philsau

Watched this a while back. Great interview.

DaVinci- lol. It's a reccomendation. Does linking to the website make it look ad-ish?

Hi everyone. Just wanted to share my experience of online coaching with Antony Sammeroff (enrichyourlife.co). What motivated me to start was that for a long time I felt I couldn't communicate authentically in my life. I don't mean that I couldn't talk to other people- I could relate on a shallow level as most people can. But in the key areas of feelings, needs and desires I was unable to reach others around me. As a man in particular, there seemed to be a block around any sentence beginning with "I feel" or "I need" or "I want". These conversations are crucial for growth, connection and survival in life and those were what I have had the most difficulty with as a result of not having had it modelled in my childhood. My sessions with Antony were very wide ranging and but the main idea was to get to the source of some of those challenges and to provide workable strategies for overcoming them. I found Antony to be very empathetic and sensitive to my history and my needs. He himself was able to model through our conversations the skills I was looking for, which was very useful. He was also able to share certain mindsets and tools to help me communicate better, and dealing with those issues from the inside out. I'd highly recommend Antony as a coach or councillor, whether you seek help processing emotional trauma or more practical help improving your emotional skills. I'd also check out his videos on YouTube where he runs The Progressive Parent channel and a series of videos on communication, if you want to get a sense of what he's about.

Thank you guys for the feedback, much appreciated. What is interesting is that I am able to have one night stands to satisfy my base sexual needs (again, the transient nature of those relationships translates into what my childhood experience was). But to me that feels repugnant yet stable long term relationships seem so unattainable at the present moment without further growth and healing. Wuzzums I can relate to your comment about seeing women as a blank slate and playing out both sides of the interaction. My mistake in the crush mindset was not being honest, direct and respecting these women as human beings with a past and with issues of their own. Also the resolve to draw a line under it and move on if the relationship clearly isn't going anywhere.

Hey man really sorry to hear about that. Those text messages, especially the last two were horrific. To say to someone they "don't have the balls to explain yourself" is truly degrading and you did the right thing by getting away from them. Now your main task, as far as I can see and in my experience is to resist the temptation to be drawn back by their appeals or by your own inner guilt. You see now by those texts the truth of where you stand in the relationship.

I could really use the perspective of a friend right now. I keep butting into these stupid patterns of behaviour when it comes to women: the long drawn-out crush that dominates the imagination and goes nowhere in reality. Its such a cliche but I seem particularly prone to it. It's happened to me about 5 times in my life so far and at the age of 24 it's really causing me heartache and getting in the way of finding a fulfilling relationship. Here are the vital statistics: Kate: I grew up around her for five years in one of my earliest foster families. Wanted to marry her when I was 13. Christiana: An American girl from Boston who I penpalled with for two years from 16-17. She came over to Ireland and it transpired that she already had a boyfriend. Kyrie: This was when I lived in Scotland for the first year at age 19, also American (from Hawaii). She was a Mormon missionary. Maeve: without doubt the worst. This literally lasted for 3 years. She was a psychology student in Cork when I was studying there. She moved to Edinburgh and my self knowledge was so confused at the time I somehow found a reason to move to Edinburgh to be around her. Chloe: A weird non-starter which I was sure would go all the way. Met her when I was volunteering at a soup kitchen in college and we've been messaging sort of half flirtatiously and half platonically for the past year. She recently blocked me. (this morning in fact). I've had ENOUGH. I need to sort this out before I fall apart. I keep falling for these women and instead of initiating some form of relationship directly I get drawn into that familiar pattern of love sickness and faux friendship. My fear is that I don't want to mess it up, yet by being controlled by fear I invariably do. My best explanation that comes from both therapy and journalling is that I had no stable bonds with my parents growing up. My mother was a schizophrenic who was basically unstable and useless and my dad was away at sea most of the time, but extremely cruel and violent to me and my siblings growing up. I was taken into the foster care system when I was 4 and have had 5 different placements growing up, 2 of which were in the state residential system. I was actually spanked and given cold showers by my first foster mother (frying pan into the fire) and my second foster family at age 10 -15 were loving and stable but I was at that age so messed up I fought them tooth and nail. From an early age I had to develop an emotional hide to protect myself, and this has left me as a man quite independent and strong in many areas but also disconnected from my heart and from others and uncomfortable with being intimate and open, preferring to intellectualize and fantasize instead of reaching for the core of what I want. I keep thinking what if any women out there found out about my past, why would she want me? She would want someone stable and undamaged (and indeed these long drawn out crushes tend to be of women who are of the stable, warm, intelligent variety). And those fears constrict me with women and many other areas of my life. I'm a novelist, which is code for "since I can't enjoy life in reality, I'm going to invent fictional characters and situations and play them out for other people's stimulation and enjoyment, while continuing to wallow in my own pain and grandiosity." I realize these habits with women are destructive but I also recognise that the issue is deep and goes back to how unstable and untrustworthy those early attachments were. Has anyone here had experience of healing from that and finding a fulfilling relationship with a quality woman?

Hey dude, thanks for the reply. Interesting points. I like your idea of him coming from a troubled background- as a Tunisian that shouldn't be too hard to contrive realistically. The "turning point" is a brawl (stylized as a sort of 21st century duel a.la. West Side Story) in which Duarte kills a man with a Swiss Army Knife. The process of hiding his crime causes him to start lying to everyone around him, and over time he loses his artistic discipline and he starts noticing the creep of marble over his skin. Is that a good motive for an honest, rational man to turn mad?

I have some trouble in my journalling routine with writing spontaneously what comes to me- I tend to "compose" too much. Maybe because I believe on some level other people are going to find my pages- what if I died suddenly and had it lying around? So I tend to write to to represent myself in the best way to possible readers. I'm getting better at it admittedly- free associating, doodling and destroying the pages (I write on loose foolescaps and store in a binder) after I've written 100. This helps to increase my confidence that no one's going to come along and be able to read the inside of my head with its pants down. I'm not at all sentimental about destroying them- the real gold of journalling is not the valueless detritus in ones brain that keeps getting in the way of the true self, it is the subtle changes in ones thought processes which journalling brings about over time.

I'm currently working on a tragic novel and need some help on how best to demonstrate the virtue of the lead. To give a brief synopsis the novel is a tragedy set in modern day Paris about a sculptor, Anton Duarte, a black man from Tunisia who turns to stone. The fantastical device of turning to stone is used to demonstrate his fall from virtue and fame into lies, deceit, and madness. The idea for the motif of lies turning you into stone comes from Pinnochio's nose; but as a whole my two main inspirations are the play Othello and the novel The Picture of Dorian Grey. Tragedy to be effective as a genre must have the right structure. To use Stefan's phrase, "art is an emotional argument for virtue". Tragedy in particular shows what happens when a good person is corrupted and the work acts as a kind of warning sign "don't do this", and is empathetic to people who make mistakes and get drawn into evil deeds by showing the whole context. Othello for example, at the beginning of the play is virtuous and strong (according to Shakespeare's statist values), and it is Iago's manipulation of him into thinking his wife is having an affair that turns him mad. I'm struggling with how to demonstrate Duarte's goodness according to anarchist values in the first half. I like the idea of him being a bootstrapper, building his career as a sculptor of marble from humble origins as a plasterer at the age of 18 on on Parisian building sites. But here's the thing. I've also been playing around with the idea of making him a Muslim (does not drink, is an ascetic bachelor, prays five times a day etc.). From the viewpoint of the structure of tragedy, this would seem to say that Islam is somehow virtuous and represents truth (in counterpoint to his lies turning him into stone), yet I just can't imagine Duarte being an atheist. Anyone have any thoughts or ideas about how to demonstrate his goodness according to anarchist values before the tragic downfall? Any fans of Ayn Rand welcome! **Don't know whether this topic is in the right category but there doesn't seem to be a folder for art on the boards yet.

I was lucky to be taught the savings habit from an early age, though I understand that for many people, especially if you are poor, money burns a hole in your pocket. I once read a book about class differences and apparently one of them used to be the length of time waiting and chatting when the dinner is served before tucking in. If you dug in staight away that was low class (instant gratification) and if you could wait that was considered upper class (ie deferred). In many ways the lack of the habit of saving even a little bit over a long time is what sustains poverty in the long term.

Great post. Where in Scotland you from? I lived in Edinburgh for a year and used to be involved in the Scottish Libertarian group. The "vote or not" is a tough one. I agree with you on your point that localising power is certainly on the right vector to liberty, however the political makeup of Scotland is stubbornly leftist and has been so for nearly a century, so an independent Scotland would be unrestrained in it's socialism. I don't think it's immoral myself to vote for the least bad option as you see it compared to your ideals. At the end of the day it is the gang of thieves who are the moral perpetrators, not you. Kind of reminds me of Rothbard's argument that if you were a slave and you could vote for better conditions, would you vote?

Hey Tanya, really great post. That sounds almost unbelievable what happened in the Eastern Bloc countries, must have been quite an emotional journey for you to start out from pure socialism and come to anarchism. Well done ane hope you get on well

Sorry living in Scotland has kind of conditioned me to use the word hillwalking instead of hiking but it's the same thing! In Scotland they classify the "hills" (ie mountains) according to height and various features. The highest are the Munros, which are over 3000 ft, but there's also Camerons, which is the level below. Then you have the Corbetts which has to have a vertical drop of at least 500 ft all around. Did a good bit of hiking while I was there but not nearly enough! You much into outdoor sports yourself?

My two favourite philosophers have brought back the Greek view of philosophy as having practical life relevance- Stef and Alain de Botton. Granted de Botton is more of an aesthetic philosopher and weak on political philosophy, still like the basic approach of engaging with what people care about in their lives.

Yep, 100%. If you look at the Greeks the day to day role of the philosopher was something in between a therapist and a self help guru. Kings and nobles would "hire" philosophers for their practical wisdom and help in making the practical decisions that needed to be made. I don't know at what point mainstream philosophy decided to take a u - turn up its own behind into sophistry and obscurity, but I'm guessing it was about the same time as literature did the same As for the practical implications I'm about 75% defoo'd (still working on it) and already my life is a lot better. I can't list the many ways using logic in every day situations has helped me. Life is actually a lot simpler this way!

Hey Tony thanks for replying! My writing tends to structure the plot around some kind of a fantastical motif- that's really the only common theme I've noticed, but I'm interested in a wide variety of topics and characters:) What got you involved in FDR?

Its great to see the different stories about this here. I've had a bit of an ambivalent relationship with religion. I went to a Catholic secondary school in Ireland and I was a staunch atheist when I was a teenager- which used to get me in trouble. Then when I was 19, I moved to Scotland and was in a pretty vulnerable and lonely place I was accosted by Mormon missionaries and became intensely religious for about six months. I actually feel a little embarrassed to mention that phase here for fear of being judged! After six months to a year of crazy my theism mellowed to liberal Quakerism. Now I consider myself an atheist Quaker- I still go to silent meetings on occasion and enjoy the social and aesthetic insights of the community, but Stef and others have done a good job in straightening out my metaphysics.

Hello! This is my first post, I'm really glad to be getting involved with the community after sitting on the fence for so long. Some info to get to know me: I grew up in the town of Wexford in the south east of Ireland. I'm the youngest of five children and was brought up in foster care. I studied English and Applied Mathematics in University College Cork- during which time I became an atheist Quaker. I am a novelist and have written five "practice" novels: I'm not yet published but I aim to be. After Cork I lived in Edinburgh for over a year and rode rickshaws for a living. I now have a day job back in my home town and write by night. Enjoy hillwalking, drawing and surfing as side activities. I look forward to getting to know new people on here with similar interests. Philosophy is essential to me because it has cleared my thinking and invigorated my imagination. Maybe to start off I'd like to get people's thoughts on the topic of anger- the subject of some recent shows. I'm really taken by Stefan's analogy of anger as the immune system for our emotional wellbeing. Can anyone think of a better word, expression or even a neologism that might differentiate this kind of anger from its usual association with mere rage?