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LoBagola

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  1. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from Jon Southall in Assertiveness   
    I like that you drew a connection from something apparently so personal as assertiveness in relating to people to these two articles. I'll read them with this connection in mind. Thanks
  2. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from softwareNerd in Black & White friendships   
    I was talking to my closest friend about our differences: that I have few, but very few friends (one!), and he has many friends of all kinds. The context was me describing someone new I met to him and how I liked her but wouldn't want to spend that much time with her. He said that one doesn't need all friendships to be all-or-nothing and he gave me many examples of people who he felt the same way about but would still spend time with. He explained "you don't need to spend eight hours with them. You could just catch up for a quick walk in the park and connect over the few things you do share."
    At various points in life what and who to call a friend will change, e.g, if you're fortunate enough to be in a loving relationship you would have less time and so need to increase your standard slightly; or maybe you're lucky enough to have three incredibly close friendships so you don't have room for or need anyone else at the time. But the point of his talk I think was that there's much value to be gained from friendship or connection with others, even if it's only brief as a 30min walk in the park. And the added benefit is you might meet others through these friends who you will connect with on a much deeper level.
    He's convinced me that my strict view of friendships may be wrong, especially while I'm single, and that I need to give this more thought. My thinking till now has been I should just hold out for those I feel strongly about and that way I'll have much more time for being productive at work and other interests. But he's also a good example of how effective the approach of cultivating many friendships can work: he manages to run a successful business four days a week, pursue many eclectic interests and always has many options for social events and consequently frequently meets many interesting people. And maybe it's the general happiness and value that he derives from these friendships and interests that then allows him to pour a concentrated mental effort into his business.
    In a way my interest and thought over this shows me that part of me does want more friendship in my life, even if it's not some extremely intense and close friendship (as it is with him). And maybe it's just a matter of changing my attitude and what to expect.
    Keen to hear other's thoughts on this.
     
     
     
     
     
     
  3. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from softwareNerd in Is settling in love good?   
    As someone who's never been in what I'd consider a strong relationship, it's something I've recently thought a lot about. I first look outward and notice that many people are in relationships (and many not) and then I look inward and see that I've never been that way: the longest relationship I've had was six months and I entered it because I thought maybe this is just something I need to cultivate and build and only then will I be in a loving relationship. I was more indifferent to my partner after six months then I was after one. And from this experience, many years ago, I concluded that the whole concept of love was bullocks, rubbish perpetuated in movies & books that convinces people to give up on their values for other stupid people--but this changed. After many more years of not being in one relationship I fell intensely in love with someone who I was briefly with and then lost. This was the kind of love that had moments I'd intensely, passionately & feverishly live out a long dull life of labor for to just to experience once more. It caused a complete change in my attitude and life's direction, but I don't need to go into that in this post.
    So now I sit here believing that the kind of love sometimes depicted in movies or books is real & that it offers, not the only kind, but the highest kind of happiness open to man. But my experience also tells me that it's incredibly rare: often when I've spoken to people I've felt that they haven't experienced it even though they've been in many relationships (?). I would dismiss this as not worth the thought were it not for also talking with people where I feel the exact opposite--that they "get it". E.g. I recently spoke to my friend about an ex-partner and everything about his description makes me thinks he felt something similar to me. He described much of his happiness just being the knowledge that she existed, i.e., the knowledge that someone who was that way could exist and that he could meet them and be with them. And then I compare that to others who talk about a partner and don't ever speak of love or who's eyes don't light up at the topic at all. And I think about how I once asked my love how many people I meet are always in relationships and why I feel incapable of it--and she answered "you don't settle." And that's it. I think that's it.
    But I've also been thinking maybe settling could be a good thing? Maybe if you meet someone you share some values with you can actually build something that involves feelings as passionate as the highest kind of love? I'd be really interested in hearing from someone who experienced both immediate and intense passion, but that also built the same feeling up over many years through cultivating a relationship.
    So far in my life I've met many people who've been in numerous long term relationships and said they loved all their partners; but till now, based on my own experience, I find that impossible to believe, at least in the sense that I understand love (as distinct from like or like a lot or even many kinds of other love). But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that approach to life is better--to cultivate as many relationships as you can, as long as they provide some value. Or also maybe they are just excellent at meeting many people? I think if I could line up a particular demographic of the whole country every morning and spend 5 minutes chatting to 12 people I'd very likely meet the love of my life within a few months or less. (please do not talk about online dating.)
    This'll eventually bring me to my next post (more like open-ended question) on friendships.
  4. Like
    LoBagola reacted to CptnChan in Poem: Above it All   
    I enjoyed this poem on hitRECord, especially the part that goes: "Things matter, because well, they matter to you."
    Kind of a nice nod to self interest. I sometimes get a bit overwhelmed, and admittedly I occasionally have a bit of an existential crisis. But this was kind of a cool counter to feeling small in the universe.
     
     
  5. Like
    LoBagola reacted to softwareNerd in Ancient India's polytheism   
    Great question. I agree that a move toward a belief in one God may be a natural intellectual progression: much the same way as Thales groped for a unifying theory, or the way others speculated about an atomic theory, religious philosophers might grope for a similar unifying theory. I think the next step up the intellectual ladder is to go from an anthropomorphic vision of God toward a more mechanistic theory: where God becomes almost part of the natural, even though he remains super-natural in the sense that we do not understand the phenomenon. [Somewhere there, just before the mechanistic view, come the deists like Jefferson.]
    Hinduism is pretty hard to define. As you say, Hinduism often accommodated other Gods. In this regard it was like the Roman religion. When the Romans conquered people, they were not like the later Muslim invaders, imposing their God. Instead they -- and the folks they conquered -- seem to have accepted that there were all these Gods: your Gods, my Gods. Ancient Hinduism (pre-Mahabharata / pre-Buddhism) is quite like Greek and Roman beliefs. In fact, they're quite like most ancient beliefs... from all over the world. 
    Importantly, Hinduism did not merely accommodate various Gods, it also accommodated various moral and metaphysical viewpoints (actually various mini-philosophies) within itself. I believe the same was true of other polytheistic religions. Consider morality. In a polytheistic religion, you might find a story about someone who was destroyed because he was too angry, but you might also find a story about someone who was destroyed because he could never get angry. Someone who is evil because he lies, and another who was moral to lie. So, it would be pretty impossible to say for sure whether a poly-theistic religion like Hinduism advocates anger or lying: it depends... You want a story from the scriptures to justify your viewpoint? We can do that for you.
    The same with metaphysics. Hinduism (and I guess Greek and Roman traditions) can accommodate various stories about the origin of the universe. Some more educated Romans viewed the specific Gods as concretes that the masses needed to keep them focused and to give them fiction-like non-abstract examples, but not as literal truths. It is the same in Hinduism as it has evolved over the years. One can easily view Brahma (or Zeus) as a "one God" idea. But, more than that, there are ideas of the creation and disappearance of Brahma itself that postulate a more mechanistic view of the universe. There are famous Hindu philosophers who said that Hinduism is not a religion but a philosophy. If you meet 10 educated Indian who're interested in this topic, you're sure to find one who says this to you. It amounts to the view of the Roman intellectuals who loved their religious tales, but did not view them as concretely true. You will even find Hindus who will go the next step and tell you explicitly that Hinduism is atheistic.
    The Hinduism of the Vedas is very different from the Hinduism of the Mahabharata. The Hinduism in the Bhagvad Gita is actually a negative critique of the older Vedic Hinduism, and has more in similar with Buddhism. It sounds like a Hindu intellectual not merely trying to accommodate Buddhist metaphysics, but accepting it; but, also leaving space for the traditional Hindu social structure of caste. (Not saying it is a response to Buddhism, but that is sounds like a response. It could well pre-date Buddha, with no inconsistency.)
    I think the likely secret to the question is this: you want one God? Hinduism has that for you. You want atheism? Hinduism has that for you. How do you fight that except by force and by imposition?
     
  6. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from softwareNerd in Ancient India's polytheism   
    Reading through Will Durant's Story Of Civilization, I've noticed that there's frequently a strong attraction to belief in one god. At first the idea is too abstract but eventually it wins over, e.g., Christianity, Islam. But in India, even after invasion after invasion (the Moguls, Portuguese, French, British)  and even after competing religions enter the scene (Buddhism), Hinduism and it's stadium of gods survives and strengthens. For every new god Hinduism would just swallow it up and explain it as a reincarnation of some other God and win over. How is this?
    Does anyone think it may have something to do with the epics, i.e., the Ramayana & Mahabharata?
     
  7. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from softwareNerd in Studying the story of civilization   
    I watched a few documentaries.
    I decided to experiment fleshing out the material by involving myself in activities related to the texts I'm reading, e.g., workshops on pottery, iron forging, woodwork. Then I might try salt and preserve fish & meat from the market, hand grind grains and later (when I study mechanics) build a mechanical grinder. Given the range of activities there is a limit on what I can do, but just by doing a workshop for a week or even a day I'll achieve the goal of loading up my mind with smell, taste, touch which I think will help me retain and take a more lively interest in the material. 
    Something else I learned (in a more concrete way) from recently building a road bike from recycled scraps is that because knowledge is so tightly integrated, principles from one field often link or even build on another. E.g, by learning to build a bicycle from scratch you'll get a better understanding of a drive chain, gearing and leverage and the wheel; if you take an interest in cars you have already set yourself up for some basics and then just need to learn about hydraulics and the internal combustion engine. Think Peugeot and other early car makers—they all started with the bicycle and then went an to add the internal combustion engine. 
    Anyway, this is my approach. It may pan out an unreasonable adventure time-wise, but I can adjust, and I'll have fun.
  8. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from softwareNerd in Thoughts on reading fiction inspired by Peikoff's lecture   
    I posted this in a student's lounge for a writing course I'm currently enrolled in. I wanted to share it because (1) it was inspired by Peikoff's lecture, the survival value of great (thought philosophically false) art, (2) there are some posters here who's feedback I'd love, (3) reading Ayn Rand has inspired me to do and be so much more than I once was. After listening to that lecture I've been away studying and trying to make myself less floating, philosophically speaking. 
     
     
    What does reading fiction offer you? What do you think it can offer?
     
    I get more than just enjoyment out of a novel. While I don’t think education is the primary purpose of a novel, I don’t think it’s coincidental either. Some stories show me people I don’t normally meet and stir me up to question myself and my relationships. Sometimes they show me people I do meet, or at least isolated aspects of people that I meet, and then I find myself striving to think over some particular mannerism or action, that on its own is totally random, but viewed in context of the person’s overall character, should have some meaning and is not to be overlooked. The example I’ve heard and like is the wife who takes out the trash. Wives don’t seem to spend much of their time taking out the trash in stories. And yet, in life, they do it every day. But a book is focusing on what’s important about the person, their thoughts and actions that have meaning. Some books relate everything to the theme. Nothing is coincidence. It’s an art to do that. Imagine the poor soul who lives with his beautiful wife and forgets the good, the amazing and the special, only to become acutely aware of her daily task of trash disposal. I think reading can help reorientate our focus, for better, by leaning a little on the authors artistic skill. The walking sticks range from odd, lyrical and violent (Burgess), to dirty, drunk and raging (a la Dostoevsky), to sharp, radical and scientific (Rand) to everything else; every one of them gives us a chance to lean on and walk, exploring the world, with a different perspective. Isn’t that amazing? Just observe yourself in any situation—where, and to what, do your thoughts go? Any book is similarly wrapped in that thought-stuff and emotional perspective you feel around you all day, but can’t really break down into small analysable bits, and we literally get to jump into the mind of another when we read!  
     
    I’m not done yet talking about the educational value. There’s style and expression, too. I find, and I don’t know why yet, sometimes I’ll mentally latch on and become addicted to a certain author’s way of writing. He or she might not even be writing about a topic I’m particular excited about, but I’ll become addicted to their phrasing. I’ll write down phrases and sentences for later review. There’s something beautiful in a way they’ve expressed something I’ve felt or thought before, and here they are, giving to me words (so cheaply!) to something that otherwise may have taken me years to give form to. I take it and eat it all up, without manners. A lion is made up of the lambs he has digested. Heard that? I’ve often been so impressed with an author’s ability to dress up his thoughts that I start eating the same things that the characters in his book eat—a pea soup phase in my life because of London’s Martin Eden, eggs and toast with jam because of Burgess’s Clockwork Orange—secretly hoping to be mentally closer to the author.
     
    There’s benefit beyond just expression though, and that’s thought. When you take something as fleeting as a feeling and give it shape you’re doing the equivalent of painting and preserving a mental picture for future inspection and viewing (or expression). You can always refer back to it as a witness or judge, build on it with new linking chains of thought, and also correct yourself with it.
     
    There’s more, but I’m all over the place right now and my shoulder’s aching and I feel that I want to talk about inspiration, which is perhaps the primary purpose of a book. Good stories can inspire and fuel you. They can feed you when you’re starving. They don’t even need happy endings to do it. This is rare, but it’s a type of pick-me-up better than any best friend, motivational speaker or football star can give. It’s the type of pick-me-up relaunching you through life like a fiery rocket burning everything up in its path. Hooray to books and reading and fiction and writing! How exciting is all of this? 
  9. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from DonAthos in Thoughts on reading fiction inspired by Peikoff's lecture   
    I posted this in a student's lounge for a writing course I'm currently enrolled in. I wanted to share it because (1) it was inspired by Peikoff's lecture, the survival value of great (thought philosophically false) art, (2) there are some posters here who's feedback I'd love, (3) reading Ayn Rand has inspired me to do and be so much more than I once was. After listening to that lecture I've been away studying and trying to make myself less floating, philosophically speaking. 
     
     
    What does reading fiction offer you? What do you think it can offer?
     
    I get more than just enjoyment out of a novel. While I don’t think education is the primary purpose of a novel, I don’t think it’s coincidental either. Some stories show me people I don’t normally meet and stir me up to question myself and my relationships. Sometimes they show me people I do meet, or at least isolated aspects of people that I meet, and then I find myself striving to think over some particular mannerism or action, that on its own is totally random, but viewed in context of the person’s overall character, should have some meaning and is not to be overlooked. The example I’ve heard and like is the wife who takes out the trash. Wives don’t seem to spend much of their time taking out the trash in stories. And yet, in life, they do it every day. But a book is focusing on what’s important about the person, their thoughts and actions that have meaning. Some books relate everything to the theme. Nothing is coincidence. It’s an art to do that. Imagine the poor soul who lives with his beautiful wife and forgets the good, the amazing and the special, only to become acutely aware of her daily task of trash disposal. I think reading can help reorientate our focus, for better, by leaning a little on the authors artistic skill. The walking sticks range from odd, lyrical and violent (Burgess), to dirty, drunk and raging (a la Dostoevsky), to sharp, radical and scientific (Rand) to everything else; every one of them gives us a chance to lean on and walk, exploring the world, with a different perspective. Isn’t that amazing? Just observe yourself in any situation—where, and to what, do your thoughts go? Any book is similarly wrapped in that thought-stuff and emotional perspective you feel around you all day, but can’t really break down into small analysable bits, and we literally get to jump into the mind of another when we read!  
     
    I’m not done yet talking about the educational value. There’s style and expression, too. I find, and I don’t know why yet, sometimes I’ll mentally latch on and become addicted to a certain author’s way of writing. He or she might not even be writing about a topic I’m particular excited about, but I’ll become addicted to their phrasing. I’ll write down phrases and sentences for later review. There’s something beautiful in a way they’ve expressed something I’ve felt or thought before, and here they are, giving to me words (so cheaply!) to something that otherwise may have taken me years to give form to. I take it and eat it all up, without manners. A lion is made up of the lambs he has digested. Heard that? I’ve often been so impressed with an author’s ability to dress up his thoughts that I start eating the same things that the characters in his book eat—a pea soup phase in my life because of London’s Martin Eden, eggs and toast with jam because of Burgess’s Clockwork Orange—secretly hoping to be mentally closer to the author.
     
    There’s benefit beyond just expression though, and that’s thought. When you take something as fleeting as a feeling and give it shape you’re doing the equivalent of painting and preserving a mental picture for future inspection and viewing (or expression). You can always refer back to it as a witness or judge, build on it with new linking chains of thought, and also correct yourself with it.
     
    There’s more, but I’m all over the place right now and my shoulder’s aching and I feel that I want to talk about inspiration, which is perhaps the primary purpose of a book. Good stories can inspire and fuel you. They can feed you when you’re starving. They don’t even need happy endings to do it. This is rare, but it’s a type of pick-me-up better than any best friend, motivational speaker or football star can give. It’s the type of pick-me-up relaunching you through life like a fiery rocket burning everything up in its path. Hooray to books and reading and fiction and writing! How exciting is all of this? 
  10. Like
    LoBagola reacted to Peter Morris in Self-educating in the big four: History, Physics, Maths, Literature   
    No way. It may actually be the most perfect introduction to physics ever written. Harriman explains all the details, and there is very little mathematics involved. I felt for the first time I could actually understand physics, not only what it was, but the actual physics, and I also felt a true appreciation for what the early physicists had done. The history of science is actually like a fascinating mystery story, but academia manages to make it into a dry process of boring calculations and memorization.
     
    Just to name a few things, I understood for the first time in my life what a vector was and why it was important, why it had to be invented, and why a circling body is actually accelerating. I finally understood what F = ma actually means. I grasped the non-intuitive nature of 'mass' and why it had to be invented as a concept distinct from weight or 'heaviness'. None of that ever made any sense to me in high school or later. It was so simple and actually ridiculously interesting.
  11. Like
    LoBagola reacted to softwareNerd in Self-educating in the big four: History, Physics, Maths, Literature   
    You need to drive this by what you already know, and what you will find interesting. Does Physics interest you more than History? Have you always want to learn more about electricity, or nuclear physics, or electronics? 
    You can either dive in to something specific or take an approach that gives you broader coverage. You can even mix the two. I think it also depends on which approach you will find more interesting. Diving in is usually more meaty: for instance reading a bio of Napoleon. Yet, one needs to have some idea of the broad picture, so you can peg your specific knowledge. 
     
    In my case, with history, I used a couple of really basic texts to get an overview of American History (I'm talking about text books that cover the entire history in under 200 pages of light text aimed at middle-schoolers). If you did your schooling in the U.S., you probably don't need this. After that, I dove into areas that interest me in U.S. history: the biographies of the founders, the biographies of certain famous industrialists, the history of the great-depression era, and the civil war.  Little else interests me in U.S. history, though I did also look at U.S. in the middle-east. In Europe, a lot is available in English about the English kings, particularly Henry-VIII and Elizabeth. Lots is available on Greek and Roman history: if anything, Objectivists are likely to give this more importance that is due. Eastern history is understandably given short shrift in the west, but it does not make sense to pass it over, if one wants a picture of the world, particularly if one is looking more than a thousand years ago, where the East (Persia, India and China) were  important. Along with books, I like to get historical movies that are fun, but do not stray too far from reality. Along with those, I use the Wikipedia as the place to get a broad overview, and other sources for specifics.
     
    One could also take a more systematic approach. A simple way would be to say that by the end of the year you will be able to answer the AP US History test to your satisfaction. Or, the AP World History test. setting up an aim like this means you will find books that teach the subject, and you can even get sets of 500 flashcards that can act as 500 google searches to take you down all sorts of paths. Or, you could look at things this way: ask yourself what countries in the world have the highest populations, what countries have the highest GDPs, what are the two most important countries on each of the continents. Then, for each of these, do you have a Wikipedia-level overview of their history. 
     
    If one wants to be a well-educated consumer of news then a smattering of world-history can be  based. On that, you should really add a little more depth of world-history since WW-1, because that is what really moves events today (Paul Johnson's - Modern Times is a great book for that, because it touches on all areas of the world, but also give color.)
  12. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from softwareNerd in Why moments matter: concertizing elements of your sense of life   
    I think we can better motivate ourselves to take interest in thinking abstractly about morality by understanding, on a much more intuitive, concrete level how it relates to sense of life. I think I've been able to do this and consequently have taken much greater interest in morality and introspection.
     
    I'll give a simple example. Last week, while rushing to a meeting, I reversed into a blind-spot pole in a high-rise parking lot. I'm going to tell you that had I moved out of home at age eighteen (instead of 26) I would likely have not reversed into that pole. Hear me out. 
     
    Every moment you spend doing the wrong thing (morally) you accumulate and internalize an attitude, behavior and train yourself to mentally focus on the incorrect aspects of your perceptual and conceptual field (the standard being reality). 
     
    I bought my car from my parents. It's a nice car. I did legitimately buy it (at a discounted price, but still a reasonable one). But did I really earn it? I did, but not in the fullest sense of the term. Had I been paying rent and trying to make my own way I probably wouldn't have bought that car. And if I did buy a car every accident would hurt so much more: a $300 repair bill would really hurt emotionally, because that's a lot of my time in work hours. It hurts less when I'm at home. So after your first accident your level of alertness and care for your car would drastically increase in the situation that your not at home vs. the one that you are. I was rushing to a meeting, yes; but, subconsciously my sense of priorities and what I choose to focus on is vastly different in both scenarios. 
     
    Every moment I spent at home also helped develop my personality. When your sense of the value of money is determined by an income you make while living at home, your sense of the value of time is also affected. What I find interesting and worth my time would be much different had I moved out at eighteen. Without even knowing what it is I'd find interesting, I'd say it would be better because it's based on the requirements of reality: needing to earn a living, make your own way in the world, not pretending to feel a love that you don't feel. And with that latter point my approach and attitude to relationships would change and so would my friends.
     
    This is just one example. I can come up with so many more where I feel like I'm clearly seeing how small decisions compound throughout your life and result in the sum total of who you are. I pick-up on subtle feelings and can often connect them to a string of events in my life now. This is motivating. It makes you want to study ideas, to learn as much as you can and be as good as you can. Experiences, feelings, knowledge that you would have never even conceived of opens up to you when you step down this path. 
  13. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from JASKN in Lying in order to get time off work   
    For those that are interested, I'll be update this later with my decisions and the events and psychological state of mind that follow. 
  14. Like
    LoBagola reacted to Harrison Danneskjold in Vague and lazy propositions as mentally destructive   
    The expression invariably contains the implicit ". . . as the last time I saw you," without the specification of how.
     
    Everyone is different in some ways but not in others.  Which traits are unique, is not specified.
    It's good to give back, sometimes; it's good to repay a cashier before leaving their store.  What makes it good is unspecified.
     
    All of these are propositions about someone's character; the nature of their mind (including "giving back" since morality requires a human mind).  Specifically, each of these characterizations are phrased intrinsically; as if recognizing someone's virtue were no different from recognizing the color of their eyes.
     
    This is not only an intrinsicist characterization; it also demonstrates the cognitive consequences you mentioned.
     
    To criticize yourself can be beneficial, as emotional fuel for improvement.  But improvement is a type of change, and in order to change something you have to first understand it.
    Now, if you fail at dancing and generalize "I'm a bad dancer" then the identification of what you dislike allows you to learn about it.  You can analyze that fact and gradually come to understand what causes it, which allows you to change it.  But if you fail at dancing and generalize "I'm bad" then you've already set yourself up for failure.  There is nothing productive to be learned about that.
    . . . . .
     
    So that sort of intrinsic reasoning is one of the effects of bad philosophy, on everyday people.  It isn't particularly unique or noteworthy, except when it enters into moral judgments; at which point it is dangerous.
    The solution is simply to apply a better epistemology to such thoughts.
  15. Like
    LoBagola reacted to StrictlyLogical in Emotions and symbols   
    LoBagola
     
     
    Words in and of themselves do not elicit emotions generally primarily because a contextless word is nearly meaningless.  "Anger" could mean your anger towards abuse of power or a child's anger towards a square peg not fitting in a round hole.  Without the context you do not and cannot know whether to fume or to laugh.
     
    Statements however and conceptualization are not merely word play or games of the mind they are in reference to reality.  Being a fully integrated and alive person means that your concepts and your thinking are not divorced from reality, they are connected to it, and more importantly to your own personal life. 
     
    Concretization is an important part of chewing on any concept or idea or chain of thinking.  If you get in the exercise of making it real (as to opposed to disconnected by way of some false dichotomy) your emotions and your intelligence will be more in synch and integrated.
     
    There is no abstract thought "If I get in a terrible accident and lose both arms" as apart from the concrete realization from b4lls to bone of what it would be like and how you would feel to experience that accident and also live the rest of your life.  The mere "fact" of losing the arms is necessarily tied by causation to how it would affect you and to "think" about the fact while ignoring causal consequences, the real personal ones, is some kind of failure of integration and concretization.
     
    So if you have the inclination, try to indulge in fully concretizing ideas when you can. 
  16. Like
    LoBagola reacted to dream_weaver in Inducting/Integrating the concept of "principles"   
    Fundamental and primary could be used fairly synonymously here, but general usually speaks more broadly.
     
    Fundamental would appear to lay at the root of all generalizations.
    Primary would rest on the fundamentals, but serve as the basis within selective branches. Volition, is fundamental to epistemology, but primary resting on being a corollary of consciousness.
    General then, would be a derivative induction that would rely on primary and or fundamental inductions that would lead to principles such as honesty, independence, justice,  productivity, etc.
     
     
    Edited: Added.
  17. Like
    LoBagola reacted to Harrison Danneskjold in Inducting/Integrating the concept of "principles"   
    Your choice is not whether to hold principles or not; it's which to hold.  Even if someone wanted to abandon all principles (as some people do)- the rejection of principles, itself, is a principle.
    You are correct that principles precede ethics.  What we refer to as 'principles' in ethics (honesty, integrity, etc.) stem from epistemological generalizations.  We all must live by principles (though not necessarily any particular principle) because concept-formation itself is an inductive process of generalization.
     
    The nature of your own mind.
    And anyone who asserts that principles aren't valid, as such, is trying to escape themselves.
     
    In your second criterion (I have nothing to add to Dream Weaver's explanation of the first)   the essential thing to notice is not that other things depend on it (because they don't always), but that it's a generalization which can apply to a wide variety of situations.
     
    A principle is a generalized proposition.  So the assertion "all men are mortal" is a principle because:
    It's a proposition which links the concepts of "man" and "mortality" together in a certain way It's generalized across "all men" The assertion that "some men are mortal" is a proposition, but not a principle.  The proposition that "all women are bad drivers" would be a principle, but not a correct one; the same for the principle that "all compromise is good".
     
    Well, first let's define the "principle of honesty".
    If you were attempting to explain to a small child why they should not lie, what else would you have to explain first?
  18. Like
    LoBagola reacted to JASKN in THE PRINCIPLE(S) BEHIND THE DEAN   
    Those people may just be lightweights. For a lightweight, drinking is one experience: a struggle against getting too drunk. One minute you're doing normal things in a social context, and the next, after consuming very little alcohol and at a time not of your choosing, you're trying to figure out how you'll put your drink down without knocking all the drinks on the table over. And, oh yeah, you needed to go to the restroom, you forgot (even though you really needed to go). Someone averts your attention and you have a time formulating a reply while the world around you is pulling your attention in now-exaggerated ways... And you forgot about the restroom again! Eventually you struggle to find the restroom and you struggle with the staircase and you struggle with the doorknob -- oops you forgot to turn the light on and now the door's shut with you in darkness. Fumbling for the light, where was that...

    All of this could be summed up as, "No, I don't like not being in control.."
  19. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from softwareNerd in THE PRINCIPLE(S) BEHIND THE DEAN   
    In the Fountainhead Roark takes notice of peculiar behaviour in others, which he then mentally files away. Once he’s collected enough information, he integrates and identifies a principle underlying that behaviour.  I have done this myself (see the patterns of ego dependency post), with some additional mental files I want to share. In sharing I’m hoping others may have seen this and may provide some insight into the underlying psychology. I'll update this as I learn more.
     
    The Label
    In casual conversation with a hairdresser. I tell him how I used to live in a gay suburb and I always found it so fun and funny to get hit on every day when I went for a walk. He then launched into a really strange string. Something like  “People shouldn’t label. Gay / Lesbian / Straight they’re just labels. It limits you. Labels are bad. It puts you in that category.” I tried to get him to elaborate, but he couldn’t. I feel like I’ve heard this before a few times, but variations of.
     
    The ramble
    A few times I’ve spoken with people well-read or very interested in philosophy. Not eastern philosophy types who say “we are just vibrations”, but the type who like Wittgenstein or Gadamer’s hermeneutics. It hasn’t happened often, since it’s just hard to find these people. But when it has happened I’ve noticed they will never directly answer any questions I ask. Or they talk SO much that I have no idea with what we even began.
    E.g. Philosopher says he doesn’t agree with Rand’s principles.
    Me: “What principles?”
    Guy:  Launches into really random 5 minute shpiel on the mind and hermeneutics, analogue, digital and heuristics.
    Me: So you think man cannot accurately form concepts?
    Guy: Another 5 min shpiel about things I can’t remember
    Me: “So you disagree with the principle of rationality?”
    Guy: “Yes…” Goes on talking about hermeneutics and how knowledge is prejudice (prejudice apparently with another meaning, not the one used today).
    This wasn’t an argument. I was just asking questions – but I’m confused how someone could be so up in the clouds and not ever give a solid answer to anything. This has happened before.  Actually one thing that appealed to me with Rand was that everything seemed to be straight to the point so I could read a passage and say “no” or “yes, makes sense”  or “what else am I missing here?” whereas everything else is just this stew of confusion and I’m left wondering what I even read.
     
     
    Dirty Hairy Hippy Lovers
    People who go to those outdoor music festivals where people smoke weed or the spiritual festivals where they do lots of chakra meditations and interactive activities like walking around telling everyone you love them, randomly holding hands and hugging everyone. There’s some commonality to the people who go here.  They love telling randoms they love them, or having randoms they love them, they love that everyone hugs one another and smiles and holds hands. “That’s what society should be like! That’s what things should be like!” Now FWIW I once went through a phase where I’d go to trance festivals and I didn’t feel anything except a desire to fit in, and try be all “chill” and “cool” about everything – which I cringe at looking back at it. Also the whole vibe of tranquillity felt feigned and stressed, so much so that it scares me a little.
     
    Ghosts
    People who believe in ghosts or swear they’ve seen one. With God I think I can understand this more, since a lot of us were taught to believe in it as children. I came from a somewhat religious background, but most people I know from that background actually are just unsure – “agnostic”. But with ghosts or fairies or other random shit it just seems so arbitrary. And yet I’ve met people who said they have actually seen it. Or somehow are convinced a light flickering means a ghost is in the house. Or who swear the Ouji board moved when they were with friends and it surely was a ghost. I know it seems quite crazy, but one of those people in particular, was extraordinarily intelligent and what I’d describe as a very unique, strong and peculiar individual. So that just left me confused.
     
    I’m not sure about this one – but if I steal myself into old memories I had as a child lying. I remember making up some bull shit about being kidnapped by aliens, and in that moment I really wanted to believe it. I almost made myself believe it – like I had some weird emotional state change. I wanted to believe it (for whatever reason), so I told people this story.  I don’t know why I wanted to believe it… and I think that’s the key.
     
    Don’t judge
    You know people who always say “don’t judge”. I don’t know – depends on context, but sometimes it’s said with this kind of whingy love-all vibe that I don’t like at all and just makes me fucking angry.
     
     
    Feeling small
    This one’s in the Fountainhead
    “It’s interesting to speculate on the reasons that make men so anxious to debase themselves. As in that idea of feeling small before nature. It’s not a bromide, it’s practically an institution. Have you noticed how self-righteous a man sounds when he tells you about it? Look, he seems to say, I’m so glad to be a pigmy, that’s how virtuous I am. Have you heard with what delight people quote some great celebrity who’s proclaimed that he’s not so great when he looks at Niagara Falls? It’s as if they were smacking their lips in sheer glee that their best is dust before the brute force of an earthquake. As if they were sprawling on all fours, rubbing their foreheads in the mud to the majesty of a hurricane. But that’s not the spirit that leashed fire, steam, electricity, that crossed oceans in sailing sloops, that built airplanes and dams ... and skyscrapers. What is it they fear? What is it they hate so much, those who love to crawl? And why?”
     
    I’ve heard it expressed a lot by friends and randoms. They love the feeling they get when they see the wider universe, and see how small man is, and how their concerns and life doesn’t matter in the big scheme. And yet some of these people are very successful, intelligent, socially confident. You’d expect reading Rand that anyone irrational will be weak, confused, shy and yet so many of the strongest, socially confident, fun, intelligent people I’ve met have shown a lot of these random traits.
  20. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from muhuk in THE PRINCIPLE(S) BEHIND THE DEAN   
    In the Fountainhead Roark takes notice of peculiar behaviour in others, which he then mentally files away. Once he’s collected enough information, he integrates and identifies a principle underlying that behaviour.  I have done this myself (see the patterns of ego dependency post), with some additional mental files I want to share. In sharing I’m hoping others may have seen this and may provide some insight into the underlying psychology. I'll update this as I learn more.
     
    The Label
    In casual conversation with a hairdresser. I tell him how I used to live in a gay suburb and I always found it so fun and funny to get hit on every day when I went for a walk. He then launched into a really strange string. Something like  “People shouldn’t label. Gay / Lesbian / Straight they’re just labels. It limits you. Labels are bad. It puts you in that category.” I tried to get him to elaborate, but he couldn’t. I feel like I’ve heard this before a few times, but variations of.
     
    The ramble
    A few times I’ve spoken with people well-read or very interested in philosophy. Not eastern philosophy types who say “we are just vibrations”, but the type who like Wittgenstein or Gadamer’s hermeneutics. It hasn’t happened often, since it’s just hard to find these people. But when it has happened I’ve noticed they will never directly answer any questions I ask. Or they talk SO much that I have no idea with what we even began.
    E.g. Philosopher says he doesn’t agree with Rand’s principles.
    Me: “What principles?”
    Guy:  Launches into really random 5 minute shpiel on the mind and hermeneutics, analogue, digital and heuristics.
    Me: So you think man cannot accurately form concepts?
    Guy: Another 5 min shpiel about things I can’t remember
    Me: “So you disagree with the principle of rationality?”
    Guy: “Yes…” Goes on talking about hermeneutics and how knowledge is prejudice (prejudice apparently with another meaning, not the one used today).
    This wasn’t an argument. I was just asking questions – but I’m confused how someone could be so up in the clouds and not ever give a solid answer to anything. This has happened before.  Actually one thing that appealed to me with Rand was that everything seemed to be straight to the point so I could read a passage and say “no” or “yes, makes sense”  or “what else am I missing here?” whereas everything else is just this stew of confusion and I’m left wondering what I even read.
     
     
    Dirty Hairy Hippy Lovers
    People who go to those outdoor music festivals where people smoke weed or the spiritual festivals where they do lots of chakra meditations and interactive activities like walking around telling everyone you love them, randomly holding hands and hugging everyone. There’s some commonality to the people who go here.  They love telling randoms they love them, or having randoms they love them, they love that everyone hugs one another and smiles and holds hands. “That’s what society should be like! That’s what things should be like!” Now FWIW I once went through a phase where I’d go to trance festivals and I didn’t feel anything except a desire to fit in, and try be all “chill” and “cool” about everything – which I cringe at looking back at it. Also the whole vibe of tranquillity felt feigned and stressed, so much so that it scares me a little.
     
    Ghosts
    People who believe in ghosts or swear they’ve seen one. With God I think I can understand this more, since a lot of us were taught to believe in it as children. I came from a somewhat religious background, but most people I know from that background actually are just unsure – “agnostic”. But with ghosts or fairies or other random shit it just seems so arbitrary. And yet I’ve met people who said they have actually seen it. Or somehow are convinced a light flickering means a ghost is in the house. Or who swear the Ouji board moved when they were with friends and it surely was a ghost. I know it seems quite crazy, but one of those people in particular, was extraordinarily intelligent and what I’d describe as a very unique, strong and peculiar individual. So that just left me confused.
     
    I’m not sure about this one – but if I steal myself into old memories I had as a child lying. I remember making up some bull shit about being kidnapped by aliens, and in that moment I really wanted to believe it. I almost made myself believe it – like I had some weird emotional state change. I wanted to believe it (for whatever reason), so I told people this story.  I don’t know why I wanted to believe it… and I think that’s the key.
     
    Don’t judge
    You know people who always say “don’t judge”. I don’t know – depends on context, but sometimes it’s said with this kind of whingy love-all vibe that I don’t like at all and just makes me fucking angry.
     
     
    Feeling small
    This one’s in the Fountainhead
    “It’s interesting to speculate on the reasons that make men so anxious to debase themselves. As in that idea of feeling small before nature. It’s not a bromide, it’s practically an institution. Have you noticed how self-righteous a man sounds when he tells you about it? Look, he seems to say, I’m so glad to be a pigmy, that’s how virtuous I am. Have you heard with what delight people quote some great celebrity who’s proclaimed that he’s not so great when he looks at Niagara Falls? It’s as if they were smacking their lips in sheer glee that their best is dust before the brute force of an earthquake. As if they were sprawling on all fours, rubbing their foreheads in the mud to the majesty of a hurricane. But that’s not the spirit that leashed fire, steam, electricity, that crossed oceans in sailing sloops, that built airplanes and dams ... and skyscrapers. What is it they fear? What is it they hate so much, those who love to crawl? And why?”
     
    I’ve heard it expressed a lot by friends and randoms. They love the feeling they get when they see the wider universe, and see how small man is, and how their concerns and life doesn’t matter in the big scheme. And yet some of these people are very successful, intelligent, socially confident. You’d expect reading Rand that anyone irrational will be weak, confused, shy and yet so many of the strongest, socially confident, fun, intelligent people I’ve met have shown a lot of these random traits.
  21. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from dream_weaver in Patterns of ego dependency   
    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
    I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference.
     
    -- Robert Frost
     
    A popular quote. Power derived from others. He took the road less travelled... Maybe it was the one he really wanted, maybe it wasn't. The point is he emphasised that it was less travelled, by others. A while ago I would have used this to make me feel better about any less popular or common view I held.
     
    It's funny because everyone I talk to likes to take the road less travelled. In order to hold a sense of esteem we have to feel superior to others in some vague undefined way. But it's built on a shaky foundation. It requires you to evade so much and miss out on so much good too. With that said, it's not like there is much out there (in terms of resources) to help you built up a solid foundation.
  22. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from softwareNerd in How bad is the modern man?   
    Dominique Francon, the Fountainhead, Page 143
     
    I understand that the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are trying to contrast moral perfection vs degeneracy through illustration, but I'm curious if Rand felt this way about the men around her? If you do? 
    I look around and see a lot of really hard working people doing well within the context of their knowledge. The fact that someone supports all kinds of welfare programs and states to believes in altruism doesn't mean they're evil. I remember a friend once told me rich people should pay to help the poor and that actually hurt me, worried me about mankind in general and made me angry. I felt like I was being attacked, that everything good was being attacked but within the context of her knowledge and conceptual development maybe it wasn't evil. 
     
    I'm thinking to when I first read OPAR and it took me over a month to accept the identity axiom. I was in such a state of mental confusion that I'd ask "well how do I actually know a leaf can't be red and green at the same time? sure I see that it is, but how do I know that it actually is?". If it takes me over a month of study to understand that then how can we call anyone else evil when they support all kinds of ideas which could be considered evil, e.g. altruism. 
     
    I hear so many irrational things every day and it used to drive me nuts but now I'm thinking there's so much room for real human error which I never gave much thought. I used to hate the common saying "don't judge" (in the non-religious context) - and I still do. But now I'm thinking it came about because we have all these arbitrary standards that make no sense and it is actually extremely difficult to evaluate the entire moral character of a man.
     
    What is your view on the moral character of mankind in general and the men and women around your life (not necessarily in your life)?
     
     
  23. Like
    LoBagola got a reaction from softwareNerd in Not abdicating choice in social situations   
    I really like the idea of changing one's sense of life for the better through consistently facing irrational fears; I've implemented big changes in my own personality with large success through somewhat unconventional methods. There is one thing I'd like to bring up in the hopes for some feedback and discussion on something I've recently thought about and picked up from Atlas Shrugged and a friend. I'm hoping to integrate it into the rest of my knowledge because right now it's kind of floating around.
     
    I have a friend who I communicate with very openly and we always try to cut out the "maybe's" and "i guess" from our language. Obviously in some context it is necessary. I could refer to one specific example. Say someone asks you out instead of saying "maybe, we'll see" (which me and my friend both find extremely annoying) we say "I'll let you know by 5PM" or just "no, thank you". If your not sure, give yourself time to decide and make a definite decision. A lot of the time people seem to be happy getting pinched and pulled around in social situations without any direction of their own.
     
    Then I read this. It's exactly what me and my friend were discussing (although she has never read Rand or knows anything about Objectivism).
    This is the scene where Dagny talks to a vagrant she meets on her way to Ohio.
     
    THIS is what I feel like we were getting at.But I can't connect what it is yet. I just have a series of patterns / images of certain interactions in my mind.
     
    Here are some more of my own examples:
     
    “What do you feeling like doing?” (1) “I don’t know. I’m easy, man.”   “Where do you want to go for dinner?” (2) “I’m okay with whatever, man.”   “God, this gig sucks!” (3) “Yeah…”    (1)
    It's really frustrating when people just leave you to make all the decisions (I used to do this). They are just happy floating around letting someone make a decision which they will then perhaps criticize. I've thought that it's better to make a bold decision then just sit there waiting for someone to decide. This doesn't mean you won't negotiate if someone offers something else. It simply means your stepping up and taking responsibility and not floating around.
     
     
    (2)
    Same as above. Better make bold decisions.
     
    (3)
    Although it doesn't seem unrelated it's the same. It's like your throwing crap onto the other person - "do something!". It would be better if you said "this gig sucks LETS DO X" where x is another bar or some game you can play in the one you are already in.
     
     
     
     
    I have also connected these patterns or specific interactions to the article "the psychology of psychological" where a key principle is not leaving others to untangle your neurosis through being clear in communication (which I think requires introspective skills).   Examples of leaving others to untangle your neurosis:   “If you can’t do that, what good are you?” Say this instead: "I'm upset that you can't do *this*. I feel like it would be really useful if you had that skill because..."   “you ALWAYS do this!” Say this instead: "It really frustrates me when you do *this*. You also did it *then* and *that* time (specify). It frustrates me because... I think it would better serve you (or me) if you did this instead or looked into it... I'm willing to help"      “It’s okay, I guess” Say this instead: "Give me more time to think about it"     I have achieved this kind of open and clear communication with one person in my life but I never got to explore it in depth as they had to leave to go overseas. I'm trying to integrate it all into one idea because I feel there are connections among a lot of these. There is much more but it's not clear enough in my mind to post yet.      
     
       
     
  24. Like
    LoBagola reacted to bluecherry in Understanding Francisco's sex speech   
    "It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value."
    In this case, I believe this is referring to how it is nigh on impossible for one to force oneself to be attracted to somebody. Your real self, as opposed to whoever you may try to pretend to be, and thus your real values is what will determine who you will be attracted to. If you aren't attracted, it will be a hell of a lot harder to have sex with somebody even if you try. Your body will be resistant to responding with the physical changes that generally come with arousal. Maybe if enough manual stimulation is applied something will happen, but not like how it can happen without manual stimulation if one is attracted, random coincidences aside. Physically, one's real self's real values are just what one will automatically respond to. It isn't a case of consciously adopting a standard for some purpose.
     
    "He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it."
    This has to do with the necessity of feeling good about oneself, of feeling like you've earned it, like you deserve it. If one doesn't feel like he or she is worthy, then one just really isn't going to feel up to having sex. Just can't get in the mood, can't really enjoy it much. A sense of guilt will detract from the experience, if one gets as far as doing it at all.
     
    "Like attracts like, i.e. sense of life attracts similar sense of life."
    You prefer being around things and people you think are proper (not as in up tight) and correct as opposed to the opposite, yes? Being constantly subjected to things one holds to be incorrect and just not how things should be is just downright irritating at the least.
     
    "What is meant by 'fraud'?"
    In this case, it's pretending to be something you aren't, to others and/or yourself.
     
    Ooooh, yeah, child abuse victims. That's a bit of a different case than usual. Being abused as a kid can do a major number on one's psyche. These things are happening and having a huge impact on somebody while their brain is still developing. It can be pretty darn difficult to get recovered from the damage done to a person's psyche when they went through major trauma as a kid even once somebody is an adult. Heck, it may be harder to make progress on recovering from these things when one is an adult due to the brain having largely stabilized by that time, making it harder to make changes for the better. When a child abuse victim winds up attracted to people they hate, it isn't a choice like how one chooses something off a restaurant menu or chooses what shoes to put on before leaving the house. Attraction is a feeling that works like all other emotions. They are controlled only indirectly by working on one's conscious thoughts and then getting them integrated into one's subconscious where they make automatic evaluations of things as positive or negative. Though, really that's true of how attraction works for anybody, not just child abuse victims. Anyway, somebody hurt this person, it wasn't consensual, so lingering effects that somebody is having a hard time repairing I would not say are something they should be judged badly morally for. I blame the abuser(s) for that and just hope the victim will eventually heal more. This is just speculation since I don't know the girl you spoke of of course, but from what little you've said it sounds like maybe she has some lingering self-esteem problems still in there somewhere. People who think they are crap will seek out people who treat them thusly.
     
    “Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love.”
    Well, if love without desire is best then any desire for anybody one may love would be tainting and degrading it. Sexual feelings and desires are a pretty natural part of being a human though, they don't just go right away if one puts a blockade in front of the normal route trying to protect what is at the end of that road. So, desire, looking for another outlet, latches onto those one doesn't love. As for the "only" part, I'm assuming that for somebody who does not regard sexual desire as bad for love then anybody one doesn't love would always seem like an inferior option sexually, just not interesting, like "Why bother when there's better available?"
     
    " . . . women does he respect and why does he feel nothing for her?"
    Mystic of the mind type. The "body is bad" or "body isn't real, doesn't count" type. Why attraction to a type he regards as lowly, but not to those he regards as virtuous? See paragraph above. The body responding to those this person regards as lowly then is taken as further evidence of why the body is bad and thus further feeds into causing the attraction to those he regards as bad and not those he regards as good.
     
    "What is the triple fraud?"
    ". . . He will not acknowledge his need of self-esteem, since he scoffs at such a concept as moral values; . . .  He tries to gain a sense of his own value from the women who surrender to him. . . . He tells himself that all he’s after is physical pleasure . . ."
     
    "Does she mean that he likes to imagine that they like his mind and share his values?"
    Hmm? No, I think it's more like they want to imagine it going something along the lines of, "I don't approve of these kinds of things, but . . . but . . . you're just so AWESOME, I'mma make an exception for you. Yep, you are that awesome." Why the person is "awesome" may be unspecified, probably something along the lines of being seen as cool and good looking though. Not really getting into much of anything intellectual.
     
    I obviously haven't addressed everything in your post here, but it's 3:30 AM. Somebody else can do the rest when the sun is out.
  25. Like
    LoBagola reacted to iouswuoibev in Humor: why do we find something funny?   
    Comedy is illogic. It is the art of contradictory identification. Its purpose is to allow us to enjoy the undercutting, intellectually or physically, of what we regard as wrong, bad, bizarre, inane, stupid, silly and irrational. When you have decided what is right, good, expected, sensible, serious and rational, you free your mind to assert and recognise its antithesis. Your sense of humour is, in fact, your sense of right and wrong. Humour is your value judgements.

    There is an objective sense of humour. This is why people who don't share the same sense of humour often can't help feeling dislike for each other. What a man laughs at, is a reflection of his humour, irrespective of what his consciously held or verbally professed beliefs are. This is also why nearly all of us laugh at some jokes: we live in the same reality, and are almost inevitably going to arrive at some identical identifications regardless of background.

    Something is only funny in regard to someone's sense of right and wrong. When someone says "you're not funny" or "you have no sense of humour", they're implicitly stating: "There is something wrong with your value judgements."

    In order for comedy to work, it has to be asserted. To assert, means to state as true. Self-assertiveness is the quality of stating onesself as true (dwell on that!). A man can assert through his speech, through body language, bodily functions, noises, and through all forms of art.

    The rational man should enjoy the disachievement of non-values, and [comedy] is the means to this joy. It is a reaffirmation of his existence and an end in itself.

    This is the core principle underlying comedy. People who reject it are, by the only reason I can foresee, trying to reconcile rational and irrational values together, and thus they must think that laughing at certain goods is possible or that laughing at certain evils is impossible. Comedy gives man the power to detect his irrationalities if he dares to look.

    I initially felt unsympathetic towards Rand when I first read that laughing at onesself is "spitting in one's own face". It made logical sense to me, but I felt opposed to it. This is because I had repressed my sense of my right to my own life. All second-handedness begins by deciding not to assert onesself. If you have felt the same way, then perhaps you have been doing the same thing.

    I will post more on that last paragraph later under a new topic. For now I will leave you with this: If you think of something that you consider funny, it is vital for your psychological health that you say it.
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