Understanding The Crocodile Metaphor

[Clarence]

I had a trip yesterday.

My insight about the crocodile came to my mind as I was thinking about the film Joker: La Folie À deux.

I was thinking about how much I hated this film. I didn't like all the singing, that's for sure, but I also hated the story—no real surprise but at the very end, and it was a disappointing one, and nothing insightful or meaningful throughout the entire film. I felt a very strong aversion to it.

In comparison, I absolutely loved the first one. I saw it six times in the theater, so much so that I loved it.

So in my last trip, I realized how biased I was towards Arthur Fleck and how much life had no mercy. In an ideal world, someone like him would not have been mistreated his whole life. He would not have been ridiculed for his difference. He would have received some help and care to reduce the symptoms of his illness and the suffering caused by it. He would not have become Joker.

I feel like I am Arthur Fleck because I suffered so much and I've been made fun of repeatedly because of my differences. I understand his suffering. I understand his madness. It's completely unfair that we treat people with so much cruelty on earth. It felt extremely good to watch the first movie because he finally had revenge and stopped caring and suffering. I completely agreed that the people he killed just got what they deserved.

I still do, as I remain biased. So in that sense, I am no better than him or others. You purposefully cause someone to suffer… you also deserve to suffer. Killing is quite radical, but the idea remains: since there is no justice in the world the way you would want to, you end up not caring and start doing harm yourself. (Personally, I still avoid doing harm because of my values and the consequences, but the anger and desire for revenge still arise when I am hurt, ridiculed or taken advantage of).

So I liked that the first movie may have prompted a part of society to reflect on what it is like to suffer deeply and how much harm constant ridicule causes someone. The message of the second movie was the total opposite. There was no message of hope of society becoming better or of society opening their eyes to what they themselved had caused… Joker. As in the end, he's the result of society's madness.

Rather than that, the message was the crocodile mind. No mercy. No empathy. Just ego and caring for oneself. We absolutely don't care that you suffer. We absolutely don't care that we are causing you suffering. But we do care that you caused us suffering. We do care that you killed one of us. You just deserve to be hurt, you deserve it even more now.

Humans are the worst of crocodiles. Arthur Fleck was the obvious Joker, but the rest of society is the same. 'Sane' people so to speak, who suffered because of Joker's crimes, reacted no better than him. They actually are the first and last Joker. The first and last crocodile. More so than Arthur Fleck, who was mentally ill and living a particularly difficult and miserable life.

Life doesn't care about your feelings. The world doesn't care about others. The madness lies in switching sides: first, you enjoy the Joker causing harm to others because they deserve it, and then you enjoy others causing harm to the Joker because he ends up deserving it. You just switch sides if you are mad and evil enough and devoid of other biases.

Either you see that life is merciless and people self-serving, or you live in your mind in a fake ideal world which will never exist in our lifetime. It is hard to know where to position oneself. We are all evil and selfish creatures. There is no life in this material world without doing harm.

Though, I still believe in reducing suffering as much as we can and in doing our best to become less ego driven, but most of the world is not there yet to even try.

So, this was my insight on madness, evil, ego, and how the crocodile appeared in my mind. The crocodile doesn't give a fuck and only serves oneself. It was shockingly brilliant.

[Rafael Thundercat]

Is the aspect of Crocodile that make him look like a Meat Eater Devil. When we see a little fluffy chicken eating a worm we dont see that for the worm the chicken is like the Croc is for a Gazelle. Cute Devils Exist too. 

[Clarence]

15 minutes ago, Rafael Thundercat said:

Is the aspect of Crocodile that make him look like a Meat Eater Devil.

I don't know what you mean here.

16 minutes ago, Rafael Thundercat said:

Cute Devils Exist too. 

Yes, obviously. To the one who is eaten, the devil can take many forms. It can be the cutest creature in the world.

[Breakingthewall]

Revenge is stupid and useless, defense is necessary and useful. If someone is damaging you, release against him everything. Is someone damaged you in the past, use this feeling to be determinated to fight to death when it will be necessary. Practice the fight, physical and mental. Never let anyone step on you, steal your energy. the scale must always be balanced.

I remember reading that it was impossible to enslave Native Americans because they either fought or opted for collective suicide. I'm not sure if it was always the case, but I think it was wonderful if it were true

I recently read that Herich Hartmann, a German flying ace who was captured by the Russians and locked up in a gulag, refused to work. He was confined in solitary confinement for 5 months and he continued to refuse, they threatened to kill him, then they offered him an improvement in his living conditions if he agreed to be a flight instructor, and he always refused. another great example

Edited October 17, 2024 by Breakingthewall

[Clarence]

@Breakingthewall Right. Though, as a child, I had no defense. It was me against all the others. I had extreme difficulty to express and defend myself. I had zero or one friend. According to everyone, I was the weird one, the one to exclude.

When people are making fun of you every day and you are very young, it is near impossible to fight back; and they would laugh even more if you did so. I absolutely had no desire to fight back anyway and I didn't have the keys to even know how.

The trick is that it takes years just to build some trust in yourself after that, because they've convinced you that you are the problem and that you shouldn't even exist. So of course, you are right. I shouldn't let anyone step on me, but this shift doesn't happen overnight. It is a long process to construct oneself after a difficult childhood and very difficult teenage years. At least, it is for me.

And even more so that I am not a fighter. It's just not in my genes. I'd rather let people think they're right and smart and not care about what they think, rather than defend myself against them. If they already think I'm stupid for not being like them and that they shouldn't respect me, they're all wrong to begin with.

That's the kind of defense I'm aiming towards… not caring, and becoming myself as much as I can.

When I have the desire for someone to suffer because they hurt me, what I desire is for them to understand what they did, especially if they are close to me. I don't want them to suffer for the sake of it. I want them to understand. If they've never felt intense pain in their life, they just can't understand.

It is an abstract form of desire. I don't want to take revenge in the usual sense. I want understanding from all sides (me understanding why they acted the way they did, and them understanding how their words or actions hurt me). I feel a strong need to be understood by the people around me, which is a bias stemming from my childhood.

Obviously, not everybody can understand, and nobody can completely understand someone else anyway, but everyone still can try. Basically, having a genuine desire to try is all that matters. Understanding is more important to me than practicing any kind of self-defense. All I want is to become secure in myself and in my way of thinking, which is quite different from the majority of people.

So this is what matters most to me… it is not taking revenge. One of my main value is not to hurt others anyway, even those who've hurt me. Though I still think that it is sometimes necessary to be blunt to help a message come through, but that is something I've just started practicing. As you are saying, it is a matter of balance, and setting boundaries to what one can accept is absolutely necessary.

[Breakingthewall]

@Clarence the problem is that there is a lot of people who needs to steal the energy of others. It could be a guy who wants to enslave you with a whip (rare nowadays) or a toxic girlfriend (not so rare). If you are weak, those kinds of people will be attracted to you unconsciously, and having your energy drained is not a positive thing. It is necessary to know how to identify those patterns and cut those kind of relationships .

[Clarence]

@Breakingthewall I completely agree. What I find the hardest is cutting bonds with people I love, but who don’t love or care for me as much as I do for them. It's empowering to end those kinds of relationship, but it is incredibly hard.

[Breakingthewall]

6 hours ago, Clarence said:

@Breakingthewall I completely agree. What I find the hardest is cutting bonds with people I love, but who don’t love or care for me as much as I do for them. It's empowering to end those kinds of relationship, but it is incredibly hard.

 

Well, if they don't care about you you could care about them at same level and that's it. The problem is more when they try to use you. If you are very open you could be susceptible of being used, then you find someone who try to do it, usually without realizing it. People is not aware about what they do, almost nobody look really at himself 

There are many types of toxic relationships, especially as a couple, but of all types. There are many people with narcissistic tendencies, and that means a need for power over others. power in the form of admiration, possession, humiliation, castration, restricting your freedom, using you as a mirror, treating you with superiority, in short, using you. It is the most common thing in human relationships. If you are a person with an open heart you must be very firm at the same time, otherwise you will be a puppet

Edited October 18, 2024 by Breakingthewall

[Breakingthewall]

12 hours ago, Clarence said:

When people are making fun of you every day and you are very young, it is near impossible to fight back; and they would laugh even more if you did so. I absolutely had no desire to fight back anyway and I didn't have the keys to even know how.

That is shit, but inevitable ,if you don't fight, some people attack, to steal your energy and feel superior . Really who are humiliate are them, who are shit, losers, but in that age it's impossible to see it

12 hours ago, Clarence said:

And even more so that I am not a fighter. It's just not in my genes. I'd rather let people think they're right and smart and not care about what they think, rather than defend myself against them. If they already think I'm stupid for not being like them and that they shouldn't respect me, they're all wrong to begin with.

I think that is the best position if you have not ego. But it's very difficult because usually we have an ego, then if we act like that your ego suffers and gets weak, then your ego gots disfunctional and twisted, they steal your energy.

For me it's important to be on the same level, if not I feel shit, same if I'm down or up.  that of down and up is just a feeling, but as we are interacting with others is important, all the social dynamics works is that way.

Even if someone really loves you, if you let her/him will abuse you, like trying that you do what they want, etc, it seems inevitable, and maybe you do the same without realizing it. It's very difficult be at the same level, real respect 

Edited October 18, 2024 by Breakingthewall

[Clarence]

@Breakingthewall I think it's a complex topic. Someone's psychology is very complex. You can't just change it, or understand someone else, from a few words. There are so many factors which influence who we are and how we react to things. There isn't just one way.

There are also many degrees of abuse. I remember in kindergarten a school teacher forcing me to color a drawing the way she wanted, not letting me turn my sheet the way I wanted to. This was abuse. She was 50 years old and I wasn't even 5, and she imposed on me a way of doing things which felt wrong to me. Most kids would not have cared, but I cared. I could spot abuse and injustice very early on.

So I'm actually far more aware of it than most people. Though, life is not that simple. Expressing disagreement against teachers or bosses every time I disagree with something would create a lot of trouble, which I don't necessarily want to deal with.

I actually regret that I didn't react against the teacher that day. But there is another thing to learn: not to care as much for everything. Because strangers just don't care about you. That teacher didn't care about me, I was just a child among all the others in her classroom. And who really cares about children.

If I fought every time someone abused me the way that teacher did, I would spend my life doing that. In the end, the teacher wouldn't have understood how wrong she was because, according to society's standards, she was superior to me and had authority, she 'knew how to do things while I didn't'. But I knew that that wasn't right. I was first and foremost a human being, just like her, before being a kid in her class.

How do you fight people when they can't even see that? At some point, the smart move is to understand and accept that you are different and leave, not try to change people to suit you, as it takes too much energy. At least, that's what I think, since I don't care about being an activist and trying to change society or other people's mind.

This is why I believe that what matters most, is to respect and trust oneself. Proper reactions to any social situation stem from this. It may look like fighting or like leaving. The form doesn't matter. What matters is doing the right thing, and that can only be done when you know and respect yourself. This is essential to living true to oneself and to others, and so, in my opinion, it is the main thing to focus on.

So I really just can't blindly focus on fighting or defending myself. I can only focus on feeling secure in myself. This is what will change my inner world, and so also the outside world. This is not a sign of weakness. It is not either about having or not having an ego. It is about developping a healthy ego.

Edited October 19, 2024 by Clarence

[Breakingthewall]

44 minutes ago, Clarence said:

How do you fight people when they can't even see that?

Easy, don't care about their motivations or what is inside them, just make them respect your limits. It's something essential in social relationships. 

44 minutes ago, Clarence said:

If I fought every time someone abused me the way that teacher did

No, because if you do enough times, people will perceive that you will fight, then they don't try to abuse. Abusers are unconciouss, they act by instinct. If their instinct tells them don't go there they won't try, but you can't pretend that, it has to be real, you have to fought real figths to perceive yourself as able to defend yourself. You don't need to fight physically, just don't let people traspass your limits, passive defense is ok . For example, if the teacher tells you how to do the design, say yes ok, then ignore her, again and again . If she ask: why are you ignoring me? Say sorry, I m not ignoring you, then keep ignoring and never give up. You don't need to do anything, just don't do what they demand you to do

Every time you win, you get more solid, stronger. Every time you give up you get weaker, softer. It's a matter of energetic structure, it's impossible to scape of that, at least I don't see how

Edited October 19, 2024 by Breakingthewall