Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Seed Discussion Forum
Some insight(s)
GregFL:
I think it is important here to point out that John U and John Ft Pierce are two different people.
Great thread! I sure wish John U would come back and talk some more.
I have already learned some things and would like some more dialogue here.
John, your participation here cannot be easy, but please believe me when I tell you it is greatly appreciated by me and everyone else.
Thank you again.
Please find the time and patience to give us some participation and understand that we all wil not agree or get on a staff worship parade here...but nevertheless I am excited as hell at what you can contribute to the people that want and need answers.
John_FtPierce:
The anonymous poster who mistook me (John_FtPierce) for John
Underwood, does have a very important point that I would like to
elaborate on.
... AA NEVER locks you up involuntarily, "come down on you" by your
"peers" and makes you publicly confess to your crimes and sins and ...
Yes, I know a lot about AA, in later life I spent 6 years there too.
Voluntarily. No one made me, I went myself, sought out a meeting and
went.
While AA and NA (narcotics anonymous) puts up with some amount of
people being there due to court orders, I would say that they don't
particularly like it. In my time with AA, people who were there from
the courts never lasted.
The main reason for going to AA is that one has reached their "own
personal low" point in life. I would say that the belief within AA is
that you can not help someone until they reach that point.
I can remember people coming to AA, not having reached that point,
dropping out, and years later returning, to become life long strong
individuals. I remember my "sponsor" talking to me about someone who
had dropped out. Saying, that it was o.k., that they now know whats
at AA and that if they ever really need it, they know AA is there. I
think that is true of the court ordered people too. They come in, see
whats there, drop out. And if they make it in life, great, otherwise
AA is there.
If I had a time machine, and could go back and changed one thing about
the seed, it would be this: people should have only have been there
*voluntarily*. Not forced for any reason, parents, courts, whatever.
I think that the seed in the very earliest of day was like that.
Maybe my experience there was positive because I sensed this. After
being there for a short while, the idea of being forced to do anything
was not part of it for me. I was happy to be there. I still don't
understand myself on this though. I don't think I ever have hit "my
own personal low". I certainly wasn't close to it when I went to the
seed. And later, when I went to AA, I don't think is was even close
then either. I was low then, but not that low. The fact that I don't
have to get that low to know, I attribute to the seed.
Maybe I just see a better life due to my time in the seed. I don't
consciously use the principles, the steps, the moral inventories, any
more. Its more just a part of me now. I do spend a lot of time
thinking about myself, and others. Trying to understand. A guess
that could be construed as a moral inventory, whatever.
I love life these days. Even the bad parts. I don't feel that I've
been to a gulag, brainwashed, or anything else.
I'm one of the freest thinkers I know. Not bound by any of the usual
limitations: religion, prejudice, social pressures. I look anyway I
want, dress anyway I want, keep any friends I want, do anything I want
to.
I don't feel that drugs or drinking is necessarily the problem.
Sometimes they are a symptom, but not the problem. Like my old AA
sponsor would say: "Alcoholism is not a disease of the mind but a
dis-ease of the mind. If you are not at ease with yourself, you
drink." Or smoke dope until you can't feel, or do harder stuff until
you can't feel. I focus on this, not the drugs or alcohol.
Could it be that many of the people who are anti-seed want to do their
drugs? I say, go ahead, do your drugs, drink. If you are at ease
with yourself, it won't be a problem. If you are not at ease, it
probably will become a problem. Drugs and alcohol are not the
problem. Its this other thing, the dis-ease, that is the problem.
I personally think that pot should be legalized. Probably a lot of
other drugs too. I withhold judgment on some, very additive, drugs
like cocaine/crack and crank. These really are just too dangerous.
Heroin is bad news too. I volunteered for many years in soup
kitchens, keeping my finger on the pulse of the street. I saw just
too much badness from crack. Crank is just now starting to hit my
area, but the initial reports from the street are real bad.
And again I would like to apologize to anyone who feels hurt from the
seed. But, please, please, keep posting your feelings and
experiences.
-- John
[ This Message was edited by: John_FtPierce on 2005-08-06 19:30 ]
GregFL:
--- Quote ---On 2005-08-06 18:55:00, John_FtPierce wrote:
If I had a time machine, and could changed one thing about the
seed, it would be this: people should have only have been there
*voluntarily*. Not forced for any reason,
--- End quote ---
Amen to that one John Ft Pierce!
Hey, were you ever on staff?
If so, please start another thread and tell us about it.
Antigen:
John, thanks, I deeply appreciate that. I also want to pile on in thanking and welcoming John U. and to reiterate that I know Art and all the staff's intentions were good. So were those of all the parents, including my own. If anybody's looking for a cackling bad guy somewhere at the root of this, wringing his hands and gloating, you'll never find him, he doesn't exist. It's all about good intentions gone awry.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of it's victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those that torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."--
C.S. Lewis, God In The Dock
The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
--John Gilmour
--- End quote ---
John_FtPierce:
--- Quote ---On 2005-08-06 19:22:00, Antigen wrote:
... and to reiterate that I know Art and all the staff's intentions were good. So were those of all the parents, including my own. If anybody's looking for a cackling bad guy somewhere at the root of this, wringing his hands and gloating, you'll never find him, he doesn't exist. It's all about good intentions gone awry.
--- End quote ---
And Amen to this Antigen!
I don't think any of us are God, we are all falable people. I don't think the seed was perfict. There is no way it could be, it was created by people for people. Yes, there were problems. But I try to look past these human failings.
GregFL, no, I was never staff. Way too young then.
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