bioengine

As an undergraduate I changed my major from business to physics to engineering to a different kind of engineering. Even after finishing undergrad I still didn't have a great aim or purpose in life until I got to graduate school and even then it isn't exactly definite or clear yet. Many of us don't know what we will become from the time we are 14 and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. You might be thirty by the time you figure it out, it's not about age, it's about whether you ever do or not. Many people never do. You might be sixty by the time you figure it out... well that's a bit of a stetch but it makes the point. I saw a thing on television where a middle aged guy got struck with lightning and all of a sudden changed his career to being a composer because some sort of damage to his brain made him obsessed with music. This is a far fetched example but it just goes to show you could throw all your energy and life force into music, make it your whole life, practice 24/7, learn the history of music, listen to every kind of music you can, you will probably find you disagree with MOST of what has previously been done, and you could possibly end up creating something great heretofore unknown. It's all about how much energy and passion you are wiling to put into it. Pursuing finance with that same energy and penetrating gaze is no less noble.

Actually malnutrition has been shown to influence height more than a few inches (at least four or five on average) if you ask anyone other than a geneticist. Of course a geneticist would tell you nutrition doesn't influence anything. I've heard overweight doctors claim that nutrition has no bearing on anything, they presumably thought they were destined to be overweight due to genetics. If you read anything about our paleolithic ancestors, you will find that they were taller (or at least as tall) and stronger than we are today. The average height went down after the agricultural revolution, I found one source saying five inches. From the 1800's to today the average height went back up due to less malnutrition. Genes only determine what proteins your body can make, it is the environment you are exposed to (such as your nutrition) that tells your cells how to use those genes. I think if people judge your character based on your height, it only reflects poorly on them. The fact is that some people care about it but there are many who don't just like with any phyiscal attribute. It's not too different from something like being muscle laden, it is seen by many women as attractive and healthy but just as many prefer a more wiry build of a man.

There are a number of books on psychology written by objectivists. There are also a number of lectures that are fairly cheap at the ayn rand book store/e store. You have to differentiate between psychologist and psychiatrist. Psychiatrists will try to treat you with drugs, which can be harmful. A psychologist won't harm you if you ignore what they have to say.

I agree with Dreamspirit. The burden of proof is on the people who say that psychiatric drugs work. First of all, where are the long term clinical studies showing that they benefit people in the long term and the benefits outweigh adverse effects not just on the brain but on every organ in the body the drug interacts with? Just spend some time on google scholar, there are many scientists out there who question these drugs. Just because a scientific view is popular and just because chemical imbalance theory is in the mainstream it doesn't make it correct. There is evidence showing that SSRIs actually cause chemical imbalances, far from treating such a condition. No one has ever aspirated CSF from a depressed persons synsapses and saw that there wasn't enough seretonin in there. There is still controversy considering the most basic mechanism of how the brain works, how do you expect these people to understand mental illness from a biological point of view, much less treate it with a synthetic drug? I don't think anyone should take these drugs without first reading ALL the literature from the people who are for AND against these drugs. It may sound impractical but you just cannot do something like this based on trust of an authority figure.

There is no "heat death" of the universe. Since the universe is eternal, the heat death would have already occurred if it was going to happen. Since the universe is eternal nothing can happen to change it's ultimate nature that is based on the flow of time (like entropy) because the universe is outside of time. For instance why didn't it happen ten billion years ago or ten trillion years ago (you can keep going to infinite years ago since the universe never "began" but always existed). You can see why entropy like time is a concept applied to systems within the universe, systems with certain initial conditions that operate for a certain amount of time, and not the universe as a whole. In fact classically entropy has a very specific context that involves a large number of molecules interacting with one another in a system. Living organisms themselves constantly escape entropy, when we finally die we reach thermodynamic equilibrium. The definition of life is basically escape from entropy by maintaining organization and heterogeneity. The universe and life will continue to exist forever most likely since even if the human race and all life on Earth ended tomorrow there is literally an enternity for it to pop up again in the future. This is what led Nietzsche to his idea of the eternal return because he thought there was a finite number of occurrences that can happen and an infinite amount of time for the universe to sample them (which i obviously disagree with). You shouldn't even be having a crisis about this anyway since once you are dead you won't care what happens, you won't think or feel anything.

My advice to you is to completely forget this person. Your philosophy should be that she doesn't deserve you, she is dead right about that... now adays pathological liars seem more common than not. As soon as you discover someone is a liar, run as fast as possible in the other direction, there is no fixing this. You can't change people, you will have to eventually find someone who isn't so flawed to begin with.

I will tell you what I would do. I would start researching your illness first of all to see if there is anything you can do to fix it. If there was something wrong with my biology that hindered my life I would obsessively try to understand it and find the best way to make it go away. You cannot rely on a doctor to do this for you just like you can't rely on the FDA to tell you what products are safe. Many doctors today will do nothing the government doesn't approve them to do, they mostly practice medicine out of a manual. They will also refuse to listen to anything they weren't taught in medical school. I'm not saying all docotors are bad, it's mostly because they are such a regulated profession. I'm not saying this is definitely your answer because I haven't done enough research specifically on arthritis myself but it is a well established fact that sugar consumption causes inflammation and there are many who believe it is linked to auto-immune disorders. I have read a lot of the literature on sugar and easily digestible carbohydrates and i stopped eating them all together as I see they are linked to almost every chronic illness we have today. Even if you don't agree with me, you cannot refute the point that trusting a doctor is a very dangerous act (i could also speak from personal experience on this). You have to actually read the literature he points to and see whether it makes sense. I found this link in five seconds from google, there is a ton of literature out there. Don't dismiss anything a priori because it isn't the currently accepted mainstream theory. My advice is to keep pursuing knowledge and fighting because you are only 25, you still have a whole life to kill yourself down the road if the shit really hits the fan. I think I'm going to do more research on this illness as well. http://robbwolf.com/2012/05/07/medically-confirmed-rheumatoid-arthritis-remission/ Here is a quote from H.L. Mencken on why he advocates against comitting suicide even if things look bleak. "Speaking for myself, I don't recall a single day in my life when I was contented with my lot, though as human destiny runs, it has been a not unfortunate one. Worse, I have got to a point. in my old age, that I can't imagine any concrete amelioration: experience has taught me that what I want today will only upset me if I get it tomorrow. But to give us hope is surely not the same as to embrace despair. The show remains engrossing, though it is no longer exhilarating. The horror of week after next will at least be a new one. It may be any one of ten dozen: I find myself vaguely eager to know which it is to be. Thus I advise against suicide. Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible." There are too few people in the world capable of dealing with ideas like you show yourself to be which is another reason you should stick around and keep growing your mind. Being on disability isn't such a big deal, you have your whole life ahead of you to be taxed to Hell once you get a job. Also you should exhaust every option with your illness before doing anything hasty on account of it. You also still have plenty of time to figure out what you are passionate about and pursue it eventually. As a fellow young person in today's world this is what I would do.