>> Time confuses me. It doesn't make sense for time to be completely linear. Divination wouldn't work at all. But if it isn't, how can free will exist at all? <<
Okay, the free will argument attaches to the linear time perspective. If time is a line, then it is seen as either predetermined or not.
Time is globular. It is possible to move within that mass freely in any direction. It's fluid, ever-changing, full of all possibilities.
Think of gravity for comparison. Inside a gravity well, it looks like gravity is what sticks you to the planet's surface. But outside a gravity well, you can see that gravity actually governs the movement of bodies in relation to each other -- the stars and planets and galaxies aren't stuck together, but are dancing in motion. Two different perspectives of the same source.
From a temporal gravity well, that is, incarnate in a body, time looks linear -- if you don't look too closely. Even here there are clues, from quantum physics to "time flies" to the fact that love is immortal.
Divination is about reading probabilities, what is most likely based on current conditions. Things might change. A leaf approaching a fork in the river could go either way, but is more likely to follow the larger branch. A fish can choose where to go. Some people are like leaves, some are like fish. It depends not only on what they think about free will, but how they comprehend time itself.
>>I can't say I exist as much in some other moment as now, but to my parents' disappoinment I've never been great at living in the now, either.<<
Navigating the timestream is not easy; it takes practice. This includes recalling stored memories on purpose, appreciating the now, and planning ahead. They all require different skills that take time to build. Different cultures have different tools. Buddhism and therianthropy are two examples of places to learn "in the now."
>> I've improved my productive imagining to catastrophizing ratio, thanks therapy and life experience. <<
That's good.
I have a very powerful extrapolative engine in my head. If I don't give it something constructive to do, it will find something destructive. But it cannot simultaneously ruminate on insoluble problems and calculate a speculative ecosystem or plot a storyline.
>> But I'm still stuck on things that happened twenty years ago. I know healing from trauma is like that, but I'm frustrated. <<
Trauma is frustrating. The earlier and longer it happened, the more impact it tends to have. Understand that it changes the brain on a very physical level. We're not talking just about the psychological issues like if you miss the developmental window for a given skill, it is difficult or impossible to learn later. Sometimes imprint vulnerability can help with that, but this culture has very little fluency with creating and utilizing that in healthy ways. The physical changes include both neural development and biochemistry. That makes it hard to do some things, and way too easy to do others -- kind of like how a joint injury might make an arm not go in one direction or pop out of socket in another.
It is not your fault that life in general or other people in particular stepped on your brain while it was growing and now it has scars. You can learn to work with them, or around them, to some extent but they won't entirely disappear as long as you're wearing that body. This sucks, but it also helps remember that it's not a personal failing, any more than if someone had pulled your arm out of socket and then it never quite worked normally afterwards.
>> And feeling guilty for whining so much <<
Self-compassion might help, especially the exercise about "What would you say to a friend with this issues?"
If you were just whining, that might be a concern. Certainly there are people who do that, and they are annoying, and usually their problems don't get solved. But you have indicated that you've worked on these problems, and done therapy, so you're not just whining. You have residual problems from the past. That happens. Its origin in the past doesn't mean it hurts any less. You compensate for it as best you can, and acknowledge that you may not be able to get rid of all the lingering effects. You're not responsible for fixing everything -- especially cleaning up the mess that someone or something made of your brain -- only for making an honest effort to do what you can.
>> (of course, I've always felt that way, if feeling like your problems are Not Enough and you're just being difficult is not in the DSM as a trauma response it should be. <<
I have not seen it, but that is a logical observation and matches what I have seen in many trauma survivors.
>> But there's gotta be a point where it's true.). <<
See above re: whining without making any effort to work the problem. Even if your efforts all fail, the attempt alone gives you grounds to mope about how nothing is helping.
>> Even with therapy and self-help articles and whatnot, getting over anything on purpose has never gone well for me. <<
That's what trauma does. It fucks up your ability to adapt, to change, to move on.
There are things that can help, though. Therapy works for some people. Others prefer meditation, hypnosis, prayer, or enthogens. Some herbs or medications can fix the biochemistry aspects for some people. Stacking-sorting games address the "stuck" problem of traumatic stress. Timebinding activities can improve ability to put memories in their place and move on. This includes things like timelines and scrapbooks that help sequence events (from the perspective of a linear timeline in a temporal gravity well). For a nonlinear approach, consider collage, which helps show the connections between multiple things at the same time. By creating a reference, you can help your brain function more like you want it to, kind of like using a therapeutic wrap or brace to support a limb with lingering damage. If you haven't found methods that work really well for you yet, just keep an eye on the field and maybe something new will catch your attention. What humans know about this would fit in a thimble, so plenty of new stuff is emerging.
I'm working with this stuff myself right now. My mother passed away in December. A life complete, like a painting, that only now can be seen in its whole. For me, I'm writing down memories and stuff to help mark the transition, to work this into the story of my life. Deliberate, purposeful timebinding to handle a challenging situation. I've worked with these things enough in the past to have a good idea what works for me personally.
>> I don't remember my parents reading to me. They definitely did, but after I learned at like 4 or 5,a combination of my impatience and them encouraging me to Be Mature led to that not being a thing, I think. Or I forgot, my memory of being a small child is not much.<<
Huh. My dad read me The Yearling when I was six. I was reading adult books myself at that age. I just liked reading together, and I liked storytelling too. Different people remember things in different ways, though.
>> Damn it, I know we had good days, but no nice story comes to mind at present. <<
That sucks. :( Maybe ask other people for examples, and record them somehow so at least you'll have those perspectives.
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dancing_serpent
Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-25 11:12 pm (UTC)Okay, the free will argument attaches to the linear time perspective. If time is a line, then it is seen as either predetermined or not.
Time is globular. It is possible to move within that mass freely in any direction. It's fluid, ever-changing, full of all possibilities.
Think of gravity for comparison. Inside a gravity well, it looks like gravity is what sticks you to the planet's surface. But outside a gravity well, you can see that gravity actually governs the movement of bodies in relation to each other -- the stars and planets and galaxies aren't stuck together, but are dancing in motion. Two different perspectives of the same source.
From a temporal gravity well, that is, incarnate in a body, time looks linear -- if you don't look too closely. Even here there are clues, from quantum physics to "time flies" to the fact that love is immortal.
Divination is about reading probabilities, what is most likely based on current conditions. Things might change. A leaf approaching a fork in the river could go either way, but is more likely to follow the larger branch. A fish can choose where to go. Some people are like leaves, some are like fish. It depends not only on what they think about free will, but how they comprehend time itself.
>>I can't say I exist as much in some other moment as now, but to my parents' disappoinment I've never been great at living in the now, either.<<
Navigating the timestream is not easy; it takes practice. This includes recalling stored memories on purpose, appreciating the now, and planning ahead. They all require different skills that take time to build. Different cultures have different tools. Buddhism and therianthropy are two examples of places to learn "in the now."
>> I've improved my productive imagining to catastrophizing ratio, thanks therapy and life experience. <<
That's good.
I have a very powerful extrapolative engine in my head. If I don't give it something constructive to do, it will find something destructive. But it cannot simultaneously ruminate on insoluble problems and calculate a speculative ecosystem or plot a storyline.
>> But I'm still stuck on things that happened twenty years ago. I know healing from trauma is like that, but I'm frustrated. <<
Trauma is frustrating. The earlier and longer it happened, the more impact it tends to have. Understand that it changes the brain on a very physical level. We're not talking just about the psychological issues like if you miss the developmental window for a given skill, it is difficult or impossible to learn later. Sometimes imprint vulnerability can help with that, but this culture has very little fluency with creating and utilizing that in healthy ways. The physical changes include both neural development and biochemistry. That makes it hard to do some things, and way too easy to do others -- kind of like how a joint injury might make an arm not go in one direction or pop out of socket in another.
It is not your fault that life in general or other people in particular stepped on your brain while it was growing and now it has scars. You can learn to work with them, or around them, to some extent but they won't entirely disappear as long as you're wearing that body. This sucks, but it also helps remember that it's not a personal failing, any more than if someone had pulled your arm out of socket and then it never quite worked normally afterwards.
>> And feeling guilty for whining so much <<
Self-compassion might help, especially the exercise about "What would you say to a friend with this issues?"
https://self-compassion.org/the-three-elements-of-self-compassion-2/
https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/
If you were just whining, that might be a concern. Certainly there are people who do that, and they are annoying, and usually their problems don't get solved. But you have indicated that you've worked on these problems, and done therapy, so you're not just whining. You have residual problems from the past. That happens. Its origin in the past doesn't mean it hurts any less. You compensate for it as best you can, and acknowledge that you may not be able to get rid of all the lingering effects. You're not responsible for fixing everything -- especially cleaning up the mess that someone or something made of your brain -- only for making an honest effort to do what you can.
>> (of course, I've always felt that way, if feeling like your problems are Not Enough and you're just being difficult is not in the DSM as a trauma response it should be. <<
I have not seen it, but that is a logical observation and matches what I have seen in many trauma survivors.
>> But there's gotta be a point where it's true.). <<
See above re: whining without making any effort to work the problem. Even if your efforts all fail, the attempt alone gives you grounds to mope about how nothing is helping.
>> Even with therapy and self-help articles and whatnot, getting over anything on purpose has never gone well for me. <<
That's what trauma does. It fucks up your ability to adapt, to change, to move on.
Basically, these guys are assholes.
There are things that can help, though. Therapy works for some people. Others prefer meditation, hypnosis, prayer, or enthogens. Some herbs or medications can fix the biochemistry aspects for some people. Stacking-sorting games address the "stuck" problem of traumatic stress. Timebinding activities can improve ability to put memories in their place and move on. This includes things like timelines and scrapbooks that help sequence events (from the perspective of a linear timeline in a temporal gravity well). For a nonlinear approach, consider collage, which helps show the connections between multiple things at the same time. By creating a reference, you can help your brain function more like you want it to, kind of like using a therapeutic wrap or brace to support a limb with lingering damage. If you haven't found methods that work really well for you yet, just keep an eye on the field and maybe something new will catch your attention. What humans know about this would fit in a thimble, so plenty of new stuff is emerging.
I'm working with this stuff myself right now. My mother passed away in December. A life complete, like a painting, that only now can be seen in its whole. For me, I'm writing down memories and stuff to help mark the transition, to work this into the story of my life. Deliberate, purposeful timebinding to handle a challenging situation. I've worked with these things enough in the past to have a good idea what works for me personally.
>> I don't remember my parents reading to me. They definitely did, but after I learned at like 4 or 5,a combination of my impatience and them encouraging me to Be Mature led to that not being a thing, I think. Or I forgot, my memory of being a small child is not much.<<
Huh. My dad read me The Yearling when I was six. I was reading adult books myself at that age. I just liked reading together, and I liked storytelling too. Different people remember things in different ways, though.
>> Damn it, I know we had good days, but no nice story comes to mind at present. <<
That sucks. :( Maybe ask other people for examples, and record them somehow so at least you'll have those perspectives.