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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted May 17, 2001 09:24 AM |
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Only some few
"I've met people so depressed by the simple fact that they lacked the resources to achieve perfection. I've seen people fall apart simply because they were bested by others at something they thought not possible."
So have I, but that is rarely a lasting depression, just a brief disappointment usually. Yet, the people we were speaking of are those few who even consider the concept of 'ideal' long enough to realize it's an empty pursuit. Thoe kind of people should also continue thinking and realize that if you could achieve that ideal, all that is left is entropy.
"Having nowhere to go is rarely possible. You can always go back, retrace your steps."
Ideals are seldom thought of as a midpoint of the journey, having reached the top, the only way to go is back down. Which is exactly why reacying perfection is cause for such hopelessness.
"Having nowhere to go can also result in complacency. You might just like it where you are, with no desire to evole or devolve."
Given that you have no desire, no spark, no essence- how will you maintain even your complaceny? You might as well disappear from existence, since you now matter not to anything at all. Only nihilists would enjoy that thought.
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zedrin
Known Hero
Ping pong goes the gong
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posted May 17, 2001 09:51 AM |
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Let me give you an example... A neighbour of mine... Everyday he wakes up at 7 am, he goes to work, he comes home, he eats dinner, he watches tv, he takes a bath then goes to sleep. Everyday. He is like an alarm clock. I know what time it is by sound of his door slaming.
I've talked to him. I must say i was a bit horrified. He is happy. He loves his blank schedule. He loves having no unknown in his life. He loves certainty. He loves knowing that he will watch tv as always and go to bed at exactly 10 pm, and probably fall asleep at 10.30 pm.
He does not want to go anywhere. He has no desire to know something new. He does not search for everything. And yet he is happy. I mean truly happy, not just an outer mask.
That is something i somewhere i don't want to go.
____________
"Blow wind! Come wrack
At least we die with harness on our back" - Shakespeare, Macbeth
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted May 17, 2001 10:19 AM |
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Ignorance is Bliss
I'm with you there- yet I wonder if he is really happy or only convincing himself and everyone else that he is happy. his schedule is not very certain, so many things could upset it, and his total happiness rests on it's stability? he is deluding himself.
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted May 17, 2001 10:19 AM |
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Ignorance is Bliss
I'm with you there- yet I wonder if he is really happy or only convincing himself and everyone else that he is happy. His schedule is not very certain, so many things could upset it, and his total happiness rests on it's stability? he is deluding himself.
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arachnid
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 17, 2001 02:10 PM |
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good for him! Just because your depressing does not mean he has to be as well! Everyones different dont judge what makes people happy and then think you are better than them for not feeling the same way.
You may call it "bit horrified" but i think its called jealousy. I too would rather be totally happy than have desires for goals that can never be met.
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Shae_Trielle
Honorable
Famous Hero
of Heroes
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posted May 17, 2001 02:44 PM |
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Zedrin, well done. You truly have gotten these guys in a knot about your 'cold-heartedness', lol! Keep it up, let's see how passionate they can get!
It's just a real pity that you had to bare your unfortunate soul for all of us to see....
*smile*
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zedrin
Known Hero
Ping pong goes the gong
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posted May 17, 2001 04:26 PM |
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Who said anything about baring my soul? Parts of it are public knowledge, or almost public, for i find it best that people judge me acording to real facts, not just mails, theories or ideas.
Secondly, i don't envy him. Although i crave some peace, existence without some kind of struggle seems futile.
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"Blow wind! Come wrack
At least we die with harness on our back" - Shakespeare, Macbeth
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted May 17, 2001 08:13 PM |
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Happiness
It's impossible not to go through life without making judgements, you have to make some just to take any action. Sure, the sun has a good chance of coming up tomorrow, but someday it won't- who knows exactly when? Science says it's a long way off, but science has been wrong before.
If you would prefer being happy for no reason and stagnating with nothing to inpsire you, so be it, but that attitude is most common among drug addicts and other crutch minded people. I am no saying you are any of those, but that attitude is prevalent among them for a reason. They are all apathetic, and if they can convince themselves they are happy then they don't care about anything else. Barely human is what I'd name such an existence.
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arachnid
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 17, 2001 08:58 PM |
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So you think people that go around happy without a care in the world are "drug addicts and other crutch minded people."
Whats wrong with being happy? I really cant believe that you think being happy and carefree is a bad thing! Whats the point in NOT being happy its kind of wasting your life. I mean the way i see it we do go through life making judgements and taking actions but whats our goal???? To enjoy life and to be happy! To snear at people and insult them if they reach this goal is very low. And if you think this is "barely human" then i think theres something wrong with you.
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted May 17, 2001 09:12 PM |
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Drug addict happy and carefree?
'So you think people that go around happy without a care in the world are "drug addicts and other crutch minded people."'
I said the type of attitude you displayed about happiness being the only thing that matters is frequently shared by drug addicts and crutch-minded people. If you think drug addicts are genuinely happy- well, they only delude themselves as long as they get a steady supply of the drug, and even then- usually they are really despondent people.
"Whats wrong with being happy? I really cant believe that you think being happy and carefree is a bad thing! Whats the point in NOT being happy its kind of wasting your life. I mean the way i see it we do go through life making judgements and taking actions but whats our goal???? To enjoy life and to be happy! To snear at people and insult them if they reach this goal is very low. And if you think this is "barely human" then i think theres something wrong with you."
Nothing is wrong with being happy, and we weren't discussing happiness in it's own context, but rather fulfillment, which is a form of happiness, but related more to achieveing goals ro that ideal which you strive for. Not eveyone strives, and in fact most people are probably content in the short-term to be carelessly happy. How many older people do you know who are truly happy? There are many actually, but very few whom are happy because they never accomplished anything. If they lived their whole lives as you suggest your goal is- not as many would by content when looking back on theri life and seeing nothing but delusion or momentary happiness from one thing or another.
Perhaps you have everything you can need or want, but what I am saying is all that is really impermanent. Just ask any of the millions of refugees in countless countries and throughout history about that. If you don't base your happiness on something besides materiel things or the way your life is going currently, you will almost always set yourself up for disappointment later.
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Mocara
Famous Hero
what?
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posted May 18, 2001 12:29 PM |
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This thread has really taken a turn for the interesting again.
Zedrin knows what he is doing and is directing this threads direction like a master.
He is pushing buttons and getting responses and that's cool.
Threads need people like that to keep going and it's fun to play devil's advocate.
Anyway I have been studying neuro associative conditioning for 12 years now and it has really improved my life immensely.
What I have learned from NLP and NAC is what makes us happy and for that matter what makes us any emotion is a matter of neuro pathways to our brains.
So in other words I can decide that a certain song will make me happy and if I know how to link it I will be happy when I hear that song.
Like Ivan Pavlov's dogs salivating to the sound of a ringing bell people are always feeling emotions based upon stimulus in their environments.
Some people might seek to reject this science on the grounds that it de-romanticizes these wonderful physiological storms we get in our minds but it is fact all the same.
If you haven't read or seen "A Clockwork Orange" you really should. It is a crash course in NLP.
Don't get me wrong. I do not seek to analyze everything I feel. It is fun just to be happy and not know why and it is also nice to wallow in misery from time to time just to keep things in context.
People have value systems that decide how they feel about things they experience.
I, like Zedrin enjoy a little chaos in my life. I never know when I will go to sleep or wake up and I despise anything that seeks to structure it but at the same time I can completely understand Zed's neighbor who derives pleasure from what on the exterior seems to be sameness.
I mean really, isn't it fun to play a good map 50 times? To the casual observer it would seem the same but we would notice how we did everything different each time right?
Shae your comments are hilarious as always.
Ichon I fear we were brothers seperated at birth as it seems everything you say I was just about to type :-)
Arachnid, I really enjoy your views. Please keep posting them.
And Zed you are a very intelligent man it is easy to see by the way you have kept this thread going now for 11 pages by always pushing the right button at the right time.
Good work, Mocara
"The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for." - Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, British Essayist, Poet, Statesman
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zedrin
Known Hero
Ping pong goes the gong
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posted May 18, 2001 08:16 PM |
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Now stop that Mocara, else i might think that you really like me lol.
____________
"Blow wind! Come wrack
At least we die with harness on our back" - Shakespeare, Macbeth
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zedrin
Known Hero
Ping pong goes the gong
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posted May 18, 2001 08:33 PM |
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Now really now, someone wants this job? I'm starting my exams so i will have a lot less time to post here or play, and yet i do not really want this thread closed for inactivity.
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"Blow wind! Come wrack
At least we die with harness on our back" - Shakespeare, Macbeth
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Mocara
Famous Hero
what?
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posted May 18, 2001 09:57 PM |
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BTW
Damn you Zedrin.
I was always meaning to use that quote and now I can't.
You might enjoy my new map that I will be sending in to ToH called "Army of Darkness".
Player 1 is Bad Ash and Player 2 is Good Ash and an Army of Darkness is forming giving them only a short time to settle their differences.
I have been working on it for a while but have decided to finish it up and send it in to ToH as a result of recent discussions about maps.
Maybe someone will like it.
If not I will play it with my son.
Army of Darkness is his favorite movie and I made it for him originally =)
-Mocara
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted May 18, 2001 10:05 PM |
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Turn for the worse
Ugh, this is when you know it's going for the worst. When people start talking to each other about what a great job they are all doing. Like when the media start congradulating themselves on a job well, done, or examing how they covered a certain issue rather than covering something new. Or condeming each other for ignorant louts.
To paraphrase something you all will recognize, "Nothing but poor players, strutting and fretting their last hour on the stage."
Ichon- "A barren superfluity of words."
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dArGOn
Famous Hero
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posted May 19, 2001 04:55 AM |
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Edited By: dArGOn on 18 May 2001 23:14
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Ichon
"What you are describing is not empathy- rather it is someone feeling sorry for themselves by imagining themselves in a worser position. It is normally the occupation of do-gooders who really have no comphrension, but the desperate rarely turn away interest, even if they know in their hearts it is not interest in them, merely a facade."
I guess it doesn't do any good to argue about definitions (here I go any way...hehe), but as a licensed psychotherapist I have spent a lot of time studying empathy, practicing empathy and encouraging empathy in others. Your definition of empathy is really quite incorrect according to the professional literature. It has little to do with "do gooders" nor is it people feeling sorry for themselves. The latter is self-pity but not empathy. Empathetic attunment is crucial for our survival, progress, moral development, social development, mental health, and life purpose
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted May 19, 2001 08:29 AM |
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The professional speaks
dArGOn:
Well, I may be a bit cynical here, but I don't think someone whose job it is to feel empathy would ever agree that empathy is so rare. How could they justify their job then? They couldn't, not without being a criminal.
Self-pity is when there is no intermediary to project onto. Empathy is also self-pity, but achived in the roundabout way of placing oneself in anothers shoes and then feeling sorry for oneself.
I do think that true empathy can occur, but it is rare because it requires someone totally understanding what someone else is going through without having ever gone through it themselves or gone through something close to it.
I think you might be able to agree on that- afterall, if only empathy were important, why all the studying and such for psychotherapist's? That studying is to provide a broad base of knowledge of things it is not possible for you to go through actively, but in order to commiserate with the patient you have to be able to sustain some self-pity.
I think it is much more likely that in those therapists that truly desire to help and heal rather than make a buck- the crowning moments of their career are when they establish true empathy. It is certainly not an everyday occurence, or even an every patient occurence.
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dArGOn
Famous Hero
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posted May 19, 2001 09:03 AM |
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The cynic:) Ichon
LOL…you may have a point about justifying one’s job as I can see someone outside “the profession” thinking so and unfortunately it may be true at times
But all I can say is that I have experienced it and seen it many times. Moreover...it is not only my own experience with empathy but a multitude of others who have written and researched the topic and found that it is central to the mother-child relationship and hence affects all of our relationships thereafter.
I continue to disagree that empathy has any connection to self pity...it is quite it’s opposite. Empathy is other-orientated whereas self pity is self-focused.
I think you may have too high of an expectation for empathy as a black or white experience (i.e. either you are empathetic or you are not). I see empathy as more of on a continuum then an all or nothing experience. I would argue that it is an imperfect attempt to both cognitively and emotionally understand another’s experience...but in the end a total and complete understanding is rare as you state.
While I don’t agree that “imperfect” empathy is a rare experience, I do believe that it is a struggle and an act of the will. An example is like love...we all have the natural inclination for love (if a “good enough” empathetic attunement occurred in infancy), but we need to constantly learn how to express and it and refine it. True love (not silly romantic love...hehe) is in the end a natural disposition that is cultivated through will power and discipline.
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Mocara
Famous Hero
what?
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posted May 19, 2001 09:55 PM |
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Cracker Jack Box
Dargon is a licensed psychotherapist?!!!
Heaven help us all!! =)
And "worser" is not a word Dargon. =)
-Mocara
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dArGOn
Famous Hero
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posted May 20, 2001 04:49 AM |
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Edited By: dArGOn on 19 May 2001 23:00
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Mocara- the self proclaimed spelling police =-)
Thanks Mocara...I know "worser" is not a word...if you will notice it a quote from Ichon
But then I have noticed us all make many spelling errors so I will be the last to cast a stone;P
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This thread is pages long: 
