Your pointless thoughts & observations

  On 9/28/2021 at 1:00 AM, drillkicker said:

OK but what does the sokal affair have to do with me or anything I've said

well, the sokal affair was part of the so-called "science wars", in which several proponents of scientific realism questioned the epistemology of postmodern thinkers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars - since you seem to be quite fond of deleuze and guattari, i thought this type of constructive criticism might be worth checking out, if you haven't already.

  On 9/28/2021 at 2:04 PM, brian trageskin said:

well, the sokal affair was part of the so-called "science wars", in which several proponents of scientific realism questioned the epistemology of postmodern thinkers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars - since you seem to be quite fond of deleuze and guattari, i thought this type of constructive criticism might be worth checking out, if you haven't already.

Sorry, I'm just not interested 

Saw a group of niqab wearers today out in the sun and I realised I've ever seen a niqab wearer wearing sunglasses? Burka wearers probably wouldn't need sunglasses, but what an awesome fashion accessory nonetheless, adding an extra layer of intrigue to an already mysterious look. 

Quebec French profanity is the lamest I have ever heard. gotta be ranked dead last in terms of punch. all the cusswords are centred on catholicism, so yelling nonsense words like "tabernacle!" and "chalice!" and "baptism!" are meant to convey strong feelings. wtf, where are your essential fucks and shits and dicks and cunts? look at Spanish-speaking peoples, they have like 10 different ways to refer their balls alone.

Japanese and Russian swear words are pretty satisfying in the right situation. I can probably name a few.

OT: Just discovered the concept of analysis paralysis, and realizing that it's become a major bad habit throughout my life. It's basically overthinking a decision, getting overwhelmed, and spinning one's wheels whilst getting nowhere. And there will likely be more situations down the road where it's not an option.
 

Clergy are wizards 

just had a chat in the street with a 60-something lady, about tolkien and lotr, after she asked me the name of the ex's dog, which is bilbo. turned out she was a fan of tolkien, had even read the silmarillion (which i've only read the beginning of) and she had lived in england for 20 years. she was very happy with peter jackson's adaptation of lotr. coolest shit that's happened to me in quite some time lol.

  On 9/26/2021 at 8:17 PM, Cryptowen said:

i'll acknowledge at the outset that my perspective may well just be a product of my particular worldview (ie, as someone who's been irrationally wary of any sort of authority figure since early childhood, and tends to gravitate to emotionally intense experiences as if their intensity alone gave them authenticity), but...I basically view the psychiatric apparatus as largely being used to enforce social normativity. There's this idea of the "well-adjusted" individual who fits comfortably into the existing social structure, and with that comes the implication that any negative reaction to the existing structure is a defect to be treated. The individual is made to see his negative feelings in terms of his isolated experience, his personal history, his egoic desires etc. The content of the negative feeling is to be deconstructed, or expressed within the "safe" confines of mainstream discourse. The possibility of a large number of individuals recognizing that they share these negative feelings, and could in fact fight in the name of these feelings (rather than simply making vague allusion to them in socially-permitted conversation) is stymied.

I typically see people online responding to eccentric or angry outbursts with "seek help!"...the question is, seek help doing what? seek help becoming comfortable with a world that makes you uncomfortable? seek help learning to watch the news without gagging? seek help learning how to be "chill"? imo the implication in all this is that the primary purpose of life is to just be comfortable, to fit in, to accept the hand that's been dealt to you. for me this is not the purpose of life at all. for me the purpose of life is to work to uphold an ideal - be that ideal aesthetic, moral, political, social, etc. (i'm not saying it should be the same ideal for everyone). for me there's a sense of wanting to be true to an inner feeling - whether or not that means my life is comfortable, or accepted by others, or financially viable. in fact i'm pretty sure that most things i've accomplished that i'm actually proud of, most things that i look back on fondly many years later, were the product of tremendous inner tension & emotional malaise. Periods of my life where i've just been "chill" felt like a year, two years, five years going by as a blur, until i reached a point where i just got frustrated with the artificiality of it all

But! I also recognize that simply wanting to stare unblinking at the sickness of lfie isn't going to bring about massive social change (or even meaningful artistic output). i recognize that there's a certain kind of individual (myself) for whom these states hold quite an appeal. You're always going to have your dissidents, your would-be revolutionaries, your hermits, your malcontents etc who will naturally gravitate to these outlier positions, whether or not their efforts succeed in bringing about any kind of social or personal transformation. You're also going to have a certain kind of individual who really does just want to be normal, to fit in, to have a good time - and there's nothing shameful about that. I think for that kind of individual something like psychiatry probably makes a lot of sense (heck, maybe they even make better art when they feel more "stable" and not bogged down by their emotions). Then you also have a great number of individuals who are somewhere in the middle - they recognize that their might be some deeper truth to their discontent, but at the same time they recognize that there's something to be said for making an effort to fit in, and to get over yourself. For them, it's a process of determining to what degree they indulge their eccentricities, and to what degree they attempt to conform to an imperfect social machine. imo this is what most people are doing most of the time, and it's only on rare ocassions that things tip over, and a large number suddenly feel compelled to FIGHT DA POWAH

 

also i more or less agree with most of what Deleuze & Guattari have to say on the matter. Nick Land as well, but he's also a case study in how trying to rise up & strike the lightning can have some unintended ripple effects on a person's life

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Just wanted to say that my personal experience with therapy, as well as friends who have been involved with it both as providers and receivers doesn't really mesh with the portrayal here? With the massive caveat that I feel like some of the complexities of the philosophical discussions in this thread are beyond me, I do feel like I understand the above and it just doesn't jive with what I've seen/experienced. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are a lot of psychotherapists that are trying to push people into a certain set of standards and boxes that could be labelled as normative but I've actually actually found the opposite is true - a lot of therapists I've talked to have even discussed society (well, at least our society) as being severely unhealthy and, in a lot of ways, the cause of a significant amount of our suffering. I distinctly remember one saying to me "it's hard to be immune from all of societies' signals" which I thought was fucking SPOT ON and holds true to this day. 

I don't know, just my experience, but I've absolutely never felt like any therapy that I've experienced ever pushed me towards "fitting in" and "being normal" and  "being stable" and "not bogged down by my emotions." 

That being said, my issues (and, of the people that I know who have done therapy) are generally of a trauma-related/PTSD nature - a few of my friends have legitimately had severe bipolar which I think is a bit different. ... but I also don't really know that their experience has been described as all that different. Most people that I know who provide therapy frankly don't really seem too keen on society or what constitutes the promulgated idea of "normalcy," and in fact often say things that most "normal" people would probably do a triple take at (e.g., hey, maybe taking drugs isn't actually a bad thing, depending on how and why you are doing it). 

My 2 cents, probably not even worth that much. Though, I guess this is the "pointless thoughts" thread so maybe I'm just uber OT .. 

EDIT: Wanted to correct something here. I was discussing this with my wife last night and she pointed out that bi-polar and schizophrenia are different diagnoses. She also let me know that several of her close friends (5 actually) were clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia, and their experience may mirror what you're talking about here to a degree - i.e., they felt that the medications and focus of their therapy was aimed at removing something that they felt was integral to their identity so they could "function better" in the world we live in. I.e., their schizophrenia felt like a huge part of who they are, and attempts to modify or change that felt like giving up a part of themselves for the sake of existing in a world they felt was not for them. 

I still hold the intent of therapy, in my experiences, is often not to enforce becoming dulled, chill, fit in or become "normal" and accept society without question (and would say the opposite is actually true). But I can understand why someone who deeply identifies with their condition and the way that causes them to function might feel like this is the case (I also get the argument that in another time/place, people with these disorders might be seen as holy prophets/shamans/visionaries instead of being shunted to the periphery of society, and there might be better societal ways of dealing with these issues than we are using now). 

  On 10/4/2021 at 10:27 PM, T3551ER said:

Just wanted to say that my personal experience with therapy, as well as friends who have been involved with it both as providers and receivers doesn't really mesh with the portrayal here? With the massive caveat that I feel like some of the complexities of the philosophical discussions in this thread are beyond me, I do feel like I understand the above and it just doesn't jive with what I've seen/experienced. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are a lot of psychotherapists that are trying to push people into a certain set of standards and boxes that could be labelled as normative but I've actually actually found the opposite is true - a lot of therapists I've talked to have even discussed society (well, at least our society) as being severely unhealthy and, in a lot of ways, the cause of a significant amount of our suffering. I distinctly remember one saying to me "it's hard to be immune from all of societies' signals" which I thought was fucking SPOT ON and holds true to this day. 

I don't know, just my experience, but I've absolutely never felt like any therapy that I've experienced ever pushed me towards "fitting in" and "being normal" and  "being stable" and "not bogged down by my emotions." 

That being said, my issues (and, of the people that I know who have done therapy) are generally of a trauma-related/PTSD nature - a few of my friends have legitimately had severe bipolar which I think is a bit different. ... but I also don't really know that their experience has been described as all that different. Most people that I know who provide therapy frankly don't really seem too keen on society or what constitutes the promulgated idea of "normalcy," and in fact often say things that most "normal" people would probably do a triple take at (e.g., hey, maybe taking drugs isn't actually a bad thing, depending on how and why you are doing it). 

My 2 cents, probably not even worth that much. Though, I guess this is the "pointless thoughts" thread so maybe I'm just uber OT .. 

EDIT: Wanted to correct something here. I was discussing this with my wife last night and she pointed out that bi-polar and schizophrenia are different diagnoses. She also let me know that several of her close friends (5 actually) were clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia, and their experience may mirror what you're talking about here to a degree - i.e., they felt that the medications and focus of their therapy was aimed at removing something that they felt was integral to their identity so they could "function better" in the world we live in. I.e., their schizophrenia felt like a huge part of who they are, and attempts to modify or change that felt like giving up a part of themselves for the sake of existing in a world they felt was not for them. 

I still hold the intent of therapy, in my experiences, is often not to enforce becoming dulled, chill, fit in or become "normal" and accept society without question (and would say the opposite is actually true). But I can understand why someone who deeply identifies with their condition and the way that causes them to function might feel like this is the case (I also get the argument that in another time/place, people with these disorders might be seen as holy prophets/shamans/visionaries instead of being shunted to the periphery of society, and there might be better societal ways of dealing with these issues than we are using now). 

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I really am of two minds re: psychiatry/psychotherapy, and I'm quite sympathetic to the Laing/Guattari view that, very often, psychiatry is merely enforcing behavioral norms, addressing societal problems by medicating individuals, etc, all while harboring very 'American' presuppositions about mental health/illness in a capitalist society...

However...

None of this precludes you from finding an actual, real-life psychotherapist that will help you fine-tune yourself, understand yourself in ways you couldn't do otherwise.

I've yet to hear any criticisms entailing actual people going to actual therapists. Anyone who thinks psychotherapy would either do them no good or do them harm, imho that person has been led astray by 'theory'. 

our dog usually doesn't bark much, but the other morning was barking his head off in the backyard. went outside and saw he had trapped a squirrel up a smallish tree/shrub, which was too far from the fence for the squirrel to jump to escape. immediately I was like yeah this is some nature channel shit here, let's see how it plays out. but the nonstop barking crossed the line with me, so I had to take action. tried to chase the dog to get away from the tree, the squirrel immediately saw this and bolted to the fence, tried to scale the fucking thing but failed, and so the dog was on his ass. the squirrel yelped as the dog nipped at it, and ran up another small tree with the same problem - too far to jump to the fence and no escape possible. I could've easily knocked the squirrel to the ground with a rake, and let the dog finish him. but then I started thinking of all the blood and fur that I'd have to clean up, and so sided with the squirrel. grabbed the dog and the squirrel bolted, found a small hole under the fence and was gone. I know the dog was super pissed at me, probably confused why I let it get away, as his programming tells him the main thing you are here for is to hunt vermin, take craps, and sleep.

so my pointless thought is I wish karma worked they way I want it to. as in I saved a squirrels life, and so someone has to die. the first person I thought of was Sean Hannity.

Spent 3 days in and out of bed with food poisoning and have now reached that transient stage of extreme grogginess where I'm subconsciously trying to sort through which conversations were fever dreams and which ones were real. Feels fucking weird, sleep is a strange beast.

pointless thought (?) and observation: is this punk?

promoting an album by showing off your excessive wealth = punk? no. 

A random comment made me seriously consider - for several milliseconds - immediately and permanently vacating WATMM.

  On 10/15/2021 at 7:37 PM, dcom said:

A random comment made me seriously consider - for several milliseconds - immediately and permanently vacating WATMM.

That would be a shame. Glad you didn’t.

  On 10/15/2021 at 7:37 PM, dcom said:

A random comment made me seriously consider - for several milliseconds - immediately and permanently vacating WATMM.

Which one?

  On 10/15/2021 at 9:41 PM, LimpyLoo said:

Which one?

Just a piss-take, standard forum fare, but it virtually flash-banged me to seething rage - I had to take a deep breath, mouth "fuck you" silently (so I don't use it as a reply), and let it pass.

My first therapy appointment is coming up really soon and it's been weighing on my mind.  My brain keeps telling me that he's going to break into my mind, record my thoughts, and show them to god so he can take my soul away from me but i still want to go anyway.  People keep telling me mixed things about therapy and i dont know how to interpret any of it or how to prepare.

Also i have decided to stop listening to music.  I cant stand having music playing over and over in my mind all day and i want to be able to think my own thoughts without them being drowned out by some stupid song.  It's infuriating and i dont understand why ive been torturing myself with music for so long.

My step dad went all out on their yard display for Halloween.

  On 10/17/2021 at 4:31 AM, drillkicker said:

My first therapy appointment is coming up really soon and it's been weighing on my mind.  My brain keeps telling me that he's going to break into my mind, record my thoughts, and show them to god so he can take my soul away from me but i still want to go anyway.  People keep telling me mixed things about therapy and i dont know how to interpret any of it or how to prepare.

Also i have decided to stop listening to music.  I cant stand having music playing over and over in my mind all day and i want to be able to think my own thoughts without them being drowned out by some stupid song.  It's infuriating and i dont understand why ive been torturing myself with music for so long.

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First, congrats! Big step but scary going into it for the first time. Therapy is a good thing.
Some tips: The best thing to do is to be honest with yourself and to be honest with your therapist so that you can make progress. They are there to help and you can advocate for yourself to get whatever you need at any time. 
Having said that, not all therapists are great so don’t give up if it doesn’t feel like you’re getting what you need out of it. You can always switch therapists. I quit seeing one because they never remembered basic info and seemed bored a few times but the next one I saw was phenomenal and I’m forever grateful for their help. You’re going to be fine

  On 10/17/2021 at 4:31 AM, drillkicker said:

My first therapy appointment is coming up really soon and it's been weighing on my mind.  My brain keeps telling me that he's going to break into my mind, record my thoughts, and show them to god so he can take my soul away from me but i still want to go anyway.  People keep telling me mixed things about therapy and i dont know how to interpret any of it or how to prepare.

Also i have decided to stop listening to music.  I cant stand having music playing over and over in my mind all day and i want to be able to think my own thoughts without them being drowned out by some stupid song.  It's infuriating and i dont understand why ive been torturing myself with music for so long.

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Congrats! Good advice above from J3FF3R00.

Regarding the music, taking a break is probably not a bad idea and I've considered it myself. As far as stopping completely/indefinitely, if that works for you then great, but maybe it's a matter of shifting to purely instrumental stuff for a while? Maybe just calm stuff, even? I'm saying this on an electronic music board so there's a chance most of what you listen to is already purely instrumental, but you never know (I'd say probably 60% of what I listen to has vocals). I understand that even instrumental music can cloud your own thoughts if it's hard not to focus on that. I can relate. But I also know that music has helped me and countless others get through things. 

  On 10/18/2021 at 6:56 PM, sidewinder said:

Congrats! Good advice above from J3FF3R00.

Regarding the music, taking a break is probably not a bad idea and I've considered it myself. As far as stopping completely/indefinitely, if that works for you then great, but maybe it's a matter of shifting to purely instrumental stuff for a while? Maybe just calm stuff, even? I'm saying this on an electronic music board so there's a chance most of what you listen to is already purely instrumental, but you never know (I'd say probably 60% of what I listen to has vocals). I understand that even instrumental music can cloud your own thoughts if it's hard not to focus on that. I can relate. But I also know that music has helped me and countless others get through things. 

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I dont think instrumental music is any better, it still gets caught in my head just the same.  Lyrics dont really bother me, one thing that does happen is i have a part of a song playing in my head all the time except the lyrics are changed to a more sinister version of what the real lyrics are.  That part is annoying but the part that bothers me the most is just repetitive melodies.  Maybe listening to something unmusical like florian hecker would be fine, but i've been listening to a lot of elliott smith.  Either way it doesnt really matter what kind of music it is, it all sounds abusive to me right now.

  On 10/18/2021 at 10:40 PM, drillkicker said:

I dont think instrumental music is any better, it still gets caught in my head just the same.  Lyrics dont really bother me, one thing that does happen is i have a part of a song playing in my head all the time except the lyrics are changed to a more sinister version of what the real lyrics are.  That part is annoying but the part that bothers me the most is just repetitive melodies.  Maybe listening to something unmusical like florian hecker would be fine, but i've been listening to a lot of elliott smith.  Either way it doesnt really matter what kind of music it is, it all sounds abusive to me right now.

Maybe try listening to classical music?

  On 10/18/2021 at 11:48 PM, yekker said:

Maybe try listening to classical music?

Why wouldnt that do the same thing i described?