Do you ever get the feeling you don't belong in "this" world now?

I was thinking today how very different our world is in the last 10 yrs. I feel a smothering feeling most of the time. The idea of "freedom" seems to be just that....an idea. I do NOT feel free, quite the contrary, I feel caged.

I am not suicidal (yet), but this is a sinking feeling I just can't shake....sense something BIG (& bad) is on the horizon.

Is this the price of knowledge & thinking? Ignorance is bliss. Maybe I'd be better off if I was a bubblehead.

Anyone else have this same "sense"?:freak:

Guess I'm mourning my loss of country.

my life is A-OK. There are many people suffering, but people posting on a website aren't usually those that are bad off. Please shareb if you need help!

Much better off than MOST in this country, but my concern is not just for myself. Herein lies the crux of my disillusionment. Hard to function in a space where selfishness, rudeness, & grotesque consumption are the norm. I miss kindness & cooperation. Just going thru a "phase" I suppose, our world is so f***ed up now because of a selfish, spoiled, arrogant brat. It just pisses me off.

Thank you for your concern, it gives me hope. That is why I love DU... sense of camaraderie.

and in the fear mode, that is how they control the masses. Do not give in to their propaganda mind games, we got to stand up and not take any of their sh$t.

like these."

It's not easy, certainly.

It downright maddening at times.

At times, I want to scream (and I often do, if I see Chimpy on the teevee).

At times, I feel hopeless and helpless.

But there is something in me that says, "Don't let the bastards win!"

So, I keep fighting, even when it seems hopeless and useless.

I do understand how you feel, but I hope you have times of feeling that it's all worth it.

a great liberation coming, at a terrible cost.

I feel a very deep sorrow. My country is gone; we may not ever get back anything CLOSE to being as good as we had it in the past.

There is the sense of having been CONQUERED by a large beast.

but I was born in 1974. My memory is entirely of a country descending into Fascism.

We were a much more tolerant people then. Yes, there was still bigotry, but seems it has exploded now & we live in such an unbending, hateful country.

Us vs. Them...everything is a "competition", so little room for compassion & compromise.

Guess this filibuster thing has "iced my cake" on hope for unity & common good.

Racism was bad but Reagan made it good: "Welfare
queens driving Cadillacs..."

Environmentalism was good but Reagan made it bad.

Class warfare was bad but Reagan made it a clandestine
centerpiece of his administration via huge tax cuts
for the rich that were funded by record government
borrowing.

Intelligence (as in smarts) was good but Reagan (and
Agnew) made it bad: "Nattering nabobs of negativism
who characterize themselves as intellectuals..."

Reagan was the patron saint of nearly everything
that's gone wrong with this country.

Tesha

"Reagan was the patron saint of nearly everything
that's gone wrong with this country."

That's when things started going to hell in a handbasket.

Don't you mean George I, not Agnew?

The quote I cited was from Spiro Agnew, Nixon's discredited veep
(so some of that stuff was already in the R&D phase earlier than
Reagan).

Thanks for catching me on it!

Tesha

Mr Jim Crow ruled my part of the world during my early years.

I hope that you have "survived" Katrina.

I feel guilty pining away like this when I know there are so many who are in worse shape than I, but their pain is part of what is making me feel this way.

Our country use to be so much better than this.

The next world is the one that comes after this nightmare
the earth and its people are there and want the same thing.


We are all brothers in arms(Dire straits),,..... living in this


Tin Pan Alley .......of freedom.(stevie ray )

Hang on, Americans have finally awaken from the matrix
of consciousness on their jobs and democracy.

we will prevail.

Hope that helped...... but damn that was lame.



Edited
Too much old school, culturally irrelevancy.

Thanks, IChing, it does help. Know ALL those songs WELL! "Brothers in Arms" is soooo fitting.

Patience has never been my strength, I just want this nightmare to end NOW! In that I know I'm not alone.
:pals:

I have for small children and pets, but not for fools, abusers or liars.

This government is treating me like a child or a pet
that wants love, but is tired of this abuse and hopefully speaking out.

We either withdrawal on abuse
or reach and act out.

I'm acting out......LOL

remains is when.

You're not crazy and you had better get busy.

I coined a phrase about ten years ago that pretty much describes my state. "I'm somewhere between homicide and suicide" I know it sounds a bit dark, but it pretty well catches the mood that goes from rage to despair. It's not a fun world to live in most days, but I'll keep kickin' till they take me out.

I ain't dead yet, but feel "kicked in the stomach" most of the time.

These neocons are smothering us, we MUST get rid of them.

resources. We can bypass the big-dollar media even if they hamstring the internet, we can fall back to listserves and email groups and if they try and shut that down, they'll piss off the non-political internet users. If that fails, we've still got printers and can go back to pamphleteering.

though, I try to fight it off, because it is not healthy for me and my family.

To give an example, I went to a family get together the other night -- one that I had looked forward to. Within an hour, I was so uncomfortable because of the inane conversations that paled in comparison to what I feel are more important issues of the day. I wanted to leave and had a very difficult time concentrating on small talk.

I'm not suicidal, but, definitely, my mind is elsewhere on most occasions.

to this feeling.

I find I just don't want to interact w/@80% of the people I encounter. Clueless, igmos. My tolerance for the ignorant is evaporating, & there seem to be sooooo many of them!:eyes:

voice to feelings i share.

The dis-connect between what is happening, and how "life just goes on" for so much of America often makes me feel completely crazy.

I have experienced similar feelings when going through really intense times of grief (had a series of sudden tragic deaths in the last 10 years).

Sometimes i feel like i am in a parallel existance-{i could accept that} but reality always sets in eventually.

I keep saying to myself, "it can't go on like this forever"..... but i'm starting to really lose my ability to find any hope in that concept.

:shrug:

:grouphug:


blu

Well for me anyway. Could it possibly that many of us are going through the stages of grief over the death of a loved one? I attended seminars and read a number of books when I was divorced that espoused the belief that the end of a marriage was much like going through the grieving that one goes through with a death of someone close.

What you both just related was very much how my husband and I were feeling several years ago. It gets a little better with time. Just do something every day for someone else. It can be as simple as a kind word and a smile, even for the simplest and most uninformed.

We are as uneasy right now as we were in the summer of 2001.

Network, find community, be aware.

Believe in peace.

The older I get, the more I find it difficult to engage in small talk when there are SO many urgent situations that need our immediate attention. I no longer care about sports, pop culture, debating the pros and cons of who makes a better (fill in the blank), or any other topic deemed appropriate to chit chat about at a social gathering. Those topics we've been told to avoid, politics, sex, and religion are the ONLY topics really worth discussing IMHO. My wife cringes whenever we attend a social function these days because she knows that I will either shut down within minutes because I can't engage in small talk, or become enlivened by trying to engage others in discussions about politics and culture. This typically leads to my once again shutting down when I discover the uninformed, corporately controlled thoughts and opinions of my relatives, co-workers and others at these events. I'm lucky, however, in that I still have a small group of like-minded friends who know what's at stake in these seriously dangerous times. I relish the times I can still spend with my enlightened circle of friends, for if it weren't for them, I'd have to probably rely on antidepressants to get me through the day. Then there is also the therapeutic benefit of being a DUer.

but even when you are out trying to have fun you see something that reminds you of what is really going on. Then I begin to wonder how many people in my surroundings really know.

Sometimes I have to go away, play Chuzzle for a while, then come back to face reality. Seriously, if you think about all this shit continually, your brain will explode. You've got to be active and informed, but you can't let it make you sick. :(

Never feeling like you "belong" in this world.

Now, imagine taking that to its ultimate conclusion. You either fall down or out or you come to an understanding by forging ahead with your experience. It comes down to, either you are not at all normal, (something is wrong with you) or you entertain the possibility that you are aware of something essential, but find it hard to put into perspective as a social creature.

If one feels disillusioned, then there is the opportunity to question the value and import of one's illusions, no matter how grand or realistic they may appear. Is it better to struggle to keep the illusions in place, or even replace them with new ones, or could there be an option to look more deeply into reality, the social construct, and what appears to be? One would expect that option to bring fear, doubt, and dismay. That could be seen as a threshold, or a ring-pass-naught that actually tends to keep illusions and reality constructs in place.

So, you could look at your dilemma as an opportunity to see and explore more deeply into life and nature, and then sincerely contrast cultural and societal abstractions with what is most essential, deep, and vital to you and yours.

From my perspective, pulling back the appearances and convenient illusions that are fed to use from childhood and then, thanks to mass media and social engineering, are expertly exploited is both enlightening and liberating. From there, you might see that what were the "good old days" for you, (especially the expectation that they were always that way and would continue to be) were only a matter of perspective and, perhaps, deliberate distraction. All through history, we see imperialism, exploitation, deception, inequality, propaganda, etc. They have never gone away, but perhaps, the twentieth-century could be seen as a time when the grand illusion spoke proudly, loudly, and more realistically than was apparent to a large number of people.

Whatever pill you choose to take, red or blue, it is not really something anyone can decide for you. In fact, once you investigate this pregnant opportunity to grow your boundaries and liberate your mind, there are pros and cons related to taking either one. At least consider celebrating the birthing pains that come to the dwellers on such an auspicious threshold.

displacement

the repukes and their RW religiously insane contingent have done so much damage to truth, reality and rationality that our society is no longer grounded

And there have always been troublemakers like you that mitigate them.

:)

but that doesn't matter. there's still good in quite a few people, it just needs encouragement to bubble up. the sad part is there's a lot of profit in also making people feel factionalized, fearful, and hateful. i find that it is quite noticeable in america because the sense of alienation here is far more keen. but you'll also be surprised at how kind americans can be if you travel and just talk to them. sorta like when michael moore toured the country and said it's really liberal and kind. it really is, but everyone ends up feeling that they are all alone.

here's a big secret: you're not alone. you're never alone. (not even under the covers when you think no one is watching... :yoiks:)

I sometimes feel that I'm living it. That every time I go to sleep, I wake up in a different dimension.

Any type of life really.

Not the price of knowledge, it's the price of control.

45 or so years ago. Everything was more 'local', the grocery stores, clothing shops, gas stations, bankers, insurance agents, doctors, etc. were people you knew all your life. Corporations weren't running the country then. Greed wasn't so obvious. People didn't discuss their religion with others, it was personal. We lived in and valued our 'communities' or 'neighborhoods'. We willingly helped each other out.

I truly do dislike today's America or Amerika. For many, many reasons.


Edited to correct negative.

of us who still have their feet planted on the ground, and will stand up to this immorality. I am hoping.

I'm in my mid-50s and lately I've had this feeling of "I don't much care, anymore." It's hard to describe: kinda like a malaise, as if I'm just going through the motions. Each day brings more stupid antics out of DC. It's like watching the Bowery Boys over and over (particularly their later movies). I look at the people around me, who have absolutely no idea of what's going one, in restaurants, stores and other public places, and think "I've nothing in common with these people.

I've got maybe 13-15 years left before retirement (if I make it that far) and I am thinking now where will I retire? Maybe a cabin in the mountains? Maybe a trailer in the high desert? Maybe I'll go to a foreign country where they have decent health care and a population of people who aren't culturally stunted.

For now though, I'm just going through the motions...

Plano, Tx but I know what you mean.
I think it's time to go to the mountains!!

That I was not a part of "us," and that "my" world was not part of "their" world.

The last 10 years has simply pushed me further out from the fringe, into the wilderness.

Most of us have never experienced anything like this in our lifetimes .

It is surreal and scary and screwed up to the point that I fear it will never be even close to what it once was and I feel disconnected .

I ended up here by a biological/geographical quirk. It would not have been my first choice, even the former v1.0. It used to be a decent enough place if you don't read history too closely and suck up the American creation myth without question. And if you don't mind living in an oligarchical kleptocracy (ooooohhhh, those vocabulary tapes are finally paying off). And if you don't mind that it was founded by religious fanatics and murdering racists, and that the grand tradition continues in the quavering hearts of the 30 percent of the population that self-identifies as fundies and religious loons.

But I DO mind all that stuff, and I really mind that v2.0 has taken the extremes and moved them into the mainstream, such that there's no social controls or sanctions for very stupid people who believe the earth is a bit over 6,000 years old, that humans and dinosaurs co-existed (well, given present circumstances...), that base their entire existence on a book of fairy tales, and vicious ones at that. And I mind that labor is denigrated, unions despised and busted and rendered toothless -- all while the elites who taught us that there's no need for organized labor because there's no such thing as class warfare laugh their asses off at all the people who believe that shit.

I don't know now or why I was born an American, but it's my fondest dream not to have to die one.


wp

I suffered through what you described many times in my life. Some episodes even occurred under Bush 41 and Clinton!

/Star Trek geek mode on

I was once again reminded of a Star Trek TNG (The Next Generation for you non-trekkers :D ) in which the Enterprise "travels" into an alternate time-line; the one in which Tasha Yar is still alive. Guinan informs Picard that "this isn't right"; she can't explain it but "it isn't right. We don't belong here."

/Star Trek geek mode off

I frequently look around me and think that somehow "We" don't belong "here". This isn't how the human race was "supposed" to develop. I can't explain it but "it isn't right". In spite of having a passable knowledge of history, I have a constant "nagging" in the back of my head that says "no, this is wrong. we were meant to be different". Or maybe it's just, we *could* have turned out differently but for some inexplicable (to me) reason, we chose not to.

I don't feel "caged". If anything, I feel so far outside of the world in which I live, as to feel almost "alien" in familiar surroundings. I don't know how to explain it any better than that.

If you assume humans have no underlying morality, then
we're right on course; our society is headed in a direction
that only an amoral person, an "I'm out for everything I can
grab for myself and *SCREW* everyone else" sort of person
(in other words, a Republican) could appreciate.

But if you assume that there is some underlying morality
that most of us could agree upon (for example, the need
to pass on to the next generation a planet that at least
will support human life), then it's clear we're on the
wrong course.

Did someone rip us all out of some better timeline and
drop us here? I doubt it. I think it's far more likely
that a lot of people who go around preaching about
what sort of morality we should have are, in fact,
completely amoral themselves.

And as long as we tolerate these people living amongst us,
*LET ALONE LEADING US*, we will continue to race down
the road to creating Hell on Earth.

Tesha

we should be rejoicing...