The L-Word, old movies, Santa Claus, displaced people

Well, I used the L-word yesterday in my blog, which caused a lot of problems. The L-word is a word I normally don't use in my day-to-day life. (You know: 'one who loses.' The L-word.) I was writing that blog in haste just before work, and was trying to come up with 'random' nouns and things that would be funny for the D&D weapons. But past experience has shown that the worst insults tend to appear when my mind goes blank and I'm searching for some noun to fill in. Especially if something's meant as a joke and is taken personally or misunderstood. The whole rest of the day, and all night long, I heard voices saying 'I'm not a loser!' over and over again. So I figured I would clarify that. I don't use the L-word myself in any normal situation.

The L-word is similar to the N-word for black people. It's a word that you just never use for any reason, not even as a joke. I have a mental image of two kids, perhaps siblings - and this is somewhat based on my own childhood, but I think other kids had it much worse than I did. When I competed against my brother, in video games for instance, I was usually less competent and I almost always lost. If he had been obnoxious about it, he could have called me a loser and could have made fun of me. It wasn't quite that bad. He didn't actually call me a 'loser' - that particular word was never used. And my brother and I were always friends and we still are. In fact we've often said that we understand each other better than anyone else does. But even so, I grew up with the idea that I wasn't strong enough to compete against other people and win. I knew from the beginning that I should probably not try to compete.

I have seen other kids arguing with each other and it makes me angry to watch. If you imagine some hyperactive little brother pestering an older brother - and the kid's so young he can't really control what he's doing - the older brother could get angry and hate the younger brother for bothering him. I feel like this was a real incident I saw someplace - it might have been on television or a movie, though - but it was a scene with two young boys, two brothers, arguing and fighting and the one older kid was making fun of the younger kid and insulting him. And I think it was two black kids, and he called the other kid a nigger. But I can't remember where I saw this. I think the context where I saw it had something to do with people debating about the question, 'Is it okay for black people to call each other, or themselves, niggers?' I would say, no it's not. It's always a negative, insulting term, even if the person saying it to you could be called the same thing.

(*This whole discussion is getting distorted and manipulated. I have some people telling me what to say. We'll never know the real truth of how I myself feel about this issue.*) The older brother in the scene HATED the little brother. I'm sure it was a 'mixed feeling,' because you almost always feel some kind of attachment or love for your siblings and family members, even if they are abusive.

I know how that hatred feels, because I went for years and years being harassed and attacked constantly by people who never leave you in peace for a single second of a single day. I feel that hatred towards them, but I suppress it.

(*The way that they're interfering with this topic is that anytime I feel, or even talk about, my hatred or anger, about the fact of my being attacked constantly, it triggers some kind of defense mechanism in the disinformation system. They distort all of the feelings and emotions to be something other than what they are, to be something which is not legitimate or straightforward. It's like it's all a joke, or it's okay to inflict violent injury upon defenseless people, or like it's nothing but an 'enjoyable' domination-and-submission relationship - which it isn't. It's an attacker-and-victim relationship. There is nothing rewarding about it.*)

(*Over the years, when I was being manipulated to 'write to the hackers' over the keylogger and in emails, I used to insult them and hate them, because I was a puppet being forced to experience artificial emotions and urges and sensations, especially when I was on drugs, and I didn't understand what was going on. Every time I talk about that hatred, the 'disinformation system' distorts it to seem like we were just having some kind of fun, mutually rewarding interaction, and the suffering wasn't real - that it didn't matter - that I wasn't really considering suicide to get away from it - although actually, the 'considering suicide' phase only occurred whenever the really severe electronic harassment began, when people were shooting radio frequency weapons at me, and some kind of burning heat, and other things, all day long, and it was unavoidable.*)

But in a face-to-face relationship, kids will openly express their hatred towards whoever is bothering them, and they'll call the other kid names like 'loser' or 'nigger.' And the other kid isn't bothering them intentionally - they can't control themselves, or they're bored or lonely.

And the little kid grows up, getting angry every time he hears those insulting words again, and the words are extremely sensitive 'trigger' words for that feeling. It's the feeling that you're inferior to someone else who has power over you and is making fun of you, someone who hates you.

So, like I said, I wrote the L-word as a joke for my D&D items, but then heard voices all day and all night long protesting about it. It's one of those words that's so negative, it borders on being a curse word, although it wouldn't be censored if somebody said it on television.



I've been writing an excessive number of posts because I used St. John's Wort the other day to help me get some things done, and now, I'm in withdrawal, and I write a lot in that phase. I always use a miniscule dosage, by crushing the leaves inside a ziploc bag, and then inhaling from the bag, so that I get as little as possible. It might be amusing to imagine me doing this; however, believe it or not, this method of administration really works.

This is a couple of random and miscellaneous comments from things I was thinking and noticing during the past day or so, just silly things. I wrote them on a piece of paper.

I watched 'The Rescuers,' a 1980s movie (maybe even late 1970s?) about two mice who rescue a kidnapped little girl. Of course, now that I'm older, I can see things that look 'dated,' like the style of music in some places. But that doesn't take away from its being an enjoyable movie. But at one point, I noticed that the growling of the alligators sounded EXACTLY like the growling of the bear in 'The Polar Bear King,' another favorite movie. It sounded so similar, I thought that the sound technicians actually used the same sound clip. It's always amusing when this happens - it started happening when I heard songs that people wrote using Propellerheads Reason - I could sometimes tell you the exact name of the sound samples they used.

The big difference I've noticed between old children's movies, and recent children's movies, is that the older they are, the more they take things seriously. The old movies aren't filled with comedy, and if they are, it isn't stuff like (for instance) fart jokes. They do have some comedy, but it's somehow a different kind of comedy. It's a more mature or tasteful comedy, somehow. This isn't universally true; it's just an impression I have. In the late nineties and in the past few years, all the kids' movies have been nothing but fart jokes and that sort of humor, or humor based on the presence of an obnoxious character you can't stand to be around. Then again, you might argue 'Of course she would say that,' because those are the movies from MY time period, so of course I would think they're better than today's movies. Who knows. But they're definitely different.

But there is a real difference between the sci-fi tv shows of long ago, and those of today. If you watch the old Twilight Zones, they were simple, low-budget plots - low-budget is a key thing here. They didn't rely on lots of special effects to entertain you. Instead, they asked some kind of intriguing 'what if?' question and explored the idea. It didn't matter if it was silly or impossible. Since I don't have cable tv, and my tv antennas don't receive anything at this house, and I hate tv anyway and never watch it except at other people's houses, I can only try to vaguely recall some of the episodes I've seen, and I can't remember enough of them. But 'what if?' questions just don't seem to exist anymore! And if they do, they're never original or ingenious. They're shallow, not deep, and they follow the pre-planned pathways that have been followed a thousand times before. They never say anything surprising that didn't occur to you. Innocent naivete of invention just doesn't seem to occur on TV or movies.

But, long ago, when people wrote movie plots and tv shows, when people wrote any books or stories at all, they were able to create their own ideas, instead of having thoughts put into their heads. They could think 'uncensored' thoughts; they could think things that weren't 'approved' by the surveillance. They could ask questions we aren't able to ask today.

Of course, there's disagreement about this, amongst the people who believe somebody puts thoughts into our heads - we often aren't sure the exact year or time period in human history when people started experiencing this, and also, since we can only live up to about a century, eventually you get to where no living person remembers how life used to be, so they can't tell you. Soon, there will be no living person who remembers how it used to feel to meditate, or think, or feel emotions, or dream dreams, or invent ideas, or fantasize, or fall in love, or hold a conversation, or write, a very long time ago, when the world was different.

Another totally different topic. I don't recall what made me think of this. First I was thinking about Tax Freedom Day, and then somehow I was also thinking about Christmas. Tax Freedom Day, if you don't know what that is, is the day when, according to calculations, you've worked enough days out of the year to pay all your income taxes for that year. The rest of the year is the time that your money earned is 'for you.' If 1/3 of your money goes to taxes (that's an underestimate) then Tax Freedom Day will happen after 1/3 of the year has gone by - four months.

Well, I was thinking somewhat cynically that I celebrate Tax Freedom Day on December 31 at 11:59 PM.

That got me thinking of Christmas. As Tax Freedom Day occurs later and later each year, Christmas season begins earlier and earlier. (Just a few days ago, a guy walked through the grocery store wearing a Santa Claus hat, around August 15 or so.) I'm not sure whether this book is listed on my myspace page or not, but my friend Rachael long ago found a book called 'The Trouble With Christmas' by Tom Flynn. I already had been uncomfortable with Christmas, but it was that book that gave me the courage to officially stop celebrating it.

I HATE receiving gifts. This subject is so complicated I'm not sure I even have the energy right now to explain it. Receiving presents makes me feel angry. And I don't like giving gifts either. I always used to try to say, 'Well, if I don't bother giving anything to anybody, then hopefully, they'll stop giving ME gifts.' Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. People will continue giving unwanted gifts to you, and then pat themselves on the back saying, 'It's better to give than to receive, therefore, I'm better than Nicole.' Of course, if you asked them, that's not how they would phrase it. But that's what I hear. I'll acknowledge that a lot of people sincerely love to give gifts, and they're not consciously thinking themselves superior to you, and the offense is unintentional. Like I said, this is a big topic and I could rant about it for hours and get angry. Maybe it needs a separate post.

Christmas is very strongly connected with ... well, with whatever economic system we have here in the USA. It isn't really capitalism. It's something that was originally inspired by capitalism. It's an artist's rendition of capitalism, perhaps. (*An artist's rendition of capitalism would be more like capitalism than what we have.*) Or something. Anyway, Christmas isn't an ancient holiday. It is based on some old holidays, but the huge holiday we have now is the result of the past two hundred years or so.

Our economic system involves a lot of large corporations borrowing money from the banks. It's explained better elsewhere why we have the problems we have - but the net result that I'm talking about is we have a lot of large corporations selling us stuff we don't really want or need and never asked for, while the stuff we really need very badly isn't available anywhere (like medical treatments). And one of the things they're selling us is Christmas presents.

There's a lot of twisted psychology behind Christmas presents. There's a competition to buy the most presents, or the most expensive presents, or the highest total dollar value of presents, or whatever. My first thought is of Dudley, in the Harry Potter books, who protested that he only had twenty-seven birthday presents this year, or however many it was. (I think it might have actually been 37. But I can't trust any numbers that seem to appear in my head randomly, because it was only just recently that 'they' started explaining to me the sexual activities represented by numbers. I already knew '69' but I didn't know what any of the other numbers meant. So every time I try to 'randomly' think of some number, I have to check and make sure it doesn't have any unintended symbols.) Anyway, the Christmas competition is a way to get you to waste enormous amounts of money on your credit cards, to make you an economic slave the rest of the year.

I'd like to find Rachael's essay about shaving. It's in my box of Ancient Texts somewhere. I remember in her research she found that the United States' obsession with shaving all the hair off our bodies was actually an artificial, manufactured custom created by corporations to get us to buy razors. It was originally a non-problem, which somebody decided we ought to feel ashamed and embarrassed about, so that they could sell us razors. She talked about the time period in the early 1900s when movies and television were being developed, and women started wearing shorter dresses in the movies, and somebody decided that the ankles should be smooth instead of hairy. It was a moneymaking opportunity. Make people feel ashamed of something which is perfectly normal and healthy, and then, sell them a 'cure' for it and get rich. Make advertisements on television and magazines so that people are constantly bombarded with images saying 'There's something wrong with the way you look. You should look like the people in this photograph.'

Come to think of it, it was during the beginning of the TV and movies era that they also started cutting women's hair short. Back then it was viewed as a rebellion against women's 'inferior' status. (That's in quotes because there's yet another book on my long list of authors I'm always quoting from: Warren Farrell. He writes about the men's point of view and the dangers and difficulties of their role. The idea is that women aren't always inferior.) In a way, I can understand that. But nowadays I think it's time for a counter-rebellion.

So that was similar to Christmas. Some activity or practice is made into a really big deal, through advertising and television, and then they sell you lots of stuff after you feel ashamed and inferior from watching the advertisements.

Tom Flynn noticed that the taboo on Christmas is very, very strong. I have noticed that too. Some of the worst fights and arguments I've had with people have been about my refusal to celebrate Christmas. He pointed out that you can find more scholarly research questioning the existence of God, and questioning the impact of God on people's psychology, than you can find about Santa Claus. There are hardly any serious studies questioning whether Santa Claus is healthy for children. When I've talked to people and suggested that they stop lying to their kids about Santa Claus - to never even BEGIN the Santa Claus lie - they FREAK OUT. This is a MAJOR topic of argument. The brainwashing is extremely strong and very traumatic. You cannot convince people that they shouldn't lie about Santa Claus, that they shouldn't ever pretend he's real. It causes real, serious damage to kids' trust in their parents. The intensity of brainwashing and trauma about Christmas and Santa Claus is very similar to that about circumcision. Our parents did it to us, so we'll do it to our kids. It must never be questioned.

I wrote in one of my old diaries about how I got in trouble, when I was a little kid, because I went around at school telling other kids that Santa Claus wasn't real. Tom Flynn says that kids should be supported by their parents, not punished, if they go around telling people Santa is a lie.

But I like to go around looking for Santas and telling people they're not real. I've always done that. No matter what the subject, I like to look around for 'non-mainstream, alternative viewpoints' on the subject. But then again you could accuse me of finding favorite viewpoints and sticking to them unquestioningly.

That's the new topic because 'they' have recently been trying to convince me that I'm an enneagram type Six instead of a Nine. This changing of my enneagram is really exhausting. Back when I first learned about it, I went around and around all the types and couldn't decide what type I was. Meanwhile, I was also being attacked anytime I tried to introspect, to meditate, to look at myself, to question myself, to observe anything at all. When your brain can't function because you're under constant attack, it's really hard to make any accurate self-observations. So eventually, they convinced me that I was a Nine.

And meanwhile people debate whether your enneagram type can change during your life. And also, they debate about the phenomenon of 'integration' and 'disintegration,' which is when you show attributes of other types during healthy times or unhealthy times.

I think there's still a lot of good reasons to believe I'm a Nine. But I'll keep thinking about it. It's interesting because those enneagram types can be used as a kind of goal-setting or role model, and healthy role models are very, very important.

However, it's also being twisted and used against me. For instance, I was studying bookkeeping, and some people decided I shouldn't be studying that, and they wanted me to stop. They engineered some artificial disasters this year to put an end to my study of bookkeeping. I had a wonderful couple of days out in the park, where I sat out in the sun, and worked on my book, and continued the education that I had dropped out of years ago, at a very low cost, with the Schaum's Outlines that I love so much. These study sessions were so successful that somebody decided I couldn't be allowed to continue. And the enneagram is now being used as a rationale for why I shouldn't be studying or learning any technical subjects whatsoever - it's being described as a negative thing, a sign of unhealthy behavior instead of healthy behavior. I really value those personality theories, but every time I think about them, a lot of conflicts and confusion appears, and it's almost always used to accuse me of doing something unhealthy that I shouldn't be doing, and I should be doing what 'they' want me to do instead.

If I ever get my secret underground cave, I'm going to fill it to the ceiling with every single Schaum's Outline ever written. If the government ever noticed how useful those books are, they'd make them illegal. I'll read them in my silent monastery all day long, surrounded by my shield, with no interruptions.

And the last topic on my little paper note was: 'displaced versus primitive people.'

Displaced people are people whose lives are unsettled by some disastrous event. The people whose lives were ruined in Iraq are displaced people. They wander the countryside looking for a safe place to settle down. They try to leave the country and they become refugees in neighboring areas. Their lives are unpredictable. They don't know where to find food or shelter. They feel unsafe. They get sick and die from small accidents and diseases that normally would be trivial. They have no resources.

During a depression, large numbers of people become unemployed. If the government behaves as stupidly as it behaved during the Great Depression, then those unemployed people become huge numbers of 'displaced' people. They wander the countryside looking for work in some faraway city where hopefully, conditions are better. They have no home, no safe place to live, no source of food or money, no shelter. They have no knowledge or experience of how to take care of themselves 'directly,' without spending money. They're analogous to declawed cats being thrown outside, denied food, and rejected by their former owners. (That happened to one of the cats we had at my ex-boyfriend's house. One of the neighbors got a cat, but then found out their kid was allergic to it. So instead of actually making an effort to give the cat away, or sell it, or advertise it, or do anything at all, they just pretty much slammed the door and wouldn't let him inside, and also, never gave him any food or water or love or attention at all. And he was old, fat, neutered, arthritic, and declawed, which meant that it would not be easy for him to take care of himself. That's how he ended up coming over to our house.)

There is a big difference between 'displaced' people and 'primitive' people. I've been thinking about primitive tribal life recently. They might live in the woods or in some non-urban area, eating plants and insects and local wild animals. However, they already have a 'routine' set up, a familiar lifestyle, a pattern. They already know how to find that food. They already know how to make their own shelters. They already know where to get clothing. They live a stable life, even though it is a primitive life without luxuries.

In that way, they can feel more comfortable and even more 'wealthy' than the displaced people. The displaced people might have a house someplace, full of furniture and stuff, but they have no electricity, or they're bankrupt, and they have no job. The house is useless without electricity. Well, not 'useless,' but rather, it's just another big box without a fireplace. The fireplace might be purely decorative. It might be a fake fireplace that actually uses electricity. It might use some special, specific fuel, like gas or coal, and no other fuel - and in the depression, you can't get those fuels anymore. Besides, even if they had a normal fireplace that could burn wood, they would need money to go buy the wood. They couldn't just go get their own wood by themselves.

And since they're unemployed, and they don't have any money, they can't buy any food at the grocery store. The grocery stores and restaurants are the ONLY places where food comes from, unless people want to go beg for food from friends, family, or strangers. Or from the government.

Meanwhile, primitive people won't have the wide variety of foods that are in the grocery stores. They'll have fewer luxuries. They might not have cane sugar, but instead will use honey as a sweetener, from beehives. (I just remembered, honey sometimes contains botulin, if that's the right name for it - the bacteria that causes botulism. Botulinum? My nutrition teacher said people had problems because they used to put honey on a baby's pacifier, and it made the babies get botulism. Supposedly it wasn't a problem for adults with their stronger immune systems.)

Anyway. They won't have fresh fruits and vegetables from California and Florida during the wintertime. However, they will at least have SOMETHING rather than nothing. They won't suddenly be stuck with no money and no idea where their next meal will come from. They might have dried fruits or canned foods. They might have some vegetables that have a long shelf life in storage, like cabbages.

Making a transition to a primitive, self-reliant lifestyle that doesn't require money: that's what I'm interested in right now. I have nothing against money as such. Money is something you need in a large, complex marketplace with millions or billions of people. But since we all know that money is controlled and distorted by the government, we'd like to get out of that economic system if we can. I talk about gold and silver, but there are also other items that can be hoarded - there's a word for this, and I've forgotten the word. I think it might have been Fekete who talked about it. You hoard things that are less marketable substitutes, less than gold and silver, but still pretty useful. Any kinds of metal at all are good for hoarding. Anything non-perishable.

The whole concept is that you transition some people back to a primitive, tribal, self-reliant lifestyle, with no government utilities whatsoever, and no government money - although I still picture us having some normal jobs, and hoarding money somehow - and so you have a group of primitive people who don't even feel a thing, when the depression hits. They don't get very displaced at all. But they also don't have the comforts and conveniences of modern life. However, if you live in a supportive community, you can gets lots of help from the people around you. And the discomforts and inconveniences are less unbearable if they're only PREDICTABLE. If you know ahead of time that every day you must do unpleasant task X, it's less difficult than if you suddenly discover, all at once, that you must now do A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and so on, and you have NO IDEA how to do any of those things at all, and neither does anyone else you know.

There's a reason why I still insist on earning some kind of money. I am not going to just abandon the need for some kind of shield to block out the unwanted intrusions in my mind. And I think that's going to require a lot of research and money.