What is the greatest epiphany you've ever had, /lit/, and why?

Sometimes, falsely, you believe that you have done everything there is to do, and learned everything there is to learn, when the reality is that there is always a way to know more, see more, become stronger, become better.

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>>9951100
That there is something deeply wrong with me, and I'm the second iteration in a line of aloof, intellectual men in my family, the first being my borderline insane uncle, also my closest male figure growing up. I probably shouldn't reproduce nor get involved in the life of any young kid, better to break the cycle while it's possible.

>>9951100
You're completely wrong, there's tons of stuff that can be done about it and which other similar people have done. Hell, it's /lit/, there are a plethora of books on the subject.
Read Improve Your Social Skills by Daniel Wendler and stop sulking.

I was an atheist until I took shrooms
It made me see god and religion and my life itself as sort of extended metaphors connecting humanity to a cultural experience
I still think biblical literalist protestants should have the shit smacked out of them though

>>9951100
>that you were me

>>9951257
>I was an atheist
>now I see religion as an extended metaphor

What a radical shift of perspective.

>>9951100
When I realized that, no matter how hard you deny it, you're always alone.

>>9951100
You're giving up.
Chronically depressed for all my life and finally I decided to say fuck it and did whatever I wanted regardless of how shitty I felt or how little I accomplished. You'll realize that when you really scrap the bottom of the barrel of life, it's refill it or die. And, regardless of faith, if you kys, you're just wasting one life and entering another which will be most likely be in the same reality. If you say to that 'good! I'll be someone else maybe life will be better' then it proves you want to live and are withholding all your own potential to be happy from yourself. It's YOU who thinks you look like a creep when you check a girl out. It's YOUR voice in your anxieties making you feel miserable and lonely. YOU choose to listen to that voice, and believe what it says. Are you really what all your anxieties tell you you are? Or deep down do you know your better than them but are too weak to stand up to your own insecurity? It's not just a switch you flip, it takes work. Constant exposing of yourself to situations which make you anxious. Forcing yourself out of your mind and into reality, where no-one is telling you shit that makes you feel bad.
Try getting really high off weed and putting yourself in an anxious situation. Tbh, you're probably gonna have a bad time. But when you do, it's easier to tell what thoughts are 'yours' and what thoughts are what you think others think, I.E. not yours.
And with practice, with pot or not, it becomes easier to recognize and 'brick wall' your anxiety in your mind.

Don't be another person who gives up on themselves. You owe it to your mother, and your inner child, to learn to love yourself, and to take action in your life instead of accepting your life is shit just because you shit your pants.

>>9951216
See I don't see it that way, I spent a lot of time reading about psychology and criminality and came to eventually understand that biological determinism is an unchangeable and massive influence on the behavior of people.

There is a degree you can change and degree you will never be able to change no matter how much you will it to be so. People's personalities are, by definition, permanent parts of their character.

I have a long list of anti-social and reclusive behavioral traits that are Franky just part of who I am.

Realising that my grandiose amounts of mental strength and resolve is actually alien to most people.

This directly correlates with my lack of patience for people, and why I like being alone. Despite being socially adept, spending many years 'that guy who always parties'.

I am genetically programmed for misery. Thinking back when I was a child I would cry for long periods of time for no reason at all and keep it a secret. Maybe I have bipolar disorder my mother described me as the happiest child she had ever seen.

In order to obtain my unhappiness I require an enormous standard that is impossible to live up; if none exists I will take one I already have and make it less merciless. I'm at the point now where I scold myself for even thinking certain thoughts. When I was younger I once took medication which made me more or less permantly in a good mood; the experience boarded on trauma.

If I do not eventually find something to be sad about it than it builds up inside me and I become self-destructive; I once had a strong urge to threaten a cop's life. Extended periods of happiness or near fatal to me. I think I should start listening to atonal music regularly just to insure that I occassionally become miserable.

I love this about myself though. People that do not experience great saddness are destined losers.

My greatest epiphany was this:

Heaven and hell is the precession of life, but the plane of existence doesn't roll beneath your feet--you step between the frames.

Different strokes for different folks.
>Some people just needs simple basic religion

The biggest problem of our time is the inability to comprehend that some people have to, lets say; believe in god and that some have to "not believe".
And there are different levels of belief.

How personality traits are genetic and dictate this, and political beliefs, interests, hobbies, taste in food. A multitude of tiny things that congregate into huge differences between people and groups.

The "epiphany" isn't that "People are different duuuh."
But that you can't really do anything about it.
>Multiculturalism is the ruin of civilization, some people are just simple "racist", and can't not be.

>>9951362
TL:DR
>The founding fathers were genius.

>>9951100
That joy and melancholy and every single emotion is a choice, and that I wasted 10 years of my life pointless drowning in depression and anxiety. I realized that regardless of what was and wasn't real, is rather be content, and this illusion that depression somehow made me better was a false hood

>>9951352
God bless if you are able to find beauty in suffering, but it seriously sounds like you are a masochist, which is unhealthy. Please get therapy regarding this before you hurt others around you.

>>9951204
What did he touch you or something?

>>9951334
Depressive =/= anti-social , Anon.

Anti social implies aggressive, impulsive, and apathetic towards others. I have enough anti social personality traits to make me conflicted about whether or not I want to join society, and that internal conflict is just part of who I am.
>Get high
Used to do a lot of weed oil (dabs) and amphetamines, I know what it's like to get out your mind high.

>>9951100
that every person in my lineage stretching back to the time of the cavemen has managed to reproduce successfully. they may have been eaten by tigers, the town whore, or just dumbasses but they all have gotten laid at least once.

>>9951335
if your really a biological determinist, then you'll realize that your personality could just as easily change from the shitty point that it is at currently on then of a drop of a hat, literally. Don't be a determinist that acts like he has no free will you idiot.

>>9951517
No, I meant forcing yourself -out- of your mind, as in blanking your mind. Being n the present. Lacking any thought, as you would in situations where you're comfortable and engrossed. Just let yourself be, and you'll realize you're not who you think you are. You are someone and you are someone you think you are, and there is a difference. It doesn't matter, you must obey your being to be happy or learn to be happy. Not accept it, but be it. Not thinking you're it, just being it. Doing. And until or if you feel guilt, do whatever you want without thinking about it. It's the same as falling asleep, and you're state of mind is from 'sleep deprivation'

>>9951100
>Traps are gay.

>>9951517
>aggressive, impulsive, and apathetic towards others
Why is this called anti-social?
Only thing there that's anti-social is maybe "apathetic towards others".
So what do you call someone who has "no" interest for small-talk or any trivial conversation, "normal" friends or regular social interaction, and that is not depressed?

The only social interaction I like or desire is physical, and debating.

>>9951100

I've had several, but they're kinda long winded and I don't want to turn this into a personal blog. I will share this most recent one: Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness" which I read in my teens and had no effect on me, but now that I'm a decade older hit me like a fucking anvil from the sky.

Take a read: https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/

>>9951528
M8, sex is pretty overrated t b h. I've known men who had a different women every other day, who cheated on their log time gf's whoremongering, etc.

Sex in itself doesn't lead to self fulfillment, same with most hedonism. Peace comes from within, not from material.

>>9951586
>then you'll realize that your personality could just as easily change from the shitty point that it is at currently on then of a drop of a hat, literally.
Only if I'm very seriously injured , and in that case my anti-social personality traits will be made worse. Much worse.

I'm not so much of a determines that I think all behavior is innate and experience plays no part, I simply believe that the core of an individual, the quintessence of someone's behavior, is innate and long term which can never really be changed. Learning to understand who and what you are is a part of growing out of the egocentric tendencies of youth.

I am very anti-social, some of it is by choice and some of it is not. I have an internal conflict between separate aspects of my personality that will never truly be reconciled , and learning to accept that reality is the first step in finding self fulfillment.

>>9951688
>So what do you call someone who has "no" interest for small-talk or any trivial conversation, "normal" friends or regular social interaction, and that is not depressed?
A reclusive introvert.

If you've ever heard of anti social personality disorder, then you should know that it's also known (by some) as sociopathy and psychopathy. Depends on the psychologist's opinions about the terms and how they are used.

I have legitimate issues with impulsive and aggressive behavior which keeps me away from mainstream society, not so much that I can find no camaradarie amongst people, but I am not disaffected by others enough to be kept on the outskirts. I both desire to stay away from people and be around them at the same time, creating angst from competing interests.

>>9951768
>not so much that I can find no camaradarie amongst people, but I am not disaffected by others enough to be kept on the outskirts
*not so much that I can find no camaradarie amongst people, but I am disaffected by others enough to be kept on the outskirts

>>9951100
Get a job as an sales advisor, in one year you'll forget all about that anti social trait. I believe it has to do more with your openness to people than the introversion, these two seem to be the same but they're not, one can be "trained" to be more open with his thoughts, feelings, that should help your loneliness.

>>9951856
Huh yeah right. Dealing with other people's shit is something I just cannot do. Back when I was a busboy, if any customer started giving me crap about how I was pre-bussing tables or if a co-worker was being a dick (regardless of why they were being a dick) I immediately had small bout of rage for a good 30 minutes. I hide it of course, but I have a very small fuse and intense explosions when I do get going. I'm intensely violent person, I'm just smart enough to know how to deal with that and keep myself from flipping out.

Anti-social personality traits aren't like anxiety, I don't get nervous around people I have a low amount of tolerance for other people. Although I did use to have that problem (somewhat) before getting a job and going to uni.

I'm not trying to say that all behavior is innate to a person, I'm just saying that some behavior is. This has been a part of my personality since I was a kid. It's not likely to go away.

>>9951955
Yeah, and practicing it will improve your tolerance.

Or you can continue being the edgy super violent child.

>>9951100
Maybe it's easier to tell yourself nothing can be done rather than actually trying to address your problems. This is learned helplessness.

>>9951257
Shrooms are amazing. They literally changed my life.

I kind of had a breakdown. I was thinking about me being asshole teenager, yelling at my mom, stupid shit that teenagers do and I could see that but almost as another person and I hated that person. However, at the same time I realized I was in pain; I had my own insecurities and traumas and I was just spreading that all around me, even to the people I love and that hurt, really bad. I remember physically seeing this cascading net of everyones personal tragedies spilling out of them and going out into the world perpetuating more of the same hate and pain.

Then I had an epiphany, if I could do that with pain, I could do that love. It didn't have to be much, just a kind word to a stranger or an "i love you" to my mom. Those little things made a really big difference

>>9951647
Have you read Heidegger?

Because what you're talking about is exactly dasein, that is what humanity has forgotten, what it is to be. Not existing but being in the present, stopping and being with nature but not thinking about being with nature just being present. I'm assuming you've read Heidegger.

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Life is beautiful and worth living fully. There is so much purpose and meaning out there. But I'm scared of failure so I sit in the basement and refresh 4chan all day.

I know it's babby's first epiphany but I recently fully realized that every adult is completely in control of themselves. Any reason that tries to deny personal responsibility for events in life is just an excuse due to the truth being unpleasant.

basically nearly everyone is living in denial all the time, perhaps unconsciously.

>>9952013
>every adult is completely in control of themselves. Any reason that tries to deny personal responsibility for events in life is just an excuse due to the truth being unpleasant.
yes, for instance an adult can get cancer, which proves that he controls the body. Also, an angry adult can discard angriness at will, which proves that an adult controls the mind

>>9951955
rage is really too tiring to be worthy and once you know peace, you do not want to go back to being upset by strangers over retarded things which do not matter

>>9952012
Anon I'm going to use your post to clarify my point because I think it's a good example of what I was trying to say here>>9952013

You say that life is beautiful and full of purpose, yet you sit in the basement. You sit in the basement because you are scared of failure. You would be out living beautiful life and finding purpose -but- you aren't because of fear of failure.

Why does it matter what the reason is that you aren't or can't? Why does there even have to be a reason or a why? What matters is that you aren't, and nothing else. You're capable of doing what it is you want but you've created some sort of justification so you can continue to not. It's denial.

>>9951981
I can practice self control all I want, which I do, I have multiple outlets for my Agression actually, but to my core I am still that person.
>>9952035
Peace is found through self acceptance and learning how to deal with yourself, not through rejection of yourself and refusing to deal with yourself.

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>>9951100
Look at your situaton not as a participant, but as a spectator celestial.

>>9952057
>>I can practice self control all I want,
then stop being angry over futile events, but you are too weak to achieve this

>>9952068
>Dude just stop being yourself lmao
That's not how personalities work anon

>>9951994
>Needing to do shrooms to learn how to communicate properly with other people and not be egocentric
Wew

>>9952086
the ego centric part is write but the communicate properly is way off. it's not about talking to people, it's just putting a minor effort in just being kinder.

I had a near death experience where I was completely and utterly certain that I was going to die. In that moment I realised the absolutely vast, inescapable truth that the entirety of my being - all my thoughts and feelings - were about to disappear from everything. Some of you might have had a similar experience and please share if you have.

I remember that the realisation of this truth had a quasi-physical form, which was a blackness so enormous and all-consuming that I knew it was 'true'. Once this dawned on me I was consumed by the worst fear I've ever experienced, like stage fright multiplied a thousand times. I also remember that I didn't care at all about my physical body or what my senses had perceived over the course of my life, but that what I was really mourning was the loss of my feelings and thoughts.

At this point I apparently 'woke up' but it felt like being reborn, being thrust back onto a plane where my senses actually contributed to my knowledge (in the physical sense) and I didn't really compute what was happening for a while.

Before then I had, like many of you, very cavalier ideas about death and spirituality and the sublime. Ever since my outlook on life has changed pretty fucking dramatically, particularly my drive to experience the few quasi-magical things we humans can, like the birth of a child or natural wonders as I think, for me at least, that these things have unexplainable repercussions that will go far beyond me. I've definitely moved away from the life I was perhaps heading towards, which consisted of materialism, childlessness and atheism. This isn't intended to preach, but I thought you guys would be interested. Its hard speaking to people about this kind of thing IRL, especially in a place like Melbourne.

>>9952029
>adult can get cancer
>adult can get murdered
>adult can get hit by a bus
>adult can give birth to a retard
>adult can lose house in a hurricane
Acceptance of the cruel randomness of life is a requirement to it. This requirement does not remove agency from the individual.

>an adult can discard anger at will
Correct.

>>9952125
>People can just stop having short fuses
>Dude just stop having OCD like lmao
>What do you mean you have dyslexia? >Just read normally you freak
You're completely illiterate when it comes to neuroscience, Anon.

>>9952105
>Melbourne
Still better than
L O N D O N
O
N
D
O
N

But yeah, the zeitgeist of the age doesn't even have time to think about the metaphysical

>>9951100
I used to be the crazy obnoxious bitch everybody hates.
then one day, and I was just standing in the middle of the living room, spacing out, it hit me.
>If I'm asking everybody to like me without changing, I'm asking the whole world to change for me. That's not viable. It's adapt or die, so I have to modify my behavior.
Since that day my life has gotten so much better, it's insane. It took a lot of hard work, battling back mental illness and a big fuckin' mouth, but it worked. That' one errant thought changed my whole life so drastically, it still blows my mind.

>>9951335
You can, unironically, reprogram any aspect of your personality, especially if you are willing to use LSD wisely.

>>9952143
>Just give the schizophrenic some hallucinogens
Uhh... Actually the taking of hallucinogens has been known to trigger mental illness even worse than before. In fact, if you have a family history of schizophrenia youre making it more likely to develop a serious neurological disorder.

I guess you're a fan of Timothy Leary

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>>9951257
Um, sweetie. You can only be a legitimate theist if you found faith either through a true religious experience or via sound intellectual exploration. Reality-distorting phenomena easily explained by materialism need not apply.

>>9952153
The guy who reversed the recidivism rate for prisoners? Yeah, he was pretty awesome. Why the fuck did you shift the goalposts from personality change to schizophrenia? Of course there are risks, I never said there weren't. But we were not talking about a cure for psychosis.

>>9952138
I've been to London once and I'll never go back. The last remnants of Britain are in some pockets of the countryside and soon even they will be gone too.

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>>9952013
>every adult is completely in control of themselves. Any reason that tries to deny personal responsibility for events in life is just an excuse due to the truth being unpleasant.

>>9951257
The absolute state of theism. You need to have a genuine religious experience like >>9952105

>>9952164
honestly it's really not that bad apart from the south-east and midlands

>>9952105
Your post really made an impression and then I saw you live in Melbourne too. I moved here this yeuar. Save me.

>>9952161
Because it's actually the same concept, hallucinogens have a tendency to worsen any neurological disorders especially when it's self medicated.

You're a hippie Tomorrow Leary libertarian type, I assume you know what happened to the people given LSD by the CIA under MK Ultra , right? Didn't end well...

>>9952164
Enoch Powell was right t b h

>>9952084
Personality is well within our control.
You can develop a personality, it's only a wide array of habits.

Character is the one that is"fixed".

I realised that even if I thought I had realised something cool I would probably look back on it in a couple of years and think it was stupid

>>9952184
No, "mood" is in our control also personality is actually a synonym for character.

>>9952176
What? Hallucinogens have a tendency to worsen personality traits? At no point was I talking about
treating mental illness. I was talking about changing personality.

Yeah, and it turns out giving people a drug that resets nervous system imprints under all sorts of chaotic and torturous situations, or trying to plant information at various levels of the psyche unbeknownst to them, LITERALLY trying to create cognitive dissonance, doesn't tend to go well. Again, not the kind of thing I'm talking about at all. You're arguing with a strawman, fella.

>>9952187
Sure, and character is in our control. Literally choose to be a different character. Not easy, takes discipline, but not impossible. What do you think assertiveness training is, for example? If you're a timid person, you can train yourself to be less agreeable and more self assured. I've seen it happen, under conscious control of the individual.

>>9952170
Maybe.

>>9952172
Where did you move from? I've lived here all my life and grew up wealthy, thank god, otherwise I probably would have offed myself a long time ago (although that certainly isn't going to happen now). This place is a blackhole though, don't listen to people who tell you that its the worlds most liveable city or a cultural/musical paradise.

>>9952182
Maybe. Massive immigration from the third world to the first world is a natural consequence of capital as it looks to both expand existing markets and create new ones (as the destitute masses of imported lumpenproles, while incapable of generating substantial capital of their own to inject back into the market, are simply given capital taken by threat of force from the host population to spend - a process that again begins the upward cycle of capital's movement). But as Bowden says, ethnostates did not stop existing, they just shrunk, and continue to exist in areas protected by massive prices instead of legislation. I've lived in an area in which I have deep roots, is affluent and free of crime, and I don't intend to change that personally.

>>9951102
>inherently superior to jews

I thought you people hated jews because they are suspiciously successful at life

>>9952198
>I am just fundamentally better than those people who were able to take over my culture completely, smoothly, and direct it towards their own agenda without many people knowing or caring.
Yeah, its a bit rich.

>>9951357
ok deepak

>>9952156
what the fuck do you think seeing god was?

don't tell him what the fuck he believes "sweetie".

This just confirms my beliefs that "sweetie" is the most condescending word in the english language.

Go fuck yourself

>>9952187
K mister Jung

>>9952191
>At no point was I talking about
>treating mental illness. I was talking about changing personality.
Personality disorders are just toxic personalities btw , and they are just specific neurological conditions in the brain. What LSD and other hallucinogens do is literally fuck up the wiring in your brain for a small period of time. That isn't changing your personality that is permenantly frying your brain.

Might as well lobotomize me while you're at it lol

>>9952165
My lame argument in response would be that the free will debate is irrelevant because we always have the ability to act as if our deeds and decisions are our responsibility. Whether they truly are or not, the choice itself provides the control.

>>9952192
Habit forming on the small scale is not personality changing on the large scale. Teaching someone how to he more commanding is a process of habit forming, they aren't changing the core traits of a person they are teaching them to respond to stimuli in a given manner through what is essentially Pavlovian responses to given scenarios.

>>9952200
>grouping millions of people into one identity with a collective agenda

that's literally inverse liberalism. It's people like you who are the blue pills of the "red pill" (right wing) community. I bet you think you are as great as napoleon too because you are the same color and gender as him even though you have achieved next to nothing in your pathetic life

>>9952209
Confirmed strawmanning. You have no idea what you're talking about. Personality has not been shown to be reducible to neurological conditions and LSD does not "fuck up the """wiring""" in your brain". You got most of your info from Reagan's TV speeches, hey?

>>9952214
If you change every habit so they play out automatically, why would you stop yourself from saying you have altered personality? If all responses to stimuli are now different, how is "personality" the same?

>>9952198
>>9952200
Unironically torrent and read Culture of Critique, or at least the introduction and first two chapters of the newest edition. That will clear it up.

>>9952218
No it's definitely you strawmanning, I seem to be your Reagan nut father telling you to brush your teeth and such
>Personality isn't a neurological order in the brain
Lol yes it is
>LSD does not fuck up with wiring in your brain
M8 that's how hallucinations work. I don't know what else to tell you.

>>9952218
Pavlovian conditioning doesn't actually change the core traits of a person's personalities, it generates a selected response to a certain scenario via positive or negative associations. If something is different about the scenario then the response isn't the same.

That isn't changing the core of a person. Unless you can change the core of a person to change the response to a given scenario at every variation of the scenario, you aren't changing the personality. Someone who scores highly on psychopathy tests after the age of 18 is essentially a permenantly psychopath, there is nothing to be done. After puberty your personality becomes incredibly rigid.

That's just how it works.

Damn is it winter already? So many snowflakes :')

>>9952235
>>>/b/

>>9952225
Yeah, yeah, and I'm a hippie. Whatever. Personality is a pattern of biological and physical laws interacting with culture and environment. You are being stupidly reductionist in saying it is purely neurological.

There are no computer wires in the brain, you are using a metaphor. An innacurate one. Nothing physical is fucked up by using LSD. It acts in the same way that neurotransmitters do, by binding to receptors and sending signals to the rest of the nervous system.

>>9952233
I'm not reducing it to pavlovian conditioning, I'm saying if you have changed every outward tendency to respond to situations then personality is changed. Consider that hypothetical situation, and tell me what that "core" is that somehow trumps the new observable behaviour and mood.

>>9951735
People always say this, assuming a bitter virgin expects sex to be some life changing experience when it couldn't be more wrong. I dont believe I will change at all if I managed to fuck, I just want to fulfill a biological desire that eats away your other thoughts all day long. It's like you suddenly couldn't figure out how to eat but you still feel hungry as you watch the rest of the population eat without ever thinking about it. The hungry man isn't expecting the meal he craves to answer the enternal questions of existence, he wants to end the hunger and live his life

does the brain define the self? if so, does that mean individuals with a mental illness are defined by it? if not, why not?

>>9952242
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron
>Innacurate metaphor
Sure
>I'm saying it's purely neurological
Never did. Stop strawmanning. I'm saying that human behavior exists on a scale from permenant to flexible, where there are traits core traits of person that are permenant and will never change
>Drugs which can induce psychosis and trigger schizophrenia are harmless
Sure thing
>I'm saying that if you chsnge every outward response to certain stimuli then personality has changed
Sure, but that doesn't happen. After a certain age your personality becomes very concrete.
>Personality is a pattern of biological and physical laws interacting with culture and environment.
Not really

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>>9952263
Pretty much whole post can be summaries with "no". Anyway...

The post I responded to DID specifically say that personality was reducible to neurological states. If you are the same anon, you are backpedalling.

I also never said that EVERY aspect of a person can be changed. We are limited. I'm saying we can change enough to be accurate in claiming we have changed personality.

I never said LSD was harmless. I said it doesn't "fuck with the wiring" in the brain. And I implied that if it used correctly it CAN be not only harmless, but beneficial. Same with a lot of drugs.

>>9951100
>i will never have a porn size penis, so why live?

>>9952242
>Consider that hypothetical situation, and tell me what that "core" is that somehow trumps the new observable behaviour and mood.
Mood = state of mind
Personality = permenant and long lasting mannerisms/behavioral characteristics of an individual.

Just to get that straight, and because we're arguing about the semantics of the word "personality", let's just drop it and get back to the original point. Different kinds of behavior are innate and unchanging, habits form either spontaneously due to genetic and neurological reasons or environmental. A personality trait is a long lasting habit. Some habits habits are innate to the individual and permenant and others are based on positive/negative reinforcement and social conditioning. Let's just accept those definitions.

Now, what makes you think anti-social personality traits are totally within the control of the individual when to date there is no form of therapy that can actually "cure" someone of these personality traits? Are all of these long lasting habits totally curable, if so, then what is the cure to schizoid personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder when there is no known cures of any of these? I'm genuinely curious.

>>9952292
Thanks anon. I am well aware of those definitions but I think the philosophical implications of treating personality as an entity that you have, rather than a set of observations of the person, is misleading and I sensed that in the previous posts.

I need to put the kids to bed etc., but I'll respond to the second part later tonight.

>>9952277
Except out entire conflict rests on semantics where your definition of personalty includes both mood and environmentally conditioned behaviors, where's my definition deals with the innate tendencies of an individual that can be corrected for conditioning.

I'm not sure what kind of synthesis there is too that, we just have different definitions.

>>9952302
Yeah it's pretty l8 where I am m8, I'll just check the thread tomorrow. Still genuinely curious though

>>9952313
I think you have a very narrow definition of personality, when you really try to check into what it "is" all you get are patterns of thoughts, emotion, behaviour over time across situations etc. All I'm arguing against is that if you change those patterns there is not still some residual spiritual "core" of a person that remains unchanged. What you see is what you get, because personality is not an entity but an observation.

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That most of the time my thoughts lack any real substance and are merely the appearance of thought. In other words, my own head is Plato's Cave.

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>>9952105
I had a similar experience earlier this year. It's not an experience I can really describe in any detail accurately. But I remember that it was triggered by my reading of Simone Weil, an infamously intense Christian philosopher, and that for months I was basically lost in my own head, suffering the worst death-anxiety I had ever experienced. Eventually my anxiety got so bad that I was virtually paralysed, at which point I was put on anti-depressants and valium. These medications gave me the peace I needed to seriously consider what it was that was happening to me and how I had to proceed. After a few more months I decided to accept what was happening and embraced the family religion, Catholicism. I'm practising now as best I can, and am slowly learning the teachings of the faith. I'm fairly certain that God, or something like a god, exists. But even the atheists are right, I would continue to live religiously. I refuse to live like a materialist. Say what you like about religion (I won't deny that the Catholic Church has caused enormous suffering in the world) but atheism will do nothing but turn us all into "last men".

Also greetings from Sydney my friend!

There are infinitely many possible philosophical axioms. There are infinitely many criteria for the judgement of these axioms (this is a corollary of the first statement). The selection of these axioms or criteria is arbitrary.

That sums everything up

>>9952407
that sounds pretty intense. I'm glad you feel better at least.

>>9952424
It put a lot of things into perspective and I'm probably the happiest I've ever been, although I do find life more tiring than I used to. I understand how fragile life is and that the best thing for me to do is to try to alleviate the suffering of others. It's probably the worst experience I've ever been through but it was also the most worthwhile, and I hope that others are granted the privilege themselves.

>>9952292
>Now, what makes you think anti-social personality traits are totally within the control of the individual when to date there is no form of therapy that can actually "cure" someone of these personality traits?
OK, well for a start, anti-social personality traits is not synonymous with ASPD. I was responding initially to OP saying that personality cannot be changed - I am simply arguing that it can, especially if you are willing to use something like LSD wisely. It can bring about revelatory experiences, similar to the near death ones that people in this thread are testifying as transformative. But even without such strong methods, you can slowly change personality by instigating behavioural and mood changes with long-term goals and discipline. At a certain point, the behaviour of the person has changes so much that it makes sense to say that their personality was different. There is no separate ethereal "core" of a person other than this. Their pattern of relating to the world changes, their personality changes. For example, if you trained someone to stop being scared of other people not liking them, such that in nearly EVERY interpersonal scenario they were less likely to worry about what other people thought and more likely to make demands about their own needs, you have shifted the domain of agreeableness. If this lasts over time, which I have seen happen, then why would you NOT say that personality has been altered?

>Are all of these long lasting habits totally curable, if so, then what is the cure to schizoid personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder when there is no known cures of any of these? I'm genuinely curious.
None of what I said above is to say that we have COMPLETE ability so far to change EVERY personality, especially the most extreme. Brain physiology does play a role. And it is even more complicated once we realise that personality is not an "essence" in someone but a long-standing pattern of person relating with environment, because while people often try to change something like ASPD at the level of the individual, that individual is often still facing poverty and shitty social circles that do nothing to encourage behavioural change. Plus I do agree that there are factors that make some personalities more rigid and less susceptible to change than others.

tl;dr: OP said
>I innately have anti-social personality traits that I will never be able to reconcile because they are a quintessential part of my character and general mannerisms
With profound experience, integration, and dedication, character and general mannerisms can be changed. LSD has the potential to speed this up.

>>9952407
Hi, I'm the man you responded to. Thanks for sharing. Which text were you reading that triggered your death-anxiety? I've been contemplating which form of Christianity I ought to adopt, and am seriously considering pre-Vatican II Catholicism although finding a congregation that fits that description will obviously be virtually impossible here.

>>9952407
Also stay away from prescription medications, they are made to alleviate the symptoms of a problem instead of tackle the root issue.

>>9952430
hope you're off the poison pills now

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>>9952459
I am not either anon, but instead of using a religion to cope with the death anxiety, I thoroughly recommend reading Staring Into the Sun by Yalom.

You can come up with your own answers through the hard slog, and turn your death anxiety into a motivator to live up to your potential. Be an existential hero, not a follower.

>>9951100

>Life is good, most of the people are kind and worthwhile, the stories I tell myself about myself (e.g. I'm X, I'm Y) are mostly malleable, the only consistent trait of my being is a profound adaptability and ability-to-become

>>9952253
you don't die if you don't fuck

>>9952459
It was Gravity and Grace, which is basically a collection of excerpts from her private journals detailing her mystic experiences and thoughts on various aspects of the faith. I highly recommend it, and I hear that her book Waiting for God, which I havn't read, is even better. I'm not sure if you'll find any truly pre-V2 churches in Australia just yet, but I think that it will slowly return. Until then at least we have Solemn Mass at our Cathedrals (St Marys in Sydney does at least). God bless you friend, I wish you all the best.

>>9952463
>>9952464
I'm off the valium and will be finished with my course of anti-depressants in about two months. After that I hope to never use them again, so that I can deal with the root problems.

>>9952466
I'll read it. Thanks anon. But I didn't just have an experience of death-anxiety, I had a moment of religious ecstasy at the same time as I mentioned, a moment of cognitive and physical rebirth. I think that the awesome forces captured by some religious institutions channel that in a way so I will keep looking into them.

I agree with you about seeking to become an existential hero, but you must realise that being an existential hero and being religious are not mutually exclusive - in fact, religious figures often embody heroic archetypes and can streamline people to act better by way of setting an example. I've bounced off every political ideology and every social theory you can name, but settled on a vision of myself and my surroundings that seems to overlap almost perfectly with antiquated ideas of proper godliness, ideas which absolute prize resourcefulness, kindness, and the ability to use violence. Don't think about religion as being a set of constrictive principles, think of them as the backbone against which you structure your own life, a guideline for allowing your individual talents to flourish without being led astray.

>>9952466
>he doesnt realise that Heidegger was a Catholic

>>9952508
Sounds like you've given it a lot of thought, anon. Good on you, and I think you will get a lot out of Yalom's work.

>>9952509
I never said he wasn't anon. The quote is fitting, though. I never said religion could not be helpful.

>>9951335
You don't understand biological determinism if you think that's what it implies, there are literally people with similar inborn traits to you or who have Aspergers, etc. who have become extremely socially competent through paying attention to patterns and practice.

>>9952536
This. There have been many studies looking at the nature/nurture question in terms of the genetic vs environmental factors contributing to the presence of personality traits and disorders.

Surprise surprise!!!!

Wait for it...

What'dya know?

Yep, you guessed it!

... It's fucking 50/50.

We don't have complete control, but neither do our genetics.

>>9951102
>superior to gays
Yeah, thats why they have been overrepresented in politics and art since the beginning of civilization. Stay mad, breeder

>>9952549
And midgets were overrepresented in Freddy Mercury's orgies, doesn't mean people weren't laughing at them waddling around with cocaine in their noggins.

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Maybe not my greatest, but the last time I cried was when I not only accepted my parents as flawed, but was able to sympathize with their worldview.

I spent a long time feeling disappointed, how the people I respected could hold such short-sighted/selfish ideologies, but in the context of their lives it makes sense (even if I don't agree with their ultimate decision). ily dad.

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the greatest epiphany i had was that new york city is like a graveyard, i was the reincarnation of julius caesar, and there was a shadow war between god-fearing and godless men using their psychic abilities.

it took a couple years of heavy drinking to purge all that, though.

>>9951768
Good luck buddy

After binging the entirety of westworld until 5am I was struck with the transcendental understanding of the absolute subjectivity of my experience. Love, hate, memories, aspirations, thoughts, feelings, desires.... it's all just a game. "A dream inside a locked room". I was in a trance and actually laughing at the absurdity of human struggle, how blinded people are by the arbitrary value system they're surrounded with.

>>9952584
i'd read it

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>>9951334
>Reach the bottom of the barrel in life
>Decide to disregard all social norms in order to re-kindle the will to live

Really Anon? Might as well jump off a bridge if you're going to do that. You're going to figure out quick that your lowest limit is going to be a lot lower if you do that.

A guess handing a guy in a deep hole another shovel is another way to keep him alive.

>>9952253
Leonardo did alright for a supposed virgin.

You just have to rise above your Selfhood and start perceiving instead of seeing.

>>9952198
>>9952200
Yeah, without noticing it, "redpillers" are working from a huge form of both paranoia and ressentiment. Not only does their delusion go "This huge group of people has infiltrated and is subverting our culture, and they're incredibly intelligent and dedicated", but also, "They're still inferior to us because they are underhanded and don't have true morality and compassion." So, as Nietzsche would say, it's pretty much slave morality, not just inventing an imaginary and more powerful enemy than one, but then backhandedly saying they're inferior because they're "immoral". So redpillers are pretty much the biggest cucks of all.

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>>9951100
>The reason I'm alone is because I'm a narcissist
>The reason I talk about shit like "personality traits" and "quintessential parts of my character" is because I'm narcissist.
>The reason I will accept this and not try to change is because I'm a narcissist

I'm like you after a 3 week long TLP and samizdat binge.

>>9951257
Daily reminder that psychadelics make your pattern recognition overactive. You were "seeing god" the same way people see faces in clouds.

Don't care though, good for you. I wish I could be religious.

>>9951100
that art is the closest thing to the meaning of life because it helps you see the world with childlike wonder and enjoy the present moment, and appreciate your existence. Proust taught me this and with this mindset, reading his book, and seeing how much beauty he saw in everyday ordinary things, I saw the world through his eyes, and all my existential dread was cured. I've since been very happy.

Seneca's letters, Siddhartha by Hesse, Crime & Punishment by Dostoevsky and a few other books helped shape my mind to come to this conclusion from Proust as well.

>>9952407
>but atheism will do nothing but turn us all into "last men".
We are all last men. Modern Christians are the lastest of last men.

>>9952197
Came from Perth with some friends from back home. We were prematurely disillusioned with the city and living in it didn't improve on our preconceptions much. It's a recurring meme what a "great art city" it is. I don't wanna talk too poorly about your home though anon. Some of the people are nice enough. I like the bookstores and the churches, though. Playing flaneur felt sickly even back home but here its overpowering.

>>9952205
Oh, honey....

>>9952407
Oh shit, I was the another anon to replied to that guy and his post made me think about Simone Weil too. Weil and Martin Buber really made an impact on me recently. I'd recommend The Way of Man, it's very short.

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The absence of a mother has made it near impossible for me to ever be near a woman intimately. That every repetition of thought is trying to cycle back to ending itself. At center I am a suicide.

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Love is a choice, and I don't have the guts anymore.

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That the only way I can stop being depressed and able to move on with my life and be independent is if I finally accept that I am trans. And before any righteous /pol/tard come at me, believe me I have tried everything, therapy, working out, changing routine, behaviour management etc. I've got to finally accept that I want to be a *woman

That hell is quite literally eternal and unending pain.
After I realised that I didn't leave my room for 2 days, was cold and shaking and felt numb inside and did nothing but sit on the ground and stare at my feet for the next two weeks.

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>being a dateless virgin
>having no friends
>feeling hate or that I annoy everyone
>having no motivation or self worth
>being a failure in general
These were all the things I though were the problem. It wasn't until about 2 months ago I realized that they were just symptoms of being bitter and having a negative attitude about life. I've been doing better since I started working on it. The hardest part is learning to trust people though

>>9952814
>hardest part is learning to trust people
This is natural, studies show that people with high IQs are less likely to trust people because they're more aware of the dangers of humans. Thoughty2 has a good video on YouTube about it. Also I had similar feelings, all you listed, except I'm married (my wife being the only person I'd consider a friend, who eventually got me out of a slump like you were in), and you're 100% right it's a matter of perspective, attitude, mindset.

>>9952786
I'm never going to meet you anon, but I still want to reply in a motion of support; if only as a small, positive glint before the /pol/ deluge. If this is who you are, go for it.

> The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

> I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

> Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

> Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

Philip Larkin- The Mower.

>>9952711
> Playing flaneur felt sickly even back home but here its overpowering.
I swear the architecture, the graffiti covering every flat surface and the myriads of scum that live in and around the CBD exist to crush the soul of everyone who enters it. It makes me feel sick when I walk through an abomination like Southern Cross or Fed Square so I rarely go the city anymore. The entire space is fucking disgusting, even the worst parts of Manhattan are not nearly as filthy or as unkempt.

At this point I advocate voting for the Greens because if they get what they want they will accelerate the destruction of the city at such a rate that increasing number of people will push back. The most likely event though, of course, will simply be the completion of the Vancouverisation of Melbourne, at which point I will hopefully on a farm in Switzerland.

I've never been to Perth but it must be better than here. Did you come here to work? And which suburb are you in?

>>9951100
>waling through the long way to take the bus
>my house is in a place with a lovely scenery which I only consider it like that since it's a semi-dessert
>most people would like to build lots of buildings there because they hate dirt
>also asphalt
>see the new buildings which will house like 20 people like a hive
>see a destroyed bush
>cry a lot

I realised that those kind of plants don't even care about the world, they are destroyed so we could build. Selfless love. I'm really concerned about the future of my third world country.

If it becomes a first world country that would mean all the nature being destroyed and almost no one except the rich would live in big houses. I really don't know what to do, but at least I finally understood what selfless love is.

>>9952844
Joked with my friend that you can get all the art you need to see in Melbourne looking through the window on the train.

Perth has its charm. A lot of the city is very beautiful. Depends where you live though. I think there's a perceptible difference in attitude, or self-image, between people in Western Australia and the East coast. I feel a bit like a foreigner in Melbourne. Living with friends all from Perth and other places, feels a little like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I don't really know why I came. I didn't have anything back in Perth and I don't have anything here in Melbourne. I don't regret moving, and I think the experience has been beneficial, but I wouldn't say it was wise or a good life decision. Basically the only friends I talked to were moving to Melbourne, and I wanted to move out, and maybe do something with myself. I'm pretty young. Some of my symptoms eased off with the lifestyle change, but I'm still low in energy and motivation.
Forgive my paranoia, but just given the specificity of what I've said I'll just say I'm around Hawthorn. House is worn down but pretty good, not too cramped for the amount of people staying in it, cheaper rent.

Going to bed now, but nice to talk to you, anon. Will check around again tomorrow morning. Night.

>>9951257
You mean you grew up from an edgy teen to an actual adult?

>>9952156
>>9952167
>>9952693
I didn't claim to see god and still wouldn't describe myself as religious. I just meant that I went from being an edgy fedora tipper to seeing the value of religion on a human basis and taking a much bigger interest in the Catholicism I grew up with then ditched. Basically >>9952909, because it did happen when I was 18.

>>9951705
Just read it because you sounded genuine... That was truly a depressing and misinformed read. Western countries are already lazy as is and producing literally nothing -- just getting herded into pointless office jobs that will be automated soon. Russell was a hack whose life's work was debunked by Godel in a page and a half.

>>9952826
>woman
>friend
I'm sorry for you anon

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>walking home from a friend's apartment around midnight
>see two guys rolling around in the snow and yelling
>some other people and i approach them and try to break it up
>they both limp away, and one dude is covered in blood
>cops show up and go through their routine of IDing the perpetrator, asking questions, giving medical help to the guy who got stabbed and so on. they ask me to stick around because i was a witness to the crime
>i learn that an old homeless native american guy started harassing a younger guy who pulled a knife on him and got stabbed by his own knife
>out of nowhere, a morbidly obese man wearing these types of dadshoes walks up and absolutely annoys the hell out of everyone around him. all of the cops know his name. he tries to give them advice about how to do their job. he starts a conversation with me and points to the policewoman and says "Oh Marone, i'd sure love to fuck her! Hey, i'm italian!" he sticks around in the freezing cold to talk to people who clearly don't want to talk to him about what happened. clearly, he enjoys the spectacle.
>porky starts ranting about how the natives are always causing trouble, harassing people, and stabbed another person last week
>other young uni kids standing around are visibly triggered, but i'm silent and perplexed
>realize that blue-collar racism is informed by crime and the experience of actually living around minorities, and that rich uni kids like me can hardly relate to the experience of the white working class. the 'hate' which is so often whined about by bourgeois university students occurs because of the way different ethnicities actually behave, and cannot be fully explained by cultural differences or 'systemic racism' by white people
weird night. not really an epiphany, but it was a very strange yet informative experience

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>>9952842
Thank you anon, your kindness and words of encouragement are greatly appreciated

>>9952973
It's because all of them are poor fucks with a weird shit culture. If you think behaviour is heavily influenced by ethnicity then u fucked up.

The greatest epiphany I've had is that people really don't care if you live or die if you aren't exceptional in some way.

Human value is causally tied to the extent that you are useful to others, either materially, emotionally, or artistically.

>>9952918
develop the jhanas and then see how even jhanas are not good enough to stop unhapiness

>>9952862
this is beautiful

>>9952191
The best drug for personality changing would be DXM

>>9952781
>love is a choice
such naïvety. some people can only love that which is destructive, and still others are precluded from love altogether.

>>9951100
I'm not as smart as people would lead me to believe. I'm actually really quite dumb, yet people have some image of me being well-read and smart when I'm not. I can just regurgitate facts from Wikipedia articles.
I also don't have the determination nor talent to become really good in my creative fields. This is particularly crushing, but the weight is taking a long time to come down.

>>9952982
not that guy but while it might be true that ethnicity has no bearing on behavior, the way others treat you based on your ethnicity would.

>>9952826
>your wife is your only friend
as someone who has been married a long time, i can tell you how dangerous this might be; i also know how tempting and inevitable that fate might seem.

imho, a wife should be a companion, someone with whom you share your deepest self—but not your whole self. without advocating the "redpill," i say that there are some things unknown to women that should and will always be unknown to them. find a brother, a rival, or a mentor, if you can.

>>9953006
I know nothing about jhanas, not even what they are or where I might learn about them. Can you elaborate?

>>9952086
maybe you should take some no learn how to communicate properly beyond putting others down, wEw

>>9952781
Interesting. Why did you post a picture of the unconscious there? Did the suspicion even make itself consciously present to you? You could take it as a sign of your unresolved inner conflict.

And if you wish to further divest yourself due to not acknowledging any tangible relation, consider that even in things where correlation is not specifically causation of a phenomenon, the unrelated causation may still bare potent spiritual meaning as long as one may still find clarity or realization in the coincidental appearance of particularly potent symbolism.

One can roll a die and consult a corresponding oracle to find an answer to their inner conflict. The die did not write the oracle, but insofar as it presents you with a method of orientation, it's power was no less real.

>>9952002
No, I just think a lot.

>>9953033
What makes you say you lack the determination? Have you tried? Any success in creative fields requires putting hours in. If it's not something you enjoy enough to put a significant amount of hours in, why feel crushed that you can't pursue it?

>>9951100
I've come to realize that i can live the way i want, and if anything goes wrong and i can no longer sustain living like that, i can end my life without any remorse. Who can blame me? Surely i'll hurt some people, but i'd be dead anyways. And i would have died eventually, too.

I've tried to kill myself before. When i made that decision, i felt such a relief unlike anything before. I knew that there was nothing i should worry about anymore. It was a failed attempt, obviously, but the idea of being relieved by that decision stayed with me.

So yeah, i'll try to enjoy live as much as possible and only care about myself. I'm probably too young and there's a chance that i no longer have this mindset, but right now, nothing makes more sense

>>9953346
>there's a chance that i no longer have this mindset
There´s a chance that i'll no longer have this mindset in the future*

>>9951517
He meant asocial, not anti-social (a common mistake).

>>9952452
>There is no separate ethereal "core" of a person other than this
Except genetics makes up for about 50% of your behavior and this therapy implies that any behavior can be changed via LSD such as homosexuality (inb4 Durr not the same, it is)

You seem to just he repeating the concept that our personalities are within self control a priori and religiously
>People ASPD face environmental influences
Except they have to be genetically predisposed to anti-social personality traits already and stressors only worsen the condition. Permenantly, because after puberty your personality is largely concrete after puberty.

If someone takes LSD and has a moment of self reflection the most that can influence is environmentally induced behaviors and mannerisms, but as I said that does not change the core of an individual. The core of the individual does exist, whether you want to acknowledge that or not.

LSD therapy is considered a pseudoscience by mainstream pscyhiatrists and neurologists btw.

>>9952575
There is a saying tht goes: You are a kid when you think your parents are great. You are a teenager when you find out they're deeply flawed. You are an adult when you forgive them, despite that.

>>9952536
Except that's high functioning Asperger's and if they are placed in an environment where they are uncomfortable and unfamiliar to the extreme they still have difficulty relating to and adopting social norms...

>>9952452
>For example, if you trained someone to stop being scared of other people not liking them, such that in nearly EVERY interpersonal scenario they were less likely to worry about what other people thought and more likely to make demands about their own needs, you have shifted the domain of agreeableness.
That's the problem
>In every scenario
People with extreme anxiety issues and agoraphobia sometimes cannot be trained to account for every scenario, in fact in most cases it's impossible. I assume you're talking about assertiveness training where people who are socially conditioned to be more timid are socially conditioned to be more assertive where they already had the pre-requisites to become more assertive in the first place.

That doesn't always happen, anon. When we are talking about personality disorders we are just talking about extreme personalities which can inhibit an individuals ability to function in society, people exist with degrees of anti-social, borderline, and anxious personality types which are just as permenant as the disorders themselves. Ever heard "you can't teach an old dog new tricks?"

>>9953010
really?
I thought someone was going to say "lmao fucking third world scum kys my man".

Anyway, I now feel really sad when I see nature being destroyed, hope I don't become the next Unabomber.

>>9952324
>Personality is not an entity but an observation
And it's also generally observed that the most dominant habits are more a part of someone's personality than other weaker habits. But of course not all the modality of behavior is due to environmental influences, some people are more timid or aggressive than others in their natural state which are quintessential parts of their character that can't be changed, because they are not social conditioned behaviors.

>>9952105
I almost died three times.

Once as a child I nearly was overrun by a hay gathering tractor trailer, got some cuts from it.

Second time I nearly drowned while swimming in the night from some island to another in Croatia.

Third I nearly got beaten to death by Irish youth.

Each time I only realized afterwards the hazard of death. So no deep epiphanies for me.

The deepest epiphany for me was that I would always be unsatisfied with any accomplishment or pleasure in life. Probably some early childhood experience thing. I'm just trying to retire early so I can read all day.

>>9952324
So I guess what I'm saying is that your definition is too loose imo

>>9953424
why the fuck does no interesting things whatsoever happens to me?

I've been to many dangerous places at night and none of that shit happened to me. I even used to walk at the border of a huge fucking mountain as a child. Does God protect me or something?

>>9952973
>Genetics influences behavior
Careful anon, that's pretty close to crime think

>>9951102
Careful on red pills!

The second one turned me into a SJW

>>9953432
Not him, but you're probably a lot more careful than the other anons. He seems a bit impulsive t b h

>>9952164
Same. Such is the fall of an Empire.

>>9951102
wow what a coincidence! i am white as well, and the same thing occurred to me! indeed, great minds do think alike.

>>9951100
It occurred to me that the Jew endgame is abolishing all states.

Equalizing the brown masses under corporate fascist rule, without nations.

>>9953412
I feel the same sometimes bro

>I thought someone was going to say "lmao fucking third world scum kys my man".

Those faggots are a good way to practice pity and compassion

Inb4 "third world slave morality christcuck", yeah, so what

>>9953432
All of those were my own stupid mistakes, except for the hay gathering incident, there I was just too young and in the country there is not so much safety procedures.

Funny thing is that I walk with a limp due to some completely unremarkable climbing accident that involved falling 1m into the rope. This accident only could lead to an impression fracture in my talus because I killed my anterior outer ankle ligament by jumping down one story and twisting the ankle upon landing, afterwards not seeing the trauma surgeon because fuck it. I have some other mild physical deformities just from really asking for accident and trauma when I was young.

So don't be stupid, life slows down a lot at around thirty or even before for most people and then you have to live with this shit.

I can't wait for summer to end so all the obnoxious oh so spiritual retards disappear from this board.

"I act like a sperg and have shit social skills, better do something about that"

I think this was a result of maturity and stoic philosophy

I'm gonna make it

>>9951102
You're only trolling but it is an interesting question whether your whiteness would be independent of your superiority when conditioning on your deeds. Anything else doesn't really make sense. But then again a person behaving white should have the same superiority. Is this a paradox?
There need not exist a non-white person behaving white for this to be a paradox, the possibility suffices.

>>9953314
I do try, some days I don't eat or stay up late into the morning trying to work, but other times I feel completely drained of all creativity, so I do something else, but every moment I'm pained with the reminder that this is 'time wasted,' that surely the great masters would have spent that time creating. But I know that's not true, because we only focus on the times they spent working, not on the time they spent eating or jacking off or whatever. I just know that somewhere there's always someone who is working harder and is therefore better than me.

>>9953818
I can really relate to that mindset. I know it's hurting my productivity and my chances of "making it" but it's a hard mindset to escape.

>>9953024
you want to love when you're empty

>>9953217
that's not unconscious; it's water.

>>9953868
It is both.

>>9954053
maybe you see unconscious because you have something you don't want to tell to yourself.

>>9954066
The unconscious has been represented as water for thousands of years.

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haven't had one of these outburrsts in a while but this thread made me cry so why not

>always the "weird" kid
>spend elementary and high school doing bizzare loner things and dedicating way too much time to thinking about why i was lonely
>dump video games, start resenting "nerd culture", heavyhandedly try doing something constructive
>dabble in music, writing, film and painting, sculpting, none of it particularly fruitful other than the music
>my childhood love from ages ago randomly hits me up, after i spent years mourning babby's first breakup with said person
>unexplicable events take place and i somehow make her my girlfriend for a few years
>unfortunately lose her in an equally chaotic and unforeseen way, but whatever
>realize i'm alone again, have a huge crisis regarding who i am, i almost don't feel human
>drift away from people, find momentary but uncomparable beauty in random meaningless things like a tree bending, a child playing or a graveyard, or rather those buried in it
>reject the depression label, i know i sometimes feel like shit but i'm sure as hell not going to end my self or do something equally dumb
>start appreciating objects and my surroundings more, haven't improved socially much but i can finally make sense of the loneliness, take every opportunity i can to be in the wilderness, it just feels right
>get into cars, bikes, guns and art, feel like some sort of a horrific ideological chimera but it's what i am
>read a bit of nietzsche and the classic stoics, this is literally what i've been thinking for the past twenty years
>after a particularly shitty day a few years ago, a terrifically powerful thought emerges : i could get on my motorcycle right now and leave all the mediocrity and anger behind, no resentment, no revenge, simply seperate from them and do my own thing and see where my opportunities will branch off

sorry for the awfully messy and incomprehensible blog but i'm not on here often and this thread made me feel things i haven't felt in a long time, i'm sure you'll understand

>>9954074
I didn't know that. Any lit source would be appreciated, I often think about water

>>9954074
the unconcious wasn't even a think till like 100 years ago kys you're self

>>9952901
Good luck anon.

>>9954127
How absurd. The unconscious [as a subject of contention] "wasn't even a thing" until 100 years ago, do you infer from that that it means the unconscious spontaneously generated in that moment it became subject for inspection? No, the unconscious has always been there, it has influenced religious practices and rites, coming of age rituals, spiritual systems, the very orientation of primitive man in his environment when he didn't have the bearing to make conscious judgments or determinations about what anything was, or why it was, or how. It by all manner of reason predates consciousness, because consciousness is the exception to the behavior of all other creatures from whence sapiens would've came.

>>9953371
>>9953408
>>9953419
You all seem to be saying, if it can't happen with everyone then it can't happen. Not only that, but if it can't happen with the most EXTREME cases then it can't happen.

But I never claimed that this was a panacea, and I never set out to say that it would cure all mental health disorders - or even any for that matter. This is why I am making claims about being strawmanned. All I'm saying is that personality is a longstanding epigenetic pattern that we have some control over, and that radical experience and determination, for example with LSD, can have some force of change over these patterns.

>>9953432
Too loose for what anon? Why are you so eager to dismiss semantics as a meaningless hurdle to overcome in one post of your choosing? These are complex issues.

My greatest epiphany… How intriguing…

Quite a novel topic for me, indeed. You must understand: The people I usually speak to are far, far below me. Their idea of “intellectual conversation” is the next winner of “America’s Idol” and which color iPhone is best.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say I am a genius. My IQ is only 141, which pales in comparison to the men who pioneer scientific research (e.g., Neil Degrasse Tyson), the written word (e.g., George R. R. Martin), and debate (e.g., Sam Harris).

And, yes, I know that the men I listed are all contemporary. I know all the historical ones too (e.g., Bill Hicks, Carl Sagan, and Sun Tzu). I am trying to make a point – nothing more – so don’ t judge me on listing contemporary geniuses (genii??) over the historical greats.

It makes more sense to compare myself to contemporary men, as I too am contemporary, although not by choice (I was born in the wrong generation). Even though I have a genius level IQ (I read on Quora.com that the IQ of 141 “blows people away”), I am still VERY humble. If you are my friend or family member, I never point out your mistakes but instead can jive with you just like we are old friends; I am always giving advice and free life coaching to my friends without asking for anything in return.

Now if you will excuse my verbosity, I shall relate to you my greatest epiphany. At first, it will sound dumb and like /r/cringe/, but hear me out.

We all remember seeing the movie “Idiocracy” and having a good laugh. It seems like a parody of a time-travel movie and alas most interpret it that way. But I see something much deeper.

My epiphany was that Idiocracy was like a hidden message. I think the writer of the movie was trying to get “us” to wake up. And by “us” I mean this: Did you watch Idiocracy and at any time think, “This movie was written to describe my life?”

If you did, you are probably in the top 20% of smart people. But if you are in that 20%, it’s not a good thing because, like me, you are surrounded by idiots, just as the main character was, but for real. “Our” epiphany: We are already living in Idiocracy.
(cont. in the next post)

>>9954188
(cont)

This epiphany is only the first stepping stone, my friend. Now that you’re “awake,” start reevaluating your life, especially your relationships. If you are like me, you find it hard to make and keep friends because they simply cannot share in your level of jokes, philosophy, and entertainment.

I used to think I was a bad person because people would stop being friends with me. Now that I see myself as the main character of Idiocracy, I not only know that it’s not my problem but I also know how to interact with these people.

For example, I accompanied my honors level university course classmate to the drug store before we were to work on a project on solving unsolved mathematical and statistical. He was buying vitamins that don’t do what he purported, so I explained to him that it was a waste of money; I also provided suggestions.

However, he was VERY insistent about buying the very thing I had just disproved. I even mentioned some studies that unequivocally showed he was wrong. But instead of agreeing or engaging me in rational discourse, he got defensive.

We had an argument and ended up going our separate ways, which screws up our project. That really sucks because I take my grades VERY SERIOUSLY.

But it won’t happen again because of my epiphany. You see, I merely ask myself what the main character in Idiocracy should do. Without a belief religion (for the weak) or politics (too small an issue when you gaze at the stars, thinking about how small we are in the universe), I was without a guiding principle…

…until now.

…until my epiphany.

Sorry if that was a bit long. I LOVE writing: Once my creative juices start flowing (or “muse”), I just cannot stop writing. It’s done wonders for my email inbox though, as my family and friends are afraid to write to me lest they get something long and full of “big words” because – oh my god – you might learn a new word or two by reading my email with a trusty dictionary at your side (but I guess those days are over, with dictionaries being replaced by iPhones).

Tldr: If you think Idiocracy was eerily similar to your life, you should read my story above. You might just learn something. ;)

>>9954188
>>9954194
This pasta is nowhere near as funny as the person who wrote it hoped.

>>9954209

>>9954188
>>9954194
Is this some new copypasta

>>9952466
Anyone who's ever stared death in the face and comprehended it's infinite magnitude knows that simply acknowledging death won't alleviate death anxiety. It's kicking the can down the road. On your deathbed, if youre not lucky enough to be doped up, deluge of fear will break through your mental dams

>>9952466
> reading books written by jews
> ever
>>>/reddit/

>>9953371
>LSD therapy is considered a pseudoscience by mainstream pscyhiatrists and neurologists btw.
Shit, anon, I didn't realise you spoke on behalf of all mainstream psychiatrists and neurologists! Sorry. I was getting all geared up to engage with ideas about things, but fuck that, I don't want to upset all these (((((authorities)))))) you're saying won't like them.

>>9954242
Did you fail to see the literal nazi also involved in the post? I think they sort of cancel each other out.

>>9952786
Go get your testosterone levels checked by a urologist and take clomid if youre low. Not even memeing

>>9951100
>you are responsible for your own life choices
>being miserable and anti-social is not anyone's written destiny
>thinking otherwise is a form of self important convenience
>clean your room and sort yourself out

>>9954147
even with what you said. the inconscious is a new concept. and all the waters in all the murals or old paintings, isn´t necessary a expression of the "unconscious".

>>9953346
I've tried to kill myself too. It's incredibly hard mentally to psych yourself up for suicide. It's no rip cord.

>>9952727
I've been planning to read Buber too. His Ich-Thou idea sounds fascinating.

>>9954327
You should also check out Rudolf Otto maybe

>>9954327
Buber is great - if you like Buber, also read the Star of Redemption by Rosenzweig

>>9954358
>>9954354
You guys are awesome, cheers! I've been fascinating with Judaism ever since I heard about Etty Hillesum, who haven't read yet but plan to.

>>9952156
This.

>>9954075
>i could get on my motorcycle right now and leave all the mediocrity and anger behind, no resentment, no revenge, simply seperate from them and do my own thing and see where my opportunities will branch off

I have this thought all the time too anon. The only thing keeping me here is my schooling, if I wasn't in university I would be on my bike wandering the world. I have no real goals, ambitions, or dreams all I want to do to see as much as I can, observing and thinking

>>9954246
>The Jews don't want you to take psychedelic drugs and
My boy, that is exactly the opposite. LSD is degenerate

>>9954433
>I would be on my bike wandering the world
>I have no real goals, ambitions, or dreams
>I have no real goals, ambitions,
>I have no real goals,
>no goals
>on my bike wandering the world

Understanding the benevolence of suffering through Positive Disintegration which eventually lead me into reading Old Testament Bible; incredible piece btw, especially Job.

Let This P A R T Y S T A R T
ΠSHIT <<<>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
LETS GETTIT NIGGA A A A

>>9954532
This guy is on (to) something

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>>9952013
no im a virgin and its all because of those chads FUCK ROASTIES TOO and i also blame the estrogen laced tapwater so fuckoff normie

>>9951100
>people who enjoy weed are stressed people who dont enjoy inner peace. (inner peace like live without stress, not inner peace like something idealistic or mystic)

>people who enjoy psychedelics are people with very little or no imagination.

>>9954938
This this this

>>9954938
>I make generalizations to fuel my all encompassing contrarianism and therfore feel superior without having to actually do anything superior at all

I've met your types before

>>9955047
found the stoner

Everyone else around you is going through tough times as well. That's why they call it a friendship. It protects you as you sail through the stressful seas of life.

>>9952652
You got it backwards man. I said you disregard all norms so that he can hit the bottom of the barrel. Not the other way around.
Not gonna lie, the only thing that got me out of my depression was an anxiety attack which resulted in a heart attack that almost killed me. An NDE makes you realize you want to live

>>9955070
>hahaha guys the person who critiqued my insults about a type of person must be that person! Aren't I clever!


weed gives me anxiety, you are just a faggot

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>>9954461
(((((((echo))))))))

>>9952407
>I won't deny that the Catholic Church has caused enormous suffering in the world
What have they done?

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That I'm basically not that much smarter than your average man, and should most have had the raising and opportunities that I did, they too would be in my position, intellectually.

That people aren't really innately evil or dumb, but that their material conditions make them so.

That there is indeed an objective morality, and that objective moral is not incompatible with subjective experience.

That humanity is basically doomed due to a faulty, though not ill intentioned, socio-economic system, that breeds arbitrary and needless inequality and waste due to its fundamental design.

That the arts and natural things and friendship are the only redemptive and comforting things in existence.

When I realized I wanted to be a writer.

>>9955237
The Crusades, the Inquisition, the child abuse cover up, murdering heretics during the religious wars, etc. etc. etc.

>>9955329
You are a reasonable dude

>>9955373
Thanks. I think it's important to be reasonable. At some point I think I sorta realized that empathy is the highest quality of man, and probably ought to be the only one pursued.

half of these are just humble brags. 'oh my extreme intelligence makes me socially awkward'

yes we already know you have autism.

>>9955483
Exactly. You'd probably like E.E. Cummings' poetry. He has exactly this ethos and expresses it beautifully

>>9955524

this.

t. le autiste

>>9955558
Thanks for the recommendation man, I'll check him out.

>>9951100
Most people are struggling to get by and often feel out of place, vulnerable, and like a bit of a phony. Feeling broken or inadequate is part of the human condition and most people you come across experience self doubt to some extent. Nobody really knows what's going on, but we are doing our best. We would do well to be sensitive and kind to nearly everyone.

>>9951100
realizing history is fairly similar to hamlet

As I was coming down from my first schizophrenic episode, I remember telling my mom; "You and Dad were right about everything. Christianity was right about everything. Catholicism was right about everything."

Even though I was off my rocker, I still consider the aforementioned my greatest epiphanies.

I suppose a bit of explaining is in order though...

For me, and most people, the majority cultural values are correct.

For example:

"Work hard. Study like it's your job." Good advice. I regret my slacker days.

"Drugs are bad. Just say no!" Also good advice. I wasted a lot of time and money on drugs and acid actually triggered my schizophrenia even tho I was once a Learynaut like some in this thread.

"Sex can wait till marriage." I really wish I understood this when I was younger. Casual sex is destructive and dehumanizing. I am ashamed when I think of the fuccboi maneuvers I used to pull in pursuit of pussy.


If you can avoid sex, drugs, and laziness, then you are about as ubermensch as one can get.

Guess what religion preaches against sex, drugs, and laziness? (Aside from all of them, my pereniallist friends...) Christianity! (Or Catholicism for me being what I grew up in.)


I still have trouble internalizing these values tho. Sadly I struggle everyday.

>>9955972
So do you still get delusions or hallucinations?

"Only what is living feels a lack."

HEGEL
E
G
E
L

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I am tiny and insignificant and nothing matters and everything will continue for such a tremendous span of time after I die that trying to conceive "the end" is pointless. But it is okay, because I am part of something incomprehensibly large, and even in death you are not gone, you are simply changed to something else, and so, in a way, we have been since the beginning, and so we will be until the end, although consciously I am only cognizant of the now of this shape.

I think the best thing we can do is be kind to the best of our abilities, because there is little else we can offer any other living thing during this brief interlude of consciousness during our journey from the start to the finish.

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>>9956303

when I realized that glass/water/mirros etc aren't actually see-through but rather bring forth what's behind onto their surface, as a sort of stereogram like projection on the surface of the water, or glass, or mirror, etc, which you mistake for being the world beyond the surface of the clear object

as in, put a straw in water, it looks bent because one half is the actual straw you're viewing above the cup, the other half below the lip of the cup is actually just an image upon the outersurface of the cup closest to you, which has sterogram like qualities that make it seem like you're seeing through the cup into the water and at the straw within the cup, when in reality you're merely seeing an image on a surface of a cup, and the actual straw that is above the cup that you can directly see

so when you're driving in the car down the road, you're driving blind, the windscreen is merely a display that reproduces with some accuracy the world beyond the inner surface of the windscreen, which you perpetually mistake for ebing the actual road beyond the car.

as if there were a webcam outside the widscreen, and it displayed the road it 'sees' onto a utr high def tv screen that is the windscreen, and you mistake the image on the screen for being the world beyond the glass

>>9951102

This is a compensatory belief resulting from inferiority of the individual soul.

That /lit/ is full of arrogant but reasonably bright pseuds that seriously need to be taken down a few notches.

>>9951301
underrated toast in epic bread

>>9952634
well if your experience is absiutely subjective then those others are also subjective to yourself, there is no wider human struggle it's just you and your own experience, others are relativised to yourself and your own experiece

of course this is false and our experiece isn't subjecitvie totally

>>9956640
prove it

>>9952674
>You just have to rise above your Selfhood and start perceiving instead of seeing.

You seriously just caused a shift in how I see everything. This is why I come to this board, the occasional diamonds of "woah, dude" among the more common mediocre fare.

Further reading for anyone else who has yet to see the merit of this sentence: Buddhist writing on no-self (Start with Ron Couch's blog or Daniel Ingram's book maybe, I'm still not sure how to introduce people to the topic) and this TED talk by a butch feminist with a hyphenated last name
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgBs_W5CFnw

>>9955152
>weed gives me anxiety
>people who enjoy weed are
>people who enjoy
you enjoy to be anxious?

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>>9956789
I think he meant he is not a stoner, because weed gives him anxiety.

I.e., you can't just dismiss anyone who calls you out on your stupidity for being in the category of person you are insulting - it's not them being defensive, it's you being called out for being an absolute fool.

I ALSO think that you already knew that. So 8/10 for getting me to respond.

>>9956804
>people who enjoy weed are stressed people who dont enjoy inner peace

where is the insult, buddy?. (i dont post the stoner thing (that is not an insult anyway)

>I make generalizations to fuel my all encompassing contrarianism and therfore feel superior without having to actually do anything superior at all
this is a call out on my stupidity?. ok, whatever.