CM
There was a kid named CM in my school years who personified the kind of naiveté that lied outside the spectrum of self-worth (as defined by others).
He was a bit of a fool by nature, yet was still able to achieve things to the surprise of others (via unconventional and seemingly foolish means). For example, there was an exhibition in school where all the students were encouraged to come up with creative projects. While most kids were focused on creating cookie-cutter things, CM would just go about it without a plan. He would collect scraps from the school grounds and elsewhere, bring clay from home (people made fun of him for this) and successfully build a ‘village’ out of it for displaying in the exhibition.
Although people tended to make fun of or ignore him, by virtue of his own foolishness, he was oblivious to their ‘hurts’ (he generally always had a cheerful demeanour). He had no ‘worth’ in relation to others, but he was blithely oblivious and artlessly uncaring of that anyway. He was probably oblivious to praise, too.
Resentment towards people
What began as “the strangest feeling” (link), segued into exploring the larger theme of resentment towards people, which I touched upon in a couple of places here (originating as a childhood affective habit):
Even though I carelessly wrote it that way, it wasn’t that I “desired being like them (popular)” because looking back I simply cannot locate any such desire. What happened was that I was quite different to the rest in school, by virtue of high intelligence, being neurodivergent, having total disinterest[1] in social grooming (small talk, gossip, establishing hierarchies, roast, ridicule, performative risk-taking, scapegoating, posturing, etc. which take the form of ‘male rites of passage’ in teenage years). And this enabled motivated others to use me as a target to channel their aggression[2], as part of their own social grooming. This would piss me off. Greatly. Imagine being stuck in the same ‘social group’ for 6+ years (school)! I received no emotional guidance from my parents. I carried on with what I enjoyed: mathematics, sciences and later computers. At the same time, I built up the resentment of “almost always brooding in their vicinity” as I had no choice but to be stuck with them for several years.
I carried this affective memory as an adult, and it impacted how I dealt with people (distrust, defensiveness, etc.), especially outside of my ‘hobby circles’ (open source hackers, etc.) who share the same interests and proclivities. It then snatched onto my dealings with women; on top of sexual desire, I put them ‘one level above me’ and thus developed an emotional dependency on ‘their own desire towards me’ (this was the primary cause of my failing hard with the woman back in Nov/Dec) to bridge the divide. A similar total disinterest[1:1] in courtship rituals (including the proxy need for ‘friendship’) meant I never got to explore these sufficiently.
So, all of these are various ways in which I ‘relate’ to other humans as anything but fellow human beings. The notion of fellowship regard appeared moralistic to me, but now it seems to be the only sensible way to be, especially as it strips away all the aforementioned power-dynamics, both with men and women. Besides, there’s no autonomy (my greatest desire) without fellowship regard!
So, it is all coming together nicely, and I’m already weakening these habits. I wondered why the paternalistic likes of Jordan Peterson pissed me off so much (I remember being pissed off at Srinath and some other actualists for similar reasons). I had been fighting imaginary daemons from my childhood. It is greatly freeing to realize that I don’t have to be concerned with other people’s modus operandi any more. Honestly, these feelings are such an insult to intelligence LOL. Looking forward to see how it all goes …