So I know I have posted on this forum in the past, and have been difficult to say the least (and most charitable). Making enemies and drawing ire.
I think I have this strange addiction to being in pain. People on here may have mentioned that I don’t want to get better and I think they might be right about that. I noticed that whenever my “new disaster” is solved I find something wrong somewhere else or linger back again on previous disasters. IT’s like I don’t want to be free of these things, I want to be miserable. Because I equate being miserable with being right and seeing the truth, when as I have been told it’s anything but. I even push people away who try to get close, thinking being alone is somehow stronger or that I am fundamentally unloveable deep down.
I blamed everyone else for “not getting it” but in the end I guess I was lying to myself. I clung to nihilism out of convenience rather than sincerity. I projected my failing onto others, but it was I who didn’t “Get it”. Never did. Everyone else saw it but me. I don’t know what to do to break the cycle, the fact that I am talking about it means a part of me doesn’t want this anymore. But I know not what to do.
I suggest finding a good therapist and talk to them. You may even need medication and if you do the therapist will refer you to your doctor or a psychiatrist. If finances are an issue, there are programs and even clinics that can help people get the help they need.
It’s just that it got wormed into my brain that to know the truth about things is to have your heart broken and that ignorance is bliss and that the more you know the more miserable you are. I guess on some level I stayed miserable as an excuse to say I was smart, but really it’s more of an act to convince myself than anything. I had an identity invested in knowing things and being smart and when I got older and found there was more and more things I didn’t know it shook me. Even more so when I didn’t understand them, I tried reading philosophy but couldn’t make heads or tails of it all. But I guess my brief dip into conspiracy theories made me nervous about the establishment, like what they could be hiding (I know there are official records of what the CIA did and all but that’s not really what I mean). Sites like this one and this page:Charles Manson: as a prophet and a shaman - Spirituality & Mysticism - Shroomery Message Board
They got me questioning things I took for granted. How culture restricts our self expression or how society can restrict us, at least according to them and I get sucked in my lengthy paragraphs with “details” (like the one in the link) and believe them to be true. I got terrified that I was imprisoned and could not escape and felt compelled to listen to them because they weren’t the mainstream and I wanted to be free and to see the truth. I’ve been practically all over the place trying to find what is correct and true and absolute so I can stabilize myself and move on. But the more I read the less certain I am and it scares me. I cling to things before because admitting they were wrong is like having the world pulled up from under me. Maybe that’s why I hate LGBT stuff, because it’s not how things “ought to be” (even though they always were and just never mentioned). I just want there to be one path, one truth, the way things should and ought to be. But it doesn’t seem like there is one, and this “personal truth” and views, I am not sure I can handle that well.
I’ve lived my life with the identity of being right, smart, and seeing clear, without that what else is there? Where do I go and how do I know?
I guess I don’t want to be wrong because then that means things have to change or I lose power and ability and that is scary.
Every time I read something new now I can’t be sure if it’s right or not or how to evaluate it because I don’t know enough and if I did how do I know the information is correct? Like in the link, is he right that those are all lies or is he mistaken? From the length it looks like it’s true but I don’t know. Or with Solipsism, how do I know it’s false? I can’t prove it true but does that make it false? If it can’t be definitively shown to be false then could it be true? What if it is?
There’s too much I don’t know or understand and I can’t deal with it all.
Xain, imagine that the many who’ve reached out to you with their own stories - have at one time or other faced your dilemma and chosen sanity and life when they hit that ultimate fork in the proverbial road, that keeps pricking at you.
Where is your philosophy getting you, anguish that immobilizes you to the point that you are worthless to those around and to yourself, you’re left with entertaining notions that perhaps suicide is better than the insanity enveloping your human spirit.
And what’s causing your struggle with your nihilism demons?
I’ll suggest that it’s the spirit which inhabits your body and wants to live to the best of its potentials, not matter what! Despite all the shit your endless reading and mindscape can conjure up about the hopelessness of living, your body, your material you, the you that matters, says to hell with that, I’m here and I want to live.
It’s rare in life to find someone who disagrees with you on important issues, but continues to associate with you. Forums are a good place for that because it’s harder to push someone away, it’s you who gets to decide to keep coming back. Unless of course you are a total troll who can’t live with basic standards of decency, but that’s not a problem with you, you’re a decent person. Your family is usually where you will find these relationships, the people who have seen you at your worst, but forgive you and grow with you. So, I feel lucky to have the relationships I’ve found here.
You might have heard the saying, it’s not failing that defines you, it’s how you deal with failure. So, all these questions about changing your mind and getting things wrong, instead, focus on what you’ve learned, not how you were wrong. I certainly wouldn’t want people seeing things I wrote 30 years ago. I still struggle with figuring out new ideas too. When I first read a book that talked about Spinoza, I went around saying I’m a Spinoza-ist. Then I actually read Spinoza and put it down after 3 chapters, it was a bunch of “first cause” stuff. Recently, I’ve seen some new things, some of them I’ve posted here, and I’m seeing how he fits in to the long chain of how we all relate to each other.
If I have a point, I hope I do, it’s something like this
I don’t know. being wrong and having to unravel what I grew up with and pretty much built my life on is terrifying. I don’t know what to do next. The site that challenged me the most was the one for the Shroomery, their philosophy section (and to an extent the manson page). Do I know they are lies? I don’t think so, but I am utterly terrified to be wrong. Looking him up I saw how terrible his childhood was, and now I’m not sure if feeling bad for him is right or wrong, if the monster label is entirely true (for if we are shaped by our past then it’s not entirely him). I know that no one is born evil, this is reality not some cartoon and I have to wonder what happened to someone to lead to this. Publicly I don’t think it’s right to say such things, it’s easier to say monster rather than look at why so it doesn’t happen again.
Their other point was culture, how much if conditions and impacts us and limits us, and to me that sounded like brainwashing and I instantly grew terrified that my thoughts and life were not my own. I still don’t know the extent that it is. I mean there are some things about the culture we live in that I don’t understand. I don’t get football, where guys maim each other while we watch. Or why restaurants and grocery stores toss away perfectly good food instant of giving it to the staff. Some things in our world make me question the sanity of folks, and my own for having been a part of it. As a kid I thoughtlessly followed, even celebrated war with other countries. Then I learned what war is like, that there isn’t truly a “side”, and why we can’t just talk. I can’t fathom now what would bring a person to kill another, yet a while ago they were just another enemy to kill. I guess that’s why their view on that forum is so attractive, it mirrors a few parts of me and it’s quite different then most things I hear.
Though I still have the bad habit of thinking sages speaking in such vaunted manners are correct (likely as a result of my childhood where these secluded eastern sages were portrayed to be cryptic and all knowing). I also fall prey to personal experience, thinking that because someone changed or felt a profoundness that there is some truth to things. I recognize on some logical level that my “reasoning” is horrible, but I can’t stop it. As though denying or correcting it simply reinforces it that much more.
I don’t know how to reconcile all this new data, or even if the framework I grew with is or ever was valid. I’m not sure about a career because I don’t want to as Alan Watts put it “doing what I hate to just go on living to do what I hate”. I wanted to go into art as a kid, all I ever did was draw. But that’s not a REAL career so I left it.
Sorry this is so long. But I guess I am just done. Done with pretending I know when I don’t, because the old ways don’t work anymore. I can’t be the kid in middle school or high where knowing simple facts about the world passed for smart. I can’t, or more like WON’T, pretend anymore. I’m just tired of that.
Also my relationship with my parents is…complicated now. They are fairly traditional, especially my mom, so trying to talk with them about these things is next to useless as I just get the “usual” repeated to me, even though most of it is inaccurate. My mom practices shamanism and it’s hard to explain to her that some of the universe gift she thinks happens are just rationalizing after the fact because it worked out. But that’s neither here nor there. I’ll spare you guys the history lesson on that part.
At some point I lost the love I had for them. I asked my self if I really loved them, or only did that because that’s what I am supposed to do, because children love their parents. I talked to my therapist about it and he said there was nothing wrong with that and it made me feel a little better. Though it is hard to sort of “act” it out and I won’t tell my mom that because I know it will just do more harm than good. I’m glad I don’t have to force feelings that aren’t there, but at the same time I don’t want to bring harm by being honest.
Admitting the issue to yourself is the first step in changing, always. As long as you always make an effort to be honest with yourself and lever allow yourself to fool yourself again you’re on your way to change, though it can take many years. As Mriana suggested, professional help would speed the process and lessen the pain involved.
Nobody knows everything. It is simply not possible. The irony of your situation is that in pretending to know things you did not you were actually rejecting real knowledge. Having true knowledge always means accepting that there are things you do not know.
Your situation sounds a lot like what I went through after leaving my fundamentalist church in my youth. I went from having it all figured out to not even knowing what I didn’t know. It was very traumatic. It took me about 10 years to even realize what I had gone through and truly heal from it. Counseling would have helped a lot because I didn’t understand what I was going through or why. I was certain that Satan and Hell did not exist, but still terrified of Satan and Hell, to name just one thing wrong with my head at the time. I went from a place of importance within my church, the kid with the most “faith”, to the weirdo outside of my church, as that faith had made me to the outside world. It is terrifying to lose your place in your life and have to find a new one. This is especially true when you think you’re truly happy in your place. Of course I was happy, those with faith are always happy. That’s what I thought. But I am much happier now. I didn’t allow myself to realize how unhappy and constantly terrified I was.
Whatever makes you happy, that’s what you should do. Do you want to feel smart or be smart? Being smart means accepting there there are things you will never understand. You aren’t going to master everything. You aren’t going to know about everything. And the truly wise person understands this. That is why science stops at theory, never claiming absolute fact. Maybe philosophy isn’t for you. Maybe you find it boring and confusing. But there’s always something you can learn about. Just look to the things that actually interest you because those are the things you’ll be more likely to pick up. Find something real that you enjoy and learn that. And never forget that when you’re simply pretending to know something you’re only interesting to other people who are also pretending to know that thing. Regular people tend not to think very highly of the conspiracy theorist.
