I've been applying my new autoimmunomemetic therapy with my usual ikka-bozu fervor, as opposed to the proverbial mikka-bozu ("the three-day monk" as opposed to my usual "one-day monk"). This self-deprecation is no doubt rooted in some cruel autoimmunomeme to be rooted out. In fact, let's go for it. Behavior is I put myself down, which is some kind of parameterized autoimmunomeme (a self-stabbing knife that may be configured to multiple purposes, e.g., whatever it is I'm trying to feel good about myself...about). That particular autoimmunomemeplex was somehow installed while I was a child. I can perhaps even remember specific parental behavior. At some level it doesn't matter, since my behavior is there for all to see (autoimmunomememtic
This just hit me: one property that autoimmunomemes may all share is that they are "extra" or "excessive" in the sense that Slavoj Zezek describes. They are a response to an experience that is not required, that "normal" people don't have and don't miss. They are an excessive enjoyment of disturbed pleasure (abuse, pain) or an excessive enjoyment of normal pleasure (inability to enjoy normal things, or perverse enjoyment of them, as in fetishes, self-abuse, or just negativity, disaffectedness).
I think this is a huge breakthrough. Does that make sense?
As I mentioned before, also in keeping with Zezek, the perversion of normal life is the adding of these "excesses", which take the form of self-sabotaging behaviors for the ACA. Simple pleasures become inaccessible to the ACA, normal enjoyment is replaced by something else. Deleting memes is not possible, but those that are installed before any others (since everything in the human animal is learned) by the dysfunctional family become the basis.
Is that the main thing? Bad memes are installed from early childhood on a tabula rasa? In that case there is no earlier set of healthy memes that were there primordially. Healthy internal memes, if they somehow get installed, may also be replaced later in the dysfunctional environment.
Anyway, on to the therapy!
I'm constantly arguing with people who are renting space in my head, for instance. This is probably an autoimmunomeme, i.e., some self-sabotaging, self-destructive behavior that I can't seem to stop. Luke 23:34 applies (a very memetic sentiment, by the way).
What underlies this meme? At this point we're venturing into terra incognita vis-à-vis macromemetic theory, so when I say:
"People are reasonable"
...do I mean that's a meme? Probably not. Is it a MIAO (Memetic Iconic Anchoring Object = a false god, I guess) -- maybe.
"When people aren't reasonable, it's my fault, and I need to try harder."
"Unreasonable people need to be persuaded to be reasonable."
"It's my job to convince them."
"My parents were reasonable." [they were/are people]
"My parents would listen to me and be kind and fair..."
"The fact that they weren't kind or fair was my fault and I needed to try harder."
NEW MEMES: "People can be unreasonable, it's not my fault, I need to pause."
"It's nice when people are reasonable, but it doesn't always happen."
"It's not my job to change people who are unreasonable."
Again, it's not possible to just cut out one meme and replace it with one you like better. As Zezek put it, "the excess is with us forever." But you can install new ones that get more "hits" than the old ones.
I may already be getting significant relief. I have mood swings all the time, though, so I can wake up one day a week later and find I'm back in the shit again. Or even two years later have things pop up again. I'm not sure if that's mood swings or dissociative identify disorder -- nobody is.
Anyway, that's where I am so far on applying the new application of theory. I'm optimistic about being able to extract a lot more useful stuff for my ACA fourth step. I'm going to try carrying a bit of paper and pen around all the time and write stuff down. Since my inner life is something of a roiling poopy-swamp all the time, I should be able to stock up a lot fairly quickly.
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built-up defeats = I tried to do something and it didn't work [residual memetc debt]
slights = I didn't get treated the way I deserved [residual memetic debt]
neglect = I didn't get any action at all [RMD, and also terror of alienation]
Otherwise there's so much of it, and I think I only remember a tiny bit of it, and the really important stuff is almost certainly submerged.
I didn't have idea what grief was until I read that article, and I still don't, but at least I have an idea and know that I don't and need to figure it out.
My grief is probably everything. Like in RC's "the wallpaper in the nursery" metaphor. It's always been there, there's no edge to it, we have no idea that there might be something underneath it or that it could even be changed -- it's always been there, and it's everywhere.
So I can't connect "grief" to anything in my life, because I don't know what it is. I know that certain songs make me sob uncontrollably, which gives me some idea, and maybe a few other things. I know something's there, but it's like a dark mass submerged beneath the ocean. It's related to how broken I know I am, but I don't understand the connection.
(Lulu (Louise) is the higher power / loving parent in this context.)
I don't have any grasp on what "joy" is, either. I may have gotten some inkling from some times making love with my ex-wife and my girlfriend before that. That's a long time ago.
If I have to know what "joy" is or what "grief" is in order to work the program, then I'm fucked, because I know that I have no choice but to work the program.
If I can apply scientific insights (like BKTS?) to help me write down my "searching and fearless moral inventory", then that seems it might help. What am I ashamed of? When did my parents abandon me? So many times, most of which I can't remember, or the one's I do remember either hurt so much because it had happened so many times before, or didn't hurt much because I was so used to it.
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