:shrug: It looked like an opinion to me. One that is no more or less valid than any other in the thread. I don’t see any need to jump Scylla’s shit simply because he has an opinion you disagree with.
Matt is overstepping himself. He has no right or authority to tell** Scylla** to back off. Scylla has as much right as any SDMB member to air his opinions in any thread.
I think Scylla is completely off-base in his “diagnosis” of Peter Pan. “Severe bouts of depression”? C’mon, a competent mental health professional would not attempt to diagnose a stranger’s psychological condition from a Web site; for an untrained person to do so is ludicrous. Peter Pan accepted a Webby for his page and he has found a kindred soul; seems like he has vanquished his self-esteem issues. What you need to realize, Scylla, is that people don’t need to look and act the same to be happy. Quite the revese, it’s trying to hide one’s inner light from fear of rejection that’s likely to cause a mental breakdown. Just compare a closeted gay guy to a out and proud one, and you’ll see what I mean.
Matt, yes, we know you’re a Wiccan and a radical faerie. You have to realize that your choices will look silly to some people, just as me being a muscle queen will look silly to other people. You just need to sprinkle them with pixie dust and then ignore them. Shrilly demanding respect and telling people what opinions they may or may not hold is not attractive.
Matt_mcl:
And yet it is most emphatically not utterly unsupported.
Nothing says more about a person than the choices they make. Indeed, I would argue that all you are is the sum total of the choices you make.
This guy has chosen to emulate Peter Pan to an oustounding and overt degree, and to publicize his emulation. He has gone so far as to create a website, grow his hair in a childlike fashion, have himself photographed as Peter Pan, and either convince or find a girlfriend who is willing to participate in it with him. This represents a rather deep commitment on his part, and it says something about who he is.
Peter Pan is a lost boy, a child who never grows up. This archetype suggests he has issues with being an adult or a grownup. Perhaps he’s denying his own mortality as well. It suggests a fleeing or denial of responsibility, as well as a strong dissatisfaction with reality.
He may feel like an imposter in his day to day life, and to get away from his dissatisfaction he may create more overt and elaborate attempts to move his desired archetypal existence into the real world. This will inevitably lead to failure. Denying who you are and pretending to be something else isn’t healthy when it’s taken to extremes.
This is not merely self-expression. This is an attempt to recreate himself. That he feels he needs to make the attempt shows there is a problem.
On the other hand, it does say some nice things about him. A desire to be good, a desire to be innocent (if simplistic,) and active imagination. The willingness to knowingly make a fool out of oneself suggests both self confidence and cleverness. By poking fun at himself he takes away the power of others to hurt him.
He should deal with his midlife crises like a real man and go buy a sportscar. 
Scylla, why don’t you email your “diagnosis” to the guy and see what he does? I hope he tells you to sit on Captain Hook’s sword, point-end first.
Yeah he’s a freak, but he’s not a cool freak. Cool freaks wear Star Trek uniforms to jury duty.
I am getting goddamn bloody tired of whenever I call someone on whatever opinion they may happen to hold, of being accused of censorship. I didn’t say that Scylla hasn’t the right to post what he posted. He has the right to post whatever oracular, pseudo-psychological bullshit he cares to. And I have the right to tell him that I think he needs to back off.
He needs to back off in the sense that in order to be intellectually honest, he needs to drop the mantle of authoritative jargon and quasi-telepathic prognosis he was using and state his opinions as his own opinions rather than pretending to anything larger and more significant than that.
Unless of course he chooses to bring to light the arguments that stand behind his heretofore seemingly self-supporting claims, that an actual debate may take place.
I see where he’s done that. Splendid. Moving right along.
My father used to make this argument about me, and I find it obnoxious. Exactly who are you to say who he really is? How do you know that he is denying who he is? What evidence do you have to support the contention that his true self is something other than that evinced by the way he presents himself?
My father didn’t have any such evidence after raising me for eighteen years. How can you possibly hope to have it after reading his goddamned website?
Or is it that you dismiss out of hand the possibility that any human being at all could possibly think and feel the way that he claims to? If so, this is where we are going to have to see something in the way of credentials.
As long as we are making psychological judgments as if we were psychologists, it seems possible to me that the problem isn’t with the way he’s becoming; the problem is with the way he was. In that case, changing his way of life from something he finds unsupportable to something which causes him to be at peace with himself and his world would seem to be a good thing.
A question for discussion: What first leaps to mind when you think of “denying who you are and pretending to be someone else?” Making people uncomfortable by peacefully shocking their expectations of what a human being is and does - or dropping your dreams and the things that make you most unique in order to “grow up”?
Funny, I just got a button at the NDP convention that seems appropriate at this point. It says “Silence is too high a price to pay for your approval.” I imagine Scylla has no desire for me to approve of him. You may assume the same of me.
Why don’t you?
What makes a Peter-pan get-up more extreme than the commodified “styles” that are adopted by less egregious folk? Millions of middle-class, white, asian and native people dress up in the costume of NY ghetto gangstas, and they take the roleplaying deadly seriously, imitating their speech as closely as they can manage. (Even calling each other ‘niggas’.) Do have any idea how many white-boy “rastas” I’ve met, that let their hair dread up, and imitate Jamaican patois with varying degrees of success? How many grown men who’ve never been anywhere near a horse dress up like cowboys? In combat fatigues? How many singularly unathletic guys have you seen wearing replicas of their favourite football team’s uniform to work? Have you noticed that more and more girls are dressing up like Lara Croft? When the “Goth” kids were a new phenomena, they stood out as freaks-- Today they’re practically invisible because it’s such a common look.
As soon as you make the choice to put on clothes, you are “denying” that you are a naked ape. If it’s a conscious choice that you make, it’s more like defining who you are.
It’s not a pathological condition, it’s what we all do.
You want me to email your “diagnosis” to him? Only if I can sign your real name to it.
And I suggest you heed the words of Harlan Ellison in my sig. Opinions are NOT all created equal. Some actually have facts to back them up.
Hell, millions of people dress in suits and ties they hate and go to jobs they hate because it’s what’s expected of them by others. Very few of them are accused of insanity.
And again, when I get old, I’m wearing nothing but period costume.
Anyhoo, I would say the only thing perhaps that might be wrong is that Peter is hiding behind this persona-that he’s making a game of it, and not really looking at himself.
But I still vote for eccentric genius.
**
Uhhhhh, say what?
Actually I did it in the first post, but you kind of ignored it there.
I wasn’t speaking to you, and I haven’t been up to Canada for quite some time, so I don’t think I’m your father. Nothing personal, but how you feel about isn’t my problem.
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I’m a guy answering the OP.
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I’m pretty sure he’s not really Peter Pan seeing as he’s fully grown and kind of looks like Bowser from Sha-na-na. I know he’s not because Peter Pan is a fictional character. I’m pretty sure this guy can’t fly, he doesn’t live in Never-Never Land, and the fact that he actually did grow up, at least physically, pretty much disqualifies.
In other words, I don’t know who he is, but I know who he isn’t.
Because, for the reasons stated above, he’s not Peter Pan.
Do you mean other than his not being Peter Pan?
Well, he’s presenting himself as a guy who’s pretty fanatical about emulating Peter Pan. I am taking him at face value, and assuming it’s not some kind of joke.
Your dad said you weren’t Peter Pan?
No. I think many human beings think and feel the way they claim too. I even think he does to a large degree. I think that’s symptomatic of his problems.
I have in absolutely no way presented myself as if I were a psychologist. Your suggestion that I have is disingenuous. Quite the contrary, if I were a psychologist I wouldn’t feel free to give my professional opinion based on a website. As a laymen I can opine away.
On the surface I would agree. However, I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that building an investment in becoming a magical fictional character is not an achievable or realistic goal. It is bound to end calamitously.
For you, I’m sure it’s being gay. For me it’s something else, and I don’t care to share.
I don’t think either of those things is good. If you’re deliberately going after the effect of shocking people, or making them uncomfortable, you’re not a nice person, and if you’re playing for effect against other people, than by definition you’re not being true to yourself.
For the second part, I’m not sure why you think you need to drop your dreams or the things that make you unique in order to grow up.
You imagine wrong.
Matt:
For you this has obviously become something larger than a silly man dressing up as Peter Pan, I daresay you’re seeing something of a metaphor for gayness here, and equating my opinions with what your father said to you.
I’m sorry if you had a bad relationship with your dad, and it’s unfortunate that my words remind you of what he said to you.
But, it doesn’t really apply. In the context I’m writing my words, they apply and are correct. In the way your father used the same words they did not and were not.
Here’s why:
I have no reason, and he has absolutely no reason not to take you at your word when you say that who you are is a gay man.
On the other hand, this guy isn’t really Peter Pan.
Bingo. More headcases and serial killers have been spawned from repression than from being true to one’s school.
I think his whole trip is yucky, but I feel quite sure that he’s more healthy and happy than most people.
stoid
Here’s some quotes from his cite that lead me to believe this man is somewhat troubled.
This is particularly evocative:
He finds God and and keeps the mind of a child through LSD use, is clearly sexually confused and received a “faith-healing” from God by being in the presence of Cinderella’s Castle in Disneyworld.
I think he’s a good guy and even a nice guy, but I think it’s pretty obvious that he’s not too in touch with reality, and rather than being his real self, this Peter Pan thing is an armor or a shield he hides behind. He expresses several times how strongly he feels and how much he dislikes society’s disaproval of the unconventional, yet he very much goes out of his way to be unconventional and to advertise the fact. A part of him is probably attracted to being disapproved of, or at least builds up an image for easy disaproval so as to shield his true self whatever that may be.
[quote]
I see the problem. I believe that you are completely misunderstanding his website. I see no evidence there to support the idea that he actually believes that he literally is Peter Pan, a fictional fairy created by J.M. Barrie and brought to the screen by Disney; nor do I see evidence that he is trying literally to make himself into such a fictional character.
I see plenty of evidence to suggest that he believes that he is like Peter Pan; that he admires Peter Pan; that Peter Pan is an exponent of his personal philosophy. He says so explicitly many times.
I have no reason to doubt his belief that he is like Peter Pan. It seems natural, therefore, to believe that he dresses like Peter Pan not because he believes that he is Peter Pan, but because the Peter Pan philosophy is so important to him that he expresses it in the way he dresses. His dressing in a way that pleases him, therefore, puts him head and shoulders in my book over the very large numbers of people who do not dress in a way that pleases them.
Therefore:
You also have no reason not to take this guy at his word when he says that he is like Peter Pan.
Now that we’ve dealt with that, let’s move on to that portion of your post that cannot be accounted for by simple misunderstanding.
Perhaps not, or perhaps I am an activist. Deliberately shocking people or making them uncomfortable is a reasonably effective way of persuading them to forgo unethical behaviour. Several forms of this constitute an important portion of democratic discourse.
The next time I’m in southern California, I’ll take the Mount Palomar Observatory tour and try to find the planet you got this from.
Scylla, has it ever occurred to you that the guy knows he isn’t really Peter Pan, and that he’s just having fun pretending to be Peter Pan?
…so? Throughout history, people have used mind-altering substances to have metaphysical experience.
**
Because he’s asexual, or because he’s femme? Which of those evince sexual problems? This will be fun.
I’ve received divine inspiration from being in the presence of Place Saint-Henri metro station in Montreal. I don’t see what this has to do with anything.
Does not follow.
I know how much society disapproves of femme/political/geek guys, and I do what some perceive as going out of my way to be femme/political/geeky. (Actually, it’s not out of my way, just out of theirs.)
And it’s not because I like being disapproved of. It’s because I don’t care whether they disapprove of me, because being how I would have myself be is more important than that.
This is a beautiful piece of Pit brilliance.
You rock, Freyr.
Matt and Jab:
Did you guys read his bio?
Matt:
…And I find something that I identify with in the dual nature of the mythological Scylla, but I rarely dress as a sea monster these days. I know he knows that he’s not Peter Pan, but he’s trying to emulate him, at what I feel in my unprofessional opinion is a denial of his actual self.
His bio and ministry sites have several contradictions and troubling passages in him. Apparently (and it’s not completely clear,) he spent time pretending and acting as if he was gay, though he claims to be asexual.
Earlier he says that his father taught him about religion and God and was a rather devout Lutheran, and a few paragraphs later he says that he hung out with Jehovah’s witnesses because he never was exposed to religion. He also says that his father was a toymaker, that his parents were very troubled, his mother committed suicide when he was very young. His father’s career and his current fixation may just be coincidence, but it is suggestive.
I don’t think that this is just a normal person expressing himself. I think he’s a somewhat troubled man. That’s my opinion, and I think I’ve shown that it’s not a baseless one, though you’re free to disagree with it.
So is torture, blackmail, and extortion.
Or, maybe you could look back a couple of posts and see where I got it from. It was from that part where you said my words reminded you of what your father said to you.
Just a quick gripe about Peter-does his page freeze up anyone else’s computer?
I have to say, he sucks at web design.