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I Can Handle The Truth

Since we came to this Earth we are taught.
Regulated through reward and punishment to do what others want.
We are labeled, placed in boxes, and objectified by our actions or looks based on accepted generalities society invented.
We must live with the fear of disapproval all our lives.
For we must meet the standards we were born into to be deemed worthy of acceptance.
If something has to exist first before it can ask for anything, then nothing asked to exist, since existing precedes asking.
So what is this “free will” people talk about?
I didn’t choose to exist, nor my body, mind, instincts, and what the world contains- from which I can work with but was simply born into it without prior investigation.
Love? What is that?
Attachment to a person, place, thing, or idea that pleases my sense of sight, smell, taste, hearing, or feeling?
Are we not just in love with ourselves since there’s no way to escape going after what we desire?
Self-preservation, selfishness is precisely what enables us to live because if we were selfless 100% and gave it all away we would be dead.
The fear of painful consequences whether physical, emotional, or social lies at the heart of the man-made concept of marriage and monogamy.
Contradict them and you’re left alone or worse.
Humans.
We are all possessive, controlling, self-seeking beasts without control of our instinctual nature we had no choice over in the first place.
We are just told what to do.
To listen. We want. We tell and are told what to do or what we “should” do to “grow”.
All leading where?
The inescapable trap of our flesh and being.
When ALL there is to life is seeking our form of pleasure and evading our form of pain.
But through distraction we lessen the sting.
Ideally it is better to be alone, to not hurt others or be hurt, as the top part of the rose deceives others of its thorns.
But then monotony hits and we seek to use or be used.
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TheEldersnout · 31-35, F
[c=#666666]Hi. Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed reading this. :)
Do you want to discuss some of your opinions/ideas, or would that be intruding? A few lines did strike my eagle-eye. 😁[/c]
@TheEldersnout Thank you for your good example. I’m probably going to copy this. Would you mind?
Specialyouare · 31-35, F
I would deem it an honor for this to go viral. I think people would feel relieved to know how reality really presents itself to be 😊
Specialyouare · 31-35, F
@TheEldersnout I love discussing ideas very much! 😊
TheEldersnout · 31-35, F
[c=#666666]@Mamapolo2016 It's very kind of you to notice that I put thought into being polite! :) Please feel free to do so. 😄👍[/c]
@TheEldersnout Thank you. Never too old to learn. Never too young to think.
TheEldersnout · 31-35, F
[c=#666666]@Specialyouare Awesome! Well you said that we must live with the fear of disapproval all our lives. I feel like that is untrue, or [i]can[/i] be so if one wants it to. At one hand; say we're going for a certain job, we might have certain standards to live up to as well, associated with that job, in terms of how we present ourselves.
On the other hand, I don't agree with the fact that we have to [i]fear[/i] disapproval. I realize that most of us do so, but I look at fear as a prison of the mind in which we place ourselves. Whether we fear the disapproval of others or not, the fear itself won't change their opinions. As it changes nothing, I don't think that we [i]have[/i] to fear. I think one can learn to free oneself, by learning how to accept disapproval. What do you think about that?
I also thought about this line:
"Ideally it is better to be alone, to not hurt others or be hurt, as the top part of the rose deceives others of its thorns." I went to look up the definition of the word "ideally", because I believe so strongly in idea that we need others to relate to, and to relate to us in return, throughout life, on an intimate level. I think that might as well be a good friend, as a romantic partner, but when we open ourselves up to the point where we feel vulnerable, we take the chance to get hurt, and in my understanding that is what creates intimacy.
I am someone who has spend most of my life friendless and alone by choice (or from fear?), yet I am here, discussing ideas with a person whom I hardly know. :) I think if a person never takes the chance to get hurt or hurt others, the person's life will be dysfunctional in terms of what we, humans, need?

I know, I'm just picking a few sentences out of a context here, and I do like the overall context and the point of your writing. It's pretty cool. 👌[/c]
@TheEldersnout Do you know, in all my years, a small part of which I spent thinking, I never thought this particular thought in just this way:

[quote]when we open ourselves up to the point where we feel vulnerable, we take the chance to get hurt, and in my understanding that is what creates intimacy.[/quote]

That is profound. By acknowledging that you have the power to hurt me, and then having the courage and enough longing to truly connect with another human being, I put down my weapons and my armor and expose my spiritual throat without knowing whether you will slice it open with carelessness or intent, now or later. I can, in fact, [b]never[/b] be absolutely sure, but this tearing of the veil between me and the one I love is valuable enough to me to take the risk.

Wow.
TheEldersnout · 31-35, F
[c=#666666]@Mamapolo2016

[quote]By acknowledging that you have the power to hurt me, and then having the courage and enough longing to truly connect with another human being, I put down my weapons and my armor and expose my spiritual throat without knowing whether you will slice it open with carelessness or intent, now or later. I can, in fact, [b]never[/b] be absolutely sure, but this tearing of the veil between me and the one I love is valuable enough to me to take the risk.[/quote]

Show-off...

I am kidding of course. 😄

I've spend a lot of my years thinking, most often quite pointlessly, yet relentlessly. A habit which I'm trying to get rid of by the way. I take your wording as a compliment. 💚
Value and risk... I feel sure that there must be poems about the two; when is something of value enough to take a risk for, and how high is the risk? I do believe that if the risk is emotional, and the value matters, one shall always apply for it. Coming back to the old saying: "In the end, we only regret the chances which we didn't take." I honestly don't know the original quote or where it stems from.

To me it is quite... liberating, in fact... to hear someone with the amount of life-experience that you have, coming forward in a discussion like this. [/c]
@TheEldersnout I am immensely glad you took it as a compliment, for that is how it was intended.

I like Rudyard Kipling’s “If.”
Do you know it?

“If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same...”

I recommend “If.”

I also like: “Do you like Kipling?” Ans: “I don’t know. I’ve never kipled.”
TheEldersnout · 31-35, F
[c=#666666]@Mamapolo2016 I did not know it. I experienced the hairs on my neck rising, reading it just now. [i][b]Very strong.[/b][/i] Thank you.

[quote]“Do you like Kipling?” And: “I don’t know. I’ve never kipled.”[/quote]

I searched, and found this:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/02/like-kipling/
https://ilmk.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/i-dont-know-ive-never-kippled/

I am unsure whether I am looking for quotes, articles? Excuse my ignorance please. 😅[/c]
@TheEldersnout I should’ve explained. The ‘do you like Kipling?’ Is an old joke.
TheEldersnout · 31-35, F
[c=#666666]@Mamapolo2016 That was pretty much what I got from my search results, but ugh:

[quote]We must live with the fear of disapproval all our lives.[/quote]

😅

JK (with a gran of personal truth)

I definitely feel sparkled to look more into his character, and perhaps other poems of his, after the one which you showed me. 👌[/c]
@TheEldersnout You already know him. His work is so well known, he got lost in the shuffle. Jungle Book. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

[image=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling_bibliography#Books]
TheEldersnout · 31-35, F
[c=#666666]@Mamapolo2016 I see. Wow. Never knew. Thank you for enlightening me. Would you feel opposed to me adding you as a friend here on SW, to see your posts, and perhaps sometimes answer to those? I find both your character and taste very interesting! 😊[/c]
@TheEldersnout I already added you. So no, I’m not in the least opposed.
Specialyouare · 31-35, F
@TheEldersnout Yes you are correct that people will disapprove and our personal feelings about it only affect us. If one has the ability to not feel “fear” but maybe feel excited to explore new situations, new challenges that is ideal. I mean, my personal goal is to stop fearing the disapproval of others.

But in real life not measuring up to standards has consequences, that is what I meant by “we must live with the fear of disapproval all our lives”.

I admire people that can have intimacy like that. I don’t know if I’m just a misfit, but I find if I am not pleasing, productive (useful), and harmless no one cares or in fact they yell and want to do away with me. I laugh and have fun encounters but I just can’t get close, realizing these conditions of which I myself place on others for safety and survival makes me never fully trust anyone. I always figure no one has the capacity to care about me like I can care about myself.
TheEldersnout · 31-35, F
[c=#666666]@Specialyouare Well, I don't disapprove of you, reading your heartfelt emotions.
I avoid people for the most part. I don't fear their disapproval, but it is few people whom I find interesting talking with.

Well, talk to me as a friend maybe? I do have very few people in my life, and a lot of emotional capacity, within my heart. I don't like it when people can never talk about anything else than themselves. I understand a large ego, but also expect like-wise curiosity and compassion in return.[/c]