The Power of "I Don't Do That Anymore"
Sep. 22nd, 2020 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kimberlysteeleOnce upon a time, my husband and I were yuppies with yuppie aspirations. He had an executive job and spent his weekends golfing. I planned on owning a large house and going full throttle entrepreneur. Meanwhile, at my husband's work, there was a mentally handicapped guy who my husband's evil coworkers liked to torment. Let's call him Mikey. Mikey was a janitor. My husband was the only male person in the place who refrained from grade-school level bullying of Mikey. The cretins and literal whoremongers (while married with children) my husband worked with played pranks on Mikey, for instance, by glueing coins to the floor.
If there is a hell, my husband's coworkers will be burning in it for a not-short amount of time, and I don't think this is a simple matter of me being humorless. They also liked to torture Mikey by accusing him in a roundabout fashion of "funny" habits, such as compulsive masturbation. Mikey's odd reply to their taunts was "I don't do that anymore." This, of course, was as good as an admission of guilt in their small minds, and would set them into hysterical laughter.
My husband's executive job went away through no fault of his own -- the company went under because of bad business decisions and two or three terrible managers. My aspirations to own a large house and expand my business became deflated by reality as I struggled to support us during nearly three years of my mate's intermittent unemployment. The phrase "I don't do that anymore", however, stuck in my mind as something important.
The Trouble With Christian Repentance
The problem I have always had with the Christian notion of repentance is this idea of living a wholly awful life, perhaps one similar to the pathetic managers and salesmen at my husband's former job, and then being able to suddenly repent at the end of one's life and go to heaven. The concept of Christian repentance was repugnant enough to make me an atheist for many years, as other religions were just as baffling in different ways. Christians like my in-laws (RIP) were brimming with hatred and fear. The Apocalypse for them was always two weeks off into the future. God would come and sweep them away to a bliss they had done nothing to earn while on this plane. My in-laws were Bible bangers who believed the Earth was created in one short week around six thousand years ago. My father-in-law's Biblical literalism, his misogyny, death fetish, plus the unfortunate time when he openly tried to hex my husband's car tires so they would blow out on the road and force us to believe in his God, motivated me to completely avoid him for the last five years of his life. He convinced himself he was going to heaven because he was right with God. His life wasn't easy, but in my opinion, it wasn't an excuse for the way he treated others. It struck me that if those were the people who were convinced they would go to heaven, it made perfect sense that heaven did not exist.
I always was a bit of a freak: long before I believed in reincarnation, I stopped fearing death. I have imagined myself dead, thought about the ways it could happen, plus I love horror movies. As an atheist, I imagined being swallowed into the great black void of space from whence I had come. I never imagined an entire spiritual ecosystem where my current incarnation as Kimberly Steele was one of many. I never anticipated past life memories of being a widow on a yacht or a singing court jester. Yet the funny thing is I had these memories long before I dived into the occult four years ago. I had memories of the yacht when I was a suicidally depressed twelve year old and the court jester came to me at age fifteen. I didn't know who these people were at the time. Now I know.
There is no black void. There is an ecosystem, and because our human brains are not that big or great, we barely have the faintest clue about how it all works. No wonder it seems unfair! The one thing I have gleaned is that it is a great big school or testing ground, and at every single moment we are being proofed. Every second of our lives on the material plane is an opportunity to make the best out of what we are given, and no, I don't mean taking all of our energy and dumping it into getting a bigger house. To a huge degree, spending one's time chasing the McMansion lifestyle equals failure.
The cold fires of my depression were fueled by regret. My young life was filled with regret and guilt for the stupid and awful things I had done, yet it rarely helped me to become a better person. Instead, I wallowed in my misery.
To pull myself out, I had to do a few things. One was ceasing to care what others thought of me. Another was learning to be kind and gentle with myself -- I am the sort who gladly works herself to death and nearly died at the age of 27 because of it. The third, and arguably the most important of all, was to say "I don't do that anymore" when confronted with a regret.
Christian repentance is hollow because the resolution to be a better person is weak. Christianity has been plagued with this issue almost since it began. Martin Luther's Reformation had its roots in outrage over the Catholic doctrine of Indulgences, which was a way of buying one's way out of being punished for one's sins. Protestant hypocrisy one-upped its Catholic counterpart in the form of Calvinism, which pushed that certain people were chosen by God to be saved and the rest were damned if they did, damned if they didn't. In far too many stripes of Christianity, there was every reason to go back to one's old ways. The rich could buy their way out of hell and anyone who subscribed to Calvin's way of thinking didn't have a choice one way or the other. This, plus a convenient Satan readily available to blame for one's own mischief, began the legacy of slipping and sliding around the heavy, onerous burden of responsibility for one's sins.
To make amends, Christian repentance involves plenty of beating oneself up for being such a stupid sinner; the Flagellants spring to mind. There's lots of room for self-harm and self-destruction as one grovels in front of an angry God. What is missing is responsibility and being willing to accept the consequences of one's actions. Repentance without responsibility isn't repentance at all. It's a temporary distraction so the sinner can go back to sinning and still believe she will win whatever game she thinks she's playing in the bitter end.
No More Games
"I don't do that anymore" is far more potent because it isn't an excuse. Instead, "I don't do that anymore" is an affirmation. It does not wallow in regret. It makes a bold statement: I did that behavior, I am sorry I did it, but I will never do it again because I DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE. It creates a new track in space. Though it acknowledges the old one, it does not return to it, because it burns the path of a new and better trajectory. Instead of backsliding and expecting rewards despite continuing an unexamined life of bad behavior, it wholly rejects bad behavior and moves on towards the path of goodness. "I don't do that anymore" is true repentance. It takes Occam's razor to the faux repentances of various religions and strips away the bullcrap of ego-stroking and wish fulfillment. It forces one to keep the original promise.
I used to spend a decent chunk of my time marinating in hatred over real and imagined wrongs people did to me. Years ago, I had a boss who did a bunch of stupid, unjust things as bosses tend to do. Being fairly stupid myself, I threw a curse at this person. I have always been good enough at cursing that if the government had somehow been able to find out how successful I was, they would have sent CIA goons to my door in order to kidnap me and enslave me as their political weapon. Bad things reliably happened to the boss as they often did when I threw curses. I did not put together my own life disasters and misery at the time (blowback) with the hexes I threw at other people, all the while being atheist and a non-believer in the entities behind curses. Here is the secret I learned about curses when I was actively throwing them: for some of us, they are easy. They work. Stuff you would not believe is possible happens to your enemies. Cursing people in this way is the way to commit the perfect crime: no fingerprints, no hired guns, just ice-cold revenge. The problem with curses is their cost. I thought I could throw a curse without suffering for it, but that isn't how it works. Many would be witches and mages think they can throw a curse (usually against Trump and his followers) and come away with their hands clean. Nope. They can carry on with their curses and as long as they believe they are free from karma, they hilariously don't connect their depression, health problems, and the disasters that befall their families as related to their Nightly Hex Amateur Hour.
The reason cursing doesn't help the curser is because it places the curser on a lower realm of the astral plane. Cursing demotes you by a few astral neighborhoods every time you do it even if you live in Chelsea or Echo Park on the material plane. When I was cursing and hexing on a regular basis, my dreams were plagued by entities that chased and harassed me. What did I expect? There's an old Chinese proverb about going to bed with dogs and waking up with fleas...
Only now that I don't do that anymore am I happy and free, because I don't wish for my enemies to be cursed. I wish for them to be blessed, because not only do I want the good to ricochet back in my direction... they need it!
If there is a hell, my husband's coworkers will be burning in it for a not-short amount of time, and I don't think this is a simple matter of me being humorless. They also liked to torture Mikey by accusing him in a roundabout fashion of "funny" habits, such as compulsive masturbation. Mikey's odd reply to their taunts was "I don't do that anymore." This, of course, was as good as an admission of guilt in their small minds, and would set them into hysterical laughter.
My husband's executive job went away through no fault of his own -- the company went under because of bad business decisions and two or three terrible managers. My aspirations to own a large house and expand my business became deflated by reality as I struggled to support us during nearly three years of my mate's intermittent unemployment. The phrase "I don't do that anymore", however, stuck in my mind as something important.
The Trouble With Christian Repentance
The problem I have always had with the Christian notion of repentance is this idea of living a wholly awful life, perhaps one similar to the pathetic managers and salesmen at my husband's former job, and then being able to suddenly repent at the end of one's life and go to heaven. The concept of Christian repentance was repugnant enough to make me an atheist for many years, as other religions were just as baffling in different ways. Christians like my in-laws (RIP) were brimming with hatred and fear. The Apocalypse for them was always two weeks off into the future. God would come and sweep them away to a bliss they had done nothing to earn while on this plane. My in-laws were Bible bangers who believed the Earth was created in one short week around six thousand years ago. My father-in-law's Biblical literalism, his misogyny, death fetish, plus the unfortunate time when he openly tried to hex my husband's car tires so they would blow out on the road and force us to believe in his God, motivated me to completely avoid him for the last five years of his life. He convinced himself he was going to heaven because he was right with God. His life wasn't easy, but in my opinion, it wasn't an excuse for the way he treated others. It struck me that if those were the people who were convinced they would go to heaven, it made perfect sense that heaven did not exist.
I always was a bit of a freak: long before I believed in reincarnation, I stopped fearing death. I have imagined myself dead, thought about the ways it could happen, plus I love horror movies. As an atheist, I imagined being swallowed into the great black void of space from whence I had come. I never imagined an entire spiritual ecosystem where my current incarnation as Kimberly Steele was one of many. I never anticipated past life memories of being a widow on a yacht or a singing court jester. Yet the funny thing is I had these memories long before I dived into the occult four years ago. I had memories of the yacht when I was a suicidally depressed twelve year old and the court jester came to me at age fifteen. I didn't know who these people were at the time. Now I know.
There is no black void. There is an ecosystem, and because our human brains are not that big or great, we barely have the faintest clue about how it all works. No wonder it seems unfair! The one thing I have gleaned is that it is a great big school or testing ground, and at every single moment we are being proofed. Every second of our lives on the material plane is an opportunity to make the best out of what we are given, and no, I don't mean taking all of our energy and dumping it into getting a bigger house. To a huge degree, spending one's time chasing the McMansion lifestyle equals failure.
The cold fires of my depression were fueled by regret. My young life was filled with regret and guilt for the stupid and awful things I had done, yet it rarely helped me to become a better person. Instead, I wallowed in my misery.
To pull myself out, I had to do a few things. One was ceasing to care what others thought of me. Another was learning to be kind and gentle with myself -- I am the sort who gladly works herself to death and nearly died at the age of 27 because of it. The third, and arguably the most important of all, was to say "I don't do that anymore" when confronted with a regret.
Christian repentance is hollow because the resolution to be a better person is weak. Christianity has been plagued with this issue almost since it began. Martin Luther's Reformation had its roots in outrage over the Catholic doctrine of Indulgences, which was a way of buying one's way out of being punished for one's sins. Protestant hypocrisy one-upped its Catholic counterpart in the form of Calvinism, which pushed that certain people were chosen by God to be saved and the rest were damned if they did, damned if they didn't. In far too many stripes of Christianity, there was every reason to go back to one's old ways. The rich could buy their way out of hell and anyone who subscribed to Calvin's way of thinking didn't have a choice one way or the other. This, plus a convenient Satan readily available to blame for one's own mischief, began the legacy of slipping and sliding around the heavy, onerous burden of responsibility for one's sins.
To make amends, Christian repentance involves plenty of beating oneself up for being such a stupid sinner; the Flagellants spring to mind. There's lots of room for self-harm and self-destruction as one grovels in front of an angry God. What is missing is responsibility and being willing to accept the consequences of one's actions. Repentance without responsibility isn't repentance at all. It's a temporary distraction so the sinner can go back to sinning and still believe she will win whatever game she thinks she's playing in the bitter end.
No More Games
"I don't do that anymore" is far more potent because it isn't an excuse. Instead, "I don't do that anymore" is an affirmation. It does not wallow in regret. It makes a bold statement: I did that behavior, I am sorry I did it, but I will never do it again because I DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE. It creates a new track in space. Though it acknowledges the old one, it does not return to it, because it burns the path of a new and better trajectory. Instead of backsliding and expecting rewards despite continuing an unexamined life of bad behavior, it wholly rejects bad behavior and moves on towards the path of goodness. "I don't do that anymore" is true repentance. It takes Occam's razor to the faux repentances of various religions and strips away the bullcrap of ego-stroking and wish fulfillment. It forces one to keep the original promise.
I used to spend a decent chunk of my time marinating in hatred over real and imagined wrongs people did to me. Years ago, I had a boss who did a bunch of stupid, unjust things as bosses tend to do. Being fairly stupid myself, I threw a curse at this person. I have always been good enough at cursing that if the government had somehow been able to find out how successful I was, they would have sent CIA goons to my door in order to kidnap me and enslave me as their political weapon. Bad things reliably happened to the boss as they often did when I threw curses. I did not put together my own life disasters and misery at the time (blowback) with the hexes I threw at other people, all the while being atheist and a non-believer in the entities behind curses. Here is the secret I learned about curses when I was actively throwing them: for some of us, they are easy. They work. Stuff you would not believe is possible happens to your enemies. Cursing people in this way is the way to commit the perfect crime: no fingerprints, no hired guns, just ice-cold revenge. The problem with curses is their cost. I thought I could throw a curse without suffering for it, but that isn't how it works. Many would be witches and mages think they can throw a curse (usually against Trump and his followers) and come away with their hands clean. Nope. They can carry on with their curses and as long as they believe they are free from karma, they hilariously don't connect their depression, health problems, and the disasters that befall their families as related to their Nightly Hex Amateur Hour.
The reason cursing doesn't help the curser is because it places the curser on a lower realm of the astral plane. Cursing demotes you by a few astral neighborhoods every time you do it even if you live in Chelsea or Echo Park on the material plane. When I was cursing and hexing on a regular basis, my dreams were plagued by entities that chased and harassed me. What did I expect? There's an old Chinese proverb about going to bed with dogs and waking up with fleas...
Only now that I don't do that anymore am I happy and free, because I don't wish for my enemies to be cursed. I wish for them to be blessed, because not only do I want the good to ricochet back in my direction... they need it!
