9 Comments

I sure love your work Harrison. Your stacks are easy and enjoyable to read. Maybe they are dumbed down for people like me;) Still, you make me think. Thank you.

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Thanks, Amking!

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"...isn’t it the case nowadays that the “saviors” vastly outnumber the actual victims of racism, x-phobia, and other forms of bigotry?"

Another way to put it, as some have: The demand for racism is outstripping the supply. Hence all the hoaxes perpetrated by the "victims".

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Actual heroism requires one of two things: spectacular achievement following a shit ton of hard work (Neil Armstrong), or courage (the guy who runs into the street to push a kid out of the way of a speeding bus).

Pronoun people bravely affirming platitudes fed to them by social media algorithms need not apply.

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I like to help people, and when I wish to I find I'm living in wishful thinking and really caught up in a ponerogenic triangle.

I mean that's useful for introspection.

On the rare occasions I can see in these situations I'm always amazed.

Wow that person doesn't give a lick about me.

Then I have to be careful not to indulge emotions.

I think, "if you really loved them you wouldn't feel betrayed, because love cannot be betrayed."

And then too love and faith come into play.

Am I projecting?

How can I know what people think, or what is best for them?

Only I can be true to myself, trusting the higher, and dancing fate.

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"Only I can be true to myself, trusting the higher, and dancing fate."

This is it, IMO. It's ok to make mistakes. That's how we develop our undeveloped minds.

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“Expectations are premeditated resentments” love n let go

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I guess a key take-away for me is that finding myself in a ponerogenic triangle replete with the accessory wrong-think of narcissistic or egoistic heroism is a reflection of a undeveloped mind attempting to recreate traumatic and unhealed memory.

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Those of us who with chronic issues and/or trauma histories can tend towards protectiveness of others, a propensity for picking up waifs and strays, and generally taking the weight of the world our shoulders, as part and parcel of our trauma coping styles or survival strategies.

I have a penchant for the word "Quixotic", referring to being extravagantly chivalrous or holding unrealistic romantic ideals, after the character Don Quixote. In fact, when I used to play Dungeons and Dragons as a teenager, I was drawn to playing Paladin type characters - those knight errants and champions, ready to lay down their lives in the name of the romantic cause.

It seems apparent to me that these are common sensibilities within the groups of folks I have encountered who also have trauma histories and chronic conditions akin to mine. Holding oneself to very lofty ideals and super-high standards, which we would never hold anyone else to, seems to go hand-in-hand with being unable to afford ourselves self-compassion, while at the very same time being deeply empathetic, sensitive and compassionate towards others.

This, combined with our less than altruistic, but totally understandable, need to control everything and everyone around us, in desperate attempts to make our own situations safer, often results in finding ourselves trying to help others who just don't want our help, trying to save others who don't want saving, and trying to protect others who just don't feel in need of our protection, from themselves or otherwise.

Thus it is, sadly, that our attempts to reach out can often backfire, when our best intentions inadvertently drive the very folks we are seeking to help into those defensive states, with unexpectedly very negative responses coming back at us. This, in turn, can result in finding ourselves in deep defensive states too, shocked and angry to our cores by the responses. This creates negative impacts on our own profound need to be seen and heard, as well as completely stripping us of our ability to communicate any further as we go into right brain shutdown mode.

Further reading: it appears I am far form the first to make such observations e.g. this article and book on "The White Knight Syndrome" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-white-knight-syndrome/200905/white-knight-commonalities

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