Sociopath Community

There isn't anything better to do.

I wonder if, like me, people would realize how precious time was only after hearing that it would end soon. Living with failing health for a large portion of your life is not fun, but somehow once the bottle is nearly empty and you look back, it all feels very magical. Carpe diem!

I don't think blanc is manipulating anyone but herself..

this question is so contrary to my nature that i think any answer i give would be a fabrication

maybe it's preservation instinct, serotonin levels, or a reduced sensitivity to negative stimuli. it's a shallow response but it's true, i simply want to live

Tryptamine said: 

this question is so contrary to my nature that i think any answer i give would be a fabrication

maybe it's preservation instinct, serotonin levels, or a reduced sensitivity to negative stimuli. it's a shallow response but it's true, i simply want to live

 I agree with you there. The first serious reply that didn't try to come off as intellectual.

Don't end it all when you could make use of the time you have, doesn't matter what position you find yourself in.

I keep going just because I have received the option to live. I don't need any other reason to.

Daniel Birdick said:

I believe that, if you truly need someone to tell you what to do then you are weak and that weakness makes you vulnerable.

An acceptance of one's own vulnerabilities is a form of strength, though. 

Ultimately, being comfortable within the toils of your own life is where strength resides, regardless of what that life actually is. It's all a matter of perspective, what spins you throw at your life after the fact. 

SensitiveSoul said: 

I wonder if, like me, people would realize how precious time was only after hearing that it would end soon. Living with failing health for a large portion of your life is not fun, but somehow once the bottle is nearly empty and you look back, it all feels very magical. Carpe diem!

"Dying Inside" tends to diminish the room to appreciate the past. If the time is not well spent, there's no time to look back on fondly. 

I mean what person will look fondly back on their 9 to 5 slave wage job that's followed by some light internet time? It's empty and pointless. 

Tryptamine said: 

maybe it's preservation instinct, serotonin levels, or a reduced sensitivity to negative stimuli. it's a shallow response but it's true, i simply want to live

I have that feeling too... but I hate it. 

So much context is lost in partial quotes. I am not a big fan of this recent trend in quoting sentence-by-sentence. I swear the younger folks have started doing this with e-mails too. It is really a shame that I have not had the time to reply to more posts. There are a few posts I would like to address, but my family has kept me pretty occupied.

Anyway, let me respond to you-

Yes, being comfortable in your own skin certainly avoids detesting your weakness. And I suppose your argument is that embracing your faults helps when your shortcomings are out of your control, so when you should not dawdle over your problems and stoicism becomes a helpful practice just like back in the slave era of Roman times. So, therefore, people should be comfortable with needing others to tell them what to do. And alcoholics should be comfortable with drinking.

This reasoning works fine, until it does not. The issue is that oftentimes you can address your deficiencies. You do not need to detest your weakness, but you can make effort to improve yourself. You can improve your eating habits and you can stop boozing. If you do not make the effort because you have "accepted yourself", then what you call acceptance, I call an excuse, and what you call a strength, I call a weakness.

But I am not preaching or anything here. If you are willing to take the hits, knock yourself out, and hey, who is to say what is weakness and what is not. For sure, there are many perspectives one can take, as with many other matters.

Turncoat said: 

 

Daniel Birdick said:

I believe that, if you truly need someone to tell you what to do then you are weak and that weakness makes you vulnerable.

An acceptance of one's own vulnerabilities is a form of strength, though. 

Ultimately, being comfortable within the toils of your own life is where strength resides, regardless of what that life actually is. It's all a matter of perspective, what spins you throw at your life after the fact. 

SensitiveSoul said: 

I wonder if, like me, people would realize how precious time was only after hearing that it would end soon. Living with failing health for a large portion of your life is not fun, but somehow once the bottle is nearly empty and you look back, it all feels very magical. Carpe diem!

"Dying Inside" tends to diminish the room to appreciate the past. If the time is not well spent, there's no time to look back on fondly. 

I mean what person will look fondly back on their 9 to 5 slave wage job that's followed by some light internet time? It's empty and pointless. 

Tryptamine said: 

maybe it's preservation instinct, serotonin levels, or a reduced sensitivity to negative stimuli. it's a shallow response but it's true, i simply want to live

I have that feeling too... but I hate it. 

Daniel Birdick said: 

So much context is lost in partial quotes. I am not a big fan of this recent trend in quoting sentence-by-sentence.

If I aim to address only one part of your overall message though, the direct connection to what portion I'm responding to'd become lost to a wall of text. 

I'm more of an editor than a writer, so line-by-line feels more natural for me. 

Yes, being comfortable in your own skin certainly avoids detesting your weakness.

As you said a few paragraphs later: 

You said:

and hey, who is to say what is weakness and what is not.

It's all a matter of perspective (and one's perspective on the collective perspective). A lot of what has people exclaim over one's strengths and weaknesses is purely context, making it to me more of a matter of expression than purely it's outcomes when it comes to analyzing a person and their potential. 

There's a streamline idea for how to live life that others follow, but that does not mean it's the only path, or even for many the ideal path. If you're put into the wrong placement, then one's strength can range from irrelevant to counter-productive. 

 

So, therefore, people should be comfortable with needing others to tell them what to do.

Not everyone can be a leader, in fact, most people fail at that role. If everyone thinks they're in charge, all they'll do is yell at each other about who's ideas are better in an egoist fashion that gets nothing done, while having a single leader with proper negotiation skills and an ear for followers is far more synergistic. It's this idea that our culture tries to throw at us that makes everyone think they're in charge of their own destiny instead of a part of a greater whole. 

Ever play Bioshock? They make some very good cases against the idea of everyone trying to be in charge. "Somebody has to scrub the toilets." 

And alcoholics should be comfortable with drinking.

Again if it doesn't get in the way of their functioning is it really a problem? 

My Psychology of Addiction professor put it best: "An addict is someone who does more drugs than you do on the regular". It demonstrates that that, too, is a matter of relative perspective. 

The issue is that oftentimes you can address your deficiencies. You do not need to detest your weakness, but you can make effort to improve yourself. You can improve your eating habits and you can stop boozing. If you do not make the effort because you have "accepted yourself", then what you call acceptance, I call an excuse, and what you call a strength, I call a weakness.

But what makes it "a deficiency", society's gaze? If you aren't suffering, truly, then who's problem is it actually? 

As Snoop Dogg put aptly: "If you breath'n, you achieve'n". Anything beyond that expectation is just spin, regardless of if it's streamline or original. 

You can sit there and call whatever you want strength and weakness, but how it affects the person you're saying it to is the real factor. 

But I am not preaching or anything here. If you are willing to take the hits, knock yourself out, and hey, who is to say what is weakness and what is not. For sure, there are many perspectives one can take, as with many other matters.

There's been countless philosophy debates over what is and isn't right, and all I've found from them is the means to find what makes sense to the individual. It's borrowed words to speed up a likely inevitable perspective, streamlined with common words people can throw at each other to save time when discussing bigger concepts. 

A lot of our debate here is showing The Right Hand Path vs The Left Hand Path, Knowledge vs Wisdom, Strength vs Defense, Enterprising Aspirations vs Dry Acceptance. Neither is better, just better for you. 

Well, whatever floats your boat! Maybe I need to learn to quote more precisely as well. I tend to lose track of some level of detail these days.

At any rate..

I added those examples on the fly to illustrate a point I thought was obvious (I realize now that it was not), that your vulnerabilities can be addressed instead of be embraced. Even in the perspectivist view, weaknesses still exist in your own subjective reality. So you can choose another example, if you like.

Frankly, at the ripe old age of 45, I've come to believe that most philosophizing is a waste. A lot of it is nothing more than mental ************ for the smart but bored bunch. (Solipsism is an example of mental ************ at its finest.)

All this philosophizing has no practical use if, at the end of the day, you act as if objective reality and the many consequences that follow exist. Having no legs at all could make you stronger because <insert many reasons>, but nobody cuts their legs off because, objectively, it can cause a lot of problems in your life.

I understand your viewpoint, Turncoat, that there are certainly places where apparent weaknesses can be strengths. I am sure you understand mine.

Turncoat said: 

Daniel Birdick said: 

So much context is lost in partial quotes. I am not a big fan of this recent trend in quoting sentence-by-sentence.

If I aim to address only one part of your overall message though, the direct connection to what portion I'm responding to'd become lost to a wall of text. 

I'm more of an editor than a writer, so line-by-line feels more natural for me. 

Yes, being comfortable in your own skin certainly avoids detesting your weakness.

As you said a few paragraphs later: 

You said:

and hey, who is to say what is weakness and what is not.

It's all a matter of perspective (and one's perspective on the collective perspective). A lot of what has people exclaim over one's strengths and weaknesses is purely context, making it to me more of a matter of expression than purely it's outcomes when it comes to analyzing a person and their potential. 

There's a streamline idea for how to live life that others follow, but that does not mean it's the only path, or even for many the ideal path. If you're put into the wrong placement, then one's strength can range from irrelevant to counter-productive. 

 

So, therefore, people should be comfortable with needing others to tell them what to do.

Not everyone can be a leader, in fact, most people fail at that role. If everyone thinks they're in charge, all they'll do is yell at each other about who's ideas are better in an egoist fashion that gets nothing done, while having a single leader with proper negotiation skills and an ear for followers is far more synergistic. It's this idea that our culture tries to throw at us that makes everyone think they're in charge of their own destiny instead of a part of a greater whole. 

Ever play Bioshock? They make some very good cases against the idea of everyone trying to be in charge. "Somebody has to scrub the toilets." 

And alcoholics should be comfortable with drinking.

Again if it doesn't get in the way of their functioning is it really a problem? 

My Psychology of Addiction professor put it best: "An addict is someone who does more drugs than you do on the regular". It demonstrates that that, too, is a matter of relative perspective. 

The issue is that oftentimes you can address your deficiencies. You do not need to detest your weakness, but you can make effort to improve yourself. You can improve your eating habits and you can stop boozing. If you do not make the effort because you have "accepted yourself", then what you call acceptance, I call an excuse, and what you call a strength, I call a weakness.

But what makes it "a deficiency", society's gaze? If you aren't suffering, truly, then who's problem is it actually? 

As Snoop Dogg put aptly: "If you breath'n, you achieve'n". Anything beyond that expectation is just spin, regardless of if it's streamline or original. 

You can sit there and call whatever you want strength and weakness, but how it affects the person you're saying it to is the real factor. 

But I am not preaching or anything here. If you are willing to take the hits, knock yourself out, and hey, who is to say what is weakness and what is not. For sure, there are many perspectives one can take, as with many other matters.

There's been countless philosophy debates over what is and isn't right, and all I've found from them is the means to find what makes sense to the individual. It's borrowed words to speed up a likely inevitable perspective, streamlined with common words people can throw at each other to save time when discussing bigger concepts. 

A lot of our debate here is showing The Right Hand Path vs The Left Hand Path, Knowledge vs Wisdom, Strength vs Defense, Enterprising Aspirations vs Dry Acceptance. Neither is better, just better for you. 

Daniel Birdick said: 

I only added those examples on the fly to illustrate a point I thought was obvious (I realize now that it was not), that your vulnerabilities can be addressed instead of be embraced.

Both of those are different ways of addressing the problem. If you're uncomfortable with how you are, that's what inspires the will to change, but that change could solely be addressing the discomfort for instance instead of that drive. 

Obviously going excessively in either direction is still bad. Too much apathy or too much effort and you basically break (unless breaking was the goal, then you arguably succeeded). 

Even in the perspectivist view, weaknesses still exist in your own subjective reality. So you can choose another example, if you like.

It can, and if it's seen as weakness or otherwise as a problem, then it deserves to be addressed. If they can maintain and sustain a happy sense of well being, consistently, without collateral damages that get back to them later in ways that matter to them, they're fulfilled. 

Their impact on others only really matters as much as it's room for the others to impact them back. It's why laws can be effective, and why wealth can surpass one's "karma". 

Frankly, at the ripe old age of 45, I've come to believe that most philosophizing is a waste. A lot of it is nothing more than mental ************ for the smart but bored bunch. All this philosophizing has no practical use if, at the end of the day, you act as if objective reality and the many consequences that follow exist. 

It's a streamline way of understanding the things another person values. They're labels with their own words within them that serve to help save time. If they use it to save time and then note the exceptions they have within the ideas instead of as a substitute for forming their own perspective, it can show the range of the depth versus vapidness for their perspective. 

It doesn't have to be right in the grand scheme of existence, it just has to help with understanding their wants and needs in a relative templated fashion. If someone is ranting to you about how "The Earth Is Flat", while it's very easy to see that they're wrong it does yield a portion of their perspective and perceptions to you. Philosophy discussions are no different than that, and even a dumb choice on their part can serve to teach something about how, and more importantly why, others see things the way they do. 

In this sense, it does apply to the "objective reality" as long as you aren't solely using it to understand yourself and "the world" according to you as an egoist exercise, but instead as a way to try to understand their worlds and perspectives. It's a way to have people give away elements of things like what they care about and fear in the form of a calm discussion on what is and isn't important. 

(Solipsism is an example of mental ************ at its finest.)

What's wrong with it? I mostly just see it as people taking the notion of us understanding reality through projection a little too far on a sliding scale. 

Having no legs at all could make you stronger because <insert many reasons>, but nobody cuts their legs off because, objectively, it can cause a lot of problems in your life. 

With how many people feign illnesses and problems like badges of honor, I don't even know anymore. It might just be a matter of time. 

Otherwise people tend to on a deep level fear self mutilation. Even with good reasons to do it they will struggle to cut off their legs even when their life depends on it, which makes it difficult to not justify excuses for keeping them. 

Of course I want my legs, I value my legs, but there's got to be some weirdo out there that doesn't want legs who might actually become stronger as a person through losing them, or some guy who through losing them finds a strength that was otherwise once dormant, like discovering a talent for Wheelchair Rugby that sets him for life. 

I understand your viewpoint, Turncoat, and I am sure you understand mine.

I do get yours, it's a pretty straight forward and typical argument: "You should aim to grow, function, and succeed". I'm not sure if you'd expand that to benefiting larger groups of people or if you're focusing more on a sense of personal progress, but you argue for a sense of growth that can be argued to "exist" beyond a sense of the self (objective), so in ways that could be compared to others from it's basis in "reality". 

I'm questioning what "function" and "success" really mean, as the main answer I get from it when I try to shake off cultural conditioning and bias urges is "context". I argue purely for fulfilling the self, but what that constitutes needs a means of keeping it running instead of falling apart. 

A man I met while I was traveling in South East Asia, on an island called Koh Phangan, ran a hostel there with two other people. While the other two were mostly cleanup duty and occasional bartending, the life of the party was a guy who was known as "Champ". It was actually a part of his job to promote nearby clubs by gathering groups with his energy, his comfort within the situation, and his ability to hype people up, hanging around networking everything as a natural party god with strangely successful leadership skills. By being the hardcore party example, it pushed people further, which ultimately made him more money and funded his good time. He found a model that was self sustaining and improved his life situation as he wanted it to be improved, and he's making bank doing it as a pretty deeply empowered alcoholic. 

For him, it did not matter that he was drowning in vices because he had found a way to sustain the lifestyle. Even if he dies earlier than most through sheer intoxication, save for some hangover times he's fulfilled and constantly able to feed his desire to party for the rest of his life. He also even while completely trashed has an impressive sense of direction, and has always been able to deliver instead of passing out in some corner. If he's one of those dudes that can't die to partying, he'll do it until he's too old to move and be living life more than many might ever know or understand. While it may not be our Mecca, it was arguably his, and he looked like he was part of an ecosystem or something, completely natural in his environment. 

I'd say if growing makes you happy, that's cool, that's what you want and what you need, that's what gives you a sense of comfort that otherwise wouldn't be there when you feel like you're stagnating or wasting time or whatever, but if being able to sit in one place without problems feels good then how is that any different? While I have my own personal preferences on it, it's not better, it's just better for me.