MeGrownMind

This is where the analogy begins to break down for me. But I will continue with a stream of consciousness, just to see what comes up: I perceive something about you (how you look, how you behave, what you represent) and this something provokes the urge to vomit. As the provocateur, you are now in my sights. You have burrowed yourself into the bowel of my thoughts, like a virus. This dominant position you have in my thoughts, you the focus of all of my attention, makes you very powerful. In real life you may be completely oblivious of the power you have over me: you could be standing in line at the grocery store, reading a package label. But in my mind an epic battle rages across continents. I push you out of my system by obliterating you. I tease you, humiliate you, to purge you from my system.

The choice to bully someone is like having to vomit, and instead of turning my head to vomit away from the person like a decent human being, I hurry towards them, grab them by both shoulders and throw up on their horrified face. Had there been obstacles in my way to reach them, I would have choked down the vomit long enough to hurtle past the obstacles, and then after long last violently unleash the torrent into their face. This image struck me so suddenly, with all of the brutal and uncensored clarity of the moment itself. It is a powerful analogy for me as I think about the moral nature of the bully; it reflects my own urges, and my own past when I acted on such urges. It makes me want to gag in real life.

This is what I was thinking. I just assumed the guy hadn't watched the whole thing and was being snarky.

Glad you guys liked it. If you don't mind sharing, I'd love to hear why you liked it. It's 1 am for me: I woke up from a dream, mind racing, and like a lost man scanning the horizon I found myself back here. I wanted to listen to the songs again. My explanation of why I like Hopsin doesn't satisfy me. The impact of these videos go beyond the powerful lyrics. ILL MIND OF HOPSIN 5 is filmed inside a college dorm room: The room where the coolest guys and girls met each night to drink and smoke. My mind cannot help but remember being in a very similar room during my very first night at college freshman year. That night my roommate and I went to his friend's dorm across campus to pregame. Everyone was gathered around the TV, drinking and smoking and being cool. That image of the people in that room sticks with me because they both both scared and impressed me. I've spent so much mental energy in my life trying to be like these people one moment and rejecting the idea the next. It was a time of very little self-knowledge. High school and college were a dark age in which being cool and accepted were the only two goals worth achieving. And I wanted to achieve them by any means. From this first night in college, I began again to wander down memory lane, this time going back further, fingers tracing the wall to find my way. It's easy to get lost. With self-knowledge growing by the day it's easy to forget what life was like largely in ignorance. It's a plastic bag around the head. It's doing handstands in a single foot of water. It's the mirror that I looked in every morning before going to school, eyes bulging desperately to witness a human. ILL MIND OF HOPSIN 5 brought that back to the forefront of my mind.

He is a fresh breath of air. I haven't heard themes about religion, culture, and psychology expressed this way in hip hop. There are some rappers who go the route of anti-establishment, but their words flow from one truth to one falsehood as easily as water. I think the most important quality of a rapper is rational consistency since they are musicians of spoken word. Hopsin's art speaks to me by this road. Listen to these songs if you also find rap boring, Hopsin will make your heart and brain jump up from their bench to sing praises to this man's work.

Good point. Thanks for the help. [email protected]

I am trying to reach out to the caller from podcast 3015: the one whose life has come to a standstill, and this the result of his history of bullying others. I was impressed by his candor and his bravery to push past the blocks in the conversation. But most importantly I was stunned at how closely his experience resembled mine. I also bullied people growing up, humiliating them with an endless barrage of insults about how weird they were, or how fat, or how stupid. And like the caller, my life has completely stalled out. The lightning bolt of insults that I furiously hurled like Zeus on high has exploded in my hand; I am now the eternal storm cloud that boils alive with electricity. In spite of the journaling I'm doing in therapy, I have avoided my bullying history. I tell myself I'll consider it tomorrow, always the next day. But I don't want to put it off anymore. If you're reading this, Brian, I'd like to talk to you if you're willing. Share experiences and so forth.

"6,000,000,000, yes sir," said the captain. "That's a large population group for a planet class this size. They must be a species of great achievement." "Once, sir. Our forward observers report that for centuries they warred for religious purposes," the captain said distantly, keeping his eyes strained on the data panel. "And? Surely they surpassed this hump." "They did, sir, a portion of the species reached an era that they refer to as the 'Age of Enlightenment' but what we fondly recall as the 'Revolution of Reason.' They even industrialized, sir." "Incredible. Let us begin trade relations at once. These are a species worth knowing." The captain cleared his throat. "They threw it away," he said plainly, his eyes never leaving the data panel. "What?" "Their revolutions allowed for leisure and plenty, but they threw it away. Two wars consumed the globe in fire. This was merely a century ago." "But a century for a species this advanced is no far reach. They've recovered, surely." "Not exactly. Their mistakes did not give way to humility. They continued the course of destruction as if it were life-giving breath." The captain blushed. "The overwhelming majority of women still paint themselves in cosmetics even, and the men pursue sports." The admiral shook his head. "Turn the ship around."

Yeah, that's a lot of dudes. Hell, I'll happily go gay if it means finding a rational partner

I like your evocative metaphors. We have one long hallway that runs and bends through the house, connecting all the rooms and collecting all the voices therein. The walls are pale white and unadorned. Pictures and frames and framed pictures lean against the baseboards. Years of dust and grime cast a pall over the clean faces and photogenic smiles, family portraits that had taken hours to shoot at a studio, with as many hours of arguing and bickering in between. It's a general scene of waste and time and nothing to show for it.

That's sounds like a cool way to spend a year. What was the waiting time like between applying and getting the job? The website is fantastic, and something I wish I discovered sooner, but many of the hosts seem to have a waiting line of several months due to a flood of requests.

Thanks, I'll check them out. The middle one looks particularly helpful!

"I am the standard of what is fine and healthy!" he said, eyes desperately darting from person to person, daring them to say otherwise.

Hawaii is the home of the FOO, and I'm safely stranded on the soil of mainland America. Between me and them are 2500 miles of Pacific ocean, and I have no intention of ever going back to that rock again. I am on my own, without any immediate prospect but the open country and road. I've been in a motel in Oregon the past few days getting acclimated to the cold weather, but I'll be hitchhiking down along the coast soon enough with my backpack and a savings account to sustain me, looking for work and housing as I go. All I need is some time, some time to find myself separate from my family and the rigid social structure that defines an isolated island community. I know I have the courage and strength to persevere. I'm sending out an APB to any FDR members in the NW area who want to help a fellow traveler in philosophy. A roof and a couch would make all the difference in the world. I am no slouch when it comes to chores and house projects, and would make it up to you as best I could.

That is about as apt a description of "the itch" that I've heard. That is exactly what it feels like. Even if I have a good, productive day, and I'm feeling all those happy-go-lucky positive feelings, there will come a moment in the day when the desire for the computer enters my mind and will not leave until it is satisfied. It's like a rain cloud that threatens to ruin everything. Immediately I run from it, but it just follows me like in a cartoon, growing and growing into a storm cloud, until everything about the good day is gone, and it's got me. It's those kind of experiences that have disheartened me the most. Left me in despair and seeing no road out other than rehab. Since I started talking to you guys though, a lot of thoughts, emotions, memories have been coming up, and these are things that make me feel human. Addiction has really sapped away my sense of identity, and as a result my humanity. I feel like a cold dead body most days. Talking about it has really warmed me up. Yeah, I remember Stef saying that video games are really useful at times. Like say your thoughts are confused because you have so much on your mind. An hour or two of video games is a good way to refocusing your attention. The slate of your mind is cleared out, so that when you finally return to your thoughts it will be with a clearer view. That was a pretty incredible read. Thanks for sharing.