Extremism

I consider myself a realist, and I consider balance to be of utmost importance to maintaining a realistic approach to things. To pessimists I may sound like an optimist and to optimists I may sound like a pessimist, because I aim to temper claims with a realistic perspective and avoid extremist notions. Likewise, democrats often think I'm conservative, and republicans think I'm liberal, because THEIR beliefs are extreme, they often attribute a corresponding extreme to me, which is just not the case.

Balance is therefore very important in looking at things realistically and rationally. This is why people who are mentally ill are often called unstable or unbalanced. Their perceptions are skewed to some extreme, which prevents them from seeing things as they truly are. People like to view things as all good or all evil, but in the end they are just people, and everyone is a mix of both. Although the divine forces of the universe may achieve perfect blacks and whites, we are mortals prone to greys. Good people can mess up every now and then and make bad choices, but that does not make them wholly bad. Similarly bad people might do something good, but that does not make them good, especially if that good deed is meant to control someone. This is why I like the concept of the yin yang. There's a little bit of good in all evil and a little bit of evil in all good.

To me, the straight and narrow is less like a path and more like a tightrope walker holding a beam with a bucket on each end of the pole. Meanwhile the world dumps things into your buckets everyday, and you choose what to take out and leave in the buckets. It doesn't really matter which side gets too heavy, because either side will throw you off balance and topple you into the abyss. Therefore it is obsession and extremism, which can so easily spill you into the darkness. The moment that one side gets too heavy you start to lean in that direction, more and more until balance is overwhelmed and you fall.
As I've said before, you can not have sex and still be obsessed with it, by worrying about stopping people from having sex. At that point your mind is so focused on it, and you begin to see it everywhere. Likewise, you can not eat and your every thought be on food, constantly obsessing about every calorie, every pound, until it consumes your thoughts.

The natural next step of being obsessed with something is to be so consumed and filled with it yourself that it begins to spill out onto others. The obsessor then applies pressure for those around them to conform to their obsession as well. This is often seen in narcissism, where the person's heightened sense of importance gets pushed on those around them to comply with their perception, and any resistance to this is met with condemnation or narcissistic rage until the subject conforms. If someone is obsessed with a person, it can consume them and the outward push can become stalking or worse in an effort to control that person, but never mistake that need to control as love. Obsession is not love.

Extremism/Obsession of any kind can turn a normal healthy appetite or interest into a destructive cycle.  As I've said before, addictive (obsessive) personalities are far more destructive than the substances they choose to abuse. There was a story my biology teacher once told us of a woman obsessed with drinking water to the point that she killed herself by drinking too much and her cells began to burst. Too much of anything is a bad thing, and inversely too little can be bad too.

Extremism turns kind people into doormats, because they are afraid to say no. Extremism turns good workers into workaholics that burn out. Extremism turns a fit person into a bulimic. At its very core extremism/obsession turns positives into negatives.

The problem with extremism, is that in an attempt to counter the previous extreme, some people may go to the opposite extreme, which is referred to as the pendulum effect. However a pendulum swung to the other extreme, will inevitably swing back the other way and so on, because the balance is in the middle and when it finally settles in the middle that is where true stability can be found. For example, an alcoholic may quit cold turkey, then fall off the wagon, then binge drink, etc. It's not until the person can be able to take a drink and stop themselves, be in the room with it and not be obsessing over drinking or not drinking, that they truly won't be an alcoholic anymore. When that drink no longer becomes a part of their core identity, they are cured.

Often these obsessions are out of a shaky persona clinging to something to define them, make them happy, to make them lovable to someone, to justify them, or some other part of their identity which they value greatly to the point that peripheral things lose focus. They say "this is all I need", and in that they neglect many areas that need their attention. In that moment, they throw everything into one bucket, and it becomes only a matter of time as balance is lost, and a destructive cycle begins.

So if someone counters something said, it doesn't always mean that they believe the opposite extreme. If you assume that, you might want to examine your own views for extremist thought. Sometimes people are just giving a reality check, and trying to lighten a bucket that looks like it might be getting too heavy.

Here's to everyone walking the line. May your burdens be light. May your balance never falter. And may you always find your footing in truth.

Control and the Just World Theory

I get irritated with the philosophies that say you are in complete control of your life, and that everything is a byproduct of your decisions. Sure I would say the bulk of things, but not everything. To believe that EVERYTHING is within your control is a slippery slope to victim blame and the just world phenomenon, which is a sign of a personality disorder.

"The just-world hypothesis (or just-world fallacy) is the cognitive bias that human actions eventually yield morally fair and fitting consequences, so that, ultimately, noble actions are duly rewarded and evil actions are duly punished. In other words, the just-world hypothesis is the tendency to attribute consequences to, or expect consequences as the result of, an unspecified power that restores moral balance; the fallacy is that this implies (often unintentionally) the existence of such a power in terms of some cosmic force of justice, desert, stability, or order in the universe." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_world_phenomenon

Control is an illusion, and the very nature of this philosophy does not acknowledge the free will and decisions of others. It is in fact very narcissistic - as in problems distinguishing the self from others (see narcissism and boundaries) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism - and naive to believe that you have complete and utter control over everything that happens to you.

You can control yourself, your reactions, your choices, but it in this exaggerated perception that lays responsibility on the victim for every wrong thing that happens to them. In that over-assertion is what I have a problem with, because I am a big advocate of personal responsibility in general. However to say every bad thing that befalls you is your fault, negates the influence and will of any other person, whose own will should be just as far reaching, if you accept that premise. Tell that to the jews of the holocaust, the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, or a child who was raped by their father. There are things that are truly beyond your control. You are not the center of the universe and there are limits to everyone's influence, even yours.

For example, there is a book that makes claims on your disposition causing certain ailments, but the problem is that it's not a diagnosis.  It's always hindsight, and never works the opposite. In these books is the claim that people who end up with multiple sclerosis get it because they are stubborn and closed minded. My aunt died of MS, and had a very severe case. She was extremely gullible and if there was anything stubborn about her, it was her faith in everything that came along to heal her. A faith that should have healed her, if that were the way of it. Therefore she was the antithesis of what the book claimed was the cause. This same book attributes whatever is ailing you to some personality flaw, which is ridiculous. If there is any sense of validity, perhaps that something might lead one to smoke and then get lung cancer. Therefore it is a byproduct of a destructive behavior, but to say that someone has breast cancer because they are too motherly is excessive. It leaves no room for actual scientific causes, which have been proven repeatedly, as opposed to this random assertion.

BAD THINGS HAPPEN, and sometimes they happen to good people. 

That does not mean that they deserved it. In fact I have seen more bad things happen to good people than bad people over the years. Often I have seen more people take the side of the abuser than the victim for this very reasoning.

It makes people comfortable to believe that someone deserved something bad, even if they are the ones doing the mistreating. In the Milgram experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millgram_study they showed that 65% of participants "hurt" people under orders to the point of giving a final lethal shock. They were unaware that the other participant was acting. The descriptions of the subject before and after were shockingly different, attributing some deficiency in the person they "hurt" (ugly, stupid, etc) that was not there before. It's soothing to the soul to think that there's a reason such as that, because if bad things happen to good people... and they viewing themselves as good... anything could happen to them. It makes one feel vulnerable and insecure to recognize that someone might randomly target them.

The world is simple. People do make decisions and they are responsible for those decisions. They do produce reactions of equal and opposite natures, but to extrapolate from that to say you are responsible for ever single thing that happens to you, is extreme absurdity. The person doing it to you is responsible for their own actions, and you are responsible for yours.

Faith and Belief

Lately I have been pondering on the concepts of faith and belief, and I think that they are two entirely different creatures that often become intertwined to have the same meaning.  This simply is not the case, and I can only speculate on the core differences, but there is a difference.

Belief in something does not make it true.  I have heard many people say that if you believe it, then it will happen, but if that were true, when people who are high believe they can fly, we wouldn't find their bodies the next day splattered on concrete.  I have no doubt that they believe with all their hearts that they can fly.  We can believe a lie told to us all day long, but it does not make it true, nor change reality by enough people believing.  If it did, we would not have schizophrenics, who live in their own worlds, but it is only real to them, and does not make them true... it makes them sick.

So how is faith different?  You can invest your energy and faith into someone and still be betrayed, but I  believe (so this could be right or wrong) that faith does not come from us.  Faith is the connection between us and the divine.  Such was the lesson on the water with Jesus and Peter.  So long as Peter had his eyes on Christ, he could do it, but fear set in and he began to sink. Before he could walk on water, first Peter had to believe, but not in himself.  He had to have faith in the divine that all things were possibly through Christ who strengthens us, and all things work for good for those who serve the Lord.  And if you ask me, that's rather specific.

Throughout my life, I have been exposed to a variety of people, and in them a variety of beliefs, but the one resounding difference was what they believed in, more than what they believed.  Those who believed in the light, the good, and that it would carry them, those who actively worked to shine that light to the benefit of others, those were people who had faith.  Adversely I've seen many with a foolish belief in themselves only to be a disappoint to themselves and others time and time again when reality didn't measure up to their belief.  I've seen people more concerned and with more belief in a cause, using their belief as a crutch to support that cause than the other way around.  Personally I have seen and had faith in things to see mighty things happen, and I have believed in things that were unworthy of that belief and ended in bitter disappointment.  Honestly the result is indicative of that belief versus faith.  The seed was planted and you could tell by its fruit whether it was planted in faith or belief.

In conclusion, all I can say is that there is a distinct difference between the two.  Perhaps it seems simplistic, but if that were so, people would not be getting it wrong so much.  I leave you with the question:  What do you believe in?  What do you have faith in?  How often have you been disappointed by who or what you believed in?  All I ask is that you examine your intentions, your sources, and perhaps you might find the solution that is right for you.  In so doing, I hope you find the faith that you need, by letting the light lead.

The Flame

Being a creative usually starts with perception and sensitivity. Artists and writers translate the world around them into a transferable language that takes their viewer / reader into that place, that experience, and gives them for one brief moment a sight through the creative's eyes. Not everyone is capable of abstract thought, to see beyond themselves, but creatives transport others, opening doors and minds in the process. Not limited to what they see, creatives reveal that there is more, and therefore strip away the self imposed limits of the person intaking the work of the creatives' hearts and minds. Media is important for this reason.

However to be this sort of shaman of thought and imagination, is a taxing reality. It comes with a myriad of reactions by those who experience their work. Sometimes it manifests in jealousy or a lack of respect for these hours of creation as real work, when the very act taps resources of emotional and psychological depths that often are not used in the average profession. Sometimes it manifest in obsessors or destroyers of different shapes and breeds, people who either want to own the creative recognizing something special, and being lofty of mind, believe they deserve to have the creative all to themselves, and then rob them of their voice and in that their purpose and freedom to create. Often this is followed by the "if I can't have you, no one will" mentality and the general suffocation of the creative's light. The world is a little darker, every time one of these lights go out.

All the while that which makes a creative is sensitivity and perception, which makes these strikes all the more powerful, the wounds deeper, the hits more damaging, because of what they are. It is no wonder that many creatives suffer from depression or emotional disturbances, because of the yoke of being a creative. It often takes another creative to understand, and help fuel those flames that bring life to ideas. In that contact, there is a synergy, and they burn brighter by the mere presence of a kindred flame. Because to shine your light in the dark can be a lonely path.

A truly cultivated creative though, cannot stop creating, with what they are given. In this they can transform the negative into a positive, their experiences into a lesson, and their broken heart into an unbreakable tool for the protection of other hearts. Those negative experiences become fuel for inspiration and they can turn crap into gold, which I lovingly call the Midass touch.

Be what you are, illuminate the darkness, expose the shadows, feel the heights and depths of emotion, and be not afraid, because what you are is as beautiful as anything you create. In a world of destruction, you are the counter ... CREATE