Trump Computer Simulation Scenario?

Last night I watched an episode of the darkly brilliant series "Westworld." And I suddenly found myself wondering whether those who theorize that we are probably sentient sub-programs occupying a gigantic computer simulation might not be right, and whether the election of Donald Trump and the pride and joy many say they feel over it is something that couldn't really happen outside a computer simulation diabolically tweaked by some twisted and callous designer looking for perverse entertainment from his or her sophisticated toy. Or is all of this perhaps just my dream from which I will sooner or later awaken in joyful relief?

Black Friday in Washington DC

Donald Trump became President of the United States today, and I can't find the words to adequately describe how I'm feeling. So, I'll just say that I'm alternatingly angry, disgusted, despondent, worried, and frightened.

I'm no historian, but I think I can safely say that the White House has never been occupied by as horribly ill-suited a person for the office than Donald J. Trump has amply shown himself to be in every way imaginable. In fact, no one probably even comes close, especially in modern times. And these modern times present so many complex and dangerous challenges that need a far more capable person than Mr. Trump to deal with them.

I really don't know how to conduct myself at this point. I've been very strident in my opposition to Trump, but it did nothing to stop him from being elected, and it will do nothing to stop him from inflicting his worst on the country and world. And it won't do anything to enhance my physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being. Yet, I don't want to roll up into a pathetic ball of resignation while the nation and the world burn down around me.

What to do? I guess I'll have to figure it out as I go along.

NLD and Wanderlust

A friend of mine sent me a Facebook message this morning with a video of Sedona, AZ and said that he will "go there soon." Like many people I know, he likes to travel to places he's never been and to do things he's never done before.

I am not like my friend in that way or in most other ways. I've long rationalized my indifference if not aversion to travel by telling myself that few places I'd ever want to go to are that different from where am I now and that places really different from where I am now are not places I'd enjoy visiting anyway, so why bother going anywhere?

The only reason I do bother to travel is to accommodate my wife. She seems to love to travel, and, when I'm with her, at least I have her to navigate and to handle the logistics of it all that I'd be clueless and powerless to handle on my own. But if not for her, I'd stay at or near home all the time.

But I think there's more to my not traveling any more than necessary to satisfy my wife than my aforementioned rationalization that every place is pretty much the same place. I think a big part of it can be traced to the same thing that so many other aspects of my life can be traced to--my NLD

According to the literature I've read about NLD, one defining characteristic of children who have it is that they don't explore their physical surroundings like their peers do. They learn about their surroundings primarily by talking and, later, reading about them. And I'm guessing the same tends to be true of adults with NLD. It's certainly true for me.

Not only do I shy away from physically exploring my surroundings because I seem to be able to learn more about them through words than through direct experience, but I'm just not that interested in them in the first place. I've generally always been more interested in the non-physical realm of ideas and ideals than I am in the things we can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. That's just how my compromised brain works.

But I wish it were otherwise. I wish I could interact more fruitfully and potently with the physical world and enjoy it in all the ways that neurotypical people do. And I think that when I scoff at those, like my friend, who like to travel a lot, I'm really just trying to assuage my sense of inferiority to them by telling myself that I'm actually superior to them by not being lured by the baubles of the gross physical world, that I'm somehow attuned to a higher plane of existence.

But deep down, I know better. And so I find myself feeling a chronic mixture of envy and resentment toward normal people like my friend.

Do Liberals Project Their Shadows Onto Trump?

A Facebook friend of mine shared this blogpost contending that liberals who hate Donald Trump are “projecting” repressed parts of themselves onto Trump. They hate the narcissism, the greed, the psychopathy, the egomania, and so forth that they subconsciously realize exist within themselves and attribute it to our President-elect to what is possibly an exaggerated extent.

However, I don’t think their attributions are exaggerated at all. I think Trump is all the unsavory things liberals say he is and with such pathological strength that there’s more than ample reason to feel very apprehensive about his looming presidency. But I do agree that the emotional responses of many are misshapen and exaggerated as a probable result of correctly seeing in Trump disowned and reviled parts of themselves.

Here is my comment from this morning on my friend’s shared blogpost:

If "projection" is attributing repressed aspects of oneself to someone else who doesn't actually embody them, then I don't think liberals are projecting pathological narcissism, egomania, greed, mendacity, intellectual vacuity, and overall incompetence onto a president-elect who doesn't truly embody these undesirable traits. I think Trump embodies those traits to a striking and extremely unsettling degree and that to deny this is to exhibit a maladaptive psychological response, by whatever name, every bit as salient as the so-called "projection" Davis attributes to liberals.

However, to the extent that liberals hate Trump for the traits at issue, I think it may well be true that this reflects the fact that liberals who hate him or who feel extreme anger or disgust toward him are manifesting their hatred, anger, or extreme disgust for traits or tendencies that ALSO exist within themselves but are repressed into "shadows." It seems to me that the healthy or un-repressed way of responding to Trump and to his impending presidency is not with hatred, violent anger, or overweaning disgust, but with grave concern and sadness that such a man could ever come to occupy the White House, and with intense determination to resist actions of his administration that threaten the safety and well-being of "We the People."