Author: Lugh Sulian

Standing on the Ledge: Rebuilding from the Rubble—an ongoing, real-time record of what happens after collapse, when old rules stop functioning and new ones haven’t yet earned trust.

Emojis

What are your favorite emojis?

Personally i do not like emojis, they represent a de-evolution of the human language.

Think about this cavemen drew pictures on walls, carved figures in stone. These were their written language, Ancient peoples used pictographs and hieroglyphs because they had not developed written language. STOP de- evolving people, develop those writing skills!

WOOT!!! Update

I just received my grade on the following https://unplugged-pagan.com/2022/11/21/second-assignment-done

I received an A+ with the following commentary from the course instructor “Great work! Insightful and thoughtful connections to the course content.” Now just have to wait for the final exam mark, but I think we can say one and done!!!!

I was a little apprehensive about the topic of my first analysis as it had to do with a sensitive subject matter but relieved it was received well from an academic standpoint. and this puts me in the realm of a 3.67 GPA

Well instructor went ahead and marked the final exam, my finishing GPA for the course was 3.8, percentage-wise 85 percent or a letter grade of an A.

It will do donkey. it will do!

Role Conflict and Role Strain

Role Conflict

occurs when seemingly incompatible social expectations exist while attempting to act in multiple roles at once.

Role Strain

The strain individuals feel as they try to occupy two groups at once.

Simulacra

copies that depict things that either had no original or that no longer have an original

I am but a Junior in this whole study of sociology, but as I read I have to reason and evaluate and postulate upon the concepts I am encountering, there are times to I have to write things out and this is again one of them. As with most things I write about I draw upon personal perspectives and real-world occurrences. There are many who do not like what I write, they feel I should just shut up and go away. Sorry, that is not going to happen, If I can help but one person out there, if what I have written gives one person hope, or possibly even an “AHA” moment I will take that as being some measure of success.

I am trying not to live in the past, for I truly believe that one who lives there has no future, but there occasionally comes a time when I read or encounter something that thrusts me back there and I am left with a few options on how to deal with it. Stay up all night with the thoughts running around in my head or writing. More so lately I am choosing to write, I truly wish I could take my thoughts directly out of my head and place them on a computer screen. This writing thing is just way too slow. Although this may be a good thing because it is causing me to slow down and think. But just be forewarned that my writing may seem to go all over the place.

So tonight these three things came up in my reading for my sociology course 1/ Role Conflict, 2/ Role Strain, and 3/ Simulacra. now, what do these things hold in common in my mind at the moment? Simulacra: depictions of things that have no original or that no longer have an original. To put this in perspective this is how my head views the concept of Simulacra, going back to a place such as a vacation spot, job, group, or other such thing and you have created an image or expectation or memory in your head of that thing and not having that thing live up to your expectations. Role conflict, let us expand on that a bit and call this internal conflict, where your mind is trying to resolve the difference between what you believe should be and what is in fact real. Role strain your mind’s inevitable response to being incapable of resolving said role conflict, and IMHO sometimes results in depression.

Samhain

Life cannot be without Death,

nor the Light without the Dark.

As in spring we embrace the return of the Light and the Life,

so to must we pay homage to the Dark and the Dead.

Tonite I raise my chalice to celebrate the dark and the dead of my Ancestry for without them I would not have known the Light and the Life.

Have a good Samhain my friends.

Cults and Total Institutions

Well as i am going through my course materials for Intro to Sociology the required reading brought me to a section on Erving Goffman. Goffman was a Canadian Sociologist whose early works had him studying life in institutions, IE prisons, and mental health wards. His works brought me back to another subject I had looked at a while ago and that was Cults, and defining what cults were. In that subject matter, I read that studies on Cults were difficult to complete. The reasons are quite understandable, Cults usually are things that are Identified “posthumously,” and no one really goes out and says “Hey we’re a cult come join us.” Cults also evolve over time and do not usually begin as such. I would say they are more like the frog who has been put in a cauldron of water and had water temperature increase slowly and gradually over time until the water is boiling and it is too late for the frog to get out.

This all being said I think the claim that “cults” have not been studied I believe is not entirely true. I believe Goffman’s work on “Asylums: Essays on the Condition of the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates” is totally applicable to Cults. I think the only main difference between life in an institution and life in a cult, is the circumstance that brought you there. I believe that as an institutionalized person your overall goal is to get out and back into society as a whole person, whilst the mindset of those who are in a cult would probably be they never want to leave and immerse themselves further and further until mainstream society becomes something they avoid rather than embrace.

Now there are those who are in an institutionalized environment that never want to leave because they have been there so long they are afraid of the outside world we definitely know that there are those who realize they are in an unhealthy environment and once that realization attempt to leave. In either of those cases usually, the transition to normal society is difficult. In these cases what sometimes happens is re-institutionalization or winding up in another cult or perhaps even creating one. There is also the sad situation where the idea of leaving, or the realization they need to leave is so profound that suicides occur.