LostCause
2005-01-26, 03:28
I doubt many people will read this, but I found it interesting.
"At age 12 I was already a veteran of violence of all sorts. Shootings, stabbings, rape, drive bys, gang bangs, were common place in the areas I lived in. A lot of it I witnessed in my own house. My bed, the basement, my backyard were all frequent crime scenes. I accepted and learned to like the fat that nowhere was safe and no one truly good. And when I went to school in the morning I took pride in facing the world as a soldier - all the world is battlefield and everyone is a potential enemy.
"By this time I was somehow aware that not everybody my age lived like me. I came understand that a lot of kids my age lived differently than me. That a lot of them were safe in their houses. A lot of kids wore brand name clothes and had all kinds of little trinkets I never even would've thought to ask for.
"I spent a lot of time worrying about why these kids had so much more than I did and what I'd done to deserve less but eventually I worked out in my mind that some people are born to have easier lives for no good reason at all. Once, even, I asked the minister at a church in my neighborhood and he told me that may be god gave me something special that they don't have and that they can't buy.
"I bought that. And because I subcribed to these beliefs of the world around me I was able to convince myself that I liked it this way. I liked the drama, the excitement, the tragedy, and struggle. I learned to detach myself from life in many ways. When I was just a little kid if I was getting the knock around I could make myself slip into a kind of meditative state, where I didn't feel anything, unless something broke. That'll bring you out of anything.
"I found emotionally detaching myself would make enjoying my life easier. As a twelve year old girl in want I found my only feeling about my life were self pity and bitterness. And it ate me up feeling that way. My parents have always come disgusted to self pity. It's simply not something you did in my family, growing up. Feeling sorry for yourself was like putting on a giant kick me sign.
"I felt horrible and spoiled and would regularily punish myself by making certain things off limits for myself. I'd often scold myself saying such things as
""What makes you think you deserve better? This is your life and it's all the world has to offer you!"
"But accepting you've been born into a lower class of people for no good reason isn't easy. In fact, it took me years of negative self affirmations before I was able to really stop caring about myself or my future enough to really accept myself and my life without feeling cheated or that I deserved more.
"I took the old expression
""You reap what you sow." to heart. I listened to that minister and I put all my faith into believing someone secretly sees or eventually will see my suffering and I'll be greatly rewarded. May be I'd have to wait until death, but I wasn't scared of death anymore. Death had become a casual in my life and now I believed the more I suffered and the less I felt sorry for it the bigger my pay off would be in "the end". At least I felt confident I was earning my wings in heaven.
"My life thereafter became on constant contest with myself. How much can I suffer without feeling pain or self pity - or worse, drawing attention to yourself. There was no lower life form explained to me than an attention seeking self pitier.
""This is my life." I would tell myself. "It's hard. I like it this way." How long can I fast without anyone noticing? How many times can I hitch a ride before I get raped? How deep can I be cut without showing pain? How long can I take a beating before I start to cry?
"Eventually my pain tolerance grew so high every day discomforts most people consider signs of illness simply slipped beneath my radar. Sure I hadn't eaten in 2 days, my right is swollen shut with infection since I ear drum was pierced last month, and I have a cold. That's nothing. Little things like headaches and bruises didn't exist for me anymore. I would frequently have chronic pains and infections that would go ignored until some wimp teacher sent me home from school insisting I see a doctor.
"This, I believed was how to become a worth while member of the lower class. Toughen up, on all fronts, and if you ever feel like you deserve better ask yourself what have you done to deserve better.
"The knee jerk response to that, of course is
""What do they do to deserve better?" But, remember, that's not your life. You're lower class by chance, deal with it, and kick yourself for even questioning your adversities. In the lower class it's all you've got: your adversities, your struggle, and your faith in the words of that minister.
"It didn't take me long to piece together that if this is my life and this is my station and that's all I have, the greatest thing for a person in my situation can do is martyr themselves in the name of something bigger, better, or mor promising thank themselves. A lot of people from similiar situations think having babies is the answer, but it's not. In fact, if you bring a baby into your miserable world just for the self serving reasons of martyrdom, or creating some extension of life for yourself, or for the empty promise of unconditional love you may as well call yourself a murderer. Because now you're creating lives with no other intent but bettering your life through the destruction of theirs.
"So, now I needed to find something to martyr myself for. Something to make all the struggle and misery and suffering and all the many many unanswerable questions mean something. At 13 I was desperately seeking something to gill the hole in my humanity. I needed a reason to not look back with regret and contempt. Something to erase the guilt and give it all meaning - a good ending. Something to prove it wasn't all meaningless suffering. To prove that someone will care and see the good in me even when I've become blind to it and am incapable of telling my victories from my tragedies. I'd giving up my feelings because I thought they were uselss to me and now I felt numb whether I liked it or not. I shut them down until they just flew away into the air and now all I could hope was that one day I'd be good enough that someone would return them to me and teach me how to use them again.
I searched for this something for year without any luck. Checked under stones for elves, listened for words in the wind, scouring libraries for something that may have a clue. But, the old I got the less I believed in my childhood concepts of god and the more I started to believe - and with dismay - that this was It. I came to believe that there were no real martyrs because martydom is inherently narcusistic. So there went my hope and faith in a reason, explanation, or compensation. Now there was nothing left to do but accept my struggles had all been in vain. I'd been scarred forever and have nothing good to show for it. Just fucked, plain and simple, for no good reason.
"At 15 I was really looking for something to blame this all on. I was told it's pretty easy to blame everything on your parents. But, blaming your parents for your problems is like blaming god or satan or your astrology for your problems. It's very easy and concenient but never adds up to much. There's still no good reason for it all and odds are they don't feel so great about it either.
"Then I started to rationalize. Philosophy, psychoogy, politics, religion, science and in the end it all boiled down to one question:
""Is there a reason for all of this? A system? A method? A plan? Or is it just totally random?" Just like the question of fate versus freewill.
"But, all I found was several different educated fingers pointing at several different educated guesses. Some had scientific research, pie charts, testimonials, but no one really knew for sure. I began to wonder if these question were unanswerable for a reason.
"Why would there be such gaps in understanding our own species? Does somebody want us to decide on our own, following out own personal faith and judgement? Trusting we'll make the right choice?
"I began to think about my turbulent relationship with "faith" and through my studies and thinkings I came up with my own explanation: I believed there was a being vastly more powerful and intelligent then ourself who created "us" because without people to believe in him he siezes to exist. His purpose is gone and he goes out like a candle. And what would be the purpose of thinking and questioning these things if there was a definitive answer? It would be as the sky is. This vast and powerful all encompassing thing. We know it's there but never never question why. It simply is there because it's universe we live in. If god was ever proven to exist it would lose it's power. His power exists only through the struggle of mankind to understand itself. Without the question the answer is meaningless."
Cheers,
Lost
"At age 12 I was already a veteran of violence of all sorts. Shootings, stabbings, rape, drive bys, gang bangs, were common place in the areas I lived in. A lot of it I witnessed in my own house. My bed, the basement, my backyard were all frequent crime scenes. I accepted and learned to like the fat that nowhere was safe and no one truly good. And when I went to school in the morning I took pride in facing the world as a soldier - all the world is battlefield and everyone is a potential enemy.
"By this time I was somehow aware that not everybody my age lived like me. I came understand that a lot of kids my age lived differently than me. That a lot of them were safe in their houses. A lot of kids wore brand name clothes and had all kinds of little trinkets I never even would've thought to ask for.
"I spent a lot of time worrying about why these kids had so much more than I did and what I'd done to deserve less but eventually I worked out in my mind that some people are born to have easier lives for no good reason at all. Once, even, I asked the minister at a church in my neighborhood and he told me that may be god gave me something special that they don't have and that they can't buy.
"I bought that. And because I subcribed to these beliefs of the world around me I was able to convince myself that I liked it this way. I liked the drama, the excitement, the tragedy, and struggle. I learned to detach myself from life in many ways. When I was just a little kid if I was getting the knock around I could make myself slip into a kind of meditative state, where I didn't feel anything, unless something broke. That'll bring you out of anything.
"I found emotionally detaching myself would make enjoying my life easier. As a twelve year old girl in want I found my only feeling about my life were self pity and bitterness. And it ate me up feeling that way. My parents have always come disgusted to self pity. It's simply not something you did in my family, growing up. Feeling sorry for yourself was like putting on a giant kick me sign.
"I felt horrible and spoiled and would regularily punish myself by making certain things off limits for myself. I'd often scold myself saying such things as
""What makes you think you deserve better? This is your life and it's all the world has to offer you!"
"But accepting you've been born into a lower class of people for no good reason isn't easy. In fact, it took me years of negative self affirmations before I was able to really stop caring about myself or my future enough to really accept myself and my life without feeling cheated or that I deserved more.
"I took the old expression
""You reap what you sow." to heart. I listened to that minister and I put all my faith into believing someone secretly sees or eventually will see my suffering and I'll be greatly rewarded. May be I'd have to wait until death, but I wasn't scared of death anymore. Death had become a casual in my life and now I believed the more I suffered and the less I felt sorry for it the bigger my pay off would be in "the end". At least I felt confident I was earning my wings in heaven.
"My life thereafter became on constant contest with myself. How much can I suffer without feeling pain or self pity - or worse, drawing attention to yourself. There was no lower life form explained to me than an attention seeking self pitier.
""This is my life." I would tell myself. "It's hard. I like it this way." How long can I fast without anyone noticing? How many times can I hitch a ride before I get raped? How deep can I be cut without showing pain? How long can I take a beating before I start to cry?
"Eventually my pain tolerance grew so high every day discomforts most people consider signs of illness simply slipped beneath my radar. Sure I hadn't eaten in 2 days, my right is swollen shut with infection since I ear drum was pierced last month, and I have a cold. That's nothing. Little things like headaches and bruises didn't exist for me anymore. I would frequently have chronic pains and infections that would go ignored until some wimp teacher sent me home from school insisting I see a doctor.
"This, I believed was how to become a worth while member of the lower class. Toughen up, on all fronts, and if you ever feel like you deserve better ask yourself what have you done to deserve better.
"The knee jerk response to that, of course is
""What do they do to deserve better?" But, remember, that's not your life. You're lower class by chance, deal with it, and kick yourself for even questioning your adversities. In the lower class it's all you've got: your adversities, your struggle, and your faith in the words of that minister.
"It didn't take me long to piece together that if this is my life and this is my station and that's all I have, the greatest thing for a person in my situation can do is martyr themselves in the name of something bigger, better, or mor promising thank themselves. A lot of people from similiar situations think having babies is the answer, but it's not. In fact, if you bring a baby into your miserable world just for the self serving reasons of martyrdom, or creating some extension of life for yourself, or for the empty promise of unconditional love you may as well call yourself a murderer. Because now you're creating lives with no other intent but bettering your life through the destruction of theirs.
"So, now I needed to find something to martyr myself for. Something to make all the struggle and misery and suffering and all the many many unanswerable questions mean something. At 13 I was desperately seeking something to gill the hole in my humanity. I needed a reason to not look back with regret and contempt. Something to erase the guilt and give it all meaning - a good ending. Something to prove it wasn't all meaningless suffering. To prove that someone will care and see the good in me even when I've become blind to it and am incapable of telling my victories from my tragedies. I'd giving up my feelings because I thought they were uselss to me and now I felt numb whether I liked it or not. I shut them down until they just flew away into the air and now all I could hope was that one day I'd be good enough that someone would return them to me and teach me how to use them again.
I searched for this something for year without any luck. Checked under stones for elves, listened for words in the wind, scouring libraries for something that may have a clue. But, the old I got the less I believed in my childhood concepts of god and the more I started to believe - and with dismay - that this was It. I came to believe that there were no real martyrs because martydom is inherently narcusistic. So there went my hope and faith in a reason, explanation, or compensation. Now there was nothing left to do but accept my struggles had all been in vain. I'd been scarred forever and have nothing good to show for it. Just fucked, plain and simple, for no good reason.
"At 15 I was really looking for something to blame this all on. I was told it's pretty easy to blame everything on your parents. But, blaming your parents for your problems is like blaming god or satan or your astrology for your problems. It's very easy and concenient but never adds up to much. There's still no good reason for it all and odds are they don't feel so great about it either.
"Then I started to rationalize. Philosophy, psychoogy, politics, religion, science and in the end it all boiled down to one question:
""Is there a reason for all of this? A system? A method? A plan? Or is it just totally random?" Just like the question of fate versus freewill.
"But, all I found was several different educated fingers pointing at several different educated guesses. Some had scientific research, pie charts, testimonials, but no one really knew for sure. I began to wonder if these question were unanswerable for a reason.
"Why would there be such gaps in understanding our own species? Does somebody want us to decide on our own, following out own personal faith and judgement? Trusting we'll make the right choice?
"I began to think about my turbulent relationship with "faith" and through my studies and thinkings I came up with my own explanation: I believed there was a being vastly more powerful and intelligent then ourself who created "us" because without people to believe in him he siezes to exist. His purpose is gone and he goes out like a candle. And what would be the purpose of thinking and questioning these things if there was a definitive answer? It would be as the sky is. This vast and powerful all encompassing thing. We know it's there but never never question why. It simply is there because it's universe we live in. If god was ever proven to exist it would lose it's power. His power exists only through the struggle of mankind to understand itself. Without the question the answer is meaningless."
Cheers,
Lost