Terry, you know how we set that money to HSI to help them help stop the cruelty to those bile producing bears in Asia, well I’ve been having some thoughts and new feelings about it that I’d like to talk about. I don’t really know what I want to say-
Sure, hang on, I’ll turn the computer off.
Okay.
Well you know I’m beginning to feel more and more that really I don’t want to do anything to control another person or creature-
No, neither do I, and especially you and even myself.
Yes, that’s right, we both don’t want to do any of that if we can help it having been so heavily controlled my our parents and society as we’re coming to see.
So concerning those poor bears, although I feel very sorry for them and I wish they wouldn’t be treated to badly, and I wish no one would do bad things, still really it’s the right of those people, as fucked as they are, to do what they want, and it’s not really my place to say they can’t. Because if I do, if say I go into their world and lives and stop them torturing those bears, all I’m really doing is doing what mum and dad to me. They in so many ways said no, I can’t be like that and I have to stop doing that and I have to be how they said I had to be, and so that’s all I’d be doing to these people. So do you see what I mean?
Yes, I understand what you’re saying. And I agree with it, but as soon as I think about those poor bears I just want to go in there and smash and kill all those people and free the bears. And interfere with them big time.
So if you had children and they did things you didn’t want them to do, you’d go in there and smash and kill them.
Yes, and I see nothing wrong with that. No, sorry, only kidding. Look Annie, I completely understand what you’re saying, and I’d hate it if people from another country or any people, even the neighbours or the government said I can’t be how I want to be, I’d be so angry wanting to tell them to fuck off and mind their own business.
That’s right, that’s how I feel. But then I think about all those men that abuse their children or other peoples children, and all the criminals, the murderers and rapists all completely overstepping the boundaries in a big way, and I think, is it right that they should be free to do as they please. Should there even be any laws, so we can all do as we want.
It would be one hell of a free for all.
Yes, initially, but I wonder what would really happen, would humanity being so depraved go down the drain completely, or would the underlying goodness of us, if we have any, come up and we’d not be that bad.
It would be a hell of an experiment to try. But I it’s not realistic Ann, all the way along people have agreed to live by certain laws, tribal and the society they live in, just as we do in our families.
Yes, and all those laws and rules are all imposed on us, because non of us feel fully loved by our parents, and all of us in some way resent having to toe the line and be obedient and do as we’re told. And all we call being civilised is just having more rules and laws to abide by. We insist on calling the primitive people primitive, but so many of their cultures seemed to work better than ours, although others were very barbaric. So I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t want to try and work out how mankind is meant to live, but at the moment I feel like I don’t want to give any more money, I just want to concentrate on trying to heal myself, to stop myself controlling you and the world. And the further I go the more I can see that that is all how we are, all trying to use our minds to control ourselves as seen by our feeling suppression, and controlling others all because we feel so powerless being unloved as children and needing to try and get some power.
Well I don’t mind either way. I’m happy to support them and I’m also happy to do as you say. I don’t know about it all either. I feel too that I’d love to be able to live completely free, and so if I can do as I please then so too should I allow - which I admit is very big of me - everyone else to be completely free as well. But then again, I don’t want someone coming into my home and raping you and robbing us all because he is free to do as he pleases and has no guilt conscience or just sees life differently to me. I’ve thought about this occasionally, but I just go around in circles.
Yes, and you’re right, we can’t all be completely free I guess, we’re not in a positive and right state of mind of will to do that. Possibly if we were healed and true we would be able to do away with laws and control because we’d no longer need to do all the bad controlling things to gain the power we feel so deprived of; and if everyone was living true to themselves, then the whole world and all we thought and felt would be so different anyway. They’d certainly be no one torturing those bears.
Yeah, I like the idea of that, but that means everyone would have to do their healing and as I can’t see that happening during my life, so I guess we’re just stuck with it as it is. But still on a personal level, as you say, I don’t want to control anyone or anything if I can help it. I don’t want to be as mum and dad were to me. And the thought of me controlling our children should we have them, that really puts the wind up me, because no way do I want to subject them to all I was subjected to. They are so pure and innocent and as we’re beginning to see, the corruption begins right at conception, so the moment you were to conceive our child it would be as fucked as we are, with all of that fuckedness being reinforced and cemented into place through its forming years. And as much as I’d like to think that I’d be a good father, and very loving, and being there completely for my kids, I know that’s only my ego fantasy mind speaking.
Yes, that’s right, it is, but I’m still confused as to what I feel about it all. One moment I feel like I have no right interfering with another person; I do have a right if they start interfering with me to tell them to piss off, but then I only have to think of all that terrible suffering, and I hate what they do to those innocent bears. But then I hate what we do to nature full stop. And what we do to children, and there is so much I hate, and then again it’s all too much, and I want to withdraw like a snail back into my shell and have nothing to do with it all, or as little as I can.
But by that I also mean, I don’t want to shut my eyes and pretend it doesn’t exist, I still want to feel all the bad feelings that come up in me because of such things, but I don’t know what I mean by shutting myself away.
Well Ann it seems to me that it’s happening anyway in your life. You’re no longer living in the city, you see your family and friends very infrequently now and getting even less. We no longer have the television, only a little bit of the Internet if we want to see what’s happening in the world. We don’t read the papers, we don’t have a radio, we hardly know anyone down here, we’re living quite an isolated life as it is. And you seem happy with that.
Yes, and more so each day. But that’s all on the outside Terry and what I’m talking about is withdrawing on the inside, but that’s the part I don’t know how to explain, my feelings aren’t clear, it’s just that in some way I feel like I’m pulling away from... from life? And I don’t know. And then I think that I suppose what it really is, is that I’m pulling away from myself in way, which sounds mad, but I’m sort of leaving the old me, or the me mum and dad made, and I’m no longer able to relate to that person as I used to, nor do all the things I did back then. So my changing is making me feel different to how I’ve been, and like we’ve talked about often, I’m not used to the new me, the me that I’m becoming.
And the weird thing is, I like how I’m becoming more each day, no longer wanting to have so much to do with people. I don’t miss Jen or the girls, I don’t miss seeing my sisters or the boys, I don’t miss mum and dad; and in fact I feel relieved I don’t have to see anyone as I don’t want to see anyone. I think I’m becoming a recluse.
And does that bother you?
Well no, as I said, I actually feel better and better in myself about it all and about who I am, however I do have a feeling of guilt that I’m not meant to be like this, that it’s selfish and that I have to still be there for the others and part of it all, or else I’m letting the side down. But I no longer want to be on their side, I hate it, but I still feel like my purpose in life is to help other people and to be there to look after them, so to look after mum and dad as they get older and not leave them up to the others. But I only have to think of looking after them, and I hate that feeling as I don’t want to have anything more to do with them really, if I’m honest with myself. And I’ll even be glad when they die and that burden is removed from me altogether. And I thought I would never be able say such a thing about mum and dad.
Yeah, it’s a big one.
But I hate feeling guilty, it’s a horrible pressure on me, and I do, I feel I have to be there in some way to look after everyone, to make sure they are all all right - even the bears. I feel like I should be the one going over to those countries and setting the bears free and also in some way looking after those people so they don’t feel bad having to give up their livelihood and what they want to do.
So to think of not giving any money, then I feel like I’m being selfish and people won’t like me and all my usual stuff: that mum and dad will punish me somehow, that other people will accuse me of only looking after myself - as if that’s the biggest crime in the world, and will hurt me in some way. I don’t know how, but I will be stoned to death or something bad like that.
And then I think that it’s selfish of me staying at home as I do. I should at least try and get a job to help you with the money, and I should go out into the community and do something to help, even it’s only volunteer work. And then I’d meet people and maybe develop some friendships, but all I want to do is have less and less to do with people. Only with you Terry and the little I have shopping and going to the op shops, but nothing else. I just want to be left alone, free to do completely as I please without being interfered with by anyone. I just want to be able to read and write and sit in the sun and be in nature when you’re not here, and when you are, just be talking with you like this.
Well Annie you know there is no pressure from me, I don’t care what you do and I certainly don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. I don’t expect you to work or meet people, and as far as all of that goes, I have enough to do with people during the day as is it, and as none of it is to do with expressing feelings and seeking the truth through them like we do with each other, it is a relief to come back home. And on the weekends as you know I am quite happy doing nothing other than going for walks along the beach or in the bush and just being at home with you. In fact, concerning all that, I’ve never felt so good, never felt so at peace and comfortable... so now if only all my bad feelings would stop coming up in me, then I’d be right.
I wish I felt as you did Terry, but I just can’t shake these feelings of guilt, not that I want to, but you know what I mean.
I don’t want to feel obliged to do anything, that I have to do it; it’s what’s expected of me, and it’s what we all do and all of that sort of stuff. I don’t want to do anything other than, as I said - what I feel to do. And I feel it’s very therapeutic for me not to do anything, just to sit around, not even busying myself trying to write so I can become ‘the writer’. Now how I feel I don’t care if I never get anything published. And I only want to read about people who’ve had bad upbringings so I can see how it was for them which helps me understand how it was for me. And we’re so lucky having so many really good op shops with so many books in them, and it’s like they are all there just for me. Really things couldn’t be better, only as you said, I still feel bad so much of the time.
Oh Terry, the pressure to be the good girl is so strong in me. And I want to be thought well of, and I feel like I’ve gone into hiding, us living down here. And all to avoid all these pressures, because I don’t want to keep being there for everyone else, I want to only be here for me. And as you are so undemanding Terry not making me do things and letting me stop doing all those expected woman things, even not wanting to have sex as much, you leaving that more and more up to me. And I’m feeling less and less in need of it, so all of that is just so good, not feeling pressured in anyway. And on many levels Terry I’m realising it’s a dream come true, I’ve always longed to be free of it all, and now in many ways I am.
Yeah and it’s all fine by me too. And as for the sex, yeah that’s a strange thing, I thought I’d always want to do it and as often as possible. I never thought I’d feel okay about not doing it at least a few times each week. But the feelings just aren’t as strong in me as they used to be. And I don’t think it’s just that I’m getting older - god I’m still in my prime!
It’s because you’ve got other priorities in your life now Terry, your speaking about all you think and feel has become more to your liking, so doing all your feeling-good things to keep your bad feelings away isn’t what you need as much as you used to.
Yeah and I guess I’m lucky really as I know many of the blokes had a real thing about sex, it was all they lived for, and they needed it like a drug fix, but thankfully even though I liked it - loved it! - still it wasn’t the be-all and end-all for me. And as you say Ann, we’re both changing and have both changed a lot - shit a hell of a lot! I am no longer that Terry that I used to be, and neither are you that Ann. And as far as I can tell, we’re only going to keep changing and who knows what will happen next.