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If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off

mrjamesbell.com

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Re: If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off

#61
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't do it perfectly but they did it perfectly? Do you have two different definitions for "perfect" and are mixing them?

Sometimes you do a perfect job, and sometimes you do a bad job perfectly. But to avoid any more wordplay: Sometimes you need to use a flawed technique to achieve an end. You can execute that flawed technique perfectly, but that won't make it a perfect job.

Indeed, the 'perfect path' in life is not perfect. Life has so many paths, everything is a trade off. Spent more time with your kids? You loose time with friends etc. Whatever you do or choose in life, it means you can't do all the other stuff.

There were interesting comments about 'having regrets' previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33118584

Re: If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off

#63

> This, along with the “lying still game” and many other “games” ensured hours of peace and quiet for adults trying to It’s funny how fathering is about using a thousand tricks to make kids go through life even when they don’t want. And another part is politeness rules teach kids to be convenient for the parents, for example “don’t play with food, there’s kids in Africa” was never about African kids and more about cl…

I can't speak to everyone's experience or abilities, but I can say that one of the hardest things about overcoming abuse is identifying what reality is and distinguishing the difference between what is true about who/what you are and something you are gping through as a result of the experiences you had.

Between the inflexible authoritarian way my parents were, and the coping mechanisms I used to make it through the years I lived with them, it was a many-years-long journey later on in my adult life (and still ongoing) to work back through the layers and shift the foundations from where they were involuntarily built to where I wanted them to be.

I have a particular grief, for the time in my life I could have been more like who I may have been had it not been for abuse and trauma. The years of lost experiences and mistakes that may have been much less arduous had it not been for the coping mechanisms I adopted for survival. When you say you don't know how to complain- I think it may be more accurate that you may have trouble with communicating with/relating to other people, or you can't find the proper way to articulate how big of an impact or determine at what point something is really part of you or a mindspace you find yourself in.

I spent a long time trying to deal with it on my own, but where I really started to make traction was talking to a professional and actually being honest, painfully so when it came to my dysfunctional way of dealing with intimacy. After some years I was able to begin admitting where I was the source of my own anguish and forgiving myself but also taking accountability of putting in the work to change what I could so I could live life more functionally and really be able to experience things without that weight I hadn't realized I had been carrying all along. To an extent I had become attached to it and it became an extension of me, a part of my identity.

My family in general was (in some ways still is) incredibly problematic, and I've come to realize a lot of the problems started with a desire to be validated and/or accepted by the parental figures. Not saying this is the case for everyone, but it is possible to forgive people (and still love them, if you wish) who caused a lot of harm, and work to heal. You deserved better, and future you can find what you yearn- it's not an easy road working through all that but there is hope to be found in the process which may not have felt feasible otherwise.

Re: If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off

#64

> This, along with the “lying still game” and many other “games” ensured hours of peace and quiet for adults trying to It’s funny how fathering is about using a thousand tricks to make kids go through life even when they don’t want. And another part is politeness rules teach kids to be convenient for the parents, for example “don’t play with food, there’s kids in Africa” was never about African kids and more about cl…

>And another part is politeness rules teach kids to be convenient for the parents, for example “don’t play with food, there’s kids in Africa” was never about African kids and more about cleaning up the floor.

Seriously? You don't see the problem in nurturing the (subconscious) view of African standing for the malnourished, poor, disadvatage, and so on?

Re: If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents told me something very similar about gum, and a whole lot of other weird things over the years. Is this a universal experience? I wonder if it's a helpful evolutionary trait, sort of like training your "mental immune system" the same way that your mother chewing your food and feeding it to you, germs and all, strengthens your actual immune system.

Not sure how helpful it is. I wasn't told much lies as a kid. Plenty of wrong things, yes, but those were all common misconceptions (some still widely held by people today, plenty of them present on this Wikipedia list[0]). Someone close to me, however, was told a lot of such lies in their childhood, and continued to believe them into adulthood. When we met during our university years, I unknowingly debunked a few of…

If you get in contact with your friend: point out to them that part of being a parent is building up an independent, bullshit tolerant, reality questioning adult.

If none of the things you debunked were serious, then it may have been seed planting for later epiphanies.

I've made very sure that the kiddos I spend time with have a rich mix of truths, half-truths, and jolly equivocations to sort through in their life, and they have no end of fun working their way to proving me wrong.

I consider this an investment in their future development of bullshit filters to keep things running when mine have finally given up the ghost (May it not happen in the forseeable future).

Re: If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off

#67

My grandfather told me a version of this story and I have been lucky to tell my kids (who loved it). Our version: There was once a boy that was born with a golden screw where his belly button should be. This made him very self-conscious about it. The kids at school would tease him about his golden screw and lack of belly button. It was so bad that he didn't want to remove his shirt when swimming. One day his class to…

Can’t wait to use this!!

Re: If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off

#68

> This, along with the “lying still game” and many other “games” ensured hours of peace and quiet for adults trying to It’s funny how fathering is about using a thousand tricks to make kids go through life even when they don’t want. And another part is politeness rules teach kids to be convenient for the parents, for example “don’t play with food, there’s kids in Africa” was never about African kids and more about cl…

>And another part is politeness rules teach kids to be convenient for the parents, for example “don’t play with food, there’s kids in Africa” was never about African kids and more about cleaning up the floor. Seriously? You don't see the problem in nurturing the (subconscious) view of African standing for the malnourished, poor, disadvatage, and so on?

You don't see the utility of pointing out that being in a position to "play with food" is not a given, paired with a real life counterexample?

Stop seeing racism in everything. If you keep holding ypur mind like that, it'll freeze that way.

Re: If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents told me something very similar about gum, and a whole lot of other weird things over the years. Is this a universal experience? I wonder if it's a helpful evolutionary trait, sort of like training your "mental immune system" the same way that your mother chewing your food and feeding it to you, germs and all, strengthens your actual immune system.

Not sure how helpful it is. I wasn't told much lies as a kid. Plenty of wrong things, yes, but those were all common misconceptions (some still widely held by people today, plenty of them present on this Wikipedia list[0]). Someone close to me, however, was told a lot of such lies in their childhood, and continued to believe them into adulthood. When we met during our university years, I unknowingly debunked a few of…

> this completely shattered the trust they had for their father.

Friend of mine felt this way when he learned the truth about Santa Claus. No joke.

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