Sticking up for myself.

I am going to stick up for myself.  For the most part that is what telling my story is all about; sticking up for myself. It’s a fulfillment of my personality.  It may seem narcissistic to some, but I challenge that idea.  I merely lead by example.  Not just me, but we, should be living this way.  That is not my opinion that we should all live this way, it is a precise summation of a large mass of knowledge. 

I can scientifically prove my rarity.  I am not saying others cannot do the same, but that I actually took the time to do it.  That I even took the time to figure this fact out makes me rare.  This is why it is not narcissistic; I merely wanted to know my Self.  It's a spiritual law that I abide by.  To know the Way is to know one's Self.  To know one's Self is only the beginning.  Turns out that is no small thing.  It also seems to be true that sharing my story helps others realize this fact about themselves.  If you come to understand where I come from then you will be forced to realize that you can do it too.  If I can figure it out; anyone can. 

I can safely say that if you were to meet me you would be meeting one of the rarest kinds of human on the planet; an aware one.  I am not making that claim lightly.  The thing that makes me so rare is a combination of inherent rarity and learned rarity all brought together into awareness.  It isn't enough for me to simply be a little better than the other guy; I need to be way better.  It is inherent; it's in my nature to not want anyone to be better than me at anything.  It drives me crazy.  I chose knowledge as the one thing I would exceed all others at.  There is no reason at all that anyone should be more knowledgeable than me, ever.  If that were to be the case it would mean that I am slacking and need to push harder.  Naturally no matter what I do some people are going to be better than I at things, but believe me when I say that I made sure that I am at the top of my own niche.

I did the smartest thing that anyone can do.  I am not bragging, I am stating a fact.  I am leading by example.   It doesn’t make me special to do something that anyone can do; it just makes me rare.  I've read hundreds and hundreds of books.  I am actually into the thousands now.  I had over 900 books logged in my journal before I was twenty one.  I've done something almost no one has done with all that information; I synthesized the situation of life. It’s in my mental nature to do such a thing.  You could say it is what I was born to do. 

I looked at life and asked myself what was the most important thing I could do.  My conclusion was to become as aware as I possibly could in regard to life.  From the moment that decision was made I went at it with all my might.  I didn't just read; I applied.  I discovered the truths within myself to see what was what.  I apply two of the wisest rules; I put aside my opinion until after I gain the knowledge, and I don't believe anything anyone says until I experience it for myself.  I make my own way. 

While everyone else was getting a job, doing what culture was telling them to do, conforming, I was figuring out what the hell is really going on.  I've studied other people all my life, but there is a flip side because I also spend large periods of time alone.   I have a quirky personality and at a young age I learned to use it to my advantage.  I studied others, then studied myself, back and forth, reading the whole time.  I've also spent thousands of hours in conversation regarding life.  I am relentless in my search. 

Even as a child, when everyone else was doing their thing, I was studying, always aware of things no one else was ever thinking about.  As an adult my research has included mainly psychology, history, metaphysics, theology, philosophy, astrology, physics, personology, and most importantly culture.  I hold culture as the most important context for study.  I think of myself as an anthropologist.  I study human beings. I synthesize all the information I take in into what it means to be alive at this point in time.  Unfortunately I have been going about it as a starving artist, so I don't have the typical material items that speak of success.  I stayed in the trenches in order to do the thing, and that made me quite successful in ways that had nothing to do with money.  Chasing those experiences with nothing but a desire to learn taught me to master changing itself.  By doing this I gained a real education. 

Without even believing in god I was living a complete spiritual life.  My prayer for a long time has been to know the truth, regardless of the cost.  The prayer of an idealist in effect, because it doesn’t matter if the source of one’s faith is a real thing or not; it only matters that one have faith. It only matters that one believe, and I have always believed that I would make it.   You will come to find out that the feeling of faith is the feeling of the mind and body radiating out into the universe one’s wishes and desires.  It is powerful stuff. 

Ultimately though, it's like trying to explain running a marathon to a person that has never even ran a 5k.  How do I explain the effect of reading thousands of books to someone who doesn't even read a book in a single year?  The answer is very carefully.  The trick is not expecting one to even know how to run.  It takes time to build up an ability to run for hours.  It takes time to take in lots of books.  Just realize it doesn’t matter what one’s current ability is; what really matters is one’s desire to do it better today than it was done yesterday. 

I recently read a 550 page novel in less than one day.  I still slept, ate, showered, and did my other daily things.  I took a literature class in college and had read all the novels before class even started, for all my classes.  You see, the unconscious mind remembers everything.  All those books are in my head.  Through reading I taught myself to trust my intuition, which is the unconscious speaking to the conscious mind, so that all that information is with me always.  This phenomenon makes me seem psychic to some people.  I don't have to remember which book, said what, I just have to feel the totality of my mind and I just know.  The marathon runner does not think about how she runs, she just runs.  She has completed her training if she is racing for her personal best.   It's that moment of clarity when it all just happens.  To the person who never reads books this trait seems magical or psychic, but if they would train their mind they could do it too.

People often want to know how I know things about people like I do.  I just shrug; I did the thing.  I found out what's up.  I put in the work.  I embraced my ability to sense and feel other people and used it to understand what is really going on.  I focused all my mental abilities on studying people so that I could help them see themselves.  Anyone can do this.  Being able to do this is not what makes one rare, but actually learning to do it is what makes one rare.  Virtually no one does this.  Nearly everyone forms an opinion and then takes in information.  That process guarantees a bias.  It is one thousand times better to take in the information first, and then to decide what is what. 

No college degree.  No certifications.  No titles.  When one can check out books for free at a library, college is a scam.  I've learned more from one book that I got for free at the library than I have an entire semester at college taking five different classes that cost me thousands of dollars.   Certifications are a way for someone who knows less than me to take money from me.  That is clearly unacceptable.  Titles cannot convey knowledge.  Getting a certification is a literal admittance that someone else knows more than I do about something.  Why have they not come to me for a certification?  What title is there for reading thousands of books and applying them?  What title is there for living life to the fullest?  What’s the title for mastering one's circumference? 

Magician?  I like that title.  It’s an archetype that speaks to my soul.  If you could somehow magically have the knowledge I have your life would be transformed instantly; like the magician chanting the truth; healing in effect.  Perhaps, if I am lucky, someone out there will find my words magical, and just like magic it will change their life forever after.  I would consider that a dream come true. 

In my journey of self-discovery I came upon some other quite interesting information.  Everyone should know their Self.   In my own story though, let's add to this rarity equation the Myers-Briggs personality test.  I score as an INFJ.  As a male they say I have the rarest personality of the sixteen types.  .05% of 330 million is 165,000.  That's pretty rare.  Now let's add that my IQ is over 120.  That means of the .05% male INFJ's, less than 10% of them have an IQ that is higher, unless all INFJ personality types have a high IQ?.   I am assuming they do not.  That brings it down to 16,500 people in the US.  Of those how many are awake and aware spiritually with a legitimate education on life?  How many are self-taught?

By the way, I don't think IQ means one is any more capable of making good decisions in life than anyone else.  If anything, having a higher IQ got me into more trouble than not.  They literally test you for it if you get into trouble at a young age.  It has by no means been a good thing in my life over all, but it does give me a means of realizing the differences in people.  I feel like my IQ comes through in my ability to calculate and manipulate objects.  You would not ever want me calculating on you because I will go all MacGyver on your ass.  The Cat in me turns into a lion. 

In the beginning of the story you are going to realize I am even rarer.  The statistics are pretty dramatic regarding males who are raised as I was and how they are in prison, more often than not on death row.  So how many of those INFJ types, were raised in violence?  To be honest I am kind of proud of this one.  Much of my integrity rests on this fact.  Not many who went through what I did pulled their head out of their ass.  Almost all of them are lost.  Hell, most people, who weren’t even abused, never pull their head out of their own ass.  I’ve worked long and hard overcoming what was done to me so that I never hurt anyone.  I stepped out of culture.  As Mark Twain described education; I am truly educated because I unlearned everything.   If you knew about the mind as I do you would understand how important this point is, and that it is the very source of my rarity. 

All my various quirks of personality can be accounted for in personology and astrology literature.  Yes, it is true that around 10% of the time these texts are not accurate, but that in no way means the whole system is wrong.  The evidence is overwhelming.  I am patiently waiting for scientists as a whole to realize they do not understand nearly as much as they would like to think they do regarding personality through time and location of birth.  If you sat down and read my personology and astrological information you would be amazed.  It describes things about me that are not true about anyone else I have ever known.  Because I am introverted no one knows those things about me.  These texts saved my life in many ways because they were the only thing ever in my life that actually understood me.  What's even crazier is that the people who wrote those things about me don't even know me.  It is astounding how accurate it is.  So part of the story will be wrapping the mind around the significance of our birth, which has nothing to do with culture at all. 

I was born on The Day of No Nonsense, in the Week of the System Builder, during The Way of Influence.  This info is from The Secret Language of Birthdays, and Relationships, by Gary Goldschneider and Joost Elffers, which can be found for free online.  These books are must have prizes in my personal library.   Suzanne White, in her book A New Astrology, gives one of the most profound readings on my personality that I have ever read, based on the fact that I am a Virgo/Cat.  Until I achieve that level of understanding I will be amazed by her ability to so succinctly describe me without having ever met me.  It is profound. Truly a miraculous phenomenon. 

You see, astrology is like asking two different people for an assessment of the same person.  Think of the way you would describe your husband or wife, and how their brother or sister would describe them.  You are going to get two very different descriptions, mixed with more than a few similarities, but which is wrong or right?  They will both be right.  Astrology is the same.  It all depends on who you are asking.

I made a goal and that was to know my Self.  I applied the strengths of my personality to achieving this goal.  I took in as much information as I possibly could.  While the first part of my life happened to be a living nightmare, the rest is going to be everything but.  I've learned the mental tools to accomplish anything in life, and I spend almost all my time improving either myself or others.  But it is important to remember what I said earlier about synthesizing.  This is not my opinion.  It's a fact.  I suspended my opinion in the face of the evidence, which generates true knowledge.  Opinion goes away in the face of so much knowledge.  It's not good or bad, right or wrong, it just is.  If you don't believe me go find out for yourself.  It is one of my all-time favorite things to do; I love to tell people I told you so.  Go read all those books and apply it all to your life.  Then you won't have an opinion either; you will just know.  Then you will be alive and aware in the moment. 

This is for those who don’t wish to be like all the rest. I’ve built a mental system, and I am sharing it here so that maybe it will help someone else find their way.  Maybe that person is you.  The truth is out there.  It is simply a matter of removing your personal bias and seeking it. 

I would never have survived if I didn’t unlearn.  In the end I think I am one of the lucky ones because it forced me to wake up and step out of this whack culture.  We all need to be awake and aware, regardless of how we were raised.  It shouldn't take childhood abuse to wake someone up.  I took away my emotional attachment for the way I was told things should be, and I threw it away.  Absolutely everything I was taught as a child was wrong.  I had to relearn it all in order to survive.  Of all the things that have caused suffering in my life, nothing caused suffering like believing lies.  The reason there is suffering in the world is because so many people believe lies.  Even now I find them lurking in my mind, as I wish things were different. 

So that is what this is about.  The removal of suffering through the awareness of reality; to see things for how they really are.  Primates flying through space at thousands of miles per second, on a round rock, spinning around a star.  It's really crazy if you think about it.  What it means to be alive.  

Life in effect.

It’s that moment that I hope for.  It’s the main reason I do what I do.  It makes all the criticism and hate I receive worth it.

It goes by different names, but not many understand it.  Only my closest friends, those who take the time to actually get to know me, understand the purpose of what I do.  Narcissistic, cocky, arrogant, ass, on and on that list goes.  It is easy to judge the surface of someone’s behavior, but it’s another thing to look at the depths to see what is really going on.  My “in your face” antics have a very specific purpose.

I am all about sticking up for one’s self.  I am all about leading by example.   Most people will readily admit that this culture is whack, but then will keep adhering to its social norms.  My favorite spiritual guide, Jiddu Krishnamurti points it out quite clearly when he says, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”  After reading that, it should be easy to disqualify the adjectives such as narcissistic, cocky, arrogant, and ass from the mouths of those who have not stepped out of this whack culture.  They are well adjusted to a sick society and see healthy behavior as a negative.  

During this past holiday season, while spending time with family, a close friend of mine had her younger brother read my Motherless blog.  She said he did not read them all, but read several of them, and after reading them she asked him what he thought.  Keep in mind that her brother knows me, but did not know it was my writing that he was reading.  He told her that it was really messed up that people raise their kids like that.

You see, her brother looks up to me in a certain way.  I am a whole list of things that he is not, but wishes to be.  Confident, or as some say cocky.  Sure of myself, or as some say narcissistic.  I do well with women, or as some would say arrogant.  I am self made, or as some would say, an ass.  He and I have even talked about his position in life.  He never called me those seemingly negative names because deep down he wishes he was those things too.  

After he read some of the blog posts and told his sister that it was messed up, she told him it was me that wrote it.  All he could say was Wow! with a shocked look on his face.  He had no clue that I would have been the author of those stories.  

The issue is, he was not raised appropriately either, he just wasn’t physically abused.  He wasn’t raised correctly at all.  So you see, when he realized it was me who wrote that, he was directly faced with the reality of the situation; he can be just like me.  Not in personality, but in awareness.  If I can do it; anyone can.  If I can overcome that abuse and neglect, so can he.

For me, that is what it’s all about.  I tell my story for just that reason.  When people see how amazing I am, realize where I come from, then they too realize that they can be just as amazing.  By sticking up for myself, and leading by example, I show others they can do it too.  What could possibly be more fulfilling than that?

When people see me in public they cannot even imagine what I have been through.  They cannot even imagine that I spent most of my life with no confidence, no self-esteem, no self-worth.  I spent most of my life just like my friends brother.  If I didn’t tell my story how would he know that he too can climb out of the whole?  Life in effect.  I don’t act special because I am better than anyone else.  I act special because that is exactly what I am.  I am just patiently waiting for everyone else to realize that they are special too. 

The only medicine is truth.

It is potentially the most difficult part of dealing with being motherless; loneliness.  

Have you ever noticed when you are in love that your body changes?  Being an alpha socially creates change too.  There is actually a long list of phenomenon that creates a physiological change in the body.  I like to think of them as switches.  Puberty is one of the easiest to realize.  A switch flips in the body and it changes accordingly.  There are many social situations that change us physically.

Some of these switches cause self destruction.  Feeling like one has no place in the world is such a phenomenon.  These switches are the primary reason for addictions.  Most drug addicts are lost in life, their physical body changes, and down the path of self destruction one goes.  There is a long list too, that causes this self-destruction switch to engage.  Being lost in life is not the only one.

This fact of human life creates a huge problem for those of us who don’t have that sense of family.  We are constantly fighting with our own body to survive.  It is quite a conundrum.  One has to convince themselves that they are worthy of life despite all the physical facts that say otherwise.  Culture and society is forever wishing to rid itself of the motherless child.  This is the basis for what Kahlil Gibran says, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”  Those without mothers and fathers fight for their lives every day.  Nothing builds character like that kind of suffering.

Society piles it on, expecting us to be like those with mothers when we are not even capable of knowing what that is.  Casting us even further into a physiological separateness death spiral.  The feeling of loneliness never abates.  Lost in life.  It’s unimaginable.  I’ve imagined it so many times, having a mother, and it never comes to be.  I’ve only ever returned to my loneliness when the illusion crashes to pieces.  That is the price of praying for the truth.  

How would I ever truly find my own sense of self always relying on another?  Always believing a lie? The sense of self that would have come from such a relationship is unknowable to me.  When a mother forsakes her child there is no recovery of that motherhood in the child.  Who but our own mother could love us in that way?  It’s an unseen thing.  Once that failure is imposed on a child it is forever after as if cast in stone. The only way out is to turn off the switch.  To bring about such a state of mind that defies society is a difficult task.  It requires standing all alone in the energy of the masses and being okay with that fact.  Rare is that individual.  

Did you catch it?  The longing for a mother forced on me by this culture is a real thing.  I long ago quit counting how many times I was looked down upon with horror for not loving the woman who gave birth to me.  Society has forever blamed me for what was done to me.  Forever wished for me to defy my self.  If I was born into a different culture where everyone was motherless would it even be an issue?  The cultural pressure to be some one way is a very real thing.  It is practically assumed that everyone has a mother and if you don’t no one wants to face that fact.  Hardly anyone knows what it is.  When I am near such people I can feel it.  It is a real thing.

So why did the poet say, “the most massive characters”?  It is because anyone who overcomes such an ordeal must have such a character, or they do not survive.  There is no middle ground.  The casualties of this phenomenon are untold millions, correction; billions.  It is overwhelming how many do not make it.  To overcome it requires one to have a sense of self that stands alone in the world.  All the while, while attempting to build this sense of self, the world is ever trying to force it to conform.  Overcoming this forces one to be different than all the rest by that same sheer force; it is do or die.  Those who never know life without family, without a mother or father, are under the illusion that they are not alone.  Their entire lives are built on a lie.  Being motherless forces the truth into the mind, or it destroys it.  

In spiritual life, success is measured in ones awareness of the truth.  Not material possessions.  Not fame or power, but recognition of truth.  The truth is we are all alone in a certain way, no matter what one believes, yet we are all one.  You who have a mother, she could be taken at any moment.  Your fathers could cease to be at any second.  Then what?  You will have two choices; face the truth of loneliness and battle your own body, or fill the whole with something else quite temporary and never realize the truth.  It requires a massive character to live life with the switch flipped.  It requires a massive character to undo it.  

Unlearning culture, stepping out of culture is the path.  It's the only remedy I found that worked.

Should you ever see one suffering, know they are alone.  They are lost else they would not be self-destructing.  Know that they are living a lie.  It is easy to condemn the drug addict, the inmate, or the sick and corrupt, but you see those things are only the symptom; those things are the running nose, but not the cold; the sore throat, but not the virus.  The cold is tearing at their hearts.  The virus is destroying them.   The only medicine is truth.  Only the truth can set them free.  

Look how many have mothers, yet still self-destruct; they are living a lie.  

For some of us, it is the single greatest source of our sense of self; that we survived it at all. 

Undoing what has been done.

Now that I am older and have accumulated some experience I naturally see things differently.   Who doesn't right?  In my process of helping others I have found myself repeating a theme lately; it is not actually possible, from the inside, to see the true effect of the unconscious programming that has occurred to us in life.  Recently I have been helping a friend who has a bully for a father much like my own.  As I speak to him I am fully aware that he cannot see the impact of that on his own life.  He cannot see the true ramifications of a father who constantly puts down and abuses a child.  Realizing this, I must also realize it is true about me as well.  The difference between this friend of mine and I, is age.  My being a decade and a half older, certainly gives me some insight, and using his life to see my own is part of that insight.

Being raised hyper-masculinized has had unseen impacts on my life, all my life, but as I said with age I am slowly unraveling them.  I no longer remember what was pounded into my mind, specifically, I just know it's there.  Money has always been hand in hand with my masculinity.  In this society, from the moment I was born, it has been expected of me to work for a living.  Money has always been at the center of my sense of self, but let me be clear; this was not my choice.  They pounded it into my head; a real man goes to work.  Those who raised me were so consumed and stressed about money it practically ruined their lives, and in their ignorance they were ruining mine as well by forcing it on me.  

Look around you.  How many say this culture is jacked, then turn around and comply with its social standards?  This energy of the masses affects us all.  So you see, the idea that my manhood revolves around a paycheck is not merely my parent’s idea, but this cultures idea, but more importantly it is you too.  Yes, you read that right, most importantly it is you.  I doubt anyone reading this has set themselves free of this cultural energy.   It is easy to say a thing, to think it, but to truly be aware of what is going on is another thing all together.  

This is difficult work that requires suffering.  This is why no one does it; everyone avoids suffering.  In my situation the suffering has been not having money.   The illusion created by this culture is that not having money is bad.   Greed defined.  How can I disassociate money and my sense of being a man if I were to always have money?   The point has been, to come to terms with myself as I am without money.  To be a man, no matter what the circumstance is the goal.  Can you see the hyper-masculinization still breathing out of me?  So much concern about being a man, like I said, it was beat into me. 

To learn to feel alive and manly in my own skin regardless of social stature (a job), is tantamount to my spiritual growth as a human being.   If someone asks you where you work, they are not actually interested in where you work, they are sizing you up.  They are categorizing and labeling.  They are associating your worth as a human being with what you do to make money.  It should not matter how much money I have.  Since when does a job define a person?  In this culture one is looked down upon if one is male and does not have income.  Literally made fun of.  If I had a dollar for every time I have taken criticism over this I would not have had to stress about food.  Even those who realize this fact will still do it to me.  They too, are not aware of the unconscious programming that this culture instilled in them.  They admit the culture is whack, but continue to subscribe to its rules. 

After decades of fighting with this, fighting the shame of it all within my own sense of Self I have finally let it go.   No job, no income, defying these social norms with my sense of dignity intact.  It is a deep feeling.  Freeing.  There is no shame.  No guilt.  No regrets.  I've spent a huge amount of my time helping others and never received a dime for it.  A majority of the time people have been so unaware they did not even realize I was helping them.  Even then, during those times, I was bitter on the inside for not having any money, always feeling smaller than those with money.  Like everyone else, because of my unconscious cultural brain washing, I thought that money was the marker of success.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  Saying that now, I fully realize how stupid I was.  How stupid they taught me to be. 

It's one thing to think a thing, even to realize it, but another all together to actually truly KNOW it.   Of course, for years now, I could easily ration it out in my mind that money has no bearing on my manhood, but the feeling persisted no matter what I thought or said.  It has been a true battle.  The truth was, the truth is, to actually realize something one must do the thing.  It's like the hot burner on the stove.  We can say we know it is hot, but we don't really know until we touch it. 

You see, there was no way to undo the indoctrination by this culture with a pocket full of money.  I would always be trapped in the illusion of feeling like a man because I had grip.  I would be fulfilling the lie.  It took suffering, not having money, to undo it.  This reinforces what I have said about suffering.  Suffering is not bad.  Suffering is the teacher.  Going without money isn't really suffering, it just seems that way in a culture of greed. 

So this one is for those who criticize, yet are unaware.   Not many things I enjoy in life more than saying I told you so.    While you have been selling your integrity for a paycheck, I found mine.  So busy selling yourselves out, you don’t have time to find the truth, yet I am the one failing at life?  I think not.

I feel ready now to do what I was meant to do in life, and it doesn't have shit to do with making money.  

Mind Bending

The mind bender came to me from James Hillman in his book The Soul's Code.  Having been studying astrology, or personology as two of my favorites call it for almost a decade now, this story has been quite profound on my psyche.  My worldview has to completely change once again.

Fraternal twins were separated at birth.  They immediately went to different step mothers.  Later in their lives they were studied because of the nature of their circumstances.  In interviews they both gave explanations for why they were perfectionist.  One twin said he was a perfectionist because his mother was too, and that she ingrained it into him.  The other said he was a perfectionist because his mother was really lazy and he was compensating for her.  Okay, that bends my mind.  Thinking about how deeply this phenomenon affects all of our lives is quite profound.

Think about it.  These twins have completely elaborate life experiences built into a life story explaining why they are perfectionist, but the truth is they were born that way.  It's just who they are.  It is quite difficult to wrap my mind around this.  Not them being born some certain way, but that they had complete life stories for a particular personality trait explaining why.   What does this say about my own memory, and my own life story?  This is why spiritual masters say to stop thinking and just be.  This is why they say stop judging.  These twins, via their explanation for their behavior implied a positive/negative to the behavior.  That in and of itself is a judgment.  The twins built stories around why they were the way they were, instead of just accepting themselves for who they were.  This information greatly clarifies my own inner vision of Self.  I too am a perfectionist, but had blamed it on my environment much like these twins did. 

All of my twenties I had deep beliefs for why I was the way I was.  I had blamed most of it on her, on my upbringing, on the abuse I suffered.  It by no means excuses the circumstances, but it changes my life story completely.  This shreds much illusion regarding just who I am.  It gives me power back knowing it had nothing to do with them; I simply am what I am.  But aren't we all this way?  We were born a certain way, and from that day on there has always been someone telling us who to be.   The very culture we are born into contradicts this inner voice by constantly telling us who to be. 

Maybe for you it is another trait, or like me, multiple traits, but I bet society, or culture, or family, or a church, or school  has been telling you to be some one certain way; telling you that you must do this or that to become good or bad, or to receive a reward or a punishment.  But what about our stories playing in our minds for why we are the way we are?  This culture tainted that vision too.  One could argue that the part of our mind that builds the story is the source of the illusion; the ego.  The story builder of our minds was forced to base the story on lies.  It happened before we could realize it was happening.

Honestly, can anyone say our personal stories are true after hearing this story?   Thinking about all the other stories I play about myself in my mind, replaying over and over again, regarding why things are the way they are, can they be any truer than these twins' reasons for their personality traits?  The study of personology has helped me come to terms with myself more than any other thing I have studied.   It has given me a base from which to judge the content of my life.  An anchor against the current of cultural thought. 

This knowledge really only leaves me with one choice left, and that is to just live in the moment.  To live like I do not even have a past, not the stories at least, not the personal touch.  They cannot be taken as legitimate; they are not real.  My stories are just something my immature mind made up to give me a sense of control in a world of chaos.  Until now, not ever knowing otherwise, continued to perpetuate those stories too, because I thought they were real.  That is what the ego is for after all; that is what it does.  But now the story is different.  It has to change.  Those stories no longer exist.  They have been shattered.  It's just me now, right here, and there is nothing else to it.

This might scare some people.  Realizing it is all a lie is difficult indeed.  I think some people won't want to go there.  They sense the loneliness of it all.  Letting go of all those stories leaves one standing very alone.  I'd say those who stop in fear haven't yet realized their potential.  They are not aware of what they are truly capable.   They are afraid of what they could be, of shining so bright no one can see them.