I had been raised by two people who had never been to college. My father was a journeyman electrician and later an Electrical Contractor but had never been to college even though he was valedictorian of his Senior High School Class. His father wouldn't let any of his boys go to college which upset them all a lot.
Instead he trained them to be electricians and electrical contractors like himself.
So, growing up like this I was trained to be a Scientific Creationist which is a real thing. People in my church didn't want me to go to college because I might become a "Pinko" which was their name for a liberal which to them was a fate worse than death because they were all very conservative Republicans in my church.
However, I found that the things happening in my life were killing me from leaving my church because I was too progressive for the people there. Also, I was no longer a creationist as such because I realized both Creationism and Darwinism were both theories and not laws so I didn't have to believe in either of them really at all.
So, when I went to Palomar College I was sort of at wits end trying to make some sense of my life. Everything had changed. So, I began taking a college course in Philosophy with Mr. Sager who had been to a Zen Monastery in Japan as a part of his training as a college professor. He took an interest in me and I got to know he and his wife and he knew I was in a self destructive mode at that point so helped me by letting me speak in class. By then I wasn't worried about speaking up in college classes like I had been in high school. I had suffered too much by then and wanted to share my suffering and what I had learned through being knowledgeable about philosophy. So, I got an A in both Philosophy Classes I took from Mr. Sager and my life started to make sense again.
Also, in the Palomar College Library I found Psychology Today magazines. I had never studied psychology before and didn't really know much about it at all. This changed my life a lot too. So, when I realized the scientific nature of Psychology (I hadn't studied enough about it to fully appreciate it beyond popular psychology sayings and the like.
What I realized is that I was carrying the weight of the expectations of not only my parents but of all my relatives back around 1000 years from Switzerland and Scotland and that I saw the combination of things was literally going to cause me to self destruct by 25 years of age.
What I realized in studying psychology was that I needed to dump everything of this nature except what was going to keep me alive. So, I dumped 90% of what I felt burdened by by relatives going back 1000 years or more and found a way to survive past 25 years of age by reinventing myself into someone I could stand to be the rest of my life that I liked.
Becoming someone you like or making friends with yourself and increasing your integrity with yourself and all other beings that you can survive doing this with literally saved my life.
By God's Grace
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