I loved your last paragraph and can so relate to your bbq story. I too used to struggle with social events in which the dynamics at the events were divided, structured and formalized. Stag-do's for me were often difficult, which is kind of strange because on the surface they seem the opposite....they seem unstructured and informal. But they're not really, they are very 'ritualised'. Basically any kind of event that I felt required me to put on a bit of a 'front', I struggled with. I used to cope by going along with it, and drinking copious amounts of alcohol. The only social events that I felt truly comfortable in were raves, in which the dynamics were loose, unstructured and open....the first time I went to one, I felt more at home than I had ever felt before. Things changed though after a while, and I stopped going to them, and then it was back to fumbling my way through social events. I don't go to many these days and that's fine, I like to see my friends sometimes at the pub, but I don't attend anything that comes with structure and which requires something from me, other than to just...show up!
That's the thing about social conditioning, traditions ,ritualistic social behavior\norms, etc. It seems to me it's a natural part of human nature to learn from others in how to behave. In the animal kingdom, young ones learn how to survive from watching their parents. Humans are no different, though we have far more complex lives.
So we subconsciously look for social cues as to how to behave in situations. And if we are wired a certain way, some have an advantage and will research and make inquiries, and perhaps have parents who are more than willing to impart their understanding, to consciously conclude what is the best way to behave. But for the most part, in our youth, we unconsciously mimic those around us. Subconsciously concluding if the majority behave a certain way, it must be correct. And those that never develop deeper contemplation will remain in mimic\compliant mode throughout their adult life.
Don't know if you read my post where i was having a convo with my GG about me no longer being offended by verbal insults. I explained to her how it is now a joyful experience just like any other. Her response was that was an insane way to behave, you are meant to get upset when someone insults you. I said to her that it seems to me that being upset and thus either avoiding others or attacking and hating them in retaliation seemed far more insane and unpleasant compared to the wonderful time i was having in an insult experience. Which it actually is, but in her mind, with her conditioned\unconscious learned behavior and mindset, being full of pain and hate was the better way to live...as she said,"Because that's how you're supposed to behave."
RE: structured events\situations compared to ones where you just show up...your reasoning that you must behave a certain way in structured situations is
your perception, your self created conclusions as to how to behave. Even though we are intentionally or unintentionally conditioned influentially by others to behave a certain way, the bottom line is the individual chooses what they will do.
Sure, we are influenced by external forces, but the power that controls our reasoning and behavior is ultimately our own. The external influence can be termed 'peer pressure'. And the amount of pressure we feel from externals is inversely proportional to how self empowered\self controlled we are. Kids don't have much self power in an adult world, so that's when the 'power mad' people begin to force their conditioning on others.
Back to the "showing up". Why can't you just show up and be yourself, behave\interface how you want to in structured situations? If you can discover that, then you might develop more freedom to be yourself in any situation.
It was either my 20th or 22nd birthday, can't quite recall. I know it wasn't my 21st because that was right after my first breakdown, and i vividly remember my 21st because my GG was excited i reached 21, apparently becoming 21 has some huge significance, though i don't see why, and she organised a huge party for me at her friend's house. And the only thing that was wonderful that night was my friend swam all the way up their concrete driveway.
Anyways, my 20th or 22nd. I invited a dozen or so friends of mine and my brothers to a backyard bonfire\bbq\my birthday bash.
People came but the night was strange, and apart from me, my swimmer friend and another we called Peter Lotus Blossoms(our group's first new age spiritual person we ever met)...the rest of the group were behaving like they were at a funeral. I perceived this was quite surreal, for i can understand a few friends having a bad day and coming to a party in a dark unexcited not wanting to party mood, but not all of them.
(in hindsight, thinking about it now for the first time, it might have been the rather lengthy(full A4 page of text) and deeply metaphysical invite i sent to them all that may have messed with their heads)
So i thought that if the situation was surreal, then why not add to it, so i stripped off bare naked and just continued interacting as if i were still clothed. My swimmer friend and Peter Lotus Blossoms thought this was most appealing and joined in. Sausages and buns were now being toasted in more ways than one. And it got even weirder. The 'funeral mode' people did not change their behavior, they remained the same and interacted with us three naked guys as if we were still clothed. Hilarious to watch my swimmer friend strike up a long convo with a chick he was making moves on and she was just interacting with him as normal.
Anyways, back to the important point of self awareness and developing the ability and freedom to be oneself, regardless of circumstances. Though i was fairly messed up for the first 30 years, i also had a strong sense of my self, my individuality, and was able to do whatever the hell i wanted, regardless of situation or who was there or how many, or their responses.
I express my real self(real as in current understanding of myself) because i enjoy who i am, i enjoy the situation i am in, and i enjoy confronting the conditioning people exhibit. The thing is, how can people perceive they can simply be themselves in any situation if no one breaks from social structure\conditioning\tradition. If no one shows them there are other ways to behave, and the alternative behavior is just as normal. (putting aside the extreme alternative things i did to counter the strong conditioning i encountered)
And relating that back to the 'GG being angry when insulted is the correct way to behave' incident. She was getting angry with me and judging
me as crazy because i was not responding to insults as she does and how she perceives everyone else does.
There is a monkey experiment that clearly depicts this....found it ,
hereIt would seem to me that the root cause of all human dysfunction and subsequent damaging behavior is fear.
And thus the cure for all of humanity's problems, has to be love.
And with the monkey experiment mixed with GG being condemning towards me...i have noticed over the years that there is a lot of negative reinforcement occurring to influence people to conform. So much so that one can feel embarrassed about oneself even in simple comparatively unimportant social settings where your personal preferences and thus behavior is different from the group.
It even happens here constantly. How many times do we members hear condescending judgement from the likes of enigma, Reefs, Envy Adams, and to a lesser degree, wren, popee, satchitananda, when we do not conform to their personal preferences of what they believe about Advaita.
So the big unhealthy conditioning i see is people forcing others to conform via threats of psychological harm, shamed and ridiculed for being different and possibly ostracized from the group, which triggers the evolutionary fear of being alone, separated from the tribe thus vulnerable to attack.
Unless we are secure in ourselves, self confident and self loving, we are susceptible to conscious and unconscious pressure from others to conform to the group behavior and attitude.
I think a glitch in our reasoning is thinking that being an individual with our thoughts, behaviors and attitudes stops us from being part of a group. That one can't be a separate individual and also be intimately connected with others. That self has to relinquish one's individuality in order to be accepted\infused as part of the whole, to be like\alike\liked. And that's another reason why love solves that because you accept people as they are, they do not have to conform to every one of your preferences.
One theory that has been fascinating me lately is related to Paul McCartney. You may know, but in the 60s, there was a rumour that he had died and was replaced, well this rumour still continues today. I only heard this for the first time a couple of months ago and I guess I found it interesting partly because I have always loved their music and have read their biographies....but also because, if it's true, then in its own way, its just....huge in its level of deception. Now, when it comes to these kinds of theories, I do tend to be very sceptical. It seems to me that every celebrity that dies has a conspiracy theory attached to it, and I'm like....'surely SOME of them died as per the popular media version'. So, I'm not saying I believe the fake Paul McCartney theory (they call him Faul McCartney hehe), but this is interesting....
A forensic team in Italy a few years ago thought they would put the rumour to rest once and for all by doing a biometrical analysis of Paul, prior to and post 1966. To their shock, they discovered discrepancies that could not be explained by error or plastic surgery, their conclusion was that it was highly unlikely that they are the same people!
hugequestions.com/Eric/TFC/FromOthers/Paul-McCartney-Italian.htmlI don't know. But I know I find these things interesting.
Never heard of this...and an interesting read. I like the questions he poses at the end. The main one being, who would benefit from this deception. He's not taken at face value if this info is correct or not, he's thinking more into it, trying to determine for himself by way of examining all the intricate elements possibly related to check the validity of the claim.
And i also thought initially when i read your post, it's an unimportant issue compared to the scope of problems in the world, so why waste time on it. But then as i read the page i thought that the amount of effort required to research and critically think to discover the truth of this "tiny" incident is most valuable.
That those that actually have perpetrated crimes against humanity and seek to cover it up will go out of their way to ridicule 'conspiracy researchers', their character and information, and from my time on the internets, i notice they will also create their own conspiracies of various incidents that are actually ridiculous, in order of association, to make it look like all conspiracies are and all conspiracy researchers are whack jobs.
Add to that, as we discussed earlier, the denial coping mechanism people have when confronted with too huge a problem, so they opt to not believe the 'conspiracy' evidence presented. So taking journeys to discover the actual truth about small issues is a vital development phase to tackle the huge ones like people in government and big business are consciously killing their own people in order to secure the resources of the earth and control populations.
I am not convinced by the info presented on that page, because i do not know the researchers, and a range of pics from each year to the present would help. I am not convinced , but it's definitely possible. Perhaps the magazine article has far more compelling evidence that the web page.
Finally, an important issue that i think needs to be addressed when examining research done by conspiracy researchers is their bias, beliefs and motives. The author of that web site is convinced the main perpetrators against humanity are the Jews, specifically the Zionists. And i'm not saying he is wrong. I find many articles are quite compelling about Zionst's activities to control the world.
But it's been proven that bias and beliefs can cloud one's sight and influence people to see things that simply aren't true.
So i always take that into account when listening to others.
For example. I have noticed that the majority of anti illuminati vids are produced by Christians, and the extreme ones see satan in just about anything that is not christian or is condemned in the bible. Therefore the agenda to find truth, a noble cause, is hindered by one's predisposition of what truth is.
And one of my fav wacky conspiracies so far is...
The opening dialogue says, "This video will present irrefutable and scientific proof that will establish beyond any reasonable doubt that Michell Obama is in fact, a man."
If you just listen to the info in the vid, with only surface thinking and not doing your own verification research, and you allow yourself to be unconsciously convinced by the repetitious conditioning words of "truth, fact, evidence, scientific, no doubt, irrefutable, etc etc", i think it's easy for some to accept this is fact\truth.
The vid claims that all women's index fingers are longer than their ring finger, and all men's ring fingers are longer than their index.
Thus absolute proof Michelle is a man because her ring finger is longer than her index.
1 minute spent on google pics easily shows both male and female have diverse variations going from the ring finger being the longer, to the same, to shorter.
So why has this person, their youtube channel called 'Fisherofmen2', obviously fundamental christian, so why has this person created this conspiracy vid?
Is it a willful parody.
Is it a false flag operation designed to make all conspiracies seem ridiculous.
Do they actually believe their claims.
Just don't like black people.
The Obama's do not pass their christian test.
Doesn't matter to me, i don't need to find out.
All i gotta do is use my own ability to rationally think and conduct my own research to judge for myself if something is true or not.
The 'Paul is dead and replaced with a double' page author ended with asking who benefits from the cover up.
The same can be equally asked about people who claim a conspiracy.
The people who cover up the truth, that is their agenda, to avoid the consequences of their actions and to reap their ill gotten gain. But that does not automatically mean all conspiracy researchers have a pure agenda to uncover the truth. They might be just as messed up as the people they are claiming to expose.
Simple. Do your own research, keep an open broad mind to examine the wide range of interconnecting elements and self examine you don't have your own bias and prejudice against things or others.
"sell sell sell. sell sell sell" 
