@literorrery Back to the original point, what I was musing over was not that, even, other than just pondering how your description of the whole thing seemed so solitary, internal-focussed, which never worked when I tried to do it; not to say it's wrong for anyone else, just musing on how strange and impossible it sounds from where I'm sitting. If it's working for you, and it sounds like it is, then great. :)

@literorrery (Gah, I deleted something for an edit and then lost my clipboard version of it. Trying again)

Not intended as a slight, just further pondering: What always strikes me when I hear you talk about your path is how similar it sounds to a lot of other stuff that gets a lot of focus in the broader esoteric community (e.g. psychological-focussed ceremonial/ritual stuff), so it always makes me go '...huh' when you describe your self-percieved distance from such.

@literorrery Again, not trying to call you out on doing anything wrong, if anything it just makes me wonder: "Hmm, what path does INDI sound like ve's on, that ve still professes to not actually feel a part of" (Since I too feel like I've never found any external guides that adequately describe what I'm doing)

I mean, feel free to answer. I can take it. Probably. ;)

@literorrery Yeah, I can totally relate to that last bit myself. Though don't forget M parts dealing with racist/sexist assholes. ;) I have to deal with that enough just reading blogs.

@literorrery Definitely agreed there. :)

I admit I have some complicated thoughts about the interactions of how you describe your path, on the one paw, and the attainment of better empathy and interpersonal connection on the other, but I think even 500 characters are too small to contain them. A conversation, sometime, perhaps?

@literorrery That's part of it (and I want a group like that too!) The other part involves a half-formed thought about different sorts of 'solo' approaches and how some might be better than others at forming a framework for learning how to establish connections, thus bringing us back to my initial "wow that sounds lonely" thought.

But yeah, I'm not gonna be able to express this well in a serial format like this.

@literorrery @indi That last part is something I talked about with my newly found orthocosmic friend, who I've sensed has been treading carefully in explain to me her spirituality adjacent to paganism, stressing the individual approach with multiple traditions, I guess for lack of better way for me to describe it?

@indi @literorrery But I guess it's a side note it has been interesting to reply to it with understanding both because I know y'all ,and because I'm sorta right there too, even if I'm still really new to this.

@literorrery @indi heheee n.n Yes! Definitely that. Contextually, I grew up always having a vague sense of spirituality, but never really exploring it or the nature of belief. Instead, I ended up claim atheist/agnostic and ignoring it altogether. It's... not a way I wanted to live, though, so I started to explore, and learn. There's still a lot of concepts and stuff (like animism) that is intimately familiar to me even though I've never known it to be A Thing

@indi @literorrery I have vague senses still that I can describe, but nothing rooted in experience, knowledge, or terminology. Which, if you havn't noticed, is why I resort to metaphor and simile a LOT.

@literorrery I admit I take a bit of exception to that being something that requires/implies a dot of Faith, and can't just be accepted as part of Paradigm. ;)