Nora’s Fellow-Inmate Syndrome

Escaping from Gobi Prison; Nora leaving home. These were among my central concerns early on, as a small-town exam grinder, a junior white-collar worker, someone with a tiny bit of capital.
When it comes to my struggles with social relationships, describing myself in terms of social greed, anger, and delusion is too harsh and crude. More accurately, it is Nora’s fellow-inmate syndrome.
When I see other Noras who are fellow inmates, I pour my libido into them, sympathize too much, expect too much, and get overly excited when they declare that they want to change and leave.
As a result, I invest too much of my psychological resources, time, and energy in what the other person wants to see. Meanwhile, they merely treat me as an emotional dumping ground, while also projecting onto me and putting me down.
Nora must leave, distance herself from her fellow inmates, save herself, and avoid entanglements. Find people seeking liberation along the way.
Wanting so badly to save myself, wanting so badly to save my family. A savior complex, a compulsion to awaken and enlighten others. These make it easy to become entangled and dragged down.
And the depletion and entanglements caused by these fellow inmates are themselves part of the prison.

Wage-Slave Buddies: Partners in Saving Ourselves, or Emotional Dumping Grounds?

I. Connection VS Entanglement
In the earlier piece “Connection VS Entanglement”: all kinds of unhealthy relationships—including those with ourselves, our bodies, nature, and so on—are entanglements, rather than connections.
The two parties’ karma becomes entangled: karmic obstructions interact, project, demand, and exert themselves through obsessive attachment, rather than allowing a natural connection through the luminosity of one’s own nature.
So the relationship is characterized by superficiality, agitation, the gloom of karmic obstructions, a sense of disconnection, sharing a bed but dreaming different dreams, turning on one another within the same household, depleted inner strength, and a sinking mind,
rather than simplicity, groundedness, light, a sense of connection, comradeship and a shared path, pulling together in the same boat, replenished inner strength, and clarity of mind.
II. With wage-slave buddies, are we partners in saving ourselves, or each other’s emotional dumping grounds?
This calls for awareness.
Are we really working to save ourselves:

1. Record real suffering, lines of thought, and possibilities; keep a journal;
2. Cherish what little energy we have right now, and the buddies we have; be sincere, rather than wasting these things through repeated complaints, empty gestures, mockery, envy, and jealousy.
3. Do one small thing we can do right now, and notice and encourage each other’s small steps forward, rather than using psychological manipulation to force drastic change.
   Among study buddies at school, and at work and in everyday life, these relationship patterns can be seen among many kinds of companions: buddies in the same line of work, career-change buddies, lying-flat buddies, existential-crisis buddies, middle-aged buddies, and so on.
   For people with a tiny bit of capital, being accustomed to poor-quality relationships and lacking friends is part of their class’s karmic obstructions.