Unota

Oh boy. After years of foraging, I have finally done something incredibly stupid. I mistook a very close look-a-like for something I was familiar with and knew to grow in a certain area. It wasn't until after I finished a cup of tea that I realized that something was off.

I went back and looked closer at the plant and it dawned on me what I did. I called poison control for some advice, and he told me that my body will probably expel it naturally (in the form of a severe stomach bug.) How sick I will get will also vary depending on the level of toxicity in the plant.

I grew too comfortable with something I have done for years and made a mistake. Play taps for me, as I sink with my ship. Doot dooot

Hopefully there is a lesson I will learn from this. I will try to be more careful in the future.

I know this is a bit odd to pop back in here. Long text incoming!

In one of Hua-Ching Ni's books, he says something about only having sympathy for those who only can reserve the time and energy to resolving their own personal trauma, but shows respect for those willing to share what they have learned, in order to help others. I am paraphrasing, I do not remember the exact wording.

I disagreed with this.

I think that people talk-talk-talk too much online, sharing things that they believe to be true and inevitably spreading nonsense. Whereas I know that I have also done this in the past, I now dislike sharing what which I have not thoroughly researched, or at least thought about. This is just another manifestation of my uncertainty and indecisiveness.

I also do not make a very good active conversationalist because of it. However, I digress.

I learned something in the ways of personal improvement, and while trivial, I know it to be solid enough to be shared.

My initial problems I described coming here were muddied thoughts, and lung problems due to prolonged immune issues stemming from a past lung infection.

However I've managed to clear up my thoughts a bit, (one of the problems at least,) and have learned what caused this, and how it has gotten to such a point.

My life up to this point has been rather bleak, and maybe in the past, I would have blamed this on others. It is my own fault for letting it effect me to such a point. From childhood I have been told that I am an unimportant person. While we never had a truly stable living situation, I lost my home to a fire when I was younger, and we ended up homeless for a year. This also resulted in poverty for years to come. I became the subject of my families stress and suffering, 'the black sheep,' as it's usually called. A child that is unreasonably ridiculed simply because the person feels bad, and needs an outlet for their own suffering. I became seen as just another expense, a waste of money, and I found myself constantly fighting to justify my own existence to my own parents who brought me into the world in the first place.

If you are to believe in the 'five elements system,' my root elements are primarily Earth, and Fire. These describe me very well, I think, and are useful to metaphorically describe my situation. Someone who is of Earth and Fire elements is a very stubborn, persistent, morally sound and righteous person. These two elements seem to often clash with each-other when presenting in a personality. This makes me a, haha, very interesting and temperamental person.

This did not bode well for me, being subject of such ridicule and under strict control of others. I saw the wrongness in how I was being treated, and I acted out very fiercely due to this, which only resulted in me being punished more severely.

I had a core aspect of who I am as a person, beaten out of me entirely. I was not subservient enough, quiet enough, and more easily taken advantage of. I obsess still over what I can do for others, what I can do to make up for my own misgivings, my own worthlessness, that all of society has told me I am consumed by, over and over again. I had developed a victimized role bordering on masochism.

What I am good at is consistent and hard work, which has been undervalued and disrespected. When I work, I make little money, and my own life and health are completely disregarded. I experienced hearing loss by the time I was 22 from working, because my employer did not care to provide me with proper equipment. She cared only about how much money I was bringing her, and sending me home with not even enough to survive off of on my own, leave my family, or even pay for my own vehicle. She also did not consider me a human being; She saw me as a tool to further her own financial success.

My existence has become an apology. While I do want to be kind and help people, because this is truly what I want, up until now it has only been "At least I can do this. At least I can make up for this." It was out of my own self-hatred. I saw everything that I do as minor, trivial things, a mere band-aid of justification for mine being here. I didn't see myself as reliable enough. Even the way that I speak has been carefully developed with mediation in mind, with simplicity and clarity, to avoid anger, to accept others, before even thinking of being accepted or understood myself.

Even this, of itself, is something incredible that I have done. I give very little credit to myself. I can think of nobody else I have encountered that would be willing to put themselves completely aside in order to accept and understand others. I have done this because I do not want to be the same influence in the world on others that has influenced me so negatively, even though it has been to my own detriment.

When my family was experiencing poverty, my father was always a hobbyist gardener. But, it was very small, with lots of problems. When food became insecure, I took what I had learned from him and reinforced it. I have always been puzzled by people who don't understand plants and have difficulty growing food, because I was again, discrediting myself. I did not see the amount of work that I put into it as something substantial. But when something seems so easy, maybe sometimes it is not actually easy, but it is something that only you can do.

Who else would pour over books and research methods on balancing soil? Who would research methods on composting? Companion planting? Natives that balance the local environment and ecosystems to encourage pollinators? Anyone, in theory, but it is my avidity that made me successful in this, and now one of my parents' main problems is a too-full fridge. What a problem to have. My avidity is certainly, no worthless trait.

I have been so brainwashed by society to think that success is money, and money is success.

I am slow, easily distracted, can not handle a high-stress work environment. The slow and persistent hard work that I am fond of is seen as 'unskilled labor.' Therefore, I am an 'undesirable.'

This kind of mindset permeates through myself, and everyone in my life to some degree.

I will never forget the time I was ridiculed by a close friend at the time, for spending what little money I had for self entertainment instead of saving it. She had a stable home, a stable income, and way more money than I did, but she was jealous of me. She did not realize that I could not even make enough to save. If I did not spend it, it would be gone in a week to some other misfortune, and this was all I could do to even feel a semblance of normalcy.

Even she blamed me for my situation, as if spending a five dollar bill once a month on a treat was the reason for all of my suffering. She didn't even notice when she did the same, way more often than I did. While she had a stable job, a home, her own vehicle, and no risk of losing anything, I could not even make enough for reliable transportation. For her, her own treats were necessities. But she looked at me in disgust, as if it was the same as wasting an entire car payment. I developed even more hatred for money, and more stubbornly refused to spend it after that.

I have constantly been trying to be accepted into a society that does not value a person like me. By my family, by the work force, by friends, not just in monetary ways, but in other ways that I have let myself be taken advantage of because I do not value myself.

I have let them do this to me, in my desperation to be accepted. My passion, my righteousness, and my self-respect have been dimmed. Realizing this, I feel a low, simmering anger beneath the surface. Perhaps I've been too fierce and acted rashly in the past, but even then, I don't think I was wrong in this. I just had little control over my temper and my life, and did not know what to do.

Now this part of me has been too far extinguished, and I have accepted other people's treatment of me for far too long. I have lost all the passion that people once loved in me, becoming a miserable and despondent, dull person that can easily be shoved aside. I bury my feelings and thoughts that tend to resurface bitterly, lashing out or in the forms of constant extreme stress.

Now, this is where the muddied thoughts came into play. I was so pained by my circumstances, that I had unwittingly developed a habit of burying my thoughts as soon as they even began to form. This became a coping mechanism for me. So long as I did not think about any of this, I could not be overcome by the despair. I became a shell of my former self. The thoughts were still there, in the form of crushing, debilitating stress, but I could not process why this was happening. Now that I can think more clearly, I have a greater understanding of what is so insistently tormenting me day-to-day.

I will no longer devalue my efforts in such a way.

Just because I do not have my own ambitions or care for my own success, this does not reduce my purpose to furthering other people's success, or to make their lives easier.

I will not help people because I feel indebted to them, but because I want to. I can just as easily take this away.

Just because my hard work is not 'skilled labor' does not make my time, or my life, without value.

In fact, it is other people's prejudice of my circumstances and upbringing that had deprived me of any potential in the first place, and I will no longer let something like this rule over my life.

I am not slow because I am stupid or inadequate, but because I consider things carefully. When I say something, it is because it is true.

And the truth is, no matter how out of balance the world seems to fall into, no matter how much others try to convince you what 'true' priorities are, there is always a second choice, which is yours. You may not always see it or consider it an option, because it is often more beneficial to others to hide it from you.

This is a voracious amount of text to simply say I realized I lacked confidence in myself... haha...But the context seems important. I feel as if I had been killed by others such a long time ago. I was, and still am, so full of despair. Still, I feel a little bit more lively, and have a bit of a better understanding of what I want.

Well... I disappear again! Pshaa!

I joined this forum to find like-minded people and to connect with people. I thought that perhaps people interested in the same philosophy as me would be similar to me. If there are such people, I don't think I would know this, because of course on a forum about daoism people only post long philosophical discussions and history of daoism, instead of anything personal. And from the nature of daoism itself, I don't think I would actually learn anything meaningful and personally applicable from such discussions among strangers online.

While it's all very interesting, I think putting my time elsewhere would be more beneficial. I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. I just don't see how being here would be helpful to me. I will continue to learn about daoism and practice mindfulness techniques of my own accord, but I do not need an online forum to openly discuss doing so, and I think there are much more important things in life to focus on. 

I am a simple person, what is important to me is balance and perseverance, not longevity, immortality, or even achieving great things. I only see and take care of what is right in front of me, one foot after another. I'm afraid that too much information will distract me from these things I hold most important. I have found one thing that has helped, and now before getting too distracted, (as I am constantly trying to avoid this,) I will go.

Tha mi duilich, agus tìoraidh. It was nice briefly meeting you all.

Pardon my language, but it is so..fucking hot. These past few days I've been cooped up inside because of a heat dome reaching 120-130 heat indices because of 80+% humidity. I've been trying to pass the time indoors, and being cooped up was already making me irritable. I think the heat is starting to get to me now, too. It is supposed to peak today, or rather, tomorrow, (although I don't think I will sleep.) The power grid is at risk of failing. If it does, thousands of people will die. I am worried.

This has been driving me nuts. Okay, maybe that is a bit of an over-exaggeration, but it's something I've noticed. I keep getting mocked for the most basic of things.

I got made fun of by somebody for reading Edgar Allan Poe stories. I got made fun of for carrying around a bag with some physical things that have some of the same purposes as my apps, because my phone is cheap and unreliable with a low charge.

I got reprimanded by a family member for favoring fans over an AC unit. He insisted that a box fan uses more electricity than an AC, and when I showed him evidence that it doesn't, he made fun of me for researching it, (and also still did not believe me.)

I got made fun of for using reusable cups and plates instead of one-use garbage, and for favoring my own grown food over takeout.

For reading books? For using a bag of things over apps on my phone? For trying to conserve electricity, and trying not to be wasteful? For eating healthier foods? Since when did things like this deviate enough from the norm, that they even warrant mockery?

Have people gone crazy?

You people post too much, I'm having a hard time trying to keep up. I think I'm going to step away for a while, because I've already found some new reading materials.

While I don't really believe in Qi channeling, I like daoism on more of a philosophical level, I am intrigued by it and would like to know more, so I've started with a few books I've seen mentioned in threads.

There are also some things that I want to look into in the future, for example the apparent rise of Qigong in the couple of decades before the year 2000, and how it's practices might have changed in the process of globalization and integration of other cultural medicine practices.

On the side, I am also reading 'The Botany of Desire' by Michael Pollan, and for entertainment purposes, Eight Tales of Terror by Edgar Alan Poe. My favorite story is 'MS. Found in a Bottle.'

Anyway, I will come back if I run out of things to do, or if I just get lonely.