Thread: When Real are am

Time to put the examples into image form:
1. Alone: A person under a spotlight within a black, empty room. Mirrors appear around them randomly, shifting in and out of reality. These mirrors are their own creation and don't truly exist. They are a slave to themselves. Though real in a sense of singularity, they are not truly living. Not truly alive. Not truly real.

2. With Friends: A person shaped like a jigsaw piece, fitting in with other pieces. The other pieces may fit perfectly but none of them are from the same puzzle, the picture they create is not the true picture. The person feels comfortable and feels happiest because they are now surrounded by pieces that connect to them almost perfectly (or perfectly). But they are just a piece. Unless the pieces create the true picture, being a piece in an incomplete or distorted picture is nothing more than being a false self.

3. With Strangers: A person as a dancer facing a faceless dancer. Each one is trying to figure out the other person's dance and who's truly leading. In the end they want to coordinate perfectly or to disperse and find another dance partner. For a while the person is real as they try their own dance moves to initiate the dance or if they misunderstand the other dancer's moves due to lack of knowledge of those dance moves. But after a few steps that dance either becomes a beautiful coordination that makes the person nothing more than a cog to a machine, or disperses - leaving the person confused as to what happened.

4. Broken: A person shattered into glass pieces onto a floor. That is no person. That is not real. It's broken.

5. Comfortable: A person shaped like a ball that fits perfectly in a dip on the ground. However there's more to the ball than just it sitting idly. The ball could be confused as a design on the floor. But no, this ball bounces or slides. But no one knows that, with how it is in this state, it could just be a statue. This isn't the real self if it can be misidentified this easily.

6. Triumph: A person standing at the top of a pyramid. Others can see that this certain pyramid was the field, and that the top was the goal. But most cannot see the person at the top of it. And when they do see this person, the person isn't so easy to see with the sunlight covering their face. Realism is lost at the moment.

7. Epiphany: A person shaped as a lightbulb. The lightbulb is turned on. What people see and what the person points to: Is the light. The odd thing is, this lightbulb wasn't really meant to be a lightbulb, nor did it intend to be. But because it was screwed onto a certain spot due to a series of events, electricity ran through it and used its conveniently placed wires to create a light-up effect. Due to the obvious surprise the lightbulb-shaped person is giving, it's obvious to others that it wasn't always a lightbulb. But that doesn't matter to the person now, what matters is the light. Not real.


So what makes a person real?
For my standards:

• They have to be aware of themselves
• Others have to be able to discern what makes them "real"
• Their experiences and instincts are not their main focus
• They shouldn't be able to change from this "mode" easily

The best way I describe this is: "AWAKE".



Now you may wonder why I never put "family" in those choices wayy up there... there's a reason for that.
Reason #1: Everyone's families and reactions to families are different, but how one reacts to friends and strangers are the same in structure.
Reason #2: Everyone is real in a family IN THE BEGINNING. But due to a departure from them (interactions with anything in any form creates a departure), one becomes less real with their family despite always feeling comfortable and open around them.


What I wonder is... when real are am.
When is one real? My phrase of "when real are am" feels much more true to my question... saying "When is one real" feels like I peeled a banana and called its parts a banana.

When real are am?
Perhaps one is real when they "wake up"... the moment when their mind sparks and they realize... they have hands... and their fingers are long... and there's this person in front of them... elementary thoughts that are usually spawned by those under the influence of drugs, but these thoughts can be conjured naturally without drugs. It's much truer without drugs, as drugs act like a "breaker", forcing down walls to reveal one's self. Break the walls enough times and the drugs start trying to break down the person themselves. It starts breaking the reality of the person.
To be able to REALIZE these elementary thoughts without the use of drugs acts like an epiphany, but to your own existence. However this epiphany is short-lived as you'll soon lose the feeling and revert back to your programmed and dependent-self.
But when at this state, you realize you're a lot more vulnerable than you used to be. That's due to the walls around you being nonexistant. It's a good feeling, quite freeing. At this state, you should also be able to see others in a different light. Sometimes you'll have "flash-ins" when you look at them (a form of flashback that remembers events of the person, but it feels like it's part of the present - as if past, present, and future are one in the same but the present is just the one you're looking at). Sometimes you'll see something about them you've never seen before. Or sometimes you realize how much they truly mean to you. Things are more real. Colors feel alive. Air feels solid in your grip. And you feel truly ALIVE.

This form of reality of a person is so exaggerated to them because they have lost contact of their "realness" for years - only experiencing it in short bursts throughout their lifetime.
This realness is often destroyed due to the lessons we learned (we create boundaries and bars to restrict our problems) and the connections we have made (we set up psychic lines that react negatively when we cross them).

If you want to remember when's the last time you truly felt real if you haven't experienced this revelation....... think back to your childhood. Remember how everything you experienced felt soo... REAL?
That's who you were when you were real. If at any point things didn't feel so real in your childhood, it's because you were setting up boundaries at that moment.

While boundaries keep us safe, they aren't necessary. What is necessary is to LEARN from problems, setting up fences isn't needed as long as we walk the right way.

When I was a child, I had no boundaries except when around strangers. I set up some serious boundaries around strangers, so now I'm awful at socialization. I kept my "realness" for years and years... often confused as to why others around me started feeling less "real".
I was innocent and naive, not because I never experienced anything - it's because I never set up boundaries.

...I never really lost my 100% "realness" until a few months into the relationship of my darling. I had to set up boundaries because now I was looking out for two people, and one of them happened to be a clumsy girl that would hit the "karma" button accidentally and make all the things that I had coming -come.

I know she feels sorry about it heavily. And that she'd do anything to change it. But I don't regret it. I can feel real every now and again in random bursts, and I know what feeling real is like. If I wanted I could drop all the barriers, but I myself suggest strongly against it for fear of karma hitting me in the nuts. I don't mind. I did it for her. And we are truly happy together because I kept these barriers up to keep us safe. Sure we could feel a billion % happier if these barriers were down, but I'd prefer to bring them down when we're safe (financially sound, no family connections yanking us back in, and any 100% responsibility so that any hell that happens will be because of us and not any variables caused by key strangers).

Ah~~~ (sigh of relief*)

I feel much better.

And to make it up to those who read, here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX0D4oZwCsA

Now here's the weirdest thing: I had a giant section of post behind my second one, but it won't let me post it at all!

I've actually had a problem like this before on AO... there was a certain phrase that the site wouldn't let me post. Everytime I tried, the browser would crash. But if I erased that one phrase, my entire post would go through.

I tried to let my girl do it to see if I was crazy: Sure enough, it wouldn't work for her either unless she removed the phrase!

I swear, is AO being watched by the government and I'm just lucky as hell to type down certain phrases in the correct order?





EDIT: I put the paragraph back in but used Rot13 to cypher it to let it through.
Use this site to decypher it:
http://www.rot13.com/index.php

double rainbow, triple rainbow

you're so smart, Sweetie~

I'd have to say I lost about 50% of my realness during my drug/alcohol use. I didn't really realize it until I quit all that junk and started working on myself. The great thing is that you can get all that back though. I feel like I'm just as real as I was before I started getting high and drinking. If not, more. It's crazy. "Epiphany" was a good choice of words because, that's exactly what I had last year. It was time to stop hiding behind the social walls I put up and start becoming more real. I still kinda suck at socializing, but since I've been trying to fit in my "friendship puzzle" and "coordinate my dance moves" with strangers, it's been getting better.

Your post made my day, Soshi. Thanks for the nugget of wisdom!