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.