the pathology of primitivity

[franksolich]

Our distinguished colleague Carl recently noticed something about the defrocked warped primitive, she with the face like Hindenberg’s; a vigorous enthusiastic hatred of God and humanity.

It’s nothing new with the “warpy” primitive; she’s been that way for years and years, but she’s been increasingly more and more that way lately.

It’s obvious what’s going on; Ms. Hindenberg is 64, 65, years old, and not ageing well.  She’s losing her eyesight, and is ostensibly afflicted with more ailments than a railway brakeman.  And it can’t help that her idol, her hero, he on whom she’d pinned so many hopes and expectations, has turned out an abysmal flop in the White House.

To top it off, she’s short, and while she inherited the gender of her mother, she inherited the build and looks of her father, including a deep, husky voice and some facial hair.  She's pretty ugly.

The defrocked warped primitive was once a registered nurse, but “something” happened with her Massachusetts nursing license, and she now lives in angry isolation in one of the most desolate parts of New Mexico, unemployed, unemployable, and living off charity and the leavings of her late father‘s estate.

On the surface, it appears “warpy” has a great deal about which to feel pissed off.

But her animosity, her hostility, her enmity, towards God leaves one mystified; what the Hell did God ever do to the defrocked warped primitive, to merit such contempt, such hatred?

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I call it the “Colin Goff phenomenon,” in memory of the late Chief S itting Bull, the bird-smacking stoned red-face primitive “Redstone.”  The Greatest Primitive, Ever.

For those unfamiliar with the late Chief S itting Bull, he was famous for his passionate anger, rage, and hate directed against all that is good and decent.  He was also, apparently, a very violent person, always getting beat up in fights because of his bullying braggadacio and his loud mouth.

He had a long list of personal and business failures in his life.

The last five or six years Chief S itting Bull hung around with the other primitives on Skins’s island, he was dealing with not only self-admitted alcoholism, but some sort of dread progressive irreversible neuromuscular deterioration that ultimately leaves one helpless as an infant.

His sentiments and comments got more and more heated, and hate-filled.

We were still at our old home when I became bothered by this; resentment at having been afflicted with such a thing is utterly human, utterly normal.  But if one’s a reasonable person, sooner or later those feelings pass, and one digs in, hunkers down, for the important thing, adapting to it.

Many times, at both our old home and here, I posted publicly a question to Chief S itting Bull:

Okay, okay, this is terrible, this is devastating.  This is horrible, and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. 

But it’s a fact, and you’ve got to deal with it.

And so I’m curious; just exactly how does seething with rage and burning with hate help you deal with it?

Chief S itting Bull died, apparently by his own hand, before he ever got around to answering that question.

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This sort of question, I ask myself repeatedly, when watching the primitives on Skins’s island.

The bitter old Vermontese “cali” primitive, for example, famous for her hotly-negative attitude about people and things.  How’s that helping her get through life?

Or…..walrus-face.

Or…..the cousin?

Or…..well, just about every primitive.

How does being bitter and angry and hate-filled solve your problems in life?  How does being all huffy-and-puffy about things help you adapt to your situation?  How does self-righteous indignation improve things for you?

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I mean, look at my own life.

-born without ears; deaf.  Because my parents made the lesser of two bad choices (the only choices they had), and decided I was to be raised as if nothing were wrong at all, life has been hardly anything else other than confusion, vexation, and discouragement.  I’m compelled to “act” hearing, and have to guess what’s being said, or what a noise is. 

And much of the time, I guess wrongly, with either hilarious or devastatingly catastrophic consequences.

-older siblings greatly perverted by the Age of Aquarius, leaving memories of a contentious family, the parents against their ungrateful willfully ignorant older children, and after the death of my younger brother, my estrangement from them (the older brothers and sisters), all of them.

-father, mother, and younger brother all died in a period of thirty-nine months, barely three years, when I was 17, 18, and 19 years old, leaving me alone at a particularly vulnerable time in life. 

-raised with this “affirmative action” notion that despite being deaf, I could do anything hearing people could do, an absurd notion to which I tenaciously clung until circa fifteen years ago.  The blunt fact is that no, I can’t do everything and anything hearing people can do.

(And hence this late-in-life attitude, “well then, concentrate upon what you can do, and don’t worry about what you can’t do; stop trying to do the impossible.”)

-a severe drinking problem between the ages of 17 and 27, along with the usual standard customary run-of-the-mill frustrations, silent sullen withdrawal,and even strong suicidal impulses.

-this sense of never being all “here;” here, but not really “here.”  A detachment from people and events, as if they’re on the screen of a television where the sound has burned out, or in silent movies.

Well, whoop-de-do; I still consider myself the luckiest, the most fortunate, person I know, and I wouldn’t want to be anybody else but franksolich.

<<<even during the most trying of times, rather enjoys being franksolich.

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Now, if I were a primitive, I’d feel resentful, angry, bitter, hatefully, that God, the “system,“ society, and “other people” were to blame for all my bad luck, and the primitives on Skins’s island would hail me, cheer me on, for having that attitude.

But I remain flummoxed as to how that would help me go through life--merrily dance through life, really--being that way.

[Gern]

Now, if I were a primitive, I’d feel resentful, angry, bitter, hatefully, that God, the “system,“ society, and “other people” were to blame for all my bad luck, and the primitives on Skins’s island would hail me, cheer me on, for having that attitude.

But I remain flummoxed as to how that would help me go through life--merrily dance through life, really--being that way.

I think ultimately, you've answered your own question.  

Because the very fact that you are flummoxed as to how feeling bitter, angry and resentful can help you go through life means you simply think as a fully emotionally mature adult.

Liberals love to goof on conservatives for the whole "bootstrap" meme; the notion that if you are facing adversity in life, as we all do at one point or another, that by drawing on your inner strength you not only overcome these obstacles but become a better person for it in the process; able to accomplish more and reach even higher goals.  It's not what happens to you in life, it's what you do about it.  

I find it ludicrous that DUers find this type of thinking contemptible.   The irony is incredible--that by me believing that regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or circumstances, people are capable of achieving anything they set their minds to, that somehow that makes me the heartless, cruel bad guy.  Irony in the sense that it's that helpless type of thinking that keeps people in misery in the first place..the "why bother, the system is rigged, you'll never be rich, you'll never accomplish your dreams, give up already" type of thinking that is all too prevalent at DU.

This is the thinking of an emotionally immature person, of which the world is unfortunately full of, and Democratic Underground is simply teeming with, from what I've seen over the years.

Sometimes, I pity them, then I realize that this is the way the world is.  A large majority of people find it more convenient to blame circumstances or other people for their own self created problems--there's nothing I can really do about it, except for occasionally I meet one IRL, and I try to pick them up and help them with some advice along the lines of what I've said here, and only hope that it sinks in.  

I don't wish misery on anyone.  But like that famous Lincoln quote "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be"; sometimes people are beyond help.

[franksolich]

[Carl]

The answer for many of them is that they have chosen to not follow God but as their master they pick His adversary.

Other reasons are difficult to pin down because it really does track along with a stunted level of emotional maturity.
Why does that happen to some and not others is hard to guess at.

You watch their every utterance and it begins with someone else having more of something then they do.
The reality of the world is this will always be and unfortunate things happen.
In the mind of a 5 year old though somehow it has to be made right,things have to be always "fair".
When it does not happen a child reacts with the most basic emotion we have...anger.
With that they lash out in words and deeds towards those who are not giving them a bigger piece of cake etc.

DUmbasses neve grow out of that stage and as such anger is the emotion that dictates their every outlook on life,it becomes set in them as the norm not the unusual.
Little wonder their main objective in life often is to stone out and drop out I guess.

Anyways,anger and hatred are not what is healthy,they become an all consuming drive that eats one alive and no matter how one tries a dark inside becomes a dark outside.

Sooner or later though the utter futility of it all sets in,which just leads to more anger,more hatred,more envy etc until the person can no longer even muster a civil hello.
Look at the DUmp,all fellow travelers on the same (albeit deranged) mission yet they hate each other.
As Dane here points out,few can be satisfied with commenting on a thread when they go into their insane frenzies...each has to start their own lest someone else gets more attention.

On a funny side however,it sure makes moling the cesspool simple as hate and mistrust are as easy to emulate as stupidity and insanity are. 

[franksolich]

The God thing is important, and I'm not being preachy here.

God forgives; God forgives all.

Remember that the Crime of Judas was not that he betrayed Christ, but rather having betrayed Christ, he thought himself unworthy of redemption, unworthy of forgiveness.

I screw up, you screw up, everybody screws up.

Some of us, big time.

<<<am sure have made bigger mistakes than many primitives.

However, since God forgives, we can forgive ourselves.

Which incidentally explains our usual sense of self-deprecating humor.

The primitives, on the other hand, refusing to acknowledge God, have no one to forgive them when they screw up.  It's a self-destructive downward spiral for them; they get angrier and angrier, and sooner or later, something really bad happens to them.

I've never seen it not happen.