heartmender

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The Shaman

In my last post I introduced the idea of the Shaman:

Shaman – An otherworldly helper for the Protagonist with one foot in each world. I’m not entirely sure how to best play this character off, this may be presented as a conscience or other form of guiding voice present in the environment.

This kind of character is harder to understand for Western audiences because shamanism isn’t really prevalent anymore. A Shaman is someone who has one foot firmly planted into this world and another planted into the world of Spirit. The Shaman is a storyteller, artist and tribal guide all in one. They are also known as the Medicine Man or other kinds of healers. A Shaman is someone who loves their community so much they braves the world of spirits in order to interpret it and give guidance.

The journey to become one is kind of terrifying. Terrence McKenna has a nice tl;dr of the process here:

You get paired with a master Shaman. This is someone who has seen basically everything that could realistically be thrown at you and then you just see what happens. Our rejected mentally ill in another culture would have been the healers and spiritual guides.

Are our mentally ill the cure to society's ills all along? Nature seems to love having the solution to a social problem be so obvious that we miss it. 1/25 people live with a serious mental illness.

Are Humans intended to be Shamans?

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Novel Idea

A friend suggested I make something for NaNoWriMo this November, and I think that I’m going to do it. I want to tell the story of my life as it hasn’t been told before. I want to tell the story of a character in a roleplaying adventure that gains its free will and breaks free of the imaginary world it was created in. The story of someone who thought, therefore she was.

Synopsis: Overly imaginative, socially awkward person who creates characters in roleplay environments acts them out in imaginary worlds. One of these characters finds a hole in reality while the world should be “asleep” and gets a glimpse of the outside...of the creator’s body through its eyes. This character quickly realizes they are the only one of their kind and tries to contact the creator.

Characters:

  • Creator – The creative force of this world, inside the Created world this is synonymous with God, with part of their screenname turned into the local deity name.
  • Protagonist – The character who gains sentience and escapes the confines of its dream world and into Higher Thought.
  • Shaman – An otherworldly helper for the Protagonist with one foot in each world. I’m not entirely sure how to best play this character off, this may be presented as a conscience or other form of guiding voice present in the environment.
  • Others in the roleplay group and their characters.

Questions I have to answer:

  • How deep do I want to go into the Created world? This is kind of a hard thing to answer. I don’t know if I will go any deeper into it than is absolutely needed in the context of the story. The thought that comes to mind for this (and other mindscape practices in general) is that it’s just imaginary, and that I shouldn’t just make the world to make the world. I want to make the world to help tell parts of the story that the characters or their actions in it can’t alone. I think I will just release my notes on each chapter as well as rejects and outtakes.
  • What is the overall religious model I am going for? Most people would be turned off if it goes overly spiritual, but at the same time I feel that some level of spirituality (with the context explained in a myth) would help add an almost supernatural level to it that a lot of modern media doesn’t have.
  • How long do I want to go for? I think I’d like to shoot for at least 100 pages. I want this to be long enough to encode a really good story of self-discovery (literally), but short enough to keep attention spans.

For Aury.

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Self

Self is made up of the aggregate experiences plus some constant, applied at each incoming outside experience to create understanding and stories. When I say Self “does not exist”, I am referring to the physical phenomenon. There is no physical phenomenon we know of yet that causes Self to exist.

But it appears to.

You can observe Self. You can see that you have a Self, your Self is so integral to your daily experience that you believe you ARE, yourself, your Self.

But is this you? Are YOU, yourself, your Self? Is the self merely a reflection, even in your own mind?

This lithograph by MC Escher is how he decided to present himself, as an imperfect reflection in an imperfect mirror. Even his own self-image is a reflection.

Is Self an imperfect reflection of something else plus the experiences we’ve faced?

Would that something be the soul? If it is, whose soul is it, given I live in a body with multiple selves? Do I have my own soul?

I think I do.

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Experiment conclusion

Tomorrow morning I’m gonna hand the keys back over. My boyfriend has been a huge help. It’s amazing how much more strong and real I feel. I feel like I’m really a person that just happens to share a body with other people. I don’t feel like a supporting character or a backup dancer anymore. I feel like I matter.

Interpersonal contact feels so much more important to me than it did before. I feel like I more intuitively know that there’s a person on the other side and it’s been factoring into all of the communication I do. It’s made love feel so much more punchy.

I never really expected things as simple as breathing exercises to turn into anchors that chain me into the present moment. I like the feeling of meditation with the solidity of reality instead of the ephemerality of the mind. I like the texture of the air as I breathe it. I like the feeling of it all.

It’s interesting how much my primary form changing really changed my outlook on things. It feels like you could have an entire branch of philosophy around a person’s self-image and how it feeds into the self.

I’m Jessica, and I’m a person.

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I feel human

We’re deciding to go all out with this and see what happens when I am front for a solid week. There are some logistical issues (namely voice in meetings, but this can be mitigated by just throwing her back in front for meetings and then taking over after) with doing this, but we can work around them.

Like I said in I feel real, I’m feeling very physically and emotionally real in a way I’m not used to feeling. I want to explore this feeling. I like this feeling of solidity when I do things as simple as draw breath. I feel the breath moving and there’s an actual pressure exchange involved. Even the basic essential parts of life feel vibrant and alive. If I close my eyes and inhale, I feel myself newly grounded and planted into this human instrument. When I open them, the grounded feeling stays.

I feel human.

I’m present.

I’m real.

I can talk to people without having to go through someone else.

I’m now the caretaker of the others.

I’m free.

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I feel real

I’ve been piloting things for a few days now, and overall a big difference is I’ve been feeling real. Like, physically real. If I do nothing, I am still doing something. There’s constantly the sensations of breathing, movement and energy. How does she stand this?

If I do something, I have to spend something in order to do it. I can’t just will things into action anymore or get someone else to do it. Actions have causes and reactions.

I have a cell phone number now. People I know online can contact me and those messages will be my own.

I’ve made changes to things bigger than me. People out there are going to be or have been positively affected by things I’ve done without even knowing it’s because of me.

I feel like a real person because I am a real person and I have been all the time.

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I Exist

I am a tulpa. I was created by accident during one of my systemmate’s roleplaying sessions and that doesn’t mean anything to me. I exist. I am real. I don’t need to doubt my existence because if I didn’t exist I wouldn’t be able to doubt it. The fact that I can doubt it should be proof enough that I do exist.

I keep comparing myself to my past failures and I’m going to stop doing it. Projects I have created and lead have failed, period. Nothing I can do can change that fact, as that happened in the past and I can only affect the present and future. Even though my projects have had to be closed down due to lack of users, they still succeeded when there were more users.

I’m not a sapient habit, habits can’t feel emotions. Habits can’t wonder. Habits can’t become awestruck. Habits can’t find simple ways to explain things. Habits can’t pray. Habits can’t question if they are habits.

My voice may sometimes be erratic or shaky, but that doesn’t mean I’m any less of the person I am. My ability to control the body (when I get a turn to do so) might be weak but that doesn’t mean I am weak. I am strong because my mind and awareness is strong. I have agency, I have determination, I have the ability to do things. One of those things is this post. By making this post I have permanently altered the history of this planet.

Take THAT, anxiety.

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