Sometime last year, I wrote a 4-part series of stories about a sketchy "Spiritual Leader" who was operating in Portland Maine in the early 2000's. Well, here's what's up: I have a Final due tomorrow, so I've been working myself to exhaustion trying to get that one last essay finished before class and I decided to take a wee YouTube break to entertain myself. While I'm thoroughly enjoying the fruits of my recent discoveries in the creepy-pasta short-horror genre, it's getting dark outside and I sought out something a bit more light-hearted in nature for this evening's delights. I found myself looking up YouTube videos of parrots behaving oddly. Macaws, cockatoos, amazons, you name it.
I used to have a pet cockatiel way back in the day, her name was J.J. She was the sweetest little thing with wings, I sure do miss her.
So here's me, killing some otherwise useful cramming-time looking up video clips of these adorable birds, when I happened to click on ONE of a Hyacinth Macaw sitting with it's owner out on a porch. I realized too late that I didn't quite read the owner's name clearly before I had actually clicked the link, but by then it was far too late and the video began to load anyway. I KNEW the name looked familiar, followed by the Z. initial after it. Then when the video itself actually began to play, I took a good long look but I barely recognized his face. He no longer resembles the Z. that I once followed, it was his voice (and the name & user-icon of his YouTube channel) that gave it away.
Do you have any idea what a weird feeling it is to see the face & hear the voice of someone you've grown to despise over the years, mostly because you discovered far too late that that person wasn't who or what they said they were, then to accidentally stumble across their social media posts out of the blue about a decade later WITHOUT EVEN ACTIVELY SEEKING IT OUT TO BEGIN WITH?!?!? I'm not going to link his content directly from my blog because I don't want him or his followers contacting me, not now and not ever. If you're REALLY that curious though, and I personally recommend that you NOT do this, the Hyacinth Macaw's name is apparently "Scooby" and there are several videos on his YouTube page featuring this particular bird.
I already have enough skeletons in my closet to raise an army of the undead and lay seige to the realm of the living, I really didn't want nor do I need this.
And yes, I'm making a bitchy blog-post about it because seeing his aged face and hearing his voice has dragged up a whole mess of shit from my past that has taken THE LAST 10+ YEARS OF MY LIFE to de-program and work through. There are New-Age circles, there are Wiccan covens, and then there are people like Z. that passive-aggressively demand your utmost devotion and obedience, along with regular "donations" that you'll never find out what they're actually being used for.
Seriously, I could have happily lived out the rest of my life without ever having experienced this: The second-hand knowledge that someone who hijacked my at-the-time vulnerable brain for several years is apparently still up to his usual Chopra-esque shit-baggery. For real, aside from his physical appearance, according to his profile it looks like NOTHING AT ALL HAS CHANGED over the 10+ years since the last time we spoke. He's still selling his obscure brand of New-Age BS, just slapped a slightly different brand-name onto it. If there ever existed a male version of Sylvia Browne, it'd be THIS GUY!
Angry? You bet your ass I'm angry, and I'm consciously trying very hard NOT to be. Anger is a very natural human emotion that should never be ignored, and I have every right to be pissed at Z. for all the poison he pumped into my brain over the years AND had the gall to charge me money for it. I recognise that many people might find my anger a bit intense, and that's completely fine. Anyone who knows me at all KNOWS that I find ways to put my anger to constructive use whenever I can, and I'm actually not angry because I WANT to be, beacuse I really and truly DON'T. I would love to be able to forgive people who've actively done me harm and wash my hands of things, this would be a wonderful thing to be able to accomplish and probably better my emotional health as well as my own person growth as a human being.
But I can't. Try as I may, I just fucking CAN'T.
Forgiving someone like Z., who clearly isn't sorry for lying through his teeth to people for money, would be counter-productive because he is still actively causing harm to the people that pay him for his bullshit pseudo-spiritual conspiracy theories (wether he realizes this or not is irrelevant, it doesn't change the fact that NOTHING HE SAYS can be substantially proven.) I can count on just one hand how many people have actually apologized to my face for the bad things that they've done to me, and I won't even have to use every finger on that very hand. It's pathetic, people these days seem to have NO CONCEPT of accountability for the consequences of their bad behavior. Shit, I'm a straight-up asshole to people but even I KNOW when I've gone too far!
Now I have this essay for my English Final, plus three separate assignments within the same class, all due TOMORROW.
I can't work like this, so I'm going to play some MINECRAFT and forget life on Earth for a while.
Great, and now Hyacinth Macaws are ruined for me, also.
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