See, that’s the thing. Under my M.O., you don’t reveal yourself to people who don’t care. You just don’t misrepresent yourself, either. People who meet me for the first time come away from the experience, to a man (or woman), confused as hell. What I have heard time and time again, from every single person I have ever asked, is that I am quite impossible to read. This is because I neither attempt to project my personality, nor actively attempt to hide it (which can only be accomplished by projecting a false imagine in its place). Now, if somebody shows an active interest in me (say, by striking up a sincere and in-depth conversation that leads to topics of a personal nature), I am up front and direct with that person as much as possible. There’s no need to share specific past events or personal information that would make me uncomfortable; I simply voice my feelings and/or opinions in the abstract. That’s the important part anyhow. Context can come later, once a more intimate trust has been established.
I will now give my answer to your question. Keep in mind that the following assumes that everyone involved has a near-complete understanding of themselves, their beliefs, their thought processes, and the ways in which each of these elements of the mind interact with one another. I have a process for doing that, too, but it’s FAR too complicated to get into here; that process (and the teaching thereof) is something I am willing to devote my life to, and I suspect I shall never completely finish. There’s a thread buried in MPSIMS somewhere that gives an example of what I’m talking about; if you’re interested, search for a thread started by me with “Freedom of Thought” in the title.
Now then: given the ideological standpoint that “signals” are irrelevant, we need not go out of our way to emit any. That’s step one; basically, it’s an advanced version of “be yourself”. Easy stuff. Step two is to acknowledge, and keep in conscious mind, that people are doing this. Here’s where the hard part comes in. You need to acknowledge and accept that, when you get right down to it, you really don’t know that many people, even inside your own inner circle, to any appreciable extent. As open as I am about myself and my thoughts (at least, to any who would ask me to be so), there are three people on this planet whom I believe have a workably accurate concept of who I really am. This is a hard thing to face, and it’s natural to want to deny it. It’s human nature to want to dismiss our own ignorance, and pretend that we’re capable of reading other people subliminally, and assume that we know more than we really do, because we’re just…that…good. But we aren’t. Once you have that embedded into your consciousness, you can move along to step three: getting to know people better. It’s an undisputable fact, to my mind, that people are the most important things on this planet…so treat them as such. Set some time aside to get to know those with whom you interact on a daily basis. Ask them about themselves. Find out who they are, what they believe, and how they feel. Tell them a bit about yourself, too, if they want to hear it. If you do this, you will be surprised, you will be delighted, you will be shocked, but most of all and most importantly, you will be informed. You will have a greater understanding not only of those around you, but of people as a whole. Using this, you can not only form tighter bonds with those close to you, but you develop a better sense of how to form those bonds, which has the potential to aid you in every human interaction you make for the rest of your life. The only place left to go in step four, then, is the impossible; the idealistic goal to which we must strive but which we can never truly achieve: complete human knowledge, complete human tolerance, complete human acceptance, and universal human love. Sounds nice, right? Well, we can never get there…but we can fucking well try. I believe that if any system allows us to try, it’s this one. It requires nothing more than the self-awareness and conscious action of individuals acting independently of one another to achieve its ends. It’s not communism, and it’s not a utopian society. It’s humanity…or rather, the most wonderful aspects thereof. That’s why it’s the only way we can ever even try to make something like this work. It’s the only way to ever truly end the tyrannic rule of artifical societal boundaries and standards, and the only way to fight this mindset of “let’s make do” that ultimately contributes only toward our own self-destruction.
“Gee, Roland, idealist much?” Yeah. Yeah, I am. I know I can’t achieve this complete knowledge, this complete acceptance, this complete love…but I have to try. We have to try. Because in the end, it’s all we’ve got going for us. It’s the only thing that matters, because it’s the only thing that can matter.
That’s the best I can phrase it, right now, at this stage of theoretical and philosophical development, at 2:19 in the morning, after 28 hours with no sleep. I’m still working on it. In the meantime, this is what I’ve got. Hope it helps.
