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VoltageControl

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Everything posted by VoltageControl

  1. Why in the first place do people consider it their right to dictate what a person spends their life doing? To me it seems that it doesn't matter if someone is a CEO or a painter, if this is within the pursuit of their own happiness, and they are not sacrificing others or themselves, why not? Good luck trying to explain to the average person that not every leader in a field isn't a conniving asshole who wishes to steal from the "little guy". A Selfish person who is successful most certainly can benefit far more people by the the achievement of their own values rather than struggling doing something they are not suited for or not living up to their potential. Of course the highly Leftist will see this as the "trickle down" theory popularized during the Reagan era, which since it doesn't automatically save the sacred middle class, is evil. People watch too many movies and think the news media doesn't have a bias.
  2. OK. Sometimes text on its own can be interpreted in different ways. I've been learning to cultivate a bit of a go-with-the-flow attitude where fear doesn't get in the way as much.
  3. The work hard and with a bit of pluck and luck you'll succeed is a dangerous Horatio Algier meme. The control we have over the world and the people in it may be low, but there have been those who are able to engineer the circumstances they wish, working within their limitations, no matter how harsh they are. Yes, a lot of businesses fail, so do a lot of people who strive for something. The people who sometimes end up winning are the ones who persist and learn from what went wrong. Now, I am of course not saying the underdog always wins. That would be insane. I am referring to someone who screws up but learns from their mistakes and improves. You also underestimate the power of connections, either personal or the way your work connects with others. Being observant is crucial too, as is finding ways to forge opportunity rather than wait for someone to grant it to you.
  4. I suggest splitting the thread. This is WAY more insightful. I'm glad it evolved into something worthwhile.
  5. I think Rand meant that sacrificing one's work and life for the sake of their family was what was evil. How many people give up way too much of themselves for friends and family and are drained from doing so? Plenty! They are all the worse for it. Without the energy available from catering to their own needs, how can one be there for who they value? One can still value themselves and value other people. It is not black and white. This is obviously a huge problem with our society. It seems to be a choice between meaning and money; putting the self first,and giving to others. It is possible for these all to intersect if one is rational about their approach. After all, when we fly on an aircraft the safety instructions mention putting on one's oxygen mask before helping others. It's a great metaphor.
  6. Maybe Rand herself didn't value family. But I would find it rational to ensure the success and prosperity of close friends and family by helping them grow into people who are able to provide some sort of value, but not at the expense of myself.
  7. I could be Kebab Man, giver of meat and veggie treats. Those stage lights get hot, you could roast a chicken.
  8. I decided I'm definitely not going to try outdoing someone like Lady Gaga or acting like an 18 year old, so no meat outfits or skinny jeans. I wil however, not act like I'm 65 even when I am 65 :-) I will ensure I produce as high quality work as possible, and find a way to stand out. BTW, Voltage Control is short for Voltage Controlled Oscillator, the circuit in an analogue synthesizer which makes the sound itself. Chose it as a VCO can create sounds with very little, but has infinite possibility. It may not be a violin, but it has a sound all its own.
  9. Was scary as hell to approach people. I had to be careful and show that I wished to communicate out of respect, rather than to get something for free, which was not my intention. But, I learned that while some people will say no, or even ignore you, or think you're nuts. Some people will say yes, and some will have faith in others.
  10. There have even been cases where someone did get all the advantages in life (being born to wealth, having supportive friends and family, etc.) and still go off the deep end. I have managed to connect with people all over the world thanks to technology. One is a video game music composer in Europe who is releasing his first music just for him after making music for others for 20 some years. His brother had a couple number 1 hits in a couple European countries, and still produces music professionally to this day. I've connected with a couple of pro synth preset designers who gave me a lot of practical advice on how to shape better sounds, as well as people who have built and designed synths. I connected with a British man who used to run the UK branch of a synthesizer company which made a lot of advances in the 1980s as well as the inventor. Both the inventor and person who ran the company have moved on, one still makes software and the other now teaches blind and autistic children how to create music. I speak to one of his blind students. She is an accomplished synthesist, but she can't do everything she wants since none of the software for making music has been designed with blind people in mind, or at least has the capability to be used by blind people. The only way for her to use things is to memorize how they are laid out, or get help from someone else. She wishes to remain as independent as possible. I'd really like to succeed so I could obtain the resources necessary to make music and learning how to create more accessible to more people. Someone shouldn't have to spend a lot of money or conform to the world in order to create.
  11. Therapy is useful. However, it is merely a tool. It has taken me a long time to work through a lot of my issues. Sometimes I slip, as I have here. The truth is, none of us knows the future. It worth pursuing what you value at any age. We only have one life. I too, am being way too hard on myself as your young friend is. However, I have also seen that people even if they achieve what they value can still be hard on themselves and even be unhappy. As for being realistic, that's a double edged sword. On one hand, people can accomplish amazing things which others think they cannot do, in spite of their circumstances and perceived ability (or lack there of). Happens all the time. On the other hand those amazing things may not be possible, which also happens all the time. All we can do is strive to develop ourselves as best as we possibly can, take risks, and learn from our success and failure.
  12. @bluecherry Good lord! At 18! Wow. You'd better get this person to come to their senses. @whYNot You're perfectly right. Even if someone does manage to become highly regarded in any genre at any age (since we do see cases of someone doing well past the age of 25), it doesn't always last. The people who do endure over the years I have observed, are always growing, and always changing. They must do it out of love, and this energy must help them push through. Perhaps it is this love which comes through in what they do. They also seem to become savvy at promoting themselves and connecting with their audience. After all, people tend to gravitate towards a passionate person who is always learning and improving, as do all people who master something in the arts/business. Creativity and music are important. I see that there is much that can be done to improve the way we interact with sound and how we create it, and have fun with it. This means there are possible entrepreneurial applications to this. It is important to connect with others, constantly learn and improve. I enjoy that a great deal. Getting feedback from others. Tweaking, experimenting, etc. I need to stop taking everything so seriously, making it a life or death situation. @Michele I am trying too hard to be goal-oriented, when I am more process oriented. It is more important that I do something, put in the best effort I can. That is all a person can do. None of us has complete control over circumstances, in spite of what people say. All I can say is, I don't want to be an old man and regret that I did not put effort into what I value.
  13. Anyway, first and foremost, I would like to apologize for this thread. I am extremely insecure, and I realized that by having my life being about "accomplishments" and "proving myself", I give away complete control of my life to other people, leading to toxic people being in it.
  14. People only seem to care about you if you accomplish things. Maybe if I can accomplish something, I might be considered valuable and get the love and support I missed out on. People only seem to care if you have some sort of status in society. You are regarded as trash if you don't.
  15. @ I don't look my age. People say I look about 23-25 depending on who it is. I don't smoke and I don't drink. As much as I feel anxious about it, I've decided to take after Moby and Jordan Rudess, both of whom didn't have their success until 34, and are still going strong. Jordan Rudess is also quite the entrepreneur, owning a company which creates music apps, has written a couple of books on keyboard technique and even produced various tutorials. He's quite the marketer as well.
  16. I'm allowing my emotions to get in the way of having a rational discussion. I obviously am projecting my negative life experiences onto an entire group because my father claims to be Liberal. I was not raised by a man who was willing to accept responsibility, learn from his mistakes or even take risks of any kind. He decided that the world and everyone in it should conform to his wishes, with a lot of force instead of compassion. He used outsiders as straw men. "it's this rich person's fault that I can't do ____" or lying and saying "so and so told me to do it", or "no one helped me, so why should I help you?" He has made a decent living for a number of years, but continues to act like he's poor. Money and things always come before people, and individuality and people achieving anything beyond what he had achieved was evil, and he made sure to demonize me, my brother, and my mother, all under the guise of "what's best for you." Family just wasn't important to him; appearing to be kind and loving in front of others, when he was a total jerk and abusive or neglectful behind the scenes.
  17. Just wondering how the heck I can ever achieve anything when I'm so old. Most people have success in their teens or 20s or not at all.
  18. My mother's side of the family is business people, engineers, doctors, managers, and artists. It's quite clear she fed into the Hippie bull shit of the 60s and early 70s. The idea of a strong human being who didn't need to be dependent on others for their worth probably wasn't something the Flower Children liked very much. I can give a young person of 18-25 some leeway in believing this. After all, they have not had much of a chance to evaluate life yet. But, it's criminal for someone to hold onto such evil values.
  19. So, I continue at the age of 30 to go full bore into my interest of music, especially when I am probably "too old" to do something. I'll probably fail, but that's what Liberals like to see. Liberals do everything in their power to sabotage, hurt, and prevent people from succeeding. They are evil, cold, uncaring human beings who care only about themselves, while claiming to care about "the people". Oh, most Union employees make better wages than most non-Union employees, but, that didn't stop the excuses of "we're not rich", and "it's someone else's job" from resonating
  20. I am happy that you were raised by people who would have none of this. The clincher is, my mother gave up her affluent background for a loser Union worker who held up these values as gospel, a man who was beneath her intellectually, and emotionally. These are the values which I have had to spend a great deal of my life overcoming. These values are evil: pure and simple, and do absolutely everything to encourage inequality, abuse, and mediocrity. Possessing these values however, means never having to take responsibility for your failures and your triumphs. Like many of their generation, both of my grandparents fought in World War II, but their lives were completely different. On on side, one grandfather was a champion of individuality and the power of business- a brilliant college educated engineer who spoke multiple languages, and later in his career travelled establishing international trade relationships for the company he worked for. My grandmother was also educated and worked as a nurse in a time when the wife was supposed to stay at home and be her husband's doormat. The other was a steel worker who believed no one deserved happiness, opportunity, and that the purpose of a man's life was to work hard, get handouts, and die. I do not share this because I want people to feel sorry for me, but I want people to know of the evil that Liberalism and "equality" can lead to.
  21. "The majority of those who are loosely identified by the term “liberals” are afraid to let themselves discover that what they advocate is statism. They do not want to accept the full meaning of their goal; they want to keep all the advantages and effects of capitalism, while destroying the cause, and they want to establish statism without its necessary effects. They do not want to know or to admit that they are the champions of dictatorship and slavery." -Ayn Rand, "Conservatism: An Obituary" Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Even if we are not raised by hard core Liberals as I was, the effects of their insidious thinking which claims to care about the welfare and individual rights of people is everywhere. With the blunders of the so-called "free market" farce, more and more people are trusting their words. Here begins the list of Liberal "Truths" learned from my parents and the "caring" Liberals who claim to love and cherish individual rights. Feel free to add your own from personal experience or observation. 1. All people who are successful steal from those who are not. 2. One's place in society does not matter. (One should not worship social status, but it is more important than the Liberal claim.) 3. Authority (teachers, law enforcement, government officials, experts, etc.) knows best, and their motives and results should not be questioned. 4. People do not have to make their own decisions and are not intelligent enough to do so. They also do not have to accept the consequences of said decisions. 5. Education should be free, and by extension, it is not the responsibility of parents to ensure their children are functional adults prepared for the real world. After all, the Authority figures are supposed to do it for them. 6. Everyone is guaranteed a right to a job (and by extension, a "good" job where the company takes care of the employee, pays them a "fair" wage, provides free/low-cost healthcare, bonuses, and retirement benefits) 7. Rich people are uncaring and do not help the less fortunate. 8. Everyone is obligated to do what society/Authority wishes, not what one values. 9. The government is supposed to take care of you if you are old/enfeebled. 10. Without Unions or government rules and regulations, safe working conditions and equal rights would not exist. 11. The purpose of a person's life is to follow the orders of someone else, and dare not aspire to anything greater. 12. People are helpless, disenfranchised individuals who either have to do it all themselves, or depend on the State in order to be successful.
  22. @Michele Good lord, this tripe was in the Harvard Business Review and Businessweek? Sounds more like something that would be in a college newspaper run by extremely liberal business students. (Oxymoron?) There's no reason a person can't own both an iPhone AND support worthy causes. Giving to help others and enjoying your life do not have to be two opposite extremes. Oh, and EVERYONE is guilted into sacrificing themselves to others regardless of status. Gotta save everyone, and if you don't stop to save random strangers, you're an "evil" cold-hearted human being. Realistically, if everyone spent all of their time and money "helping", no one would have anything. There are always going to be problems, and inequality. We just have even more of it because far too many people believe Left-wing thinking is somehow "fair" and helps the poor. Every time the government subsidies something, it just drives the cost of it up for everyone, especially the poor. (Not an economist, please forgive my lack of knowledge). Apple uses a lot of open source technology, and gives the rest of the tech(and to a degree, design) industry a benchmark. Most of OSX is "free". (Most of the non-pretty stuff that makes OSX operate is open source from a few different projects) Being an "evil" for-profit premium brand allows them to craft products that are experiences, rather than commodities. (Happy to be a greedy, capitalist owning Macintosh user.)
  23. I'm a gay man, and I have a tendency to adapt to the man I am around. Is the "top" and "bottom" thing merely an adapt for homosexual males to recreate heterosexual roles?
  24. I will say one thing, having known the children of business owners, professionals, and some business owners themselves, most of them care a great deal more about their children having success in life. A lot of middle and working class people do not think that ensuring their children are successful young adults is their responsibility, and is up to some authority figure. However, we do occasionally see the trust fund kid or heiress who is a total idiot, but this is far rarer than the media makes it out to be. After all, happy, not -screwed up rich people might encourage people to make something of themselves.
  25. The Baby Boomers and Gen-X gave up trying to better the world by creating value, and decided to complain about it instead. "But such and such isn't made in America! It's the big evil corporation's fault!" Then why do you shop at Wal-mart? Why do you buy crap? While that is the only option for some people, most Boomers are at least middle class. Outsourcing and globalization are the reason America and most of the civilized world exist in the first place. International trade is why America exists. A lot of them are still Liberals. A lot of them believe that someone else should make decisions for them, and then they complain about the results. Many of them still believe in their parent's "the company and the government should take care of me" mentality. It amazes me how any rational adult beyond the age of 25 would consider Liberalism to be wonderful and Capitalism to be evil, but I was raised in such in an environment, and work towards overcoming their Liberal mistakes, as well as the fallout of my own irrational choices, or rational choices that did not pan out. The big "evil" corporations have had a lot of growth ever since they figured out that they could sell the Boomers individuality in the form of products. This, in and of itself is not evil, but many of the still Liberal Baby Boomers complain about how evil everything which they themselves benefit from is. Most of the OWS people are their descendants, although some of them are rich kids going through their hippie phase.
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