On 2005-06-20 10:59:00, Stripe wrote:
On 2005-06-20 09:51:00,
I think it's tragically ironic that the programmers who demanded honesty are thoroughly incapable of demonstrating such traits in the REAL world.
Maybe we give them far too much credit for character traits they are simply incapable of possessing or understanding. Maybe we expect too much because our journeys have taught us lessons about this past that the programers could never understand. When life gets difficult, it is much easier to leave the painful things unsaid and unacknowledged. But easy does not equate with right. Hey! That sure is one big-ass white elephant in the room, don't you think?
I agree completely with Stripe. Honesty was a one way streeet at that place, and it was not just staff or higher up's who were allowed to preserve their silence. Many who were held in high regard by those in power were awarded the luxury of silence when it came to personal mistakes that had negatively affected other people in ways that went way beyond any mistakes I was confessing in the group.
It was amazing how we were kept in our place by the same people that were SILENT about their own shortcomings. It was only after being forced to admit or look like a total fool that they coughed up the censored version of, "Well, I haven't been perfect either." Of course, that is better than saying nothing at all when you and the few followers you have left are staring at the same "white elephant" in the same small room.
There is no way that those people (who essentially were strangers as far as I am concerned today) ever took the time to stop talking--to listen--about themselves and got to know me inside. Instead, they knew how to blow their own horns, but ironically, as Stripe said, many of them were incapable of using some of the new agey ideas they professed to :wave: find concrete solutions to their real problems, in the REAL world :wave: . If they had been able to find effective answers that would have solved (as other humnan beings have to solve on a daily basis) the serious issues that were bringing that group to an end (after all, they were as close as "family"). However, they did not have the tools ncessary to really solve real problems as informed, intelligent human beings. They could not function as balanced, independent thinkers that make decisions based on THE TRUTH. Plain and simple, they cannot be HONEST IN THE REAL WORLD--supposedly, THE FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT RULE. The results are individuals, who are skewed in their thinking and refuse to deal with the real problems that they have helped to create.
Many, if not almost all of those people, that I wasted(?) so many years of my life with have little to say beyond a superficial smile because anything beyond that is considered a "problem" that is "better left unsaid." And as far as I am concerened, it is they who needed real help, perhaps real counseling or therapy to learn how to deal with everyday isssues, such as problems in marriages, friendships, relationships, career, etc. Just as I have needed in my life and maybe someday I will find myself in a place where I can benefit from real help. Instead decisions at that place were made based on FEAR, INSECURITY, GREED, and POWER.
By the way, all of these are emotions thast I have felt and acted on many times in my own life, but have had to either confess to in front of a crowded warehouse full of strangers (as Greg put it)or learned to deal with them falling on my face over and over again. But I am no longer afraid of feeling because I realize more than ever that the "happiness" I claimed to feel for all those years was really a numbing of authentic feelings: I forgot what it was to really feel: hurt, loneliness, regret, passion, shame, embarassment, love, selfishness, etc, . . Because I was taught for many years that all of these were inferior to something called "happiness," which looked like a fearful smile plastered on my face, wondering when would be the next time I was going to be told that I was not good enough.
I have no resentments, but I refuse to beleive that there is anything wrong with expecting truth from people, on all sides, regarding a significant period of my life when I was also there for them for a "very long, long ride."
