I know it feels hopeless, when you're in that state it's so hard to do anything, even things that seem like basic tasks to others, you can lose the desire to even get better and live.
But if you're at the end and feel you're going to die, you may as well give it one last shot, do something crazy/illegal/dangerous if you have to, make the money any way you need to. Nardil, NSI-189, transcranial magnetic stimulation. If you manage to become happy, and it still isn't what you want, you can't find anything in life, then you can at least feel confident in your decision, go through it without regrets or concerns about what could have been.
Hey, you have the NHS in the UK, you should see if they have TMS available.
Oh and another funnything happened. This other lady over heard me talk to this other lady telling her my sons name and while I was out smoking I heard her in her car on her cell phone go on about 'how could she ever name him that? OMG blahblahblah' I dont really wanna even say his first name here, not publicly but its something my dad wanted to name me had I been a boy and has to do with arthinian legend/high fantasy novels. The other day at the library this old woman went on about 'how I didnt think about him getting teased when hes in school' my reply was 'atleast I didnt name him Sue'. Wtf is wrong with people and giving a shit about a name thats different. Its not like I named my child Shithead or Fuckface or Regret for fucks sake. Im blown away anyone cares so much. I dont give a fuck, I like his name and I think he will too, when hes older. He has a unique name and more than can be said for most people. lol his middle and last name are a whoot too. His last name is a pet name my dad would call me from when I was little and it would make me so fucking mad and he would laugh his ass off about. I did it because my dad would have got the ultimate kick out of it and wouldnt ever have thought Id do that. He was a jokster so he would have loved it. Fuck people giving me shit for a perfectly good name. Atleast I cared enough not to be generic and name himsomething gaylike Todd, Dylan or Robert. I thought long and hard about naming him something cool like my dad did with me had he got to name me. If he was gonna be naming a girl I would have been Galadriel.
Wait, so you actually named your kid Frodo?
Insignificant, it will happen without me. Think about biology, realistically only a tiny percentage of people are really going to contribute significant advancements, natural born geniuses. The idea that you could take an average person, even above average, the most intelligent members here, and with the right experiences turn them into prodigies, is a fantasy. I accept reality whether I like it or not. And many of those are questionable, development has largely been cumulative, for most major inventions they were often independently recreated throughout the world, someone just happened to be first, have a somewhat better model, or got all the fame and glory for some other reason. Lanny may be happy being a cog, but I'm not at all, it would drive me mad(der).
Based on what exactly? This is just exposure bias, the notion that the state of the art only advances in significant ways through the work of a few super-intelligent individuals is a lie. We hear alot about the Newtons and the Einsteins but consider that Einstein doesn't exist the day after Opticks is published. While we can find examples where this isn't the case (ironically Newton/Leibnitz with calculus is an example, the differential calculus actually didn't require significant prior art since the greeks) it doesn't change the fact that even great shifts in human knowledge are largely preceded by a series of lesser discoveries, entirely necessary to greater discoveries. You should read Thomas Kuhn, I disagree with a lot of what he says but one of his big ideas is that human knowledge (science specifically, but I think it's an easily generalizable notion) has two phase, "normal science" which happens through a slower methodical process, has many contributors, and is largely our source of knowledge about the world (like specific facts, when we say "the earth is X years old" this requires huge systemic shifts in the study of astrophysics but to go from "big bang theory" to knowledge of the earth's age requires a lot of calculation and measurement but ultimately is an inevitable consequence of its antecedents) and then "special science" which is a shift in thinking, things like atomic theory, or from aristotelian physics to newtonian physics (or from newton to einstein) where the very terms we use take on new meanings and our perspective is entirely changed. Sure, it's true, being Newton is incredibly unlikely but there's this whole process of human activity which is necessary for newton to exist. Not only the discovery that fills the spaces between what Kuhn calls paradigm shifts but the whole endeavor of human activity, in this era the human activity which is necessary to a mighty system of manufacturing which is in turn requisite to any kind of science conducted today (while it's true that anyone can work on an assembly line for microscopes, biology is literally inconceivable in the absence of these devices). A fulfilling life is realizing this, realizing that based on your human, personal, ability to participate in this system is wholly requisite to the path from here to utopia. Sure, what's going to happen will almost certainly happen if you pitch in or not but if you can reduce the time to discovery X by even a day (if Alexander Fleming had been able to afford a few more petri dishes he might have discovered penicillin a week earlier there are actually like 100 human lives you've just saved, you personally could have manufactured enough petri dishes to make that possible) then that's a worthwhile contribution, but the great thing is even second rate dipshits with the appropriate skill can do much more than that.
Oh, you should also read Stephen Wolfram's New Kind of Science. He's a total douche bag but he has some similar kinds of ideas to Kuhn and something about his notoriously smug contrarian writing style makes me think you'd like him
I could have sworn you had said the opposite within the last few weeks. Well maybe not referring to the super elite, just the top portion of society, the smart fraction (interestign theory to read about, with evidence backing it, such as returns on investment in education: http://lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm).
Regardless, I wasn't arguing about that. What you wrote really had nothing to do with it!
The idea that you could take an average person, even above average, the most intelligent members here, and with the right experiences turn them into prodigies, is a fantasy.
This is what you bolded. It really should not be controversial based on the overwhelming evidence.
Here:
Think about biology, realistically only a tiny percentage of people are really going to contribute significant advancements, natural born geniuses.
Significant was the key word, which is subjective, unfortunately. But just look at the people around you, think about the masses, the average person! I'm not arguing you can't contribute anything meaningful, help humanity inch forward by being a cog, just that compared to the top fraction of a percentage what they contribute is orders of magnitude above that. I remember you mentioning a while ago a study, although you may have said that it was often/usually misrepresented by (some/a certain type) in the tech/programming/com sci sector that showed the top x% programmers were y times more productive that the bottom z percent.
Lanny, you aren't hard science retarded, could we actually feasibly generate a magnetic field of sufficient strength at home, at a relatively affordable price, with an acceptable risk of death?
I mean if you want to generate a magnetic field with a specific (fairly low, if we're talking about "mimicking" what's natural to a human brain) intensity then sure, it's almost trivial. If you just need magnetism you can produce very strong magnets pretty cheaply (not like pocket change, but not too costly) but if you need high accuracy then it's different. MRIs (I've actually worked with before, incidentally) can produce very specific intensity/field direction (a caveat here, a specific directionality but only one within the field, but if someone ran these trials without a crazy budget and specialized manufacturing then that's what we'd expect this treatment involved) but they're very costly. They're also very strong in terms of the field they produce and the sensors (MRIs are only useful if you can take readings, presumably this TMS stuff doesn't require feedback), and software (absolutely fucking fascinating in its own right) would presumably represent a lot of a cost of an MRI machine. So I guess the answer is it depends on the the manufacturing process that presumably dictates the price of making an MRI machine.
But if you're asking if I think this has a snowball's chance in hell of turning out to be effective then I have to express extreme skepticism. Not only does "mimics the brains electromagnetic signals" sound painfully like a scam but the R in MRI stands for resonance. If you can't achieve resonance (have a device with a high level of field control) then the skull is totally opaque to imaging strategies (like CT). There would have to be a novel technique for skull penetration if something homebrewed (not an MRI and costing significantly less, even a well funded study would be unlikely to be able to develop this kind of thing) is used. I mean think about the actual mechanism of brain signaling via magnetism. Our atmosphere is very magnetically noisy, in the past but even more so now. We should be highly skeptical of a proposal for brain signaling via magnetism without an explanation of a shielding strategy and we seem to need to choose between the two here, if penetration via device is possible then we need to explain why other varieties of magnetism don't affect us in similar ways and if we deny effects of magnetism on the brain then we have zero reason to think this is an effective treatment.
Significant was the key word, which is subjective, unfortunately.
Take my example, bringing forward the discovery of antibiotics by a week. I maintain this is not something outside the grasp of even people of middling intelligence, a clever manager of an assembly line that noticed one step in reducing the manufacturing process of petri dishes should have reduced the price of same enough to have this effect. And the reward is a hundred lives saved. By what measure is that not significant?
Consider the significance you give your own life, and you probably give less than most but the fact that you haven't died yet shows you give is measurable significance (more than the costs of existing). Then multiply that by a hundred. That's how significant contribution to the future is, more significant than everything you've ever experienced combined. This is the ultimate ingroup bias, only the group consists exclusively of you. If you were actually able to think objectively, without bias, then you should give the same weight to the interests of others as you give to your own interests. Like if we operate on the assumption that humans have comparable richness of subjectiveness (and it would be incredibly arrogant to think otherwise) then no view that could actually consider itself objective should be able to differentiate between human actors in terms of significance of interests.
But just look at the people around you, think about the masses, the average person!
The average person is a consequence of their experiences, your premise was that a person exposed to a certain set of experiences wouldn't be able to have a significant impact. There's a fairly readily available set of experiences that produce people able to make significant contributions, "normal science" is composed of many pieces of research by apt but not exceptional scientists (not that science is the only way in which we make progress).
I'm not arguing you can't contribute anything meaningful, help humanity inch forward by being a cog, just that compared to the top fraction of a percentage what they contribute is orders of magnitude above that.
Sure, but why does it matter if someone does orders of magnitude better than you? When did it become a competition? If the level of contribution you do were the best humans could muster would that make you the happiest man on earth? You should be concerned about doing the best you can because that's the only thing you have control over, being as good as we can individually be is our only duty since we fundamentally can't do better.
I remember you mentioning a while ago a study, although you may have said that it was often/usually misrepresented by (some/a certain type) in the tech/programming/com sci sector that showed the top x% programmers were y times more productive that the bottom z percent.
Right, they call it the "10x principle" or people who fit that description the "10x programmer" (yeah, it's that faggy). But I do have a definite sympathy for it, it's based in actual observations. God knows I see people who are a tenth as productive as others. I'll argue the split, I think it's probably a painfully visible low 20-40% who rather than being average (making the 10x programmer exceptionally rare and valuable) is actually just irredeemably shitty, below the actual average by a mile. But the interesting result there is that if people took the time to read a fucking book now and then they could stop being total dumbshits. Literally reading undergrad level textbooks and actually engaging with them is all it would take for know-nothing dipshits to come up to the level of competence it requires to be "good". And that should be encouraging! Not only is it possible for most to not be useless but the path from useless to not-useless isn't even that great. You don't need to discover relativity to do it, even the average joe is redeemable if only they would try.
400ug lsd trip. The worst schizo-mimetic imaginable. Catatonic schizophrenia.
Made me wonder at the time, even now, whether I could be diagnosable as having some type of schizophrenia. Sorry Lanny, any potential debate will have to be set aside, but hopefully this may provide some interest.
I can really identify with your father in a way. And I say this not to belittle his condition and suffering, I still have a chance to live, but to understand what it's like to have parts of your being, who you were, eaten up inside while the people around you watched. I was rotting on the inside.
The lack of direction, even of your own mind. I'd describe it like being part of a hypergalactic engine, except all that potential energy, it's just sitting inside a hangar going nowhere. A boat with the engine revving in a storm that's still nothing but empty water for all sight.
The lack of attachment, the reality of how empty I am inside, and that regardless of how mundane and fleeting, interchangeable, it ultimately is, how incredibly important it is to have the basic ability to feel connection to others.
So high functioning in some ways, so incredibly dysfunctional in others. The shell of what composes a man, just enough to remain an imitation of one, still clearly having something severely wrong/off, at least upon further inspection, and on the inside so many parts are missing, damaged, never developed.
Lanny, for all I've whined, imagine if every connection you had with other people, every memory, every shared moment, every relationship, person you knew, was just gone one day and had never existed. This is the ugly truth of what I've done to myself and how I feel, more than you will ever know. It's something no one should know.
I remembered part of what drove me into that cycle of depression over two years ago, even though the shroom/psilocybin/psilocin trip was relatively mild, just being touched by part of the the vast ocean, the abyss, of emptiness, isolation, and alienation, how unhappy I really had become. For those who remember how much I wrote about depression at the time, constantly, my only subject, culminating in the desire for cessation.
But as in the classic allegory of the cave, once you've been in the abyss, this abyss (there are few experiences that reach quite the ugliness and depth), could you ever come to see things the same way again? Even if you achieved some semblance of happiness, of interpersonal relationships, could you ever really come to see the world the same way again? Would it allow you to forget? "Unable to run away from your own mind." There's just so much in normal people's lives that allows them to forget, not think about these things, and that's a good thing. It's lead to nothing but my own self-destruction. Particularly with your natural predispositions leading you to be unable to see things other than the way they are.
All the aspects I dislike about myself, how poorly defined I really am in most regards, the lack of drive, of desire to really take hold of an commandeer my own life, feeling like a passive, uninvolved/non-interfering observer. That, particularly after everything that's occurred, I'm afraid of taking the basic step of opening up, allowing others inside, of wanting to present something of myself to the world with the possibility of dejection, having become more sensitive, more deeply wounded and fragile, than you would ever imagine from my demeanor. The lack of attachment, to really define some aspect of myself I consider intrinsic to who I am compared to others, to stake it out and state my desires, dreams and hopes. How, in part due to the worst cowardice of all, I never even took that chance, and learned to move within a shell of myself, detached, unconnected, unfeeling, but with all the pain you avoid you miss out on everything there is in life.
How we come to define, develop, ourselves, in part through the interactions with others. The skills we develop, assertiveness, confidence, resilience after all the emotional turmoil/warfare and defeat. Everything we normally learn about life, others, by going through the process, the rites of passage. The feeling of connection to others, so many points anchoring you throughout time, in other people's lives, so many perspectives and reaffirmations of your existence, the similarities, shared experiences, memories, knowledge of and concern for each others lives, your progression in it and challenges along the way, working toward a shared/common goal; a social/societal web, beneath the surface, keeping you grounded to the world, reality, molding the basis of what allows a human being's psychological well being. Just learning to develop and function as a human being, with others, the emotions you're supposed to feel and develop.
I was born deficient to begin with, and I missed out on it all. "I cannot believe what I've done." "Oh dear god, what have I done." The crushing realization of the damage you've done to yourself, particularly when the various and minute aspects are analyzed in a way that only psychedelics can really achieve; how every piece fits into the current psychological trainwreck. It's what can send some people into episodes of depersonalization/derealization. Only, it's so much easier in a way, when it's simply due to an incidence of trauma that occurred in your life, rather than this *gestures to everything* All those milestones, all those moments of interpersonal development, as mundane and unremarkable, fleeting and insignificant, they may seem. You don't know how much they mattered until they never existed. Even your own family, detaching yourself from them until you were only strangers living under the same roof.
I'm an imitation human being. This is what occurs when you attempt to go against eons of evolution, attempt to live an inhuman life in a human body, still constrained by innate, biological, needs and limitations. Look at the vast variety of substances, intertwined, interactions juggled, so many interventions, just to prop myself up, reduce the degradation process, ease some of the symptoms and increase functionality; these are the drugs of a cancer patient with a dying soul. I've thought in the past, "What difference would the events everyone has have made now? The, unfortunately, shallow, relationships, the social interaction that feels it never would have given me what I wanted. What difference would it make if the world would still be the same one I was observing now, ultimately in the same position in life?
I saw it would have made all the difference in the world if something had managed to break through and allow me to stop feeling so alone. If I had just been able to experience it once, before I reached this depth.
I...can't believe I've done it. The reasons why it began, in part predisposition, in part because I was always so ideologically driven. Unfortunately a lifetime of human experience, from a unique point in time and space, with a past that shapes it all, can't adequately be conveyed in a reasonable length.
I completely refused to accept any need for others, I just deconstructed, abstracted, and overanalyzed, everything into oblivion and paid the price. I dismissed people and didn't even try to tell you many problems I felt because of my pessimistic viewpoint. Maybe I was right and most people didn't want to hear it, aspects of themselves could be largely innate, biologically/genetically driven, evolutionarily determined, and unlikely to change, that they wouldn't put any serious or effective effort into attempting to better themselves. I felt that because I had put so much effort and time into introspection and attempting inner self-improvement, self-improvement of the habits of the mind, of adhering to rationality, that if others hadn't shown the desire to do so by that point they were likely hopeless. And of course many of my own flaws were glaringly obvious and far worse than those of others! But because I wasn't saying anything I really never gave you, or anyone else, a chance, I never gave people a chance to try to find out if there was something more to them.
Particularly during the holidays the contrast between someone who has close, good, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, family, loved ones, and people who really don't have anyone in the world, is made clearest. Without other people the world, life, just feels empty, devoid of life, emotion, warmth, and meaning.
Later I thought about love, something most people value highly deep within, something I had always closed myself off to, and if two people see something in each other, find someone they identify with in a world with so many people, limited by their location, time, language, age, so many barriers that make our worlds so small, feel a moment of profound connection and understanding, and share in such deep happiness, want to make each other as happy as possible and protect, preserve, what they feel for each other, develop together, that may be the most beautiful thing in life there is.
All the things I constantly, repeatedly, ruminated on in the pit of depression, came to feel such profound guilt and regret over. I really hate how I did this, all the people I must have hurt, who wanted to get to know who I am, how I must have made them feel. My own family, seeing someone you used to know grow distant. Until you come home one day and...your father tells you he found your mother crying and she told him "I don't know who my son is anymore." The father who you later came to see so many negative, self-destructive, traits similar to your own. Picking you up from school, the day there was an event to try to keep the school open due to troubles with the college it was co-hosted with, how he joined in and I sat in the car and he told me "I know you don't care." The moment he went on a rant emerging from the time I had been waiting under a tree while it rained, instead of going under the shelter of a building nearby, how he asked whether I had problems with anyone, assumed, couldn't imagine, I wasn't being bullied due to how I was, how even the chickens knew to get out from under rain, the repeated mentions of how robotic I was, and that if my own parents were saying this, imagine what others said (I later realized my nickname among the newer generations at highschool, the freshmen/sophomores, many may have been "robot-kid"), finally breaking down and sobbing telling me I didn't know how "ugly" it was to have a son like that. I grabbed a screwdriver on the dash, a stoic seething anger building, not sure if I would have done anything, something major would need to have finally tipped me over once in your life. "Are you threatening me?" "Do it if you think it will help. When you were young everything we brought you was brand new." (What I would have needed most of all required no money). Later, after returning from a store he had stopped at, "Has the anger left you? Do you want a cell phone?" I said no, I didn't need one. The time he drove me home and a chorus of girls cried out "Bye Malice.", not mocking, he remarked on this and how he wished I would just talk to one of them. The car he bought me, how my reaction was completely stoic because I saw it as something simply getting you from point a to b, a material good. He remarked, in a light tone, that he didn't see me smile or anything. That when I graduated and got a well paying job I could buy a nicer one, if I wanted (Maybe he assumed it was because I felt it was an unremarkable car, nothing worth getting excited over. The book related to psychology, understanding your (troubled) teen, my mother reading. How she said sometimes she felt she just wanted to hug me. I remember her saying that when I was little I always wanted to be with her, likely shy from everything else. Then, a few times, towards the end, nearing the culmination of my detachment, "Malice, do you love me?" I told her to stop asking me that. That time I called he what could be translated as hag/old woman (bieja) and the way she looked down afterward, so sad. I remember one final rant from my father, triggered by and said to my brother, showing his view of me, what a disappointment I was, the trouble I had caused (I think I may have heard him once saying "someone that could kill me in my sleep" on the phone, after an incidence that led to visits from a social worker, meetings at school, due to my backpack being searched and book with disturbing drawings/captions I had forgotten about, planned to chuck over an elementary school fence or leave somewhere children would find it. To have come to have been viewed as such a monster, one I had become, by my own parents.). Him mentioning something in a conversation about how he thought the odometer wasn't working properly. I had been driving to college and just spending all my time in the computer lab, or a library reading manga, then, by the end, sometimes didn't even bother. It's a type of uninvolvement from lower class, particularly non-White/non-East Asian, parents most won't understand that enabled this to slip through without question. Just being asked when I got home, same as usual, "How did your day go?" "Fine." When he taught me to drive, and later my mom asked whether he didn't get angry and start to yell, after failing a few times she hired a private instructor, took me to the DMV that, in his experience, was easiest. When I came home my faster asked me what I had learned, I told him just the basics, and he asked in a sad tone "Couldn't you have learned them from me?" I said "Yes." I, could have, because his pain reached me. I remember afterward him making me drive him to the mass fleamarkets he went to on the weekends, his routine of getting out, like your thrift store perusal, Lanny. He was outgoing in a way, seemed to know many people there, spoke and made conversation. I also remember him seeming and saying things that made him seem very depressed, dysfunctional, unsatisfied with life; how hyper-critical he was of everyone and everything around him, how I never felt at ease around him, even as a child, and would tense up like a board, because he seemed so irritable, so easily angered, although he never hit us. If you were to see me in person, the look in my eyes, you would understand this same feeling. How he took me to his job on the weekends, to meet the widowed elderly lady he worked for as a handyman. Upper class LA neighborhood, the kind that's remarkable by how comparatively peaceful and quiet it sounds and feels. She had a collection of art she had made, an exhibit/storage, we saw once. I recall buddhist architecture in her backyward. i remember her telling me she didn't even own a computer, remarking how cell phones don't help anyone. She asked me to smile, and I gave a forced one, which made my dad chuckle and pat me on the back. I remember her saying she was going to give me a few books; prior she had asked what my favorite was, "The Call of the Wild", she said she could see why I chose it.I remember having asked on Zoklet how a person should react to this, being the autist that I am. It was just a few, which one she felt was right for this time in my life, another, about a love/marriage, for later. She fell and was in the hospital, and at her age, you tend to not recover, I remember him going over to clean her statues, unannounced, so she wouldn't "feel sad" when she came home. I remember how one day I stayed inside the truck all day, feeling tired, not having gotten enough sleep, trying to nap and him remarking that he had told me we would be getting up early. I remember him lightly mentioning to someone something about her inheritance and how he wanted me to get to know her, maybe she'd leave something for me as her children were well off and didn't need it. I thought it was unforgivably selfish, but don't know how serious he was. Then I saw her on a walker at the doorway with my father, looking towards me, I glanced up, then back down, shunning her, like all the rest. He brought me a treat she had given him. The next time he made my brother go with him and when he began to protest, "But Malice" he barked a stern "No."
Then I disappeared on Halloween. A date chosen for no particularly good reason or symbolism, although the people out in droves, masked, would provide a good cover. I simple left a note saying "I moved out, I'm going to live on my own now". I burned some things I didn't want left of me, I had even looked through albums before and taken out pictures of myself. I remember going through cabinets in the garage, in part a habit of snooping/rummaging just for my own curiosity, and one day finding old childhood drawings I had made. I don't think I had heart to burn those too. I remember at some place, there being an assortment of brochures and one of them was for something like a mule ride into the Grand Canyon. "One day we'll do something like that." I knew we never would. I genuinely never thought about them, felt anything, a sign of the inhuman monstrosity I had become, until about two years ago when I finally broke and everything hit me.
The English teacher in middle who saw something in me, referred to me as "terrorist" and "unabomber", even buffalo bill and said one day he was going to show the class that film. "Malice can powerwalk x laps in y minutes." "That's because Malice is insane." (Habit I developed in middle school, really incredible speed.) "Malice could extract his own plutonium." I think he said my standardized test scores, those in the past, had been "state" (level). How he asked whether I considered myself part of the mainstream (He knew I didn't), that college is the perfect environment for non-conformists like me. The look on his face when he asked if I was "walking" (the stage), and I shook me head to respond know, uncaring, cold. Anger and disappointment, maybe he had seen others go down a similar road and waste potential. I genuinely I wasn't due to my GPA, turns out I was wrong.
The English teacher who noted my work, it was my writing that caught their attention. "Out of everyone here, you write the most interesting things." "Malice is just on another level." after some student said something related to me in class. After a meeting with the principal and a few others, school psychologist/psychiatrist, vice, where they had two police cars arrive beforehand. "I thought that was ridiculous. I had some shit happen to me when I was a kid, so if you ever want to talk." I never did, not once, and at the end I disappointed him like all the rest.
Another, who ended up dying of cancer. Atheist, may have ridden with the Hell's Angels in the past. "They tell me you're gifted, and, quite frankly, I have a hard time believing that. Never did the work, participated, looked interested, regularly showed up late (need my sleep). He said he would get me suspended for the latter once. Assigned Steppenwolf, which I never got, and at the end had a test on it, or part of the final had one on it, related to it, and I wrote my opinion on it, possibly just based from the excerpt/my general impression of what the question was getting at, what the book had been about. "You write very well." With a slightly raised eyebrow, a look in his eye (not of suspicion of cheating). We had an assignment one day where we would send him things, one part was a silly story about some petty vandalism I had done, stated in a non-self incriminating manner, along with a sticker from a climbing company that said "Get high". Some time after he passed, at school, his widower came up to me and wanted to show me something, a picture he took posing with that and smirking (I remember sticking one somewhere else and it staying up for years, all the way until the end.). "Thank you for that moment/so thank you for that". I felt no emotion, just nodded and said dryly "You're welcome." and she went on her way.
The early 30s born again Christian, Bush supporter (although not the talk show pundit listener kind, this can give the wrong impression.), dorky hair, very naive, but possibly the most laid back and friendliest person there. I remember him talking about his grandmothers racist and when he told her his best friend (in college) was Black all she could say, in shock, was "Hush!" I remember him asking why I had turned in an empty journal (completely, we were supposed to do things throughout the class), whether it was a statement. Actually, I think I just wanted the points for having a map in it or something. When he asked, out of curiosity, if he could see my report card, then said I was the only one who had ever said no. We were supposed to read for a period, then state what we had read about, discuss it, current events. I always said "I didn't read anything." because I didn't want to respond. They guy next to me said it once too and he mentioned something about my influence. He did tell me I could write it down if I wanted, but that he needed something. Some time later, he was hosting a PE class, "Alright, I have to see what you're reading." (possibly after the school trouble, maybe suggesting he had to keep tabs on me). It was the book Eragon at the time (claims of plagiarism/criticisms of originality aside, damn enjoyable fiction at the time). "The Madness of Life, hmm."
The UC Berkeley graduate socialist (in his own words) history professor, fairly dry teacher, although he tried, in a way, to instill enthusiasm, but it just wasn't there. On a final assigment, writing assignment, we had as a graduation requirement "That was the best paper I have ever read. It was written at a post-graduate level. On another test I think you were the only one to score __. I realized how frustrating it must be to ___(be around the average high schooler, with their typical conversations. People I couldn't relate to, not on "my level"). ___ because I think you deserve to go to a good university. Penultimate part, caused a sort of smirk on my face, but I didn't say a word, once again I never had the intention of opening up, and he sighed and sent me on my way.
I really was popular, in a way, and it was a smaller, more selective school, so the atmosphere was much better, friendlier, without the cliques. I wasn't bullied and have always had too much of "Don't fuck with me/on the verge of mass murder." Popular just for never saying a thing, being so reclusive, away from everyone. God that can make women hound you in way, along with a hyper-masculine profile. There's been interesting research, some from Haidt, on the mental profiles of political ideologies, that generally liberals have the most feminine and libertarians the most masculine. There is the "extreme male brain" theory of autism (Aspergers) as well. Even interesting information from neuropolitics on the effect of sunlight (which has downstream effects) and testosterone levels on political ideology. I flat-out ignored, coldly shunned, every girl that showed interest in me, and most were attractive and very forward. The stories of particularly cold shut downs.
There were so many people that tried to reach out, that really were nice, if only I had seen things differently.
Something I later sent to someone:
I later came to realize there was a richness and complexity to other people that you can't find anywhere else, and came to deeply regret that I had never opened up to anyone in my life and missed out on so much. No matter how much I've read, I've never found satisfying answers to the questions that really matter. In a way it really just made me more unhappy, depressed and unsatisfied with life, took away more wonder from the world. "The more knowledge, the more pain, the more wisdom, the more suffering." I really do feel like the story of Ecclesiastes, which may be one of the few or only parts of the bible worth reading for the non-religious; particularly if the modern versions that use the word "meaningless" instead of "vanity" and if you know that the final part may not have been part of the original text: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes Realistically the world is going to move on without any of us, and that's fine. The people in your life really are what matter, good close friends, a warm house with people waiting for you, who look forward to you returning, to share in their life and happiness, a loving family to return to, are really the best things any of us could hope for. I realized this too late, not in terms of you, but my own life.
Something I chose not to send:
I never really came out of it, though, drugs can't replace people in your life. Without people the world, life, just feels incredible empty and dead, lifeless. It's a hollow life, an imitation of what human life should be, and I was trying to run away from that for so long. My past is and always will be a black hole of depression, empty. Imagine every relationship you've had with people, every connection, every moment, gone. What it does to you. I'm telling you this because I've felt the need to tell someone and this is the ugly reality. I never would have imagined I would fall apart so much and so fast, lose so much ability to function; I really did feel terminally ill and still do in a way. I lost interest in life, in everything, I lost what little ability to experience emotions I had left, any drive for life, any energy to live, I feel completely disconnected from other people, I don't feel like a part of this world. You majored in psychology, so you should probably have some understanding of what severe social isolation of this level, taken to this extent and prolonged for so long, does to a person. I realized that even as a child, life had never felt right to me, how I imagined it should feel, feel to others. For example, at a beautiful park, there was something that just wasn't there. I later realized it was the human element, the emotional coloring of life, the feeling of connection. As much hatred as I've felt for other people, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, it's just wrong, something that shouldn't exist; and I did feel genuine deep regret and resentment for ever having come into existence, as much as someone can genuinely mean this. There are so many aspects of my life that are just unbelieveably depressing.
I've driven myself to an incredible level of isolation and alienation. I have no friends, acquaintances, family, relatives, coworkers. There's absolutely no one and hasn't been for so long. I literally have not had a friend in over a decade, and I don't use a strict definition of that term.
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Two parts I did send:
You made the right decisions in life for happiness. For me, it's almost as I wanted to be unhappy. I've done everything wrong, had nearly everything go wrong, to feel happy, fulfilled, and successful in life. I feel like I've destroyed myself, ruined my life, and squandered my potential. I've completely fallen out of human society, alienated myself to an incredible degree, and don't know how to integrate after all this time and everything that's happened, if I'll ever be able to or even have the capacity to experience basic and crucial human emotions/experiences. There are so many things about my life I never told anyone that are just unbelievably depressing. Dear god I hope I'll be able to come out of this one day after what I've done to myself.
The truth is that beneath everything, as much as I wanted to run away from it, I was just a profoundly lonely, damaged, and depressed person, and still am.
I wasn't exaggerating when I described how I felt as being terminally ill in a way, feeling that one day I would wake up coughing/vomiting blood.
"Just go out and talk to somebody." After everything I've done, my innate, abnormal predisposition/brain combined with the environment, life choices, leading to the perfect psychological trainwreck. Having missed out on so much, never developed properly, zero natural social skills, after this level of extreme isolation, this level of alienation. What do I tell them I'm going, have done with my life? How do we possibly relate?
But, what I fear most, is that at this point I'm never going to be able to experience what others do, the critical piece that was missing, the human element of connection. I genuinely don't even know how to connect with others, I never learned. Dear god, to not have known it once in your life, to reflect on everything, and realize this in the cold of night. What I would wish for most in the world was someone lying next to me to hold hands with and share in their warmth.
"It's so unbearably, grotesquely, empty." I thought during the trip. This is what occurs in a life without people. I knew for certain there would be no point in ever tripping again until that changed. There's a term for what afflicts people like me. "Cancer of the soul." I hope I'm not in the terminal stages, I'm afraid of the finality of death, even if life is absurd, consciousness ultimately illusory, everything fleeting, impermanent, and in vain. To die without ever once having known what it was to live. Would that be the saddest thing of all?
If I have one dying wish it's that no one ever feel as alone and empty as I ended up feeling.
I wrote that genuinely sobbing at parts. It's the kind of thing that makes you finally want to break down to someone and admit, "No, I'm not alright." Because beneath everything I have never been alright. That makes you want to call a crisis center so you can't bear to wait for the first step toward not feeling so alone. It reminded me of the times I genuinely thought of calling 9/11, asking to be hospitalized, just so something would change.
If I ever decide to finally take the first steps towards real recovery/rehabilitation, the core component of which is accepting the need for other people and asking for help due to how broken I've become, I'm going to document it. I really have considered going to the chans with my bleak tale, asking for advice, the good which I would genuinely plan to act out on, and documenting the process. "I've become a literal hikikomori and have decided to document my attempt at reintegration into society." Hopefully the tale would spread, I could cross post it on multiple sites, and it would help others like me to get out this abyss, the hell we've created for ourselves, or at least to relate and understand someone else is going through, has gone, through something similar. It will likely be after or shortly before I acquire, or attempt to acquire, phenelzine/Nardil and NSI-189, eventually ALKS-5461 and TMS (I need all the help I can get). Realistically, without additional help, in part to correct endogenous deficits I was born with, this would at least take years, decades, longer, if it even occurred, I stood a chance in hell, at all. If patients had an assessment for likelihood of success with a percentage given, I would be at the bottom, highest for risk of eventually dying by suicide.
What it does to you, no one should ever have to know. As much as I've hated the world and others at times, I repeatedly felt I wouldn't wish this on anyone, because it's just something wrong, something that shouldn't exist. No one would end up this way, choose to live like this, without having something profoundly wrong with them. There is no joy in it. If you could measure the cumulative amount of pleasure people experience throughout their day, I would be in the bottom fraction of a percentage. For so long I haven't even laughed, barely smiled, had much feeling evoked. I've mentioned before that I don't even have memories of having experienced certain emotions to their fullest, even to a significant extent, in my entire life. It kills everything human about you, eats away at you inside, until you're a hollow shell, a shadow of a human being wandering the streets, never spoken to.
It took so long to realize the mistake I had made, and then it felt too late. I was only left with overwhelming pain and regret. Dear god, why did I do this to myself?
In a way, the numbness, detachment. the emotional deadening, blunted affect, the restricted range and depth of emotion; is a blessing. If I were able to feel the full impact of everything, not just acknowledge everything here, but fully feel it, it could break me, send me into a catatonic state where I would need to be institutionalized/put under state care; literally kill me.
Over 10 years without anyone to speak to IRL about the things that really matter. No emotional support, no one to ask for help, to confide in. The internet, text on a screen, could never replace that. And now, after all this, I have to return to a cold bed in an empty apartment devoid of life, a biological storage/maintenance facility rather than a home, with no one, and know that when I wake up, there will still be no one in sight.
I know it feels hopeless, when you're in that state it's so hard to do anything, even things that seem like basic tasks to others, you can lose the desire to even get better and live.
But if you're at the end and feel you're going to die, you may as well give it one last shot, do something crazy/illegal/dangerous if you have to, make the money any way you need to. Nardil, NSI-189, transcranial magnetic stimulation. If you manage to become happy, and it still isn't what you want, you can't find anything in life, then you can at least feel confident in your decision, go through it without regrets or concerns about what could have been.
Hey, you have the NHS in the UK, you should see if they have TMS available.
You've never had to deal with the NHS, it's a joke, I'm still waiting on a referral to the Mental Health team and the Drug and Alcohol Recovery Team. That was like a month ago. I was meant to be referred to CBT and a psychiatrist, but still waiting. I'll be waiting a long time.
Malice, between you and facebook you make me cry. "We all get by with a little help from our friends. So we made you a film to celebrate your friends and some moments you’ve shared. From, your friends at Facebook", that was so sad watching pictures of me with friends, former friends, in moments where I genuinely looked happy. In moments when I did have people around me. And I Iook at my life now, and how empty and void it is of any "true" friends. Just people who have moved on with their lives, having careers and money and a place they can call their own, and I'm stuck, effectively homeless, no prospects for the future, no hope, no job. And it was all because of me, and decisions I took and actions I made. I can't blame it on anyone else. The only people I have are drug dealers/users, and they aren't real friends.
I mean, and don't take this the wrong way, I in no way have it as bad as you, but it's all relative, right? We could have been someone.
"What I would wish for most in the world was someone lying next to me to hold hands with and share in their warmth", I wish I could find that again.
Never tried AL-LAD or heard of lysergi. Order's in anyway and paid so too late now. There was a sale on the blotters in any case. Plus I like the sauce I use, they've always been damn reliable. Brand loyalty.
It is very good for introspection and emotional cleansing. I feel better today, my mind clearer and calmer, more at ease, although there's a feeling of significantly lower cognitive ability, like a muscle that feels weaker due to exhaustion. Even the crying feels good in a way, due to the emotional cleansing. I was already hit full force by everything, accepted and constantly ruminated over these issues, so I don't run away from them anymore, being confronted by them isn't anything new or frightening.
During the peak of the trip I was beginning to feel ego/identity dissolution, but felt unable to fully let go due to a penile fixation. I had experienced the effect of interference with defecation, being unable to relax my sphincter, control it like normal, possibly an effect on the smooth muscle contractions as well, stemming from the serotonergic effects. I had a feeling of clenching of the PC muscle, the one that you use to stop the stream of urine, that you clench to hold back urine. I tried to urinate, but was unable to, the uncomfortable feeling still holding me back due to the innate fear of urinating on yourself, even though I knew it was unlikely to happen. I thought about the act of sex, how the consummation of a relationship, exposing yourself, giving yourself, so fully to another person, both in body and mind, the emotions and strong feeling of connection, that rite of passage, had never occurred in me. Stemming from that, my lifelong inability and resistance to feeling connection to anybody. Very Freudian, in a way, I thought it was somewhat amusing that this was what was holding me back. If I had never experienced that, never been shaped by these basic and fundamental human experiences, how could I experience the feeling of universal/total unity, the connection and encompassing of all?
It's like the kingdom of heaven is closed off to those like me. Very tragic, in a way.
hydromorphone
victim of incest
[insincerely conduce my paisley]
No, I didnt name my baby Frodo or §m£ÂgØL (I actually have a derp eye cat who has feline herpes named §m£ÂgØL though. My ex named his long before I started corresponding with §m£ÂgØL. §m£ÂgØL, my cat, is kinda retarded, but hes a loving little guy). My son's name is much cooler than that shit. he actually has a pretty long name, with two middle names. His last name is neither mine, my ex husband's or even §m£ÂgØL's. It was something my dad would have got a kick out of and a name my dad used to tease/call me as a term of enderment. Hopefully he grows up to like huis unique name. Everything about his name is tied into my dad. Since he cant have the grandfather he should of had in his life, I hope his name will bring him closer in knowing who he was and what sort of man my father was. It truely is a shame he will never know him in this life. My dad had his faults, he was by no means a perfect person, but he was a good person, and had a unique persective of the world he imparted to me and hopefully I will to my son.
It is, isn't it? Like in general, the whole psychedelic experience has an odd flavor of childhood and proto-sexuality, more noticeable at higher doses. Makes me uncomfortable sometimes, it feels really awkward and vulnerable. Sometimes on a strong trip I'll think I have memories from before I could talk. There's this really interesting paper about a researcher who found a dude who was deaf and mute and never learned sign language, I read it years ago and I remember after finishing it I spent a lot of time for a week or two thinking about what it would be like to not have any language. The commentary on it I read before the actual paper argued that this pre-language guy not only lacked language but the fundamental mental concept of symbolism, that one thing could stand for another. Like what would a mode of thought without indirection be? If a thing couldn't have the essential property of standing for another in some kind of system. The notion of axiomatic shift between systems. It's really hard to think about, but sometimes an intense trip feels like that, like the reference/referent distinction breaks down and it feels very childish. Like some kind of intense solipsistic collapse of reality and the thing it seems to remind me of is very early childhood. 2spooky.
I can see how thanksgiving is going to go "oh wow congratulations on being sober for 6 months we are so proud of you" "so why aren't you making 6 figures yet ?" "why don't you have a girlfriend?" At least there will be pie.
