#multipliedfish

me:

folk catholicism in a "it reminds me i'm only human and some problems require letting go and trusting the future to my gods" way but not in a "there is only one true god" way

my brain: babs you have LIVING catholic ancestors

i'm thinking abt the garden of eden and shame and knowledge of SIN

okay so adam and eve eat the fruit and suddenly feel shame

as far as i understand, shame really like fucks everything up😭

like everyone makes mistakes, but if it ended there, we'd just shrug and try again

but w shame, it tacks on anxiety, resistance to change and to acknowledging the mistake at all, guilt that hangs on even after making a change, etc. And it makes it SOOOOO hard to connect to the divine

like if you try to meditate and you feel silly, or you realise you'd have to expose and acknowledge parts of yourself you're ashamed of, or a deity brings up a topic that's awkward or taboo it can make it so much harder to connect w the divine or hear them. if a deity showed up to you naked and you felt ashamed seeing that then you'd block them out and convince yourself you made it up

so, adam and eve eat the fruit. they feel ashamed and try to hide their bodies, their actions and themselves from god. and then when god finds them, they can't stay w god harmoniously in the garden anymore

actually god gets frustrated in the garden when he finds out. and my gods get frustrated w me when they can't connect the way they want with me, not bc they're mad at me, but bc they can't get closer to me. u know? like they're frustrated we're not connecting not bc i'm just bad and awful inside

anyways. so sin.

so if you don't think of sin as shameful and just reduce it to "separates you from god", you get a neutral word to work with

like. sin doesn't make you bad. it just functions to make it harder to connect with the divine. it's not shameful for a macbook to run sims. it just makes it harder for the macbook to show you the game without freezing up and getting glitchy (lmao). sin shouldn't make you feel shame. sin is just a thing that does a thing. just be aware of it (i also don't agree w what the bible or christians say on sin a lot of the time but anyways)

ANYWAYS

okay so animals

animals aren't thinking about what is good or bad the way humans do (probably?). they know "if i do x then y happens". they know what emotions feel like. but when they do something they're not thinking "i'm so inherently bad for doing this". like do dogs go to bed thinking abt an awkward interaction they had w another dog 5 years ago? well tbh idk i'm not a dog. but i'm gonna move forward assuming animals don't dwell on things that made them feel like they themselves were irredeemably and inherently wrong

so like imagine adam and eve like this, without shame. they don't dwell on those things. they don't feel bad or unloveable when they trip or stutter over words. they are fully aware they are always loved and never doubt this. this is how to connect to god. know you are always loved without doubt

uh so essentially they're in flow state right

and then. a snake shows a forbidden fruit to eve. eve is curious. eve knows god will love her anyways. eve tries the fruit

eve notices she's naked. she's been naked this whole time. it didn't matter before bc god loved her. but now she's unlocked knowledge of what can separate her from god. and she's insecure. and doubtful. now she's anxious

you know when you're in flow state, but once you become aware of what you're doing or what you look like doing it, and suddenly you can do it well anymore

quite literally that

will god still love her for being naked? will god still love her for eating the fruit? will god still love her for "sinning"?

there's a wall inside eve made of shame and now gods upset bc of that barrier. not bc eve is now bad or unloveable

now humans are in charge of putting in work and knowing struggle lmao. we struggle to connect w the divine through shame. we struggle to connect to others and help others through shame. we struggle through systems constructed with the shame and avoidance of other ppl. we can do it of course, it's just hard

soo like. humans (adam and eve) were super close to god and just chilling. they found shame (the knowledge of good and evil) and the shame made them doubt that they could be loved which separated them from god !!!!!!

shame makes you doubt that you are loved. i'm not sure if the knowledge of good and evil caused the shame or if humans were built with shame and the knowledge is what makes us dwell on it and take it to heart so strongly and for so long. but the two r connected in my head

WAIT. we hide from god out of shame once were aware we've done wrong. that's it. our awareness of what we're supposed to do or not do freaks us out. that's why gods sometimes won't tell us the "correct" path. we'll panic and psych ourselves out bc we think if we do it wrong that the gods won't love us anymore. and that makes it hard for gods to connect to us and communicate with us and give us good things

i don't interpret the bible literally as if there was a physical garden, i'm not even christian really but like the concepts yall. r u seeing my vision. the philosophy of it all

and like i said this is a crazed rambling. not my senior thesis. so there are loose ends i def did not tie up and an unclear exact focus but like

i could go on about how a meditative state is also flow state and how they're easier to access if you can work through your shame but anyways. also it's the same with creating art and healing your own trauma and dancing and learning and practicing new skills and writing and