Skeptic Spirit

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Take care of yourself.

Not because nobody else will, but because nobody else can tell you exactly what you need. If you are going through rough times right now, you may get well meant advice saying: “You’ll get through this!” But this voice must come from you, deep inside. Hearing the words is not the same as feeling them, and you must feel them.

You have the strength to carry on, when you allow yourself to feel it.

Perhaps reality is the sum of our illusions?

For a long, long time I’ve been trying to focus on seeing things ‘as they are’, getting behind my own perception of things in order to get to some kind of ‘truth’. But right now I’m not so sure if I’m going about it the right way. Which, by the way, is a bit of a paradox, since this insecurity is leaving me to use the very same method I am questioning, in order to get an answer…

What I’m thinking is, perhaps there is no such thing as ‘reality’. Absolute truth is subjective, or at least, my perception of ‘absolute truth’ is that it is subjective, but I don’t really know, if it is out there. Something tells me, that if there weren’t some form of true reality, then there would be nothing at all. I’m not talking about the fact that the sun goes up every day (although it doesn’t, but that’s besides the point), but the fact that there is such a thing as communication and social constructions. We all conform to some kind of reality, that we are able to understand without having it explained. 

Sometimes someone comes up and changes the form of reality that we know. Someone alters the way we communicate, or the way we dress or the way by which we deal with authority. Someone sees an alternative to the reality that the rest know and changes things. Which means that there is a new reality, which means it was perhaps just a collective illusion after all. And so is the new reality.

I guess, reality is the sum of collective illusions. So, if this is ‘a truth’, then how do I go about seeing things as they are? Do I conform my own reality to fit it to other peoples? I would have to change religious view 30 times a day, which seems kind of absurd, really. But it might be the way to go in order to see things as they also are. How could I decide not to, why should I have patent on reality? By excluding religion from my path, I am doing so by the force of my own perception, which have faith in science. But it is still just a perception.

The other way to go about it is to mutually exclude anything that contradicts something else. Atheists and religious people would never agree on the god-issue, so I would need to exclude both in order to find something closer to reality. But how could they both be wrong? Well, they could, but then some other spiritual path would be ready to offer an answer, which I then would also have to exclude. Anyway I could possibly turn, I would have to exclude it, simply because I had found it. This is getting way too fluffy for me…

The third way is to question the need for seeing things ‘as they are’, to question my questioning of my perception. The answer to that is fairly simple (compared to the other choices I perceive myself to have). I don’t want to be fooled by my perception or my lack of self awareness. I don’t want to fool myself.

I don’t really care if the rest of society can trick me into conforming to some sets of rules, I have already made up my mind, that some rules are worth following, simply because I don’t want to choose the consequences of not following them. When I follow the rules and refrain from killing someone, it is not because I want to follow the rules. I don’t see social constructions as fixed, I see them as changeable guidelines, because I have seen them be changed by individuals.

I don’t want to fool myself, but I am doing so minute by minute. If I had the possibility for opening the door to my inner self, I would lock it and “forget” where I put the key. I don’t want my illusions to vaporize. Perhaps my spirit is nurtured by my own illusions? I think, the spirit, soul, sense of self, lives through the things we can imagine, the things we dream about, the things we want to feel. My illusions are my reality, and my spirit shines through it. Without some kind of illusion, I would not be… I would simply follow. So, fooling myself may be the fool that I am.

So perhaps my quest isn’t about seeing things as they are, but about creating the types of illusions, that I want my spirit to live out?

The things I tell myself about me are the things my spirit has to work with. If social constructions are changeable guidelines, then what I tell myself is what puts me where I am within the construction. The charming speaker and the shy chubby guy in the back of the room are telling themselves different things, which their spirits have to work with. If they switched inner voices, they might shift positions too.

Seeing things ‘as they are’ must be changed into: Seeing things as I want them to be.

I will now admit to something that I have previously been too embarrassed to write about…

I keep a Magick Journal. There are two reasons as to why I have kept this to myself, mainly that from a skeptical point of view it is extremely fluffy, but also because even though I have it, and have an intention of putting stuff into it, I’ve never actually used it properly. So, basically I was ashamed both of my intentions and of not acting upon them. 

There is an aspect of contradiction in this, and so I decided to go in depth with that, and EUREKA! I found out why!

Magick is the unknown link between the action and its result. It must be so, because if there was a kind of science between me doing my ritual and the result I supposedly get out of it, it could not be classified as magick. And indeed, great many of my magical approaches have later been debunked as not magick, because I found an explanation to the phenomenon. 

As a skeptic, I am bound to search for rational explanations, and so every time I find it, I must redefine what I assumed to be magick. This means, that very, very few of my attempts of doing magick actually reach my ‘magick journal’, and I used to see this as something of a failure on my part. 

But fact is, that every time I have attempted to do magick, I’ve become just a bit wiser. I have learned something either about the approach, the consequences, my own perception, human nature and what have you not… And I use this knowledge to build upon, initiating another iteration of a magick approach, which too may result in wisdom rather than filling a page in a journal.

I need my blissfully ignorant attempts of doing magick. I need them, because they make me reach out for something specifically unreachable, and they give me something to evaluate. Rather than dismissively saying: “This would not be possible”, I can make an attempt, see what comes out of it and evaluate why it became possible or why it failed.  After all, saying: “This would not be possible” is not a skeptical approach. It involves just as much ignorance as my attempts of doing magick!

But at the end it would leave me with nothing to evaluate and nothing to make me wiser.

I have written about my view upon manipulation before in which I express that it is an innate part of our language and communication. Like my son the other day, who was angry at my daughter and so while yelling at her called her “JESS!!”, where as 10 minutes later he wanted to persuade her into playing G.I. Joe with him; “Jeeeeesieeee?” 

Some people also use it consciously, and some people try to do it on both levels but fail, and therefore they are not considered manipulative. An example of that would be a colleague making up an excuse for not having done his job for that day. Everybody know it is an excuse, but the real mechanism behind is in fact an attempt of manipulation, just badly executed.

The intention was:

“I want you to perceive me as someone who is not lazy/stupid/indifferent, so I will try to make you believe that I did care about the job, but I was unfortunately prevented from doing it or bringing it to work” 

The reason it failed was because he wasn’t skilled enough to serve that message the right way. The excuse was poorly served, it didn’t push the right buttons on the perception of others, so it did not actually manipulate them. But it was an act of manipulation nevertheless. I have come to realize, that only the average manipulators become judged as manipulative. The bad ones will not be taken seriously, and the good ones have learned how to transform their self image to the point where they become the manipulation they convey. 

The very best will make a point of acting as if they have become manipulated themselves.

I do not see manipulation as any more of a bad thing than talking is. In fact I believe it is a necessary skill to have in a modern society, where communication is a vital element of the social survival. I know the opinions are high and strong felt about this subject, but I have a feeling that people confuse matters.

I guess we have all encountered the unpleasant feeling of having been persuaded into doing something which we later found out wasn’t ‘right’. But was the persuasion an act of manipulation? The answer should be obvious, but as you may guess, I am about to say: “No, it wasn’t!”

It was not manipulation, it was calculation! 

Before christmas I was out looking for a new phone. I had decided upon buying one without a subscription. I went into a teleshop, where I was met by a salesperson, who was very unpleasant to talk to (or rather be talked to). Even before I went in I knew that there would be attempts of persuading me into buying a phone with subscription, so I was prepared. But still, the encounter with this guy was highly unpleasant, not because he was trying to manipulate me, but because the amount of information he gave was calculated in a way, that had I listened to him, I would have bought into it.

He was both manipulative and calculative. The manipulation had to do with his way of conveying the message. The ‘sales speech’ flowing out of his mouth, the emphasis on certain words, the body language, the eye contact… Even the uniform he was wearing. It is an attempt of manipulation, but it is still transparent. I can decide, if I want to be manipulated. I always have that option.

The problem was, that he was calculating with the information he wanted to give me. In this case it was the advantage and the disadvantage of buying a phone without subscription. He did not attempt to inform me properly, instead he conveyed the amount of information he had, as if it was the complete amount of information available. He was calculating on the fact that had he told me the full amount of information, it would lead me to choose differently from what he would want me to choose. 

In this case I had my own very good (perhaps not obvious) reasons to choose a non-subscription phone. So I was able to walk away from there without paying for something I wasn’t looking for. So, no harm was done. 

Manipulation takes a sender and a willing receiver. A politician, who I am not a fan of, can manipulate great many people, but not me. I cannot be manipulated, unless I (subconsciously) decide to do so. 

Calculation takes a sender and an unknowing receiver. There is a great amount of concealed information, and although I always have the liberty of thinking: “There might be more to this story than what I hear…”, the exact information withhold from me prevents me from choosing according to my own interest. Instead I will be given the information sufficient enough for me to choose what the calculator wishes for me to choose. In the above example, by not telling me about the disadvantage of a subscription phone in terms of a high price on e.g. conversations, he could steer my choice in his direction.

Calculation is dangerous, especially when it is emerged with decent manipulation. The calculation is the big sinner, the one that takes control over other peoples mind and spirit. It takes little skills! Unlike manipulation you don’t need to possess any particular psychological insight to calculate what information you want to give another person to make them choose as you please.

There is a good thing about this though. We all manipulate all of the time, both consciously and subconsciously. Even if you oppose to the thought, you cannot choose not to manipulate – it is simply not possible. But you can choose not to calculate. You can choose to give people all the information they need in order to make the right choices, hence giving them the freedom of spirit.

In fact, withholding information is something which takes a conscious effort, and you may end up making life more complicated for yourself. It all comes down to Return of Investment. Being relatively honest and fair makes life rather easy.

So, I decided to give the site a new look, hope you like it as much as I do, or at least that you don’t hate it… I promise, the writing is the same. 

I was flipping through some discussions on EC and for some time now I have encountered some religious statements which stood out to me. And please, if I am the “fake prophet” and the “spiritual host of wickedness”, then do tell me so. (but perhaps I shouldn’t flatter myself too much) After all, it has only been mentioned a couple of times…

I would love to see myself as the rebellious anti-theist, sticking my nose out where it is guaranteed to be punched, but I realize I don’t do that as clearly as I could. A part of me still possess too much respect for religious freedom, and a part of me just don’t like to challenge those who do not wish to be challenged. And being part of a family, where I am still forced to say prayer before eating, whenever I come to visit, I do have some ambivalent feelings towards just stating flat out what I think about religion of any sort. Somehow I feel like I am pooh-poohing my ancestors. 

But!

What about my own beliefs? What about the burning passion I have for stating: “Up yours!” to any religious fanatic telling me, I am poisoning the spirit of my ‘followers’. It all comes down to the personal view. Any one of us, christian, muslim, atheist, anti-theist or satanist…. We all have a chosen path, or chosen not to have one. Why should it be ok for a christian to openly express pity for a non-believer, when the non-believer is biting his tongue not to be offensive?

Its Bullshit! Pity, especially the one being wrapped up in good intentions, is so horribly condescending, and it is beyond my belief (!) how people can’t see through this. It seems to me, that as long as people “mean well” they can be allowed to state almost anything, after all, they are religious. I sincerely oppose to this idea.

Not just in religious terms, it is also on unmoderated forums, where people are left to state their own agenda. As long as you express yourself with a “loving and compassionate” point, you can buh out as many as you like. But if you state your opinion clear and honest, you are the anti-christ. Does that really make sense?

I have come to judge situations based on how they make me feel. If something makes me feel hit or hurt, that is what I must pay attention to. It doesn’t matter how ‘well intended’ the words may be served, because the person serving them may not be aware of the underlying motives. Especially if these motives are forbidden, leading the person to deny them while expressing them.

To me, all emotions, all feelings, all desires are valid. That doesn’t mean we should act on them always, but we should admit to them being there. If you belong to a religion, which preaches that some feelings or drives are forbidden, and you see this as the truth, then you are likely to oppress these feelings. But they will find their way out, through ‘well intended’ messages anyway.

Sorry, this is one incoherent rambling. I have SO much to say on this subject, and a lot of things overlap each other. One thought taking the next. I’ll probably elaborate on each element later on…

So, I have been neglecting my blog lately… Just stating the obvious here. I really do have a thousand things to write about, but my mind is occupied by school. Well, not really, but it is occupied with the thought that I should be working on my project a lot more than I do. It is some sort of latent stress that is slowly sneaking in on me from behind, all these “I should…” statements that really just ads to the reluctancy.

At this point I have decided to just completely unwind, because my “I should…” thoughts haven’t helped me all day, and now it is evening. So instead of feeling guilty, I am going to take a deep breath, admit to being a lazy f*ck and enjoy the rest of the evening in my own thoughts. …Just wished I had come up with this idea earlier today, since the result is just about the same.

So, this evening I am all yours, and tomorrow I am back to full time school project again!

I believe, I have a spirit. Not sure if it is simply a matter of hormones or some psychological factors, but whatever I might formally call it, I believe it to be there. Tonight, I would like to touch the area of “things I do, while thinking about how much I want to not do them”. It is not limited to bad habits, it could just as easily be about saying the wrong thing or not doing what I really felt like doing at that moment. Allowing specific people to cross the line or withdrawing too much in relation to others.

What I do and what the deeper spirit of me wants me to do are two different things. One clear example of this is my nasty habit of smoking. The spirit of me doesn’t want to be addicted to a deadly habit, and thrives much better during the times when I am off the cigarettes.

So, somehow I am able to not let myself act upon the wishes of my inner spirit. I hear the words, but I don’t listen. This means, the spirit of me has absolutely no authority in my life. It is more like a guide speaking in the back: “If you please look to your right, you will see the ‘you’ you could be, if you wanted to make a spiritual choice! You would make me feel much better!” 

But then who/what is in control of my actions if not my spirit?

Thoughts, feelings, learned behavior and scattered perceptions can path the way to a very unspiritual life. Still fighting this. Somehow these mechanisms become the force of the habit, the “Why bother?!” statements, that I never really consciously think about. I still react to them emotionally, but my feelings aren’t my spirit. On the other hand, if my thoughts and feelings do not correspond with the needs of my spirit, I just won’t feel it. 

It is as if my spirit is a ball at the center of a maze. And only by aligning my thoughts and feelings from the center to the outer line, I will be able to lead my spirit all the way through. If my thoughts don’t match my feelings, or my feelings or actions do not correspond with my spirit, the maze will turn itself, and the spirit will be captured at the center, unable to find its way out.

My spirit has a lot more influence on my actions than I want to believe though. It is the essence of me, and when it comes through I feel the essence of life. I can keep it locked down for some time, but the minute I give it some power, it wants to take over and tell me about all the other things I need to change in my life.

When I smoke, my spirit doesn’t come through, that’s for sure. And in many other cases where I withdraw and lock my spirit down in the center, I loose the essence of life, basically. I withdraw on the inside, because what I am experiencing is something my spirit doesn’t want to accept. My spirit denies me.

When I don’t smoke, I get overwhelmed. I see things much clearer and often too clearly. Other things my spirit wont accept. It becomes overwhelming, because not only do I need to continue not smoking, I also need to remember to eat (I eat heathy, when I do eat!), and then there is all the clutter in boxes and drawers. There are projects to finish, decisions to make… Tuff stuff that I need to deal with. All this becomes clear, because I am listening to the spirit inside. And once it gets in charge of things, it is SO critical! 

So, I get to the point very quickly, where I close my eyes to the sun. It is too much! 

And yet I am sitting here thinking, I really should listen to my spirit. I really should! Because even though it is demanding, it is simply because I don’t live the way I really want to live. I am close, though. Far closer than I’ve ever been before. So the essence of me isn’t out to criticize me – it is merely trying to tell me that which would make me the most satisfied with living. 

So, it all comes down to that perception. I’ve felt it to be a judgmental perfectionist spirit, but in reality, it is my perception that has been screwed up. My thoughts, feelings, learned behavior and habit of thinking leads me to perceive the advice from my spirit the wrong way. 

Tonight is the night of listening, but maybe I should listen tomorrow as well?

My fingertips touch the letters on the keyboard, and for the first time I sense it. Consciously. I’ve been clicking my way through the usual sites all evening, finding nothing. Nothing I was looking for. Perhaps because I don’t know, what I expected to find. I just know, that what I found was of no importance to me this evening.

My fingertips pad the letters, as if I knew what to write. As if I actually knew how to express myself. I make a lot of expressions, even now, but I can’t express my self. I can only sense, and I am overwhelmed. 

My fingertips make errors, because I am forcing them to notice, what they are doing. I notice what I am doing as well, and yet I can’t interfere. I am withdrawing, and I must not prevent myself from doing so. 

My fingertips are connected to my hands and my hands to my arms. I can only move my fingers, I am paralyzed. I am driven by the desire to express myself, but my mind creates pathways for denial. I can’t.

My fingertips long to feel.

But I can’t.

Illusions work, because we want to be deceived. It is that simple. Wether it is the establishment of an empire, a religious perception, a seductive stranger or even just a commercial for washing powder, it is all just small games we play with ourselves. Subtle “Boy, if this was real…!” comments in the subconscious. that keeps the game going.

The difference between being a child and growing up isn’t that we stop playing, it is that we decide to play all day long. At least as children we are told when the game is over. As adults we have to figure that out all by ourselves, and we are still not old enough to do so.

And the more deeply involved we become in a game, the more we withdraw from reality. In the alternative world anything can happen – that is just fantastic. In the real world, anything could happen as well, but we don’t notice and we don’t care. We save ourselves for better times, where reality meets fantasy, only to realize that it isn’t going to happen unless we force fantasy to meet reality.

This would mean ending a game, and we don’t like that.

But if you’ve ever ended such a play, you have also felt the revelation that comes with it. It actually doesn’t hurt as much as you thought it would, because… well, 

It was just a game after all.

I am taking a great bit of heating these hours for my previous blog post “Self Confidence is a Myth”. Not here, but on the Empath Community, where I sometimes post something I’ve written in here. I woke up this morning to find 6 new comments, all pointing in different directions. It is quite fascinating.

Deep down I am grateful that I was born stubborn and hardheaded. Not a very flattering personality feature, I know. Especially for seeking truths, stubbornness can be a bit of an obstacle towards higher learning. But in terms of moving along the margins with my thoughts and perceptions, this has proven itself to be a rather necessary tool for me to use.

It is not that I have to be stubborn in my belief that I am writing something rightful, that is not, where my stubbornness comes in handy. If that was the case, I would never come up with new thoughts. After all, 95% of todays thoughts are the same as yesterday’s, so to come up with something new demands either a whole lot of thoughts or a whole lot of attention towards the last 5%. You can’t be stubborn during that time of thinking.

I need to be stubborn, once I have decided to post a contradicting perception on matters that are regarded as ‘truths’. Because sometimes, like today, people react fairly strongly against my perceptions. Or rather, my choice of posting my perceptions, or writing the way I do. The exact reasons for my writing are responded, and I can choose to cave in, bow for the masses and follow their ‘requests’. Or I can use it as fuel to keep going. The latter demands stubbornness. 

I do stick my head out, I do expect to be slapped and I do get that reaction. I expect it because it is a necessary evil in my point of blogging. I don’t like being slapped, really, and if I was writing just to provoke, I would have chosen a different strategy. But I need to express myself, when I feel I have something intelligent to say. If I had one calling, it would be to break the stereotype way of thinking, if not for anyone else then surely for myself. And I usually have a point to my writings. (except for today)

I read another very inspiring blog post yesterday, which actually made me see things more clearly (and I do need that too sometimes). I recommend you read it, this is only a small passage…

Perhaps the worst thing is to reach adulthood and to live in fear of the margins – what is often called ‘narrow mindedness’. Most of us have epistemological taboos of one sort or another, but there are apparently some people who are so anxious about straying into the margins that ‘normalisation’ is seen as good medicine, not just for themselves, but also for their fellow humans. This is the root of totalitarianism and indoctrination.

If my blog posts didn’t feed both positive and negative reactions, I would have to place myself either within the main stream ‘normal’ category or in the complete loony bin. I get both positive, negative, aggressive and inspiring feedback from my posts, and that means, that I am on the right track of what I am doing.

You don’t have to like my writing. You don’t have to agree with me, not even partially. I don’t even have a point to this blog post. I just feel the need to vent a little, express my current state of mind. Applauding myself for going full frontal on the slapping…