You should be able to talk about
anything. My favorite topics are religion, relationships, and “real
life.” All of which I hope to intertwine in a beautiful web of
thought now. Stand back and be amazed.
I’m a manipulator. What it means to
be a manipulator is to not come off as trying to manipulate. It’s
the soul, deliberate spelling, rule. If they see what you’re doing, unless you
deliberately made them see it, you’re doing it wrong. As a
manipulator, I’m very sensitive to other people trying to
manipulate. Mostly, because they do it horribly wrong. A fun fact
about the manipulation game is that it is open to everyone to play.
You can see the strings as easily as me. You can play the same cards
because we all hold a complete deck.
My claim of manipulation gives me a
very particular perspective on what it means to call something “real
life.” I see the life I can infer about you. I hear what you tell
me. I find out what other people feel about you and me. But mostly, I
endlessly doubt that any of it is the complete story. To claim an
informed perspective, it means I need to have one seemingly “beyond”
or “outside” yours. There’s the natural one we have via our
specific histories. Then there’s the one you choose to have to
actively or passively shape your world. I like to err on the side of
an active shaping.
Actively shaping involves honesty and
responsibility most of all. Therefore, when I see people who
passively get shaped, I’m skeptical of how honest or responsible
they are being, namely with feelings. What are some topics that are
just utterly feeling laden? You guessed it; religion and
relationships. Interestingly enough, people tend to claim a lot of
active shaping while being all but slaves to the various consequences
of their beliefs and people in their lives. The shape this problem
takes is…tricky.
Apparently, there are some people who
are utterly terrified to talk religion with me. I use the word
terrified because they must have a genuine fear that I could talk
them out of their beliefs. Otherwise, offering such a sentiment
wouldn’t really make sense. If you have undying faith, well, I gave
up arguing rational verses irrational a long time ago, so you’ve
nothing to fear. If you claim to be reasonable, then we both know
going into it that I’m, if not persuasive, very likely to make you
think, and likely not in the direction you wish to currently. The
only real problem is your ability to be honest and cope.
Where’s this ego come from? Trick
question, it isn’t about my ego or what I feel when making my
argument. In the same way that I could get in a car, and subsequently
run you over, is how I would deliver my message. Nothing about how
you feel or think about cars that contradicted their capacity to run
you over would matter. That’s how logic is supposed to work. When
it doesn’t work, you move out of the way and tell me a god
whispered in your ear to do so.
That ability to see things magically is
dangerous. The inability to grasp the confluence of forces and
influence the world has on you, and you have on it back, arrests and
degrades your potential. Your relationship to a god is the exact same
as your relationship to anything else. It’s an idea first. Ideas
are intertwined. Ideas overlap. One bad idea can spark another bad
idea and pollute aspects of good ideas. If you’re not willing to
work on solidifying how to denote and be responsible for your good
and bad ideas, I think this is a bad thing.
The expectations that come along with
ideas seem to be the problem. We all feel them. We don’t all put
them where they need to go. If you go into a relationship and you
have all these ideas about love or boyfriends and girlfriends or the
magic of a blessed union, how long do you think it takes to feel the
first pains of anxiety? When do you start to realize that something
just isn’t right? Is it the first fight? Is it what you whisper to
yourself during the times that are supposed to be special? Is it
amidst the regret of not getting something else? Not learning facts
or caring to acknowledge human behavior can do that to you.
That’s why I’m persuasive. I know
your fear. I know your anxiety. I know that when I’m having a
conversation about god, I’m not really speaking to the intellectual
stopping point of “well you can never actually prove otherwise.”
I’m speaking to your emotionality. I’m speaking about the
relationships you may damage. I’m thinking about the fear of
reevaluating yourself or the fear of being alone. You don’t care
how much I know about the bible or science stuff. You didn’t come
for a history lesson or digression of logical fallacies. Well, you
didn’t come at all, but that’s the incorrect sentiments you think
I care about when talking with you.
And isn’t that how religion,
relationships, and “real life” are dealt with? This is all I’ve
known, don’t attack it, because then you’re just an
asshole. This is who I love so you could never understand it, you’re just a fool for even trying. This is what I’m afraid
of and how dare you throw it in my face like I don’t have a
protective unbreakable bubble. MOOOOM, HE’S BREAKING MY BUBBLE!
Working yourself out of a faith-based
mindset takes time. Working yourself into a healthy relationship
takes time. Mulling over shit like dying and failure and fear will
consume a fair amount of head-space. I understand things to be a
process with many layers. The more you unpack those layers, the more
you see the patterns, the more you can address the problems, and the
more you can put aside the fear of changing your mind. Once you get
there, you hold the power, you’re the manipulator.
Your feelings become yours to address,
not to suffer. Your friends are hand-picked, not the kids you happen
to live next to. Your ideas get the time and attention they need to
work on you positively. This is what I want for people, my friends. I
care about your mental health and I don’t think living a lie is
healthy. It doesn’t matter if you even regard it as a lie, it’s
not semantics, it’s the effect you have on the world. If I’m a
part of that world, and all you send is negative effects, I know
you’ve something to work on.
If you’re willing to take on the
invented problems: guilt over sin or sex or other people's
stressors and bad ideas, you’d think you’d choose an effective
solution. But, overwhelming people don’t. They stick with what’s
comfortable and what they think they know. They hurriedly rush past, and thus bury curious thoughts. They regret, they get angry, and they
make it your problem. If you care about them, it’s your problem,
and if you don’t, it’s even more so. Be manipulative. Take
control of your mind and don’t blame me for being right about
something. Don’t be afraid of how you feel and push your limits.
You know what you’ll find; something new to be afraid of. Wash,
rinse, and repeat.
