perception

Rant on the improper application of psychological principles to every day life

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Codependency is bandied about as if were a bad thing. And, in a culture where being independent is prized, it may be seen by the society at large to be a bad thing. But is it truly? We are pack animals and I use pack deliberately. We have pack dynamics which are nuanced rather than herd dynamics which have a tendency to take all cues from a single leader. As pack, we are dependent on each other for safety, for health, for joy, for love. That humanity forms its own packs rather than relying solely on extended family is different but not unique.

So back to codependentcy. We see it as bad because we have this notion that we stand alone and standing alone is strength. It’s one of those siren call lies. We want to be enough for all things but that is neither rational nor healthy. Codependentcy is only a bad thing when it subsumes your one personality supplanting it with the hopes and dreams of the other. In other words, when the behavior travels into psycopathy.

And that’s where media fails us. Because, in search of a quick engagement, we are told quick and unnuanced information. Like, codependence is bad. Video games, bad. Movies, bad. Etc, etc…
But what they fail to say is that these things are only bad when they have a negative impact on your well-being.

So obsessed with social media that it negatively effects your self image? Bad.
Going on Instagram to see pictures of puppies? Not bad.

Play that mmo until you fall into a coma? Bad.
Go on a weekly raid with your guild? Not bad.

So codependent that your personality is subsumed by the will of your partner? Bad
Being with a partner whose strengths compliment yours and whose love reflects your own? Not bad

This notion that depending on someone or liking something is a bad thing is all situation dependent. And to what extreme you are experiencing that thing. And the fact that we are made to feel guilty or made to feel as if we need to justify our choices because of the improper application of psychology is galling.

A world writ small

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In the land of spiders there are 3 gods.

The elder who ignores our presence unless his divine eyes finds us in the world. Then, he smites us with fury. Often leaving us for dead while we crawl crippled from the field to die quietly in the hidden web we dared from. If you are quick, if you are stealthy you may pass him by and find the darkness of the dormant fire pit or the loud warm corner where you may feast. Where you may live your days without sorrow.

His is a land of harsh truth coupled with blind anger. Be wary and quick.

The next is the Youngling. Named spider friend whose domain is filled with untouched nooks and crannies. He welcomes and speaks in the tongue of the gods, which we know not. We can feel his benevolence but be warned. If you ascend into his spaces, while he will attempt to move you from that place without harm, still he is a god. And when gods intervene, often we die. Though he may attempt to save, his will is so much greater than our own. And we will quail back, into the danger he attempts to save us from or he may fail and we are crushed under the harsh weight of kindness. And while his spaces are safe, be warned. His are not the only legs which walk there.

This brings us to the Doom. The elder queen who breaks us. Whose baleful sight heralds our death. Whose poison spreads to our food and who kills us in turn. She destroys our webs. Destroys our bodies. Destroys our clutches. She is Death and the doom of worlds. The younger will attempt to intercede, and you must be quick like the harsh wind, for she is the stronger and he will fail. But with that bit of time we may still live.

Thus are the gods of Death, Time, and Nature. Their domain is one of shelter but of the truth of cruelty in the world. Nature nourishes and aids, but it is at times destruction. Time kills slowly but often on swift wings. And Death waits above all, a force without reason or mercy.

The gap grows in our manic grins

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Imagination and hope seem to be the two ways we hurt ourselves the most. We live in some future world where the daily struggle to be alive, to exist, is easy. So we miss what might be in the moment. What opportunity exists right now. But still, that escape of hope is vital. Self delusion is necessary. Without it, we would not be able to function in the corrupt and fucked up world where we are a step away. A mistake away from disappearance. From falling out of the daily beating of ‘normal’ life and into the shadow world where broken people and fractured society walk.

The consequences of failure are so high for most of us that we don’t, can’t, take the necessary risks to get beyond the cliff edge. We depend on hope. On lotteries and sweepstakes and the hope that maybe we can live without being afraid.

This is the consequences of not just late stage capitalism but of a society that believes that anyone can be rich if they work hard enough. And so make sure that the rich don’t have to live in the same world as the rest of us. Because we aspire to be there one day and we don’t want to have our funds taken when we do.

But that’s poor people, honest people, thinking. The thought that a seventy percent tax rate means that they actually pay seventy percent the same way we look at our paychecks and wonder where all the money goes. They don’t. They have access to all the tax dodges and schemes which allow them to pay in the zero to ten percent range. So that’s what they pay. And those dodges are legal. Because they’ve convinced us that them paying less means that somewhere, somehow we will get paid more.

Maybe in the past wealth built things. Roads and schools and infrastructure. A thin cynical maybe. But now, wealth only builds more wealth. And companies do not pass record profits on to their employees. They pass them on to their stockholders. Which isn’t us, because we can’t afford to play in their arena. And even if we tried, that extra ten dollars a year isn’t going to change our life. And neither is the extra ten grand that tax cuts profit them going to make a difference, if they even notice.

So, why do we keep doing this? Because we hope. Because we secretly aspire to be there “one day”. And we think ten thousand is alot and we would love to have that money. But we are not them. And we never will be. The system is gated. And even if you squeeze through the bars, somehow…and become the wealthy. You do so leaving behind the millions of people who weren’t lucky enough to have the opportunity, the twin composition of chance and foresight, to squeeze through before you close the loophole behind you.

Other capitalist countries don’t have our problems. Because they have societies which are not built on iconoclastic single points. Which aren’t built on the idea that anyone can be rich. And while that thought structure is useful, it is also harmful. And we are seeing first hand exactly how harmful it is when protections are stripped away in an effort to protect their wealth. Rather than protect the rest of us from their casual predation.

Evolution by jerks

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How can blindness be a choice? To disregard reality in favor of the half truth happy and defend that position. Never seeing others experiences, never seeing others. Living in that echo chamber. Fed scraps of food coated and spun into full meals. Mostly consisting of false nutritional content. Selective memory of the shining past. Like it was a wonder of enlightenment instead of the brutish truth.

We are flawed liars. Picking only those truth which most suit our narrative. Resisting any deviation from the TRUTH. As if truth did not slither and shift as new facts are gained. As if, from minute to minute, reality itself didn’t change.

People quote, “The only constant is change,” while forcing their eyes closed and covering their ears.
And when confronted with a different opinion, stamp their feet and throw a tantrum.

A world full of people unwilling to see. Unwilling to hear. Unless forced to. How do we survive our own willful ignorance? I’m not sure that we will.

Sight of the heart vs physical reality

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Sometimes, I am startled by the person I am looking at. Not because they’ve done anything different. No. It’s because I am seeing the physical them. And for a few minutes, I am thrown. Seeing the pure physical aesthetic of someone. Because that is not what my mind is normally showing me.

Normally, I am seeing them as my heart sees them. And yes that is physically different from what just my eyes see. My mind makes a subconscious interpretive choice. It shows me them as it sees them. As years and emotional weight defines them.

It’s like being thrown from a moving car and finding yourself on a movie set. If you are completely in character, there is a moment of frission as your mind sees both realities.

If I say I love you…

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It is not worship. It is not idealization.
I see every person in reality as a human first. Flawed, with a set of base states. I start from flawed and build my picture of you from there.

I see you. I see your strengths. I see your weaknesses. I see your pain. I see your past. I see your desires. I see your needs. I see your hopes. I see it all. I want it all.

It is not idealization. It is acceptance. It is not worship. It is love(loyalty, respect, honor, joy, hope, elevation, desire).

Wine or whiskey 

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If hope were wine then I’d be drunk half the time, but despair is just as kind as wine but with whiskey instead. 

 Caught betwixt hope and despair, in desire, only for you. 

I drink deeply of water and watch my twin demons of hope and despair stagger about. But time is passing without touch or word, and while my mind sits above the fray and understands the why, my heart sits near, in ache and missing you. My heart it yearns, it needs, it desires. Always moving closer to you. My head wants the same but knows why that is not happening, yet.