The Innards of my Mind

Welcome, people. I've decided to write tonight purely for the thought of writing, to release that creators urge in me that's been shelved for a few weeks.

If you know me, then you'll know that I write from the heart, I say what I see, and speak what I mean. One of my biggest plus points for my personality is that it's always straight from my heart to paper.

Listen, I've not been honest with my writing lately. I've done a lot of writing what I think other people want to hear, and not actually what I feel I want to write. My entire mainstream blog is written in a way that satisfies the reader into a false sense of security. Essentially I try to tell them what they want to hear, but with an ever-so slight twist in it as to not give them a big enough shock to cower away and never come back.

The world of mainstream publishing is hard. It's no longer write what you feel, it's more so write what you think people want to hear. I'm kind of done with that I think. The passion that burned inside of me to create a lengthy and detailed post about the innards of my mind has all but gone, and has been replaced by and empty shell of me hating what I write and doing it for the views, and the money.

Well, no more.

Today I'm making a stand and I'll be nestling in at https://neoxian.city on hive as my new blogging home. I'm sick to the back teeth of being frightened of what I can and can't say because I may be cancelled by someone that was offended by something they haven't quite understood, or will never understand. Life is messy. The world in which we live in isn't love and roses, and fluffy pillows, it's fucking hard and it can suck ass if you let it alone to do it's own thing onto you enough. It's time we all fucking pulled up our big boy pants and sucked shit up.

Today I'd like to talk about Introspection and a few other things.

Introspection, when done right can have you huddled up into a ball crying for your mama. No joke. This was me as a big-ass 27 year old man who had chest hair, drank beer by the gallon, and was built like a tank. Not to mention I was six-foot tall. You'd likely see me arm wrestling with my mates down the bar and smacking the waitresses asses as they walked by (I'm trying to pain t a picture, I wasn't really smacking asses). Yet, here was me, huddled up into a ball in the fetal position crying my eyes out like a little baby and whining for my mum.

You see I had just had an earth shattering mind bending revelation. I'd been at my counselling appointment that day and thought deeply about what the woman in front of me had said, and I had came to the conclusion that I was following in my father's footsteps. I was becoming like him.

I'll spare you the boring details but to cut a very long story short I used introspection to make peace with my family. I thought about the way I had interacted with my family, friends, and even intimate relationships to heal old wounds and make positive steps forward. Of course some old wounds were too raw, and some people weren't up for making peace, but those steps were made which helped me move on even if they weren't able to.

Introspection is a killer tool. It can help you in almost any situation by looking at yourself and the way you deal with the situation. I guess you can say that you need to have a strong idea of what the consequences are, and how to manouvre yourself in such situations. Sometimes all it takes is an apology, sometimes it takes longer. But with every situation you've been in your life there's always your part that you've played in it. That can be good, or bad, depending what choices you've made. Sometimes there have only been two very shitty options and zero moral route out. Sometimes you have to just be the bad person in a situation.

The world right now likes to paint this picture of morality and evil. I see it on Facebook. I see it on Medium. I see it everywhere I go on almost every corporation run social media company. Good and evil. Right and wrong.

I'd like to suggest a concept to all of you. I don't believe in good or evil, right and wrong. I'm not an absolutist. I don't believe that people can be bad because of one view that they hold, or a president they support, or even something they've done in the past -- listen, if you go over my life with a fine tooth comb you would probably have enough to never have me show my face publicly again. But yet I expect that's true for all of you. Every one of you. I am no angel, but realistically neither are you.

Of course I believe in incredibly bad decisions, but I don't believe in absolute evil. Even the axe murderer on death row could have had a different life if they were brought up with love and respect in his household -- some of the most incredibly violent people in the world have never had a caring touch from a father or a mother, and to them everyone is out to get them. Your experiences shapes a big part of who you are and the way that you see the world. But there is good and evil in everyone. Everyone has the potential to be the next Mother Theresa, or Genghis Khan, their choice.

Maybe we're searching for validity in the wrong place? When I express opinions on social media of a highly charged nature I feel incredibly shitty afterwards. Mainly because I know that half of the people that read me won't agree with me. I mean I get that, disagreement is the spice of life. But it's the way we go about it you know? One person called me worse than a racist for one opinion that I held yet he knew nothing further about me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not butthurt about this, it's just an observation. People tend to be far more reactionary and far less communicative than we once were. In real life too. You can see people screaming at each other in the streets because of different Political opinions.

I often ponder to myself that people no longer validate each other in the real world. Where once we'd sit in a group of people and laugh and read under an open fire it's now been swapped for a computer screen and the emptiness of our homes? I can't help but wonder if there's an absence in all of us that is there now because of screens and devices. I've heard people (including myself) state that we're more connected than ever. The internet has taken down country walls for communication, hell, even Barriers within our own country.

But hell, we're definitely lonely.

I'm no biologist but I know that when in the presence of someone that we enjoy being with our bodies give off a scent as does theirs. It's all unconscious of course, they're not actually going, "smeeeelll me matey!" although some of my friends do do that when they've just guffed. But the point being is that the human body is conditioned to be in the presence of one or more other people that you enjoy being with. We are a communal species. We weren't meant to be alone. And friends validate each other when in the presence of each other.

So now that we no longer go out to visit friends regularly we seem to compensate by sitting on our online echo chambers talking about whatever Facebook or the likes is wanting us to talk about -- and make no mistake they are controlling the discussion. If they didn't want to be talking about what's current right now the topic would be suppressed so no-one could see it. If you think it's all done fairly and not gerry-mandered then you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

And no-one introspects. I find it increasingly alarming that everyone is just happy to discuss whatever is being discussed with no thought as to why it has to be discussed or what it's purpose anyway. Worse yet people don't seem to understand cause and effect. I've seen really good people in the past lose me as a friend because they just couldn't stop provoking me, then once I've deleted them, they get upset about it.

I often wonder if that lack of reasoning and understanding of cause and effect (like me deleting a friend because of provocation) could have something to do believing that they are the beholder of truth. That they have the moral high ground and are superior in every way. Kind of like when the Catholic Churches were under attack by Norse theology and both thought they were better than the other with zero evidence apart from a strong unwavering belief.

I see that a lot. People unwilling to introspect because they believe they are the arbitrators of truth. They know it, and will defend it to the last hilt -- this goes for everyone on every side possible. And yet it allows them to do some pretty shitty things to one another, because of course, they are moralistically superior and the other side are heathens that need destroyed.

But the matter of the whole situation is that one thing I know is true, and that is to get someone to relent you have to have some empathy for the other side of the argument. You have to understand where they are coming from. You have to try and walk a mile in their shoes to get a full understanding of the gravity of the situation -- and only then, do you have something to talk about with each other.

I feel we're loosing a pivotal part of the human species -- communication. You'd probably shit at how many people enjoy that I just listen to them. Because no-one listens. No-one does. Everyone trying to say their thing, clambering over one another to be heard, but not listening to what has been said. Because no-one is listening to them. But they aren't listening either.

First time I felt was actually listened to I was 27. I was going into charity work and the woman that was taking me on as a volunteer (I guess you could say client) sat with me for over an hour and just listened to my story. Like no joke, listened to everything, didn't say anything about her, just.. listened. I cried at the end. Real hearty sobs. I'd been listened to for the first time in my life. From then on I wanted to give that powerful experience to as many of my friends as I could.

In my mind you don't change the world by telling people how to be, act, and speak. You change the world by helping, listening, and doing.

Anyway. Done for today. I'm off to watch some Netflix.

Posted via neoxian.city | The City of Neoxian