Where Am I Going?

[Robert Fuller]

I’m not sure where to put this post. It’s sort of about the MSE but also about my entire Lust experience, so I’ll just stick it here. Maybe other people will add their own musings and views on the future.

Anyway, now that I’ve had a few days to process, I find myself at a crossroads. My MSE experience was not a positive one, for a number of reasons. I left feeling frustrated, anxious, and depressed. Part of it was losing my heterosexual make-out virginity, which I knew was going to fuck me up even as I did it. Part of it was the post-strawberry confessional, which I think I did badly. I misinterpreted questions and gave dumb answers that weren’t exactly lies but weren’t really the truth, either, and then had to endure subsequent interrogation based on my wrong answers. I’m not good at thinking on my feet or being completely candid around strangers, and I started kicking myself for not being completely truthful. But mostly it was the fact that I spent the entire middle portion of my experience playing silly, discomforting games when what I really wanted to do was talk to people and have intense and/or erotic experiences, of which I got none. I wanted more time in the lounge. I wanted more time in the sacrifice room (why did Noah come in?). I practically started crying when Noah told us all to leave, because I hadn’t gotten what I came for. I got dressed in stunned disbelief that it was over. I didn’t sleep hardly at all that night, and haven’t slept much since.

Also, fuck the OSDM. They’re all a bunch of shit bags and they throw a shitty, flaccid (in every sense of the word) sex party. I really wanted to step in and stop the Councilor from abusing that girl, but I was afraid of blowing my cover and getting thrown out. And I’m terrible at confrontations anyway. I had the same impulse when Rico was abusing Zane. The OSDM is a terrible thing and the BOS can burn it all down and I won’t have a problem with it.

Oh, and by the way, fuck the BOS, or the Midnight Commission, or whatever the fuck they’re calling themselves, too. I don’t appreciate being recruited as a spy against my will. That whole business was completely shady and I still don’t trust Morgan. They say the OSDM has been lying to us? It seems to me that the only verified liars here are the System Five, who have been lying to us and manipulating us for months. And for what? Nothing they did prepared me for Anointment, and in fact I don’t feel like any preparation was needed at all, other than learning the hand signals, which took about 30 seconds. So what was it all for?

I don’t trust Noah any more than I trust the OSDM. I’ve never made it a secret that I don’t like him. He represents everything I hate about society: greed, capitalism, and alpha male posturing. (Incidentally, that’s why I tore up the money at the System workshop. I didn’t think it was a big deal at all, just a small but slightly self-empowering symbolic gesture (and it felt pretty good), as well as an instinctive reaction to the absolutely terrible job that Noah/Andy/Sarah was doing in trying to teach us something, but I got attacked for it, and people still bring it up to me as if that’s what I’m known for.) Morgan has never had a nice word to say to me (and in fact was the most vicious attacker over the money thing). Mason is a big question mark, and I’ve never met or spoken to Joyce or Michelle. And honestly, I don’t have much faith in the BOS as a Resistance group. They seem kind of bad at Resistancing. Granted, they got Stephanie out. But what about the other people being held against their will? It’s hard to put faith in anyone.

And frankly, based on points brought up by @bcbishop and @coryphella, I’m (still) having a hard time believing anything. There are no barriers between fact and fiction. I’m a naturally skeptical person, mostly because I don’t like being wrong and am therefore reluctant to take any stance on anything that includes ambiguous or incomplete data, and so this doubling down, this stacking of fact upon fiction upon fact, is a total mindfuck for me. I do know I don’t believe in Anoch. I’m not even sure Sabrina does. Sabrina wants attention. She’s the Roxie Hart of Lust, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she was faking the pregnancy. If there’s one lesson to be learned from the System, it’s that nothing can be taken at face value.

So where does that leave me? I can’t say I’m TeamSimon anymore, because I’m making friends in the community and learning to trust people. I’ve gone to a couple of meet-ups, which I thought I’d never do when I first joined TLE, because I’m super introverted and generally don’t like people. And I can say I genuinely like everyone that I’ve met in the community, which is amazing (and a compliment to you all), considering I’m usually such a misanthrope. I came for the experience, but I’m staying for the community. It won’t be easy. I’ve already had a couple of pretty severe bouts of crippling depression due to my involvement in Lust. But the only way out is forward, and I feel like this is something I need to do. I’m TeamTheOne, and that’s the only way it can be right now.

• This topic was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Robert Fuller.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Robert Fuller.

[Unseen Presence]

First, just wanted to say that I appreciate you making a post like this. I, at least, find such discussions make it easier for others to talk as well.

I’ve already posted that I was only really emotionally impacted at this event by Cecilia Sinclair. I, too, was sort of hoping to see and experience something seriously different, dark, perverted, sexual–whatever you want to call it. Perhaps it was the dark side of myself coming out but I think the darkest thing that happened to me was having a partner in the secrets section relay that she was turned on by having a partner who was into bestiality. That’s a pretty tame, 3rd-hand moment.

But I, too, have been processing. And like I said, if I have to define myself as being Team (anything), my gut reaction is to call myself Team Cecilia–because whatever she wants to make happen, that’s where I’m going to go, because it will give me the best chance to learn more about her and understand her story.

As my processing continues, I’m ALSO pro-OSDM for a couple of reasons:
1) As long as Cecilia Sinclair is a member, I’m in.
2) As long as there seems to be some indication that they’re manipulating EVERYTHING, I’m in. I’d rather be on the side manipulating than be the manipulated.
3) If there’s going to be any chance to REALLY find this boundary of real/fiction and who the **** is behind it all, it’s going to be by being a part of the group we KNOW manipulates things.

I can’t be Team BOS or Morgan, not because I hate them or despise them–but because it’s hard for me to swallow that they’re legitimately opposition. I wholeheartedly believe that MEMBERS may be anti-OSDM through and through. But I don’t trust that their origination was legitimate–or perhaps, more accurately, I continue to think they may BELIEVE what they’re doing…and just be wrong.

And sure, I may be acknowledging that I’m being selfish by choosing as I am. I probably am. But I also know that this year has been, for me, one that I have been calling “The Awesome Strikes Back” because this is the year where I swore that I would do everything–EVERYTHING–I could to finally be moving my life back to where I want it to be: creating, directing, writing, generating content for audiences. And then the end of the year decided to kick me in the teeth. I’m still standing, but a little battered right now. So I’m taking the choice that makes me feel like the winning side again–not the side that’s a narrative of one more rebellion by the skin of its teeth. I can wholeheartedly sympathize with those who DO make that choice–it’s one I’ve made most of my life. But I want more, for once. And that’s legitimately where I am.

[Bryan Bishop]

@remrelganaps I’m going to echo @unseenpresence here and thank you for starting this thread as well. (And thank you to @unseenpresence for sharing your story.)

I had similar feelings after going through Anointment. I was challenged to confront insecurity about my body, which was certainly liberating, and @shinobi and I shared the latest in what has become an ongoing series of awkward moments inside OSDM compounds. But while discovering that Darren was walking amongst us as The Master was certainly a head-spinning surprise, I wouldn’t say I walked out of Anointment feeling satiated in the way that others did.

It wasn’t what I experienced or how I experienced it. The compound and everyone within it were incredible, vivid, and memorable. I suspect it was actually something inside me… something I hadn’t quite figured out. Over the course of the night, I actually began to think that perhaps the answers to my ticket questions had been wrong. That, perhaps, I hadn’t quite figured out what it was I truly wanted and needed. So I understand what you both say when you talk about not knowing where to go next, or how to feel.

Then I shared a moment during the 11:30PM last show. @larry was sitting on the floor of the dressing room (naked, of course), while we both listened to the tall, bald woman with the septum piercing. She told us how she’d been a model, and worked in the music industry, and had done all of these different things, before she found herself on the path towards becoming “Phase One” in OSDM.

What she’d learned, she said, was that it wasn’t about money, or drugs, or fucking — although all of those things were great. It wasn’t even about power, she told us.

It was about control. And that was what OSDM gave her.

For me, it was a lightning bolt. Everything clicked into place, and in that moment I understood precisely what I was looking for. And remembered once again why, for me, OSDM is where I hang my hat.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying: keep your eyes open. Stay present. Feel your feelings, even if they’re ones of dissatisfaction. The lightning bolt of realization may be just moments away. In a dressing room with naked Larry Meyers.

[Lawrence Meyers]

@bcbishop

The lightning bolt of realization may be just moments away. In a dressing room with naked Larry Meyers.

: 100% of participants frantically fill out “have lightning bolt of realization in a dressing room with naked Larry Meyers” under “what do you want” for next show :

[shinobi]

@bcbishop Yes, we always seem to meet up at these events. Now we’ve seen more of each other than we probably would’ve cared to. Looking forward to the next.

Personally, I want to find Alexis again.

[Robert Fuller]

@bcbishop

keep your eyes open.

Yes, that’s exactly what I was going to say at the end of my post, but forgot. That’s really the plan: keeping my eyes and ears open and preparing for anything and everything.

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