The Loneliness of Yellow Spiral Thinking

[Yellow_Girl]

Hello!

I recently found this community as part of a search for the reasons why no one seemed to see the world as I do. 

I grew up excessively Mormon, but left after I found out the religion wasn't a full description of reality. From there I went to college and studied both philosophy and psychology, especially linguistics. On day one of my intro to philosophy course, I realized I wasn't to find truth there either. Everyone argued for their beliefs so vehemently that it wasn't hard to see that no one was "right." They were simply exhibiting their own subjective point of view. 

I coined this term "belief-mongering" and saw it everywhere I went but no one talked about it. No one saw the pattern.

So I began to look for people who had already realized this and found and read more than 3,000 books on all kinds of personal development topics. I started a business and since I'm alone all day shipping in a warehouse I listen to them on 1.5x speed and get through a book a day. I've been doing this for about seven years.

I recently and joyfully discovered spiral dynamics (thanks, Leo) and realized I'm very yellow. I don't have any beliefs, just cause and effect predictions that are either maximally effective or minimally effective. I became interested in systems thinking and even wrote a book on systems before I found the spiral (yet to be published). I gave up afterlife predictions and most black and white thinking. 

My chief problem these days is that this is a very lonely way to see the world.

I recently attended a funeral for a close family member and listened with interest to all the descriptions of my family's afterlife beliefs. Some of my family talked of heaven (blue), one man who came from Samoa talked about animals taking part in the afterlife (purple), some talked only of the deceased achievements and how they hoped to achieve as much (orange), etc etc. It was dizzying and interesting! There was even a lot of red behavior from the children of the deceased, fighting with each other for "stuff."

Driving home, I talked of all the beliefs with my husband and children and how we all have different ways of looking at what happens and how that is integral to culture and upbringing. I had the sense that none of them understood what I was talking about. They could only see within the confines of their belief structures. The very LANGUAGE I was using appeared not to make sense to them. My spouse is very green and he sees things in a very kind, green way, but does not fathom yellow.

Other attempts at communicating systems thinking to people in other spiral categories have led to a profound lack of understanding and more belief mongering. This has been going on for a very long time now. Even my highly-educated, well-read friends appear to be in green in that they insist their way is "right."

I am recently struck with the sorrow of how lonely it feels to think in ways that are not in alignment with the culture. I am hitting something of a wall of dilemmas. Here they are:

- Are yellow ideals just another form of belief-centrism and should they, therefore, be hidden from the world? Should yellow communicate their point of view to others?

- How does one build a social life around a community that is only interested in belief-mongering and flaunting orange status or blue and green virtues?

- Is profound acceptance and tolerance of all belief systems enough to satisfy an evolutionary urge to connect with others given the fact that we sort according to interests and beliefs?

- If we are all system drones, and free will is non-existent, how must we live with such knowledge?

- How can one love others and progress to turquoise if one feels so separate?

- If one has a greater awareness of systems, how does one ethically use this? It feels a lot like manipulation.

- How does one feel grounded when one realizes there is no ground? Is grounding necessary? If all beliefs are suspect, then how can one progress through life with such knowledge?

- How does one live in the material world when one feels how immaterial it all is?

 

These questions are on my mind almost constantly now. It's a lot of questions but I think it boils down to the idea that how can one exist in the matrix when one begins to see the code, and others do not seem to. I am not nieve enough to think I see the whole picture yet, by any means, but it's starting to reveal itself and I am terrified.

I'm only 38 and the thought of living another 40-50 years like this seems to be a painful lot. If only I'd learned this stuff later in life. 

 

 

 

 

 

[ajasatya]

@Yellow_Girl to me, it sounds like you're overusing rationalization to bypass emotional issues. you said a lot of big words, but in the end, you're just afraid of opening up. repressed traumas? i don't know. you should know better.

[RichardY]

@Yellow_Girl 3,000 books. Quite a few.

You ever read Christopher Langan's works? I found his essays on "The Art of Knowing" helpful. Explained a lot of what I intuitively felt looking at philosophy for a bit. His Cognitive Theorectical Model of the Universe is a bit hard for me to process. But the essays were straightforward enough.

Always looking for better, or different information.
 

[Yellow_Girl]

3 minutes ago, RichardY said:

@Yellow_Girl 3,000 books. Quite a few.

You ever read Christopher Langan's works? I found his essays on "The Art of Knowing" helpful. Explained a lot of what I intuitively felt looking at philosophy for a bit. His Cognitive Theorectical Model of the Universe is a bit hard for me to process. But the essays were straightforward enough.

Always looking for better, or different information.
 

I will check it out! Me too, always searching.

12 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

@Yellow_Girl to me, it sounds like you're overusing rationalization to bypass emotional issues. you said a lot of big words, but in the end, you're just afraid of opening up. repressed traumas? i don't know. you should know better.

Please expand what you mean here. I do often express to others what I believe but have simply found it ineffective. Perhaps the real problem is that I have not found an effective method of communication.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Yellow_Girl

[Shin]

19 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

@Yellow_Girl to me, it sounds like you're overusing rationalization to bypass emotional issues. you said a lot of big words, but in the end, you're just afraid of opening up. repressed traumas? i don't know. you should know better.

Where is the love and compassion ?
You and Leo are way too harsh.

That would be ok with people that are here for a while, but not for newcomers.
This isn't helping them, they just are even more confuse by asking themselves why those guys are so dickish when they are supposed to be the exemple.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Shin

[ajasatya]

@Shin a lot of times little harshness is exactly what people need to shake them out of their mental cycles

@Yellow_Girl i will be even more straightforward. how would the world have to be to please you? what would have to change? do you have the courage to make that statement?

do not allow the mind to take all the space. if your heart can't be heard, we're just wasting time here. the mind is a prolix thing and has its place. but the heart is ALMOST SPEECHLESS.

Edited May 13, 2019 by ajasatya

[Yellow_Girl]

2 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

@Shin a lot of times little harshness is exactly what people need to shake them out of their mental cycles

@Yellow_Girl i will be even more straightforward. how would the world have to be to please you? what would have to change? do you have the courage to make that statement?

I don't really believe the world should change, honestly. I am looking to what I should do to change. I very much understand that I can't make the world change. I've tried and that doesn't work. But at the same time there appear to be contradictory systems at work here. My biology requires me to connect with others, as does my knowledge of effective systems. But my viewpoint makes the connection very hard since there is a lack of understanding.

Kind of like what we're doing right now. Prime example.

16 minutes ago, Shin said:

Where is the love and compassion ?
You and Leo are way too harsh.

That would be ok with people that are here for a while, but not for newcomers.
This isn't helping them, they just are even more confuse by asking themselves why those guys are so dickish when they are supposed to be the exemple.

Shin, I appreciate the kindness. 

[ajasatya]

1 minute ago, Yellow_Girl said:

My biology requires me to connect with others, as does my knowledge of effective systems.

too many words. are you having problems with your husband? are you missing the excitement of the 20's? do you have relationship problems with your children?

or are you just struggling internally with conflicting beliefs?

[Yellow_Girl]

11 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

too many words. are you having problems with your husband? are you missing the excitement of the 20's? do you have relationship problems with your children?

or are you just struggling internally with conflicting beliefs?

No problems with my husband, he's wonderful. My children are in their teens and do listen to me but don't quite understand. I don't degrade where they are in the spiral. That would be unethical in my opinion. 

I suppose the issue is simply that I appear to be at a different vMEME than many people out there. It is like seeing different shades of blue than others and trying to describe how "blue" looks to one another. 

Edited May 13, 2019 by Yellow_Girl

[Yellow_Girl]

Premise one - I have beliefs that others don't have

Premise two - I am required by my biology to connect

Premise three - People connect based on shared beliefs

Conclusion - Therefore, I can't connect.

 

There's an explanation using propositional logic. Sorry Leo, for using academic philosophy

[ajasatya]

1 minute ago, Yellow_Girl said:

I suppose the issue is simply that I appear to be at a different vMEME than many people out there.

look, lack of humility also causes suffering. are you self-proclaiming yourself as yellow? yellow is a tier 2 stage, which means that one at yellow has fully grasped the necessity of different stages in everyone's life and in every culture out there.

if you're feeling lonely, then let go of the place you think you are and go back to the basics. talk to people, hug, make eye contact. tell someone that you feel lonely. human connection does not depend on "stages" or "beliefs". a silent and deep eye contact can break many barriers.

[Rilles]

2 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

if you're feeling lonely, then let go of the place you think you are and go back to the basics. talk to people, hug, make eye contact. tell someone that you feel lonely. human connection does not depend on "stages" or "beliefs". a silent and deep eye contact can break many barriers.

this.

[Yellow_Girl]

2 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

look, lack of humility also causes suffering. are you self-proclaiming yourself as yellow? yellow is a tier 2 stage, which means that one at yellow has fully grasped the necessity of different stages in everyone's life and in every culture out there.

if you're feeling lonely, then let go of the place you think you are and go back to the basics. talk to people, hug, make eye contact. tell someone that you feel lonely. human connection does not depend on "stages" or "beliefs". a silent and deep eye contact can break many barriers.

I am not trying to call myself yellow to tout that I am special or whatever. I just am yellow. I know this because it's literally the way I think! That's why I was so happy to find the spiral, because it was an EXACT description of how I think. 

I do get out there. I have many friends and family. It is not from lack of human connection this stems. I am surrounded by love on all sides. It is a lack of being understood.

Unfortunately, people do group themselves based on belief. This has been extremely well documented. 

Ajastaya, I don't think you have the wisdom I am looking for. Does anyone else understand this or is this just me talking jibberish?

 

[bejapuskas]

@Yellow_Girl  Yellow is a made up thing, if spiral dynamics didnt exist, you would still suffer. 

 

[Yellow_Girl]

4 minutes ago, Drake140 said:

I think your need to connect is just a excuse to strengthen your beliefs otherwise you would not put the requirement of them accepting them or understanding them. I't a cheap trick to use external things to support your beliefs and a luxury, you will just have to rely in your logic at this point as your only source.

It's not a requirement of mine. It's just that when we evaluate situations, I get a lot of belief-mongering. I get a lot of "my beliefs are right" -- as yellow, I don't think beliefs can be "right", only "effective and ineffective". Once you see that, you start to realize that much of human interaction is just belief-mongering.

Maybe none of you see this yet perhaps.

No amount of hugging can make someone feel understood.

 

[bejapuskas]

2 minutes ago, Yellow_Girl said:

It's not a requirement of mine. It's just that when we evaluate situations, I get a lot of belief-mongering. I get a lot of "my beliefs are right" -- as yellow, I don't think beliefs can be "right", only "effective and ineffective". Once you see that, you start to realize that much of human interaction is just belief-mongering.

Maybe none of you see this yet perhaps.

No amount of hugging can make someone feel understood.

If you didn't have parents who hugged you everyday when you were a baby, you would probably be depressed and miserable. The highest forms of understanding are not intellectual.

[Shin]

16 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

look, lack of humility also causes suffering. are you self-proclaiming yourself as yellow? yellow is a tier 2 stage, which means that one at yellow has fully grasped the necessity of different stages in everyone's life and in every culture out there.

if you're feeling lonely, then let go of the place you think you are and go back to the basics. talk to people, hug, make eye contact. tell someone that you feel lonely. human connection does not depend on "stages" or "beliefs". a silent and deep eye contact can break many barriers.

 

I'm feeling lonely and sad,

Would you hug me ?

[ajasatya]

9 minutes ago, Yellow_Girl said:

Ajastaya, I don't think you have the wisdom I am looking for

nobody else can have the wisdom you need.

4 minutes ago, Yellow_Girl said:

Maybe none of you see this yet perhaps.

No amount of hugging can make someone feel understood.

oh, the suffering! please please, i want to feel understood! how is that yellow? 

[Yellow_Girl]

Just now, Shin said:

 

I'm feeling lonely and sad,

Would you hug me ?

hug

[Omni]

Lots of identification and distinctions here. 

How many barriers have you built for other things?