Magitek

Hi, I am doing a clear-out and selling almost all my books. I thought these Ayn Rand books may be of interest here. They are all in pretty food condition. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Signet 100 Centennial edition - $4 Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Signet 100 Centennial edition - $4 The Ayn Rand Lexicon, Objectivism A-Z - $4 The lot - $10 I live in the UK and I will post anywhere. If you are interested contact joealton AT gmail.com (replace " AT " with "@") Cheers, Joe

Drugs are rarely the best answer to anything. They should be used as a last resort, for instance if your mental state will result in physical harm to yourself or others. Depression ia caused by cognitive distortions which gives your environment(the uncontrollable) too much power over the way you feel. A cognitive distortion is an abnormality, why should this not be a disease? Changing the way you think needs to be done actively(consciously), since depression drugs are passive they will not get rid of your cognitive distortions. They work on changing your brain chemistry. If you have social anxiety you can drink alcohol but this will not cure your social anxiety, anti-depressives are the same. They are not working getting to the cause of the problem, in the same way that glasses do not fix the cause of bad eyesight. I can understand why so many people are prescribed anti-depression drugs though in the same way they are prescribed drugs for most things in life. If you want to look after your health YOU must do it. Doctors should not be relied on for health; if anything they should be avoided. You cannot expect them to commit all their focus on your health considering the sheer amount of patients they have to deal with. In this case I agree with some points from the "alternative health" crowd BUT there are rational scientific reasons behind a holistic approach (avoidance of antibiotics for instance, and focusing on prevention) as opposed to the disintegrated "we are a car and when a part breaks we go to the doc to fix it" approach. I don't like to plug books, because lots of people on forums recommend half-baked books that waste time and money, but I can recommend Feeling Good by David D. Burns. Out of all the self-help tripe I have read this is one of the best. Just buy his one book, don't buy any more, like most authors do, he has just rephrased his material and added a few more points in the other books. The reason I recommend it to you (even though you no longer are depressed) is that before, your environment made you depressed and this was a cognitive distortion as you let your environment(external) control you(internal). Now that the stressor(external environment) has gone you may feel better but your cognitive distortions may still be present. Even if you think yourself perfectly rational (like I did, and most do) you may still be suprised to find the errors in your cognitions. The reason I tell you to read that book and leave it at that is that "self-help" is a slippery slope. Whatever you do don't subscribe to anything from the hypnosis/NLP/"New Age" faith/spiritual .etc healing hucksters, as you cannot be an objectivist and agree with their premises. These guys pretend not to be interested in money but let me tell you they are. These guys are classic Ellsworth Tooheys. "New Age" people pretend not to be interested in money but let me tell you the "What the Bleep"-style authors are millionaires. Perhaps a good point made in that movie.You don't need to subscribe to any "New Age" to believe this as it is well known in science that biochemistry changes according to your mood. Your life span and state of health is greatly influenced by your mood, far more so then anyone would think. However, looking in the mirror and loving yourself like that woman does in the film will not make you lost weight. It will not give you a "fast metabolism", of which there is no such thing- such a statement is a misinterpretation of the concept and an ignorance of thermodynamics.

Schefflera Arboricola- I don't think I need medication. Is what I'm saying not applicable to our lives? Let me explain. Aren't we all thinking to much? Is it really necessary to read Rand and to formulate concrete ways to live our lives? Rands teachings seem like the way a man would think had he been independant enough to stand against socialism or acculturation. So I conclude Rands work not as necessity(unless you need to have intellectual discussions on such topics as your function) rather as an andidote to the philosophical BS is taught or formulates. By "formalates" I mean introspecting and asking why we live and for what purpose for instance. Needless, impractical, intellectual questions. Thinking about such matter will get you nowhere because you are working with abstract concepts, and any revision on such a thought will have no more logic then the last. It is yet another abstract formulation. Questions like: "is there a God", "what is the meaning of life" should only take a second to be answered(or unanswered) and then left to be. No matter how long you mull over such matters a more objective conclusion will not be reached. If anything the quickest answer you give will be the most reliable. Rand said: "My philosophy in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." A lot of happy and productive people have never read philosophy nor know what "philosophy" refers to yet live this way. My friend at university is like this. Sometimes, I will talk to him about serious political issues for instance and he'll listen and a minute later he'll be enjoying himself or doing something productive while I am deep in thought like some kind of "tortured genius". He's got the right idea. When asked whether he believes in God, he says "I don't know" or "I don't care". The hours I or anyone else spent thinking about such a matter could not have come up with a better answer then that.

Do you mean drinking at all or heavy drinking? I hate alcohol but I feel I need it in some scenarios. I know, I know, "you don't need alcohol to have a good time". True. BUT you do to get into a certain state unless you are very socially confident. I know people who are confident socially but when in a club situation they look nervous and lost. I used to drink very heavily in order to fit in and my friends thought I was awesome but the more I did it the more I hated myself. I started drinking less for health reasons also. I suppose I could say I use alcohol as an ergogenic aid for club/party-style (mindless) socialising at the moment. Yes I mean introversion. Sorry, I was unclear. What I'm confirming from the input I'm getting is that it comes down to focus. Let me share an anecdote to illustrate this. I met someone at my university who was into self-help. I talked AT him for a long time about findings and he said how I should take up meditation. I was reluctant of his advice due to the religious ties it can have and also the "what the bleep" style tripe I almost subscirbed to. Now I realise why he said it: I lacked focus. Meditation (as far as I understand) is about focus. When talking to him, I was spacing out trying to make sense of the self-help slurry swishing around in my head and dicatating whatever came up. Rather then actually communicating with him I was giving a one-way stream of conciousness speech. I'm reading a book called "Getting Things Done" at the moment and while not a self-help book per se it seems it would be very helpful for reducing anxiety as well as making life more productive. Anxiety is caused by being unsure and lack of action. The antidote to anxiety? Introspect(I see now why this IS good) then do. Aequalsa, nice little anecdote. I had a manual labour job and my focus was terrible, my mental and physical capacities were up to par but my focus was terrible and most my time was spent thinking about my past experiences or how much of a jerk the manager was. I can't think this helped, maybe I have a slight case of ADD and need to train myself out of it. I can understand focus at work but whatabout when I have nothing to occupy my focus? For instance walking home or waiting for something, as this is prime time for fantasies of me being interogated and denounced or me doing it back.

I always thought myself rational however after examining my thought process I realised I had a number of cognitive distortions. For instance I would make assumptions of how people percieved me when objectively I have no way of knowing this. I have always had an introvert personality which makes me prone to depression. I have always wished for happiness above all else, when asked in school on my goals for life I would say "to be happy". After becoming depressed after my first year of university I reviewed a number of self-help materials. All self-help authors seem to write in 300 pages what could be expressed in a few sentences and write multiple books that are basically rephrased duplicates. I almost got into spirituality after looking at loads of "what the bleep" style trash. Understandably, this was after I was mugged. Have you ever noticed people turn to religion/spirituality after a traumatic incident? Why? They are simply escaping reality! I was escaping reality; reality isn't so cruel if it doesn't exist. I also procrastinated, which is another way of escaping reality. Self-help materials give you too much to work with: 10 steps to this, 8 steps to that, the 1001 habits yada yada, give me a break! They make it sound like there are stone tablets that all happy successful people read when in reality they consciously don't know any of it. They just get on with life. Self-help stuff could even be detrimental because t gets people into the"I need help" and "I have a lot to learn" state of mind. Also I can't bare reading NLP and hypnosis stuff. People do well without this and it just seems like all the people promoting it are money-grabbing hucksters. Hypnosis has strong ties to mystical thinking. Have you ever read a hypnosis book? I dare you to extract a meaningful sentence. They write in confusing styles to trick and decieve people and to have them in the palm of their hands paying $$$ for seminars. Now, onto my main point which is on the way we think. Is introspection completely pointless? I used to look down on people who did not think deeply but in retrospect was I wrong? Extroverts rule this world because they live in it. I used to think extroverts were just less intelligent but again in retrospect their behavoir is far less foolish then introverts as they think of only what is necessary. Introverts such as artists become depressed very frequently. Being an introvert could move further us from the truth due to fabrications of our mind. Is an over-active imagination a hindrance to an objectivist? Is there a way to still our thoughts? To think only what is necessary? I frequently stew and create negative false scenarios. If our minds cannot be stilled and our minds are perpeptually fabricating wouldn't it be good to adopt optimism since happiness is the moral purpose of our life? Also, maybe pessimism is natural as it is essential survival? These hostile fabrications about my fellow man, about how people are trying to bring me down make me somewhat of a reject. But a long time ago this may have helped me because people WOULD be planning to take me down. I just wish I had the nonchalent pessimism some have. Hell, even if its a dissillusion, it is practical for this life. I appreciate any input to this. It may seem like I am rambling. This is the exact reason why I feel the need to post, to create some concrete ideas from this confusion. Cheers