Realizations

ToALonelyPeace

ToALonelyPeace

Grimscribe
What are some moments of realization you have throughout life, and how did they affect your choices?

I think the moments of realization hit us like jaw fracture. Too many of them and you'll be the loser on the ring.

The first happened in 5th grade, I realized the falseness of social relations. I was a good student, a teacher's favourite, known. My classmates were bullying another poor, not as smart girl disliked by the teacher through spreading rumours of her AID infection. In 3 months, I ended up trading place with her. After a stay in the hospital, everywhere I was marked as 'cancer'. Just like that, friendship, respect, teacher's love, intelligence went down the drain. I realized struggling to have 'place' or not didn't matter. The pressure at the top is real just as at the bottom...

I never fully recover from that realization. Everywhere I look, I see the same power struggle, fitting in, etc. What's the use? The top is just as uncomfortable as the bottom. 'In' or 'out', you will never escape.

What's your realization?
 
I had one yesterday.

I decided that Socrates was right and that poets/artists generally don't know what they're talking about. I'd resisted this idea for a long time, but the point is, it doesn't invalidate art. As he says (at least by Plato's account), poets are 'inspired' not wise. That doesn't mean they can't be the latter, it's just that, falling in love with the former, they tend to believe that it includes the latter and so don't trouble to cultivate the latter.
 
There's nothing more irritating than seeing some self-declared 'artist' holding forth and offering their opinion on every damn topic under the sun and expecting to be taken seriously. Of course the culture of celebrity and the 24/7 media machine needs people to be spouting off constantly. Artists should just concentrate on becoming better artists, and stop deluding themselves that they have special 'insights' into human life that other mere mortals are denied.
 
I realised a while ago that I shouldn't really trust anything my own mind or senses tell me and by extension anything any media outlet or human tells me. It is completely impossible for me to be certain about anything in this world, and this is a source of great inspiration and freedom or great panic and stress depending on how I feel at each particular moment.
 
This is a moment from my sinful past . . .

I don't know why I believed it, but after the third losing hand at Blackjack, in a crowded Jersey casino, I thought that I could just "force" a big enough payoff to recoup my earlier winnings.
I split pairs, doubled down, played two handed, caught the "right" cards, but continued to lose.
At ten losing hands in a row I thought that it was impossible to lose another one.
At fifteen, I was gloating in my sweaty apprehension of the next card.
After, ironically enough, twenty one losing hands in a row - I was broke.
Other players, including the dealer wouldn't even look me in the eye, not that there was much to see except defeat. They actually got up from their seats so that they wouldn't accidentally touch me as I rose to leave.

My realization was that bad luck, karma, destiny or fate, can throw you for a loop anytime or anywhere, and it doesn't necessarily have to end, but how I handle it will affect me more than the outside force.

*This came in very handy a little while later when confronted with my substance abuse problem.
 
Malone said:
There's nothing more irritating than seeing some self-declared 'artist' holding forth and offering their opinion on every damn topic under the sun and expecting to be taken seriously. Of course the culture of celebrity and the 24/7 media machine needs people to be spouting off constantly. Artists should just concentrate on becoming better artists, and stop deluding themselves that they have special 'insights' into human life that other mere mortals are denied.
Click to expand...

Ha! I was just reading about Amanda Palmer and your post describes exactly how I feel about her. She even diminished my appreciation of Neil Gaiman, though it was never that high to begin with.
 
I have been on this earth nearly half a century. I have tried many things, believed many things, and always tried to find my place in the world. My biggest personal revelation is when I learned that my proper place is.... nowhere. There are outsiders, and I am one of them. I don't feel superior to my fellow humans, I just cannot relate to them (does that make me inferior?). Maybe I observe too much, analyze too much, or am just locked into my own world because that is where I find the greatest comfort.

This used to disturbed me a great deal, but not anymore. I have stopped trying to climb ladders or fit in or garner attention. I am happiest, if I should use the word, when left to my own devices.

They say that people cannot be left alone with their own thoughts, that it would drive them mad. I think thats all that keeps me sane.
 
" I think the moments of realization hit us like jaw fractures. Too many of them and you'll be the loser on the ring."

The realization that our society (any society) is obsessed with the winning/losing paradigm continues to deepen, as does the attendant realization that the correct spiritual attitude towards worldly loss or gain looks a lot like, appears to be in fact impossible to separate from, well... worldly loss.
The subsequent realization then presents itself that the logical tendency to fear those jaw fractures is in fact counter to our spiritual well-being.
Too much time and energy in this society is being spent on imagining oneself the champion, and too little is given to consideration of the loser on the ring.
 
Ibrahim said:
" I think the moments of realization hit us like jaw fractures. Too many of them and you'll be the loser on the ring."

The realization that our society (any society) is obsessed with the winning/losing paradigm continues to deepen, as does the attendant realization that the correct spiritual attitude towards worldly loss or gain looks a lot like, appears to be in fact impossible to separate from, well... worldly loss.
The subsequent realization then presents itself that the logical tendency to fear those jaw fractures is in fact counter to our spiritual well-being.
Too much time and energy in this society is being spent on imagining oneself the champion, and too little is given to consideration of the loser on the ring.
Click to expand...
I think society sometimes likes to focus on the losers. I hear of shows like Biggest Losers (a weight loss show, I believe?) or Honey Boo Boo getting aired because people enjoy watching others fail.

Is it due to lack of empathy or due to the absurdity of these contests? :confused:

Either way, being a winner isn't necessarily good. Once you're at the top, you have to continue being at the top. If not, your fall will be hard and devastating.
 
One thing I've realized about myself over the years is that it seems I'll never be able to comfortably assign a sexual orientation to myself. At different points of my life I've identified as straight, gay, bisexual, then gay again, then bisexual again, and so on and so forth (these days I just identify as a chaossexual). I do envy people who seem very comfortable with their professed sexual orientation, be they straight, gay, or whatever.

I've also realized that I'll probably never be comfortable identifying with any one particular religion or spiritual belief system (or even any secular philosophical position), though lord knows I've tried.
 
I realize the other day that all people and things I will never see again are, essentially to me, dead. The friends I treasured so much in the past, my bedmates in the hospital, my old teachers, my childhood bedroom, and the light shining in my old house...maybe they are alive somewhere in this world, but they're already lost forever.

I realize that afternoon, or dawn for that matter, can hide the hideous reality happening elsewhere in the world. Who is repulsed by sunlight because they know somewhere, someone is being tortured under this brilliant light? The beautiful rose-colored dawn is not rosy for the beaten eyes, or the imprisoned ones.
 
I realized the other day how hard it is to make any final judgments about life without factoring in Time. I think it was Aristotle who said, "Count no man happy until he is dead." Of course, Aristotle didn't mean that oblivion is the ultimate happiness, but rather that no matter how happy or how miserable one is at a particular moment, this can always change. And until your final moment, you really don't have enough information to make a final judgment.

I was thinking about this, because five years ago I was utterly happy about something that has recently turned out to be a chimera. I should be rather depressed right now, but, using Aristotle's logic, there's really no reason to suppose that things won't shift as dramatically with the passing of more time. It's strange how much of an impact this realization has made on me. I feel like I'm little more than a lifetime spectator of my own existence, sitting here on the sidelines thinking, "Hmm, so is this going to be a really good story, or a really ####ty one?" Probably more the latter, but, again, who knows until that very last moment?

I think the general tendency is for time to wear people out and make them more pessimistic. More bad stuff happens the longer we live. And most wide-eyed idealists dying of throat cancer probably have second thoughts. Of course, nothing will ever make me into a wide-eyed idealist, but I suppose that it wouldn't take that much to make me tolerably happy. I wonder if Fortune will ever incline that way? I'm not betting on it, but I do take some interest in seeing how the story unfolds.
 
I have come to the realization that nothing is what it seems to be. For example, once a friend invited me to accompany him to a party. The party was being held at a university. We arrived at the designated university building, entered and noticed right away the silence. The place was packed with people and the usual sound of human conversation was absent, nor was there any music. Instead there was an intense whispering sound like in a church. Everyone was dressed in one form or shade of black. For a second my fear was that we had intruded into a memorial service for some deceased faculty member instead of a party. We were about to leave when one of the black, "crow", individuals approached us with two drinks in hand. "Welcome to the party." We both blushed. "Thank you, father." was our combined answer. We had walked into a party of priests and nuns. We quickly gulped down our drinks and departed. "How did I know this is a Catholic university" was his retreating lament. The drinks ,by the way, were grape juice.
 
I realized some time ago that we, adults, don't know what we're doing most of the time. Wise adulthood is a weird state attained by the few and most of us just make up s*** as we go along.

It was somewhat liberating when it happened. And like everything else, it turned into landscape and then I just kind of forgot about it.
 
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