Belonging...

Everyone wants to find others like them, people that feel like family. So, the hole in your heart from being unusual or different is filled, to find the missing piece of you. It's why we develop interpersonal relationships. It's why children are borne, friends are made. An inner pain that all humans have.

Much like any pain, that loneliness, that need to belong is the catalyst for growth, the reason any individual engages others. It's the form of pain that has produced all communities.,societies, and families. In order to stop feeling driftless, hopeless and lonely.

The cost of trying to squash that pain is influence. Others are let in to dull that pain, leading to emotional exposure, the opportunity exists to get hurt. You can be ousted by your group, disrespected by someone you are emotionally attached to. You're lover can decide you are unworthy. You're family may decide your lifestyle is abhorrent and unacceptable. Then what?

Answer :pain. Everyone can wax philosophical until the cows come home about "not giving a damn" but when it's your people on some level you DO care. You wonder what you could have done differently. You wonder if maybe they are right.

When I started practicing Satanism, I went all in.. I vowed that I wouldn't go halfway and be done with it. I vowed it would be the focus of my life and that I would live in accordance with it's principles. To never plateau or decide I am some know it all, pretentious asshat.

Mission accomplished so far. However, I am losing relationships left and right. My father won't speak to me because I am not LaVeyan and he thinks the ONA is to extreme. My mother and sister I cut out voluntarily but it hurts today and I can't give in, I can't call worthless dross people. My in laws think I am crazy for doing the things I've done recently. I have lost friends, quite a few for refusing to do what they want me to.

Should I feel pride for sticking to my path? Should I rail and rage against the injustice these people have done to me? Should I pretend it doesn't matter to me?

I don't have the emotional energy to pull it off. At this moment it just hurts. Good thing I embrace pain, it's when I know I'm alive and that I am going to learn. Anyway, fuck it. Happy Thanksgiving.

FS3.0