Ko0K on 28/2/2011 at 09:03
Quote Posted by Sg3
A cookie-cutter solution works for some people, I suppose, but not everyone. It didn't work for me nor my friends.
At least you
tried before you found out. Perhaps I could've said he 'should' look into counseling/medication rather than advise that he needs them.
Actually, medication is rather tricky. Many serotonin-reuptake inhibitors used to treat depression and obsessiveness have been associated with suicidal thoughts in young adults. Counseling works if the social worker knows what s/he's doing and can recommend the correct mental exercises, but often it takes many tries with different professionals before finally clicking with someone who really 'gets' you.
Honestly, though, what really works is having good friends around. Spending time with them and putting your natural coping mechanism to work would do more good than spending hundreds on therapy and dope.
242 on 28/2/2011 at 15:12
Quote Posted by Thief13x
Going to sleep on a lesser scale. The more you think about going to sleep and the harder you try, the more sleepless you become many times.
This is so true for me.
BEAR on 1/3/2011 at 06:08
I have this problem when I ponder why we humans do what we do. I have the same instincts as anyone else, but when I find myself questioning why we do some things, I start thinking things that make life a lot less fun.
I have to stop myself occasionally because I don't really like where my mind is going with it, even though I have trouble dissuading myself that I'm wrong or that my idea is at least possible (when I think I'd rather erase the thought).
It comes up the most recently when pondering love, relationships, and marriage/children. If what I said is confusing, I'm not thinking anything "bad", but more just things that make believing the whole normal human life thing a little tough.
Vasquez on 1/3/2011 at 08:41
BEAR, I believe it's not that uncommon to occasionally ponder why other people make the choices they make. Someone else's lifestyle seems "bad" to us, and this thought is generated on our emotional level, even though at the same time we do rationally know it's simply because people are different and enjoy different things. Whether you're the one living by conventions or the one avoiding them, you're likely to sometimes wonder WHY on earth someone would want a life that's so fundamentally different from what you enjoy ;)
You should make all choices based on what you truly want. If your only guideline is "Because that's what everyone does", you're at risk of choosing spectacularly wrong.
demagogue on 1/3/2011 at 18:14
I have to agree that it's when other people are involved that things get dicey. I've had my share of mistakes in life, but I never really felt too bad about them or cared what other people think. I mean, I acknowledged I made a mistake, I learn from it, and move on.
But to function in life, you have to be connected to other people, and you can't control their thoughts and shouldn't want to even if you could. But it's hard when you see people you care about going on what you see as a self-destructive or irrational path and they just don't see it, or don't want to see it, like willful blindness. And even you can see what's probably going to happen, and then it happens exactly like that, and they *still* won't connect the dots... They might be puzzled and mildly concede that you could predict what was happening, but there's still some block there.
I'm thinking about things like --
- An ex that has some emotional compulsion towards relationship-recklessness, so finds it impossible to every fully trust or commit but is compelled to be loved, so starts recklessly dating guys you can see are patently bad for her, and then they go badly one after another (or if they don't, she manufactures drama to ensure they will and confirm her own paranoia and she has to find someone else) and she seems so puzzled why *another* relationship goes bad for her;
- a friend that's clearly gay but refuses to open up about it, and the other friend that's so puzzled at why the clearly-gay friend does some things the way he does when he's clearly gay and they're willfully blind to even the possibility;
- religious friends that are willfully blind to basic ways the world works -- that some people have mental issues and simply can't be "reformed" or trusted no matter how much you pray for them, that some problems have to be handled by professionals (scientific or rational answers) and that's the right way to deal with them -- and they're mildly puzzled why things don't go the way they thought it would when they don't (which you could predict a mile away), the sorts of stories fett would tell that I could see in a lot of my friends too.
- And of course politics for a lot of people. All these absurd Tea Party email chains are seething with emotional compulsion and willful blindness.
Anyway, these are the kinds of situations I find hard to deal with and think about, because you can't settle everything in your own mind since it involves other people that are just oblivious or captured by their own emotional limits that affirmatively blind them to certain things (just hard when I care about the person; if I don't care about them, I usually find it easy to just ignore them). The problem is, whatever you say or think gets interpreted as a conspiracy against them, or confirming their paranoia. It's the willful part. It's not that they're not intelligent or rational; they're very smart people. But on some issue their emotion gets triggered and they push the truth away like it's a monstrous evil out to destroy them. If you tell them it's emotion, it only inflames that emotion more. And you just trying to think clearly about it makes *you* the monster and you can viscerally feel their disgust and horror raging against you, when reconciling with them was the only reason you were thinking about it at all. (And to be honest, all of us sometimes get captured by these kinds of emotional limits to refuse to see the truth. Nobody's completely immune to it, I think. You have to work hard to get outside yourself and see your emotion for what it is.)
BEAR on 1/3/2011 at 23:49
For me its not so much doing things I don't feel like because thats just "what people do". I feel like doing those things, but at the same time I think I'm just programmed to do these things. Like its not even really a decision (I think a scary amount of things in life are like this really).
I'm afraid if I do actually sit back and let things take their course, I'll do things that some part of me will never really 100% believe in, which wouldn't be fair to anyone.
Hence wishing I could just banish that voice in the back of my head that reminds me that so much of what we do is more or less bullshit.
Sg3 on 2/3/2011 at 00:57
Quote Posted by BEAR
For me its not so much doing things I don't feel like because thats just "what people do". I
feel like doing those things, but at the same time I think I'm just programmed to do these things. Like its not even really a decision (I think a scary amount of things in life are like this really).
I'm afraid if I do actually sit back and let things take their course, I'll do things that some part of me will never really 100% believe in, which wouldn't be fair to anyone.
Hence wishing I could just banish that voice in the back of my head that reminds me that so much of what we do is more or less bullshit.
I agree entirely, except I would say "all" instead of "many" of the things that we do. And this brings to rise a confusing paradox. If I do it—then I'm a pawn, doing what I'm programmed to do. If I, wanting to fight this, refuse to do it—then I'm a pawn, doing what I'm programmed to do.
You see? On one hand I'm programmed to want to do X, and so if I do it, I'm just doing what I'm programmed to do. On the other hand, I'm also programmed to want to not be a drone, so if I refuse to do X even though I want to, because I want even more to prove to myself than I'm not a drone ... well, I'm still doing what I'm programmed to do. Argh!
Llama on 2/3/2011 at 12:09
You are suffering from a severe case of psychosis.
Kolya on 2/3/2011 at 13:25
More like worrying a bit too much...
I prescribe a cool beer in the park in such cases. Watch some girls walk by, maybe join a ball game if you're into that. Who cares if you're programmed to like it, if it feels that good.
Sg3 on 2/3/2011 at 14:45
I like the beer part, as long as it's a good brew and not the mass-produced piss found in most stores. But watching girls is a sure-fire way to spin into the death spiral of madness. [half-smile]
