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Introduce Yourself!
DIR By: bulmabriefs144
Date: September 2, 2019, 1:23 am
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I'm populating the forum with alot of threads so it won't be
empty space, and to get ppl started.
So let's start with who you are, your religion, and how you got
there.
So I'm Sam. I was born male named Thomas Hooker (unfortunately
named after the founder of CT, meaning I grew up with no real
name of my own), changed my name and gender marker at about 30
or so (but after counting the cost, decided not to have a sex
change, though I have been taking wild yam pills). I made my own
religion, called Aiken by mashing up Christianity, Buddhism,
Shinto, and Taoism (mostly). I'm also heavily monistic as a
result of Jewish mysticism, and a panentheist.
How did I get here? Well... I was a preacher's kid, we moved
around alot. When I was six, my brother had me act in a play in
drag (why I'm convinced LGBT lifestyle is not genetic), and
again when I was nine to take a picture of me in a goofy outfit.
There was more moving, and my sister gave me a Taoism book (Tao
te Ching) because her ex-bf had it. I read it, and I was
enthralled as it was the first taste of religion outside
Christianity. I grew up in a church kinda as what you'd call a
"Jewish" Christian that is to say, I didn't really understand
why Jesus was important, despite being in the church, just "do
good stuff and get into Heaven." And so, this and having my dad
be a priest, I became a perfectionist. I was always trying to be
a good straight-A little boy, but inside, I was starting to
think maybe I liked girl's clothes, and was wondering if that
made me gay (I decided it didn't; though today, I've had to deal
with the fact that as a person in the trans grouping, sometimes
I attract passable trans ppl). I pursued girls because well
muscles and body hair were pretty gross to me, whereas I liked
how women looked. All the same, I wasn't very sexual period. So
I wound up overcompensating alot, and ended up in two-year sorta
friendships/sorta toxic relationships because I wanted them to
be serious and they didn't. And in fact, I didn't either. Not
really.
At community college, I studied World Religion, and again in
college (due to an oversight of not checking my records, I got
to retake the course). Being an awkward geeky kid, I studied
religion to make sense of my place in the world. And to try to
pin down who I was. And so I began my first draft of my basic
beliefs called the Mune Shinri
HTML http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/bulmabriefs144
(I've made a few
books over the years, including a TSR-style game) under my
original name. Over the years, some things dawned on me:
- The great religions of the world all had some common threads
(quite a few have the universe created from primordial Void, and
formed into a centralized mass (either a sort of Universe Egg, a
Big Bang, or like "let there be light), many had a sort of
central soul (Atman, Holy Spirit, Brahman), and despite numerous
afterlife ideas many of them seemed to be saying the same thing
(for example, Buddhism talks about rebirth as a sort of flame
being passed on rather than the reincarnation of soul, then we
look at how Christianity doesn't actually mention the eternal
torture thing (that's Dante and confused atheists) but rather
being consumed, and I got a similar impression of loss of
identity and possibly creating different ppl with the "scum",
and likewise both reincarnation and the Western religions had
the end goal of a sort of great cosmic union). They didn't all
have the same threads in the same places, but it was a kind of
overlap.
- The founders all had a prevailing goal that became their
"heart truth" (the butchered Japanese translation of Mune
Shinri). The Jewish people needed a sense of law in an unjust
world, and to find a land of their own. Lao Tzu formed Taoism to
resolve instability and disharmony during a time of political
unrest. The Buddha... well, everyone knows the story of the
Buddha. Same more or less for Christianity, but the key point
here was the social climate of Israel under Roman rule.
- And so I did some soul searching until gradually I understood
what mine was. I was always reaching for bonds(for connections
with others), and boundaries (because most of the times that I
tried to relate with others, I wound up used and/or abused). In
any case, I spent a great deal learning that while everyone has
their own truth in addition to whatever religion they might
belong to, it is important to 100% stand behind your truth as
though it is the truth (wishy-washy relativism doesn't fly).
- Belief in your truth is self-reinforcing. I have discovered
this over and over with debating with atheists, that everything
in their lives has convinced them there isn't a God. It doesn't
change the fact that I know they are wrong, for the same exact
reason, because the universe always reinforces beliefs. In fact,
my study of the Bible has a section about nonbelievers being
under a powerful "delusion" because their worldview, despite
Christians being able to quickly prove theism. While everyone
has their own beliefs, to deny your own belief leads to
confusion and loss of identity. Basically, to me, it's a loss of
boundaries, because someone else is basically taking my beliefs.
So I became a weird mix of extremely okay with lots of diff
religions, and extremely argumentative on the details.
I was kinda messed up for awhile, and not really sure how to
worship. And it was after college, for like 6 straight years of
near-unemployment (never really been great with this one) or
terrible jobs, struggling with being closeted about my desire to
wear certain clothing, and miserable and suicidal in general.
I'd done alot of janitor work, alot of garden work, and was
volunteering at the library and the local theater (set
construction), and I was a nominal member of a church but hadn't
felt much of anything for quite a while. Part of it was that I
felt like I couldn't really show people what I felt like inside.
There was a little girl there kinda trying to get out. Then at
about 2011, everything changed. I worked for this lady, mowing
her lawn. I'd done yard work for years but she had a freaking
riding mower on the side of a hill leading to a lake. Needless
to say, I was totally out of by depth (and thinking back on it,
I'd say this was probably according to plan). So yeah, I get
fired from that, and my mom is saying I should write a letter of
apology. I'm really like "What for?!?" but I remember how she
mentions her daughter being about my age and was like "I'm
lonely and maybe I can get to know her." So I apologize, hinting
that I kinda wanted to meet her daughter Kira. Despite being
fired and stuff, she says I can ask her daughter if I can attend
her birthday, and writes her number. Things start to get weird.
I call, get a dead signal, text, I get a call back from a
different number. I'm invited to the party. I hardly ever see
her much, but build a sort of text message penpal thing. I talk
to her like once per two weeks, then after she helps me when I'm
home alone and a hammock caves in during lawn mowing, making my
head bleed, it gradually goes to once every two days, and then
like every day or so. Then, mostly because I'm socially inept,
but also because I'm super-observant and something about her
story doesn't add up, I'm like "You must be a spy." :o Yes, I
know. But it made perfect sense at the time because of weirdness
with the phone, her nearness to DC, and how little she talked
about her own job (which was ostensibly a nursing job). She
hesitated about this like half a day, and I was like "Sure..."
to her denial. Anyway, after I got back, I went into sort of
full-blown paranoia mode, and decided my current bosses weren't
to be trusted. So I took my money, pulled it out of the bank and
basically went on a road trip. I'd done this before, but this
time I didn't have a bunch of supplies, just my laptop and just
went off the map. I was gonna goto like Grand Canyon and drive
off or something, but this happened to be the exact week of a
government shutdown so it was closed. I went as far as Wyoming
in about three days, woke up to a blizzard, and noticed the car
had... well, you know how when you smear stuff and it gets wet
or cold it shows up? Well, the front of my car had the words
"Call" streaked on. I had been staring this in the face for
months and not noticed, and suddenly wondered if this was why I
was so active on social stuff. I decided to head back. Only I
got on a crappy road and almost hit a post (and to add insult to
injury, the police almost decided the care signed by my dad was
stolen, and tried to arrest me until I called home). I got back
after getting hit by an outrageous ticket in addition to having
my car towed like 5 ft. I made it halfway back and the car was
battery dead the next day. This guy named Noah was all like "No
worries" and jumpstarted it.
I'm kinda a research things before believing type, so after a
bit, I decided to write down everything. There was a date out
where I was supposed to meet her in like Fredericksburg (since
it was halfway), and we were supposed to meet at a coffee shop.
But four blocks around the coffee shop were stuck in an endless
detour. I got out, and there was a parade of some sort. And by
the time I was like a block from the coffee shop she's like
"Nope, let's not do old town." She's about to cancel, when I'm
like "Well I did wanna meet you," so I get directions to a
Chinese place. And she's got a temporary husky dog that she's
watching because reasons. I have like 300 pages of weird things
that not only Kira but alot of other ppl, including my pastor in
church said (like seriously, one week I was watching Attack on
Titan in an anime club, and that weekend, the sermon had a weird
tie-in like the Titans were hollow and the sermon was about how
our fears often aren't real). And all sorts of coincidences, to
the point where I could no longer call them that. Chief among
these was that other people started to remind me of Kira. Like,
I heard the expression "no worries" a great deal. And some of
them had similar life stories, or eyes, or mannerisms. Emily,
Sapphire, Kara, Elena, a bunch of different names, but similar
behavior, to the point where I felt like I was meeting a single
disntinct person. Eventually, even if she was a master of
disguise and lived right nearby, I realized that:
- If she was a spy, she would have to be basically a super-spy,
able to assume a great deal of heights and weights (and
convincingly be either sex). At some points, having narrowed it
down to people she could be, I realized that she'd need to be in
multiple places at once, because I ruled out everyone. Yet they
were all behaving weird like there was some secret, just not
that.
- Remember the parade? This was hundreds of people who would
have to be in on this. While logistically this might be
possible, this would be an absurd expense.
- And there didn't seem to be any point to it! If I was being
trained as a spy myself, I didn't seem to be asked to do
anything. And far from come to any definite conclusion about the
other's identity, my investigation led around in circles.
Finally at one point, she mentioned that maybe I should think of
all I learned from my last trip across country (before the
depressive one). And I thought about all the people there, and
how if anything at all was being taught it was... well, I was
working at Amazon and despite apparently picking items at random
to put on the shelf, I found a book with a similar theme to the
one my shrink Norma also gave me, a self-help book called When
Panic Attacks. This one was called The Gifts of Imperfection.
And I though back to the one time during my last trip, where I
was stuck in a cult and made to feel worthless while they
convinced me to rid myself of earthly possessions (and give them
those, of course). And how I drove across Cali until I made my
way to church where the minister talked about Jewish sacrifices
in context of Easter, and told how "You don't have to do that
anymore!" And something just sort of clicked. What spy would go
out of their way to teach me if any lesson at all, about
self-worth and grace? That's absurd. However, it's the type of
thing a Savior might do.
- So today, I'm kinda Christian, but my definition of a Savior
is pretty darned weird. Like, more like a Fox or trickster that
some kind of moral paragon. I can totally blame my Taoist
background there.
So, yeah. Tell me about yourself and how you came to your
religion. I won't believe you're a spy, honest (though I might
conclude that you're Kira).
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