i don't do bad sauce passes
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
No title available
Today's Document
Cosmic Funnies
NASA
Cosimo Galluzzi
oozey mess
ellievsbear
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Kaledo Art
sheepfilms
styofa doing anything
taylor price
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
JBB: An Artblog!
KIROKAZE
art blog(derogatory)
No title available
No title available
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Poland
seen from T1
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from T1
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Poland
seen from Poland
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Ireland
@warnercreations
Childhood Manipulation
What decisions and commitments did you make at the age of 14? I was in Grade 9, or Standard 7 as we used to refer to that level at the time. I was a child, and a sheltered naive child at that.At age 14, the laws of most governments will agree that you are too young to legally; Drive a carSign a contractBe employedHave SexWatch adult MediaSmokeDrink AlcoholLive alone But at age 14, the church…
View On WordPress
My IDEA about BELIEFS
My IDEA about BELIEFS
On New Year’s Day 2021, I was forwarded a number of messages sent to member of my family by a then estranged family member. Not the traditional salutations celebrating our planet’s successfully completing another orbit of our nearest star, but exhortations to “pray for me” because I had shared a meme suggesting that a “god” who allows 8million people to die of hunger every year is not worth…
View On WordPress
2020 Purge
Those who know me well, know that I resist embracing fads, or getting involved in the latest hype. So I’ve resisted writing about covid19, lockdown, masks, BLM, or even Trump. I feel that everyone is inundated with a constant flood of information and misinformation on these subjects. But as 2020 rapidly nears it’s end; I need to vent some of the pressure that has built up.
In my opinion, the…
View On WordPress
2020 "All Lives Matter"... Really?
2020 “All Lives Matter”… Really?
And then there is the whole “stop farm murders” thing that rises and falls in popularity all the time. I know that those who have the attention span of a fruit fly have by now already labeled me as a “leftist, commie-lovin, libtard traitor”, and that’s ok, personally I prefer interacting with people who can read… Anyway, we are led to believe that this is yet another assault on white folks,…
View On WordPress
2020 Politics
Religious and political persecutions in Europe led to the American colonies being established, and vast industrialised plantations were formed requiring an army of slave labour to be trafficked to those shores.. As the Automobile was born, British lawmakers passed the Red Flag Law, decreeing that all self-propelled vehicles be preceded by a pedestrian waving a red flag by day, or a lantern by…
View On WordPress
My JW Exit Story
My JW Exit Story
I know that I had committed to writing follow up entries on the Narcissism theme, but in the process of beginning my Surviving Jehovah’s Witnesses activism I have been asked for my exit story.
Well all good exit stories begin with an entrance story, and since I have no desire to write this many times over, I decided to publish here and simply link where necessary.
In many ways my time served with…
View On WordPress
The Blog sans Readers
The Blog sans Readers
So as you may imagine, I feel a little silly about the outburst that was my last blog entry, let me explain;
This whole “narcissism” thing has been SUCH an awakening for me, questions that have plagued me for nearly 20 years are finally being answered; I finally understand WHY my life took such a dive. Come on, “media executive” to “bum” in a few years? From a “winner” to “everything I touch…
View On WordPress
Honesty
Honestly… No one gives a damn
No one gives a damn about why I did what I did No one gives a damn about how I recovered No one gives a damn about my apology
The people I admire, they don’t give a damn The people I miss, they don’t give a damn
I’m sorry to have wasted your collective time
“Passive aggressive much” they say
But honestly… it’s just occurred to me that all I did was make a fool of…
View On WordPress
My Narcissists
Usually my car’s performance and luxury thrilled me, I’d drive fast, joyously feeling the limits, but this night I idled along on autopilot, my heart heavy and the muted V6 rumble not even penetrating my morose thoughts. When I finally pulled up on the small hard pad outside my garage door I was surprised; “how did I get here?”
I sat staring at the steel door, my thoughts a million miles away,…
View On WordPress
“Ignorance is bliss ‘tis a folly to be wise”
These words by Thomas Grey referred to the inevitable suffering that resulted from “growing up”, he urged youngsters to stay innocent as long as possible.
But this is no Neverland, here we DO enter adulthood.
I love reading, but I am also a huge movie fan, and in my personal collection I own copies of “The Matrix” and “Pleasantville”. If there are any who have not watched both of these movies, then I would urge you to make a plan to do so. I was recently inspired to write a blog entry based on “Pleasantville”, but I’ve made dozens of false starts with this entry, and the words have not flowed… Then I realised something the other day, “Pleasantville” and “The Matrix” actually share a common theme.
Let me start closer to the beginning of this story;
I’ve been sorting out my life, reducing the clutter, organising those things that I choose to keep. I’m sure everyone who lived in the era of film photography has a box of photo prints lying around? Mine has been with me since the last photos I had taken somewhere around 2001, many of them have been water damaged during my homeless times, and others were of memories that up until recently retained enough painfulness for me to shy away from exposing them often.
But things change, and I’ve got to the point where I don’t mourn the loss of those “good times” as much as I enjoy the memories of them, so I started organising them into collages, and as I did I took photo’s of some of them and shared them with friends on social media.
Many people responded with “you looked so happy then”
I immediately got on the defensive!
It was my self analysis regarding WHY this got me on the defensive that led to this train of thought.
“You looked so HAPPY then…” ;
These days we have a camera embedded in a little device we carry with us all the time, not only that but the pictures it takes are of a high quality, instantly available and free! Back in the Jurassic Era I grew up in, cameras were not always on hand, film was expensive and so was processing that film into prints, and to top it all off, one waited a week for the film to be processed after handing it in at the newsagents or pharmacy. So having a photo taken was an occasion! And you only really took the trouble to carry the camera when there was a REASON to. And no, we didn’t take a photo to show how miserable we were! So largely old photo’s were a record of the good times! This accounts for a proportion of the apparent “happiness”…
In my reality MANY of the “occasions I refer to above were the times spent with my now ex-wife as we progressed from dating, to courtship and into marriage. She and I were separated by 1,100km (700miles) for the first 7 years of our relationship, not only that, but the cult religion she and I were born into forbid dating among those “not yet ready for marriage”; so for much of that time we conducted our relationship in secrecy. We would spend a few weeks together every six months during school vacations, and obviously these were wonderful times as we made up for the months of pining and misery in-between, and we took photos during those happy times to remember them and each other. We didn’t take photos when we cried during farewells, nor of the stress and worry inflicted on us by the punishment from the church elders for indiscretions like “holding hands”. So many of these photo’s were of short periods of intense happiness separated by months of misery and despair.
But, eventually we married, and set up home together, we progressed in our respective careers, we accumulated material possessions, and took full advantage of the glamour and entertainment available to a pair of yuppies in Cape Town during the 1990’s. We drove sports cars and motorcycles, we lived with a sea view, we dined at some of the finest restaurants in the world, we frequented the theatre, the Opera House and the music concerts. We hobnobbed with the rich and the famous, the beautiful and the talented. There was little reason NOT to be happy!
Some people pursue that lifestyle their whole lives, they sail through mild seas and keep close to the shore, where life is easier and safer, and more secure. They come home to the boring spouse and hide the secret lover, they live cautiously and retire comfortably. There is nothing WRONG with these choices, except that these individuals generally lack the imagination to empathise with what the “other people” go through.
I speak from experience here, I used to judge others harshly, as compared to my own frame of reference. I knew a girl who had had an abortion while she was a teenager, illegal back in the puritan “Old” South Africa, she lied to her parents and the authorities and claimed to have been raped by “a Black man”, which of course ensured a legal abortion. My then Wife and I were extremely judgemental towards her and her morals. I would publicly attack smokers whose smoke intruded into my space. I would proudly assert that our Christian morals and stance against blood transfusions made us immune to the AIDS epidemic of the time. I judged those who were unfaithful to their spouses as hypocrites and sinners. I believed that only those of my Religious Sect would be saved from imminent destruction! Those who were not able to pay their monthly bills were wasteful and undisciplined.
When my wife admitted to having had an affair, I felt somewhat less invulnerable to STD infection. When I was comforted by that same woman who had had the abortion and ended up in her bed, I felt less self-righteous. When the divorce blew down the house of cards of my debt-based finances, I felt less fiscally disciplined. When I got hooked on tobacco during a drunken party I felt ashamed of how I shouted at those whose smoke drifted my way. When I ended up in a relationship with a separated, but still legally married woman, I felt hypocritical.
Unlike Neo in the Matrix, I never made the conscious choice to swallow the Red Pill, someone must’ve slipped it into my drink while I wasn’t watching!
“Spirituality” is somewhat of a fad at present, people wear it like a religion and they believe that “Spiritual Awakening” occurs wearing Yoga Pants, sitting in the Lotus Position chanting Ohmmmm.
In my case it came disguised as depression and self-destruction.
For Me, “Spiritual Awakening” wasn’t building a temple in the mountains, it was tearing down and setting fire to everything I owned so that something new could be built on the scorched earth left behind.
I found a major flaw in much of the teachings of The Law of Attraction, it is this concentration on consumerism. Much of the focus of many of the teachers is on Material Wealth…
Actually, maybe that is all as it should be, because again, I must correct my line of reasoning, The Law of Attraction is of itself not about spirituality, it may borrow from many of the practices of Spirituality such as Meditation, and entering into elevated states of consciousness, but at the root of it all, it is about manifesting change in our lives, rather than about embracing change in our lives. Do you pick up the difference? MANIFESTING change is about making a choice as to what we choose, EMBRACING change is about adapting to changes in our lives.
We live in a global society that has manufactured a set of standards to which we are expected to conform. This I guess is what we refer to as our “civilisation”. Consumerism is the central ideology of this global civilisation, and it is imposed upon us from the moment of birth, some may argue that it begins even before that.
The best neo-natal care and nutrition creates physically superior bodies
The best educational toys creates superior intellectual abilities
The best dental care creates an attractive smile
The best juvenile nutrition ensures a pattern of healthy eating
The best schooling ensures qualification to attend the best Universities and Colleges
The best Universities and Colleges ensures superior earning potential
The best Looking, best educated and higher earning individuals attract the best Looking, best educated and higher earning spouses.
The best Looking, best educated and higher earning couples have the potential to breed superior offspring…
The unfortunate results of the rutting of the less privileged start life with a disadvantage…
And how do we show that we are successful in this civilization? By what we own, by what we drive, by what we wear, by whom we mate with.
A year ago, I found myself in a very dark place. I was chronologically in the middle of a conflict with a family member, what started out as a simple disagreement over taking sides in a couple’s divorce escalated as neither of us was prepared to back down. Insults were traded until eventually he struck the blow below the belt that knocked me for the count… He asserted that I am a failure in life, and while I intellectually knew that to be rubbish spouted by an ageing narcissist, I saw myself through his eyes and that was very painful for me.
For some time now I believe that I have seen through this whole Zeitgeist, I see how we are manipulated into what to wear, and how to act, who to have sex with and where to live, what to drive and where to drive to. I came to understand how we are manipulated into religious, nationalistic, racial and cultural divisions so that we can be controlled and played like the pawns that we choose to be.
Once you understand these things, then clothes become something to keep us warm and protected, covering our nakedness because the alternative is legally and culturally unacceptable. A vehicle becomes a tool, a means to travel and transport goods from place to place. A cellphone ceases to be a status symbol, but becomes a communications tool and portable computer. A dwelling becomes a shelter. A life partner is chosen on merit rather than the standards of physical beauty created by the fashion industry.
But this person asserted that I was lazy, that my “messing around building furniture” was not an acceptable vocation, that my vehicles and my appearance are a disgrace. More than that he announced these things on public forums from where I conduct business.
Now as I said before, INTELLECTUALLY I understand that all of what this person was accusing me of was based on his own desperate clinging to the illusion he believes to be reality.
“Those still invested in the illusion hate those who have woken up” – Kim Warner
But my own self-esteem was fragile enough to take this to heart, and I did!
Healing was a slow process because as ones self-esteem is damaged so things collapse, and no matter what we may or may not believe about the Law of Attraction, when we feeling bad about ourselves, bad things seem to happen to us.
Self-Love is not vanity, that was something I had to teach myself ever since my mother and her Cult indoctrinated me to the contrary. No, Self-Love is vital, it it taking care of yourself first because when you give everything to someone else and have nothing left for yourself, then no one is there to help you. Self-Love is taking a vacation so that you become recharged. Self-Love is spending the money to go to the Doctor and the Optometrist so that you can function better. Self-Love is building something beautiful for YOURSELF
Self Love is making Collages out of your old photos so that you can remember the happy times.
This brings me back to those two movies, The Matrix was about seeing through the artificial, superficial illusion that we are conditioned into believing to be real. Pleasantville is about two modern teenagers who are transported back into the black and white world of a 1950’s television sitcom. In Pleasantville, everything was “pleasant” the Fire Department’s only task was rescuing cats out of trees, because fire did not exist, sex didn’t exist, art didn’t exist, not as a form of expression anyway, music was “pleasant”, everybody was “pleasant” to each other and even the weather was “pleasant” all the time, it never even rained in “Pleasantville”.
As these two teenagers interacted with these “pleasant” people they caused a chain reaction. The girl, played by Reese Witherspoon was a stereotypically sexually promiscuous cheerleader, and she introduced the “Pleasantville” teenagers to sex, Tobey Maguire, who played the nerdish boy introduced the citizens of “Pleasantville” to such concepts as art appreciation and taught the Fire Department how to extinguish a fire…
As people were influenced, they appeared in full colour, some were ashamed of this and tried to hide their “colour” behind makeup and clothing, others flaunted it. Life became less and less “Pleasant” in “Pleasantville”, adultery, rioting, fires, mob-justice, segregation all became part of life in “Pleasantville”, but the other side-effect was that people grew, that while life was no longer always “pleasant”, it could also reach heights of bliss and valleys of despair.
The hero of “The Matrix” chose to take the Red Pill, and as a result he was ejected from the comfortable illusion and subjected to the harsh life of a resistance fighter. Like me, the residents of “Pleasantville” never got to consciously choose, but each of them grew exponentially as a person.
I reacted SO defensively to “you looked so happy then”, because that was the bliss of ignorance, not the satisfaction of being fully awake in a world of sleepwalkers.
Go Forth and BE AWESOME
All My Love
Kim
Happiness and the Illusion “Ignorance is bliss ‘tis a folly to be wise” These words by Thomas Grey referred to the inevitable suffering that resulted from “growing up”, he urged youngsters to stay innocent as long as possible.
A journey to a lesson 19 October 2019
A journey to a lesson 19 October 2019
There are a number of reasons why I chose to travel by bus, the need for someone to take me to the nearest airport 70km away, the price difference and possibly most relevant, not wanting my memories of the golden age of air-travel destroyed by experiencing the sad thing it has become. But for whatever reason, I found myself again taking on the 650km trip from King Williams Town to Durban this…
View On WordPress
It's MY Life! June 8, 2019
It’s MY Life! June 8, 2019
In 1999 I was facing a choice, the Peugoet 207 Gti or the Alfa 156 Twin Spark. Both were new on the block, trendy and sporty, they each were distinctive enough to separate their driver from the clinical blandness of the Golf Gti’s and the competing appliances offered by the Japanese manufacturers. This was of course during my phase of apostasy against Ford, at that time my life was ruled by image.
View On WordPress
My Apostacy April 1, 2019
My Apostacy April 1, 2019
NOT AN APRIL FOOL JOKE
Originally I started writing a post on exorcising ghosts, which was going to lead up to an announcement regarding action I will be taking against the JW.Org cult, but a more immediate situation arose.
I pose a question for consideration;
“Does anyone have the right to dictate who you may, or may not associate with?”
As many of my friends and acquaintances know, I was raised…
View On WordPress
Dystopia Now
Today I come from a place of sadness. Someone whom I have loved deeply for over a decade had recently resurfaced in my life. The wisdom we acquire through the years of our life’s journey teaches us to be more low key, esp after my last great romantic explosion here, not to mention the subsequent implosion. The tremendous positive energy that accompanies new love is a strong attractive force, a…
View On WordPress
I'm Sorry!
I’m Sorry!
There was a time, back when I started this blog, when I thought I knew everything. Since then, my solitary life and minimal responsibilities have afforded me the privilege to spend an inordinate amount of time reading, studying and experiencing life, and there has been one constant throughout all this time, and that is that I have learned that the more you learn, the more you learn how little you…
View On WordPress
Creators vs Hoarders 13 May 2018
Creators vs Hoarders 13 May 2018
Pondering a polarising situation developing in my family has led me to a deeper understanding about the nature of risk and success.
For the purpose of this discussion, I will divide people into two groups, the Hoarders, and the Creators.
Where shall I start? Ok, something I remember from my religious past, the parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30
A wealthy man entrusts money to three servants…
View On WordPress
What do I need to Want? - 11 December 2017
What do I need to Want? – 11 December 2017
First there was nothing to say Then there was too much to say Then it had been so long that I felt I’d need to explain, and all the things that needed to be explained just overwhelmed me. Then I just procrastinated, because I am very, VERY good at doing that. Now I don’t really care what all of you think of my absence, I just feel like saying something again The hit movie “The Secret” made a…
View On WordPress