I came to do a free write about any topic that comes to mind, specifically the book I just finished A Liberated Mind by Steven C Hayes. This was one of the best self help books I think I’ve ever read–or at least in the top 10% — or listened to — I wonder if people will call me out for saying I’ve read something when I really just listened to it.
But anyway just before coming here I happened to be on facebook and saw an ex of mine posted a nasty meme that has me upset. I don’t know why I do that, get upset over some dumb ignorant meme that someone posts. It’s just a sign of how unhappy they are that they have to shit on things that bring others joy.
She was shitting on the space industry, trying to imply that it has no value for humanity, saying we especially need to tax the billionaires who are going to space as a “hobby”. It’s like, she knew how obsessed I was with the space industry and how I believe it’s like our whole purpose for existence. I would go on and on about how much it meant to me and all the different values it held for humanity, so I wonder if this was kind of a personal shot at me.
It’s funny how humans can have these wildly different layers to relationships, where you love someone and hate them at the same time.
I think that’s the way it was with her. She loved me because I was kind and our relationship actually worked fairly well for many years and I helped her through some life changes she couldn’t have done without me. But at the same time, she hates rich people. It’s like, her whole identity is hating rich people, and I steadily got wealthier and wealthier and I refused to hate on billionaires the way she does. I mean, yes, I am disgusted by excessive displays of wealth and mega-yachts and bottles of wine that cost more than some people make in a year. Yeah, that kind of thing is disgusting. But sometimes they do good things, like propelling our space industry forward.
I think this was a response to the Polaris Dawn mission, with the first civilian to do a spacewalk. I’ve sort of fallen away from following space news the way I did a few years ago. I still support the space industry and anyone trying to go to space 100% because without a healthy space industry, first our economy dies, then our entire species. We either go outward or we kill ourselves here on Earth. You can’t fix a leaky roof from the inside. You have to have the courage to get up on the ladder and see the problem from the top.
It’s jealousy I think.
I wonder if people were this nasty toward the Wright Brothers back in the day. Probably.
I guess I remember when I was younger people being nasty toward cell phones. I think I may have been one of them. Only pretentious assholes would carry a cellphone around. I was way better than that… until I wasn’t… because the price came down.
And the price of space travel will come down and when that happens they will just shrug off their old hatred and move on to something new to hate on.
And poor old Elon has been driven insane by all this. He’s completely lost his mind and sank into his own breed of hate, lashing out at anyone who is different than him or.
I spent some time on Twitter after he bought it and watched what he was really saying on there and concluded for myself that it was truly disgusting–not as disgusting as the people who hate him–but pretty disgusting. I mean though Twitter was always a toxic cesspool.
Elon is one of my love-hate people. On the one hand, on a personal level, he makes decisions in his family life that I find reprehensible (he disowned a child and said in an interview “can’t win em all” because they didn’t see gender the same way he did) and he spits out these kids like he’s a spider playing the odds of reproduction without any plans to give a shit about any of them… but on the other hand, the technology he has created could very well mean the difference between the survival of the human race and our demise. If you look at space politics and technology, it seems that without Elon creating SpaceX, The United States would be crippled as far as space is concerned. We would have given up the space station to the Russians. Vladimir Putin would basically own all of space, all our satellites and telescopes, basically everything up there he could control if Elon hadn’t done what he did over the last twenty years. One could argue that Elon averted world war 3.
But people want to only love or hate him, at least the ones who don’t think it through and go rant on Twitter and Facebook–or re-post memes.
Oh gosh, I don’t want to be hyper-critical but that’s just like the lowest and most disrespectful form of communication–posting memes. I mean, if you have something nasty to say, at least have the courage to use your own thoughts and words.
I guess Elon is the king of that crap.
We’ve all gone down this rabbit hole of nastiness and hate and it’s not just one side doing it. I was thinking that like how can I justify automatically assuming that Trump voters are nasty people but it’s like wait, I don’t do that. I have this guilty conscious when I haven’t even done anything. Well, no. I do do that. I don’t know why I said I don’t assume Trump voters are nasty people because I do, but it’s like you can’t support building a wall between us and Mexico if you are a compassionate person who cares about freedom and sees all humans as equal. It’s just not possible.
But at the same time, when you look at all the people over the years that I’ve cut out of my life for being nasty, most of them were liberal. I don’t discriminate. If I were to find a Trump supporter who was kind and compassionate toward all humans, I would let them into my life.
“Compassion is the hallmark of spiritual well being” – that’s a quote from A Liberated Mind, the book I was supposed to be writing about tonight.
interesting that the same ex who posted that meme, one of our last conversations was me trying to convince her to let me buy her some self help books because these books had changed my life in such massively positive ways and she said, “But the self help community is kind of a community of assholes.”
And I’m like “Huh, can you elaborate on that? What do you mean?”
And she was just like “No.” And that was like the last time we ever actually talked.
I wonder what she meant. Because self help books have certainly helped me get in touch with my compassion. That’s one of the cornerstones of them: compassion and community building. That’s how you build success in life. Compassion and community building.
Oh golly I wonder if I’m spilling too much personal details about someone who might be hurt if they read this or more likely heard about it through someone online trying to stir drama. I was feeling a little bitter, which seems like I shouldn’t feel toward someone who still cares about me and respects me.
Anyway, I’m trying to use some of the ideas from A Liberated Mind, just watching my thoughts and not being ashamed of them and not taking them too seriously. Like, it’s okay in these entries to say something that’s just totally incorrect. I mean, that’s not the goal of course. I’m trying to get to the truth here, but sometimes your mind wanders and experiments with new ways of thinking and perceiving and labeling reality. And some of those experiments don’t work out. But that’s healthy. Most of us run from it and are scared of being stupid and wrong. Or worse, what if I have an evil thought?
What if I get cancelled?
For some reason I’m not too worried about it. I don’t know why. Lord knows I have a lot of opinions that both mainstream liberals and mainstream conservatives could be hateful toward.
But maybe I’m not worried because no one is reading my stuff. Can’t get cancelled if I have zero readers.
Well, also, it’s because many times in my life I’ve felt like I was some kind of oasis of calm — or no, like those droids at the beginning of Star Wars where they’re just walking normally and lasers all around them but they magically don’t get hit and no one touches them. I’ve been in the middle of huge screaming fights and I look around and think to myself “Holy crap I am the only person here who isn’t getting screamed at. How the hell am I the one person to escape this fate?”
But I know now. It’s because I don’t participate.
Ever notice it seems like the people who complain the most about having social anxiety are also the ones who do the most to condemn others?
It’s like they’re scared of other people treating them the way they treat people.
I mean, that could come across as real mean to some. I’m sure there are some real exceptions… or maybe why those last two lines feel mean or off-putting is cuz I said it sort of backward. I think what I meant is that the people who are most frequently condemning others, particularly when it’s just over something they said, almost always also seem to have some case of serious social anxiety that they are either aware of or they live in denial about.
Anyway, that’s why I tend to not be a target. People have always laughed at me for my perspective on life, told me I was a sucker, that the world would chew me up and spit me out, that I live in this magical fantasy world of unicorns and rainbows that’s gonna be ruthlessly torn down by the real world. But it hasn’t happened yet. i turned 46 a few days ago and had an amazing birthday and I’m still waiting for the world to take advantage of my kindness–well maybe kindness is the wrong word, maybe it’s more my idea that I can go through life without making enemies. I still don’t feel as though I’ve ever had an actual enemy.
It’s like I can’t wrap my brain around this idea of having someone I could never work with or never tolerate.
No that’s not true. I’m saying things that aren’t true again.
Maybe my brain is losing steam.
No, what I mean is it’s more about the goal. I want to always work toward this idea that all humans and all present past and future relationships are all a teamwork situation. We are all in this together.
I want to run for mayor of Pittsburgh. Maybe in like 10 years in my late fifties. I won’t campaign to win though. It’s going to be more of an art project about working together and reminding this city that we are all Pittsburgers and each one of us makes this city special and beautiful. I knew someone who did this back in Bellingham Wa where I come from.
Something is seriously wrong with our politics and I really think someone like me would be a refreshing change that might not be enough to win, but I think would be enough to make a real positive change.
It’s a stretch goal.