chromis

It is that illness that causes you to have new friends every single day? Anyway, What I believed to have discovered is that a significant subset of people - therefore also certain friends, family, co-workers - like to project their image of you onto you, as if you are that image, and these images (in certain people's mind) seem very static. The topic about Leo's graduation picture (when he had more weight) actually reminded me of that because, physically, I pulled off something similar, and eventually I 'mutated' at various other (and unexpected!) levels as well. In the end I alienated certain people, people that haven't seen me for >3 years don't know what/who they see (and, sometimes, they are uncomfortable with that). Any form of work that implies some mode of 'progress' or 'growth' e.g. personal development work and spiritual work seems to have quite an impact on your relationship circle. I think it is at least very beneficial to understand how that works, at most understand how you to depend on that (if you do); So many people continuously remind you who they think you are [or: were!], in their own way, or even how they like you to be (social norms included). They act like mirrors (or reflective marbles) though many are distorted in all kinds of interesting ways. If you are/become somehow dependent on this process - I suspect that our society wants this - then that may be the source and cause of loneliness? Becoming aware of this reality and dealing with the consequences can be fun though; I sometimes tend to make myself easy in that regard, being alone avoids all that and you end up with a situation that only your (distorted?) mirror of yourself remains. Shattering that may be the next step? Is that good for your mental health?...

I think it is fair(er) and more generic to state that 'blindingly accepting anything' could be regarded as "less developed", or: 'blindingly accepting only that what feels nice', for that matter, since that takes into a account a (to my experience a popular) reason for such accepting. In the end most (and myself) fall prey to this I think. In my experience, many people that label themselves atheists take a different paradigm for granted on a much deeper level than theists do it, because this (materialistic b.t.w.) paradigm is so powerful since it seems to yield all those computers, atom bombs, metro systems and treadmills at the gym. Wouldn't it be great to transcend one or both in such a way that - in practice and as a result - both 'camps' (or either one of these) do not have any emotional impact (negative or positive) on you?

Quite often, so it seems, we tend to believe that our own shit really smells like roses. Perhaps it's roses (instead of turtles) all the way down?

Hi Andreas (and everyone else on this forum - this is my first post), I'm very, very tempted to say that I don't like irrationality and bullshit either. It also frustrated me, to no end. In a nutshell: I've been supposedly 'rational', I've been active on-and-off in a skeptical and 'freethinker' community for a substantial part of my life; I've once moderated discussions and I've debated 'extreme' people that could be easily labeled as arrogant, stigmatizers and brainwashers. That places me on a specific point on a spectrum that - reflecting on that - seems quite imaginary and arbitrary. Sure, you can conjure up the (to you) most ridiculous, painful and naive instances of religion and spiritual practices (indeed: Youtube is full of them), but really, isn't that possible to do that for any subculture or viewpoint? In the end it seems (to me) that I personally have been part of a community that has a subset of people that simply loves to pummel and immerse themselves with (to their minds at least) the most ridiculous and awful things possible... just to keep those negative sentiments about those extremes alive. One question (in your first post) was: How do you deal with religious groups emotionally and stop being distracted by them? I eventually became aware of the situation that I've described earlier and I wondered: why do such things (like: pummeling yourself like that) in the first place? Why the adverse feelings about such things, really? Do those feelings actually state something about the subject that evokes them... or about the experiencer (e.g. "me")? The answer to that question can only be found when you "look" 'inside', when you become more aware of the deeper layers of your personality "construct". Why are there such things in the first place? At later (and last) moments in my active years in said communities I often pondered (and began to question) why I was debating (or facilitating such debating) with 'extremes', and eventually I realized that I was far more interested in the actual [hi]story (and motivation) of such others. How and why people think and believe certain things, even if they are extremely illogical, allowed me learn about myself because eventually I began to wonder about my own motivations, feelings and logic. "me" vs. "them" eventually turned to "me" vs. "me", and eventually that became far, far more fruitful. I eventually navigated back towards my true skeptical roots, disregarding my 'selective-skeptical behaviors' that I was actually cultivating by said immersion. The immersion in question also closed my mind. ...and that is unfortunate, since there seems always some truth or some motivation that leads me to conclude things like "it could have easily been me if I was in their situation", if you dig deeper by asking questions that shows interest in the person rather than the messages they need to broadcast. ...pummeling myself regularly with extremes (and videos that would make me cringe) would effectively disable my mind into considering the possibility that "lesser extremes" (to to speak) or "moderates" could offer you something of value to you, personally. It made my thinking more black-and-white. In the end, in a difficult situation, I eventually met someone who believes and practices very different things than me - things that would have made me cringe if taken to the extreme - he was able to help me to emotionally grow on a level that I could not have imagined before... at least I was able to permit myself that. That is not to say that I've adopted his beliefs and practices, but at the very least I allow myself to play around with them without such adoption and nowadays with far, far less judgement... so it keeps my mind open, and I actually understand other perspectives far better than before. ...and in the end this also has led me here.