Hey, check out this little critter:



That's a species of spider called Bagheera kiplingi and it's a VEGETARIAN!!

It is a jumping spider that, instead of pouncing upon ants and consuming them, pounces on them and steals their food.

BBC news has this story featuring some actual cam footage of the spider in action.

US News has a more in depth article on how the whole relationship between the spider and the ants goes on.

Apparently the spider is not, as was originally thought, completely vegetarian. It occasionally snacks on an ant or larvae but its diet does seem mainly to be the acacia plants that the ants try to guard.

Also, I'd like to raise my hand as having been one of those who looked at the name of this spider and caught the reference. It was named after the friendly jaguar in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, which I actually did read many years ago.

The Christian Science Monitor has this article talking about the spider but also talks about zombie spiders:

"The Bagheera kiplingi is cool. But in terms of arachnid news over the past decade, it’s No. 2 on my list.

The top of the list is more gruesome (you’ve been warned). Plesiometa Argyra is a fairly common fly and mosquito catching spider in Costa Rica. Every day of its life it weaves a flimsy circular web to catch its prey - unless it gets stung by a Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga wasp. That’s where this spider’s life gets, well, very interesting.

The wasp sting briefly paralyzes the spider and eventually turns it into a zombie.

The parasitic wasp lays an egg on the belly of the spider. When the spider awakes, it carries on as if nothing happened for a few weeks, even as the attached larva hatches and begins to feed on its blood. Then, when the larva has had its fill and is ready to cocoon, it takes over the mind of the spider by injecting it with chemicals that circumvent its web-building routine.

Rather than the circular, disposable web the spider has made every day of its life, it weaves a thick, highly simplified cocoon platform, then placidly settles down in the middle of it to allow the wasp larva to finish eating it. His meal finished, the larva spins its cocoon, suspended on sticky spider silk far from marauding ants or other creatures that might want to eat it, waiting to emerge as a wasp and begin the dance again."

Oh, and last but not least, while I was googling around to get more info about Bagheera kiplingi, I found this blog site which lists "The Top Ten Coolest Spiders", many of them very unusual. Good read if you can handle those close ups without getting creeped out.

I just got a summons for jury duty on November 13th. This is new.

And it kind of creeps me out.

On one hand, part of me has always wondered what it would be like to sit in a court room and be a part of a case (NOT as a defendant, of course...and really...not as a prosecutor either). But the more I think about this, the more it creates a gross feeling in my stomach.

The jury has to be unanimous in their decision, right?

I'd hate to be the one person who either has to stand up to the rest of my jurors or have to choose sides based on really complicated evidence.

I don't want to do this.

Of course, I realize I must so I shall go.

But I'm recently mohawked again. Let's hope that and my tattoos will spring a prejudice in the attorneys and I'll be dismissed.

Plus...only $10 a day? If I get selected and that trial goes on any longer than a week, I'm not going to have money for rent from the work I miss. WTF? Do my civic duty and get evicted because I can't pay? Surely that's not the way it works?

Fuck.

Lost another friend.

This time...not by disagreement. GregStevensTX had lost interest in his LJ about a year ago. I wondered if he would come back. I checked my user info yesterday and saw that he finally deleted his LJ entirely as his name is crossed out.

He was one of my faves. I had so many great conversations with him.

I'm coming to understand something: I apparently take the Internet just a bit more seriously than most other people do. At least as far as Live Journal goes.

See...once upon a time, before Internet, people sometimes had what they called penpals, friends they wrote to and got to know mostly or entirely through letters. I tend to see my blog as partially replacing that. So I take most of my friends here pretty seriously. I don't shrug shit off and go "Whatever. It's just the Internet."

I guess...other people don't.

Or maybe it's just that Facebook is so much more glamorous than Live Journal. Everyone is on Facebook. Except me. I'm not on that shit roster. What I'm hoping is that Live Journal will make a comback. Think of it this way: Friendster came and went. MySpace came and went. Facebook came and will hopefully go too. And folks who abandoned LJ will start coming back. After their fads lose flavor like so much old chewing gum, they'll spit them out and return to their good old homes at LJ.

Maybe. I hope.



So...no more Greg. That really bums me out.

I discovered an interesting website that those of you who are concerned about the state of things might want to bookmark:

Planet Money.


Granted, I regard NPR with some skepticism. They like to tout how they offer a more balanced view of things, presenting all sides of an issue and with deeper insights. In reality, NPR just has a more liberal/socialist angle and they make a point to present things in a calm, rational manner. The voices you hear do articulate well and do not sound furious or paranoid or otherwise hysterical, but rather confident and well-composed. So this creates the illusion of being more intelligent and informed. It's soothing. It makes you feel smart to listen to NPR. But I've listened to it long enough to know that they do NOT always present all sides and when they do, they frequently do NOT give both sides equal air time or consideration. Rather, the liberal/socialist view is given more thought and debate, while a libertarian/conservative view is given less.

And they give NO air time to an anarchist view like mine.

Nevertheless, if you can listen carefully, use critical thinking skills and not buy into everything being said, you can learn a lot. This blog does seem to take economics somewhat more seriously.

Reading two books at the same time, sorta. I mean, I read one and then put it down for a while and then read the other. I can't imagine anyone actually holding two open books, one in each hand and just reading back and forth from one to the other, although I suppose someone out there does that.

Anyway, still slogging through 2010. A little over halfway through it. Perhaps the math buffs can explain to me the significance of the 1;4;9 quadratic formula of the monoliths? Clark sort of explained it but I didn't get it. Anyone who understands this can walk me through it?

I have a longstanding tradition of occasionally reading a book that I already know I am going to disagree with. I'm not sure how, exactly, to explain why, except insofar as to say that part of me wants to keep my mind somewhat limber on vastly differing perspectives on the world we live in.

So the book I'm reading now is L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. I don't have much to say except that, in attempting to read the book straight through, I encountered one major obstacle: it's really BORING. I kept falling asleep. So I'm cheating by flipping through and reading various chapters that seem more interesting. Right now, I'm at the part where he explains "the analytical mind", after which he will explain "the reactive mind."

It's fascinating, in a way. Most of what he's written is just rehash of previous psychology and philosophy. His analytical vs. reactive mind model seems to parallel Freud's normal vs. neurotic personality model. This is something I already knew about Hubbard. He didn't just make all this shit up from the top of his head. He's well studied in philosophy and psychology so he knows how to steal from the traditional findings and twist it around to make it seem like this is some great new discovery. He justifies all kinds of ideas with totally hypothetical situations...not actual case scenarios, but he presents them as though they were case scenarios and the reader who is not careful may not catch that.

I thought I'd mention now, other books I've read that I knew I would disagree with:

-Andrea Dworkin. I can't remember the name of the book I read anymore, it was so long ago, but we all know that stereotype of the man-hating feminist who wants to chop off our balls and eat them for dinner. Well, there she is. Dworkin's work blames men for absolutely everything and women are nothing but victims. Men are all potential rapists, even the men of the past, like Ghandi and Christ (Robert Anton Wilson makes fun of her in one of his books, explaining how a potential exists only as long as a person is still alive). She's actually very compelling in her writing.

-Machiavelli's The Prince. This is the book on how to rule people and the author who says plainly that the end justifies the means and that it is better to be feared than loved. This is a book that I don't think I finished because the writing was not very compelling to me and I got bored with it.

-Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness. I'm beginning to like Rand more and more because I think she's funny. She's someone who I generally disagree with for the most part, yet find myself agreeing every now and then. Her philosophy revolves around taking certain key words, like "sacrifice" and "altruism" and redefining them so that they seem unnatural. She then forges her entire Objectivist theories from that standpoint. They make good sense actually. But ONLY as long as you adhere to her definitions of those certain words. If you look those words up in a standard dictionary, you find a different definition and when applying her views to those definitions, it all falls apart. So much for Objectivism. Also, Rand's support of capitalism is idealistic. I support capitalism, but on a more pragmatic level. That is to say, she sees this golden morality guiding the economic system, based on rugged individualism...very much like social Darwinism. Market competition will cause the best to emerge and provide the most benefit to mankind. In reality, this doesn't always happen. I support capitalism because it is simple and has the fewest and most easily solved problems (you have to compare the various central planning ideas that have been put in motion in the past to understand this).

-Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. I admit, I could not finish this book as it just seemed loonier and loonier as it went along. I was surprised at his tone. I thought he would present his ideas very clearly and calmly, but the book starts out pretty dramatic, in fact, with open declarations against the bourgeoisie. He and Rand agree that there is no God but totally disagree on everything else.

-The Marquis De Sade's 120 Days of Sodom. I admit, I did not finish this book either. I must be the only person in the world who actually found it extremely funny. It has to do with the way he wrote it. The villains in the story are so extreme as to be outlandish and ridiculous. When he tries to describe a character with fist sized hemorrhoids hanging out of his ass and a 1 inch thick pad of shit encrusted around his penis...I'm sorry but I can't take that seriously. I'm laughing even now as I write this. Sade's way of writing was so flowery that, to me anyway, it gave an almost Monty Python-like feeling to this stuff.

-Dennis Cooper's Try and then later on My Loose Thread. Now this work is disturbing. Cooper takes you into worlds you really don't want to think about, and don't want to believe exist. Worlds where people do shitty things to each other and then justify it and live in bizarre denial. I experienced real anger and frustration reading his books and, while Try left me feeling depressed at the end, My Loose Thread left me relieved that this was finally over. These worlds he depicts are particularly threatening to gay men. This is the kind of work that you hope the Christian Right never gets wind of, because they could so easily use it for political leveraging. He explores the dark side of homosexuality, the way in which older men exploit younger ones, how closet cases buddy up with the wrong types of friends and express their sexuality in inappropriate ways. Very challenging stuff. Part of me thinks Cooper is just revolting and another part of me appreciates that he would confront us on some ugly things.

-The 48 Laws of Power. I can't remember the author but this book is fairly engaging and fascinating. The author is persuasive in getting you to reexamine your ethics and actually consider giving them up, in favor of raw self determination and expediency. He gives an almost airtight argument against the value of honesty, saying it really doesn't exist as a continuum of behavior, but only as a tool of expediency and that those who claim the loudest to be honest are usually the most dishonest. I insist, however, that anyone who decides to live his life according to those 48 laws will condemn himself to a life of unceasing paranoia. This book, I think, does a better job of describing the psychology of power and how to rule people better than Machiavelli's book does. It is amoral and rather scary.

-Rational Recovery by...Jack Tempsey, I think. I read this book near the tail end of my six months in 12 Step. I was getting a little overloaded with 12 Step propaganda and decided I wanted to hear a different story. Unfortunately, this book is actually MORE fucked up. The author takes every opportunity to grind his axe on 12 Step and then starts illustrating a method this either mimics 12 Step or takes the same bizarre inside-out logic that I'm sort of getting from Dianetics. He's also just flat out rude and obnoxious in many places.

-The Natural Superiority of Women. Again, I cannot remember the author's name but I do recall that it was a man. His book was advertised in Playgirl magazine. The book was all about broad generalizations (pun not intended) with a lot of stuff being rather vague and not much in the way of actual case studies verifying anything in particular. I almost wondered if he was a very calculating womanizer. That by claiming women were physically and intellectually superior to men, he was essentially appealing to their egos and could use that to seduce them.

Also, in my earlier twenties, I read a number of books, including an assassin's manual, a poisoner's manual and a book on physical interrogation techniques. I didn't actually disagree with them at the time, but in retrospect, I find them to be the kind of books that sober you up about who you are. Many people often tend to imagine that, though their bodies be vulnerable, their will power is STRONG and they could not be broken down, conditioned or trained. Those books talk in depth about how vulnerable the human being, as a whole, actually is. Anyone can be trained or conditioned. Those who claim themselves to be the hardest to break are probably the easiest, unfortunately, because they likely do not know what kinds of tricks a determined oppressor can use.

I'm trying to identify conflicts in my psyche. I see two in particular that really create a problem.

1. Politics: Sorry but...I know I'm right. It isn't about knowledge or education, but how you examine the problem. I examine politics the same way I examine everything else: existentially. I pay attention to the terms we are using and how we use them. If I catch a snag, I go back over the argument and make sure I have a clear understanding of the terms and how they are being used and what relevance they have. Since I'm just a dude who works for a living and I'm discussing these things with other people who either work for a living or maybe own a business...not uber rich tycoons or government officials...I tend to focus on what we ordinary people actually CAN do that will be effective. I ask the question, "What do any of us truly have control over and what DON'T we have control over?" Most political conversations I read or hear are so far in abstraction as to give me a headache. I get cranky as soon as I hear the phrase "We need to..." in reference to something that someone thinks government needs to do. That goddamned illusion that we have some sort of control over government again! Every time I hammer out the hard questions and get people to think in concrete terms, I get told that "maybe I'm right" or...in some cases, like a totally insane socialist, outright refusal to discuss the matter any further. I certainly don't get much in the way of serious discussion.

Let's face it. We LOVE the conveniences that the corporate system has given to us, including the luxury of broadcasting our lives and opinions on an Internet blog site and going to see really cool movies, being able to listen to awesome music by simply sticking a 4" silver disk into a machine, or watching a movie by doing the same. Most of us are so involved with this kind of crap that we have to be reminded that someone ELSE installed the sewage disposal system we use, so we don't have to go to an outhouse to take a shit, and we don't have to heat up water on the stove and pour it into a tub. And we don't have to light candles or oil lamps for light. But amidst all this, we are aware that the corporate system is crumbling...slowly?...or is it quickening?...hard to tell sometimes. And it makes us uncomfortable. Yet some of us, like me, want to usher it in anyway.

But that's not really my point. My point is that, while most people I know have had their minds made up about politics, I actually went through a good 15 years constantly questioning seeking out different views and even changing my own views radically. I can say now that none of you knew me when I was a socialist. Most of you met me when my libertarian ideas were dawning. Now I'm some bizarre flavor of anarchist for which I cannot rightly find a catchy word. I have arrived here because I continually look for the concrete and refuse to wallow around in the abstractions. And because I focus on the individual control and influence. And because my method is systematic, rather than speculative. But because the vast majority of people do not even think this way, I end up in endless annoying conversations that go nowhere because, in order to fully realize the truth of it, the person would have to spend intensive time with me, allowing me to show them how to think this way.

In other words, discussing politics has become a total waste of my time.

And yet, when I see people discussing a political subject and both of them are talking in terms of pure abstract and that the conversation is entirely too ridiculous, some part of me feels that if I stand there and say nothing, I am, in fact, contributing to ignorance and stupidity. Not many people have learned to examined things the way I have. Not many people ever notice that when they start talking and saying "We need to..." and "The problem is we just don't..." their actual definition of the word "we" shifts from one sentence to another. One minute, "we" means the government, the next, "we" means people governed, next again "we" means an entire country as a whole, and then after that "we" means certain segments of the population and finally, "we" means the whole damned human race. Over and over, I see this shifting around and people are totally oblivious to what they're doing. And when your words are shifting around like that, you are simply NOT having a meaningful and productive conversation. It is not grounded or focused. It is not organized. You are just engaging in cerebral masturbation. You are talking noise.

And the "shoulds". Nobody seems to grasp that every time you use the word "should" you are talking in ideology, not concrete reality. What's more, you are posing as an authority that nobody granted you. Again...it's just more noise.

So...if I get involved, I have to control my temper and even when I do, I often walk away feeling pissy. But if I don't get involved, I feel like a piece of valuable information COULD have been passed on...and I didn't do it. How can I complain about ignorance if I, myself, am not contributing to education?

So there's the first conflict: my feeling of social obligation to offer people what I honestly do think is a clearer and more organized and objective perspective so they may learn from it versus my need to protect my own, rather sensitive psyche in order to keep me in a positive mode. Getting angry is fine. Wallowing around in perpetual anger is not. And when I say "positive", I don't just mean all smiley and happy. I mean focusing on solutions and clarity FIRST and then acting in accordance with that. Consistency in thought and action. More often than not, political discussions make me feel like I was Charlie Brown and Lucy got me to try and kick that fucking football AGAIN and I ended up falling down on my ass AGAIN. SUCKER!!



2. Science and spirituality: In my mind, there is no need for one to go against the other, but I keep finding that it seems like science has become a kind of fad. It's "cool" to be all into science. Especially physics. And likewise, if you are spiritual, then that means you're ignorant and fucked up and a throwback to Medieval times. You know, there was a time when I had started having a moment of silent appreciation for every meal I ate before I ate it. Sort of like prayer, except I didn't put my hands together and say "Thank you, God for this meal." I just sat and looked at it, acknowledged that today is a day that I get to eat and the food will taste good. But...many times, I've been gotten glared at or criticized or made fun of because I want to take a moment to feel gratitude for having food, instead of just chowing down like a fucking pig. And so I have gradually stopped doing this. I stopped doing it in public and then the practice just stopped in private as well. And I feel...unsettled by this. I can honestly say that the more I try to focus on gratitude, the more empowered and enraptured I feel and it honestly does change what's going on in my world. Nearly all of August and the first week of September, I was in an almost perpetual state of rapture. And everywhere I went, people smiled at me in public. Seriously! I got warm, genuine smiles every time I went out. And it was like, WOW! There really are a lot of people with at least a fair amount of love to show and give!! And I'm smiling back. And I feel great!

But many times, when science is being discussed, and I say many times...not ALL of the time and certainly not MOST of the time, it seems like there's something really self-absorbed going on there. Like two or more people gloating over how big their brains are. "We're so cool. We talk about brainy stuff." Sometimes it's very subtle, other times, not so much so. It certainly becomes obvious when science is suddenly compared to religion. Then the ego REALLY comes out.

I keep thinking about how many disorders we have in our society these days: bipolar, hypertension, ADHD, chronic fatigue, OCD, and all those different styles of autism...and all those people who are taking medications to offset it. I keep thinking about how those conditions are nearly nonexistent in places like Christian and Buddhist monasteries and the Amish communities, where the spiritual life is the prime devotion and that it involves community.

I only learned a vague outline of Einstein's theory of relativity and I want to learn it in detail. But I am repeatedly confounded by how venerated his is by the scientific community, and yet, he was such a deeply spiritual man, moved by mystical experiences and setting his mind to work on interpreting them.

By contrast, those who have no such experiences of rapture, or of the mystical, seem to be entrenched in judgments and cynicism. So much of their egos rest on how smart they think they are or how cool they think they are. The self-parodying hipster seems to be the culmination of this. Look how cool and hip I am. HA! HA! What a joke! No, I'm really a dork! But because I confess to being a dork, I rise to a higher, more sophisticated level of cool and hip. And I only stay there as long as I keep being ironic about it.

Something about that is really revolting to me. Just...fucking gross. It's not so much that I don't want to be around those kinds of people. It's that I don't want to BE that kind of person. There's something...dishonest about it. I fear falling into that mindset.

Yet, I also fear that if I keep on this spiritual path, I may lose my critical thinking skills and I don't want that either.

I love praying. And yet, I do it in private because I feel like I'm going to be ridiculed by other people if I do it in public. And I ask myself, is this a matter of courage? Or is it a matter of "not casting pearls before swine"?

Some of my friends are spiritually devoted and some are not. I feel more relaxed around those who are. Around those who are not, I feel like I have to cover up, be a different person.

I miss my moment of silence before my meals and I feel violated by officious and cynical people who can't respect it. It brings out ugly emotions...makes me want to see humanity just get wiped out. I am appalled at the lack of appreciation and respect in society, the showcasing of intellectual egos, the sneering humor. It makes me feel dirty and contaminated.

And I even see this spilling over into politics as well. Occasionally, I see people from other countries criticize the US, saying we will never get a Universal Health Care system because we Americans are just too damned selfish and don't have any sense of "collective consciousness". My view is that I believe in a personal duty to help and give to others...hence my desire to do volunteer work...I feel called to this. My Guiding Spirit is saying, It's time you realize it's not all about you. Start doing more for others. That's been like a nagging at my psyche. BUT...I don't believe in sticking a gun to someone else's head to make HIM help and give to others. That is the critical difference. A lot of Europeans don't seem to understand this. This idea of mandating social responsibility...does it REALLY make you a better person?...being forced to do this? And does it REALLY benefit society that much more?


Anyway, these are the main two conflicts I am dealing with and I'm trying to figure out how to resolve them.

More and more, I am getting the understanding that this invocation is like inviting an important guest over for dinner and dancing and some good times. I'm very nervous about getting everything right and I have to keep telling myself to just do the best I can.

I am going by a principle to not serve the Baron anything I myself would not want. So, even though the Baron prefers fiery rums, if I, myself, am afraid to drink it, then it is not wise for me to serve it to him.

As a matter of fact, I have an awesome rum. The brand is called Cruzan Black Strap Rum and it says "Origin of St. Croix" on it. Since the cross is a symbol important to Baron Samedi, I thought this would be good. That and the fact that the rum is actually BLACK. Or at least such a dark brown as to appear black at first glance. I took a tiny sip just to see what this was like. A very distinct molasses taste. Yummy! I decided to add some grated ginger and have let it sit for some two weeks now, then I strained the larger bits out. I took another sip. Really fucking YUMMY!! This is actually good enough for me to want to drink all by myself!

I'm going to buy another bottle of this and marinate the chicken in it when the time comes.

Also, when I couldn't find an appropriate walking stick, I decided to make one. It's going to be black, with a purple knob, and with a purple tiger snake skin wrapped around it.

Music: It sort of...came to me...that the Baron would enjoy some Alien Sex Fiend, in addition to Skinny Puppy. In fact, ASF is really more his style: wild and crazy, irreverent. I'm being very choosy about which Skinny Puppy songs to compile onto a CD. For some reason, it's the vocals that make the difference. The really strong, growling, skeletal sounding voices. Plus a really catchy dance rhythm.

I'm also taking the attitude that the dance has already begun. Already, the Baron and I are communicating. He has visited my dreams a few times over the last couple weeks although I can't remember details too terribly well. In the one I remember the most, I was with my mother and her husbund and we were driving through some city that none of us knew anything about, looking for a movie theater to see some movie. I kept seeing skulls with glowing eyes everywhere. On sidewalks. On billboards. People carrying skulls like it was no big deal. I even saw a stone sculpture of a skull at the center of a fountain. And I had the feeling that I was the only one who could see these skulls. And that it meant the Baron was always there. That he was with me wherever I went. And I was not intimidated by this, but excited, glad and a little amused. This is very much aligned with what I'm seeking to achieve with this invocation.

So, I've lost a friend today. Because I informed him of my view on a situation.

I'm sorry but, when you say you have a crush on someone, and you even acknowledge that this person has a disorder like autism, and then you start making fun of him behind his back because you got hurt...I don't think that's funny. I think that's a shitty thing to do.

This friend brags a lot about being "real". Well, I took this matter to a private post between us and he refused to engage conversation, but just silently unfriended me. How "real" is that? Someone has some growing up to do. And if he doesn't do it, then he's going to be very lonely for a long time.

And, for the record, I don't think this person is a loser or a douchebag. He's got some great qualities and I actually do like him and wanted a genuine friendship. But he's shown me that he doesn't respect me, and I'm wasting my time trying to keep a friendship going. So I suppose this is for the better. I invested some energy into him so I'm hurt by this situation. And disappointed. And a little pissed off.

This brings me to bring up some ideas on what I consider being a friend is. I don't like the term "calling you on your bullshit" because I've heard that term from way too many people who exhibit a gross lack of sensitivity and also cannot handle being on the receiving end of it. I don't like the term "tell it like it is" because nobody does. We are all individuals and we tell it according to our individual view.

At the same time, kissing someone's ass all the time isn't a very good friend quality either.

There is a fine line here...it's the path of diplomacy and it's swiftly becoming extinct. You speak your truth. YOUR truth. And you make the effort to let them know that that is how you see it. You take responsibility for your view. I did my best to tell him what I thought of the situation. When these uncomfortable situations come up, I really do try to focus on that balance between what I feel needs to be said, and how to say it so it isn't mean-spirited or degrading. I've failed a few times in the past but I keep note of those failures and try to learn from them.

Retrospectively, I get a feeling this person has never really respected me at all and only tolerated me, even though, after meeting him in person, I liked him and had a lot of respect for him and wanted to continue a real friendship. He's kept me at arm's length and, I think, has been simply waiting for the opportunity to just shove me out completely. And this was it.

So we go our separate ways now. There can't be a friendship if he doesn't want one and won't put any effort into one.

I was very tired last night when I wrote that second half and wanted to get the memoir completed, and in my haste, I think I left out some important details. So here, I want to go through those:

First, one of the things the Forum Leader talked about was problems. People have problems. We all have problems. But he made a very interesting point: most of us view problems as a problem and we want to live lives WITHOUT problems and so we are constantly trying to REDUCE our problems. But a look at history shows that some of the truly great people in this world, the people who made significant changes, the people we sometimes quote...those people took on GREATER problems.

This was a significant factor in my own breakthrough because, if we remember, I walked into the Forum feeling like this fucked up faggot...no future, body full of disease, constantly living under the great hard rock of depression, and trying to escape through drugs. And there was that wonderful world of well-adjusted, happy and successful people, the married bourgeoisie, the people I silently sneered at as "the middle class mediocrities" as my own way of evading my thought that they had accomplished what I never thought I could and therefore lived "that good life".

In the Forum, I saw one ordinary, bourgeois married person after another go up to the Forum Leader and talk about how their marriage had fallen apart. They had cheated. Or wanted to cheat. Or even if cheating wasn't there, they weren't getting any more sex. Or...at bottom line, they just felt like they were living with and sharing a bed with...a stranger. They no longer knew their spouses. And they were lonely. They didn't even KNOW they were lonely because their minds were conditioned to believe that only single people get lonely. Married or partnered people don't. This was the institution that they'd always been taught was the "norm", was what you were supposed to do, was what gave you happiness. And it wasn't working for them. And so they had just shut down.

Moreover, many of them were also crushed in spirit by financial worries. Living in perpetual debt. Paying and paying and paying. Get up, get dressed, drag your ass to work, do you ritual toil so you can earn that money to PAY, and then go home and dump yourself on the couch and watch TV until it's time to go to bed. Any energy you have left gets spent yelling at the kids or arguing with the husband or wife. In many cases, no energy is left for that.

These people were miserable, living in quiet desperation and just "going through the motions" instead of really LIVING a true, vibrant life!! And there are STILL thousands more people in this sophisticated, post-industrial world living JUST LIKE THAT!! Perhaps...millions?

Seeing all these people in this state really shook me out of my own world of problems. And so...it was this view into other people's...um...pardon me for saying so judgmentally but...their sorry, pathetic, little lives...that made me realize I wasn't doing that bad after all.

I also forgot to mention that I was not the only person there who was sitting through the whole thing with a feeling of suspicion slowly growing. I mentioned that I had to do the exercise of sharing a secret of shame or guilt with another, and I did with that woman and she didn't take it well. We also had to do another exercise where we shared our Forum goal with someone else. At that point, I had been sitting in another seat, next to this older, married man. I shared my Forum goal (to feel like my life wasn't so bad after all, to be free and to feel good about life again). When it was time for him to share, he said, "Oh I didn't do that. No, I'm just here out of curiosity." I asked what he thought about the Forum and he said, "It's an interesting mix of various psychologies and philosophies. I'm familiar with most of it. But they're presenting these ideas as if they thought it all up themselves and that's dishonest. And I think this program is way too expensive." I got the feeling he was holding back in his opinion. The way he said it...it was as though he, himself didn't mind paying $375 for this, but he noted that the Forum seemed to be targeting the middle class and soaking it.

This man was the quiet observer, perhaps in the same way that some Shakespeare plays have a character who acts as an observer. He points out the critical problems or crises going on. He is right there in it, yet remains unaffected by it.

So...it wasn't just that a little scarab appeared coincidentally after I walked out that I feel I had a genuine transformation. It was the whole process of watching how the Forum unfolded for everyone else, the metaphorical value of the Forum Leader at the podium, resembling my father, the hollering preacher, the fact that I followed enough of what he was saying to see the sinister business side of it, and, as I stated in a comment already, how all of this fit together with the 7 of Disks card in my weekly reading. That card meaning "Failure". I didn't technically finish the Forum. One could say I failed. And yet, it was my only rational choice. There was no way for me to return to a rational state otherwise. I spent over an hour, more like two hours, seething with rage. People need to get that anger out, one way or another. You cannot expect someone to settle down in an situation like that. Anger is pressure. When pressure builds up, some sort of valve needs to open to let it out, or the container will explode. In the past, I have endured extremely angering situations because I felt I "should". I did not respect my own psyche and self worth enough to realize that I needed to set a boundary and act accordingly. But in the Forum...I did. How else can I explain the gushing wave of serenity that flooded my soul once I got out of that building? Should I not have felt guilty or ashamed that I couldn't "handle it"? No, I felt nothing of the sort. I felt good. Right. I did what needed to be done. And that was my breakthrough. The scarab was just my Guiding Spirit's little gift in the material world to make that clear to me.

I wonder if there's any kind of cocktail that has Nyquil as an ingredient.