Unfortunately I don't have the energy to put together some info for the mega this week, hopefully I can pull together something for next week though. As always, we ask that in order to participate in the weekly megathread, one self-identifies as some form of disabled, which is broadly defined in the community sidebar:
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I read this last night and was having a hard time coming up with a worthy reply lol. I think my hesitation about being an abolitionist about anything is from pushback I've gotten online. I mentioned one time on /r/latestagecapitalism that I was a money abolitionist and people just weren't having it. Bizarre behavior from a sub that was supposed to be "ran by commies" but in the end I marked it up to libs being on there wanting a reformed government instead, and people that just haven't read any theory. I might have to be more in your face about it to others. I have close friends that are on various paths to the left that probably wouldn't bat an eye if I said I'm a gender abolitionist.
I'm mostly an armchair philosopher and it's somewhat a special interest of mine but more so with how it functions as a foundation to socialism. But I did take a side street into phenomenology and existentialism this summer. With that said, you Buddha line actually weighs quite a bit on some stuff I've been thinking about. Probably not in the Buddhist sense but I've had a really weird relationship with "the self" and I think "ego" because I mostly just feel like a thing in a human suit and I didn't realize that was a thing until I started seeing it get brought up in autism spaces online. It almost feels like there is a conflict between what I am physically and what I am mentally. I'm not spiritual or anything but I just don't know what that conflict is.
I guess this turned into more of a ramble. I'm so confused lol.
a ramble in return
Thanks for the reply anyway. I think one of the problems may be with figuring how much context other people have and how much you need to give. But, yeah, it is kinda personalized.
I think the core of my special interest is more around ontology and epistemology. Dialectical materialism is the lovely center I’ve found that acts as a coherent lens for understanding most things. Buddhism has a lot in common with dialectics and I find it deepening in a way. Before I just thought Marxism let me understand the whole world broadly, but I find it is more important while I’m not actively organizing and still growing a lot as a person to examine the phenomenal nature of reality and my mind and ego tunnel. I have probably thought many hours about existentialism and phenomenology without reading a word of Husserl and only a book and some essays by Camus.
Looking into the Buddhist perspective would probably interest you, but I empathize with your experience. A long time investigating experientially, and I’ve found that my perfectionistic ideal of humanity does not exist. Humans are strange and irrational and ugly and how the hell did “I” end up one. It feels like I don’t belong in this body but I don’t have a better idea of where I belong anymore. I don’t hate the image in the mirror, but you’re telling me that’s “me?” That name I respond to is “me?” It’s so strange. There’s totally a disconnect. This body seems to limit me greatly, but it also does cool things of its own accord my mind doesn’t think possible.
So I have identified with the voice in my head for a long time, but at some point it got extra loud and stupid and I had OCD and I realized with the help of Buddhist informed stuff that I don’t have to identify with my thoughts. I understand intellectual that the self is composed of nonself elements and does not necessarily exist, but it still has felt sort of like there has been a “me” at war with all my thoughts since my black and white thinking decided thoughts are wrong.
What fascinates me is the greatly differing perspectives of other “spiritual seekers” I have seen online. They have neurotypical coherent senses of self and want to bliss out and merge with the rest of the universe. Meanwhile I’m coming in with my face dragged through the dirt of the abyss despite relatively good material circumstances. My brain says nothing’s real, it gets really mad when things change, and my stomach constantly hurts from “dissatisfaction.” Will Buddhism fix this? Do I really think I can get enlightened? Am I just suppressing the part of me that wants to criticize everything and believe nothing again? I don’t know but I think I’m less dissociated and anxious, so that’s something.