Left --> Center-left

9/17/17 journal entry thoughts expanded

Thinking about blogging. Thinking about vulnerability. I used to be more open than I am now. I'm not sure if I like being more closed. I feel I am less authentic when closed.

I do not like election years. I usually hate them. And the 2016 election year has continued. It may never stop.

I seldom use the the word "hate," but I may in this piece.

Emptying out all the rhetoric of pundit chatter in my brain, as best as I could, I've lately asked myself, How would you describe yourself politically?

Hmmm... I wish borders and money didn't exist. I wish guns didn't exit. That puts me left of center, that's for sure. I hate the war machine. I hate we have one-time-use plastics... 

I wish greed didn't exist. It seems to all boil down to greed. 

Even though I wish there were no borders, that does not mean I want a melding of cultures into a mono-culture, but rather coexisting cultures which makes me think of Star Trek. But even in Star Trek, there are wars.

To think that we humans "own" the land is such a strange concept to me. Yet, Hubby and I are land and property "owners." Tiny - a middle class home on 1-1/3 acres. But we don't really "own" it, even in the sense of property ownership; the mortgage company does.

Money. It's not so much money that I don't like as it is corporate capitalism. The rich get richer at the expense of those under them. It's wrong, wrong, wrong. I'd prefer no money and that humans work together for the good of the one and the many. Yet, I use money or some form of it almost every day.

Guns. I don't like them. Yet, we own one that we've never used except for some target practice decades ago. It's a .22-caliber pistol, a six-shooter, made by some German company. A .22-pistol could do damage, but it might be hard to kill a body unless the shooter knows anatomically where to penetrate and has a really good aim.

Greed. If we could eliminate greed, that would take care of so many problems. Isn't there some Bible verse, in Galatians maybe? Something about 'where there is love there is no need for law?' I might look that up later.

One-time-use plastics. Of the short wish-hate list above, that's the only one that maybe we can do something about. Maybe we can get it under some control and get some of it cleaned up. Yet, I use one-time-use plastics. I recycle all I can. But recycling isn't the answer. We really need a virus or bacteria that can eat plastic.

I understand that my short-list ideology can never exist (except maybe the reduction of those plastics). And it is a short list. There are other ideals I didn't list. I could write multiple essays (if they could even be called "essays") about my quasi-opinions on various issues.

"Opinions." Oh god - opinions can cause me stress. Probably one reason I hate election years. And my opinions are seldom "absolutes." They can be strong and weigh in the 95% percentile range. My strong or "absolute" opinions typically stem from my personal presence in a situation - a witness at the scene to what I saw, felt, heard in a given situation.

As I was thinking through my various opinions on issues and my "ideal wishes" regarding those issues, I think I'm pretty far left from an ideologically standpoint. But I know my ideals are not practical nor attainable. So, I move right - more to the center, politically. But still, I'm left of center.

Starting probably around 2007 I've taken various political tests to see where I land. I don't like most of the tests I've come across because their multiple choice answers are too black/white. But I found one test I like, and I've gone back to it time and again over the years. Each time I score the same - Libertarian Left, close to where the test places Ghandi. Wasn't he pretty far left? (I just took the test again today, 9/17/17. Same range.) "Libertarian left" sounds like an oxymoron, but I think I understand it. I don't feel like explaining it now. A reader can learn more at the website, Political Compass.

~*~

People act out for reasons. People make decisions for reasons. Reasons that probably go back generations both culturally and genetically. I think the majority, if not all, of those reasons are not to be minimized or dismissed. The only way to understand another's reasons (at least mostly) is to listen and to put ourselves in the other person's shoes as best we can.

"Reasons" do not excuse a person's accountability for their actions. But they help understand the "why" behind behavior.

After leaving The Way and my absolutist-thinking, I developed a motto:  "There are no non-persons. There are no non-events." Meaning, that each individual is significant and each story worthwhile.

But then....John Knapp happened. I experienced something completely foreign to me. It shook my foundation probably more than even leaving a belief system after decades of being a true-believer. I had hired Knapp, a then-licensed mental health therapist specializing in spiritual abuse and cult recovery, to help me untangle the cult-anti-cult web in my head and heart. For the first year or so, he did help. But then things slowly took a strange twist, landing in the bizarre. (After thought: Actually they were twisting all along. But I either didn't see the tangles, or rationalized them.)

Are there really no non-persons? Is my motto just another ideal that is a fantasy? How can a person intentionally lie over and over, in such a believable, convincing tone, seemingly without conscience? Can a person really have no conscience? If so, are they truly a "person?" How does my motto apply to the psychopath?

The Knapp experience was like an earthquake. My faith in humanity and those ideals which I wish existed but don't and probably never will (unless there really is a "new heaven and new earth" or some other life-form beyond death or this earthly plane) lay in rubble on the ground. Trust in my own intuitive sense, which I was in process of regaining after living doctrine-over-person for decades, was filled with smoke from the rubble. Who or what could I trust? How can even trust myself?

This reaction wasn't new to me. I had experienced similar when learning the truth about The Way and its leaders, about the lies and deceptions and using of people. But, in The Way, I hadn't experienced up-close-personal manipulative encounters with top leaders. I was more at a distance within the concentric layers of a cult. After Knapp, I better understood ex-Way and any person's responses to the up-close-personal psychopathic encounter.

As far as I know, The Way never lied about me. I was lied about at Greasespot Cafe, the ex-Way online forum. But only a few times, at least that I know about. There may have been more lies or rumors that never reached my eyes or ears. And I think for the most part, the lies I know about were mistaken lies, based in fear and projection, and perhaps in my responses to the circumstances in which I found myself. Circumstances that fell in my lap. But it was my decision to either discard what was in my lap, or weigh them and act. I chose the latter.

But Knapp. Knapp. He lied intentionally with a motive to destroy my reputation and to try to cover his own misdeeds, of which I later learned were multiple. After Knapp's initial gas-lighting and abuse, I learned that I was not the only person to have experienced Knapp's wrath and manipulations. But, at that time, I was the only client. (Sixteen months later, another client came forth privately.) And I was the only client whom Knapp tried to publicly smear. He was partially successful. But not with those who know of his pattern.

Yet even with the evidence that others had similar Knapp encounters, it was hard to believe my bizarre Knapp-scenario was real. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that Knapp could lie like he did. I still can't. I shake my head when I think about it, probably in an effort to shake it out of my head. I question if his whole life is an intentional lie, concerned only about himself but guised in a concern for others.

I've moved forward since Knapp's smear campaign in September, 2011. Yet it still lurks and can trigger some PTSD-type responses when I encounter certain situations.

And in spite of it all, I'm mostly back to giving people the benefit of the doubt. All be it, not dismissing any red flags. And at the same time not outright believing my red flags are "absolutely" legitimate. How much filter goes into my red flags? How do they weigh with the facts?

~*~

If I blog these thoughts, will I feel unintelligent afterward, self-conscious, and concerned how others view me?

I've been reading more of The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. Interesting that according to many (most?) sociologists, one of  the highest driving forces behind our decisions (if not the highest) is how we are perceived by others. People may find that offensive and say, "Not me." I felt a little of that. But I know all too well that I do care how I am perceived. Is it a driving force? Probably, but I may be too blind to see just how much of a force it is. There are multiple nuances behind and within the reasons we do what we do...