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.

Thank you, this is good advice. It's the practical steps like the ones you mentioned that always provoke the most pain and anxiety. But I am seeing a therapist again, started just this Wednesday, and it was the first time I opened up to another human being in a long time. I think this thread of mine is a direct result of that session. I submitted myself, warts and all, to another human being; to include someone in my pain was such a humbling experience. I would like to go out more and recover my social skills, and move past this debilitating social anxiety that keeps me shut indoors. This requires getting off the computer, going outside, and talking to people, which is very scary for me. I think you're right. It basically turns my desires against one another, like two phalanxes of spearman each taking turns poking at the other. It's tiring and it stirs up a lot of tension, which only makes me want to run to my computer even faster. I'm really surprised at how much I'm learning about myself by talking to you guys. I've read a lot of threads similar to this one, and read similar advice, and they only struck me intellectually. The emotional impact is only hitting home now that I'm involving myself personally. Writing it out and sharing is a completely different experience than simply reading from a distance. Thank you for sharing, Drew :]

I can't do it anymore on my own. I keep trying to quit my dependence on Internet and gaming, and every day, or, if I'm lucky, every week, I go through the cyclical motions of rock bottom --> picking up the pieces --> then throwing it all away again. There's this quote from a book that Stef is fond of, saying it takes about 10,000 practice hours to master anything of value. Well, I've done the calculations, and I've spent 65,700 hours of the most important years of my life mastering a skill than can only be described as a bad habit. Needless to say, I don't think I'm in the same zip code as Carnegie Hall. A brief history: I began with the Super Nintendo around the age of six or seven. Prior to that I was an avid reader, consuming Goosebumps and various young adult literature by the stack-fulls, but it was with the SNES that I got a taste for completely immersive escapism. By all measures of functionality, I was normal during the five to six year period preceding puberty. Then Catholic middle school happened, and puberty and religious guilt winged me like birdshot. I flew home everyday after school to the happy oblivion of computer and video games. It was here that the impulsive habit began, and it only grew more powerful with time: Through high school, then college, and now ... unemployed dropout living with my parents. I am stunned at the expanse of time wasted. My life is a desert. I've spent my life pretending to be strong, pretending I was recovering, all the white sinking further. I'm so past rock bottom that there's no other alternative than admitting I need help. Rehab is something that I'm interested in, but I'm wondering if the structured, disciplined environment is something the philosophical community of Freedomain Radio would endorse. Does anybody have any personal experiences relating to anything I've said here that they want to share?

It moves me. From this layman's perspective it looks technically proficient, but I also like how the three smaller flowers are arranged at the base of the bigger flower. It reminds me of a protective mother gathering her young.

You have under your belt more than a decade of experience being a kid yourself. Don't cut yourself short when giving parental advice.

said the State. And every scientist that ever was knelt, kissed the ring, and received his grant money. All joking aside the quote comes from the trailer of the upcoming movie "The Maze Runner". It starts at 1:20. I can't be for certain but the speaker looks and sounds like the leader of the tribe. The bare nakedness of the threat was what struck me, innocent almost in its lack of pretensions yet completely horrifying in its simplicity. It is the underlying message behind every piece of propaganda, the dotted line of every social contract signed in blood. Sent shivers down my spine the first time I heard it. It also brought to vivid memory something Stefan said in his History of Religion two-parter @ 23:57. Just felt like sharing my experience with you guys

I liked this a lot

The association with public school is interesting. In China there is little enthusiasm for reading/writing, and while I was there I asked one of my Chinese friends why this is the case. He said that in elementary school it's a universal requirement to keep and maintain a journal. This journal was to be read and graded by the teachers. Throughout his years there he saw the journal as simply homework -- busy work, a means to a good grade. The act of writing for one's own sake is a concept quickly alienated from the minds of Chinese students. I don't think writing for an audience is a bad thing, as long as that audience, real or imagined, is an audience worth writing to. There is of course the omnipresent audience inside my head, but sometimes I'll switch it up and write to my future wife, who I will show these to one day. Sometimes I write as if it's a letter to Stefan.

I'll be in teaching English in Beijing this summer.

Hello fellow Freedomainers. I just started writing a fiction story, in which several of the ideas that FDR has taught me are worked in. Please bear with me, at the time of this post I have only a short part finished. But I would love to hear your feedback and to have this opportunity to earn your support. http://www.wattpad.com/14962599-vampiric-memoir-for-a-fireside Cheers

According to: http://www.prospects.ac.uk/chartered_management_accountant_salary.htm >The average salargy of recent CIMA graduates is $42,876. >5% of $42,876 is $2,143 >As a monthly average that is $178 And I thought my $10/mo was nifty [] It sounds like you find FDR very valuable, so there no reason to doubt the sincerity of your gesture. I wish you the best future in your endeavors.