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Deep Thoughts
a year ago
To my analytical mind, interaction either fits a pattern of trying to adapt yourself to be more likeable to someone, what generally seems motivated as trying to make friends with someone - OR, trying to manipulate someone to a behavior or set of interests that align to your own.
The fallacy in both cases is freedom. The first denies you freedom to be yourself, and since you know you made friends with someone by putting on a mask, you recognize they like the mask you show them and not the real you. Sometimes this realization is unconscious, even the mask you made being unconsciously applied out of habit deeply ingrained in you such that it's automatic.
The second behavior just turns the tables. Maybe by steering someone's interaction with you to suit what you want or expect from a friend, you realize (again perhaps subconsciously) you still don't know that real person.
This is aggravated by people who have some attraction to your avatar, your fursona illustrations for example. They make up their mind (prejudge) what YOU are based on this false image, one that was imaginatively generated. This explains the frequent contact for role play with that fantasy character. Whatever interest, typically that of lust, arises from many in this example does not engage the real you. It engages fantasy, falsehood, in one or both parties, so is not a genuine relationship either.
Conversation, the process of sharing your mind, your likes and dislikes, your passions both of attraction and disinterest or even repulsion, seldom is done in a judgment-free environment. It degrades to argument, which itself is a falsehood. A person's tastes are their tastes. Arguing that parts are bad or wrong denies the diversity of human personality. Agreeing is well and fine, but defining a friend as a person who agrees with you is a shallow definition.
Conversation works best when you develop understanding and acceptance, and few if any people really are very adept at this process. Friendship is better defined as a person you understand and like, accepting all the agreeable and disagreeable facets they have. Mutual friendship where the other person accepts you and understands you in turn, that's the connection I think most all of us crave yet have few examples in experience.
“In a very real sense, we are all aliens on a strange planet. We spend most of our lives reaching out and trying to communicate. If during our whole lifetime, we could reach out and really communicate with just two people, we are indeed very fortunate.”
― Gene Roddenberry
The fallacy in both cases is freedom. The first denies you freedom to be yourself, and since you know you made friends with someone by putting on a mask, you recognize they like the mask you show them and not the real you. Sometimes this realization is unconscious, even the mask you made being unconsciously applied out of habit deeply ingrained in you such that it's automatic.
The second behavior just turns the tables. Maybe by steering someone's interaction with you to suit what you want or expect from a friend, you realize (again perhaps subconsciously) you still don't know that real person.
This is aggravated by people who have some attraction to your avatar, your fursona illustrations for example. They make up their mind (prejudge) what YOU are based on this false image, one that was imaginatively generated. This explains the frequent contact for role play with that fantasy character. Whatever interest, typically that of lust, arises from many in this example does not engage the real you. It engages fantasy, falsehood, in one or both parties, so is not a genuine relationship either.
Conversation, the process of sharing your mind, your likes and dislikes, your passions both of attraction and disinterest or even repulsion, seldom is done in a judgment-free environment. It degrades to argument, which itself is a falsehood. A person's tastes are their tastes. Arguing that parts are bad or wrong denies the diversity of human personality. Agreeing is well and fine, but defining a friend as a person who agrees with you is a shallow definition.
Conversation works best when you develop understanding and acceptance, and few if any people really are very adept at this process. Friendship is better defined as a person you understand and like, accepting all the agreeable and disagreeable facets they have. Mutual friendship where the other person accepts you and understands you in turn, that's the connection I think most all of us crave yet have few examples in experience.
“In a very real sense, we are all aliens on a strange planet. We spend most of our lives reaching out and trying to communicate. If during our whole lifetime, we could reach out and really communicate with just two people, we are indeed very fortunate.”
― Gene Roddenberry
It's certainly a shame, and some possible good connections lost due to this sort of thing. This is one of the many bad facets of human behavior that must be accepted to gain understanding and empathy. Sometimes, tenacity makes for ultimate success. There's a blurry line between sticking to it and becoming a pest, however. And it's because of variable tolerances, this even changes with the seasons with some people.
I am going through the phase of wondering if I truly have any real friends around here. I now believe everyone in the furry community is fake. All friendships are temporary till proven otherwise.
I deleted all my conversations and chat histories. Those that naturally come back and speak, I think those would potentially be real.
All I wanted was real true friends around here. Someone real who doesn't hide face behind a character they created.
But from what I am reading here, I think we are sharing deep similar thoughts.
Miss chatting with you and hope you are well.
Fursona is quite an investment for people. The illustrations for one. Some go as far as $10k or more for fursuit. So it's to be expected - this is because the person WANTS to be that made-up character. I'd like to be Unk. Some want to get lost in the role. I'd just rather appear to be the character, muscles, scales and all. And the alts, no complaints if that would be the body I get.
You've hit on age, and each decade seems to have changes in how people related to one another. Watch movies made in 1950s and 60s and 70s, each of those decades you see some changes in attitude along with dress and popular music.
Older than 40, your development was without an Internet, so no social media, websites, online chatting. And that age and older, you not only had only a telephone to contact friends, but you had few choices in entertainment - no videogames, no DVD, no VHS, only television or rare visits to a movie theatre. Some hung out at convenience stores or parks.
Therefore the old folks' training in socialization was chiefly face-to-face, and activities together were card, dice and board games or a street or other playground. Maybe a movie, but as still true today, a bit expensive and required planning.
90s generation and later had that method of socialization, but parents did think kids were safer staying home, so the online socialization became more the norm for meeting people. Just as you lose a lot of what I'm saying by not hearing my voice, not watching my body language, typed chat loses dimension. Intent and meaning doesn't cross over so well. Group voice comms over Internet tend to be command conferencing for a team game, or at least dominated by a clique (not so different from school cliquish days). This is not a conversational setting.
In my college days, late 1970s, conversation was decried as a lost art. It's worsened because technology allows us even more masks than what was used then. Education then and now is about homogenizing minds. It doesn't really nurture and grow individualism and creativity. So I only blame technology for adding more ways to mask one's self, but not for creating masking.
“If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear.”
― Gene Roddenberry
Writing I guess is me having a mirror as a friend, such as it is in actuality. I'm sure to return to being bored even with my imaginary friends, the imperfect reflections of myself.
I used to think that how Unk looks was you. However, you and other awesome people have taught me to remember that the OC isn't exactly how the real person looks. I still remember it to this day! 🤗
When I saw your RL self in that pic you posted here, being beside another person, I thought you were nice. Moreover, how you treat people in the comments makes me feel that you're quite amicable. I gotta be honest with you, naturally. I still consider you a nice person.
Since I've met you, I've learned a lot about things. I still remember your replies to my comments teaching me some psychology stuff. Please continue to be yourself, pal! 💗👌🏽🐉
The convention pic of me with Brent Spiner (me with purple fez) was when about 140# heavier, so I am lots thinner but not perfectly thin and skinny nowadays. Life brings changes, every decade or so we start contrasting from younger pictures.
It's a good lesson to learn that a person isn't their fantasy, and is not their fetishes either. It's a way to find and discuss common interests, for sure. As I've said, if a friendship becomes only about agreeing with someone on certain points, it's a shallow friendship. Likely why these kinds of friendships don't last, often shattering once disagreement comes along. Those friends who know your disagreeable facets and understand and accept you despite these things, that is a trait of the kind of friendships that have loyalty and comfort in them.
I've returned to writing, not particularly impressed with myself, but at least it exercises long atrophied talents. As I feel should be the case with creative pursuits, you do it for self gratification. You go out on a limb, risking criticism, when sharing things you've created. I take constructive criticism however as input, thoughts maybe kept in mind for the next attempt. Criticism often just shows how someone dislikes a subject or scenario, and I cannot write to suit tastes other than my own. That old saying about pleasing all the people all the time comes to mind.
My writer's process actually jibes with some professionals. I come up with a couple characters, often inventing a conflict before starting to write, but sometimes just emerges while dialog commences. It's just conversation during "Unbearable Lightness of Being" that Iggy steered the plot toward coming up with an alternative means for dragons to go about causing artworks to expand, in a more peaceful manner.
What Iggy observed about Unkky inspired "Street of Dreams" since I knew friendships can reach a level where trust was given, trust with a desperate and personal secret, one life-threatening in nature. I did not know just what conditions would reveal this. I had thoughts about the uproar should the public (Makhan Iksars) learn it, and felt desperation to find a better way for that not to occur. It remains a danger, and therefore may resurface as a threat should something create a schism between these two friends. It also may come out by accident, thoughtless comments when drunk in public, for example.
As with the writer whose process appears to inspire my own, I just let thoughts go to logical progression of problems, not knowing where it ends finally. So this may happen next story, or I may not be even half finished writing more. If it keeps proceeding long enough, the whole body of work might get edited into a full novel, but the episodic nature of these stories don't particularly mesh in a manner publishers favor.
"I've returned to writing, not particularly impressed with myself, but at least it exercises long atrophied talents." That's awesome to know! Keep at it! I'm sure you'll reach a point where it will become a natural talent, I'm sure. 👀
"If it keeps proceeding long enough, the whole body of work might get edited into a full novel, but the episodic nature of these stories don't particularly mesh in a manner publishers favor." You could divide it into "books", as Tolkien did with his "Lord of the Rings" if you wish. Perhaps that would give it a little more connectivity. Or you could compile them in an anthology, having episodes for people to read and enjoy. 🖖🏽
I have to tell you this, of course. I was overthinking and stressing myself with some stuff about how I yearn for people to like me. However, I remembered this journal from you, and it gave me peace of mind a few moments later.
Bro, you've opened my mind quite a bit. Once again, thank you for that! 🤗💗👌🏽🐉
Writing is a hedge against loneliness and depression. Distraction became ineffective over some years of gaming. Reading is again distracting, watching shows also. Still they are too passive, and I found that what conversation engages with me is thought. Passive entertainment does not, save for certain written fiction. So writing brings brain activity I crave, albeit it a very inwardly focused activity. A lot of the mental cockroaches still scatter when the lights come on.
Writers are given a pass, like Kirk Vonnegut with Slaughterhouse 5. Write out of order, episodically. It's the formal code editors adhere to that likely will make it hard to even put out Star Shepherd as an Amazon Kindle cheap/free book.
At least I find a new challenge nearly every day, a couple characters or lingering issues to confront, start a couple of them talking, and the plot takes off by itself. I may come in with one idea in mind, then find through the interaction of characters, suddenly there's this better path, sometimes one character ignites the activity simply by words said or attitudes expressed.
There's the theory you must start with nothing in order to create something. From big bang to virtual particles, seems to hold true for writing as well. It starts with a blank page, then a word is spoken like in creation myths, and all else emerges.
"It starts with a blank page, then a word is spoken like in creation myths, and all else emerges." That truly reminds me of the "Enūma Eliš" 👀💗👌🏽🐉
Others have even stayed after the "mask" or "routine act" has worn off. Of course I try to do it less but being authentic too fast can be like showing your entire hand and that can kill some of the interest needed to have mutual effort put into bonding.
But yeah, the most annoying to deal with case is what I tend to call "proxy crushing" when they are, like you said, expecting you to be this imagined individual based on your sona.
Heck, at times I sit down and almost dread what relationships are real or not but then I get out of my head for a while and just experience very real safety with those I genuinely trust.
Sorry, I am rambling. This journal tickled my mind.
I've been in too many "fair weather" relationships, people friendly only as long as they get what they want from me - always pick up the check, always loaning and never getting paid back, that sort of thing. So this advice is one I won't take unless really certain of not being befriended for what I can give the other person.
If a relationship feels jeopardized, fading, then do something about it. Either refresh it with something thoughtful, or find something that may stress it further - criticism, for instance. Good friendships stick through thick and thin, shallow ones do not cope with stress.
I find there's a lot of truth to this. At least through experience.
I'm very much used to being out and about with people in person than I am online. Ironically it's harder online when there's a lot of expectations of what you are to someone else. The fear of not playing up the image would cost in some sort of social way.
I got tired of all that and instead just focus on folks that have time for me. I like the idea of reciprocating with other friends. I give my time to them and in return they give me their time.
Some friends don't require much attention while others do, I think recognizing those kinds of friends are important too. Plenty of folks I only see months at a time nowadays and resume where we last left off while others it may not be the same.
The social landscape is changing, crazy what we have to do today to earn some sort of connection. A connection no one knows how long would last. But the beauty of it is to simply enjoy the moment while it is there, embracing what you have.
My personal issue is a lot of early experience with "fair weather friends." These are the people who only seem to be with you when they want something from you - pick up the check, use your swimming pool, have you drive them to a movie since they have no car, that sort of thing. Always one-sided, they come and you give. This happened so much almost all new friendships I immediately start engaging radar looking for ulterior motives. This is a good defense, but if it's your MAIN mode of operating, your self esteem gets injured. You start believing NOBODY likes you, just material things you have.
In turn this creates a habit of hoarding things not particularly because you want, need or like them, but because at least subconsciously, the new acquisition makes you more cool and attractive. Soon your value as a person gets measured in how ostentatious you are. The sad thing is this is a widespread cultural norm. The cool people all have the top fashions, the best bling, the latest videogames, etc. We've come to make facade mean everything, and the heart within mean nothing.
Fursona art is another of these facade things, and I could've saved literal thousands not indulging my art collection as hard as I have. I've got to really consider whether I am putting more bricks in my wall with each additional picture, and in hindsight I've done a lot of wall building.
Maybe it's for the best I'm going to be in a situation where commissioned art is too expensive a luxury. When I write, at least I'm putting some windows in my wall. People will get a glimpse of the person living within.
I understand the early experiences. It took time but I realized I need to cut ties. I think this is something that happens at a younger age when searching for friends. The feeling of having to impress and prove to them why you'd be great to have around. It's like one of those points you mentioned earlier though. It takes a lot of self-love, and fighting for your values to overcome these barriers though.
So far I've been sticking to my ideals. Those that value and appreciate your time are the gems. Just being true to yourself should be enough to meet wonderful folks. I've accepted I'll never be the part of the cool kids or mainstream but I never really cared about those things. Besides, the cool stuff happen outside the spotlight anyway.
As for commissioned art, it's a want but if it gets you through and helps express your ideas then what's the harm when done in moderation? If anything, if the resources are there, it's a great way to support artists within this community. Although as you know though with commissions means attracting a greedy crowd, wanting to explore some fantasies through you. Some may be beneficial others not so much. But man that can take up your time.
That all said though, whether bricks, stone, glass, it's a home. There can be a lot of wall building but there will always be a window and a door and someone to talk to. I think I got a glimpse, I hope you're okay in there :]
You have some really admirable fat and vorny pictures and of course who is a predator in a vore sense IRL? Therefore I get a thrill seeing the great draconic obesity and amazing appetite, but in my case I do recognize it as a personal expression of favorite images/fantasies with you.
Friendship is shaky when founded on superficial things, I think is my main point. The physique (or that of a fursona), a role-played personality, the window dressing we all perform to be at least granted some attention. The pitfall is so very seldom do you get past the superficial stage with people. The moment you break from their pictures and expectations, usually this is where things frost over.
The walls in my metaphor are the introversions. The fear of people, the agoraphobia. And having formative years where you are led to believe through repeat experience that you're not good as-is, you need to buy people through favors and so on. So you think only material things are what make you worthwhile, that the raw YOU is as faceless and anonymous as the dirt collecting under a bed.
That's the hard-to-learn fallacy, unfortunately society because of capitalism reinforces this improper way of establishing identity. You are NOT your clothes, your car, your home, your posessions... even not really your body! As Yoda said, "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter!" But it's hard to sell an intangible, so we are sold this concept of defining ourself through material goods. Through physicalities.
That's sort of the appeal of my Star Shepherd stories for me. I created beings that physically CANNOT have posessions, goods, property. But as well they can't procreate, have family or siblings. They're perfect and harmonious but as well boring AF.
This brings me to acknowledging your first statement. It's life. Hellen Keller once communicated, "Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all." (I do not use 'said' because being deaf, dumb and blind, she could only sign what she wanted to say.)
Ahhh, yes thanks! :) You are spot on~ I do enjoy being fat, vorny, and I'm also lacking some paw stuff too. Nonetheless, I do see myself as a predator but not always. It just depends on how personalities get tangled. It just so happens in that dance, I tend to take the first step. That's great and I admire those thoughts <3
Yeah, I've seen that and felt that. Someone has tied your character to you instead of the real you. Things mentioned in your previous post come to mind. I've been lucky enough to find myself meeting some of these folks at conventions or if local enough through lunch. The dynamic becomes interesting because there's a face attached to the character or is it the character attached to the face? Either way, I tend to focus what I do control. There's plenty of things I don't have control over and instead all I can do is my best.
Blehh.. society. There will always be problems but capitalism can bring out the worst. I think after reading Brave New World and 1984 did it really make me think about those things. And still do! Then there was that movie Brazil that just made me think. It's so easy to see how folks get caught up in the game of keeping up with the jones.
Life, we only have one and somehow we have to live it.
Joseph Campbell and his series about "The Power of Myth" did strike a multi-cultural norm for a key to happiness and enlightenment. The way he put it is "Follow your bliss." Using more words, this directive means find what sparks joy in your heart, be it a creative pursuit, a love affair, a fursuit, collecting things (like art e.g.), creative expression (writing, drawing, music), cooking, eating, just pretty much any passionate pursuit that fulfills you and chase the frak out of it. Do the frakking most of it you can fit into your life.
Campbell also touched on when we find a purpose in life, if the bliss being pursued at the end of a journey for example, just the journey itself energizes you... long as you do feel as if you're getting closer to that most desired goal. He identifies this "lock on target" (my words) state as a motivation that is the strongest, most irresistable force in the universe.
I reckon he did have examples of obstacles, that which becomes the immoveable object opposing our irresistable force. I can state from experience with me, these objects have names like "fear," "loathing," "doubt" and "resignation." But more material barriers like time and money also can be just as solid and unyielding.
This really is the existential crisis. Not all, but many of us find our bliss. But most of us find at least one of the obstacles to frustrate the pursuit. This clash is one of the very generic patterns of life that it's a chief "plot complication" used as a dramatic device. There are other patterns of drama, to be sure - but if you generalize it in terms of "wanting something yet not getting it" what other forms of drama are more common and ubiquitous in life?
The adaptability of the human mind is well defined by our creative problem solving for this sort of dramatic condition. There's not just one solution, but many - accept impasse, compromise unilaterally, abandon and elect to pursue a different goal being the most common solutions that come to mind.
I have collected artworks because it was pursuit of a better imaginary picture of a character than I could draw for myself, one that made them more real to me, more exciting and vividly imagined as an alternate universe version of me living a more fantastic and wonderful life.
This is something that is a forever pursuit, and unsustainable in the long run. So I have returned to another pleasure, that of making imaginary friends and interacting with them, or at least observing how they interact with one another. The technical terms are of course "fictional characters" and "storytelling" respectively, but that's the adult/professional words for this kind of make-believe.
Back on the subject of how the journey can be the reward, frustration and de-railing often arises out of the goal seeming to keep its distance even after taking efforts to close the gap. It's this way with a lot of goals. What helps encourage taking the next steps can be expressed in one word: Metrics. One of the founders of Hewlett-Packard company had a saying, basically the company motto (being they started out as a test instrumentation and measurement equipment manufacturer). "What gets measured, gets done."
For a writer (other artists too), this means quantity of production. Because the adage, "practice makes perfect" really applies well to refining artistic talent. So whatever your pursuit may be, if there's some hopelessness creeping in, consider measuring things germane to evidence of progress. How many dates you've been on, how many conventions, how many books read, how many movies seen, how many songs heard or collected, etc.
The journey often IS the reward. Reaching a goal doesn't mean living happily ever after. It often means yet another goal needs to be put out there somewhere. Hence one of my favorite sayings, "Nothing sucks like success." Doing a thing well, becoming finally professional in creative arts for example, suddenly has this baggage of responsibility and labor to exploit that knowledge or skill, sometimes to the point of burnout with it.
The last bit of warning I have is sometimes you choose a goal based on some imagined reward not intrinsic to it. "Once I am a professional musician, I'll be happy" for example. There are plenty of unhappy professional musicians, some even suicided at a height of popularity. So I caution to be objective about this bliss, and don't confuse removing an obstacle as being following bliss. It's not; it's a sidetrack. Sometimes necessary, but important to not confuse obstacle handling with being on track with most beloved goal pursuit.
Perhaps unsustainable but it's close to obtaining now that there's things like VR chat. A headset make it nice but not required. But of course it is only being in an environment. The fictional side of it is lacking but it seems it's enough that there's actual folks around it.
I really like that idea, metrics being a way to help understand and navigate through. It sounds to be that is essentially experience that has been recorded/documented for the intent of reflecting back on how can one be better or improve on. Definitely important when things don't go quite right.
At least now I know what little good shelling out $10k for a fursuit would do to improve my con experience. Not at all, seems like. Well good, dodged the bullet there.
A lot of the most desired goals in my life involve elements beyond my control. I can't make someone love me, even become good friends with me. I can't become a valued guest or speaker at conventions without many loved famous works, and so I come to my immoveable obstacles a lot.
The only train track to that fame and popularity really allows me one metric: how much I create, how many stories. I guess I'm at 23 or so, and will get back to making more. I have to make sure the journey is rewarding, so I write what I have to in satisfying my interests. Doubtful I'll ever get to a mode of doing it on spec or commission. This will keep me forever amateur, but at least I'll never know just how sucky this success goal might be like.
I only drop off because I tend to just be quiet and browse, but I delight in our conversations, even if they became rarer ecently.