Well Now, Howdy!

[chihuahuaking88]

After a bit of a post on subjective reality here, I decided to introduce myself and my bit of an odd background, which I've found... curious myself. It might also explain why I'm so obsessed (as you will most likely soon learn) with Steve's site.

Being only 19, my history is fairly short. I'd start in the present, but background might be nice, especially with this crowd.

Now, when I was younger, I was given to my grandparents to raise. I was the typical spoiled rotten kid. Got my way all the time, straight A student, cried privately with my grandparents when I didn't get my way, etc. Horrible. Anyway, at the ancient age of 12 1/2 (Oh yeah), due to a court battle with my father and mother, I was forced to move in with my mother. Welcome to Hell.

At least, that's what I thought then. Compared to what I was used to, it was awful. Of course, this is before she started drinking again, bringing strange men in the house, hitting me, and killing/giving away our dogs/cats every other week (one death, actually. Accidental on her part, but it could have easily been prevented should she have paid attention, but she blamed me for it). Now older, I see now that this was probably the worst way to raise a kid. I'll not go into any more detail (needless to say, it's probably much worse than I make it sound), but I will say that because of the horrible conditions of my life at the time (by any standard), I started to question authority.

Raised a Christian Protestant, I started to research regions and after some time) became a Roman Catholic at 13. After a year, I began to seriously question this faith, and at 15 (another year), I turned away from Christain beliefs altogether. This is where it gets really interesting. I started my own 30-day trails of Buddhism, Wicca, and some other new age-y stuff. Nothing stuck, and they were dropped after the month was over (Mind you, this is before I even knew Steve Pavlina existed. In fact, this was back in 2003/2004, when Steve's site wasn't even up yet. No way I could have known about his 30-day trials, if he even had them, then.)

When I was 16 1/2 or so, (Yes, I'm using halves, as my life is short so far, so it's out of necessity) my mother lost her house in debt, and we all moved back in with my Grandfather (my grandmother having passed on.), and I found that my Grandfather and I, once the best of friends, were now becoming utterly uncompilable. Hmm....

Now, a few months from 18, having graduated from high school early and entering my first semester of college, I was immersed a new culture, one that didn't know of my previous nerdy/geeky self. I became "hip"... for a time. Preppy, of sorts. In any case, a year or so before this I had begun a search for personal growth outside of religion. College skyrocketed this passion with it's new age hippies, young people wanting to change the world with noble aspirations, and people pursuing their own personal growth. I quickly found, however, that I didn't belong with this group either. I found that I was most at home in the company of some of the most highly intelligent professors, talking at length with my 29 year old English, Philosophy, Psychology, and Astronomy professors. All subjects of deep and compelling interest to me, especially Psychology, in which I took a personal development class in which we watched "The Secret", introducing my to the world of subjective reality, albeit, only a taste.

I began to search for "myself", and I as I did, I found myself going down much of the same thinking that Steve had. In fact, it was exactly the same! I followed much of the same pathways and logic, coming to many of the same conclusions, such as Life After Death, and various other ideas on life. I began my own journey into subjective reality, and on my way, I rediscovered lucid dreaming.

Lucid dreaming (as many of you should be aware of), is quite remarkable in that you can "control" your dream. You are actually conscious in your dream world. As far back as I can remember, I could lucid dream, and at will. In fact, I got so good at it, that it was hard not to. Sometimes I would simply want to dream, and I learned how to turn "off" lucid dreaming. Unfortunately, this had the adverse effect of turning off my lucid dreaming all together... well, not entirely, but I could only maintain one every week or so, rather than every night, until the weeks became months. I only had one, it seemed, every full moon!

After finding research on it, I became quite excited. The ability to fly like a Gargoyle again! To fight in the epic battles of my own kingdoms! To have sex with Jessica Alba agai- wait, did I go too far?

It was quite exciting, to say the least.

As I researched, though, I found Steve. I'm fighting the teenager inside me, but... no more. Only three words could describe my ecstasy. Oh. My. God.

Steve was me! An odd statement, to be sure, but Steve was me! His ideas! His logic! His reasoning! His conclusions! They were the same! Admittedly, they were more focused, and precise in places, but the exact same! (As much as two people could come, anyway.) I became very excited, and began looking up articles on things I've only touched on in my own reasoning, and found the logic brilliant. I could find no fault. This scared me. I had never read things which I couldn't question and find fault in, or at least question very seriously, so I tested it! I tested the things I was fiddling in. And still, I could find no fault. I argued with myself, viewed everything from every possible angle I could, and still nothing... until a snag. Subjective Reality. Which brings me here today!

Well... not quite as short as I thought. O.o That didn't take too long, though. I must say, I quite enjoyed myself! On another note... oh, I must make another thread, but I appear to have forgotten what it was. Oh well. It'll come to me. I have something else, anyway. See you in the forums!

[Dan.Linehan]

Thanks for joining chihuahuaking88! Nice introduction!

So are you still in college now?

[chihuahuaking88]

Yes, indeed. I've been an art student for the past couple semesters, taking my trial concept to a new and very odd direction. I've "graduated" with my AA thtis last semester, and I'm going now for some of the coding classes before moving on to a university. Having wanted to teach myself HTML and CSS for awhile, I figure a good class in such will give me a shove to do so. ^^; Not exactly ideal, but it works for now. I'm just in such a state of "flux" as I call it, I'm not too sure where I'm headed now.

[BenThere]

Thanks for sharing your story. I've known several people who were forced to endure childhood circumstances similar to yours. Some decided to choose meaning for themselves - through studying philosophy, logic, psychology, spirituality, ethics, personal development, science, literature. These people tended to turn out to be damned interesting, incredibly intelligent and, sometimes, reasonably happy people. People tuned in to so much deep stuff that shallow hipsters are just lost.

Are you able to pick your own living situations now? On-campus dorm? Sharing an apartment with another student between terms?

not too sure where I'm headed now.

I recommend you explore some deep books about career and personal mission: The Pathfinder by Nicolas Lore, Zen & The Art of Making a Living by Lawrence Boldt, Your Money or Your Life by Dominguez & Rubin.

[chihuahuaking88]

Thanks! ^.^

I'm living with my grandfather now, taking care of him. It's just the two of us, now.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll be sure to check them out. ^.~