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Yesterday all was revealed… well, kinda. Noah came out of the proverbial closet with his four closest friends and gave us a glimpse behind the curtain. During his video, he told us, no, he begged us, to answer two questions. “What did you learn” and “How do you feel?” He seemed rather insistent. So here goes nothing. I’ll take the first jump off the ledge.
What did I learn…
I learned that sometimes I think too much and feel too little.
I learned that sometimes I feel too much and think too little.
I learned that I have a tendency to jump to conclusions.
I also learned that I have a tendency to not commit to a side or a line of reasoning if I’m not 100% sure of it.
I learned that I want to be the center of attention, but don’t want to seem like I want to be the center of attention.
I learned that, sometimes, if I’m not directly affected by something it’s essentially meaningless to me (not always, but often enough to be a little concerned.)
I learned that I am distrustful of narratives and have a hard time totally losing myself in them.
I’ve learned that I can be a dick, especially when I feel righteous about something.
I’ve also learned I can be affected by something like this way more than I thought possible.As far as feelings…
I’m a little frustrated, a bit annoyed. Chasing something around for months to find it is essentially a dream sequence to prepare for an event I can’t attend will do that.
I feel relieved, that all of the crazy shit doesn’t matter quite so much anymore, and I don’t necessarily need to keep all of it straight in my mind.
I also feel a little empty, at the pointlessness of some of it.
I feel a little excited, that this happened, that maybe the future holds some actual truth now that this charade is out of the way. -
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Thank you for starting us off with this @bruinbown! I was never on board with Noah and The System and after taking some time away from everything to re-evaluate, I think I know why. I told myself that I didn’t need what Noah was offering, that I could see through it as a charade. But there was some real good that was done by getting people to open themselves up to others and face their demons. As someone with a tonne of walls, I guess The System was actually threatening to me and so I acted like it was a joke. That was wrong, and I am very sorry.
So. With some clarity on board, here we go @maddyxxx…
What I learned:
I am not as nice as I thought I was. I am in fact a total garbage person…
Some people don’t deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt. Some people do. I suck at differentiating between the two.
I need to be constantly moving in a direction – treading water makes me crazy.
I do not take rejection well.
I need constant acknowledgement.
I thought I had conquered my fear of not being loved. I was wrong.How I feel:
Angry – at myself, for deflecting my issues onto others, for acting in atrociously undignified ways, for sabotaging relationships and my path in this world.
Grateful – for those who have stood by me, for those who have accepted my apologies, for the lessons I have learned.
Hopeful – that I can make amends, that I can move forward with a little less emotional baggage.The day after the TMC reveal, I said that BOS was not Morgan’s just because he claimed it as his own. I still believe this to be true. BOS can survive. BUT. I’m no longer sure it needs to. I don’t know if there is anything to burn down anymore. The tattoo on my finger no longer relates to an organisation or an idea really. It is a tattoo I share with someone I adore. It is a tattoo that represents lessons learned. It is a tattoo that reminds me of the mistakes I have made, and that as a result of these, I have grown.
I look at IT (if that’s what we’re calling them now) – at Noah, Mason, Michelle, Joyce and Morgan – and I feel nothing but a strange sense of calm and confidence. I can’t attend the MSE, but the things that we are being taught in order to face whatever that will entail… Surely they will be just as useful in life in general.
I may end up eating my words, but as of now, I am open and willing to listen and learn and even let down the walls a little bit further. Roll on Chapter 7.
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I learned nothing about myself that I didn’t already know. But don’t worry about it, @maddyxxx. I just know myself really, really well.
I feel nothing but lost and confused as to what my path is through this, and maybe a little annoyed at being asked how I feel and what I learned, as if you care. As if it matters or is relevant to you. And definitely annoyed at the way you and your cronies keep trying to ruin this super-cool event I’m going to next month by making me afraid of it.
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@remrelganaps — I say this not to diss you in any way, but to challenge you.
Noah isn’t asking what you learned or how you feel because he cares.
He doesn’t. And it shouldn’t matter if he does or not.
These are questions we should be asking ourselves every day. That’s the theme of the whole damn thing.
Self-actualization is achieved by asking ourselves these things.
To quote the late Mary-Lynn, “it only works if you’re honest”.
I know several folks in our fine community, who are pretty darn hard to reach, have been impacted.
So I offer a suggestion — Don’t cheat yourself. 🙂
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@larry Of course he doesn’t care. And I don’t care that he doesn’t care. My annoyance has more to do with the arrogance behind the assumption that we don’t already ask ourselves these questions, that we need him, this man who couldn’t give a shit, to tell us to do so.
I’m definitely not cheating myself.
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I like this prompt. Thanks, Noah, ya damn goof.
What did I learn? Morgan asked me that too. “What do you know?” And I guess I didn’t know why he was asking me that at first…and I didn’t have an answer for him. But of course I do.
I learned that I was letting my emotions get the better of me so frequently that it was damaging relationships that were new and exciting for me. I learned how to have hard conversations with people I care about and to own my fucking shit. And I think i learned that i was brave.
So what I know now is that the person I am can handle a lot more shit than i ever thought possible, because I’ve put myself through plenty these past few months. We all have. Come at me. I’m not about to flinch.
…guess The System really does save.
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No one is going to save you… that’s true, but that doesn’t mean people can’t help you save yourself. I don’t know if the system reinforced this for me, or maybe it was just @thebuz following the system: You should allow people to help you. Like many of us I grew up in a not so nice environment where I constantly had to look out for people trying to take advantage of me or harm me so I’ve become very paranoid about strangers. It’s in my nature to isolate myself and endure trauma silently. So instead of shutting everyone out and proclaiming you won’t be anyone’s fool, that no one can hurt you because no one has the keys to the gates, I’ve decided to let people in. Sure there’s a good chance I might be tricked or hurt, but the alternative is a life that I do not wish to live.
@maddyxxx At the beginning of this the system called me a loser. I was upset at this, but now I think it’s fitting. I have lost a lot this year and I’ve continued to lose. The bright spot is that despite all the losses, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ll survive to lose another day, learn from it and then maybe even win sometimes. -
What did I learn? What did I feel?
1) To trust my gut instinct.
It seems that lesson needs to be learned over and over again. We never had a shred of evidence that anything which happened after The System Seminar was real, I knew it, but I didn’t stand fast to that opinion.2) I’m more susceptible to emotional manipulation than I thought.
FFS, my whole thing is that 99% of the media is bullshit. I know this. That didn’t stop me from hopping on board the crazy train thinking that Mr. Silver was a psycho with a bat, that OSDM offices around the world were liquidated, and that some guy on a picnic was chased with a chainsaw.3) There’s a difference between sharing feelings and advocating for them.
When put on the defensive, my initial reaction is to take care of other people’s feelings, rather than listening and then sharing my own, so that ideally both parties come to understand each other. To advocate is more of an offensive act, to be used when one’s feelings are actively being dismissed. My errors at breakfast with @nothenrygale were two-fold. I listened but did not immediately share in kind, and then got pissed at myself for failing to do so, resulting in the pendulum swinging towards advocacy.4) Gotta keep testing my limits every damn day
In the macro, I am saying “Yes, and…” to just about everything that comes my way. But, on the daily level, it is so easy to get caught up in the b.s. I want to remember to test some limit, even a little thing, each day.5) I’m at my most vulnerable when I’m out of fucking control.
No surprise here. Still working on shutting my fucking head off and being in my body, aware, attentive, and tuned the fuck in. -
I’m not even certain that I qualify to answer these questions, given that I’ve only recently started engaging. But nevertheless…
What I learned:
1) I should have gotten involved earlier. Simple, there.
What I really mean is that I shouldn’t have stayed a silent observer for so long. I watched as a voyeur, interested from an intellectual standpoint but as though it was a science experiment in a glass cage.
I should have stepped inside far, far earlier. I would appreciate this more at this particular moment.
2) I am too lost in my own head. See above. But it’s true in general life, as well. While I am -incredibly- empathetic to others and very, very good at helping people with emotional issues…I’m incredibly bad at relating to such internally. I what caused me to be that way. But I haven’t been able to change, yet.
3) I am incredibly suspicious of everyone and a tad more bitter than I realized I was. The bitter is easy to understand, given the state of the world. The suspicious surprised me, even as it made me assume long ago that all of this was as revealed. But that suspicion overcomes my ability to listen to my instincts. And…
4) I need to trust my instincts more. When something happens, I need to just respond and trust that I will get it right. (Hear that, TPTB? You want to test ME? Give me a choice that MATTERS, but that I can’t respond to immediately and where I can’t determine potential outcomes. I’d probably implode.)
What I feel:
1) I don’t like being isolated/outside communities. I wish that I -was- having the same emotional punch that many of you are, or that I was ’embraced’ by the group. I recognize mentally that such takes time and effort…but at the gut level, I don’t like feeling isolated from the rest of the community’s feelings–or not feeling like I’m ‘part’ of it on the emotional level.
2) I’m exactly 50% terrified of the event in December and 50% excited as hell about it. Terrified because it may push my boundaries. Excited because it may push my boundaries. Terrified because so many of you are SO INVESTED…and there has to be a reason why. Excited because I want to be equally invested/connected.
3) I’m intensely curious as to how the MSE may intend to push/test/interest/impact me. I know myself pretty well, I think, so pushing me in most ways won’t trigger much other than mental curiosity. But I live TOO MUCH in my own head. Sometimes when something/someone DOES get past my mental barriers, I can respond with strong emotional feelings. Those strong responses have occasionally in turn caused problems with friends/family/relationships. So I’m really curious as to what, if anything, will happen–and if it does, I’m going to approach it with an attempt to be truly emotionally honest and ready (instead of just honest but largely mentally focused). ‘Cause that would be its own sort of test, for me.
Again, maybe my responses aren’t even really valid at this moment for the rest of you. But I’m still have my own response and thought it might be interesting as a different vantage.
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Had some time to think about these things, and here is what I’ve taken away from this:
“How do you feel?”
When that first video dropped, I felt betrayed, I felt like a fool. I’ve trusted Morgan throughout this. When he gave me my task to meet with someone in the community, I put a lot of trust in him. As the week went on, I felt more that I was being set up by him. That I was put in a position where I could be made “the fall guy”. The first video made me feel like a fool because it seemed like this entire time, everything I’d been fighting for seemed to have been for nothing.
I posted about Morgan being the one who sent me on my task, because I felt like the gig was up. That Morgan had betrayed me and there was no reason for me to keep his secret anymore.
Then the second video drops. I didn’t get to really watch it and listen to the words until much later due to Disneyland, but when it hit me exactly WHY they were all working together, it hit like a ton of bricks. I felt that I had fucked up. That rather than being able to stand proud that I could be trusted by Morgan and the resistance, I threw a tantrum and flipped the proverbial table.
“What did you learn?”
I learned I need to stop responding so emotionally. I had a bit of a temper as a child, something I channel when I play Samuel the Savage in October. I used to say I played him how I saw myself if I never learned to control the temper. But I never fully learned to control it. I learned to stop from responding physically, but I still react very emotionally and it clouds my judgement when I feel hurt. I respond in a way that I don’t stop and think about what the hell I’m doing.
Over the past few months, I’ve become very good friends with Morgan. Even before it was revealed he was head of BOS. But this whole situation reminds me of my initial thoughts of him. I once described him as being someone who tends to go “radah radah”, a phrase I picked up from my girlfriend. Basically when someone starts getting emotional and loud and ranting. It’s a phrase I’ve heard her use about myself when I get angry and frustrated by others. It’s something I need to work on still, and this whole mess has been a reminder that I still have a ways to go to improve.
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I have written and deleted many responses to this thread.
I know my responses to these questions, and they aren’t for this audience.
I have shared so much more of myself over the past few months than I ever do, normally, and I’m ripped open and raw for it. I don’t regret any of this and I knew that I was on a path to destruction, I accepted that, willingly. I wanted it. I gave of myself as much as I could, probably more than I should have. I play this “game” as though it’s life. I live it. There is no IG/OOG separation for me. I wanted it to be real, I wanted real feelings, and that’s what I was given. It was amazing and terrifying and awful and real and I am so very grateful. But I’m exhausted and really, really hurting right now, not for the reasons everyone assumes.
I’m not quitting, at all. I’m still here. But I’m fighting against wanting to push all of this down and do something, anything, to make myself stop feeling. Having a husband who’s an actor has helped me to figure out why I’m feeling as much as I’m feeing. Having a cursory understanding of Boal, doing the research that I’ve been doing into ethics in immersive theatre – these have kept me grounded during this. I just got the email that told me that my life might totally be fucked tomorrow, though, so for the moment I need some truth that I don’t have to question, I need to not have an audience, not be criticized by this thing I love, not criticize or hate myself because of it. I need to not worry whether y’all think I’m too upset over something or whether I’m over it fast enough or reacting in the right way. I need to not worry about how I’m misreading everyone in the entire room and fucking everything up. Or whether or not I’ve really lost a friend. And I really just need to get through tomorrow and see what comes next. Everyone knows where to find me and if I have stuff to share, I’ll be around, but I will probably be quiet otherwise while I sort some of this shit out.
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I’ve given this some heavy thought over the weekend. This probably isn’t complete, but it will never be posted if I don’t post it now.
What I learned:
I learned that despite all of my suspicions and social walls, I am extremely easy to play. Bombastic and arrogant rhetoric of the past aside, all one needs to do is line up vaguely with my anti-authoritarian values and that makes me willing to hear them out, maybe extend some empathy, and scowl in the direction of who/whatever is being propped up as Badguy of the Week (TM). Feed me a little information and I think that I have an informed and defensible opinion… but I guess the same can be said of most of us. I have also learned that despite all of that, my walls are stronger and less scalable than ever. I’ve spent exactly a year in this community, and I only barely know a handful of you, despite a handful of shitty attempts on my part to integrate. I learned that when faced with human beings that display many of the same personality quirks/flaws that I have, I don’t always respond with empathy but scorn instead. I also learned that I need to be more emotionally honest. I protect myself from making or keeping friends, here or elsewhere. I say too much and not enough, and I punish myself incessantly for both transgressions – there’s no right way to be me. I already knew this, but it was confirmed that I am far from being self-actualized. Not a surprise, but it is disheartening.How I feel:
Well, uh, disheartened. A little angry. A little tired of having my dick pulled at every turn, and then mocked and judged for falling for the ruse. But, that’s what I signed up for. That’s what we all signed up for. For literally the first time in almost 39 years, I feel the need to grow the fuck up.
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