As I walked the point of politeness as a positive experience within me and now that I am realizing to what extent everything that we have done/lived by has been linked to Money and the functioning of money in this world, I’ve seen how I’ve lived as a ‘polite person’ without identifying the actual positive ‘kick’ I would get out of it, yet this ‘attribute’ was linked to an inherent desire to be part of the ‘polite people in the world’ which, if reading back in my previous entry – were ‘well educated people’ that were mostly rich/ having more than enough money to live ‘well.’
This ties in with my choice of careers as well wherein my inclinations toward the world of ‘arts and culture’ lead me to believe that I had a more ‘refined’ taste than other members in my family who would not be any type of art enthusiasts or well-cultured in the usual ‘intellectual ways’ that I would deem people to be in such ‘social circles.’ So, when I began realizing that only a certain type of people was into art/ music and how they mostly were people with a certain education/ background that lead them to have such ‘refined’ tastes and views on life, I realized that I had to equate that, that I had to become part of such circles in order to achieve my desires/ dreams that I had formulated back then, which were pretty much linked to having enough money to travel around the world and the usual stuff that we dream of as young kids growing up into the ‘adult world.’
So these ‘refined manners’ were acquired from interacting with people outside of my family. I recall admiring people that were ‘well cultured’ and would express themselves with such a vocabulary that denoted they had read tons of books throughout their life. I would enjoy going to my aunt’s house for that reason, it was filled with books and we could go to museums and do stuff that I never did with my parents. The same when enjoying talking to their friends and also when being with parents of my friends and partner, they were all ‘well-cultured’ people, even teachers in literature and history and linguistics, which made me want to become part of that circle of people that would have dinners with wine while telling intellectual jokes and having some delicious Italian salad while eating nuts. If you have seen the movie ‘the hours’ I wanted to be like the character played by Meryl Streep, and somehow I would picture myself feeling equally empty even if I had achieved such ‘status’ in my world. But anyways, it was that ‘realm’ wherein I envisioned myself as being fulfilled.
What was the way to go there? Becoming equal and one to how I would see these people would behave, talk and experience themselves. So, I enjoyed reading from an early age and linked this to being/ becoming a cultured person, even if I read mostly fiction novels for most of the time.
There was also a time when I was a lot younger around 9 years old when I would attend these luxurious dinners with my parents wherein I got to experience what ‘being in society’ was, and how I was simply acting like a full grown up at that age. I would observe how everyone behaved and even though I knew the whole thing was a façade and really fake, I would play along trying to be charismatic to be equally liked/ accepted the same way that my sisters were. I guess that having a taste of what it means to have a ‘good life’ left a mark on me, even if at the time we were under extreme financial strain, all of those trips and luxury was paid for according to a certain position my father took for a while in a national organization. It was such an awkward experience because we did not have much money then, but we were in these pompous dinners and staying in master suites, literally stealing the room from rockstars staying in the same hotel. I guess that’s the most ‘taste’ I’ve had of what it is to have such luxury and comfort, as well as people praising you all of a sudden by association. Man, it is really something that ‘traps’ you for a while.
I guess that if I had not had such experiences, I would have not been aiming for such positions in a not so conscious way – or I didn’t want to fully acknowledge because of not wanting to be deemed as greedy. It’s cool to expose this as there is obviously so much that I held as an imprint on these trips wherein ‘the good life’ was suddenly my reality for a moment. That’s where I got the association of ‘polite’ as in being a ‘politician,’ because that’s how I identified the way that people at such conventions would act like/ interact with each other: in a polite, refined and ‘safe’ manner which is not being too ‘open’ yet not ‘too quiet’ as if there was a problem with you. I learned how having a constant smile made you being liked – I could not fathom why people would always say the same things to you ‘oh how pretty are you!’ It was a bit traumatic having to go through such disparity at such a young age, really. When coming back home after such events and trips – which were only two or three only during two years – it was like getting off of some really nice dream where you could ‘have it all’ and forget about all the actual financial troubles that my father was going through at the time, which I have shared and how it would also preoccupy me extensively as in fearing losing the house and everything.
So, to sum up, politeness was for me a way to establish and place myself on the track to become someone of ‘importance’ and in a certain ‘circle in society’ that I wanted to be part of, which was mostly the ‘intellectual circles’ wherein I could have enough vocabulary and presence to mingle with such people. That’s how both my career choices were linked to such cultural world, even after knowing that making a lot of money out of it would not be as easy – as I had initially thought. I got to admire mostly people that had written books already and that I knew I could ‘learn from’ in my attempt to become equal to them. And this all entailed having a secured-financial ‘freedoom’ while doing ‘what I like,’ which was either writing or creating art. I knew how being polite would lead you to get preferential treatment as well, and I sought that, creating a certain aura of power/ control and importance wherein I made sure people would ‘pay attention to me’ – yes.
Later on I went into the controlled opposite, but that’s another story wherein further suppressions were linked mostly in relation to judgments toward money – as I have briefly explained above. What I have walked here were dreams and desires that I had kept and was preparing myself for when I was in my early teens; I even thought of becoming a financial advisor just because of knowing how much money they would make, and all of those decisions were only based on desiring having a preferential position in the system wherein I could have enough money to travel around the world, as that’s what I really wanted to do or my ‘idea’ of what happiness in this world is about.
Now I have realized within the 23rd Interview by Anu how such elaborated words are definitely only for the ego of the intellectuals and it’s absolutely true – I mean, I created myself as that for the sake of belonging and making myself a space in such circles that I later on absolutely abhorred and almost completely ostracized myself from – going from admiring rich people and the power they had to opposing them and even blaming ‘them’ for the current status of the world, that’s been my life with money which I had not exposed to such extent from this money-perspective before. However I see how it is definitely the ‘missed factor’ that I probably withheld from sharing because of not wanting to be seen as greedy or superfluous/ self-interest driven person while acknowledging that we all are, and we all sought our ways into the system in one way or another. Everyone would enjoy having such financial comfort and power – even myself that later on tried to deny it can only recognize that I did, and ‘my dreams’ were based upon getting to a certain ‘state’ wherein I could write or do some works while having all time left to explore the world.
Well, it’s easy to dream and part of this entire process is to take all the points here back to Earth wherein I land myself on the ground to then see how a single seemingly ‘normal’ expression like being polite is in fact having all of this – and probably a lot more – behind it as a conditional input for me to express such ‘politeness’ as ‘who I am,’ which is linked to how I had defined myself according to the ‘social stratus’ that I wanted to be a part of within this world system.
I still have a lot of ‘points’ to sort out in relation to and toward money and my career and who I want to be and what must be one, mostly because of – as I mentioned before – going to the opposite polarity of judging rich people, judging the ‘power’ that some beings had to manipulate others because of money, judging the attitudes rich people would present while neglecting the fact that I had sought to be ‘just that’ as well. All of this while deliberately shoving off the reality that I knew and was well aware was going on in this world.
During this time, I managed to make of poverty and misery something that was just a constant part of my ‘landscape’ yet continuing to seek my personal fulfillment. I could have long talks with my then contemporaries that were sociologists and economists, literature people and talk about social policies and the government and whatnot, but we never ever had an actual definitive realization on how We were absolutely responsible for it. That would be yet another part of my ‘socialization’ wherein sitting in cafés talking for long hours would lead us anywhere, yet believing that we were ‘changing the world’ with our bright intellectual ideas and reunions. Lol
So – time for self forgiveness and self-corrective application to disengage from this politeness that I have separated myself from according to all of these memories that I’ve held within myself for the purpose of someday, being able to correlate/ cross-reference if I had ‘made it’ within this world system according to the expectations that I placed onto myself.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to make of myself a ‘polite person’ and allowing it to create an inherently positive experience wherein I became part of the ones that are looking forward to become part of a certain elite in this world, which in my case was the ‘intellectual/ well cultured’ people that can certainly only exist in a particular social stratus where money is affluent and where money is not a concern. Therefore, by me acting and playing out being the ‘polite person,’ I was in essence training myself to be part of the ‘polite world’ which I had linked to higher-social stratus of well educated/ well cultured people/ rich people/ intellectuals, because that’s what I wanted to be and ‘where I wanted to belong to.’
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to then create an inherent desire to be and become someone ‘superior’ within the social standards which is why I fed myself so much with knowledge and information as I had given value/ worth to knowledge and information as my ‘talents’ when realizing that I could make a living out of it and still get to an elevated social stratus wherein I could be financially stable and have more than that in order to have a life of luxury and traveling as the dreams that I had created in my mind while neglecting this reality in its entirety.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to fear losing all the relationships at an intellectual level with writers, sociologists, historians, linguists, and any other person that I deemed as ‘intellectual/ superior’ when I decided to step aside from that world and going into a more ‘noble’ and ‘meek’ path of not wanting to be part of the ‘high spheres in society,’ which came after a particular event that changed my view/ perspective about money and recognition and made a decision that ‘I didn’t want that for my life.’
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to want to be part of the ‘intellectual people’ as that’s what I gave myself value as, knowledge and information, accumulating data that I could later on speak about and be regarded as ‘important.’
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to play out being the ‘polite person’ among people that I wanted to ‘keep’ as relationships because of already being scheming me being part of such social-circles that I sought to be a part of, mostly because of regarding that I could make a load of money with it while doing something that I regarded as ‘humane’ as possible – which is culture/ words/ arts/ music, etc.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to increment my desire to know and prepare myself within specific careers simply out of the desire to accumulate as much knowledge as possible that I could ‘sell’ as my profession and earn good money out of it. In this I forgive myself that I had denied the fact that my life, my attitude, my politeness had been having money and the desire for money as an obvious drive in the background, while me denying so because in such realms, people seemed to be “humble” about their careers and knowledge – yet having a very affluent type of living, which I also desired to be like/ experience myself as: having money yet not being a ‘show off’ about it.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to link a proficient vocabulary to being a ‘well cultured person/ well educated/ refined/ well mannered/ polite’ which I have immediately identified as something ‘valuable’ within a person, which is identifying knowledge and information as ‘valuable’ on top of the one and only value that exists which is life and Life cannot ever be knowledge.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself for having ever criticized/ judged people on how they would place value in their possessions without realizing that I was doing the same toward myself as my own mind in the form of knowledge and information and creating a value toward myself according to it, separating myself absolutely from the one and only reality that is here as myself as my physical body, as life, the life that I absolutely neglected in such times simply because being too busy building myself and preparing/ scheming my way to climb ‘the ladder of success.’
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to blind myself with believing that my parents were unconditionally supporting my decision in life, without realizing that they were ‘happy’ about it because I was aiming to be a ‘rich’ person or having more than enough money and that my aspirations and actions were leading to becoming this ‘important person in society,’ which is why they started reacting when I stopped creating/ forming relationships in society and retreated, because this was linked to me losing all contact with such ‘intellectual people’ and losing the opportunity to be ‘a part of them.’ Now I realize that it was linked to money, to securing my ‘place in the world’ that I also deemed to prefer above any other professions or activities in the world. I was ready to praise myself as knowledge and information only, which I now see is the absolute manifestation of self-interest because I never considered ‘life’ in that, at all.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to create and build myself within a particular personality wherein I made sure that people would ‘pay attention to me and give me a position of ‘importance’ even at face value, which was linked to my ‘scheming’ of positioning myself within a certain area in society that I could live ‘well’ of and still fulfill my desires to be someone ‘important’ in my world.
I commit myself to stand in a position in this world wherein I can truly make use of these attributes in a way that is best for all, because I see and realize that if I had personal interest as a driving force to be ‘preparing’ for such world, I could do the same now with having the starting point the absolute drive to support myself and all beings equally within a position within the world system wherein I no longer ‘fear’ it/ oppose it as some type of rebellion and antagonism stemming from criticism toward money/ power in this world. I realize that being in a position of power in this world cannot possibly exist within me unless I stand as one and equal to all – which means that whatever I have to do within this world system, I realize that I am perfectly able to do so, with having the starting point of doing/ living/ acting and creating myself as someone that can stand within the system to establish a system that is best for all life.
I commit myself to use these acquired ‘attributes’ and experiences as a point of reference to see and realize how I am capable of standing in a position that I had deemed as ‘superior’ yet now having a principle to actually stand for, which is life in equality and oneness – and not just following ‘dreams’ of fame, glory and success that I formulated in my mind which I knew would lead me to feel equally empty, because I obviously was not considering the whole in that equation.
I realize that the only true-fulfillment that I can create for myself is stemming from the standing and consideration of an overall well-being for humanity, that is my ‘true passion’ and as I got to know from some feedback at the farm ‘I’ve found my purpose in life,’ and the proof of this is that I had not been as consistent toward any particular ‘movement’ or ‘phase’ in my life as I have now within this process, because it is not just ‘another phase’ in my life of seeking my way into the system, it is The Phase and only phase wherein I dare to face myself and take self responsibility for my creation. And I realize that this entails actual work, actual self-commitment that strengthens every day the more I see, I realize and understand the extent to which we have enslaved ourselves to the absolute separation that stops here as myself.
Thus, I commit myself to stop any personal interest that stood only in the name of personal glory and success and instead use what is here as myself as a means to establish what is best for all in this world, which I hereby commit myself to walk into its completion as I know that I won’t ever be actually ‘fulfilled’ until this entire world is equalized as myself as who I really am, and for that there is Actual work to do and a long road to walk.
Suggested support:
An Interview on how when you really have it ALL and you then see yourself in the absolute opposite, your life changes, ‘who you are’ is gone. It is proof of how much we can also disregard within the experience of those in ‘power’ and apparent ‘control’ of their lives – a very cool interview that supported me to open up these points with more ease, to not judge what I have lived and become, but to see it for what it is: unacceptable forms of separation we’ve created in this world:
Life Review – When you Lose your Money – you Lose your Friends
Blogs of the day:
MarlenLife's Blog 
April 24th, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Thanks for sharing Marlen!