{{curiousc}}  I noticed a topic of discussion on your blog about ‘beliefs’.   There are 3 ‘chapters’ between “I Feel” and “I Believe” but, because of the topic being discussed, I’m going ahead and posting this one. 

I Believe
Even faith in nothing is a belief.

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So far I’ve talked about abilities my story started out with. I was born into these abilities. I have the ability to imagine what would enhance the quality of my life, followed by the ability to procure and acquire the tools or means necessary to enhance that life, brought together with the ability to initiate action, the implementation of effort to enhance my life. Along with my sense of Self and my capacity to feel, these parts made up my own immediate Universe. Everything revolved around me.

I was a conglomeration of beliefs woven into a personality. Beliefs about myself, beliefs about the World, beliefs about my relationship with the World. I also found there was a part of me that can best be described as an urge. An urge to expand my field of influence.

An urge to extend myself. To expand awareness of myself past just me. For my Light to shine in somebody else’s world besides my own. To be noticed. To confirm my existence. To socialize.

For many decades my story continued along the same lines as all others. I expressed a sense of my Self. That was full of a lot of hot air, as it turned out. I projected a confidence and an enthusiasm for myself that I genuinely didn’t feel. My Light shows were for the purpose of attracting attention, then enthralling. Lots of time I was only after attention. Negative/positive, it was all attention. Having gotten it, I would move on to attracting more. There always had to be more.

Except when it came to being generous with my self bravado, I didn’t have enough of whatever it took for genuine warmth or generosity. I was too needy for that. Anyone who had what I was after, I’d warm up to. For at least long enough for me to get what ever it was I sought. Sometimes it was only a temporary relief from feeling lonely or insecure. Like a circle of wagons feels more secure then just one.

Lots of us observe this ritual. We seek the company of others because we are dissatisfied with our own. I asked a friend one time if she didn’t enjoy her own company, by what semblance of rational honesty did she imagine anyone else would? She got my point. We can be lonely in a crowd, especially in a crowd of lonely people.

I was sabotaged by my beliefs, by what I had had faith in, which sure wasn’t my self. Symbolically, I was too needy to be a sun. A Sun shines on everything. My Love was too conditional for that. BUT… I could collect satellites. Other worlds that revolved around me.

I would make a great display of enthusiasm and confidence. But my show was just that, a Show. No real warmth but enough light to mesmerize a following.

You see, I needed a following. I couldn’t be recognized as a leader without one. I needed other people who would be dependent upon me to keep them on track and in line. Satellites who needed to be a part of something bigger, to give them an expanded sense of self importance. These satellites fit perfectly with me, for I needed satellites in order to give me my expanded sense of mine.

Negative magnetic fields attract negative poles.

Society’s rocks fit the holes in my head.

Some stories never go beyond this. If the rocks don’t fit, you’re usually pelted with them instead. Fear of being stoned keeps many stories within certain limits. A ‘ring past not’ of experiences and choices that elicit responses of generosity and charity. More commonly known in every culture as taboos, fetishes, superstitions or sins.

A Ring Past Not. A limit we just don’t extend ourselves past.

Where Love is Not extended.

Where Understanding is Not extended.

Where Acceptance is Not extended.

Where Tolerance is Not extended.

Where Forgiveness is Not extended.

Where Mercy is Not extended.

Where Compassion is Not extended.

A ring of conditions ‘a Group’ believes in common. A ring of conditions that keep every individual in the group, in need of the group. In order to make a BIG teepee, I have to assemble lots of sticks, all leaning on each other for their common support.

Many stories never get past this experience of needing group identification. Ostracism, rejection and sometimes extermination, are often consequences of going beyond the limits of cultural taboo. Especially when it comes to thinking and beliefs.

In some stories it has been written that to turn our backs on social acceptance and walk to a different drummer requires Courage. In my story what did it, was Disgust.

I was disgusted with the type of person I had made of myself. I was disgusted by what other people gave meaning to. Most of all, I was disgusted with myself for being so emotionally desperate for acceptance, that I went along with the game. The game of people coming together in hopes of finding someone that has what we think we’re missing. Then we try to take it from them. Like we were all competing over pieces of some big pie. No matter how good I got at it, I never, not once ever, experienced anything close to fulfillment.

I had been looking for Love in all the wrong places and, looking for Love in all the wrong faces. When what I really needed, was to look in a mirror. I was a negative pole in a negative field, looking to get something positive out of it.

That’s when I decided I didn’t care if I was an accepted member of the negative field anymore, even if it was the most popular group. I decided I’d rather live out in left field by myself and be my own best friend, then be lonely surrounded by negative company. That was my decision.

I really didn’t see it as ‘courageous’ at all. I saw it as being fed up with living a senseless life as a stick in a teepee. Life wasn’t exactly fine as a stick but I had learned to crow about being a strong stick. This fed my sense of self importance so long as I didn’t realize I was just a stick. Big stick, little stick, straight stick, crooked stick, a stick is still a stick.

Once something is known, it cannot be unknown. As realization of my stick status set in, my egotistical bubble popped. After that, I didn’t have any desire to stick around.

As a stick in a teepee, I had no stable foundation for my life. No way to develop any stories beyond the teepee. If you think about it, you’ll realize like I did, that teepees are all single stories. Made up of a single story, that holds all the sticks together. A common belief. The belief that was common in my culture, in my story, was a belief that Love is conditional. When I decided not to believe in this conditional love anymore, I went from being a stick, to being a pillar.

Ever since then my foundation has been secure and solid, simply because I‘m not looking outside my self for what I have refused to give myself. I am at Liberty to think of myself any way I’d like. I chose to give myself the experience of knowing what unconditional love feels like. I chose to learn how to love myself that much. I chose being Self Nurturing, so when it came to extending myself and expressing myself, I’d actually have something to share, to extend to others, without any strings attached. I could give without needing to take anything in return.

I chose to be unafraid to be honest. I decided I wouldn’t manipulate my answers for the purpose of being accepted and/or liked anymore. I’d let chips fall where they may. People who liked me would genuinely like me and those that didn’t…., well…didn’t. I could feel secure and be sure of my relationships because since I was real, they were real, too.

I no longer felt like I needed to be liked, because I had learned to like myself. I became a positive pole that radiated a positive field. It took some time, like the time it would take to change a processing plant from processing jelly to processing peanut butter. But the laws of quantum physics didn’t change. Gradually I met others who shared the same attitude and the same goal. A social group formed.

A group of us who have common beliefs and common goals. Pillars believe in Unconditional Love. It’s what makes a pillar, a pillar. Our common goal is cooperating together in order to create stable foundations and environments for self development. We’d like all our stories to be skyscrapers.

There is no competition among pillars. There is no psychological need for it. We know we’re all winners simply because we share the same Gift of Life. We’re all equal, too, because we don’t rely on any made up conditions for elevating some, at an expense of others, like all conditional groups do.

We cooperate or don’t have anything to do with it at all. Sticks may be smart but pillars are wise. And when it comes to genuinely imagining, acquiring and acting upon what actually enhances Life, success depends not on smarts, but on Wisdom, which is Heart plus smarts.