Posted by Eric (yet2b) on May 25, 2000 at 05:09:14:
In Reply to: Eric... posted by Emily on May 24, 2000 at 16:26:11:
: Why do you want to make people feel so bad about themselves, and their efforts to become a better person? It doesn't say very much about you, and shows that you too are identifying with your ego by pointing out your superiority. You shouldn't make people feel bad about themselves, if YOU are trying to reach essence yourself.
Margaret doesn't feel bad about herself. Margaret, for all we really know right now, could be a computer program created by the fellows at Bell Laboratories. Right now there's just me posting to these words that only know if you really wrote them or not. That's it, you see. So what you -seem- to be dealing with is that there seems to be a person named Margaret. And if there is, you believe that she is one person and continously being this Margaret person. But as you have noticed, this Margaret person, like so many of us, tends to drift off into fantasies of acceptance and rejection. Then she further drifts off into explanations as to why this happens and what it really means....all this without a disciplined effort and a real understanding. Nothing good comes of this but we find she is calmed by her new explanation and once again everything seems to return to normal. It's like the parents that never really understand what the baby needs when it cries, they just keep trying to put the pacifier back in its mouth. Then one day the baby dies, and guess who is held responsible?
Then along comes the Evil Eric who interrupts Margaret's addictive cycle and uses strong words, vivid examples, and speaks with such a certainty that those who have never known such certainty (and are content with their addictions) automatically, without any real effort, make the assumption that Eric is a self-righteous asshole. This calms Margaret because it makes her feel that she is accepted by others. And it calms others who don't like to see Margaret upset as it reminds them of painful early memories.
Now this, being a club atmosphere, lends itself to the various potshotting discussion of the real nature of Eric. So who's going to see, Emily, that someone came and tossed a match into the woodpile, or stirred the coals a bit? Without wounded people to stick up for, a major part of your persona would die painfully from starvation, but if you could be different, how would that look?
Eric