{"id":107,"date":"2020-12-28T09:23:40","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T17:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.makemydayusa.glamazon.net\/?p=107"},"modified":"2020-12-28T09:23:42","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T17:23:42","slug":"a-bag-of-bricks-called-guilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/a-bag-of-bricks-called-guilt\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bag of Bricks Called Guilt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Practice what you preach, I always say.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGuilt is like a bag of fuckin’ bricks. All ya gotta do is set it down.\u201d
– The Devil\u2019s Advocate<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be there no mistake about it, guilt destroys people\u2019s lives. Since we live in a society so influenced by fear-based religion\u2014and led by hypocritical politicians who pander to it\u2014it\u2019s no wonder we\u2019re drowning in it. And so needlessly. How terrible for a person to be caught between harmful guilt and their legitimate, harmless desires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needless to say, guilt has its place in the instance of rape, murder, child abuse, non-consensual violence or other act where another human being is harmed. People who do these things and don\u2019t feel guilt are sociopaths, and if they continue to harm others\u2026 well, that\u2019s for the Law. But that is not the guilt about which I write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is much\u2014most of it sexual or gender-related\u2014that religion has trained society to feel guilty about, establishing artificial boundaries between \u201cnormal\u201d and \u201cperverse.\u201d Quite often they lump these in with far broader definitions of \u201cGood\u201d and \u201cEvil.\u201d In doing so, they classify any sex they deem perverse along with murder, making it only a matter of degree how bad one or the other is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s human nature to want to feel \u201cnormal\u201d\u2014to fit in with the majority of other people. The danger is that the desire to conform to the majority ignores that human beings are not all the same, nor should we be. We have different feelings, needs, wants and values. In that respect, \u201cnormal\u201d is a harmful lie with no basis in reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chronicles of Narnia<\/em> author C.S. Lewis wrote, \u201cDon’t you think the things people are most ashamed of are things they can’t help?\u201d How sad that people repress their instincts and desires because they\u2019re afraid they\u2019ll be judged by people who have no right to judge. The guilt from those judgments can grow into shame of who you are\u2014a terrible burden to live with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 As a thirty-five year member of the trans community I\u2019ve seen firsthand, and lived it for myself, the tragic cost of undeserved shame. Substance abuse, harming yourself and those around you, suicide attempts\u2014much of it stemming from the guilt we feel because we transgress gender rules. And the price we and that our loved ones pay goes on and on. Gay and bisexual people often live with the very same demons, as do those whose unique carnal desires fall outside the boundaries of \u201cnormal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LGBT people who wait until later life to live their truth, may do so because they fear how people will react. The tragedy is that the energy put into denial\u2014getting married, having children, etc.\u2014eventually fails and now there is family likely to be hurt in the bargain. So in the end, living one\u2019s life based on the approval of others is destined to fail in one way or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite its many failings, the Internet has connected people together and opened their eyes to things they\u2019ve never before considered\u2014to see things in a new light. Thanks to this, it\u2019s less stigmatizing to be LGBT than it was before the Information Superhighway ran through the world. \u201cDeviant\u201d lifestyles like BDSM may take longer to gain acceptance, but I have hope that one day there will be far less stigma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pain of lugging around all of that unnecessary guilt\u2014for simply being yourself\u2014is one load you can unburden yourself of at any time. All you have to do is set down that bag of fucking bricks and be honest with yourself about who you are and what you need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth of the matter is: if you\u2019re not hurting anyone else then you have nothing to feel guilty about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGuilt is like a bag of fuckin’ bricks. All ya gotta do is set it down.\u201d – The Devil\u2019s Advocate Be there no mistake about it, guilt destroys people\u2019s lives. Since we live in a society so influenced by fear-based religion\u2014and led by hypocritical politicians who pander to it\u2014it\u2019s no wonder we\u2019re drowning in it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mainline-journa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glamazon.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}