Life

Real Talk: Intrusive Thoughts

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So, Real Talk.

I watched the latest Sander Sides video. If you read The Snake Cycle (drybonestruth.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/the-snake-cycle/)  post I did, you know who Thomas Sanders is, if not, then suffice it to say he’s a YouTuber who makes Inside Out-like videos about life issues.

His latest, as of this date, is one about something called Intrusive Thoughts.

Apparently roughly 2% of the population deals with them, I personally think the number has to be much higher, and that the 2% just are the reported, extreme cases.

Intrusive Thoughts are weird, nonsensical, disturbing, and often violent gruesome or sexual thoughts that seem to come form nowhere, and persistently annoy or bother us, especially when we are stressed or going through a hard time, or feel low on self esteem.

The more you fight them, the worse they seem to get, yet you are horrified that you could even think of these things or think about doing them.

One example form the Sanders Sides was thinking of murdering someone, molesting someone, or eating them. (Ew.)

Now, I have a confession, watching the video my reaction was “So this is more commonly recognized as a problem than I thought.”

I assumed everyone had these thoughts, but that few people saw them as that unusual or problematic, beyond an annoyance.

I still think everyone does have thoughts like this. Is there really a person who’s never thought about killing someone?

Not seriously, but like, pictured it.

IF there is, they have less of a temper than me. I’m betting than you too. We make jokes on shows so often about killing people.

We often say “I’m gonna kill him/her.”

Do we mean it? Not usually. But just that that has become a figurative thing shows how often we have thoughts like that, and we minimize them.

But honestly, that’s not even the worst of these thoughts.

Apparently, some people have them in dreams too. I don’t typically dream them, if I do, I wake up.

I also don’t see my dreams as evidence of my deep desires or serious considerations. To me, a dream is more like the realm where all reason can be off the table for why anything happens. It’s where the  things you worry about can’t be kept at bay with distraction and common sense.

But, I also don’t fine them impossible to resist.

That’s what I want to talk bout.

The conclusion in the video is that you cannot reason your way out of Intrusive Thoughts, you also can’t fight them, you should never check to see if their gone.

It’s true, checking for a thought to be gone is to think it again, that’s only common sense.

They are like moths around a lamp, actually, if you turn the beacon off, they’ll go away, but turn it back on to look for them, and they’ll be back.

Unless it’s to remember where you put something, am I right?

I agree that these methods do not work to fight Intrusive Thoughts, but I do not agree that there is no way  to fight them.

I find Sander’s conclusion to be based on something that I do not agree with. That we can’t control what we think, that there is nothing to turn to besides ourselves when wre are thinking those things, and that thinking those things is okay.

I don’t mean that we should beat ourselves up when those thoughts pop up.

It is also hard to say where the line is. People who have these thoughts continuously can go crazy from it. They can cease to be bothered by the thoughts.

I believe I know why this is, I study character.

When someone has terrible thoughts or desires that beat on them relentlessly, more and more over time, they start to feel like a monster.

When a human being feels like that, they do one of two things. They try to fix it, to change themselves back from it, they may hide it or they may go to someone else (that is better), but they try to do something about it.

Or, they embrace it as a way to not fear themselves. C. S. Lewis mentions this in The Great Divorce, adding that to fear oneself is the last horror.

Imagine Dragons also has done some songs about just this feeling, one is called Monster, I’d say Polaroid is the same thing, toned down to a more relationship oriented version.

I think Intrusive Thoughts break some people, and they embrace them in order to stop fearing them. I doubt most perverts and psychos started off liking those feelings, but they may have given up fighting them so long ago that they only have distant memories as of hating them as a child.

I don’t think we are born enjoying the worst kinds of things, at least not most of us, but if we are not guarded as kids, things can creep in.

As a kid I did things I now know are serious perversions in adults, as a kid, I stopped as I realized it was wrong, I think the fact that I did it unknowingly helped. But I also had better influences.

If someone doesn’t they are likely to give in and end up with weird addictions, fetishes, or worse.

What years of being in Church and reading books about it has taught me is that just about everyone has these dark places in their life, either now, or in the past. I think the devil sneaks in to put us in chains at a young age.

What’s amazing is that none of us seem to realize it’s not just us.

It’s actually sad that humanity is so messed up as a whole, but it’s not, really, so very surprising.

It’s even less surprising that the influence of the Information age has made it easier and more common than ever. We’re exposed tho things by accident, some of us were exposed to them on purpose.

I say this because it does help to find the root of the problem. I’ve retraced a lot of my past problems.

Fear was major factor. To comfort ourselves we develop weird habits.

I really dislike how some shows are portraying this as funny, when it’s a very serious problem, an unhealthy coin mechanism.

Using masturbation as a comfort thing is one common example, even the BIG Bang Theory did it.

How many kids watch that? I know my cousins have.

That’s not even an Intrusive thought, it’s afar too common to be. I doubt the people who do it think about it overmuch. If they do, it’s because of guilt.

Things got a lot better for me once God started removing my fears.

The thing is, Thomas Sanders has been so open about things that bug him, that I can easily draw parallels between my experience and his.

He mentions being afraid of demons and other monsters. That was me once.

I do not think he has seen the connection between this and intrusive thoughts.

Though he did link anxiety with the problem, so he was close.

For some people, it’s an easy leap from “I fear this” to “I fear being like this thing that horrifies me.” And it can be easy to dull the pain of that by embracing it, easier to give up than to keep fighting.

And direct resistance to those thought doe snot work.

But I break with Thomas over saying these thoughts are our own.

I maintain that only thoughts I encourage and welcome are my own. Once I take ownership of them, I say they are okay, because they are part of me.

Even if, like Thomas, I say they are bad thoughts and that I am not completely good because I think them, I am still softening the blow by saying they are mine.

Plus, these thoughts to me are less about how bad I am, and more about how weak I am.

I think Intrusive Thoughts have two, maybe three sources.

1 . A huge contributor is the World. We are exposed to so much messes up stuff by wack jobs who like it because they gave in, that it’s almost an audible voice (sometimes it is audible_ telling us to give in and accept this way of thinking. A siren song of disturbing elements.

You think I’m exaggerating?

Oh no, think about it. 50 Shades of Gray has done a lot to make having kinky tenancies, as they are called, okay. Even sort of cool, in a you-do-you sort of way.

At the very least, they are talked of more even if mostly to say it’s messed up. PEple read it into innocent remarks on shows that are far from endorsing it.

I doubt that one book or movie is solely responsible, but it’s an example of how something can be popularized through such methods. And those thoughts people used to keep to themselves the now feel free to share, not to get help, but to revel in their own disturbing nature.

I see this on reviews of My Little Pony for crying out loud.

Ugh.

2. This will not sound reasonable to a skeptic, but I think the devil is behind plenty of it.

The very nature of intrusive thoughts reminds me of how Lewis portrayed the demonic in his book Perelandra. Pure evil is not rational, because Reason still comes from God, once God has been fully rejected, reason goes with it. Evil just revels in being evil, mindless, directionless, destructive.

Very much like Intrusive Thoughts. We human are rational, so they make us feel sick. But if someone gives up rationality, they cease to be bothered by it. We have plenty of ugly historical examples of this happening.

3. It’s possible that everyone is born with some capacity to fall prey to these thoughts because of our sinful nature. The fact that the thoughts so rarely are appealing at first makes it hard for me to believe it’s a temptation.

Its our fear of them that is the temptation. It’s easy to panic over it. We are weak, we can’t fight it off, so we panic.

But it’s that temptation that then opens to door to temptation to accept it in order to escape the fear. And then what we once found horrifying can become pleasurable.

I hate it as much as you do, but I can’t deny it’s a fact.

I never could resist temptation effectively until I ceased to fear it. My fear made me more likely to give in, if I was already paralyzed, what else could I do.

Fear is like a bully. You do as it says to make it go away and stop punching you, but it only comes back crueler next time.

Which brings me to my solution:

What actually destroys Intrusive Thoughts is…Joy.

I’m not kidding.

Once I began to get more grounded in who I was in Christ, and began to believe my identity was not based in these thoughts and fears, a strange thing happened.

I began to find them pathetic, and funny in a pathetic way.

Like “That’s the best you can do?”

And once I could laugh at them, the power of them disappeared. Even if I had them again, I knew they were ridiculous.

It is not the same as enjoying them. You laugh at these thoughts like you laugh at an angry dog behind a fence. The danger i rendered innocuous by how stupid it is to be threatening you when it can’t even reach you.

But always keeping in mind that if we go in the fence, the danger is real. To laugh at these thoughts is not to accept them. It’s to block them the way a clique blocks outsiders by mocking them. They are not taken seriously enough to be talked to.

Joy takes a while to build up to. But what started it for me was deciding I had to trust God with y thoughts.

And I think Sanders and I differ on this. I hope his method helps him, but I think one day I will be rid of this problem, and I do not think he will unless he looks outside himself.

Well, this was long, but good to talk about, until next time–Natasha.

 

Aftermath–plus special announcement at the end.

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“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”–C. S. Lewis (The Abolition of Man.)

I’ve written about this brilliant little book before, but one thing that interests me that I have not really touched on is what happened in the aftermath of it.

The system in England when Lewis wrote that books was followed pretty quickly by America, it was probably already in place in the rest of Europe at the time, at least the countries at the forefront of our minds.

Nazism, the great evil of the War, was leading to the abolition of most men, but Lewis was concerned that what they were teaching schoolboys (and girls no doubt) was going to lead to the abolition of all men, in feeling if not in biological form.

Wise men saw where it was going, but where has it taken us now?

We live in the Post-Modern era. It is rightly called that, if we mean by modern Modernism, which Lewis and his predecessor G. K. Chesterton were both very much concerned with. Modernism was not about being modern in a fashionable sense, like it’s usually used now, or referring to technology or medicine. Modernism was the principles, or lack thereof, of thorough rationality. Which Chesterton showed in his book Orthodoxy to really be irrational.

It is basically materialism, but with odd ideals on top of it, that really make no sense whatsoever if you take the idea literally that nothing has any value except in our own emotions.

But as Lewis pointed out, the men who taught this didn’t believe it themselves. They were teaching values in spite of themselves. The problem is, even if they were better than what they taught, it had the same effect on their students as if they hadn’t been.

My parents, and perhaps your parents generation were the prime victims of this teaching’s first effects.

You’re probably familiar with how psychology got very popular in the 60s-90s, and it still is now. It was beginning before then, but at least in America, it really took off once we began pushing religion aside and needed explanations for all the phenomenon’s sin and human nature used to explain.

We’ve come full circle almost in the pat few decades, we’ve come back to realizing that psychology explains nothing. Now we are looking to physics and other such things, we’re looking to sexuality, we’re looking to race, we’re looking to everything except what originally worked for people: Religion.

My dad had behavioral issues as a kid, and born when he was, he was medicated, put in Special Ed and diagnosed with mental illness, he tried rehabilitation. Like many people of his generation, and ours, he also tried drugs.

It’s strange that drugs and psychology both took off at around the same time. (People can bicker about dates, but a few years or even a decade on the grand scale of time is pretty much the same time.) Both were around before then, but they got popularized, jsutfied, studied, and theorized about. They came to be seen as normal.

Clearly they aren’t the same thing, but strange that the very thing that told us that our dependence on substance was a problem coming from deeper issues did nothing to stop us from abusing substances.

Have you noticed that to highlight a problem in society is no to weaken it, but exposing it makes it become uglier, more used, more prolific, draws more people in.

Exposing it just to comment on it, that is, real solutions are different.

But Psychology did not fix anything, it diagnosed things. Medication could not fix those problems, in face many meds make the problems they treat worse. My dad went off his, and does better now that he did while on them. (Of course, you should be careful about getting off medication, the process is difficult and should be walked through with a doctor’s help. He didn’t quit all at once.)

Now, we live in the information, option generation. In the aftermath of all that identifying, we’ve become clueless about what to do.

Relationships have been diagnosed, studied, and tested; the result? We have a really hard time maintaining even eye contact.

Are they directly related things?

I think so.

Exposing how bad we are at relationships did not help us fix them. It made the revelation overwhelming.

Before, people knew some folks were bad at relationships, but those who were were seen as responsible for their own actions. Since no one thought it was genetically inevitable, people could try to improve, or could be ignored by the general public if they chose to remain unpleasant. Not knowing how deep our mental problems supposedly went, we thought we could move on.

Having it blown so completely out of proportion crippled us. Because it made us think we were powerless to do anything about it.

Doubting our ability to control ourselves is now common phrasing for young people. “That’s just the way I am.”

But we took it further.

It was too depressing to live in that, so we began to take these things that were exposed so that we could not hide them anymore, and we began to say they were not bad, not shameful, after all. Instead they were cool, enlightened, they were our identity.

It’s okay to be gay, it’s okay to have mental health issues, it’s okay to have a disability, it’s okay to do what makes you happy.

Not all the above examples are on the same level of crazy of course, but they all stem from the same thing, a desire to take a shame and turn it into a pride.

In some cases that may be okay. But we’ve gone way, way too far past that line.

I do not blame young people all that much for being so stupid, not really.

When I read books written in the 60s-80s, I often find them depressing.

The infamous Men are from Mars, Women are From Venus was one of the most insulting things I ever read on the difference between men and women. A lot of authors who commented on it were condescending to both genders.

Like our differences can be summed up in quirks. Try it and it fails you, you’ll never find any one thing that makes men and women different other than our sexual organs, if you look only at what we do and what we enjoy and what we hate and how we think. The difference is harder to pin down then that, anyone who tires just makes fool of themselves.

When the explanation for differences was so stupid and limiting, it’s in line with human nature to throw it out and go to the opposite extreme, that there are no differences. That’s insane, but it’s less boring. Youth do like exciting things.

Plus, the new and different aspect is attractive to many people.

If you look at any popular attitude held now, you can trace it back to evolving from an attitude the previous couple of generations have. We have mutated it into something different.

We now speak less of the values they valued, and more of vague ideas about self-fulfillment. But it all make sense, that age of reason led to discrediting pleasure and fulfillment as in our own minds, leaving the young people weaponless to defend pleasure on the grounds o fr eason, the natural result we that young people ignored reason, ignored common sense, and ignored restraint.

Now we have this mess.

IF you listen to how we talked now, it’s becomes obvious. People acknowledge that there are reasons to ear healthy, exercise, and focus on happy things; but then make a joke out of doing none of those things. They laughed it off, but behind the humor, there’s a secret guilt, and a secret bewilderment.

Why, if it is so obvious, do we find nothing compelling about reason? And why, if it is so unimportant, do we make a joke out of not following it that hides a note of serious concern.

We are unsettled. We are drifters. The previous generations removed the foundation of our lives, tried to put a weak one in it;s place, but like sand, it crumbled when the floods of real problems struck again. It was never going to hold up.

But, lacking both  a solid foundation, and now even a sandy one, we have none. Hence our myriad of problems that center around confusion, uncertainty, and depression. Our general feeling of purposelessness.

We now do not have the logical skills to explain why we feel this way, only words of mental illness, social anxiety, and being addicted to screens.

We laugh at it because we have no idea what to do about it.

This, I present to you, is the aftermath of the abolition of Man, our humanity is not gone completely, thanks to God and the preservation of some values even so, but it is hanging by a thread because our defenses are so weak.

We are glorifying our weaknesses because we have been robbed of our strength and glory.

That is what happened. And it turns out, abolishing man’s strength and glory is very close to abolishing man himself, it is good for us that God redeems our weaknesses, or we would have no hope.

But we do have hope. That’s what this blog is about after all. That even dry bones can live again.

It is now almost the third or fourth anniversary of when I started it with just that premise. And I still think that  a return to truth is the only way to preserve hope.

So, with that in mind, until next time–Natasha.

Announcement:

I have now published the first two parts of a series I wrote on Kindle!

It is about superheroes, mystical creatures, and mysteries.

There may be over 20 parts in all, at 0.99 an installment (lowest price possible), if you would like to check it out, here’s a link to find it, the series is called “When It Started.”

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=When+it+started+Natasha+Queen&rh=n%3A154606011&ref=nb_sb_noss

Rebirth.

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I’m still perusing the 39 clues series, I just finished book 4. Despite my post about how profound these books actually were, I was surprised to din this passage:

Irina stared ahead at the wall. Rebirth, she realized. This chamber wasn’t about death at all. It was about rebirth.

Could that happen? After a life lived, after choice after choice after choice led you someplace small and dark…could you…change?

To give you a little context, Irina is an ex-KGB spy with the expected checkered past to match, and she is looking at an Egyptian painting of a queen going into the afterlife.

She recognizes the subtle idea hidden in almost all mythology somewhere, of new life.

This is not really a romantization on my part, or hers, surely anyone can see that any idea of the afterlife is a suggestion that we can have a new kind of life. Generally a better one than we have here.

Some people think that this being common to all cultures is a sign of how we fear death and want some kind of weak comfort out of it.

Such a person writes off heaven as wishful thinking.

What that person would be missing is two things: One, why do we fear death? And two, why are our ideas of what happens after it so oddly similar across culture. There’s an afterlife, but many common themes in even what kind of after life it is emerge. Themes like wealth, ruling, reunion with loved ones, and there being two different kinds of afterlife. The idea of being able to help our loved ones achieve the good life is a theme in many religions also, from Native American to Egyptian to the Catholic idea of Purgatory. (to be fair, I believe the idea of paying people out of it is now old, but it was the norm in Martin Luther’s day.)

But why do we fear death at all? And why do some religions even carry an idea of dying before you die? Of getting renewed even in this life?

Irina is contemplating this, and you could almost see her quoting those lines for Jean Valjean in Les Miserables: “Take an eye for an eye, turn your heart into stone, this is all I have lived for, this is all I have known.”

Since I was using the 39 clues as an example of family problems, why not put this into that context?

It’s opening a can of worms to even ask how many of us have lived to get even with their relatives who hurt them. To see that they get paid back.

Or, how many of us have, as in Irina’s case, lived under the thumb of some of them. Unable to free ourselves because of our own weakness and desires to get ahead.

Never let it be said the root of fear and cowardice is not selfishness.

I can just feel how uncomfortable even thinking about it would make some of us, myself included. Ugh, I don’t want to think about it. How could I be so stupid as to try to even the odds? How can I still sometimes just wish to retaliate, regardless of the consequences.

If you’ve never felt like this,you are probably perfect…or you have no family. Sorry if that’s the case, but it’s a safe bet most of you do.

It’s not really mistakes that ruin a family dynamic, but the inability to move past them.

Whether someone can’t forget because it was just too traumatic, or because they are too spiteful to not want a shot at revenge, or because the other person is still dong it and constantly reminds them, family drama is a mess.

How many of us have the estranged sibling, the difficult child, the absent or abusive parent, or the critical extended family?

You don’t have to raise your hand.

Just thinking about it is painful.

So, what do we do? We have a terrible time even forgiving ourselves, let alone them.

It’s the sheer beauty of what she sees that make Irina start to wonder about rebirth. Could it be true?

Once, she’s back out, away from it, in the distraction of everyday, noisy life; she pushes it away. Yet the seed has been planted. Irina eventually ends up turning around.

Hope of that sorts sees fragile, better in fiction, but in our real sometimes awful situations, is it even possible?

Yes, it is.

The path of rebirth begins with wanting it. Sometimes it takes a terrible loss, a huge blow up, or sometimes it takes seeing a picture of something better. I’ve wanted it after seeing movies with more positive role models than I always had in my real life.

For your sake, I hope your calling comes through beauty, but may times it is through pain. Sometimes a mix of both.

Really, the method is not the important part. What we do with it is. Do we finally open ourselves up to rebirth? New life? A new way? Whatever the cost?

Or do we go back out into the everyday, noisy, busy crowds and lose ourselves in them.

How does rebirth happen?

It always involves a death first.

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.” Matthew 16:25.

There really is no avoiding my faith while talking about rebirth, even if I wished to. Jesus died for us already, but He also teaches us that we must die ourselves in order to be reborn.

“3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

“…And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3)

You know what’s interesting is that I’ve read and watched all sorts of genres, and been debriefed on related ones, to the point where I know the idea of dying is almost always tied to redemption and new beginnings.

The more mystical genres, such as many animes, fantasy movies/shows/books, and superhero sci-fi on occasion, have death along with resurrection. From Dragonball to Harry Potter to time travel epics to Superman, people die and come back to life in order to get final victory.

Genres like The 39 Clues are a little more practical, but the same theme of self sacrifice remains. especially in war stories. It is just irreversible. (The few exceptions to this are usually too weird and creepy to be valuable.)

Irina’s story also involves death in order for her redemption to be complete.

The idea I’m presenting is not really disputed, in fact, it just goes unacknowledged by most people.

God promises that with the death of our old self, the rebirth of our new selves will happen immediately.

“26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36.)

Change starts with you. That is perhaps the truest teaching of Gandhi, and it was hardly original. It might be more precise to say change starts within you.

All you have to do is ask and want it. Really want it. Sometimes we just have to be sick of ourselves before we can be willing to let go of all our grudges and selfishness.

Irina was sick of herself. And so was I, when it was my turn. I like myself much better now.

Until next time–Natasha.

The 39 Clues to Family.

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So, I’ve been rereading an old favorite series of mine called The 39 Clues. Only the first ten books, it got weird, dark, and gritty after that.

But the first ten books were actually brilliant in their own way, the series went wrong because it deviated from their theme. They were concerned with the actual clues.

Let me summarize if you are not up on the plot (and the books aren’t all that well known so don’t feel bad if you aren’t.) Our main characters are Amy and Dan Cahill, they belong to an old and powerful family of over 500 years of being the most gifted, powerful individuals in the world. Many famous historical figures were supposedly Cahills; but, thankfully, this is not your typical Illuminati type story.

Instead of trying to rule the world, the Cahills contribute to it, with arts, science, strategy, inventions, and impressive physical feats like scaling Mt. Everest. The Cahill family has 5 branches, four of which have a them that relates to some particular gifting. Strategy and Cunning is one; Intelligence in inventing and science is another; Creativity in the arts; and physical prowess.

Amy and Dan start off not knowing about any of this, or what the family’s big secret it is. Or that the 5th branch, is one without a particular gifting, but they do have a focus: Reconciliation. Because, like most families, the Cahills a have a lot of junk and an ongoing feud of five centuries full of blood, backstabbing, and theft, all in a quest for power.

(Spoilers if you read past this point, but the books have been out for so long, I doubt it matters.)

The secret turns out to be a serum that give you all the gifts I listed above, the four branches each got one fourth of it, but the completed serum would make you a better superhuman than Captain America…and also corrupt you.

Amy, in book 10, reflects that she’s glad she and Dan come from the Madrigals, the branch without serum in their DNA, because though it does not make you evil, it does make the temptation to power hunger so much stronger. Messing with genetics is never a good idea and never without its drawbacks.

However, Madrigals, like most different groups, are hated by the rest of the branches, who also hate each other. So, she and Dan don’t broadcast their heritage till it unfortunately comes out by circumstances beyond their control…or fortunately, as it turns out.

Long before then, Amy and Dan learn that their parents were part of the clue hunt, and were killed by the mother of two of their rivals, Ian and Natalie Kabra, Isabel Kabra, the culprit, is a psychopath in fine degree. Who tries then to kill Amy and Dan several times, enlisting the aid of her children, who blindly assume she is not actually going to go throug with it.

Amy at first hates Isabel when she finds out, and almost gets Dan killed by angering the woman; but then she ends up being given the chance to either get ahead in the game, or to save the life of Ian, who by the way, pretended to like her and then dumped her and tried to bury her alive…yeah, nice guy.

Amy has just found out she’s a Madrigal at this point, and that they are supposed to be evil, even that her parents were supposedly responsible for a lot of the deaths of innocent people (they are later cleared, but she did not know this yet,) and yet she drops the item that would give her the huge advantage, and saves Ian.

She later tells Dan what is one of the most important themes in the series: I saved Ian, I can’t be inherently evil. Just because we’re madrigals, doesn’t mean we still can’t be good. (Not a direct quote by the way, just a paraphrase.)

Amy and Dan become full Madrigals and learn their branches true task, but they are not sure they can embrace it and try to unite the branches, because they are not sure they can forgive them. In the end, though, they realize that this is what they want to do.

But how? And that is what begins my look at what these books got right.

As I reread book 1, it struck me how the series is a perfect illustration of a thing that Christians call “Generational Sins.” Or, “Generational Curses.”

The idea comes from a verse in the Bible where it says God is a jealous God, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.” (Deuteronomy 5:9.)

Science has, in the last century, proven what was obvious long before then, that families pass down sins.

In L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series, it becomes a running joke about certain families, like Sloans, Pyes, Pringles, Drews. Macallisters, and so on. Each family has characteristics, sometimes shown by physical appearance like goggle eyes, other times jut a reputation for pride and nastiness.

It’s not contested much in the books, but it’s the idea. It’s also part of the Classic Southern Mindset about old families. And the English idea of needing to marry into a respectable family. It’s in nearly every culture.

Yet outside of medical issues, it can be completely ignored in American culture. Or if it isn’t, the reason for it escapes people.

The verse above says God punishes the the third and fourth generation’s sins. Which seems unfair, at the time however, there was no way to get rid of sin, and it would be passed down. Adam and Eve tainted the whole human race by sinning, it has become part of our DNA. (Seeing the connection?)

God later promises to no longer punish children for their father’s sins, once they have been redeemed from sin’s power. Then people will stand on their own merit. Even pre-Christ, there were times when the children of a wicked man would turn out good.

The same sins tend to get repeated. Alcoholism can be genetic, so can other addictions, or tenancies. We’ve all heard “You have our father’s temper” or something like that said to us or our friends.

I have an odd mix of my dad and mom’s tempers, so I get it both ways.

It doesn’t take Amy and Dan Cahill long to notice that each branch of their family is subject to certain kinds of cruelty. Whether it’s by manipulation, inventing things that destroy, abusing creative power, or being violent, yet cruelty and callous disregard for life are the common thread. Even though some Cahills are good and kind, there are far too many like that. And they see the same flaws in their family members on the quest.

Pride is a big part of it also. Big shock there.

Amy and Dan don’t have a lot of knowledge or wisdom about what to do, but they end up dong some things right by accident.

Time and again in the clue hunt they spare people’s lives, or help them when they do not have to, or refuse to play dirty;  ultimately Amy even chooses saving someone over getting the serum.

At first the other competitors look down on them for this…but overtime as Amy and Dan continues to pull ahead, and also to prove themselves compassionate, the other members of the family begin to wonder. Why are they trying to kill each other? (Good question right?)

They start to see the real difference between them and Amy and Dan. A difference of heart.

In the end the difference becomes crystal clear, and they all decide to follow Amy and Dan’s lead in trying to forgive and reconcile.

Generational sins suck,majorly. All of us have our own flaws, bu it can be discouraging to realize we have family flaws too. Ones we’re taught, that come out when we least expect, and that seem ingrained in us. Even in our DNA.

Like Ian and Natalie Kabra in book 10, we may have a shocking realization of how messed up our family actually is.

Like Hamilton, we may start to feel guilty for all we did with our family, blindly believing they were right.

Like Jonah Wizard, we may be horrified at the cruelties we’re capable of, and want to shake our family line.

Or, we may be the peacemaker, wondering why our relatives just can’t let go of their hate and envy.

Whatever position you find yourself in, these books provide at least part of the answer. IT is only by practicing compassion, and making a choice to extend mercy, that we can begin to heal.

When a person who has been severely wronged still decides to be merciful, it is one of the most powerful things int he world. Pride breaks, fear dissolves, curses end, and depression lifts.

Mercy is not pretending someone never did wrong, it is giving them the chance to be better by setting them free of your wrath for it.

That is all I’ve got for now, I recommend checking the series out, until next time–Natasha.

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Broadening horizons.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Any other person who’s experienced this is going to recognize this situation almost immediately.

I present to you an ordinary day in my college life going to the language lab to work on French, nice people work there, friendly.

I need to watch a movie, so the person at the desk gets me the catalog. I look through and note one of the movies was one I saw mentioned in y course material, but then I also noted aloud “Oh, but it’s rated R.” At which point I got the look, you know the one, the slightly incredulous/amused look. “You’re in college, I think you could watch an R-rated movie,” she says. To which I replied that I did not really like R-rated content. Indifferently, she said “Well I think you need to broaden your horizons, girl, because it’s really good.” I read the description and it sounded all right. I have certain themes I’ll sit through an R-rated movie for, and at least with R, you know to expect certain scenes and avoid them, unlike PG-13 which can sneak them in when you weren’t looking.Oh, but Natasha, it’s not real.

Yes, they aren’t actually pretending for the camera, they totally aren’t actually touching and kissing, they aren’t actually nude, that’s all CGI now!

(IT’s not CGI, by the way, in case you were wondering if I’m serious. I know not everyone who reads this lives in America, and perhaps the standards are different other places, but here it’s quite ridiculous.

Needless to say, this lady irritated me, but for lack of any real knowledge of French films beyond the terrible one I watched in class (and I was embarrassed by that) I decided to give it a try.

And it eared the R-rating, rather unnecessarily, I thought. It had little to do with the plot. But whatever, I tried to not look whenever I knew what was coming.

The lady also said I seemed kind of judgy as I was looking through the catalog and commenting that one film was probably more depressing in French. (It was Dead Poet’s Society, which is sad already, so it was a joke because French films are known for their sad endings.)

Judgy?

Let me clarify, to me judgy means not simply knowing your own tastes (as I do) but declaring other people’s to be inherently bad because they do not meet your standards, and your standards are based on a sense of self importance, not simple conviction that something is bad to consume.

No one would call it judgy if I chose not to eat McDonald’s but no one would think it was okay for me to say eating there is some kind of crime.

However, man people would be more concerned if I smoked, and not nearly as many would call it judgy to decry it, since it is proven to be harmful.

By the way, have you heard that nobody actually smokes? It’s the cigarette who smokes, the person is the sucker. (Not an original joke on my part.)

Anyway, the point here is that this lady was being kind of judgy of me for commenting on these movies. But my annoyance only increased when I brought the film back and she asked how it was. I admitted I liked it (as in, it was not torture, I don’t think I’d watch it again, it was weird.) She said smugly (though not meanly) “I knew you would. See, you just need to broaden your horizons.” I replied quietly that my standards are based on experience, which I tried to explain before, but she only returned that I should “live life.”

On my way back to my car I though over this and got more annoyed. Broaden my horizons! Spoken with all the confidence of someone who knows nothing about me and what I watch.

Is it really the same thing for me to be skeptical of movies? I can objectively guess what will be in an R-rated film, and if I don’t want to subject myself to it, that is my choice and preference. It’s not that I have never tried it, it is that I have, and found much lacking.

I’ll just say it now: R-rated movies are by and large the most unimaginative, cheap, lazily written, and immoral films I have risked watching. I’m not about to get deeper into it by checking rated X stuff to see if it’s worse, this is bad enough.

R-rated movies substitute swearing for character development; sex for relationship building and two people finding out about each other, which your average crap teen flick will at least try to do; and violence for stakes.

The hard rating and shocking material allows filmmakers to get away with the worst kind of writing, and no one cares, because if they honestly had standards, they would not be watching.

I still remember keenly my disappointment when I watched Children of a Lesser God, a famous movie in the ASL world, and screenplay…and instead of character development, I got them shacking up for half the film and yelling at each other, but neither of them really knew the other well enough for it to feel like a real relationship.

So, one language research movie being such a disappointment, coupled with how much I disliked the other french film I saw, made me skeptical to just assume it would be good.

It was decent.

But the lady who spoke to me honestly would not have cared even if it wasn’t, to her, the whole point was my narrow mindedness, had I hated it, she would have been undeterred because she would have assumed I was too critical–not that I knew what I did like and got exactly what I expected.

Her whole manner was of the sort that your annoying babysitter took with you back in elementary: the superior, more experienced, worldly-wise person, to the young naive, child with overprotective parents.

Are my parents overprotective? I’ve never thought so, I know non-Christian with more protective parents than me. My parents have never stopped me for watching movies I am old enough to watch, if I so choose, my dad used to let my sister watch movies with him that were way too old for them. Which is how they ended up knowing the plot of several adult movie before me, I was always sensitive to disturbing content, like my mom before me.

In my house that was respected. And my dad also realized that just because he likes that stuff did not make it good for him, he’s revised his standards  a lot over the years.

People in this country tend to have an assumption about my type of person. They think we are just too innocent to know how we sound. I am perhaps lucky to get this instead of what my unfortunate peers often get, bullied for being snobs.

My countenance and good manners tend to get me put into the too angelic category of sheltered. The one where they don’t blame you, but think you need to break out of it and not assume you were taught the right thing (and any notion that you could have come to your own conclusions is thrown out immediately. As you can see, even when I told the lady this, she continued to believe I was simply narrow in what I tried.)

Now, if I was mean…or had a more unreserved temper…I could definitely have made this lady think I was the other kind: the pedantic, self-righteous snob sheltered person. They are still discredited, but they just have a manner that makes people more inclined to get mad at them instead of be tolerantly condescending.

I knew I couldn’t change her mind either way. I could only convince her I was crazy on top of it all.

But the whole episode reminded me that I have been treated like this time and gain by various people my entire life. It happened as early on as age 4-5 by my relatives, and still continues this day from some of them, though they now know me to be more assertive so the  belittling tone has disappeared, my family is not cruel enough to be mean on purpose. But that does not stop other people who meet me from treating me the same.

Since I am usually established as a nice girl early one in my acquaintance with anyone I usually get the benefit of the doubt, they assume I am judgy because I have never tired to experience anything else. Probably because my parents topped me. joke’s on them, I got exposed to more things because of my dad than by any other person I know. He had his reasons.

I don’t consider myself judgy. I had times when I was in the past, but I criticize things now based on what I’ve seen of them. I am extremely good at predicting patterns however, so if my instinct says “this is going to get bad” I generally believe, and I’m rarely wrong.

Come to think of it, the people who have always treated me as sheltered never actually got any proof that I was. Other than I don’t know what a lot of TV shows and movies are. I once got told Twilight was a great series by just some such people. Who were all of two years older than me at most, one was a year younger, but they actually bullied me because I was so sheltered.

The real proof of it was I didn’t catch on till the last day, but that had much more to do with not being used to people being  cruel to me than to not reading those stupid books. As if Twilight prepares anyone for real world experiences, ha!

Other Christians have treated met hat way too, they never seem to see the sad irony of doing so.

As a kid, I was telling y sister, I was really a firecracker. She remembers our spirited (to put it nicely) fights, I remember sassing my parents, and standing up to way older people than me whenever I considered it necessary. Was I always right, no, a lot of the times I wasn’t. The point is, I was hardly the little angel these “broaden your horizons” people would imply.

If I though it was worth it, I could have been exposed to more mature content earlier if I chose to be.

It often surprises people after they have known me a while to learn that I am not afraid to declare my opinion, even if it’s unpopular, and that instead of being cowed by debate, I get more emboldened by it.

The truth is, I can take anything except that condescending belittlement of being treated like too naive to get it.

And y guess is, the people who use it have met enough people like me to know that it is most effective in shutting us down. It is unfair, to be sure, but their fear of us makes them wish to put us off.

It’s funny to me how people either act surprised when I say I can be opinionated, or say “yeah, I could see that.”

You know though, my personality is not really the point. Someone could be a meek and mild person, but just as firm in their convictions, and have good reasons for them; they would still be discredited.

I feel I was done a disservice by other members of the church who treated me this way. Though I deal with the same temptations myself sometimes around kids. My Sunday school calls me out for suing words they are told are rude (though they are not cuss words.) I am trying to respect that, since I know how I felt when I was their age. There are few things worse to a christian kid then when their Sunday school teacher does not uphold the values they are taught.

Anyway, this was a lot more of a rant than I meant it to be, but I think there’s some good points in there, it boils down to respect.

I don’t expect respect from the world for my beliefs, but it is difficult to tolerate the scarecrow they set up in my place that they can then ignore or knock over as they choose, since it is not actually what  I think, and I guess I would like to encourage other people who have had this experience not to assume these people are right.

Being sheltered is a paradox anyway, in some ways we are exposed to far more than the average kid in America…but that is not true for other countries. Someday I might have to compare notes with someone who grew up in Africa and see just how much more they saw than the average public-schooler. I already know stuff that would shock you.

Anyway, until next time–Natasha.

Why do opposites attract?

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I’m back with another anime inspired post.

In all fairness, this is really more of an idea I’ve had for a long time, that anime just happens to highlight, as well as many other shows and books.

You ever wonder why opposites attract?

It’s something most people know, though some of us may not have experienced it, and it works with friends and family as well as romantic interests.

 Why is it a law of nature? It goes beyond magnetism. The whole world is full of opposites. The ground soaks up water, water is absorbed, they have opposite properties. Same with plants and sunlight, one receives, the other gives. We breathe in the oxygen that plants give out, they take in the carbon monoxide (or dioxide, I forget which is from breathing) that we give out.

The clear reason here is that there is a need, if everything was the same, it could not grow or multiply.

Now you take this to the relationship between a man and a woman, and it gets way more complicated.

I remember once starting that “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” book, but I couldn’t get into it, it was so stupidly simplistic. It attributed all the differences between men and women to superficial signs of those differences. What always happens with books/movies about this subject is the author ends up looking dumb because there are scores of women who start offering up examples of how they do not fit the model.

In their brilliant book Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge begin the book about women with an acknowledgement that women can love anything from tea parties to hunting, dress up to canoeing, and that all this does not really make you feminine, but why you do those things might.

I am not going to go into all that, but I highly recommend the book, or searching for their talks on YouTube.

The real point I had was that they are realistic, they know you can’t put women into a box, or men for that matter. I just want to make it clear that this opposites attract thing is not solely about gender. Gender in the sense of hormones, sexual functions, and physical attributes that is; though they all play a small part.

But I mean in personality. Why do opposites attract?

The question is easier to understand when you realize that they don’t always, sometimes like forces do attract, many people prefer to hang around those with similar personalities. I don’t, generally, I don’t meet too many people like me; but sometimes I do and it’s kind of gratifying.

Which actually concerns me, because if I am only drawn to someone because they are like me, is that because it’s easier?

It’s not a secret that people round each other out. The Bible calls it “iron sharpens iron” and “two are better than one.” The Bible also says that the first two people were man and woman, by the way, so there is optimal companionship possible between the opposite genders.

Where this ties in to anime and other shows is in the shipping.

Mock me if you wish, but I persist in thinking that shipping basically reflect a person’s values where romantic relationships are concerned. I am only getting more convinced with time that what kind of fan you are is very telling about your character, but I can save that for another post. The point is, people who ship things for the wrong reasons, or who just don’t care, can take the same attitude toward real relationships.

I will not say there are never exceptions, but it’s the more common rule.

One of my favorite kinds of ships I’ve mentioned before are the opposites attract kind. But I recently got a new insight into how deep that goes.

Often people think opposites attract means your personalities have to be opposites. Two cheerful people won’t attract. Two serious people won’t. However, I find that untrue, in shipping and in life. Many couple are composed of two goofier, laid back people. Int hose cases, however, one person is always more so than the other, there is never complete similarity.

Where the opposite really is important is far more interesting, actually. It has to be in character flaws.

This sounds obvious, but it trips people up, let me tell you. Especially in real life, because honestly, it’s easier to see why two fictional people are too much alike than it is when complicated feelings are int eh way in the real world.

You can have two entirely different personalities, but have the same basic flaws.

And for an example here I am going to turn to the very popular My Hero Academia. (Sorry non-fans, but bear with me, I think you can still follow along.)

The three main characters of this show are Midoryia (better known as Deku), Todoroki, and Bakugo. I will spare you the long version of who they are, all that you need to know is that these three have entirely different personalities; yet the show/manga over time shows us that their basic character flaws can be oddly similar. Though Deku veers more to the lack of confidence in his abilities, and the other two veer more to lacking confidence int heir own characters, but all three end up feeling guilty for things they really shouldn’t; and heaping on the shame and self-loathing because of that. The way they express it is completely different for each. But even the other show characters note how similar they are at the core of the issue.

In the same way, people can have very different personalities, as men and women, and yet their insecurities, flaws, and foibles may be pretty much the same.

On the same show, Deku often gets paired up with Uraraka, a girl who has a similar personality, in that she’s sweet, and innocent.

A lot of people hate this ship simply because they seem so similar, but upon further consideration, I realized that they really aren’t. They might both be positive, and that is a good thing, but Uraraka does not live on Guilt Trip lane, nor does she often feel as disappointed with herself as Deku. She has her own flaws, but they are not the same as his, in some ways, they actually are opposites. Deku does not really like conflict, she thinks it is fun or impressive.

Anyway, I hope that made my point. You can apply this to any couple really. Look at your own parents for crying out loud. Mine are certainly total opposites in flaws, though they share many beliefs and values.

It is true that having opposite flaws often includes opposite personalities, but it does not have to.

And it is important to think about when you are dating someone, because in the end, you want to be with somebody who makes you better.

Did you know that humans have flawed cells in their body? Defective ones? And that it’s why you are not supposed to marry someone closely related to you? It’s because the chances that their defective cells will be the same as yours drastically increases, and that is why siblings marrying almost certainly causes defects, often mental ones, and cousins now, though it did not at one time. Over time as we get more defective cells it’s likely even 2nd and 3rd cousins will be too risky, but here’s the thing, it is far less of a risk if you marry someone not in your family. The risk is almost negotiable then, because it’s unlikely they will have enough of the same defective cells to give your kids problems.

There have been some exceptions, it can occasionally work out, and has in the past between more closely related family; and the problem was once not even there.

Theoretically, Adam and Eve were perfect, no defective cells, and for several generations, the amount of defective cells would have been too small to cause problems with intermarrying. That doesn’t even become wrong in the Bible until after Abraham’s time. Abraham married his half sister, and before you think that’s gross, it was common at that time and in other religions. Also, it did not cause any problems. But later on in the Bible it does become ore of an issue. However, 4,000 years or so ago, it was probably barely a risk.

This is a physical example of a spiritual truth if you think about it. Adam and Eve were without sin, so being exactly the same would not have hurt them. They did not have flaws, or imperfections, so how they matched up didn’t matter. It was only after sin that they develop both the same, and also different flaws, like cowardice, blame-shifting, and shame.

If sin was not a problem, we could all marry anyone we wanted, and not worry about making each other worse. As it is, if you do marry someone not good for you, it is still possible to make it work; it is just harder.

It is never the good qualities in ourselves that we need to worry about matching with. Two negative people should not get together, but two positive people can, it’s not a problem. Provided their positivism is not fake (which is really a flaw then.)

Anyway, I am not trying to start any weird idea that if you and your significant other have some of the same problems it means you can’t be together. I doubt anyone would listen to me anyway if I said that. We will always all be human, we all have insecurities, prejudices, and pride; but if we have different flavors of those things, we can help expose them to the light and make each other better.

That is the real difference to be concerned about, since at the end of the day, superficial stuff is not all that important.

Until Next Time–Natasha.