Mea Culpa for not engaging in your post earlier Pirate. Life and shit that comes with it has kinda kept me from being able to sit and actually write. Again, my bad...
Because there is soooo much good stuff written here by other respondents, Pirate. I will cut/paste some of the things you said and throw my 2 cents in.
This medium is so flat and two dimensional...because cut/paste reminds me so much of "nit-picking" back in the day I feel awkward...but you I think you P will appreciate and be able to follow...because we are not that un-alike. Anyways, here goes...
>>I will never recover what's already been lost.
Thats a profoundly sad statement...I can not loose that which I have never had...an accountants dream, it all balances to zero. Self depriciation was part of whole gimmic, a nasty lingering effect of what we endured, of what we were taught and of what was expected...Sadly, it worked. It worked in ways unimaginable. A catastrophic event occured, to you Pirate...to me...and many, many, many others. There was a happening where young minds were for ever altered. There is not some void or unexplained lapse of time. Too make matters worse...
>>No-one else, hardly, gets it.
No one gets it...they act befuddled....mention it again and they look at you as if you had three heads. And as if pirched on thier lips they are all too ready to chime....probably deserved it
>>I am still in need of some understanding I can't find.
Yeah, unnerving, but all too true. Recently I saw the Who in Tampa, they played..."The Seeker". Even for myself, who has long given up "the search"...the holy grail of...."being understood" am also haunted by the need to delve into that which I am...I cant deny it really, I all to often tend to procrasitinate. Perhaps I have slowed my efforts and am no where near as animated as I used to be....there is, and I suspect there will always be this feeling of "something aint right"
>>I had to die and be re-born again somehow. First $tr8 destroyed me and then I had to destroy myself. The repercussions continue...
Same with me. We each have our own experience, and our own methods but yeah, I had to destroy myself. I had to get to point when I felt like it was a good day to die. Everything about me was based on lies. Everything about me was a guise, a fascade of false pretenses. A close friend told me that it was enuff just to tell the truth...I asked him how does one just up and tell the truth, he responded...Don't lie. Yes, all of that had to die...I never felt so vulnerable, so naked, so afraid and the moment came that I gave up all hope. The security of what I was, was comfortable....familiar...I knew what to do, how to act, how to carry myself...The freedom I found when that died was horrifying...Yeah, freedom sucks, it's horrible. If in one hand you hold security and in the other you hold freedom....ask some one which they will choose. If they chose Freedom...they are liars. Well....they might choose Freedom...but fact is they WANT security.
>>I'm glad I know what I know, but I feel isolated in my knowledge.
Again, you have a sharp keen mind...like a sword...double edged. To keep safe, and to keep others cared for near and dear safe also...it's best often to be isolated in the knowlege of your own skills and to practice in isolation and silence. Easier said than done...
>>the lingering effects of having been imprisoned and tortured in that cult for 2 years and then being released directly into the world with the expectation that I would be fine. I couldn't function in the world. There was just no way.
Your not alone in this, I also felt the same way. The best I heard it put was by "Sam Kinison" here, in which he stated that he felt the same way...."but I couldnt change a tire on a car"
>>So for nearly a decade afterwards I led the life of a dispossessed wanderer in search of myself.
Another thing we seem to have in common...wandering. I wandered in action, in thought, in relationshits and then I remembered a quote from JRR Tolken in which he said that "All who wander are not lost". I was empowered by that...inspired by that
>>I wouldn't want to be ignorant, but the knowledge I've gained through my own personal experience, I've paid heavily for. I am strong in my understanding but I am also sad and isolated by it.
I believe you...It's a very humbling sentence to read...If you were reading this in a group of people....I would give an AMEN and say TELL UM LIKE IT IS BROTHA!
>>I spent about 12 ta 15 years, from the time I was 16 'til I was about 32, out of and on the fringe of the greater society. I was completely socially unstable.
18 years...It does get a lil blurry
>> there are some long shadows castin the coldness of a long time without light, upon me sometimes. I can't really pretend there are things I don't know...
Run from those shadows...as more and more comes to you and to the forefront of your conciousness...I venture to bet that you will face towards the shadows...but the shadows will never face you. Embrace the fear, its a good day to die.
>>Not sure if I can articulate the subtlety of my thoughts clearly
P.....dude.....if you can do anything, you can articulate your thoughts clearly!!! Subtily....eh
>>Havin finally got out from such a violent and invasive place, I had a nervous breakdown and spent the following decade wanderin around. All my refernces gone. Nothing.
All references GONE....NOTHING.....death. A moment of disillusionment?
>>Thoreau wrote: "Let your life be a friction against the machine" and I would add: and let your friction be subtle, patient and unattached to the end, otherwise the suffering may be to great and perhaps you shouldn't investigate.
Taoist I believe relate to the pervasive nature of water and its willingness to be were it needs to be and is quite happy to sink lower. Myself, I think of my also in terms of water. I see on one side of my banks I have love and on the other I have fear. My waters run deep, my waters run silent. My waters form rapids after which they rest in gentle pools, yet on either side is love, the other fear.
>>What I'm tryin to get across is that I'm not livin in the past.
No...again, I believe you. I do not for a moment believe you are living in your past. Am I not a sum total of my past? Even tho my actions are nothing like they were, even tho my conditions and surroundings are nothing like they were three decades ago...Even tho this is all true...I still hear a sound of chains that lift the garage doors where I work and I cringe like I had heard fingernails clawing down a black board.
I am haunted, I am also damaged goods. I am villian and victim. I am above ground and sucking oxygen...I am a survivor.
Guess what P?
Your a survivor to...
woof
