Hi, it’s me. The anonymous, the distant, the removed. The bias in not taking stances. The amorphous blob of traits formerly hiding behind constructed personalities. The radicality removed from opinion. This blog’s been dormant for a while and for most intents and purposes the original author no longer exists.

There’s only so far cynicism and hyperbole will carry you, and I’ve crossed that point. I have many people around me to thank for this turn of events and I think most of them already know.

Note: While this text makes heavy use of second-person pronouns, it is, first and foremost, an abstracted account of what I’ve experienced and by no means meant to be universal.

Eyes Forward

There’s a certain way of thinking that’s been incredibly prominent throughout my 20s and I think (hope?) others who’ve had similar experiences will find this relatable. I’ve mostly been looking for belonging, identity, a tribe, community. And if your sense of self isn’t fully developed yet (or worse, stifled through some early childhood events) you’ll try to fit in at all costs. Walking between scenes and contexts you adapt yourself to the situation at hand until it’s hard to tell what you actually believe and what’s dogma you don’t dare violate.

And for many that works. They have common enough experiences with enough marketability to be able to find circles with a similar upbringing with relative ease. Others have it harder. Their stories don’t quite fit in with what the people around them have experienced and so the tribes they assimilate into tend to be those that almost mirror what they are.

Narrative Morphology

So, having chosen a handful of communities, all of them bleeding heart and thinking of themselves as the sole source of truth you start reframing everything you’ve experienced so far. Maybe the reframing even changes or drops some of those pesky narrative-breaking complex details to more closely make your narrative resemble that of your chosen peers.

And if there’s more than one context you exist within something weird happens. You might not notice it at first, but there’s this.. off.. feeling. You realize that, depending on who you’re talking to, your story changes. Or you realize that something that’s being said in context B is unacceptable by context A’s standard. And so you slowly start growing that inkling of personality (that is, at least for my definition, things that make you unique among your (chosen) peers) around those issues. “Oh that thing made me feel bad, but it was okay.” you might start saying. Or “I didn’t have an issue with that other thing until I started thinking about it with what I know now.”

It’s easy to fall into a habit of othering at this point. Positioning yourself clearly inside your peers shared reality by pointing out how others step outside it. Or, once you realize none of your circles' realities mirror yours, defining yourself in stark opposition to the predominant narrative or other people’s behavior.

And as you grow older, more mature and into more of a complete person you start outgrowing scenes. You’re suddenly more than the handful of circles you exist within and instead start nourishing that seedling of personality with people you’ve managed to experience genuine connection with.

Synaptic Systems

As soon as you start letting thoughts and emotions that are genuinely your own flow into those circles you make use of the conceptual stratum any group of people invariably is. In fact, I’m a big fan of seeing everything that is as recursive systems, starting with subatomic particles and ending with the universe as a whole. A human being (and possibly other animals, how would I know?) is the smallest of these I know for a fact to be able to recognize itself in that hierarchy, both as the result of smaller systems and part of larger ones.

Now, groups of people of any size are what I have taken to calling a synaptic system. That is, rather than the collective knowledge/opinion/whatever existing as an inherent thing it is something solely defined through the exchange between individuals.

This is where I came to the conclusion that conformism is an inherently anti-collectivist stance. By not sharing things that don’t explicitly reinforce the shared context no further debate and exchange regarding new topics can come into being and the further evolution of the collective identity ceases. Instead, the opinions as they have evolved up until now harden into dogmas nobody dares question anymore until nobody dares bring up anything that might even remotely be construed as offensive to the collective identity.

The Jagged Crown

I’ve been processing some of the few remaining traumas that sit incredibly deep in recent times and have also been passively observing others in stages of processing I recognize as having gone through myself in the past. There seems to be a tendency for everything to bubble up in one’s early 20s and I like to think of the emotional baggage you’re handed as you embark on your journey as a broken crown with incredibly sharp and jagged edges. Many wear it openly, with varying levels of shame or pride and this often leads to others getting hurt. There seems to be a tendency to get into a lot of emotionally messy situations in your early 20s and most people get out of this phase after a few years of hurting and getting hurt.

But there’s another group. People that have been given the feeling they don’t matter from a young age. The children that were seen not heard. They see the jagged crown for the undesirable and awful thing that it is and don’t want to acknowledge it, or worse, have other people notice it. They keep it close to themselves and repeatedly cut themselves on its original sharp edges, as well as adding new layers of cracks to it. It takes multiple catastrophic breakdowns and a lot of reassurance for them to start letting go. And even when they do, it’s always with a heavy heart and the gnawing feeling that they’ve made things worse for themselves for no good reason other than that they’ve not seen themselves as worthy of love, compassion and space to grow. I used to be here, and I know for a fact I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me there’s a way out of this awful mindset.

(If this last paragraph personally touches you in a way very little did before please don’t hesitate to get in touch, xoxo ncl.)

The Universal End Goal

So this leaves me with the big conclusion to draw, the answer everyone seeks, the ultimate aim of all spiritualism. And the answer is shockingly simple: Be yourself, truly and authentically, genuinely touch and be genuinely touched by other people. Let people see you for what you truly are and show it with pride. And make all that just a little bit easier for the next person embarking on this journey. Unfortunately the content of the answer is of no use unless you’ve made the journey to internalize it yourself.

Safe travels, ncl

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