germans it meant world domination by the superior race...to my parents, who were prisoners in the slave labor camps, it meant torture and death!

[Pharos]

Ruben
On reading your response I felt that maybe what I had said was a bit vacuous and banal - rather ordinary.
I agree about the use of 'should', but my usage, only six times, is in a very specific way. I have used it to critique a violated, contaminated and corrupted personality, by events beyond the control of the subject, and which the subject would not want for himself given the power to choose his environment. This is not a usage which is in any way an injunction against the person, but a recognition of the disfunction in his pesonality resulting from imposed abuse. It is in recognition of his rights having been violated and the resulting damage; but I think it valid to state dogmatic injunctions which protect the rights of others. There are injunctions which restrict freedoms without any vaildation for so doing, but there are also those which protect people's rights, eg., Thou shalt not kill.
If, having reached a fully autonomous stage of development people wish to be violated, then that is OK, provided it is a conscious choice and of their own free will.
Increasingly I am not convinced of the intellectual value of a degree in this country; I seem to encounter ever more people who, as Al Stuart says, "Walk like Greta Garbo, and talk like Yogi bear". I have twice started a degree, in '78, in which I showed a senior engineering lecturer that his theory was wrong, his reaction being that he hatied me and tried to give me zero for every susequent bit of work, so I left, and in '02, in music, in which the head of course showed himself to be a complete idiot despite having a good degree in psychology. I know that there are very good academics, and I think that usually they are very humble and express themselves very well, with little egotism.
Regarding iconography, we could consider, since there is always a degree of transference in any perception, that everything is an icon to a greater or lesser extent - signal to noise ratio. So when I am looking at a subject, what am I carrying to it which it does not inherently possess? I offer my empathy for the sufferings of your parents; pictures of the conditions of those in the camps on liberation bring me to tears. Pharos.

[RubenJames]

Pharos,

RE:  The "Shoulds"....What I meant was the way the Shrinks evaluate a "subject"...i.e. This "subject" thinks or believes so and so...therefore the Shrinks think he SHOULD be doing such and such! Or..his diagnosis shows that he SHOULD do this or the other...take this pill or that drug. 

In other words...they work with Theories and what SHOULD be or what SHOULD be done to him, or etc. 

Degrees are a joke...just because someone passed a course in whatever, they could have been at the BOTTOM of their class and don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. How'd you like to have HIM do your bypass surgery or prescribe narcotics for your 7 year old daughter? 

May I ask you a personal question?

You strike me to be so serious. When was the last time you had a really good Belly Laugh? I mean Roaring, leaning backward and bowing forward and slapping your knee? 

[Pharos]

Ruben,
Yes, they are forever trying to get people to adhere to their models - rather too literally.
In electronics models are used also, but they are used as a possible insight, or a principle which may explain one factor in a multi-factored system, that system being composed of so many other factors and variables, that the abstract model is barely discernable within the complexed system. It is certainly not a full account of a system. They really are rather simplistic to me. Imagine applying that simplicity to say, weather systems, and then wondering why the weather does not comply with the predictions.
Re, the surgery, I often wonder why it is that '12 good men and true', are allowed to decide the fate of an accused. Would we let '12 good men and true' do trepanning and a frontal leucotomy? What, we need to send a spacecraft to Mars, nip out and get a team from the street then, they should do it OK.
Yes.
I am very serious, I laugh rarely and cannot remember the last time I 'belly laughed, and increasingly I find most comedy utterly predictable and banal. I do laugh at myself though

[RubenJames]

Pharos,

I only bring it up because in your initial post you lamented that the one thing you really want, but don't have in your life, yet, is a lady/soul mate.

In EVERY study I've read on what women look for in a man...the FIRST thing on the list was: a sense of humor...the ability to Laugh!

Did you lose your ability to laugh...or, have you not had it this time around?

If you had it...do you miss it?

Or, has it been so long ago...that it's hardly a faint memory?

[Pharos]

Hi Ruben,
What I said was, and still is true, and I am familiar with the priority women give to a sense of humour.
Actually, I have always been known for a profound and very dry sense of humour, but, as a fellow engineer pointed out in the 70 s, the study of engineering is so abstract and requires so much dedication, that this area of self tends to be neglected as a result; it is all about studying real causes and effects, and finding solutions.
When in my 20 s, and with the BBC, my humour was such that I would crack jokes whilst maintaining equipment in studio cubicles when live, with the effect that on some occasions, and on one in particular, Brian Sewell, the art critic, was rolling around for ages neglecting his duties to the point of losing 40 secs of air time. He was disciplined for it.
Life's woes have tended to preclude the frisson necesary for the allowance of humour. I have had a neighbour problem for 7 years, she spreading calumny about town that I am a paedophile, and that I use cats for sexual pleasure. Last summer she called the RSPCA and told them that I was raping the beige cat I referred to. In '05 I had neighbours the other side who were really terrible, whom she provoked against me, and who had a ADHD boy of 13 who used to shout insults about my sexuality at me in public, and threaten me with a baseball bat. After 3 years they were removed, and after 80 reports of mine to the police. The woman next door now has 6 A4 sides of accounts of her malicious behaviour with the ASBO coordinator.
This all tends to inhibit frisson.
It is not a feint memory, and I do miss it, but British society has so much declined in its cultural quality and, frankly, class, to the point at which the subtleties of my humour are not only not understood or appreciated, but are completely inappropriate referentially.
I am, and have always wanted to be, what the Victorians called, a 'Sensitive' and am surrounded in Seaford by what we now call "Chavs". This type of person is rude, arrogant, aquisitive materially, does not develop in any way requiring discipline or effort, and seeks only material gratification, they wanting to be, ideally a 'celebrity'. Usually they are fat, arrogant, aggressive an in your face, wearing track siuts and being vastly overweight, often with a fag in the mouth, and with a ready tendency to violence.
They displace their feelings of inadequacy which result from their lack of commitment to life, onto others, notably those whose behaviour is in contrast with their own. In all of these goings on, the police have readily warned me about my actions, and I cannot do anything even when assaulted, because I would probably seriously hurt them, so this allows them to bully me.
I do miss humour, I enjoy the feeling of being creatively funny, and various girl friends have loved my sense of humour, but my love of the finer things in life has been forced out by the environment; it is hard to write tender, delicately expressed poetry when someone is banging nails into the back of one's head.
My last girl friend not only spread malicious calumny about me in town, but actually stole from me and went through my personal possessions when I was working at the Hi-Fi show in London in Sept' '97. I had to take her to court, and when she was found guilty, she threatened to kill me and burn down my house.
One has to laugh doesn't one? Pharos.

[RubenJames]

Pharos,

It sounds like where you live is an absolutely SHITY place for ANYbody..let alone a sensitive person like yourself. 

It looks like you have the ways and means to get the Hell out of Dodge...why are you sticking around? 

Oh! By the by..."a fag in the mouth"...here in the states, especially in San Francisco...has an ENTIRELY different meaning than smoking a cigarette! 

[Pharos]

Hi Ruben and Tess, Yes it has been rough, but I do not think that moving is the answer for a whole bunch of reasons. Britain is not I would guess, what you guys think of it as, as indeed our concept of the Staes is formed from a whole lot of media stuff containing stereotypes. The fact is, and this was confirmed on Wiki when I googled 'Chav'; at the bottom of one definition it said that the chav is what has made this country a shithole. It has gone to the dogs gradually since the advent of Thatcher. I am a socialist/liberal at heart, but with the strong modifier of meritocratic principles. But, the old working class in this country has used manipulative techniques to undermine much of the state since '79, and a lazy underclass has developed which just wants to exploit anything it can, particularly any socialist kindness, even if it is intended for the underprivelaged.
We have young girls who have effectively made a business out of having babies, often with several men, and those babies not loved and nurtured, or cared for with time and effort, but just allowed to 'get on with it' in a room with a gameboy. The mothers go out on a binge with the child allowances; opposite me is a 25 year old who has never botherd to study, or have a job, who runs a sports car and has her rent paid for, whilst owning several pets. Her property is maintained by the landlord, and any man wanting her affections, (she goes out to have s*x wearing $300 shoes at weekends) would have to be earning $70,000 a year to compete with government benefits and support her. The suicide rate in young men is very high.
This is a reflection of the degenerate working class Britain, in which large parts of our inner cities are 'No Go' areas for the police, and are controlled by gangs and drug runners. Many big cities are like this; Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester, Liverpool etc.. The rise of the Chavs is with us here.
My troubles are because I am ontologically secure, (Solomon Asch); I stick to my real integrated self, even in the face of adversity. The result, some confrontation - because I am a mirror of their behaviour, which they know to be bad. As an engineer friend said in the 70's, if they do not like what they see in the mirror, they smash the mirror.
 I feel that I have surmounted the major problems here, and I do not want to move, my having spent a lot of money on my house, and plumbed my studion into it, and I love its geography. I have also now established a reputation for being adult and straight forward with many, and the little narrow minded provincial parochial small town idiots are tiring of it. Their reactions are again neurotic, they are seeking comfort by forming a group and trying to persecute the one who is different, and in so doing they are limiting their own minds, development, and lives. Thank you for your kind support.
PS. What is the relevance of 'Dodge'. Pharos.

[Tess]

Hiya Pharos,

I just caught your message before going to bed - I must be up really early tomorrow as I am going on leave.  I really want to talk to you and I will when I get back from leave.  I just want to say one or two things.  I live in the UK and I have a nephew who is a "chav".  He is absolutely lovely.  I will ask him before I speak to you again to define the word "chav" and we can talk about it.  I want to leave you with my thoughts - and remember - they are only mine.  I believe in the law of attraction, I believe in the vibration of thoughts.  I am also human and things get to me.  If I was being bombarded from all sides with negative vibes and people - that to me would send a message to leave where I was living because it wouldn't be the right place for me to be.  It would be the same if I had a friend that was negative - I would try and try with her or him to reach a status quo - but if, in the end, we couldn't  I would have to move on.  I have had many lessons to learn on my journey and unfortunately I don't have time to chat about them at the moment.  All I know, is that I will not allow myself to be surrounded by negative people or negative vibes - I have one life and I want to live it amongst people I enjoy.  I have been where you have and I moved not once but twice ...............  haven't regretted it - not for one moment.  Was I weak?  maybe? was I wise - well, for me - most definitely.

See you in a week Pharos,

Good night, God bless,

With loving kindness,
Theresa x

[RubenJames]

Pharos,

It's VERY sad to hear how your great nation is degenerating in front of your eyes.

I look at my own country, which I LOVE, and it hurts to see how "popular" culture puts people like convict rap singers on a pedestal to be worshiped by young people that can hardly read at 3th grade level and care nothing of history before they were born.

I must say that there has been renewed optimism with our new president, and the strong emergence of the "new" sciences of quantum physics (old metaphysics) among a quickly growing number among us "old" people...tells me that the fat lady hasn't sang yet...and there's STILL hope...as long as we hold ON to hope!

Ah yes..."Get out of Dodge!".....

There must be 10,000 or so 1940's Hollywood Westerns with the sheriff telling the badguy that line in the script! Usually the line ended with, "...by sundown!"

Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Randolph Scott, James Stewart, Glenn Ford, and on and on...

Of course, the town's name would be different on occasion...trade "Dodge" for Tombstone, Cheyenne, Laredo, El Paso, etc etc

You MUST have the same scenario.....!

The Sheriff of Nottingham telling Robin Hood to "Get out of Sherwood Forest by Sundown!"   But here the "bad guy is the good guy".....