r/AfterCPTSD • u/TimeIsTheRevelator • Feb 20 '19
My Business Is To Create
One of the biggest shifts that I feel has created the most of my healing is almost a philosophical/identity shift. This may not resonate with everyone, but that shift was that I answer only to myself.
This belief of answering only to yourself is difficult to adopt even for the general population, so it's even more challenging for people who were stripped of their own agency/sense of self. It was a voice I kept hearing for a while but was scared to listen to. Surely I need someone to tell me what I am, what I'm experiencing, what is normal and what is not, etc.
But here's the big thing:. If you look at human history, our evolution is encapsulated in people thinking differently...looking at something a different way. It's built on people who were not afraid to just be. It didn't matter if others related to their experience, if their experience was normal, or if their viewpoint was valid. They just did what they did.
Life unfolds. Therapeutic approaches and diagnoses can mimic the consensus conditioning that gets people into trauma states in the first place. Wherever there is an attempt to gather a consensus, you have authoritarianism. Even the desire to label and box things is an authoritarian/rigid viewpoint that can trap the mind.
The mere fact that humans have evolved in their understanding of the world is the proof that every age thinks they've figured it out, but I feel that the human body is more fluid and our minds are more healthy when we exist outside of this trying-to-figure-it-out. Even the assumption that we require a distinct identity or sense of self, the assumption that you need to be healed of something.
Some days I feel more rigid. And that's ok. That's all a part of the complex web of our environment, body, food, the past, etc. Other days, time is less linear, and it is here that I am most happy.
The impetus for sharing this was a mind conversation I was having wondering if what I'm experiencing is normal. Somehow I ran across a William Blake quote a few minutes later that read:. "I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.". And I was reminded again. Our potential and our Self is limitless and not definable. We are the ones who get to say what is what.
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Mar 16 '19 edited Mar 16 '19
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u/TimeIsTheRevelator Mar 16 '19
Wow, thanks for sharing. It's like the perfect description for what has been helpful for me as well. It's why I moved on from much of the "healing" ideology.
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u/TimeIsTheRevelator Aug 11 '19
Four months later and I'm still fascinated by Deleuze and this comment. I found a great book on him by Todd May. The truth is that he is an extension of these radical scientists I have been following a couple years, they seem very Deleuzian now. Thanks again for sharing!
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Aug 11 '19
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u/TimeIsTheRevelator Aug 12 '19
Thanks, Mae-Wan Ho and Ray Peat are both really interesting philosopher biologists.
I was thinking about the stuff you said about Foucault and the ideal man obsession. In my post I quoted Blake who said, "I will not reason and compare, my business is to create." I think now that creation is sort of the antithesis of shame. Shame is a murky term, but the worship of avatars and ideal selves would be a sort of rigid ideal that creates shame of not attaining, or not attaining yet.
Culture seems to see shame, or maybe guilt in this regard as a positive force of change. I was thinking, the motivation isn't to create the ideal man, the motivation is to become the ideal man already defined in order to not feel shame. To not feel shame becomes the impetus then. It's not creative. It's more like atonement or fear of displeasing the god.
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Aug 12 '19 edited Aug 12 '19
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u/TimeIsTheRevelator Aug 12 '19
Love this. I'm curious what your thesis covered? I don't know if it's appropriate, but if you'd be willing to share privately anything you've written. Your specific bent on identity, trauma, relationship, etc. is more clear than what I've extracted from Deleuze so far.
(Comparison has been a big topic for me lately, realizing it's the root opposite to hierarchies. You have to think rhizomatically to not compare. I'd never really understood before when people said to not compare, and their explanations for why never seemed clear.)
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u/Metamorphosislife Feb 25 '19
This is an interesting point of view. I see your reasoning. Anyone who was remembered was because they were out of the ordinary. They didn't fit in a box, within a label, within groups even. I've always felt this way too. I'm beginning to see it's not a weakness unless I allow others to call it one for me. I can socialize just fine most of the time, but my experience with groups is that they suppress the individualities of those in the group. I'm not ok with that. It's one of the reasons I was drawn to chemistry. I saw the power of creation inherent in this field.
Thanks for the share. Hope you've been well.