It’s a very observant song, especially about how a person’s “love” blinds them.
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I have been doing some “calm abiding” meditation lately, with the goal to test the premise that ‘i’ don’t really have “depth” but rather can feel happy by allowing it. The premise being that happiness is a natural state which doesn’t require me “work through” issues as such. The premise is that it’s always “right there” under the veneer of “depth”. That is, “depth” is an illusion.
So far so good actually.
I haven’t proven the premise, but by being curious and having the premise to remind myself not to get involved in each feeling, but to just see what is happening, I am learning a lot.
After seeing that the "abyss " was a belief a while back, feeling out the normal"sad/mad boredom " is easy. It develops quickly into libido. Then, although this takes more time, as fantasies form and I get turned on, it comes to another feeling.
I don’t quite have a name for it. Responsibility & Surviving are the themes. Though, it seems that this is a circle.
I generally resent responsibility and practical survival, so it’s no wonder I can’t easily resolve this layer. It does however point to a chain of feeling, but in reverse. The resentment of survival, leads to boredom, which leads to libido.
It’s the little day to day tasks of maintenance, of living which are where I need to be diligent to feel good around. That seems to be where the happiness I was looking for was hidden.
I like the organised way I saw these feelings. Very simple circle. No “big issues” to work out.
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In other news, In relation to my insights into the freedom from guilt and shame and being a “sinner” during my “god years”, something of that mojo cam back recently.
I found myself freely thinking and daydreaming about a belief, or rather something I think is factual, but can only prove to myself. Sorry to be cryptic, but the point isn’t so much the belief, but rather I was free to think and daydream again.
I won’t go into the particular belief, as convincing others is not the idea. But, I really enjoyed having that freedom back. I have no need to dispose of this belief, as the feeling is definitely Felicity and it’s very harmless.
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Though I haven’t had the seeing the “abyss” type experience, I can relate to so many things developing into libido. I realised why I like it so much, in this realm I am still using my imagination, it is like a particular area in which the imagination is still working to trigger highs for me.
What was this “abyss” type experience exactly? Can you elaborate?
I don’t quite get the boredom, but maybe because I am good at distracting myself with tv shows, movies, books, sport, programming, some subject matter to distract my attention and work and family life are busy enough at the moment to distract me too. Maybe I just don’t give myself a chance to feel boredom. I definitely feel that resentment to the obligations of responsibility and practical survival.
The abyss, which did eventually manifest in meditation around 2012 was based in beliefs instilled in me via Christianity. It’s not unique to Christianity but they do a great job of turning fear into eternal damnation. Very effective overkill.
In day to day life it was the feeling of never being good enough, to a profound extent. The ever present swirling darkness, a nauseous presence, the sure and all pervasive conviction of being fundamentally doomed, but not to oblivion, rather to judgement which no defence can circumvent.
Sounds lovely 
Ah yes, the eternal damnation fears caused great suffering for one of my ex-girlfriends. Shame for having sex out of wedlock, masturbating, challenging the belief system like my questions on evolution and the age of the universe and such things.
Sounds terrifying. I am glad I didn’t have that on top of the problems I have gone through mentally. It sounds overwhelming.
Did you feel like a traitor too?
No, I never betrayed myself. I never tried to convince anyone either, well not with any conviction anyway. Leaving Christianity wasn’t rebellion, or becoming less than what I saw to be right. It was the Bible, specifically Jesus’s own words which guided me out.
“If your children ask for a fish, will you give them a scorpion? If the ask for bread, will you give them a stone? Even though you are sinners you know how to give good things to your children, how much more shall your heavenly father care for you? Ask and it shall be given, knock and the door will be open” Andrew paraphrase 2022.
When I decided to truly ask and believe, the information that came to me lead me away from Christianity and into my own self, my own understanding, my own dreams and ideas. I didn’t loose faith, I took it to the nth degree. I didn’t loose being a good person, or a caring person, or a thoughtful person, I took all of it to the nth degree.
It’s only now I can see that. I never really considered myself any good. I became narcissistic to cover over the deep belief in my own inadequacy, my ultimate unworthiness. However, actions are what we ultimately are. How I felt about myself doesn’t change what I did. How I treated people. So, I never betrayed anyone. Even though to this day they say, and I have been told this to my face, “you left, because you were never truly a Christian” ( quoting an idea the apostle Paul preached that there are those who are destined for damnation and that they are to be taught by Satan).
It’s insanely powerful stuff. So powerful that even the most secular scientists dare not to publically come out against the Catholic churches funded “big bang”. Christianity is more powerful than people imagine.
I don’t know why I am saying all of this. I guess it’s for the record. ,
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Thanks for sharing @Andrew. Haha that is interesting, to see how other Christians have to reconcile those who have left the fold, of course you were never a Christian, there we go…all issues resolved… now they don’t have to think about it lol.
I tried to at my uni to challenge such things and was met with intense hostility, for even to suggest or raise doubts.
Christianity is weaker in the UK than it was in my dad’s day. In my dad’s day people who had children out of wedlock were put into mental institutions. It was more daring for him to be an atheist in that era, than in mine. Before the WW2 and I bet WW1 as well, in my grandparents time it was stronger and more influential too.
Many in my dad’s generation, his friends who were also atheist or agnostic would go back to their religion once they were terminally ill, all is forgiven lol. He called them deathbed Christians. He liked to play a joke on me in his last years that he wanted me to get the priest, he wants to convert back, a bit of dark humour lol.
Indeed overt Christianity is weaker, openly mocked, derided, dismissed. But, and it’s a huge BUT, Christianity was never about church and being “Christian”, it’s about exactly what your father joked about: ultimate forgiveness. Being OK in the most profound way. Being completely accepted regardless of what and who you are.
I believe that Christianity ( and also Hinduism/Buddhism) was born out of psychedelic drug experiences. In other words, it was born in the same way Actualism was; someone tripped their balls off, and wanted to live that way forever.
As much as Jesus is mocked, even on the AFT, the shear tenacity of anyone to not only be reviled by their own religion but to be actively at odds with an entire empire for simply stating the information they believed to be true; the meek will inherit the earth, blessed are the peacemakers. The kingdom of God is within.
These got him killed. To add insult, the modern trope is to deny that he even existed at all.
The enemy isn’t “blind nature”, unless that is also called cowardice.
My father’s last words to me were that I should come back to Jesus. I had told him the above previously, that it was Jesus that lead me away to start with.
People hide in religion. They hide in actualism, but I am not going to say more about my thoughts on that; as the point is there is a freedom within, in one’s own chest, to discover for oneself, to think for oneself, to know things which don’t need validation from others.
Salvation comes from within.
I always thought the whole son of God part was strange. Though I saw the power of the feeling of somebody who is courageous and self sacrificing and trying not to be judgemental. Jesus had all the characteristics I see that I value in other people too, to be brave and self-sacrificing without resorting to aggression or hatred. I guess humanity had to start somewhere on the progress towards treating each other better and trying to challenge the more unsavoury parts of blind nature.
Yes, well I know a lot of the concepts and stories relating to him have their origins in other religions and cultures too. Discerning the facts can always be tricky, humans can turn a person into an idea, as with Santa Claus, and discerning the facts from the fiction becomes extremely difficult.
What do you mean by this expression?
Was that a difficult thing to tell him at the time? Or were you ok in being honest with him?
I am venting a bit with that statement, I think I should keep a lid on going into those ideas. I simply mean it takes a lot of courage. There are no imperfections in the universe, and I am being silly to blame anything including a feeling.
It wasn’t hard to tell my parents what I thought. I was practically raised to preach, convert, and seek the truth. They would often criticise me when I would challenge the status quo, but I simply told them “I am exactly what you raised, you took me to church, you started me on this path, what do you expect?”
Thanks for the question @son_of_bob , it reminds me not to start here!!!
There is another way, one that needs help, like you have done here.
That statement I can now see is almost a carbon copy of something Jesus told his parents.
He was twelve and stayed behind in Jerusalem. They searched everywhere and found him in the temple. He simply told them something like " why are you surprised I am doing my father’s business?"
Have you ever considered that we don’t truly know each other?
Ok, the constraints of blind nature feel so unfair to me. An anger that had formed for the idea of God then also got placed on the universe for allowing the conditions of life to arise in such a way as with selves and all the troubles that come with the human condition.
Then it became the universe was against me…trying to make me suffer…hurt me.
That is interesting, I know for my dad being an atheist was an important part of his identity. His rejection of Christianity stemmed from having parents belonging to two different types which rejected each other, his mum was Catholic and dad a Presbyterian (sort of stricter type of Protestant). Neither church recognised the union, religious schools of either denomination would not accept my dad or his siblings as a student. He saw arguments and issues about it between his parents, priests, family, friends, the community and it all just seemed so absurd to him.
I know for him though, he hated that his atheism hurt his mum who was a devout Catholic. I realise how lucky I am not to have had such a complication in my relationship. My dad gave me a freedom he never knew. For all his toughness and problems there were somethings from him I am grateful for.
Ok, I always thought that was funny, like he is doing both his fathers jobs, tried it as a carpenter and then tried his other dads work.
When we first started to hear that it was legal for two gay men to adopt children, my friend would joke to people who got upset by it “but Jesus had 2 dads as well”. 
It is interesting that Judaism already had this belief system of a messiah to come. Our belief systems prime the conditions for what types of belief will follow.
It always struck a chord with me what the comedian Bill Hicks would say about not needing a middle man, I can’t remember the exact quote. I connected with a lot of what he said but I had already abandoned any aspect of faith/belief. If I had believed it would have been in a similar manner to his approach to God.
The whole escapade of Syd bringing down Zulip made me realise this. That I really don’t know the people here despite feeling like I do, considering some people’s posts I have read for so long (I mean Alan from 2004). It also made me realise there were no definitive relationships either, i.e. friendship, despite that it feels in me like there is.
I really like the “Jesus had two dad’s” joke!
Syd was a more repressed version of me. We used to clash because I was somewhat more liberal than him, and would push his buttons, like those more liberal than me can push mine.
Like the affers, whose motto was “just have a PCE”, I would push him ""just get a girlfriend "!
Recalcitrant is what recalcitrant does.
I hope, vaguely admittedly, to hear from him someday with some fantastic story of triumph. God knows it’s about time someone representative of the seething masses gets a break.
Your parents situation is interesting. I am very sure I have no idea who you really are. I have experienced this before online, where my mental image is way, way off the mark.