applegrove
applegrove's JournalThe 12 step program I've been to used a higher power
as a way to teach addicts they have no power over their drug of choice. I'm not religious so I made my higher power nature or my ancestors. And though as an agnostic I do not know how the universe was created, how it was created is a god I can accept. So nature or ancestors or physics are all scientific truths that tie me to that higher power. And something fantastic but scientific started it all. And that is when I truly was done drinking. When I handed the delusion that I myself had power over my drinking (a delusion shared by every addict) to this god/higher power/nature. By handing my delusion over to some other entity I had to deeply admit I could never be the one in control of my addiction. If I could never control my addiction - I could never drink. And I was done. And I'm back to living a science based life regarding alcohol where I have a disease and better treat it like one. Which balances with my science based life. So my god is science in the end. And at the start. And in the middle. And that really works for this agnostic.
To know oneself is power. So that people can't run a false narrative of
your life because they are so inadequate. I knew myself well enough at 23 to steer clear of a psychopath. The night I met him I did not want that shit in my life. Unfortunately my friends did not know me or themselves. They fell victim to a cognitive opening that takes place in young adults who are looking for a new meaning in their lives. We were in our early 20s. They didn't seem to notice that the creep working his way into their lives was a decade older than them and thus in a position of power over them. The old cult grievance/aspiration one two step was used. Really knowing all your grievances and knowing them well, and not being fooled into something that seems too good to be true (like you don't have to learn harsh truths about yourself...if you just follow the asshole he'll make your dreams come true), or falling for manufactured grievances and aspirational moments created by a psychopath, can stop one from joining a gang or a cult. Knowledge and science are power. Nothing else comes close. Empathy is a way to connect and learn. I don't think one can be truly happy without a good amount of empathy. But empathy without self knowledge makes one a target for the creepy. I had to learn to not empathize so much to survive. I had too much. That is the thing about self knowledge... one can never have too much. Kids in all neighborhoods should be taught about the grievance/aspirational two step. It is what Muslim youth and their families in the west are being taught as we speak. Why not kids from all neighborhoods? Are sociopaths who pray on the rich for their money and power, and gangs who pray on teenagers, not causing mayhem just like ISIS if not more so? How about the GOP gutting the middle class? I wonder what the state of anti cult education of youth is in the red states.
What is your favorite thing about politics? I like speculating
about what is going on and sometimes being ahead of the news cycle and correct in my assumptions at the same time. Even the columnist Paul Krugman isn't right all the time when he predicts things (though he is pretty darn close). You can't be when you are talking about the future and guessing at what is going on behind the scenes. But I very much enjoy Obama as president because he is accomplishing a lot and undoing what the GOP has done to America. At changing the country and the world in fundamental ways. What I don't enjoy is news from what the right is up to. I sometimes speculate on their reasons for doing things and I don't enjoy that. At all. All in all being in a group like the DU and working together for a better world is the best thing.
This indiana law. In arkansas and Georgia too. One woman being interviewed said about not serving
gays "Jesus died on the cross for me, this is the least I can do for him". So it is about religious people being closer to god. A grievance (gay people making inroads towards equal rights when being gay is against the bible) and an aspiration (closer to god) together in one action...which is how people in cults are manipulated. Or ISIS. That grievance-aspiration technique has been all over the news about how teens and young adults are being lured to Syria or Iraq to join ISIS. For ISIS recruits the grievance is not being big men in America or to be able to buy what they want or having access to the women they want (normal for young men anywhere), the aspiration is to be closer to allah and adrenaline. Did not take long for the GOP to jump on those two techniques in coming up with policy that fits its' very own religious base. The GOP obviously feels their religious base are just the people to be manipulated in the same way ISIS does its' base. As with racism and the southern strategy, this has nothing to do with the scapegoat (gays here) and everything to do with the GOP winning through wedge issues and then not paying taxes. They may well have worried that they were losing their religious base to walk the walkers like Pope Francis. After all the religious were put on this earth not to pass on God's love but to give power to the rich in their role as a wedge issue.
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