#Embodying the suffering itself and freedom from the suffering works just fine

[hailomadius]

Me trying to explain to my vaguely religious mother that Dionysus and Jesus may actually be two aspects of the same diety

[inconspicious-random-thoughts]

I just had a wild thought. What if Alastor's goal to become the one "pulling all the strings" in Hell isn't about overthrowing the other Overlords or even Lucifer? What if the one he wants to overthrow is Roo? Whatever or whoever Roo truly is, her status as the Root of all Evil makes her Hell's version of God. She's the ultimate power of the demonic realm of Sin, beyond the Deadly Sins, beyond the Morningtars. Her malignant web spreads to every corner of Hell. There's no station higher than that for a demon. Maybe the reason Alastor is trying to groom Charlie to come into her power more is because he thinks she may somehow have the power to destroy or at least overwhelm Roo, which will put Alastor in a position to steal her godlike abilities for himself.

In short, I believe Alastor's ultimate goal is to become the new Root of Evil, which will effectively make him the unofficial ruler of all of Hell.

Hello old pal!

Sorry for the delay, I'm having bit of a bad luck streak. I had no power for nearly a week. Which was terrible as this week the temperature spiked 20 additional degrees and given little time and preparation for to accumulate to the heat. So I had no fans to help cool me down. Nor food as everything spoiled in my refrigerator and freezer.

On top of that my pay got severely messed up. I was also assaulted while I was out working. It was completely random, wrong place wrong time type of situation. But I live in pretty much the safety state as well the safest areas. In a neighborhood that one would least expect to get assaulted and attempted carjack. So, I was completely off guard when the woman attacked me. She came to me in a panic for help which I was attempting to do, but it rapidly change to her becoming angry and attacking me within a minute. The change was so quick, I nearly suffer whiplash from it. Luckily, I didn't get hurt much beside bruising. But I was shaken up tremendously.

But back to your question

I honestly, don't think Alastor motives are power hungry and rule Hell. I'm sure, he purposely design by the creator to guess his motives and imply he wants to rule Hell.

I think the only reason why he wanted power to begin with so no one can control him or boss him around. There's freedom when one is powerful. Which is what Alastor wants. Free to indulge whatever whim that catches his fancy. When those same whims he was was force to hide while alive. Who going to stop him if no one can enforce their objections?

But its semi implied that his power was given by his owner of his soul, considering they can restrict his power. So, while Alasor made a deal with them to gain power and "freedom", but in the long scheme of things, the freedom became a lot more restrictive with a collar around his throat and the freedom is given how generous his owner willing to slack the leash.

So, I don't think ruling Hell is Alastor personal objective.

However, I will admit...I really love your idea and honestly, I can vision it for it to be possible.

It be the reason why Alastor was willing to make a deal with Roo. While, Roo having his soul isn't ideal when one planning on overthrow their owner. But maybe there's a clause that Alastor will retain all of Roo power if for whatever the nearly impossible possible, Roo cease to exist. Or something along those lines. Or perhaps Alastor is "under cover". Just trying to keep his enemy closer by serving them to gain knowledge and find weaknesses. Roo would be less guarded around Alastor when all she had to do is yank his chain or threaten to rip his soul if he got out of line. Alastor is one that play the long game.

I know there's people who think Alastor wants to rule Hell. Which is fine, he might be. I just don't think so. But everyone concluded that Alastor wants to overthrow Lucier and take his place. But your idea...I love...it reaches further then that. To the embodiment of Evil itself. Reaching out into every dark nook and cranny in Hell. Its beautiful, really. Alastor wouldn't be one t o reach and dream small. If he acted out it would be go big or go home, and he would go BIG. Not be the top of the food chain of hierarchy of Hell. But Hell and the very idea of evil.

In short, I believe Alastor's ultimate goal is to become the new Root of Evil, which will effectively make him the unofficial ruler of all of Hell.

I love the idea Alastor wanting to embody the concept of evil. It also probably grant him more power, freedom and entertainment That can reach beyond Hell.

I don't think this would make canon but I am giddy with the idea.

Tho, I am a very big sucker of terrifying monster/demon/creature being a soft marshmallow for that found family.

Maybe the reason Alastor is trying to groom Charlie to come into her power more is because he thinks she may somehow have the power to destroy or at least overwhelm Roo, which will put Alastor in a position to steal her godlike abilities for himself.

He definitely grooming her to reach her power. At the moment, he only nudging her to point her down a direction he wants her to go on, but I think he have to start poking the bear or proddle harder to get Charlie to open to use her powers. Become the strongest being by accepting that power she refuse to use.

I think Charlie is key to the final arc between Heaven and Hell. Her heritage is of an angel and a sinner, yet she a product of Hell. She a demon of Hell but she never fallen or sinned to be placed in Hell. She seem to be a product that can connect to all three realms, Heave, Hell, Earth (living).

On Top of that, Charlie never really shown any evil intentions. Or seem lured by anything that is evil is disguised in. So, Roo going to have little to no influence of her. (Roo, taking advantage of the rest of the residence is another story) Charlies overwhelming optimistic pure good and kind influences (singing! Fight for love!) is going to overpower Roo.

Now, I think of it. I don't think Alastor ever tempted anyone to indulge in their darker whims. Or convinces them to follow a darker path. I know, he has little screen time with the other residence but I think he does nudge the residence to follow the better behavior. If they fail, it would be entertaining, but maybe, even he doesn't believe in redemption he wants the influence of evil to lessen? It's why he station himself at the hotel. The hotel contains the best ammunition we can use against Roo. Where her reach and influence would have a weaker hold against Charlies hold over the fellow sinners. It's an interesting thought, and I think it be a interesting fanfic if someone choose to write it.

[buzzworddotie]

A little (not quite) Anxiety Ramble

Do something! Do SOMETHING! Don’t stop doing something!

Welcome to 2020.

It won’t stop, my brain will not shut off. We’ve been in lockdown for… to be honest off the top of my head I can’t even get dates right but I’ve been in isolation mode, working from home for about 4 weeks now maybe?

On week 2, I became more lethargic than I ever have in my life, I withdrew from any contact with other people, my brain was in a fog, I couldn’t focus. My muscles were tired and refusing to function and my energy was entirely zapped.

I managed to pull myself out of that by attempting to not guilt myself for eating that bowl of carb loaded cereal or allowing myself to rationalise that it’s OK to just watch a movie.

But here I find myself in that cloudy little place again. My anxiety is in such a way that my brain refuses to shut down and my motivation is becoming a precious commodity that I’m unsure of how exactly to keep it in a steady flow.

When the anxiety kicks in like this for me, I stress and worry about every and any thing. Things entirely out of my control, other people, how I am perceived, why I am not now or have ever been good enough for anything or anyone. 

My rational brain packs its bags and heads for the door as I stare in the mirror and hate everything I see looking back. My doubts, my insecurities, my shame - every dark little voice that can be mustered up gets louder and louder.

And so I overthink every action I make, I try too hard to impress a version of myself on people. I try too hard to force anyone who might give a shit that I am in fact OK! And you know there’s nothing saner than someone screaming “I’M OK!!” directly into another person's face manically.

Sleeping is the worst, or in my case not sleeping. It doesn’t matter how tired I may or may not be, I can be assured that as soon as I lay my head down that anxiety demon comes alive.

I cannot remember the last time I slept for a solid 7 - 8 hours. I can recall what it feels like to be at complete odds and ends at 4am because it’s happening every goddamn night!

Is this a symptom of what is happening in the world right now or is it just an exemplification of how screwed up I might actually be? These are the beautiful thoughts which haunt my brain in between scrolling through Twitter or Reddit, telling myself to not scroll through Twitter or Reddit and then, you know, casually reminding myself that I will never be good enough for whatever the fuck I think I should be good enough for!

I’ve always been a bit of an introverted extrovert, or am I an extroverted introvert? I’m not sure, the point is I’ve never had a problem being a bit “isolated”. I’m quite happy in my own company and just pondering about, in my own little world doing whatever silly things I decide to do with myself. However, that world of mine was always interrupted with everyday interactions - people I work with, the ability to visit someone and general activities which we just take for granted.

I’m starting to even question if I am as introverted as I liked to think I was at all! I told myself that being locked down wasn’t a big deal for me, not a massive shift in my life. I’m single, I live alone… Just a real wholesome and healthy picture there! “I’m OK!!!”

First World Problems.

One thing about me I’ve known since childhood is that I love my independence. I was told by my parents growing up I was the most independent of all my siblings. There is a sense of freedom that comes with independence and I think losing that is throwing me for a bit of a loop.

The freedom and independence to just make a decision to do something in the moment and being able to just do it. Even the smallest, stupidest of things like going for a browse in a shop. Such a boring and mundane activity but an activity that clearly ticked some kind of box for my mind.

Of course, I am wary of banging on about this word “freedom” but allow me to state, I do not mean freedom with the gusto of some hardcore, right wing, gun toting Murican (Or the Irish lady, she whom shall not be named… We all know).

No, I’m not trying to suggest my first world concept of freedom is being threatened on some conspiracy level, I accept the merit in the fact that for a period of time we have to do what’s best for the greater good. But jaysus, it’s not easy at times is it?

Without the fundamental freedoms which I take for granted as everyday life it’s as if my brain is being withheld vital nutrients for it to operate full steam ahead. Don’t get me wrong, this anxiety trip isn’t a new phenomenon for me, I know the bitch well, but I had such a great grip on things and I think the hardest part for a minute there was trying to figure out how I was allowing it all to spiral so ferociously when I know I have the tools to not do that.

It also bothers me because I am, by nature, incredibly laid back and positive. I flip between Energizer Bunny, Everything is Awesome and easily passing for a hippie stoner on my good days. So seeing myself behave erratically at times now makes me not recognise or like the person I am having to live with during this lockdown! Her neediness and desire to please is very, very off putting to me.

But maybe I just need to let her be a little bit, maybe I just need to let her know that it is fine. It is fine if a momentary lapse in the mind causes a mini freak out which embodies itself as wanting to just shut down, it is fine if she does just go a bit OTT at times with people to overly compensate for how weak and low she is feeling. It’s fine.

It is fine. Once you recognise that that’s all it is, it does not lessen your worth to behave in a way you might later regret and it does not lessen your value if you allow your insecurities or vulnerabilities to sneak through every now and then. You just have to hope that whoever is lucky enough to get the brunt of your vulnerability can appreciate the value in getting a taste of it at all. Because that right there, that vulnerability, that is a precious thing which is not afforded to many, if any at all. 

It is the most beautiful aspect of humanity, to be vulnerable. And it is really fucking hard to let go of. Vulnerability takes an incredible amount of strength, it’s a feather that keeps on floating through regardless of how much dirt and debris gets attached to weigh it down. It is delicate and strong all at the same time. 

And for me, it is terrifying to let that wall down. It feels frightening to think for a moment I let someone see weakness or gave a hint that I, with all my positivity and strength and being there for other people, could have a moment of weakness. It cracks the veneer of who I want to pretend I am.

Meet my friend, Anxiety.

Anxiety has been an under current which has existed within me since my childhood but something I only recognised as I began to get older and, yes, get help. Speaking to a professional allowed me the opportunity to begin to understand myself and learn about myself, gain self awareness.

Where I am now compared to where I was back then are completely opposed. At its worst, I was consumed by my anxiety and all the other little niggly things which tortured my brain. It all manifested in self-hate usually, maybe hate is a strong word but certainly a really strong dislike of myself! I would allow that to spin in circles in my mind until I was lost in it and trying to fix a million and one things about myself and others which really, was all very surface or non-existent.

The difference today is that I can, at last, recognise it. I can see the signs, at times I am deep within them and it takes a step back to shake it off and see it but at least I can find it within myself to rationalise and take that step back.

It doesn’t make it easy, there is nothing easy about managing mental health in the same sense there is nothing easy about managing physical health. If I want that toned stomach I will have to feel the burn and it has to work the same for mental health too!

Jesus, it is not easy at times. I will always remember an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race in which the contestant Katya suffered severely from debilitating anxiety. During a walk through Ru asked the Queen if she was, in fact, addicted to the anxiety. This registered with Katya and as time has gone by and that interaction replays in my own mind, I realise it often registers for me too.

When it is all you know, you can easily become all consumed by the anxiety, the worry, the stress and you can get sucked right down into it. And you can find a level of comfort within that discomfort, it’s recognisable and it can feel easier to submit yourself to it than seek out the light and pull yourself back from it.

When I break it down I can see the various triggers for my anxiety:

Opening up and being vulnerable = Opening myself up for rejection.

Feeling like I cannot help = Opening myself up for failure.

Failure, rejection = Not good enough. 

Attempting to improve and increase my self worth is really something that I never understood was such an issue for me, mostly because the concept of “self worth” was never something that even showed up on my radar. But guess what? It’s a thing! 

Self love is not about having an over inflated and delirious ego, it is about recognising that you do have worth as a human being. Recognise yourself as a human being.

Oh god, she’s going to talk about her childhood...

So, why is it that I may not have always recognised myself as a human being, worthy of care and love? Well, I will refrain from the details that will cause my very being to quiver but I was raised in a home in which I received a lot of love, but it was unstable. Arguments, raised voices, depression and a lack of seeing love between my parents. A tumultuous family backstory which, while I was not in existence for much of it, carried a heavy cloud over all proceedings. I was in existence for difficult times with siblings and parents who butted heads constantly. 

I was a witness, I was shielded from being on the receiving end for the most part but I still stayed awake at night waiting for things to take a turn for the worse. I jumped at nothing and everything, like a scared little mouse. I was reserved and private with friends, I held the problems into myself and did not expose anyone to it. 

As well as this, I faced a level of mental, physical and, like so many other girls and women out there, sexual abuse. I won’t delve into all the details but it seems like some sick, twisted joke that once you are forced to be subjected to this as a child, you do not recognise the issue with it which leaves you vulnerable for it again as you mature into an adult and set off on your own.

This is because your self worth has been destroyed. So when you see ladies coming to the fore as part of #MeToo or another movement, or no movement at all, don’t be so quick to judge. These ladies have likely held their tongue because their self worth has been so low that until they became exposed to others discussing it they didn’t even realise what had happened to them.

I won’t dwell too long on that, I could spend a long time dissecting it but it isn’t for now.

I will note, neither of my parents were responsible for that abuse. However, what my beautiful, kind and lovely parents were responsible for was me and as much as it absolutely kills me to have to admit, there were failings. Aside from generally being exposed to an unhappy home, as a child I was used to bridge the gap. Something which ran into my adulthood.

If my father was angry, upset or, as I now reflect and realise, in a spiral of depression it was my responsibility to pick him out of it. From a young age, I was the fixer - a tool to try to make things better. 

Until I actually discussed this with a professional I never saw the problem here, everything was normalised to me, but apparently not great! It’s a lot of pressure to put on a child!

Add into that a complex / chip on my shoulder of never being as good as an older sibling, whom I perceived as the ‘golden child’, feeling like I had to keep things hurting me hidden for fear of disrupting an already disruptive home for which I felt responsible for keeping the peace or holding together and well, you get yourself a nice little stew that is a recipe for absolute fucked up adulthood!

Honest Reflection.

How could I ever expect to grow into a well developed individual? The balance of genuine love I did receive from my parents is what I believe kept me from falling down an even more desperate track, a track which I pondered along on many occasions. A dark road with flickering lights where the allure of escape was often far too real.

However, my internal commentary of having to be responsible for others actually kept me from ending it on many occasions as I could not release the feeling of not wanting to let anyone down.

Jesus, unpack this shit and it’s an absolute shit show! But I don’t claim to be special or unique, the sad reality is how many people went through a similar journey or worse and are now in their early to mid adulthood and attempting to get to grips with it all. And that’s only if they managed to find the tools and resources to recognise it in the first place.

Recognise that 1. You are not mental and 2. You are not a terrible human being. 

I can’t speak to anyone else but clearly I have lacked the tools to manage or cope with my emotions. Anything outside of my control freaks me out and I lose the absolute run of myself! I panic, I seek out approval and validation and often in unhealthy ways. I have had eating disorders which I have been in denial about, I have drank too much, gone off the rails and slept with far too many people! 

What now? What triggered my writing, which has evidently turned into an unintentional essay about myself (fair play if you’ve made it this far, you’re a better person than me).

I recognised irrational behaviour and a deep dip in my mood as well as an increase of self critical behaviours. That was when I began writing, this is now the future, or present, or wait, is this inception? I’ve incepted myself, just know as you read now a couple of days have passed.

And it took those couple of days for the lightbulb to click on but better late than never! 

Let there be Light!

I began writing this aimlessly as a means to just put my thoughts down and that was a step in the direction of realising I had to do something. I am now slowly picking myself back up from it all.

First step, I went to the chemist and I just asked what can you give me for anxiety, I am not sleeping, I have not had a proper night sleep in close to two weeks or more - I asked for…… Help!

Gulp, scary, try it sometime.

The Pharmacist gave me a product called “Avena Sativa” (check it out). I added 20-30 drops to a little bit of water and it immediately relaxed and eased my mind. I took more before bed and baby, when I say I slept! Pure, deep, joyful sleep - all the z’s.

But wait, there’s more! Thinking I might as well hit this from all angles, I also grabbed some Vitamin D supplements and began retaking my B-12. I don’t know if one or all of these things did the trick but I can certainly feel the easing effects.

So that’s the taking stuff, but that isn’t all I did - Oh no, that would be too short for me!

I knew I really needed to hit this hard if I wanted to pull myself out of the hole I could eventually be down deep within. I’m a fan of meditation, I get that some skeptical people might huff it off as new age hippie nonsense or whatever, but it can work. Youtube has a host of wonderful meditation videos and for me, switching off from the world and onto one of those helps me massively. 

Additionally, I stopped hanging out of my phone, for the best part at least. I have a bit of anxiety with my phone (of course I do). I went through a period of time where my phone was a bearer of bad news, any phone call could have been bad news and eventually, it was. I realised I find it hard to let go of that, the idea that if I do not have my phone on me and with sound on 24/7 I risk not getting an important piece of news, I risk letting someone down or not being there as I should be.

Should = dangerous word. Don’t let ‘should’ govern your life or mind. Every ‘should’ is an expectation and additional level of stress you are putting on yourself. Best advice I received was to replace ‘I should’ with ‘I want to’ and see what the end result becomes.

Let’s wrap this up.

All in all, this is a time that can lead those susceptible to anxiety, and even those who are not typically, to find themselves in the mental trenches. It’s imperative to look at yourself from the outside and attempt to recognise what might be the deep rooted cause of what is effing you up. Do you really hate your body right now or is your self worth a bit low because of some other reason that deserves to be addressed?

Maybe consider going a bit easy on yourself? Don’t beat yourself up over that response or message that you regret. Don’t assume you can control others, just be yourself. Speak your truth at any given time and allow yourself that beautiful release of scary, scary vulnerability. 

Don’t run from it or beat yourself up over every and any little interaction or negative thought, give yourself a break and pull yourself out of the addiction of dark thoughts. Seek out help, ask for help - even if you are just asking yourself. Make healthy choices that will have a knock on effect of making you feel good about yourself or happy in your decision.

It is far from easy, but again, nothing worth having in this life is ever easy. But then the end result, when you push through and put in that effort - it is so, so very worth it to be able to have that moment of that day when you actually don’t doubt yourself or hate yourself.

I will keep motoring along with my own work and efforts and I ask that you do the same, if you find yourself in that dark place. Push through and don’t give up on yourself, you’re all you’ve got and that’s a pretty amazing thing to have.

[gwiiyeoweo]

“Wake the fuck up, grandpa. We’ve got gods to kill.”

Noctis looks upon him with a wicked grin, the moonlight outlining his silhouette with a fine silver and casting a shadow across his face. But the way his eyes glow, a deep and ominous magenta that cuts through the darkness, makes Ardyn think of him the great oppressing villain instead. And beside him, the ever-merciful Oracle, only smiles along sweetly.

Pairing: Noctis & Ardyn, Lunafreya & Noctis, Lunafreya & Ardyn Rating: Gen

“Wake the fuck up, grandpa. We’ve got gods to kill.”

Ardyn wakes up to a light smack on his cheek, just hard enough to leave a light sting across his face. Either he’s hallucinating or it’s just another horrid nightmare, one of the countless that have plagued him since his imprisonment in this stone tomb. How many times has he awakened to such a scene? Seemingly waking up to a voice and the sensation of another’s hands on him, only to open his eyes to ever darkness and the cold stale air? To feel the chains digging into his flesh and the holy iron piercing into his innards.

So he doesn’t bother opening his eyes, knowing there’s only disappointment should he expect anything other than silence and emptiness.

Until he hears a sigh. Until he hears a woman’s soft song.

Until the chains rattle and the stones quake, and he feels warmth ghost over his skin.

When he wakes out of his daze, there’s no pain piercing through his flesh or the ache in his bones. There’s certainly still a fatigue, yes, that weighs down his body, but the agony is no longer. Relief is an understatement, and he almost wants to cry. He doesn’t know whether to consider this a new, terribly cruel nightmare that’s given him false hope, or a dream that’s arrived as a short mercy. 

So Ardyn opens his eyes, and he thinks he sees Aera and Somnus above him. They both look younger — a funny thing, knowing he’s been imprisoned for at least a dozen years — though Aera’s hair is longer and Somnus looks far, far younger between the two of them. It’s almost cruel, considering how realistic this dream is, and some part of him wants to weep upon seeing them like this. Aera, who he knows is dead, cradling him in her arms with all the warmth of life in her skin. Somnus, who condemned him to this prison in the first place, looking upon him with genuine concern.

How Ardyn misses those days, longs for them.

“Should I smack him harder?” Somnus suggests, and Ardyn thinks that must certainly be his brother, even if the voice is different. The unease is still on his face, however, etched into the corners of his mouth and the set of his eyes. 

“Noctis, please.” Aera, despite the exasperation in her voice, is soft as always. Though the pitch is different. Has all the years robbed him of their memories, so that he can no longer remember the tone of their voices? 

Ardyn wonders what cruel power decided to have its fun with him. Giving him the illusion of freedom — chains released and iron removed — and his family and love returned to him. But the fog in his mind keeps him from going any further than that, and he doesn’t even have the mind to wonder who this Noctis is. He can’t even offer up any resistance except for weak grunts as Somnus hefts him bodily along, both staggering out the long rocky corridor that leads outside his prison.

But when he’s carried out of Angelgard, witnessing the soft lights high across the night sky and breathing in the sea salt air, his heart stops itself thrice over. The first time, it’s at the realization that this isn’t a dream but reality. The second, when he sees Somnus and Aera properly under the bright moonlight, and sees they are not Somnus and Aera after all. 

And the third, after they’ve properly introduced themselves, when they claim to herald from a time and space not too different yet wholly distinct from his own.

“I don’t think you got the memo yet,” Noctis says, stroking his chin. But he pulls his hand away and stares at it, feels for his chin again and mutters something about not being thirty anymore. 

Ardyn doesn’t really understand the notion behind that, but he really has no time to try considering he’s still trying to wrap his head around everything else that seems far more important and life-altering.

On the ride back to the coast, where he can make out the outline of a tall tower — a dead lighthouse, according to Noctis — there’s plenty of time for Ardyn to get filled in on this “memo.” It’s a fantastical story, albeit a tragic one, of a prince and his retinue travelling to meet his fiancée, only to discover his kingdom and his father have met an untimely end and that his bachelor road trip was only the beginning of a grim spiral towards death. 

It’s a story of how Ardyn, gone mad from centuries of imprisonment and betrayal of those he once loved and the gods he worshipped, promised a reckoning upon the world. 

More than half of this was going over Ardyn’s head, despite how much he wants to understand. He thinks he gets the gist of it — most of the prophecy part anyway — though some part of him is in denial that he really would become this embodiment of evil the two claim him to be.

But by the time they near the coast, he can see it. See his descent into madness from years of isolation, experimentation, fear and anger and betrayal. 

When they reach the underground dock and both Noctis and Luna help him down and across, Ardyn almost doesn’t believe them. Not because of the tales they speak, but because despite everything their Ardyn has done to them, they don’t regard him with venom or malice or a demand for retribution. Luna fetches him an extra blanket, and Noctis goes off for only a moment to return with water and unrecognizable food. 

Ardyn takes it all with gratitude anyhow, wraps the blanket around him tighter and downs the glass in one go, even if he half-expects it to be poisoned because such kindness really should not be given to someone that wanted to doom the world. 

Which makes him wonder. Which makes him realize. 

‘Ah, ’ Ardyn thinks, in resignation, ‘they’ve come to end me. Before tragedy strikes.’

It’s logical. It makes sense, far more sense than having them treat their would-be enemy with such tenderness. They probably just want the peace of mind of giving him a tranquil death, some last reprieve before sending him off. 

Still, that’s kind of them. It’s far better than spending centuries dying and dying and dying in a rotten tomb.

“So yeah. Long story short, we got the short end of the stick,” Noctis sums it up, taking the seat across from Ardyn. “You and me were in for some double-suicide thing because Bahamut said so, Luna died because you were being an asshole —”

“In Ardyn’s defense,” Luna interrupts, voice awfully mild despite the fate she suffered — or would suffer — at future(?) Ardyn’s hand, “I would die regardless due to the covenants. And this Ardyn isn’t quite yet the same one we knew.”

“ Yet. Anyway, and if I didn’t manage to kill you? Dragon dick had a back-up plan to zombie-fy Luna and literally vaporize the entire world. So yeah, good-bye humanity that I was apparently supposed to save.”

“And… now?” Ardyn asks, hesitant, then motions a hand to himself, “You've come to nip the bud, I assume.”

Noctis stares at him, then widens his eyes just a fraction in surprise. He turns to Lunafreya, who shares the same expression, and they exchange silent words and sweeping eyebrows. It doesn't take long for them to separate, when Luna turns her head and hides her smile behind her hand, her stifled laughter still evident despite her efforts. Noctis is much the same, though he doesn't even try hiding his face. 

Ardyn isn't as amused as either of them however, and his confusion must show because Noctis quickly recovers and goes for an explanation. 

"No, gods, no. I can't believe you — what would be the point of us getting you out of Angelgard in the first place? There are quicker ways to kill a man y'know. Don't tell me you were this naive back in your day." Noctis shakes his head, but the amusement in his eyes remain. 

Ardyn still doesn't get it. If they're not here to kill him, to stop him before this foretold darkness comes to pass, then why are they here? The prophecy must still exist, the Scourge is still within him — he can feel it crawling and slithering underneath his skin — and no doubt the gods would have his soul banished if they can help it. And no doubt that they'll use every little trick they can.

"I don't understand," Ardyn says slowly, wondering what they would possibly need him for if not for his death. "If you're not here for me, then for what have you come here for?" 

Noctis looks upon him with a wicked grin, the moonlight outlining his silhouette with a fine silver and casting a shadow across his face. But the way his eyes glow, a deep and ominous magenta that cuts through the darkness, makes Ardyn think of him the great oppressing villain instead. And beside him, the ever-merciful Oracle, only smiles along sweetly. 

“Like I said: we’ve got gods to kill.”

[madamlaydebug]

BECOME SO FREE THAT YOUR VERY EXISTENCE IS AN ACT OF REBELLION

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." -- Albert Camus

"The mind must free itself from all kinds of “schools," religions, sects, beliefs, etc. All those “cages” are obstacles which render the mind incapable of thinking freely. It is necessary for the mind to become free of the illusions of this world and become a fine and marvelous instrument of the Inner Being." -- Samael Aun Weor

"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." -- Dresden James

"There comes a time in the growth of every living individual thing when it realizes with dawning consciousness that it is a prisoner. While apparently free to move and have its being, the struggling life cognizes through ever greater vehicles its own limitations. It is at this point that man cries out with greater insistence to be liberated from the binding ties which, though invisible to mortal eyes, still chain him with bonds far more terrible than those of any physical prison." -- Manly P. Hall

"The world that your reason wants to sustain is the world created by a description and its dogmatic and inviolable rules, which the reason learns to accept and defend.” -- Don Juan from “Tales of Power” by Carlos Castaneda

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -- Jiddu Krishnamurti

"The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed." -- Adolf Hitler

"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true." -- Adyashanti

"Man’s power to create and achieve contentment in his life is dependent on his freedom from the shackles which have en­slaved him. The Divine gift of creative mind power was given to man unsolicited by him. Therefore, it is to be used by him for his own redemption and advancement. By the same token this bless­ing must not be limited by the decrees or dogmas, the faiths or fallacies, of any group or organization." -- The Cathedral Of The Soul by H. Spencer Lewis, Ph. D., F.R.C.

“A human being is a part of the Whole, called by us, Universe, a part limited in Time and Space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical Delusion of his Consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of Nature in its beauty.” -- Albert Einstein

“The Real Self is dangerous: dangerous to the established church, dangerous to the state, dangerous to the crowd, dangerous to tradition, because once a man knows his real self, he becomes an individual.” -- Osho

"One must suffer the experience of leaving behind not only what we know, but also what we think we know of ourselves." -- Rudolf Steiner

"There are things that are not yet true today, perhaps we are not yet permitted to recognize them as true, although they may be true tomorrow. Therefore every pioneer must take his own path, alone but hopeful, with the open eyes of one who is conscious of its solitude and of the perils of its dim precipices." -- Carl Gustav Jung

“You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” – Navajo proverb

“If you are unprogrammed in the cultural causa-sui project, then you have to invent your own: you don’t vibrate to anyone else’s tune. You see that the fabrications of those around you are a lie, a denial of truth. A creative person becomes then, in art, literature, and religion the mediator of natural terror and the indicator of a new way to triumph over it. He reveals the darkness and the dread of the human condition and fabricates a new symbolic transcendence over it. This has been the function of the creative deviant from shamans through Shakespeare.” – Ernest Becker

“When one speaks of awakening it means dehypnotisation; coming to your senses. But of course to do that you have to go out of your mind.” -- Alan Watts

"Individuality is a product of Maya--the principle that creates ignorance or illusion. Under its spell, an individual forgets his true identity with the Absolute and becomes a victim of embodiment, identifying himself with the body & mind. Believing himself to be a man or a woman and to belong to a certain caste, creed, nation or a race, and so forth. The innate nature of the true Self is not affected by these notions, yet one regards these superimpositions as real. Just as a mirage is regarded as real by a person wandering through the desert, even though the true nature of the desert remains unaffected by the mirage. The goal of Vedanta is to awaken the individual from the hypnotic belief in his embodiment caused by the forgetfulness of the real Self. This forgetfulness is the cause of friction and fear which in turn sets in motion the unending cycle of birth and death, as governed by the inexorable Law of Karma. This ‘de-hypnotisation' is only possible through Self-Knowledge. Ignorance is the root cause of embodiment and its various ramifications, and can be dispelled only by knowledge and not by any form of action.

-- as stated by Lord Shri Krishna in Shrimad Bhagwath Gita

“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.” -- Frantz Fanon

"Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview that is grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers. Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins their journey of awakening. Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over veils of ignorance." -- Henri Bergson, 1907

“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.” -- Plato

"Being considered crazy by those who are still victims of cultural conditioning is a compliment." -- Jason Hairston

"When you shed the cultural operating system then essentially you stand naked before the inspection of your own psyche... and it's from that position, a position outside the cultural operating system, that we can begin to ask real questions..." -- Terence McKenna

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes, is false.”

– William Casey, CIA Director (from first staff meeting, 1981)

[steadyowlvision]

BECOME SO FREE THAT YOUR VERY EXISTENCE IS AN ACT OF REBELLION

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." -- Albert Camus

"The mind must free itself from all kinds of “schools," religions, sects, beliefs, etc. All those “cages” are obstacles which render the mind incapable of thinking freely. It is necessary for the mind to become free of the illusions of this world and become a fine and marvelous instrument of the Inner Being." -- Samael Aun Weor

"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." -- Dresden James

"There comes a time in the growth of every living individual thing when it realizes with dawning consciousness that it is a prisoner. While apparently free to move and have its being, the struggling life cognizes through ever greater vehicles its own limitations. It is at this point that man cries out with greater insistence to be liberated from the binding ties which, though invisible to mortal eyes, still chain him with bonds far more terrible than those of any physical prison." -- Manly P. Hall

"The world that your reason wants to sustain is the world created by a description and its dogmatic and inviolable rules, which the reason learns to accept and defend.” -- Don Juan from “Tales of Power” by Carlos Castaneda

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -- Jiddu Krishnamurti

"The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed." -- Adolf Hitler

"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true." -- Adyashanti

"Man’s power to create and achieve contentment in his life is dependent on his freedom from the shackles which have en­slaved him. The Divine gift of creative mind power was given to man unsolicited by him. Therefore, it is to be used by him for his own redemption and advancement. By the same token this bless­ing must not be limited by the decrees or dogmas, the faiths or fallacies, of any group or organization." -- The Cathedral Of The Soul by H. Spencer Lewis, Ph. D., F.R.C.

“A human being is a part of the Whole, called by us, Universe, a part limited in Time and Space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical Delusion of his Consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of Nature in its beauty.” -- Albert Einstein

“The Real Self is dangerous: dangerous to the established church, dangerous to the state, dangerous to the crowd, dangerous to tradition, because once a man knows his real self, he becomes an individual.” -- Osho

"One must suffer the experience of leaving behind not only what we know, but also what we think we know of ourselves." -- Rudolf Steiner

"There are things that are not yet true today, perhaps we are not yet permitted to recognize them as true, although they may be true tomorrow. Therefore every pioneer must take his own path, alone but hopeful, with the open eyes of one who is conscious of its solitude and of the perils of its dim precipices." -- Carl Gustav Jung

“You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” – Navajo proverb

“If you are unprogrammed in the cultural causa-sui project, then you have to invent your own: you don’t vibrate to anyone else’s tune. You see that the fabrications of those around you are a lie, a denial of truth. A creative person becomes then, in art, literature, and religion the mediator of natural terror and the indicator of a new way to triumph over it. He reveals the darkness and the dread of the human condition and fabricates a new symbolic transcendence over it. This has been the function of the creative deviant from shamans through Shakespeare.” – Ernest Becker

“When one speaks of awakening it means dehypnotisation; coming to your senses. But of course to do that you have to go out of your mind.” -- Alan Watts

"Individuality is a product of Maya--the principle that creates ignorance or illusion. Under its spell, an individual forgets his true identity with the Absolute and becomes a victim of embodiment, identifying himself with the body & mind. Believing himself to be a man or a woman and to belong to a certain caste, creed, nation or a race, and so forth. The innate nature of the true Self is not affected by these notions, yet one regards these superimpositions as real. Just as a mirage is regarded as real by a person wandering through the desert, even though the true nature of the desert remains unaffected by the mirage. The goal of Vedanta is to awaken the individual from the hypnotic belief in his embodiment caused by the forgetfulness of the real Self. This forgetfulness is the cause of friction and fear which in turn sets in motion the unending cycle of birth and death, as governed by the inexorable Law of Karma. This ‘de-hypnotisation' is only possible through Self-Knowledge. Ignorance is the root cause of embodiment and its various ramifications, and can be dispelled only by knowledge and not by any form of action.

-- as stated by Lord Shri Krishna in Shrimad Bhagwath Gita

“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.” -- Frantz Fanon

"Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview that is grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers. Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins their journey of awakening. Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over veils of ignorance." -- Henri Bergson, 1907

“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.” -- Plato

"Being considered crazy by those who are still victims of cultural conditioning is a compliment." -- Jason Hairston

"When you shed the cultural operating system then essentially you stand naked before the inspection of your own psyche... and it's from that position, a position outside the cultural operating system, that we can begin to ask real questions..." -- Terence McKenna

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes, is false.”

– William Casey, CIA Director (from first staff meeting, 1981)

[onpaperintofilm]

Julie Christie The most honest and revealing of actresses, she speaks a language of her own that we instantly understand. 1 STEPHANIE ZACHAREK 06.12.2001•9:06 AM Al Pacino was once asked in a Playboy interview what actress he'd most like to work with. His answer: "Julie Christie, because she's the most poetic actress." "Poetic" is the best possible word to describe Julie Christie. If every great actor embodies an essential paradox, Christie's is that she's both tigress-direct and fawn-subtle, often at the same time -- the cross section of haiku and a sonnet. You find yourself watching in wonder to unravel the quiet but sometimes ferocious mystery of her performances, from her shallow social climber in John Schlesinger's 1965 "Darling" to her shrewd but ferally tender madam in Robert Altman's 1971 "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" to her fragile Gertrude in Kenneth Branagh's 1996 "Hamlet." Many of her characters are, on the surface, crisp, forthright, almost businesslike, but there's always a soft layer of vulnerability beneath her fine-boned beauty. She's naked even when fully clothed. Christie was born in India in 1941, where her father ran a tea plantation. She went to school in England and Europe, eventually enrolling in the Central School of Music and Drama in London in 1957. As a young professional actress, she did stage work and had a regular role in a British TV series, "A for Andromeda," in the early '60s. In 1963 she appeared in Schlesinger's drab working-class comedy-drama "Billy Liar," and although it wasn't her film debut, she grabbed the attention of movie audiences and critics. The story of a young man, played by Tom Courtenay, who retreats into a fantasy world to escape his unglamorous life, "Billy Liar" is leaden and vaguely smug; we're made to feel beaten down by the monotony of Courtenay's life, so that by the movie's disheartening conclusion, we're well primed for self-congratulation: "You see, we knew nothing would work out right in the end." But Christie, as the vibrant young woman who represents the last shred of real-life hope for Courtenay, brightens the movie whenever she appears. Her character has no depth or resonance, but she's pure light. As the sunny, fearless girl who appears seemingly out of nowhere to tempt Courtenay to freedom and fun -- freedom and fun that he has difficulty allowing himself, at least in real life -- she's like a vision of everything the '60s were, at their best, to become. It's supposed to be tragic that Courtenay can't partake of them, or of her. But when he and Christie part at the movie's end, you barely feel sorry for him. Her smile, dazzling at the age of 22, scotches the final effect of the movie: We're left thinking, How could the boy be such a schmuck to let her go? Christie was flying high by 1965, appearing in two major films: Schlesinger's "Darling" (for which she would win an Academy Award) and David Lean's "Doctor Zhivago," in which she played Lara, the tragic heroine. But "tragic heroine" isn't quite the right phrase for what Christie does in that picture. The term implies histrionics, or at least some sort of submerged melodrama. Christie carries the core of the movie's sorrow -- and that means the sorrow of revolutionary Russia, as well as her own -- not just in her hopelessly blue eyes, but in the set of her jaw. She's stalwart, brave, reliable beyond compare, and still, she suffers. What Christie doesn't do is turn the performance into an exercise in masochism. Before she even played one, she proved she had the heart and soul of a Thomas Hardy heroine -- a woman who was made to bear sadness but retain her inner dignity at all costs. But before Christie would tackle Hardy, she put an entirely different sort of woman on the screen: shallow, clever, earth-quakingly gorgeous and determined to be a star regardless of the emotional cost to herself and those around her. In "Darling" Christie played Diana Scott, a fashion model who hooks up with a brainy TV journalist (Dirk Bogarde) only to end up ditching him for a cold, dashing figure who can introduce her to more of the "right" people (Laurence Harvey). The story is supposed to be a morality tale, a snapshot of swinging '60s greed and corruption, but Schlesinger layers on so much heavy-handed irony that it's really more of a cartoon. I'm not sure what the movie looked like to audiences in 1965, but in 2001, it's all too easy to watch it and decree with a shiver that, yes, those '60s people were all too dreadful. There's something more than vaguely distasteful about the way "Darling" cooingly reassures us it's better to be conventional, "normal," because you're more likely to end up a moral human being that way. It's numbingly facile -- no deeper than an air kiss. The thing that's amazing about "Darling" is the way Christie takes a chalky caricature and turns her into a human being. She unintentionally undermines the movie: While you're supposed to be tsk-tsking over her behavior, you see that the same gears that drive her manipulativeness also throw off blazingly intelligent sparks. Christie swaddles Diana's matchstick frailty in heartlessness, but she knows it's a transparent cloak. As Pete Townshend sang not long after, in a song that had nothing to do with Christie but everything to do with the hypocrisy that "Darling" tried so hard to expose, "I can see right through your plastic mac." In "Darling," Christie, the most honest of actresses, doesn't even bother to do up the buttons. When "Darling" became a hit, both in the U.K. and stateside, Christie, even more so than most movie stars, began to represent more than just the parts she chose and the way she played them. She represented the spirit and style of her era, but not in a way that was forgotten in a month or two. Even today, Christie still stands as the actress of the '60s, the way Clara Bow was the "It" girl of the '20s. It had not only to do with her talent, nor even with the fact that she was English. (To be English in the '60s was coolness itself.) She seemed to speak a language of her own, a language her contemporaries instantly understood, in the way she carried herself and the way she dressed. "What Julie Christie wears has more real impact on fashion than all the clothes of the ten Best-Dressed women combined," Time magazine decreed in 1967, and for once, Time was right. Captured in fashion photos from the era, Christie paints even the most ridiculous clothes with dignity. In pictures from the late '60s, she's the model of droopy elegance in haute-hippie garb. Just a few years earlier, in a mid-'60s fashion shot by David Bailey, we'd seen her looking serious and gorgeous in a dress of shimmery paillettes, their silliness offsetting her sun-kissed gravity. From the mid-'60s to the mid-'70s, Christie was a major presence in popular movies. In 1967 she played that Hardy heroine for real in Schlesinger's "Far From the Madding Crowd," a picture that captured the bleak beauty of Hardy perfectly. As Bathsheba Everdene, a plucky, self-sufficient landowner who becomes enmeshed in the love of three different men, Christie again balances that graciously composed façade with an innocence that's buried deep; she shows a kind of cautious openness to the world around her. What makes her Bathsheba so moving is that no matter how many trials she faces, she never seems to be on the verge of cracking. Instead, she lets you see, with little more than the flicker of an eyelid or a reserved smile, how painful it is to persevere, and to bend. An extraordinary cast joined Christie, including Terence Stamp and Alan Bates, but the movie was rejected by the same audiences that loved the supposedly with-it quality of "Darling." "Far From the Madding Crowd" is a picture that has never quite received its due; it ranks among Schlesinger's best work, as well as Christie's. Christie racked up an astonishing number of movie credits through the late '70s, among them François Truffaut's "Fahrenheit 451" (1966), Richard Lester's "Petulia" (1968), Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now" (1973) and Warren Beatty and Buck Henry's "Heaven Can Wait" (1978). She has worked fairly steadily since then, although she hasn't always been in the spotlight. Notoriously guarded about her private life, she's the kind of actress who resurfaces now and then in a terrific performance, and you ask yourself where on earth she's been. In 1997 she appeared opposite Nick Nolte in Alan Rudolph's "Afterglow," for which she earned an Academy Award nomination. In 1996, she played an aging but still incontrovertibly sensual Gertrude in Branagh's "Hamlet"; it was one of the most remarkable performances of her career. But my two favorite Christie performances, four years apart, seem like spiritual counterparts to each other. They also, as it happens, feature the same costar, Warren Beatty, with whom Christie was romantically involved in the early '70s. It seemed that once Beatty and Christie -- who reteamed for a third time in 1978's "Heaven Can Wait" -- locked in to each other's natural rhythms, as lovers do, there was no turning back. They're one of the most natural, effortless movie pairings ever. In both Altman's "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and Hal Ashby's 1975 "Shampoo," Christie is the tougher one, the woman who faces up to everything that her male partner just can't. In "McCabe," she's Constance Miller, a brothel madam who sweeps into Presbyterian Church, the frontier town run by John McCabe (Beatty), ready to get down to business. There's something lustful, but not sensual, about the way she sits down at the town cafe and orders up "four eggs fried, stew and strong tea." It's the equivalent of a Wild West power lunch. She eats it like a man or, more specifically, like a convict, shoveling the chow into her gob with one hand as she hunches protectively over the plate. McCabe watches, enchanted and a little abashed. He has fallen in love. On the other hand, the only time Mrs. Miller succumbs to sensuality is when she sets herself adrift on opium: Her eyes soften, and their gaze reaches out as if to embrace an imaginary lover. She's much less yielding with the shambling, stuttering, heartbreakingly decent McCabe, who becomes her lover. He pays for the privilege, of course. She wouldn't have it any other way. Mrs. Miller wears the pants in this tale, and disguised as a sweeping skirt, they're that much more threatening. Her jaw line -- that superb jaw line -- is like a ship's anchor; her hair is aquiver with tiny ringlets, as if hooked up to their own private energy source. She's the kind of woman even a tough man would steer clear of, which is what makes her moments of tenderness with McCabe so lovely. At one point McCabe comes to her quarters, distraught and trying to hide it, muttering something about how he's never been so close to a woman before. You can practically see Mrs. Miller's own guarded vulnerability welling up inside her, and she's less able to bear that than she is McCabe's weakness. Her eyes soften just barely as she cajoles him into bed: "Hey -- why don't you just get under the covers, huh?" Mrs. Miller knows McCabe better than he knows himself, but she knows herself best of all. That's why the film's final image is so haunting, and so troubling: After McCabe's death, we see Miller propped up and floating into an opium dream, a slight smile playing across her lips. She doesn't know he's dead, but their separation is final nonetheless. He's gone, and he's taken her with him, figuratively speaking; she's never coming back. It's as if her heart, brittle by nature, has broken into two clean pieces, cracked at the hinge like a busted locket. She's as surprised as anybody that it could have happened. Christie's character in "Shampoo," high-class gold digger Jackie, is in many ways softer than Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Miller has worked so hard at cultivating a tough shell that she's forgotten how to be tender; Jackie yearns to be soft toward the man she loves, Beatty's philandering hairdresser George, her ex-boyfriend, but her sense of self-preservation demands that she harden herself toward him. Christie's performance in "Shampoo" is one of the most mournfully luminous things ever put on film. Her vulnerability courses through the movie like a barely audible heartbeat, even when, or especially when, she's trying to treat George indifferently. Her beauty is so cool in "Shampoo" -- her hair is a subtle ash blond sweep (no garish Tiffany-gold tresses for her), and there are times when her lips curl into a crocodile smile that's almost predatory. But when she and George fall into a discussion of his restless habits, and he tells her bluntly, "I don't fuck anybody for money, I do it for fun," you have to watch Christie's face carefully for the crestfallen look that flickers across it. Suddenly, it's gone, replaced by her usual crisp composure. Christie is the sort of actress who reveals more of herself in what she hides than she does in any broad gesture or expression. In one of her most remarkable moments in "Shampoo," we don't even see her face. But we can read it even so. She and George, inching toward a reconciliation, find themselves alone in a darkened bathhouse at a swinging party. He has confessed to her, in words that we desperately want to believe, that she's the only one he loves, that he can't imagine growing old with anyone else. We see her drinking the words in cautiously, as if she doesn't dare let herself believe them. Not long after, just as she and George have begun making love, his current girlfriend walks in on them. George leaps up to run after her, leaving Jackie behind in the dark. She isn't, of course, in total darkness. She sits up, and we see her from behind, a naked back that's less like a body part than a lithe sliver of light. But it's a piece of light we can read like a book, a sensual curve in the darkness. With her back to the world, Christie betrays a wealth of feeling that we perhaps couldn't bear to look at in her face. The curve of her spine speaks of resignation, and one last, major disappointment in love. You could call it artful composition on the cameraman's part, and without a doubt that contributes to the effect. But Christie, like all great actors, understands the truth that bodies tell. There's inexplicable sadness in the curve of her back, and flexibility, too. But for that moment, she's simply the woman who's been left behind. Her back is a rune that spells goodbye.

Salon 2001, STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

She was my first big actor crush. Oh what a beauty. To this day! Enchantingly beautiful and wistful and like light itself.

[imsfire2]

Favourite character?  Impossible to choose, really

I’m really not sure who my favourite character in “Rogue One” is! 

They’re all so interesting.  The depth and subtlety of the characterisation overall in this film fascinates and thrills me, still, almost a year after I first watched it.  Literally almost every figure on screen, from the leads to someone with one line, comes across as a real, grounded, complex person with a reason to be there and a genuine personality.  I love them all.

I love all our heroes with a passion.  I can’t remember when I’ve been so committed in my love for a group of fictional people. They are such real people, with messy pasts and unheroic doubts, and grey areas in their motivation, and they have the pains and fears and dreams of ordinary folk like me.  Star Wars has always had a tendency to feature larger-than-life mythic figures who have Hero’s Journeys and Archetypal Quests to go on.  They’ve been embodiments, rather than pieces of humanity.  But the Rogue One team are human, uttterly human.  Forgive me for using that term, incidentally, but I just can’t get my head around saying “they are sentients, utterly sentients” even though it’s an insult to K-2SO’s individual qualities of personhood as a droid to call him human!

How can I not call Jyn my favourite?  Hardened, shut-down Jyn whose human spirit rises again so magnificently the moment she has the chance, who blossoms into a force of nature and a leader the moment an avenue opens to her.  Jyn who could have been so extraordinary had she lived, perhaps another Leia or another Mothma, or another Galen, with her fine mind, but who takes what she’s been given, and what she’s been made into by her cruel, hard life, and turns it into heroism, and heroic freedom?  How can I not call her my favourite?  I adore Jyn, I love her almost as much as Cassian does, and I aspire to have even a fraction of her courage in the face of loss and fear.

But how can I not call Bodhi my favourite?  He’s a kind of Ultimate Everyman. He’s just trying to do the right thing, and he holds true to that through everything, every hurt, every loss and suffering the universe throws at him.  He finds the courage in himself to do the right thing even when he is broken and bereaved, even when he is terrified almost past sanity.  

How can I not say Cassian? Troubled, exhausted Cassian, who is so near to being spent like an empty battery, and knows it, and still goes on?  Whose great act of rebellion lies in returning to the core values of the rebels, and defying the refusal of Power to listen when honest, brave, ordinary people speak truth to it? Jyn and Bodhi make the case for action, and Jyn is the one who leads the team to Scarif, but it’s Cassian who collects that team to begin with; without him it really would have been a mission of just four people. Cassian has lived his entire life dedicating and sacrificing himself for the greater good; but in the end, motivated by love and respect for someone who inspires him to look beyond that life, he rededicates himself to the inner truth rather than the outer form, and dies for what he really believed in – both the beloved personal, Jyn, and the larger-than-personal, the cause itself – not its leaders and their fear and cynical realism, but the ideals without which everything those leaders do would be a sham.

But how can I ignore Baze, the stoic, the most loyal of men? - the one determined enough to leave everything behind for the fight he believed must be fought, and who then had the honesty and honour to come back and try again when that choice didn’t work - the one who protects his partner and follows him and fights for him, no matter where, no matter what?  Baze is like the Cassian to Chirrut’s Jyn; and that is another thing I love about Rogue One, that we have these two parallel relationships, the one we see right at its beginning and the one that suggests what it might have become, if they’d had another 25 years, to be happy and find their way together.  And how can I not say Chirrut – the spiritual man who wasn’t “good enough” but still went on with his vocation; who didn’t qualify for training as a Jedi but pursued his calling at the level and in the place that he was called to, without resentment, and went on even when a cruel disability changed his life?  The deeply perceptive man who is quietly, endlessly certain that there is still some hope, somewhere, and that the Force is with us?  How can I not give my love to Chirrut?

And how can I not love K-2SO?  If one of the underlying themes of “Rogue One” is that these ordinary people are heroes even though no-one remembers their names, then K2 broadens that theme to include those who aren’t organic.  K2 is so upfront, so witty in his lack of shame or concern for social form, so acidly direct; he’s the “ahh, who gives a fuck” relative we all daydream of emulating. But though his lack of filter is so much fun, it is also deeply moving as we gradually realise the depths of strength and emotion underlying it, and see how selflessly heroic this most unlikely hero truly is.

And I haven’t even got to the villains and the minor characters…

I love you all, Rogue One. May the Force be with you, always.

[homestuck-session-analysis]

Hi, I have a crappy memory and can't remember if I asked for a session request (I don't wanna rush you or anything I just can't remember if I sent it before) It was for a Knight of breath, Mage of time, Heir of space, Seer of void, Sylph of heart, Prince of hope, Page of Life and Thief of rage and quadrants if you do them (Especially for the Knight, Mage and Heir) You don't have to,like, answer this right now, I just wanted to know if I sent it, sorry to bother !

It’s been seven days since Mod Nix spoke to a human being.  Her hands are dry and her knuckles itch. 

Binary checklist: Master aspects: Present. Unrepeated classpects: Present. 

Mage of Time: “One who guides themselves through knowledge pertaining to and through timelines, progression, and Time itself.”  Along with the Witch and thefully-realized Page, the Mage of Time is definitely one of the bestpossible Time players a session can have.  This player knowseverything there is to know about time, timelines, and time travel,and although it begins to infringe on Mind, they likely have a solidgrasp on cycles of causation.  Your Mage has an inherent sense ofTime, a perfect internal clock; however, because of the Mage’sCurse, for all their efforts they may be constantly too slow toeffect what they wish to effect, late to all their appointments forreasons not their fault.  Hopefully they’re not an easilyfrustrated person.  They have about the average capacity forbetrayal, especially if they feel like they’re the ones doing allthe work in the session, with their teammates just lounging about.

Heir of Space: “One who inherits, embodies, and is protected by artwork, creation, and physicality.”  The Heir of Space is a natural at the interpretation of fine art, worldbuilding, and the generation of ideas, although they rarely bother to put in the effort necessary to actually produce any finished works of their own.  Given their protection by Space, the Genesis Frog should already be accounted for.  They might have an unfairly efficient metabolism, given their entitlement, and are almost certainly middle-upper class to unnecessarily rich.  Despite their tendency toward athletics, it’s unlikely this player is on any teams, since they’re used to not having to try for their skill.  There’s very little chance they’d outright work against the team, although they might get annoyed if they feel unappreciated. 

Knight of Breath: “One who exploits to the utmost freedom, pathways, and chaos, and wields it as a weapon.”  The Knight of Breath is a revolutionary, they’re a democrat from the Golden Age of Greece, and they flourish when the people are being restricted.  In the beginning of their session, when the lack of Breath they bring is most pronounced, the focus is on fighting restrictions (and all the self-sacrifice and determination that comes with it).  As a Knight, this player may be a little too engaged with becoming a martyr; again, their activity will be most pronounced in the earlier stages of the session.  Although certain facets of Sburban mechanics are made to be easily broken or bent, bu a determined Mage or any Witch, watch out trying to do anything of the sort here without this player to correct you; due to the natural deficit of Breath in your session, arbitrary rules may be immovable without a realized Knight of Breath exploiting what small amount of Breath remains present to return the restrictions to their usual status.  I see this player being not overly taken with the team; they’ll be more concerned with their own affairs on their land.  They have some propensity for abandonment, but not betrayal. 

Sylph of Heart: “One who heals or heals through identity, self-expression, and romantic relationships.”  This player is a matchmaker, and has probably written at least two self-help pamphlets.  May or may not be the author of Eat, Pray, Love.  They’re a romantic, taking refuge in knowing who they are and encouraging others to do the same.  Having said that, their intervention isn’t positive per se; while the rest of their team is unrealized, encouraging them to follow their instincts may do more damage than good by pushing the players toward the flawed parts of their personality as well as the satisfactory.  On the flip side, upon the realization of all players, identity crises will happen much less often; this player, who’s always defined themselves by their role as a healer, may find themselves apparently isolated.  They might get annoyed, but are too focused on helping to really do anything whatsoever against the team, including just leaving home base. 

Prince of Hope: “One who destroys or destroys through a flood of faith, belief, and success.”  Eridan Ampora.  Pick a crusader or televangelist.  This is one of the aspects in which the Prince is not necessarily realized before they begin destroying through it, rather than destroying it. Evidence does not stand in their way; they likely pick and choose what to believe based on what feels best to them or relieves the most anxiety, which makes the Sylph of Heart particularly dangerous around them.  Hopefully your Thief will temper this somewhat, and if your Page of Life successfully realizes, they can force the Prince onto a more productive track, destroying not through blind faith or personal beliefs but through faith in their peers and chances of success.  Among Princes, this is a particularly powerful one that can make or break a session.  Before they’re realized, I would suggest they have an absolute chance of betrayal if the Thief isn’t constantly stealing their motivation.  Of course, their presence will inflate chances of success greatly -- at least, in the beginning. 

Page of Life: “One who creates, encompasses, and fulfills life energy, maturation, and personal growth.”  The Page of Life is a fucking savior because, frankly, a Mage of Time, Prince of Hope, and Thief of Rage give me little hope (even with the flood the Prince’s presence produces).  Imagine a coefficient given for each player representing their chance of realization.  An Heir of Life’s is 1 (100%).  The average Page’s might be 0.1.  Square that and you’ve got the coefficient for a Page of Life: 0.01.  Good chances.  They’ll start out, naturally, with a complete deficit of their aspect (the least mature person one could ever suffer).  They’re probably also sick half the time, or at least sleep way less than they should, whether that’s their own fault or not.  (They certainly don’t do anything productive with that time.)  If they do mange to realize, I use no irony when I say they will be able to force the rest of your team to realize immediately, with circumstantially simultaneous epiphanies for the whole ectobiological family and a good ive cases for your Sylph at least.  Frankly, although they’ll be uberpowerful post-realization, I can’t see them doing anything against the team beforehand just because they have so little ability. 

Thief of Rage: “One who steals and redistributes passion, drive, and emotions to and in order to benefit themselves.”  The Thief of Rage is the life of the party, bouncing off the walls, perpetually in the spotlight, and tiring everyone else the fuck out.  Living with them before they’ve realized produces a depressive lack of willpower; there’s no point trying to stop them because they always take things too far and have no intention of stopping now.  The good news is that, since they’re stealing the motivation of everyone around them, they should realize quickly (assuming they don’t make any horribly rash decisions borne of their personal frenzy beforehand which, admittedly, is a big assumption.  Hopefully your Mage will fix their mistakes).  At that point, they’ll be much more capable of taking control of their abilities and redirecting them at Dersite enemies, and will probably become the leader of the team, if only because they’re the only one who wants to be.  Given their quick (poor) judgment, they probably wouldn’t last long betraying the team, but they don’t want to, anyway. 

Seer of Void: “One who guides others through and through knowledge pertaining to secrets, ignorance, and the Furthest Ring.”  Though the Thief will lead the session, this Seer is a more localized version of the Chessmaster, executing their plans on a personal basis and using their knowledge of what everyone else doesn’t know to benefit the team.  Having said that, they likely have some bias to their thinking on Void; take Albus Dumbledore, a man hated in some parts of the HP fandom for his manipulation.  The most obvious potential bias, and the one easiest for this player to fell prey to, is the belief that they’re protecting others by withholding information from them, something that perseveres in the face of mounting opposite evidence.  By the time of their completed realization, though, they’ll have thrown it off, more fully understanding the possible negative facets of Void as well as those positive facets they’ve always extolled.  They’re also at slightly higher risk of falling under the influence of Horrorterrors, if you believe that gazing long into an abyss leads to the abyss also gazing into you.  (Only chance of betrayal is due to grimdarkness.) 

Overall: Frog Hunt: Despite the Knight and Mage, your Prince and Heir should be enough to vastly overcompensate.  95%. Black King: With the Mage and Knight as combined strategists and offensive players, the Seer on strategy, the Prince, page, and Thief on offense, and your Sylph healing, you’ve got a good team.  (I’m going to assume complete loyalty and team realization here and correct for it in the loyalty section.)  The Page is also a great healer.  95%. Loyalty: Up ‘till now I’ve been giving the highest possible chances I’m willing to, but here we run into trouble.  Chances are, your Page won’t realize.  The Prince will probably go AWOL, and your Thief will be too self-absorbed to really do much for the beginning of the session.  15% you won’t destroy yourself.

Winning: I’d like to give you something high, but that loyalty stat is killing you, plus the presence of a player Time hates.  Chances of success with anyone surviving is 60%.  Success with everyone surviving is 10% (which is generous in itself). 

~{o-o~}  Nix  {~o-o}~

PS

From Mod Rae: Mage ♦ Heir       Mage ♥ Thief      Heir ♥ Page       Heir ♠ PrinceKnight ♦ Thief    Knight ♥ Seer     Sylph ♦ Page     Prince ♥ Thief      Thief ♠ Seer

Remember that these are all possibilities, not inevitabilities. 

[mirceakitsune]

A sad day for civilization

Usually I try to keep my quota of political journals to a minimum. However the unfortunate events of today prompt what is perhaps one of the harshest journals I've written in this regard. I imagine I'll face quite a bit of criticism for it... both because many will see it as an exaggeration, and because I'm reacting strongly to something happening in the UK despite not being British myself. I will explain both of those things below.

On 08-June-2017 (yesterday as of the date of this posting), a once important member of the modern world (Britain) has left our ranks, by legitimating the war against modern society. An act committed by allowing an enemy of the civilized world to return to power, after its unprecedented attacks against every good achievement mankind has ever had within the last decades. That enemy is the UK's prime minister, Theresa May, the leader of the Conservative party.

For those not familiar with this monstrous woman, and why in my view she embodies the end of modern times, I will refresh everyone on who this bitch is and what she has done thus far:

- Theresa May promised the outright destruction of the internet as we know it, and its replacement with a national intranet under strict ideological control by the UK government (even more tightly than China). Her plans go to the point where every citizen must ask for exclusive permission to post anything online (even journals like this one) and no kind of content may be hosted on any server without the government's explicit approval, meaning literally every website we know today would have to be banned.

- Her battle against technology has already begun with the war on encryption; The UK plans to force companies like Facebook to remove security from messaging apps, so that her cult may spy on everyone and see who is an enemy of its ideology. She asked for encryption to be entirely outlawed if possible, despite attempts to explain to her that this is plain mathematics and simply cannot be stopped. Such would mean banning every secure piece of software on the planet and making it a crime for developers to program such (including open-source programmers like me and places like Sourceforge / Github), plus as criminalizing the https:// protocol and more.

- She is the author of a piece of medieval ideology, recently revived and distorted to match the 21th century, called the war on porn; Her purist sect believes that indecent content on the internet is responsible for terrorism, while of course promoting the despicable myth of children under the age of 18 needing protection from pixels on a screen to avoid being scarred for life. Needless to say, any website containing any kind of porn is to be banned under her theocracy and illegal to possess within her modern inquisition (same as in North Korea). Already the Digital Economy Bill was passed into law, and it's rumored that people might need to sign up at their local post office for permission to access any NSFW website at home... I am god damn serious.

- Under her caricature of a dictatorship, the UK is set to become a surveillance state with a harsher authoritarian regime than many 3rd world nations. Not only should every single online communication be actively monitored by the government, but even public services workers (such as ambulances and firefighters) must have access to everyone's browsing history and private lives. The UK also maintains a list of potential enemies of the state using unknown criteria, which was recently revealed to contain broad categories of people including goth teenagers who suffer from depression. Along with this they also plan on creating computer programs (perversely dubbed Artificial Intelligence) which use patterns to automatically decide if and when someone should be arrested and give the order to the police!

- She has blatantly manipulated the recent terror attacks (the Manchester bombing and the London stabbings) for her sick political agenda. In less than a few hours since those attacks, she outright stepped out and used the lives of those killed to leverage her own schemes, saying it was all the internet's fault and even implying that online pornography is why those people lost their lives!

- She has publicly and explicitly stated that human rights are an issue that is getting in her way, and need to be dealt with so that her plans may be accomplished.

I believe this should be enough to explain why I oppose this devil with my entire being... which seems to spread more panic than ISIS, who it's ironically vowed so hard to fight (by firing the London police or sending them after Julian Assange apparently). Since I'm aware the next predominant question will be "but you're not even British, why do you care", I will also explain why the things that happened in the UK are so personal to me:

- At this point, what's happening is not just a win or loss for the nation Britain; It is a win or a loss for modern society worldwide. The fact that this psychopath was allowed to be prime minister again, instead of being sent to seek treatment at the nearest mental ward for patients with serious psychiatric issues, is a legitimization for this kind of madness here in the free world! The message is literally "in 1st world nations in the year 2017, it might be okay for a president or prime minister to actively work on banning the internet or reviving medieval bans on porn or shamelessly distorting terrorist attacks to push any legislation". Authoritarianism spreads like a disease among the circles of power, and even in Europe or America this sort of thing is like the taste of blood in the water for a shark.

- She is actively trying to spread many of her demented ideas beyond Britain, and has a certain degree of power to do so. Since the UK would remain close to the EU even after brexit, they will be pushing Europe to adapt to her clique's skewed ideologies. The insane copyright proposals already circulating here (censorship machine, link tax, hate speech fines for social media) are said to be the doing of Theresa May and Angela Merkel (another authoritarian piece of shit). During the last attack she has also instigated other nations governments to "stop social media".

- The internet is a global entity, and many of the companies that offer services (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc) also activate there. Most of their evil plans (such as backdoors in encryption) cannot be done "only for UK citizens"... if they're implemented they will exist for all users worldwide and put everyone at risk! Such companies might have to choose between leaving the UK entirely or giving in to those demands, whereas sites hosting NSFW content might have to decide between being banned at ISP level across Britain or implementing disgusting and unacceptable age verification systems (online identity theft). Worse than that, in an act of total delusion, Theresa May or Amber Rudd already expressed hopes that the worldwide internet will itself conform to their model and "let the UK be the gatekeeper of the internet", meaning they hoped we would all just bow down and embrace their new "internet" as a replacement. We do not want this cancer spreading here, keep it in your Orwellian hellhole far away from the rest of us!

- I have friends in Britain... and even if I didn't, I know that the people living there are citizens of a (once) modern society who wish to live their lives in peace. It's unacceptable that they they are being terrorized by a mad person that's out of control and has lost touch with reality! And yes... I know: Far worse happens in places like Syria or China, where people are killed on a daily basis or starve to death or what not. The difference is that there, it's been this way for ages, whereas here it's new: Most 3rd world countries are places that are evolving slowly, but Britain is a modern nation that's devolving into them instead! People living in those areas are also used to it, they never had human rights or internet so they don't actually lose anything... people in Britain are being raped of fundamental rights they've had for a lifetime, which are granted and unquestionable in any civilized society!

So there you have it. The worst thing about this all is that, I wish I could say it's the fault of some sort of coup; Yesterday's elections got hacked, people with AK47's broke in and put Theresa back in power, so on. Unfortunately it was not: More than half of the British population deliberately voted for this abomination, after she has openly made it clear that she will destroy the modern world as we know it. This... is what people in what's considered a top democracy wanted. I'm struggling not to generalize and discriminate against all elderly people right now... granted that old farts are supposedly at fault for all this, whereas youngsters are the ones who struggled to avoid the disaster. Part of me wants to say "they're fucking 90 already, why can't they just hit the bucket and take their 1940 ideologies with them to the grave"... which is sad because my own grandparents died in the recent years, yet what happened is so wrong that it gets you places you wouldn't want to be.

After this alongside other events, my view of humanity as a whole has been altered beyond repair once more, and I wish I could never see an ape again in my existence. I expect no more safety nor the hope of a decent life even where I live, because I realize no freedom or right is ever basic enough to not be put into discussion decades after everyone has had it. Any breed of fanatic can just rise to power at any moment, and attempt to do whatever the hell they want. I wish the error known as humanity could be wiped out by some natural event already, though its own stupidity will probably do the job for it. I'm sorry that I had to be born here and witness the easily avoidable history of this species. If there's anything close to a god or gatekeeper of conscious minds out there, I will not forgive them for having been forced to live this miserable experience... that I can promise.

Oh, and one more thing: You are free to redistribute the contents of this journal as you please. It would bring some comfort if people could better spread the word about what's happening, so we can all be ready to defend ourselves from the emerging threats against the modern way of life... threats not created by terrorist groups elsewhere, but our own governments copying their tactics and behaviors.

[imustbeamermaidrango]

Spiritual Bypassing

AVOIDANCE IN HOLY DRAG

Spiritual bypassing, a term first coined by psychologist John Welwood in 1984, is the use of spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with our painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs. It is much more common than we might think and, in fact, is so pervasive as to go largely unnoticed, except in its more obvious extremes.

Part of the reason for this is that we tend not to have very much tolerance, both personally and collectively, for facing, entering, and working through our pain, strongly preferring pain-numbing “solutions,” regardless of how much suffering such “remedies” may catalyze. Because this preference has so deeply and thoroughly infiltrated our culture that it has become all but normalized, spiritual bypassing fits almost seamlessly into our collective habit of turning away from what is painful, as a kind of higher analgesic with seemingly minimal side effects. It is a spiritualized strategy not only for avoiding pain but also for legitimizing such avoidance, in ways ranging from the blatantly obvious to the extremely subtle.

Spiritual bypassing is a very persistent shadow of spirituality, manifesting in many ways, often without being acknowledged as such. Aspects of spiritual bypassing include exaggerated detachment, emotional numbing and repression, overemphasis on the positive, anger-phobia, blind or overly tolerant compassion, weak or too porous boundaries, lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead of emotional and moral intelligence), debilitating judgment about one’s negativity or shadow elements, devaluation of the personal relative to the spiritual, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being.

The explosion of interest in spirituality, especially Eastern spirituality, since the mid-1960s has been accompanied by a corresponding interest and immersion in spiritual bypassing—which has, however, not very often been named, let alone viewed, as such. It has been easier to frame spiritual bypassing as a religion-transcending, spiritually advanced practice/perspective, especially in the facile fast-food spirituality epitomized by faddish phenomena like The Secret. Some of the more glaringly plastic features of this, such as its drive-through servings of reheated wisdom like “Don’t take it personally” or “Whatever bothers you about someone is really only about you” or “It’s all just an illusion,” are available for consumption and parroting by just about anyone.

Happily, the honeymoon with false or superficial notions of spirituality is starting to wane. Enough bubbles have been burst; enough spiritual teachers, Eastern and Western, have been caught with pants or halo down; enough cults have come and gone; enough time has been spent with spiritual baubles, credentials, energy transmissions, and gurucentrism to sense deeper treasures. But valuable as the desire for a more authentic spirituality is, such change will not occur on any significant scale and really take root until spiritual bypassing is outgrown, and that is not as easy as it might sound, for it asks that we cease turning away from our pain, numbing ourselves, and expecting spirituality to make us feel better.

True spirituality is not a high, not a rush, not an altered state. It has been fine to romance it for a while, but our times call for something far more real, grounded, and responsible; something radically alive and naturally integral; something that shakes us to our very core until we stop treating spiritual deepening as a something to dabble in here and there. Authentic spirituality is not some little flicker or buzz of knowingness, not a psychedelic blast-through or a mellow hanging-out on some exalted plane of consciousness, not a bubble of immunity, but a vast fire of liberation, an exquisitely fitting crucible and sanctuary, providing both heat and light for what must be done.

Most of the time when we’re immersed in spiritual bypassing, we like the light but not the heat, doing whatever we can to distance ourselves from the flames.

And when we’re caught up in the grosser forms of spiritual bypassing, we’d usually much rather theorize about the frontiers of consciousness than actually go there, sedating the fire rather than breathing it even more alive, espousing the ideal of unconditional love while not permitting love to show up in its more challenging, personal dimensions. To do so would be too hot, too scary, and too out-of-control, bringing things to the surface that we have long disowned or suppressed.

But if we really want the light, we cannot afford to flee the heat. As Victor Frankl said, “What gives light must endure burning.” And being with the fire’s heat doesn’t just mean sitting with the difficult stuff in meditation, but also going into it, trekking to its core, facing and entering and getting intimate with whatever is there, however scary or traumatic or sad or raw.

We have had quite an affair with Eastern spiritual pathways, but now it is time to go deeper. We must do this not only to get more intimate with the essence of these wisdom traditions beyond ritual and belief and dogma but also to make room for the healthy evolution, not just the necessary Westernization, of these traditions so that their presentation ceases encouraging spiritual bypassing (however indirectly) and, in fact, consciously and actively ceases giving it soil to flower. These changes won’t happen to any significant degree, however, unless we work in-depth and integratively with our physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, and social dimensions to generate an ever-deeper sense of wholeness, vitality, and basic sanity.

Any spiritual path, Eastern or Western, that does not deal in real depth with psychological issues, and deal with these in more than just spiritual contexts, is setting itself up for an abundance of spiritual bypassing. If there is not sufficient encouragement and support from spiritual teachers and teachings for their students to engage in significant depth in psychoemotional work, and if those students who really need such work don’t then do it, they’ll be left trying to work out their psychoemotional issues, traumatic and otherwise, only through the spiritual practices they have been given, as if doing so is somehow superior to—or a “higher” activity than—engaging in quality psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is often viewed as an inferior undertaking relative to spiritual practice, perhaps even something we “shouldn’t” have to do. When our spiritual bypassing is more subtle, the idea of psychotherapy may be considered more acceptable but we will still shy away from a full-blooded investigation of our core wounds.

Spiritual bypassing is largely occupied, at least in its New Age forms, by the idea of wholeness and the innate unity of Being—“Oneness” being perhaps its favorite bumper sticker—but actually generates and reinforces fragmentation by separating out from and rejecting what is painful, distressed, and unhealed; all the far-from-flattering aspects of being human. By consistently keeping these in the dark, “down below” (when we’re locked into our headquarters, our body and feelings seem to be below us), they tend to behave badly when let out, much like animals that have spent too long in cages. Our neglect here of these aspects of ourselves, however gently framed, is akin to that of otherwise caring parents who leave their children without sufficient food, clothing, or care. The trappings of spiritual bypassing can look good, particularly when they seem to promise freedom from life’s fuss and fury, but this supposed serenity and detachment is often little more than metaphysical valium, especially for those who have made too much of a virtue out of being and looking positive.

A common telltale sign of spiritual bypassing is a lack of grounding and in-the-body experience that tends to keep us either spacily afloat in how we relate to the world or too rigidly tethered to a spiritual system that provides the solidity we lack. We also may fall into premature forgiveness and emotional dissociation, and confuse anger with aggression and ill will, which leaves us disempowered, riddled with weak boundaries. The overdone niceness that often characterizes spiritual bypassing strands it from emotional depth and authenticity; and its underlying grief—mostly unspoken, untouched, unacknowledged—keeps it marooned from the very caring that would unwrap and undo it, like a baby being readied for a bath by a loving parent.

Spiritual bypassing distances us not only from our pain and difficult personal issues but also from our own authentic spirituality, stranding us in a metaphysical limbo, a zone of exaggerated gentleness, niceness, and superficiality. Its frequently disconnected nature keeps it adrift, clinging to the weight of its self-conferred spiritual credentials. As such, it maroons us from embodying our full humanity.

But let us not be too hard on spiritual bypassing, for every one of us who has entered into the spiritual has engaged in spiritual bypassing, at least to some degree, having for years used other means to make ourselves feel better or more secure. Why would we not also approach spirituality, particularly at first, with much the same expectation that it make us feel better or more secure?

To truly outgrow spiritual bypassing—which in part means releasing spirituality (and everything else!) from the obligation to make us feel better or more secure or more whole—we must not only see it for what it is and cease engaging in it but also view it with genuine compassion, however fiery that might be or need to be. The spiritual bypasser in us needs not censure nor shaming but rather to be consciously and caringly included in our awareness without being allowed to run the show. Becoming intimate with our own capacity for spiritual bypassing allows us to keep it in healthy perspective.

I have worked with many clients who described themselves as being on a spiritual path, particularly as meditators. Most were preoccupied, at least initially, with being nice, trying to be positive and nonjudgmental, while impaling themselves on various spiritual “shoulds,” such as “I should not show anger” or “I should be more loving” or “I should be more open after all the time I’ve put into my spiritual practice.” Fleeing their darker (or “less spiritual”) emotions, impulses, and intentions, they had, to varying degrees, trapped themselves within the very practices (and beliefs) that they had hoped might liberate them, or at least make them feel better.

Even the most exquisitely designed spiritual methodologies can become traps, leading not to freedom but only to reinforcement, however subtle, of the very “I” that wants to be a somebody who has attained or realized freedom (the very same “I” that doesn’t realize there are no Oscars for awakening). The most obvious potential traps-in-waiting include the belief that we should rise above our difficulties and simply embrace Oneness, even as the tendency to divide everything into positive and negative, higher and lower, spiritual and nonspiritual, runs wild in us. Subtler traps-in-waiting, less densely populated with metaphysical lullabies and ascension metaphors and far more discerning, teach non-aversion through cultivating a capacity for dispassionate witnessing and/or various devotional rituals. Subtler still are those that emphasize meeting everything with acceptance and compassion. Each approach has its own value, if only to eventually propel us into an even deeper direction, and each is far from immune to being possessed by spiritual bypassing, especially when we are still hoping, whatever our depth of spiritual practice, to reach a state of immunity to suffering (both personally and collectively).

As my spiritually inclined clients become more intimate with their pain and difficulties, coming to understand the origins of their troubles with a more open ear and heart, they either abandon their misguided spiritual practices and reenter a more fitting version of them with less submissiveness and more integrity and creativity or find new practices that better suit their needs, coming to recognize more deeply that everything—everything!—can serve their healing and awakening.

In the facing and outgrowing of spiritual bypassing, we enter a deeper life—a life of full-blooded integrity, depth, love, and sanity; a life of authenticity on every level; a life in which the personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal are all honored and lived to the fullest.

-- http://robertmasters.com/writings/spiritual-bypassing/