OUT OF CONTROL

     stop

The last few days have been a time of remembering my motivation 35 years ago to leave the world by moving to the mountains and working a labor job. I didn't know what "the world" meant, attempting to distinguish between the world and the earth. A meaning of the world is the globe, the earth. Another meaning of the world is the way of human desire. It took a long time to nail that distinction. There is the way of the Tao (or God's Way) and the way of desire, wanting, that is the way of the world. Once I saw that "the world" is the interior world of desire characterized by men-with-guns thriller movies, greed, pride, the list of the 7 deadly sins. I take "the world" to be everything on television, too, especially the evangelists. The world within amounts to the my own wanting, my own desires. If those magnets are not operating inside me, I'll not be drawn to satisfy a desire's craving. If I don't want anything, then I cannot be manipulated. I have somebody in my life right now getting frustrated after finding I am not available for control, on the verge of saying something I'm indifferent to hearing.



I've been through it so many times. I used to be drawn to controlling women. Right off, to be nice, I'd do as told. Then there comes the day control is established and I balk like a mule. When I have to clarify that I'm not looking to be controlled, all kinds of hell breaks loose and I'm hated from that day onward. It became so frustrating to me that I saw a psychotherapist over that question. Of course, it turned out to be Mommie Dearest. What I learned was to keep it up front that I'm out of control, by nature and by will. It has kept me free of having to figure out how to get free of control without too much hard feeling. It can't be done. Once the control starts, that's it. My alternatives are to choose to be controlled the rest of my life or have this woman hate me to her dying day. I pick being hated forever. Being hated isn't all that bad, and it's inevitable in this world. I go with the attitude that half the people I know like me and half do not. I take that for the nature of the social playing field.



It's a good insight into oneself, considering know thyself, the shortest verse in the Bible, to make a list of the people you know hate your guts, and the people you know that like you and are loyal. Just looking at the two lists tells a very great deal about self in the birds-of-a-feather way. When I look at the people I know despise me, then look at the people I think of as my friends, I'm happy with both lists. The ones that dislike me stay away of their own accord and I never have to deal with them. There's no name on the list of ones that despise me I would want to see on the list that likes me. I especially dislike being smiled at and sucked up to by one from the list that I know despises me. There is a mountain saying that when somebody doesn't like you, Be nice to them. It will drive them crazy. I do this sometimes for that reason, just to see it happen. It's not really hypocrisy, just being a bitch, giving the other something new to talk about. Another good old mountain saying, when somebody is talking about you, they're giving somebody else a break from being talked about.



People that talk about you behind your back never say anything good about you. It's to the negative and largely made up. That's the nature of our human existence. I know people who worry over these issues; hear that somebody said something unkind about them and fall into the pit of despair for days. It's the same as the wind blowing. Somebody said you're a real asshole, somebody who knows, and one more person sees you an asshole. Ok. So what. It's an aggressive act to smear somebody's name that invites aggressive action. Several months ago, someone I know who has nothing but contempt for me, called on the telephone from nearby needing jumper cables to get his car going. For the amusement of the asshole within, I went and helped him out. Shook hands, "How you doin, man? Haven't seen you in awhile. You doin all right?" I was all smiles, happy to help him out, a friend I hadn't seen in several years. I think that an aggressive act on my part. I'm sure as hell not going to be timid around him like I have nothing to say.



I found not too long ago somebody I thought of as a friend, given episodes of fickle behavior, has turned on me again. This was the last time. My attitude toward him is he's fucked me over so many times I don't miss a thing. I see him today as someone I used to know. He has a tactlessness that is based in indifference to anything outside his head. Words such as friend and loyalty have no meaning. He could pass a test defining them, but doesn't understand practical application. I find myself in a time of backing away from all but a few I think of as my friends. Again. The names in that circle seldom change, only when somebody new comes in and somebody dies out. It's not like a club. It's just particular individuals I know, most of them a long number of years, all of them people I respect. Respect has been an issue of mine all my life. People I don't respect bore me. Perhaps it goes back to, "I want some respect outta you!" My thought, unspoken, Show me something to respect. The respect I mean is more about character than accomplishments.

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