The Forums › Forums › I Just Found Out! › My Story › Finally it all makes sense, and I knew it already…
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June 22, 2012 at 4:53 pm #114916
Yes, I had an epiphany a little while ago. Over the past decade, I have been chasing diagnoses (originally diagnosed as depressed) and treatments, going to see counselors and reading books. Someone online was pushing me to try something “new”. I searched for it on this web site and found a discussion where a lot of doubt about it was expressed. I couldn’t help thinking, “Here we go again.”
Instead, I decided to take a big sheet of paper and write down everything that I KNOW about how I act, think, believe and behave. It wasn’t a long list. It came down to ENFP (Myers Briggs), ADHD, and a desire to please people. I mapped out all of the things that flowed from those core traits, the good, the bad and the ugly, in the context of my life. Then I looked at what I needed to compensate for weaknesses.
I realized that ADHD was there, but it’s not the thing that’s ruining my life. It’s actually fairly easy to compensate for with medication, technology and self-awareness. It was actually my job that needed to change and for the first time, I know myself well enough to know what will work and what won’t.
REPORT ABUSEJune 22, 2012 at 9:14 pm #114917
AnonymousInactiveJune 22, 2012 at 9:14 pmPost count: 14413Robbo: It seems I may be your mirror. I typed the text below and had not signed in, so it didn’t post, but, thanks to your reminder, I had saved it to a text file so lost little, I thank you for you r guidance.
Bill: Whitesnake’s “Here I go again” has been my personal anthem for years.
I knew there was more to me than alcoholism, and appreciate that ADD may not be my only issue. I am certainly not ready to tackle the personal inventory, although that is an excellent idea and I will file that for later, thanks. When I watched “ADD and loving it”, I saw 5 “steps”, 2 of them worry me, the “right career” and “right partner”. My “Career” has been prostitution in the computer industry. I told my last manager and now friend that I may have ADD, and he said “Well duh! You’re a programmer”. As a manger of programmers, he had the unofficial title of “Cat herder”. 😆 Anyhoo, I have been trying to get away from that into something else. Computers are a young person’s sport. I still keep my hand in with web sites, and expanding my personal network and its functionality. My “partner”, well, she IS the right partner and I intend to leave it that way,
Robbo: I like your version of the title best, a pun (pane and pain) with greater vision there can be greater pain (or something like that). I can attest to “The more you know, the more you discover you don’t know” maxim in learning. Keep up the flatulence, it makes me smile and think.
I have no “start” date for writing my road to Taoism, but it must be done. This may become part of it. I was raised a Christian by marinated parents. My father was raised by his widowed mother surrounded by a village of devout church goers. He always felt he was marinated in Christianity. He was a good man. After the death of my daughter, subsequent divorce and attempted suicide, I thought “This is stupid” and made a conscience decision to “start again”. I started writing my story, for therapeutic reasons and in the first chapter I die (it ends with the suicide attempt), which I thought was a kinda cool, literary twist(?).
I’ll skip the psych, advanced education, and continue in recovery. AA talks about higher power rather that God as a way to be all inclusive, I can accept that. At some point I decided to seek the truth. Religion and Science both try to make sense of our condition, i.e. they are both explaining the same thing, yet they do not agree.
Gazing around the plethora of belief systems available I could not accept one over any another. They cannot all be right, or can they.
Science is proven by logic. Logic is indisputable, and the ultimate truth. So Science is there and I can ignore it. There are folk out there doing science stuff, expanding our knowledge, and they may never find all the answers because Godel’s incompleteness theory hints that everything within a Universe cannot be proven without using something external to that Universe. Do the Mathematical Extremist bit and Universe becomes Life, the universe and everything (ref: Douglas Adams) and there is nothing outside everything, That would be my higher power.
Turning back to religion. None of them completely agree with any other, but they all contain some truth. I will ignore the newer ones, like Morman and Scientology, one for being Christian based and the other been too weird. The New Testament of the Bible has, I believe and I mean no offence, been corrupted by the Catholic Church in order to control the masses. What they left out is of more value, e.g. the Gnostic Gospels. The Old Testament is also very important, as there were several, 7 I think, versions that in the original Hebrew now agree with each other. That kinda freaks me out, all versions evolved and became one.
A Talmudic Scholar and good friend gave me a copy of one of his go to books that covered many belief systems from the early Bear Killers on a Japanese Island onward. Christianity also has many stories in common with the Zoroastrians. Buddhism ( I checked the spelling and Budweiser was a suggestion 😆 ) and Confucius have common roots in Taoism. So I guess my progress so far has led me to elicit the commonalities between Taoism, Judaism and Science. My research is on hiatus for a couple of years ago while we are relocating.
Funny story, After reading the Gnostic Gospel of John, I generated a hypothesis that the People named in the texts were originally nouns that during translation (Greek <> Hebrew <> Coptic <> Aramaic) became proper nouns. Wisdom >> Sophia << Wisdom etc. I was documenting this on one of my web sites and I arrived at Barbelo, which could be Hebrew for “God in four”, you know, the tetragrammaton, you know, the name that may never be spoken. I typed the Hebrew in and BANG, the computer blew. Well these things happen. I booted the laptop up and tried to complete the work and PUFF, that one crapped out on me. You can call me anything you want but that is a little too freaky.
It reminded me of an AA story. Dude looks up and says to God, “If you do exist show me a sign”, at which point a tree branch crashes to the ground in front of him, Dude says “do it again”.
Similarly, Dude on his roof in a flood. Boat arrives to help, Dude says “I’m OK God will save me”. Helicopter arrives, Dude says “I’m OK God will save me”. Dude eventually drowns and arrives in heaven asking why God had not saved him, to which God replied “I sent you a boat, then a helicopter……..”
Other things need me attention now,
David
REPORT ABUSEJune 23, 2012 at 5:35 am #114918The truth is out there. A mind as open as Fox Mulders really comes in handy when we’re on a spiritual search. That just gave me a great idea, I’m gonna check youtube for some old episodes of X-Files. My perspective has drastically changed in the last few years. mainly from studying the stack of more than a dozen different translations of the Bible. I wonder if I’ll still enjoy one of my all time favorite TV shows.
I like to remind myself that It’s likely I’ll remain a student for most of my life. Even the best teachers have teachers, so they’re also students.
From one student to another, please consider taking all 12 of those steps. Don’t re-write them, try not to analyze them. Just take them.
Humility is a priceless attribute.
And that’s all I have to say about that. (With a Forest Gump accent)
Oh wow, sea level rise in San Diego on the news, I used to argue with folks on a similar web site as this one at least 8 years ago about global warming, lol…
Sometimes ADHD can be fun, I forgot to take my last two doses of ritalin, I can feel and see my attention bouncen around between the news and thinking about X-Files. I know one thing for sure. I’ll still have a crush on Scully! hehe.
Fortunately for me, I can take methylphenidate before I go to bed. It doesn’t make any difference on how well I sleep. I just know I’ll have less mental distractions keeping my brain buzzing along.
b-boing b-boig b-boing….. BONK! ugh…
Ack! oophfff
REPORT ABUSEJune 27, 2012 at 4:33 pm #114919
AnonymousInactiveJune 27, 2012 at 4:33 pmPost count: 14413He who regards his intellectual knowledge as ignorance has deep insight.
He who overrates his intellectual achievement as definite truth is deeply sick.
Only when one is sick of this sickness can one cease to be sick.
One who returns his mind to the simplicity of the subtle truth is not sick.
He knows to break through conceptual knowledge in order to directly reach the subtle truth of the universe.
This is the foundation of his health!
REPORT ABUSEextract from Tao Teh Ching.
June 28, 2012 at 6:45 am #114920Cool stuff David.
That fits some painful re-learning I’ve been going through.
Unlearning stuff I really had a grip on just plain sux. Dogma verses Darma… on and on.
Profound bewilderment can be a pathway to inner peace. That sounds like a quote, but I just made it up. Feel free to quote me. (remember, I joke around a lot… Dry stuff)
Faith is not proof, it’s much more powerful. (made that up too )
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