As I progress through this life and continue to learn, the realization of how little I truly know, or will ever know, is a thought/understanding that always remains present. Some may call this wisdom, while others may call it a concept. A similar adage comes from a quote by Socrates:
"All I know is that I know nothing."
Contestable perhaps to some, for me it's rather true.
@akiroqI've always been someone who loves psychology, and I've always been someone who loves philosophy. This amalgamation doesn't make for a great psychologist or a great philosopher in my opinion, because for the psychologist to be a good one, (from an academic standpoint) certain definitive truths must be adhered to, and for the good philosopher, open ended pondering's of "what if" will be taken to his or her death bed.
In a recent short story I wrote about Paul's life, a glimpse into futuremind's (Jacob's) life can be seen. The story of Paul is actually a true one, with one exception to Paul's parents being the loving concerned/caring types. This is actually just a fantasy in Paul's mind of what he wished his parents would have been like. In reality, Paul was a victim of childhood abuse. Everything else present is the true life of Paul/Jacob.
Why did I choose to refer to myself as Paul instead of my own name? For two reasons. One, it's easier to re-visit these critical areas of development during my life if I view myself as someone else, and two, I was curious if anyone would make the connection that I was writing a story about my own life. It's evident that some did.
When I was going through these early development stages in life, most of the time in a tumultuous/volatile environment I would often ponder things in the way a philosopher might, as to "Why things were/are the way they were/are." I would also try to put myself in the mind of my abusers. I truly wanted to understand how/why they felt this treatment towards helpless victims was ok. In all respects, one of my parents was also a victim, but it is hard for me to not see this as co-abuse when she had a responsibility to protect the children she brought into this world. At what point does "I'm too afraid to leave" become a bullshit excuse when 6 children have been punching bags and subjects of various forms of psychological torture to the whims of the person you should be protecting them from? That is another topic entirely though.
I often read about the cycle of abuse, and how morals and values are learned behaviors/concepts that start early in life. This wasn't the case for me. I damn sure knew what I was going through was wrong, very early in life. I think it started with watching The Brady Bunch on the old analog rabbit ear antenna wielding television that we had. Maybe 3 channels were able to be viewed, and you had your pick of news, public broadcast station, or re-runs of television shows from the 60s and 70s at any given time.
Now of course we know The Brady Bunch is not a realistic representation of what a gigantic family will likely function as, but it sure got my young brain thinking. I would watch other children in school, how they behaved, what they said about their family life, ect. I was able to figure out which children were victims of abuse, and which children lived healthy home lives. This was all a deduction of certain variables/patterns I was able to pick up on and they didn't need to tell me of course. I could just tell, I just knew.
Nothing we did as a family could be considered healthy. Dinners were not spent at the table together, we were grounded for entire summer vacations at times because of a paranoid schizophrenics belief that 7 year old children were conspiring against him, (I wonder what fueled those thoughts..) we wore long sleeve shirts 365 days a year to hide bruises, and the perceptive school counselors never suspected a thing.
Yet somehow, during this hell I captured some of my fondest memories in life. Yes indeed, and this rings true later in life during extreme hardships as well.
You see Paul had no other choice but to detach by way of immersification. This is why Paul was building ham radios by 6th grade, and this is why Paul could play Jimi Hendrix Experience note for note by high school. It was the only way Paul could escape what he was going through. School was a break from the hell, and oftentimes Paul would end up in detention for sleeping through class.
Paul would come home from school and go to his bedroom and start either deciphering electrical schematics, or playing guitar if the conditions were right. As long as Paul wasn't being beaten or tortured in some way, Paul would drown out his siblings and mothers torture through this method.
This taught Paul to become a critical thinker very young in life, and you bet that those memories of successfully completing the construction of a working ham radio or completion of a Hendrix song were some of the best moments I've ever experienced in life.
Isn't that something?
To me it speaks volumes for human adaptability and "living in the moment", and the mind loves to pick the best moments to hone in on when re-visiting a memory.
Paul had all these expectations put on him as a child, and Paul was not able to function properly as a result of the home life. The true depiction of Paul's father wasn't him bitching at mother, it was Paul literally eating his report cards and being forced to hand write useless "I will study more" lines thousands of times until Paul's father was satisfied that Paul would live up to his standards. It never worked of course, because Paul really was only interested in escape, and things which fueled his creative desires.
But again, thinking about these moments is also kind of useless. Thinking about the implications of these moments is also rather useless, because nothing changes, nothing will ever change, and that is why I like to focus on the good that it did for me.
Would I have learned to play guitar and become good at it had it not been for these conditions?
Would I have grown to be the man today that I am? A man who adheres to principles such as "respect towards others", "giving people the benefit of the doubt in a world where so many choose lack of trust", "helping homeless and less fortunate instead of turning a blind eye", "choosing to help in moments of disaster and not turning the other way because it would be easier", ect?
Or is it possible that I would have grown to be what I dislike today?
This is where the philosophical mind comes into play. The philosophies that I had to ponder as a compassionate kid who couldn't understand how humans could hurt other humans and have no sense of guilt for such behavior.
Would I have become a good people reader if not for that experience? During my search for answers, learning to read people was a must. The need to spot dangerous people, the need to understand psychology, these were intrinsic to helping me answer some of the philosophical questions I had been asking myself early in life.
The conclusion that I have come to, is there is no clear cut answer for these things.
Human nature is truly a mystery, and each and every single one of us are indeed unique. We may share similar traits sure, but no two people think exactly alike, and even taught/learned behaviors/morals will never be a perfect copy of the source.
Everything perceived by our senses is information in the form of vibrational energy. We process this information with our very limited biology and make sense of it. We make sense of it in a way that is "comfortable/agreeable" to ourselves and/or collectively. We turn to science of course to help fill the gaps, and science is very much lacking in many respects. Whenever we find the answer to one scientific question, another arises, and another and another. We never get to a conclusion. Science in and of itself is agreeable constructs, and by agreeable in this sense, I mean it is something that we have created and all agree is real. That is daunting af if you think about it..
This brings me to the end of this talk on psychology/philosophy.
It's actually kind of difficult to end it, because I could go on and on with this, and I guess what I am really talking about here is the meaning of life.
Day to day we are caught up in the rat race, thinking of ways to survive and gain advantage in a system that is kind of psychopathic. It is indeed psychopathic, built to divide and conquer the masses through a slavery based system, whether you agree or not, that really isn't going to influence how I feel about it when I see so much suffering in the world.
My inability to function in a way which is agreeable to the constructs of our system is likely leading to homelessness once again.
In the next 45 days or so I might not be able to blog as often. I might be out there with the masses of other homeless individuals if a miracle doesn't happen. This due to me trying to advocate for myself and just not functioning well in the environment I'm in currently.
My addiction to Steem has been a nice escape during this time, and has also been a way for me to avoid certain things. It's a reality I must face, and my friends I am not afraid, for the gift that a life of hardship has given me is the understanding of one very important thing, and that thing is:
There is no telling what tomorrow will bring, in fact there is no tomorrow, there is only this moment we have, and you either stand for something, or you stand for nothing at all.
A quote from one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption, spoken by Tim Robbins:
"Get busy living, or get busy dying." -Andy Dufresne
Much love,
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