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Author Topic: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.  (Read 3545 times)

PartTimeWinner

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My life wasn't the best. My grandfather was a child molester. We were the second generation of his family to share his bed and I spent a lot of time outside of the house. I loved being outside. I didn't spend a lot of time thinking. I was very dissociated. I would swim in the river and wander the fields for hours just being alone. I only returned home at night. My mother and her sisters where the first generation. She had fallen on hard times and had to move us in with him. To live at his house she got her room, I got a small room and my sister slept in his bed. My life wasn't as bad as my twins. I didn't understand what was happening. I had never had a father figure so I thought it was all normal.

I was pretty stupid. I think nature always favors the stupid. I survived so many amazingly bad things as a child. Once for show and tell at school I had nothing to take so I picked up my happy-meal Halloween bucket and went down to the river. I reached down into this deep spot where all the baby eels where knotted up in a big bundle and scooped out a hand full.

That day I stood in front of the class and held them up saying, "These are eels. They are just like the ones in Florida where my grandfather is from! They swim in the river beside my house!"

The teacher leaned over and looked inside the bucket then asked me to give it to her. I did. She told me these weren’t eels. These were called water moccasins and they where very dangerous. I had to go to the principles office. They called in animal control and verified that yes, the property we lived on was infested with a poisonous version of the Cottonmouth snake.

I can't count the number of times one of them had just slithered up to me while I was playing with my toys and I picked it up, touched my nose to it's nose and let it slither all over me. Ignorance really was bliss. It was only after I was taught to fear them that they started acting hostile.

The government came in and started collecting them. They made our neighbors move because they were right next to the river. I was forced to stay inside because it was to dangerous to be outdoors and for the first time in my life, I really knew fear. I really understood the idea of death.

It started when I was 12 or 13. My world consisted of school, Transformers, and Count Duckula cartoons. It was 1988. I started having a dream. I was in a swamp inside the dream, riding in a little car like they have on kid's rides at the amusement park. Like a bumper car, but there was a bar across my legs and I couldn't get out. Every night, for many, many nights I would ride in this little car along a metal rail through this dark, terrifying swamp with alligators and snakes all around me in the water. Then at the end of the ride there were three doors.

Behind one door was a brick wall.

Behind one door was the Grim Reaper, skeleton face, bony hand, black robes and all. Death.

Behind the third door was freedom from this dream so I would stop having it.

The doors moved every night. For weeks I got either the brick wall and just woke up or the Reaper leaped out at me and it scared me half to death. I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming or sweating and out of breath it had scared me so bad.

About 4 weeks in, I was tired and grumpy. I had been avoiding sleep. I had stayed up all night watching porn with my grandfather just to avoid the dream and I fell asleep on the living room floor.

That night, as I rode along the rail I wasn't scared of the darkness any more, the alligators were boring and the snakes just annoyed me. When I got to the wall with the three doors and the bar keeping me in the car popped up. I leaped out of the car, yanked open the door and beat the ever loving shit out of the Grim Reaper.

After that night. I was different. I was more aware when I was awake and when I was asleep. Things that use to mystify me started making sense.

I started having better dreams. Dreams about magic and and wonder. I got better grades. It was like I was more awake than ever before. I was getting smarter and I liked it. There was a reoccurring theme of A God and a Goddess figure teaching students, or hanging out, some times an entire community of magical people. Fae, vampires, werewolves, I had dreamed of them all. I had an entire magical world in my head.

The God and the Goddess (Who I only thought of as the Man and the Woman) always appeared as different people, it was like they were a bunch of people at one time, all happening, all living different lives but also all the same people inside. I could see past the illusion of separation but I don't think other people in the dream could so I just didn't bring it up. I was never part of what they were doing. I wasn't one of their students, I was more like a guardian of the children. A friend who would stop by.

Also there was a book that appeared in different places and settings in the dreams. As was explained to me by a vampire at a party once, that the book was written in Gold Dragon's blood so no one could read it.

Having developed a typical teenager attitude I decided I was going to read it anyway so I learned to read in my sleep. It took a few dreams to figure it out, it was like trying to read a book that was in every language at once. You had to kind of tune in to the one you could understand. But the one part of the book I finally got to read was "Dragons will return and the prisoners of form will be set free." I thought it was very metal.

Unfortunately after that the book never showed up again.

By the time I was in my late 20's I picked up a book by SilverRavenWolf, "To Ride a Silver Broomstick". I read it and was like "Oh, so thaaat's what this is." because I had been having the dreams of the woman and the man for years but had somehow managed to not put together Goddess and God. They were just the people who lived in my dreams. It never occurred to me that other people might dream about them.

After that I got into Wicca but by the time I was starting (Just starting mind you) to think like an adult and about two years in I looked around the community of people who practiced Wicca that I had met. I noticed some things, like they were most poor people with lots and lots of personal issues.

It was then that I thought the thought that has haunted me most of my adult life: If this was real, if The Goddess and The God exist as more than just dreams, then why is the world such shit? Why is there no real magic? Why are so many Witches struggling to pay the rent?

The scientific part of my brain had gotten sharper as I kept waking up and now I could see with horrible clarity how, at best, what we were doing was nudging probability by a few percentages but still within the realm of random probability. That the positive effects of the craft could also be achieved with psychology or just being part of any themed community like a church or even a theater group.

Life was being made better because we had friends and common interests but no change occurred that existed outside of the strict laws of physics. Not one of the people who claimed to be proficient or in some cases exceptional at the craft could do anything as simple as light a candle without a Bic.

The older I got, the colder and more hollow the real world felt as I started to see the outcome of events, relationships, of people's actions as more and more predictable patterns. The more educated in psychology, religion, philosophy, art, politics and science I became, the more the wonder faded from life. 

Now here I am at 42 and nothing seems worth staying awake for. Very little surprises me. People aren't people any more. They are just a lose collection of mental disorders. Some of them are useful. Some of them are not. Few of them seem worth the time and energy you need to spend on them. I hate my life. I love people, don't get me wrong. I wish for them nothing but the best, but I feel like if they knew what I know, they would probably hate me for explaining it so I am dreadfully alone.

All I can think of when I wake up in the morning is that this world isn't right. Something is missing. This isn't the way things should be.
It's like I'm living in an alternate timeline where everything went wrong and I don't know how to turn it back.

It's insane, it's foolish, it's childish but the question that haunts my early hour every morning is: Why is there no magic?

Here I am, posting on an internet forum looking for a new meaning to life, looking for anything to make the clarity more bearable. It's the action of a mad man, desperate for a connection to a world he is no longer part of. As if that ever works out well.  ::)
« Last Edit: August 09, 2017, 05:28:28 am by PartTimeWinner »

ehbowen

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2017, 08:19:41 am »
My life wasn't the best. My grandfather was a child molester.

Ouch. There is really nothing I can say in this situation, except perhaps, "...weep with those who weep." And then give thanks for the loving and supportive family I was raised in; how I wish that could be the norm. Sadly, all too often it isn't.

It was then that I thought the thought that has haunted me most of my adult life: If this was real, if The Goddess and The God exist as more than just dreams, then why is the world such shit? Why is there no real magic? Why are so many Witches struggling to pay the rent?

You can re-phrase that same thought from my perspective as, "Why are there no real miracles? Why are so many Christians (including myself) struggling to pay the rent?"

I must say this, though: My God has taken care of me. There have literally been times in my life when I had to gather up pennies from the back corners of drawers and car seats in order to eat...but I ate. There was literally a time when I thought my new dog Rusty had eaten rat poison when I had to raid the coin-operated washing machine and dryer to scrape up enough change to take him to the vet...but there were enough quarters, and he lived another fifteen years. (I owned the 4-plex and the washing machine, so there was no question of theft.)

Actual screen shot, taken just now:
Eric's bank balances

And, do you know what? I'm well taken care of. Yes, there's not much in the bank right now, but a paycheck with twenty-plus hours of overtime is due day after tomorrow. I've got food in the freezer and all my bills are current; I'm even leaving with my parents on an Alaska cruise four weeks from now. More than that, I've got hope. Exactly how much hope you might be able to guess with a few searches right here on this board, but I'll just say that in my opinion trials and tribulations are temporary. Rewards are eternal. I'll wait as long as it takes for the faith to turn to sight.

All I can think of when I wake up in the morning is that this world isn't right. Something is missing. This isn't the way things should be.
It's like I'm living in an alternate timeline where everything went wrong and I don't know how to turn it back.

Welcome to my world!

It's insane, it's foolish, it's childish but the question that haunts my early hour every morning is: Why is there no magic?

To capsulize my answer to that question in a single sentence, it is: Because God and Satan are in the final stages of a desperately fought war with existential consequences for everyone, and because Satan realizes that in ANY reality where ANYONE (except him) has reliable and unfettered access to undeniable supernatural power which affects this visible universe, he loses. Fast.

I do wish you all the best.
--------Eric H. Bowen
Where's the KABOOM? There was supposed to have been an Earth-shattering KABOOM!
Computers are like air conditioning. They become useless when you open Windows—Linus Torvalds.

Morbid

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2017, 11:16:13 am »
My life wasn't the best. My grandfather was a child molester. We were the second generation of his family to share his bed and I spent a lot of time outside of the house. I loved being outside. I didn't spend a lot of time thinking. I was very dissociated. I would swim in the river and wander the fields for hours just being alone. I only returned home at night. My mother and her sisters where the first generation. She had fallen on hard times and had to move us in with him. To live at his house she got her room, I got a small room and my sister slept in his bed. My life wasn't as bad as my twins. I didn't understand what was happening. I had never had a father figure so I thought it was all normal.

I was pretty stupid. I think nature always favors the stupid. I survived so many amazingly bad things as a child. Once for show and tell at school I had nothing to take so I picked up my happy-meal Halloween bucket and went down to the river. I reached down into this deep spot where all the baby eels where knotted up in a big bundle and scooped out a hand full.

That day I stood in front of the class and held them up saying, "These are eels. They are just like the ones in Florida where my grandfather is from! They swim in the river beside my house!"

The teacher leaned over and looked inside the bucket then asked me to give it to her. I did. She told me these weren’t eels. These were called water moccasins and they where very dangerous. I had to go to the principles office. They called in animal control and verified that yes, the property we lived on was infested with a poisonous version of the Cottonmouth snake.

I can't count the number of times one of them had just slithered up to me while I was playing with my toys and I picked it up, touched my nose to it's nose and let it slither all over me. Ignorance really was bliss. It was only after I was taught to fear them that they started acting hostile.

The government came in and started collecting them. They made our neighbors move because they were right next to the river. I was forced to stay inside because it was to dangerous to be outdoors and for the first time in my life, I really knew fear. I really understood the idea of death.

It started when I was 12 or 13. My world consisted of school, Transformers, and Count Duckula cartoons. It was 1988. I started having a dream. I was in a swamp inside the dream, riding in a little car like they have on kid's rides at the amusement park. Like a bumper car, but there was a bar across my legs and I couldn't get out. Every night, for many, many nights I would ride in this little car along a metal rail through this dark, terrifying swamp with alligators and snakes all around me in the water. Then at the end of the ride there were three doors.

Behind one door was a brick wall.

Behind one door was the Grim Reaper, skeleton face, bony hand, black robes and all. Death.

Behind the third door was freedom from this dream so I would stop having it.

The doors moved every night. For weeks I got either the brick wall and just woke up or the Reaper leaped out at me and it scared me half to death. I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming or sweating and out of breath it had scared me so bad.

About 4 weeks in, I was tired and grumpy. I had been avoiding sleep. I had stayed up all night watching porn with my grandfather just to avoid the dream and I fell asleep on the living room floor.

That night, as I rode along the rail I wasn't scared of the darkness any more, the alligators were boring and the snakes just annoyed me. When I got to the wall with the three doors and the bar keeping me in the car popped up. I leaped out of the car, yanked open the door and beat the ever loving shit out of the Grim Reaper.

After that night. I was different. I was more aware when I was awake and when I was asleep. Things that use to mystify me started making sense.

I started having better dreams. Dreams about magic and and wonder. I got better grades. It was like I was more awake than ever before. I was getting smarter and I liked it. There was a reoccurring theme of A God and a Goddess figure teaching students, or hanging out, some times an entire community of magical people. Fae, vampires, werewolves, I had dreamed of them all. I had an entire magical world in my head.

The God and the Goddess (Who I only thought of as the Man and the Woman) always appeared as different people, it was like they were a bunch of people at one time, all happening, all living different lives but also all the same people inside. I could see past the illusion of separation but I don't think other people in the dream could so I just didn't bring it up. I was never part of what they were doing. I wasn't one of their students, I was more like a guardian of the children. A friend who would stop by.

Also there was a book that appeared in different places and settings in the dreams. As was explained to me by a vampire at a party once, that the book was written in Gold Dragon's blood so no one could read it.

Having developed a typical teenager attitude I decided I was going to read it anyway so I learned to read in my sleep. It took a few dreams to figure it out, it was like trying to read a book that was in every language at once. You had to kind of tune in to the one you could understand. But the one part of the book I finally got to read was "Dragons will return and the prisoners of form will be set free." I thought it was very metal.

Unfortunately after that the book never showed up again.

By the time I was in my late 20's I picked up a book by SilverRavenWolf, "To Ride a Silver Broomstick". I read it and was like "Oh, so thaaat's what this is." because I had been having the dreams of the woman and the man for years but had somehow managed to not put together Goddess and God. They were just the people who lived in my dreams. It never occurred to me that other people might dream about them.

After that I got into Wicca but by the time I was starting (Just starting mind you) to think like an adult and about two years in I looked around the community of people who practiced Wicca that I had met. I noticed some things, like they were most poor people with lots and lots of personal issues.

It was then that I thought the thought that has haunted me most of my adult life: If this was real, if The Goddess and The God exist as more than just dreams, then why is the world such shit? Why is there no real magic? Why are so many Witches struggling to pay the rent?

The scientific part of my brain had gotten sharper as I kept waking up and now I could see with horrible clarity how, at best, what we were doing was nudging probability by a few percentages but still within the realm of random probability. That the positive effects of the craft could also be achieved with psychology or just being part of any themed community like a church or even a theater group.

Life was being made better because we had friends and common interests but no change occurred that existed outside of the strict laws of physics. Not one of the people who claimed to be proficient or in some cases exceptional at the craft could do anything as simple as light a candle without a Bic.

The older I got, the colder and more hollow the real world felt as I started to see the outcome of events, relationships, of people's actions as more and more predictable patterns. The more educated in psychology, religion, philosophy, art, politics and science I became, the more the wonder faded from life. 

Now here I am at 42 and nothing seems worth staying awake for. Very little surprises me. People aren't people any more. They are just a lose collection of mental disorders. Some of them are useful. Some of them are not. Few of them seem worth the time and energy you need to spend on them. I hate my life. I love people, don't get me wrong. I wish for them nothing but the best, but I feel like if they knew what I know, they would probably hate me for explaining it so I am dreadfully alone.

All I can think of when I wake up in the morning is that this world isn't right. Something is missing. This isn't the way things should be.
It's like I'm living in an alternate timeline where everything went wrong and I don't know how to turn it back.

It's insane, it's foolish, it's childish but the question that haunts my early hour every morning is: Why is there no magic?

Here I am, posting on an internet forum looking for a new meaning to life, looking for anything to make the clarity more bearable. It's the action of a mad man, desperate for a connection to a world he is no longer part of. As if that ever works out well.  ::)
Aha the wonderful ignorance of childhood.  Welcome.  Although I will tell you there's magic in the world.  You're just looking in the wrong places.  Or perhaps, the wrong form.  I see it everyday.
For he who has truly lived never truly dies.

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2017, 04:01:59 pm »

Hi, PartTimeWinner; welcome to TC!

Sunflower
I'm the AntiFa genderqueer commie eclectic wiccan Mod your alt-right bros warned you about.
I do so have a life; I just live part of it online!
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My much-neglected blog "If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough"

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #4 on: August 09, 2017, 04:07:53 pm »

A Reminder:
Hi, Morbid,

Just a quick note:  When you're responding to a very long post with a brief reply, please remember to trim the text of the quote to only what's necessary for your reply (you can even trim all of it out, as I did above, as long as you take care to leave the opening and closing quote code - the parts inside square brackets - intact and on separate lines).  It makes the discussion easier to follow, and it's required by our rules.

This isn't a formal warning, just a reminder. No reply is necessary, but if you have questions or need clarification, please feel free to contact a member of staff privately.

Thanks!
Sunflower
TC Forum Staff
I'm the AntiFa genderqueer commie eclectic wiccan Mod your alt-right bros warned you about.
I do so have a life; I just live part of it online!
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” - Oscar Wilde
"Nobody's good at anything until they practice." - Brina (Yewberry)
My much-neglected blog "If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough"

PartTimeWinner

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #5 on: August 10, 2017, 02:55:48 am »
There have literally been times in my life when I had to gather up pennies from the back corners of drawers and car seats in order to eat...but I ate.

Yeah, and murders, warlords, people who exploit the innocent, people who let people die in the name of profit, they get to do whatever they want. If you're evil, wealth and power comes flowing to you. Good people only suffer. If there are Gods, especially an "Pure good and all powerful" God, why do all the shit heads get away with it?

I'll believe in Gods again when one of them brings justice back to the world. I realized as I was meditating on it this morning. I'm not sad about my loss of innocence. I'm not depressed because the world has lost it's wonder. I am ANGRY. I am FURIOUS that there is no justice. Not anywhere left on earth. We would literally need magic to make it happen and magic is dead. The Gods have failed all of us.

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #6 on: August 10, 2017, 08:25:08 am »
Yeah, and murders, warlords, people who exploit the innocent, people who let people die in the name of profit, they get to do whatever they want. If you're evil, wealth and power comes flowing to you. Good people only suffer.
Then why be "good"?  If being "good" were to make you feel weak, vulnerable, controlled and exploited... how is that "good"?

My opinion is... there is no "good", there is no "evil".  Nobody is "innocent".  People tend to do what is in their own best interests, as I feel they should. 

Quote
If there are Gods, especially an "Pure good and all powerful" God, why do all the shit heads get away with it?
I would suggest maybe looking beyond reductive words like "good" and "evil" when contemplating human Nature and God(s).  There are many things one might be enlightened to, in doing so.

Quote
I'll believe in Gods again when one of them brings justice back to the world. I realized as I was meditating on it this morning. I'm not sad about my loss of innocence. I'm not depressed because the world has lost it's wonder. I am ANGRY. I am FURIOUS that there is no justice. Not anywhere left on earth. We would literally need magic to make it happen and magic is dead. The Gods have failed all of us.

People fail themselves.  Perhaps you might consider not blaming God(s) for people's choices, and instead holding humanity accountable for what humanity has done.

« Last Edit: August 10, 2017, 08:27:38 am by Goddess_Ashtara »
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ehbowen

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #7 on: August 10, 2017, 08:47:00 am »
Yeah, and murders, warlords, people who exploit the innocent, people who let people die in the name of profit, they get to do whatever they want. If you're evil, wealth and power comes flowing to you. Good people only suffer. If there are Gods, especially an "Pure good and all powerful" God, why do all the shit heads get away with it?

I'll believe in Gods again when one of them brings justice back to the world. I realized as I was meditating on it this morning. I'm not sad about my loss of innocence. I'm not depressed because the world has lost it's wonder. I am ANGRY. I am FURIOUS that there is no justice. Not anywhere left on earth. We would literally need magic to make it happen and magic is dead. The Gods have failed all of us.

No, they haven't. I'm increasingly convinced that this world as it now exists is a trap for exactly the "shit heads" that you speak of. You see, I have personally seen evidence that there are [at least] two separate worlds existing in parallel. Evidence ranging from things such as the Biggs scene which was present the first time I saw Star Wars in 1977, but which was missing when I saw it again a year later. I remember thinking, "Wait, they cut out that scene? Why?"...but then I found, from FIDOnet conversations with a film critic two decades later, that it was NEVER part of the finished film. Yes, it was...I saw it. There have been many other little incidents since then...last year, there was a ladder locked in a closet on an unused floor which needed to have labels replaced. I went downstairs to get labels...when I came back, the ladder was gone. I asked my co-workers who had the keys to that area; none of them had been up there. The ladder was gone for several weeks...but, about a month and a half later, when I unlocked that closet the ladder was back. Exactly where and how I had left it.

My own speculation is that my God is structuring Reality so that the "leading edge" of the Kingdom of Heaven exactly matches this vale of tears. You can be in one or the other at any given time without even realizing it. Those who accept the Lordship of Jesus are citizens of his Kingdom, but he allows them to live "on the edge" for a while longer so as to be salt and light to influence those who are still on the outside. On the other side of that split are those, like your shit heads, who reject his lordship and his justice...but who like to stay close enough to take advantage of the structure and orderliness that he provides. You see, I think that there's a very, very narrow margin separating this world we live in now from "prepper hell"...and the shitheads like their comforts.

Can't have it both ways, not forever. And I believe that they...and you, and me...have been the targets of my God's judgement. I know that there have been (many) times I have suddenly remembered something thoughtless and wrong which I did as a child forty-plus years ago. And when it happens I say, in so many words, "Yes, I did that. I'm guilty. It was wrong. I want to accept responsibility for it, and I hope that some day I will be in a position to make genuine restitution." That's the choice I make, so it stays in the forefront of my mind. I still have a conscience. And, many times, it warns me before I'm again about to do something that would put me in the penalty box.

The shitheads, however, don't have that. Oh, they did, at one point...but, instead of accepting justice, they chose to evade it. By ignoring that "still, small voice", it fades further and further into the background. So, if you have one timeline in which you are convicted and found guilty of your sin, and a googolplex of timelines in which you chose to "skip bail" thinking that The Man would never catch up with you...guess which gets reinforced and which memory fades into insignificance? So these people have "burned out" their conscience.

I have news for them. The Man is in the process of catching up with you. In order to find, and to track, and to carefully investigate each individual soul, every quantum of every second of each individual timeline is being scrutinized in order to identify every decision which was made and who was responsible for it. And you can't hide behind the identity of your corporation, Mr. CEO; every decision that you made or consequence of the climate which you allowed to hold sway will fall directly upon YOU. By the time my God has finished with you you will WISH that you had gotten off with a fifty year prison term and being asset-stripped into bankruptcy by an antitrust investigation.

For right now I expect that this world which I see will keep getting worse until my God has completely finished the process of identifying ME. After that point...the worm will turn. Possibly quickly, like the popping of a balloon...or the detonation of an atomic bomb. But I tend to think that it will happen slowly, one step at a time, like the startup of a nuclear reactor from cold shutdown.

We're approaching criticality....
--------Eric H. Bowen
Where's the KABOOM? There was supposed to have been an Earth-shattering KABOOM!
Computers are like air conditioning. They become useless when you open Windows—Linus Torvalds.

Jenett

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #8 on: August 10, 2017, 10:06:21 am »
Yeah, and murders, warlords, people who exploit the innocent, people who let people die in the name of profit, they get to do whatever they want. If you're evil, wealth and power comes flowing to you. Good people only suffer. If there are Gods, especially an "Pure good and all powerful" God, why do all the shit heads get away with it?

I think it's more complicated than that, personally.

First, you're assuming that good people want wealth and power. Or that good people are suffering.

I think I'm a pretty good person (not as good as I could be, probably, but I'm human).

I have a great job that makes me happy (most of the time: I'm cranky at a researcher this morning who has some unreasonable requests and a lack of understanding of what we can offer despite having it spelled out for him several times.) It pays me well - extremely well by world standards, 'I can pay my bills, buy books, travel occasionally, and deal with life needs as they come up' in a high cost of living area by local standards. I'd like a bit more money - that's why I recently started a side business in research consulting, and I'm using magic for that, too.

I don't want to be wealthy. Just comfortable. I don't want to be powerful, just helpful. Power and wealth are tools I could do things with, but they're not goals for me. 

I believe that magic works. Magic helped me *get* this job, at the point at which my previous job was pretty literally collapsing around my ears (they were cutting it) and I had major health impacts from some other work decisions.

Magic definitely helped me move - as I've said elsewhere, anyone who knows anything about the Boston housing market who doesn't understand what it means when I say I arranged for my current apartment (a reasonable commute from my then-new job - I was moving from out of state), 10 days after I got this job (and 20 days before I moved), off-rental-cycle, for about $300 under local market rent doesn't understand what magic is in practice.

It's done other things for me, too. And I do good things in my job, and I help people who need it, and I go home most days from work knowing I've helped someone who needed it, either directly or indirectly. That's really awesome. Also magic.

Quote
I'll believe in Gods again when one of them brings justice back to the world. I realized as I was meditating on it this morning. I'm not sad about my loss of innocence. I'm not depressed because the world has lost it's wonder. I am ANGRY. I am FURIOUS that there is no justice. Not anywhere left on earth.

Not all Gods are about justice. Like not all humans are focused on it.

M'Lady - which is to say, the deity I've been primarily working with for personal work since 2002 - is focused on knowledge, and a particular kind of knowledge sharing that is about making things better for people - some of that's about justice in a sense of 'making things possible' or 'healing' or 'filling empty spaces' but it's not about justice in the legal sense, or the sense of evening out political and social disparities, at least not directly.

She's great at some stuff, and helping with some stuff. She's not as great at (or as interested in) some other stuff. That's a pretty standard model in polytheism, just like it's pretty common among humans. There's a lot of "Here are the things I really care about" and then "Here's some stuff I think is good, but I'm not putting a lot of energy into right now, but if you do, I'll be here supporting you with the stuff I do." and then some "I don't know what I think about that" and some "That thing, that is really awful, it shouldn't exist and I'll do some stuff about that."

And different deities - like different people - pretty clearly have different lists in my experience. Expecting everyone to have the same priorities strikes me as an exercise in frustration (also, probably, a pretty awful world to live in, actually)

So. If you want more justice, what are you doing about that? Some of that's about action in this world, the physical plane.

For some people, it's about finding deities who are interested in that sort of goal, and learning to work with them, to make what they can do more manifest in the world more easily. For some people it's about getting a job that will let them donate frequently and significantly to causes - with specialised staff and skills they don't have - to help make a thing happen. For other people, it's about getting down in the trenches and volunteering on a local level, or showing up at protests, or calling their elected officials on a regular schedule, or all sorts of other things.

There's a lot of choices. There's a lot of magic in many of those choices. It's up to us to reach for the magic. No one's going to package it up into a tidy box for us. It's up to us to help make it happen. The Gods can only come so far, without our help.
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PartTimeWinner

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #9 on: August 11, 2017, 04:23:37 am »
'I can pay my bills, buy books, travel occasionally, and deal with life needs as they come up' in a high cost of living area by local standards.

Congratulations. You are one of the few. Over half of the people in America live below the poverty line. I can't even see the poverty line from here and I work every single day. A recent study showed that only 0.1% of minimum wage workers can even afford a 1 bedroom apartment. America is becoming a wasteland.

So. If you want more justice, what are you doing about that? Some of that's about action in this world, the physical plane.

What would you suggest we do? Start gunning down the 1% who are hording all the money? Maybe burn down congress? I mean, the system is so rigged against most of us there is nothing we can do that isn't a crime.

We have tried electing leaders who will fight for us and those elections were rigged so the establishment candidate will always prevail. The wealthy will always get their way. Short of starting a bloody, gorilla war in America there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is going to change the system.

Well, maybe if Trump nukes North Korea and sets off the total collapse of the world economy but that won't be a very positive change.
I would rather there be change that doesn't involve bloodshed and death.

The government doesn't work for us. We can't change it. The banks have us enslaved in debt. A quarter of our population is literally in prison and being used as slave labor for private corporations and that is not going to change until A.I. advances enough to make human workers obsolete then we'll all just be jobless.

I can see all the cracks, all the lies, all the half truths use to paint over the flaws in the system. There is going to be an economic collapse like that of 2008 but muuuuuch worse probably in the next few months.

There is a pattern repeating pattern in America's capitalist society where we have a boom and bust every few years. The longer the upside the harder the downturn. The average bubble pops every 3-5 years. The last one was in 2008. The mortgage crisis.

Right now we have a Credit Debt crisis, a Car Loan debt crisis and a Student Loan debt crisis each of which equals or exceeds the Mortgage crisis.
They have each been artificially extended by Obama trying to keep the market from collapsing while he was in office again but his bail out and interventions just kicked the can down the road.

Even the Affordable Care Act was a mask for a bail-out of the insurance industry because it was starting to collapse due to so few people being able to afford basic insurance.

All of these bubbles are going to pop and when the first one goes, the rest will follow. If you have savings, you should probably invest in something more long term than the American dollar. When the economy collapses, and I mean, it's in progress right now, it will be the last straw for the American dollar. We will no longer be the currency of trade around the world and without that, our debts are going to come due.

I can see it, I can feel it, time is like a tiger chasing us down. We've been bleeding for so long that we're almost out of blood to give. I think that's why the politicians are pushing so hard for war. They are hoping war will save us but spending more money when all the profits go to the 1% isn't helping.

A small group of people having all the resources and everyone else having debt is what is causing the collapse.

Right now, the government is telling you everything is fine, wonderful the stock market couldn't be better but if you look, if you really look, it's just a bunch of rich people passing money back and forth hoping that they can keep the scam going long enough to abandon ship.

Deutsche Bank has startling leverage of 40 times. Leverage is the proportion of debts that a bank has compared with its equity/capital. That means Deutsche has 40 times more debt than equity/capital. Keep in mind that Lehman Bros. was only 31 times leveraged when it imploded in 2008 and sparked the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression.

I know it's going to happen and so do the people in power. They are jumping ship and transferring their wealth into emergency currency they can take with them. Gold and metal prices exploded in the last few days because the investors know it's coming.
 
Hell, even bitcoin is spiking. I mean if that's not a sign of the end of the world, I don't know what is ;)

Several of the smartest men in the world were saying that before 2017 ends there will be a "Biblical" 80% stock market crash and it started to happen several times but the federal reserve kept on pumping money into the bubble to keep things going.

http://thesovereigninvestor.com/exclusives/80-stock-market-crash-to-strike-in-2016/

Ironically, world peace may happen because no one will able to afford war any more. Even the Pentagon is saying we are an empire on the verge of collapse. They are suggesting a 25% reduction in military spending. But don't worry, we would still have a military 6 times larger than the next guy.

The government is telling us that inflation from all this spending is only growing at 1.7% but if you actually look at the cost of products it's more likely 10%-13%. We don't know because the people who use to measure it The Chapwood Index released a report in 2012 that got major headline coverage showing just how badly the government was lying to us and then about halfway through June 2017... poof they vanished. The web page, the email, the contacts, even the wikipedia page and google archive... vanished. 

https://www.lombardiletter.com/5-signs-u-s-economic-collapse-2017/5229/

So you know, just a few small, terrifying signs that the global economy is in a ever accelerating death spiral and we're all going to be living in the dark ages. Given the weight of what I see I -need- to believe there is more than just this fucked up world but I can't see past the mountain of shit to find any wonder in life. The only place I can find peace is in my dreams.

I'm starting to think if I had a catch phrase it would be: " **** all Ya'll, I'm going back to sleep. " because I find myself saying it more and more every passing week.

« Last Edit: August 11, 2017, 04:30:31 am by PartTimeWinner »

Sefiru

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #10 on: August 11, 2017, 07:18:30 pm »
America is becoming a wasteland.

America is not the world; America is not even most of the world. And the part of America that you can see is not the whole of America.
Positive change comes not in one global transformation, but in a billion tiny improvements.
Take it from a Canadian: diplomacy works.
Booms and busts have followed each other throughout history; civilization continues.
The affordable care act is the first rung of an upward ladder, and now that Americans have it, they are refusing to have it taken away.
The economy is not a monolith, and no one company - or country - is so important that its loss would doom all the others.
Money is not the only source of power, and neither money nor power are the only sources of worth.
If you go looking for evil, that's what you will see; if you look for good, you will find that too.
The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Me on AO3 & Deviantart

PartTimeWinner

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #11 on: August 12, 2017, 04:05:13 am »
The affordable care act is the first rung of an upward ladder, and now that Americans have it, they are refusing to have it taken away.

No, it's not and people need to stop saying that. The ACA was NEVER about healthcare and I'll prove it to you.

The ACA was put into play by President Obama after he had control of the White House, the Senate and the House for 2 years where he could have done anything. He had a filibuster proof majority for 2 years. He could have easily forced single payer through in those two years but he didn't. He did nothing. He stayed silent about healthcare until the republicans came back into power THEN he proposed the A.C.A. which is just RomneyCare the Republican "Health Care" plan with a new name.

But why? Why would wait and go with a plan that is obviously inferior? I can tell you. The insurance industry was on the verge of collapse. Insurance agencies were closing all across America because people were just so freaking poor they couldn't afford it. They would just wait until they were almost dying and then go to the emergency room when they had no choice. Obama used the Republican health plan to force tax payer money to prop-up a failing, inefficient, bloated, dying industry because that's what his donors wanted.

It wasn't about health care at all. It was a bail-out. It took money from more efficient systems and shoved it into the pockets of the insurance industry to keep them floating.

That is why the ACA is so freaking terrible. That is why when he started negotiation for the A.C.A. his OPENING OFFER to the republicans included slashing medicare for the elderly. They had to get the money from somewhere to bail out the insurance industry. They didn't force that, he OFFERED it, without prompting.

The reason you pay at least 250 dollars a month then a MASSIVE co-pay to even get in the door is because it was a financial package, not a healthcare package. It isn't, and never was, about getting you or me healthcare. It was just a mask for a massive government bail-out being forced on the American people to save an industry we HATE with a seething passion.

Yes, it helped some people, but single payer would have helped EVERYONE and it would have been better in every way. The overhead for your average insurance policy is 30%-40% because at every stage there are middlemen leeching money out of the system. The overhead cost for Medicare is 2% because the people working at medicare don't skim off the top or get million dollar bonuses. They don't have to pay out dividends to investors.

Obama screwed over the American people with the A.C.A. Literally, the A.C.A. is doing more damage to America than terrorism.

If even 1% of the people who are not insured and can't afford healthcare under the A.C.A. right now, die from lack of medical care it will be the number of people who died in the 9-11 terrorist attack TIMES TEN, Every. Single. Year.

All so that Obama and the democrats could make their donors happy. 


Do not sing the praises of Obama.
He bent us all over the table.
Both parties are the party of the 1%.

 
« Last Edit: August 12, 2017, 04:08:57 am by PartTimeWinner »

PartTimeWinner

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #12 on: August 12, 2017, 04:18:00 am »
Take it from a Canadian: diplomacy works.
Booms and busts have followed each other throughout history; civilization continues.

Yeah, but America has more booms than a AK-47 recently. You don't understand how bad it is because you live in Canada.
Your government isn't insane enough to let capitalism run unchecked, yet.

But don't worry, you'll be just as screwed as we are soon. Bank lobbyist and lawyers are already poring millions of dollars into getting your government to relax it's consumer protection laws.

When the 1% are done draining America dry, you're the next stop. 

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #13 on: August 12, 2017, 07:28:56 am »
Yeah, and murders, warlords, people who exploit the innocent, people who let people die in the name of profit, they get to do whatever they want. If you're evil, wealth and power comes flowing to you. Good people only suffer.

The tenor of your posts in this intro thread (health care is a disaster, the economy is a disaster, politics is a disaster, the U.S. is a disaster, you view your life as a disaster, nothing can fix these disasters, and your avatar is a disastrous multisided dice roll accompanied by the word "shit") makes me curious about your choice of screen name:

As a part-time winner, what do you see yourself winning at?
The first song sets the wheel in motion / The second is a song of love / The third song tells of Her devotion / The fourth cries joy from the sky above
The fifth song binds our fate to silence / and bids us live each moment well / The sixth unleashes rage and violence / The seventh song has truth to tell
The last song echoes through the ages / to ask its question all night long / And close the circle on these pages / These, the metamythos songs

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Re: Here I go, again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known.
« Reply #14 on: August 13, 2017, 07:57:51 pm »

A Reminder:
Hi, PartTimeWinner,

The political part of this discussion has gone well beyond the scope of an intro thread. If you want to continue with it, you can start a thread in our Political Discussions forum. (I strongly advise that you read over our Political Discussion Guidelines first.)

If you'd like, the posts from the political convo in this thread can be moved to start a thread there; if you want to do it that way, let us know (a reply to this post is fine for that), and I or another staff member will split them off and move them for you.

This isn't a formal warning, just a reminder. No reply is necessary, but if you have questions or need clarification, please feel free to contact a member of staff privately.

Everyone: do feel free to continue welcoming PTW and engaging in get-to-know-you discussion (Altair's post immediately above this counts as 'get acquainted', not 'political', but, PTW, your response should focus on the question Altair asked, and not go further into the political aspects), but don't continue the political aspects of the discussion here. Thanks!

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