Featured comment by Lucid Twilight:
"No, I'm not at all typical. Nor do I care much. Typicality is such a bothersome thing. Societal norms are thrust upon us before we are capable of accepting or rejecting them, although I never truly accepted the image of what I was "supposed" to be. I have fended those concepts off just as the body's immune system would attack a virus. I am who and what I am, and for that I make no excuses or apologies. I wish only to be. I consider labels cumbersome as more often than not they're imposed limitation, thoughts which define imaginary boundaries and keep us trapped within prisons of our own making. The less I am described the more free I am, to choose my self and which roles I want to play.
"The twilight symbolizes to me the merging of light and dark. On a personal level this translates to a coming together of all my parts, of my being as a whole, without judgement or malice aimed at any portion. I added lucid to say that it is a conscious merger and all expressions which spring forth are purely the result of what I have become and am becoming. I am the self-aware in-between (or balance) that desires nothing less than the complete realization of my own potential, and the potential of others, if they are willing and able to recieve my aid. (Able, meaning that not everyone is conducive to everyone else's growth. What I am able to do for someone may not be what they need, and in fact I might slow their progress regardless of my good intention. One needs to know when to step out of the way.)
"I find it somewhat difficult to feel at home in this world. It is not designed for people like me. But I don't think it's designed for any of us, as we really are. It's a matter of people willingly compromising their dreams and ambitions and selves for the sake of what is percieved as necessary or healthy. We have fallen so far from bliss that to think of living in a manner true to it is unspeakable, a tale of absurd whimsy at best, better left to children's stories. This is not how it's supposed to be and I will not accept the notion that is. It might be more reasonable, but compromisers never accomplish anything. They adapt but never expand, clinging to the illusion of progress. If that is truly the only available path it is time to blaze another trail.
"If work culture is to change for the better then surely it is we that need to change. The world is not our creator, it is our creation. We have simply relinquished our power. It is easier by far to play the victim than the victor. But then difficulty is merely a perception; it'd be more accurate to say we're used to things being a certain way and change, regardless of implications, is seen as a threat to the status-quo. When all we've seen are swamps we cannot comprehend mountains and, given the opportunity, some would decline because to see such things would shatter every misconception they had about their world, misconceptions they see as being a part of their very selves.
"The majority of problems stem from an overzealous desire for self-preservation. To change often means to die in a sense, although nothing is actually lost. This is what we find unacceptable. This is why we've lost our way."
-Lucid Twilight (his blog is here)
7 comments:
Is Lucid Twilight an advocate for or against adaptation?
"They adapt but never expand, clinging to the illusion of progress. If that is truly the only available path it is time to blaze another trail."
"To change often means to die in a sense, although nothing is actually lost. This is what we find unacceptable. This is why we've lost our way."
I note a similarity between LT and myself:
"I find it somewhat difficult to feel at home in this world. It is not designed for people like me."
I remember an old Unitarian Universalist t-shirt slogan from the late 1970s (glory days of the t-shirt slogan!), to wit:
"Stop the world! I want to get off!"
But I come at this from the perspective of someone who is habitually unemployed, and surprised at the "world"'s seeming disinterest in some rather evident skills that I THOUGHT I might be able to use, in that world, to better things, to gain a living, and so forth. The problem as I see it from this perspective, isn't that most of the world is screwed up, it's merely that certain threshold gatekeeper portions of it are screwed up enough that they keep me from entering the doors they keep locked against me.
It's not that the planet is a mess. It's just that it doesn't appreciate ME. There's a big difference ...
"It's not that the planet is a mess. It's just that it doesn't appreciate ME."
I think it's possible that both are true. :)
It seems many of the best people feel like aliens.
"Is Lucid Twilight an advocate for or against adaptation?"
Adaptation is like so many other things: not intrinsically good or bad, it depends on what you do with it.
If you lived in a racist society, would you want to adapt to it? Conservatism has its virtues sometimes.
On the opposite side, if you were misogynist in a growingly egalitarian society, adaptation would be a good thing. In my personal opinion.
"In the context of my post, adaption isn't a good thing. In it I refer to people who adapt to a system which crushes the soul, accepting it as what has to be without realizing that it is a product of our own making."
Yes, I see now (on re-reading) that I was missing the context. I guess the question (do you advocate for or against adaptation) is a bit of a straw man, set up just so folks can beat at him a bit. I think I agree with you.
The question of a "soul destroying system" is an interesting one. For the first time in a long period of history (anyone wish to disabuse me?) we're at a juncture when people can actually reject labor that is somehow "unfulfilling," not merely in a financial sense. There's a Zeitgeist out there of seeking "meaning" in life, through work.
Gosh, in the 1950s you went to your dull job at IBM, you traded loyalty to the company for comfort, reliability, and predictability from the company, and you sought your "meaning" elsewhere. At church, probably.
And in the 1830s you didn't get to even think about your job. You went to a factory because it was near to where you could walk. You ran a machine that pounded out shoe soles for twelve hours a day. Your "meaning" was not getting your hand ripped off by the shoe-sole stamper.
People like Barbara Sher and other career counselors are a new wave. I kind of bridle at the "What Color is your Parachute" ethos -- that work, itself, can be your calling and your meaning -- since for me, the very act of doing it for money in a system I distrust and dislike, is the heart of the problem.
But that's a different issue.
Yes, probably just a few decades ago, all this talk would have been as relevant as whether Andromeda might be a nice place to visit.
My apologies for my rudeness, LT. But at least, it wasn't the food I took right out of your mouth. ;-)
Final,
"A straw man for folks to beat at a bit"? You never mentioned you knew my unfortunate friend Fantocchio! Poor guy almost became the King's gardener... until he used manure that improved the size of his turnips. Big mistake. :-(
I heard he was happily retired now with his bird friends.
Eolake,
Andromeda is nice. Specially considering it's a whole galaxy, which offers lots of choices. (Better avoid Pyrrhus though, it's still very human-hostile.)
Me, I don't usually go that far. The 30.000 inhabited planets of the Alastor star cluster are already a handful, specially serene Trullion. Or Marune, where time itself is a natural artwork, since it revolves irregularly between four neighboring stars, and a fully dark night is a rare event. Also, the nightrise over the permanent mists of Spectralis are an awesome view, from what I've heard. (Yes, it is the NIGHT that rises and sets there. Unusual, hunh?) Of course, there are few places where I feel more at home than legendary Neon Genesis. Except maybe a stay at the Palace of Pastoral's Naiads, you'd love THAT place!
But enough boring you with my vacation stories. That's too standard conversation!
"nobody who puts their fingers near my mouth while I'm eating gets to keep them."
Yeah, I tend to get touchy too, when some people act as if my plate was their own. The last foolhardy to touch my fries won't forget it any time soon, I tell ya!
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