August Boulder

Your bravery and integrity is inspiring. I imagine Aristotle would be a good place to start, and maybe Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. On the question of God, or spirituality, C. G. Jung might be a good place to start. I've shared a link to this article in another post, sorry if you had already seen it, in case you didn't here it is: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.mx/2014/11/the-spiritual-problem-of-modern-man-by.html

Oh man, that sucks! I'm really sorry to hear you're in such a tough spot. I find myself in a similar situation, but I think my depression may be not be as bad yours. I don't really think there is very much more I can say to help, other than insisting you do not give up! I wish I were on the other side of my own mess, to be able to give you better advice. One of the things that most helps me make it through the day is art. I feel like every great new film, or album, that I find inspires me greatly and helps me think of the future and my place in it. Some artists that I've found recently that might interest you are Manolo Sanlucar, a flamenco guitarist, and Mick Karn, a fretless bass player and musician. Also, I don't know if you're familiar The Durutti Column, their album Vini Reilly is fabulous. I hope you like it. If it's of any help, this article helped shed some light on my own troubles: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.mx/2014/11/the-spiritual-problem-of-modern-man-by.html

Your post really resonates with me. I will try to give you some advice, and I hope that it will help. The first thing I'd like to say is, don't spend your time being jealous of people "more successful" than yourself. It's a fantasy. They only appear to be more successful than you because they are better at things you may not be so good at. However, I'm sure there are things you are very good at, that they are not. One point in your favor, and a big one, is the fact that you're here. Also, keep in mind that success isn't only measured in financial or academic terms. The people you're jealous of may be a total wreck inside, people who repress all of their emotions, or who may be working very hard only to try and earn their parents' love. Really, don't do that. Your situation is different, you can't measure yourself based on what you infer about others. You should measure your success based on your own well-being. You quoted Ayn Rand. I love her work, but you should try and not take her fiction too seriously. It's dramatization – her heroes are not real people, and if you're not careful you can really hurt yourself trying to be like them. Her characters seem to repress all of their negative emotions, or to not even have any. The only exception I can think of may be Steven Mallory in The Fountainhead, and maybe to a lesser degree Eddie Willers. And another thing about her heroes, they don't have people around them to support them! They fight these enormous battles, all alone! And this is just so hard to do. It isn't something you should even try – I imagine it would require you to suppress a great deal of emotions. Which brings me to my next point. You need to find people to make friends with. People like you. In the absence of a supportive family, you need close friends who will help you fight your battles. I know its easier said that done, because I find myself in the same situation, but it's essential. Stefan's mentioned that several times. You can't do it alone. And that makes me wonder about your therapist – could you elaborate on what you get out of your therapy? Is there a direction you're moving towards, or do you only talk about your week? After a year and a half of therapy I would have thought you'd have less doubts about your current situation. I may be wrong, that is just my opinion. Also, what is it your working in now? Why aren't you working in music? Have you thought of offering guitar lessons? If not on your own by posting ads in the paper or magazines, maybe in a small school? Keep in mind that anything you want to do, you must dedicate a lot of time and effort to, and that it will probably not take off but years later. Sometimes you have to follow your gut feeling and take a big risk. What is more important to you? Freedom or security? Are you willing to go through the difficult years that most artists go through before they reach success? Also, to what degree do you think living with your mother negatively affects your productivity and well-being? I currently live with my father, and I'm absolutely sure it hurts me to be near him. Have you ever thought that perhaps getting away from your family may be the first step toward happiness? And that perhaps more schooling is not quite as important? I'm sorry if I may have come across as aggressive, I feel like I was also talking to myself!

Thank you again Matthew, this is all so enlightening – even if I do not fully grasp it quite yet. I think I get most of it though, and certainly can see now what you mean in your first reply and in turn see that I did not reflect full understanding in mine. Now that I understand, my head is full of so many thoughts. Now I feel great curiosity for the reality of my childhood, and everything from it that I am still afraid of discovering I want to now understand. I find it fascinating, and quite frightening to be honest. As I was reading your post, a memory pushed its way to the foreground of my mind. It's the memory of a 4 o 5 year old me in a supermarket, suddenly unable to see my father, the only adult who was with me at the time, anywhere around. I look for him everywhere but do not see him. I cry out in terror. At that moment he appears from behind a column or a wall I do not remember. He had been hiding, to tease me, to see what my reaction would be. My father's shared this story with me several times, and I never cared very much for it. I didn't find any humor in it to be sure, but I also did not feel angry at him for doing this. How awful that must have felt for me as a child. I wanted to say that I did not refer to that part of my abuse as abandonment literally, as in physically, because I had originally meant it in the sense that they did not take their responsibility to me seriously. They did not educate themselves to raise me adequately, did not take any interest in my individual traits, did not help me develop those areas I showed potential in, did not ever think of the possible consequences of their actions regarding my future life. That's a better description of what I meant by neglect. However, now that this memory has come up, I realize it could very much have been in full sense of the word. It's terrifying. I wonder if I was ever truly left alone before the age of 6. After that age I know that I was, but for some reason that does not seem as important to me. I don't know why. You've encouraged me greatly to keep on the path of self-knowledge. It feels as though I am discovering a new world. Would you mind sharing how you've reached this point? Has it been a combination of therapy and study? Would you recommend any books in particular, or anything else? I feel like I have so much mourning to do over the time I've lost, and it's really such a shame – I feel that I could have achieved so much with the right guidance and support. It's all so stupidly senseless. I read through Nick's thread on finding a virtuous woman yesterday, and I was just so amazed to see someone so young and so ahead in terms of self-knowledge, economic stability, etc. It made feel so happy for him, and so sad at myself, at all my lost opportunities. But really, it's so gratifying to see someone in their early 20's in that position. I feel like a retard, lol. And it makes me think of just how awesome what Stefan has done really is. I wonder how many people have really turned their lives around thanks to him. How much wealth has that created? Not only in terms of valuable peaceful relationships but of creative potential unlocked, and the material wealth that comes out of that. It gives me great hope for the future, and a great incentive to try and follow in his steps.

Thank you for your reply Matthew, and for sharing the connection you drew from my post, it has certainly been helpful. I wouldn't go as far calling what I experienced terror, though I empathize (as far as I can) with your experiences. I think I was rather lucky in that most of the trauma that I went through as a child was indirect, as there was less verbal and physical abuse than neglect. And this means that although I was abused every now and then, I was mostly just left on my own and ignored, which helped me preserve my spirit. Had I suffered more physical violence I would surely have been crushed beneath it. It sounds to me like you've studied your share of philosophy and psychology, and it certainly seems to have helped. I am on this path now, which I had wanted to do many times before, but was never allowed to I guess by my own trauma. Now that I can see the big picture a bit clearer, I am less afraid to read into it. I'm actually listening to one of Jung's books now, and am quite astounded by it. It's fascinating. I remember a few days of really quite painful emotion following the crisis I went through after my mother came down to visit. This is when my emotions where turned back on so to say. It is a pain unlike which I had ever felt before, and hope to never feel again – although there is probably quite a lot more of that where it came from, to be brought back up in future therapy. The best way I can describe this pain, is like a very sharp dagger stuck right at the very center of my soul. It made physical pain seem like child's play, and I've had my share of it. It the absolutely most horrible thing I've ever felt in my life.* And it was all of the emotion I had withheld for years and years, mostly from my extreme self-imposed solitude and thirst for friendship and love. Curiously enough, my empathy too was awakened and that caused a whole lot of new emotions to also surge. In a country like Mexico, it is not too hard to find images that very quickly put things in perspective. There's so much suffering here, it's almost too much to bear. I try to stay away from the poorest areas, but really it's all around us. * If I could elaborate on this feeling, I would further describe it as a very small and very sharp point in my heart radiating powerful waves of painful heat throughout everything that is me. I just thought it might be interesting to others for me to give a clearer idea of what this felt like, perhaps someone else can identify the feeling – maybe it's even got a name? (edited to add this)

It's so good hear that someone else identifies with these ideas. Thank you. Sorry for the delayed response, my last post was being processed and I did not get a chance to respond to you in that one. This is part of the reason I now want to find a good therapist. I have so many questions and doubts regarding myself, and really feel an urgency to figure this all out. I feel as if I will never get ahead unless I do, and fear the most terrible of consequences – I have the strangest feeling that I am somehow in danger of suffering an anxiety disorder or breakdown. The very brief period during which I used drugs (pot, lsd) I became acutely aware of just how fragile my mental stability really was. I actually don't feel like I had a terrible childhood – but come to think of it, I am probably just in denial. I can remember now the day I found out my father had been arrested/deported (not sure exactly what happened), after a run-in with the law, and how I felt while everyone in my house spoke of the incident but no one bothered to explain it to me or tell me that he would be going away for a long time. After that everyone lied to me about his whereabouts, but I remember being sure that he was in prison (though I have my doubts now), and I remember keeping quiet about it and just pretending I believed what they all said to me. God, how awful. :/

Wow, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to go through all this, very much so. At the moment I am living with my father, sadly enough. As I mentioned, I just recently came out of this fog and back on course with self-knowledge, something I had set aside for a long time. Why am I still living with him? For a false sense of security I suppose, and it's funny how I'm just now really understanding this. I think I've always known it but I just did not want to accept it. I suppose I was still expecting something from him, or rather I think it helped in me some way to evade my responsibilities and put them on him, although I knew he'd never come through and besides that it would be totally out of character with him and not to mention too late in my life for that. My conflict with him basically consists of he never having taken responsibility for me, and having abandoned me by being a bad husband to my mother which made her leave him. He however has never been physically abusive. In my childhood my mother was responsible for physically punishing me, and although it was not frequent, and she now apologizes for it and claims to have been ignorant of wrongdoing, I realize that I still feel certain anger towards her and certainly it interferes with our relationship. I've never talked with my mother about why she chose my father, because it is fairly obvious to me that my father seduced her. My mother gave birth to my older sister when she was 16, and she met my father when she was 20/21. I was born when she was still 21 years old, and my father was 38 at the time. And so I imagine, my mother uneducated as she was, probably considered he would be a provider for both my sister and myself. My father is rather quite well-read, and must have had many tricks up his sleeve to conquer young women. It's part of the reason I tend to place most of the blame on him rather my mother, although she too is responsible. I tend to see her more as a victim though. If I leave Mexico, I don't think I would go back to the US. I don't know really yet what would suit me best, but it certainly seems like an English-speaking country would be my best option. Another option, and one I'm seriously considering, is to perfect my Spanish and try to spread the word of non-violent parenting and libertarian philosophy here in Mexico. I think I have talent for the arts, and have always thought of myself as an artist. However, I have been so lost the past 10 years of my life, that I've yet to take any activity up. I would specifically like to become a filmmaker, but I understand just how utterly absurd that is considering I've done nothing in the field, and know practically nothing about it (except what I like and would like to create). And so at times I think that this idea of my talent is really just a fantasy, taking into account that I've done nothing to prove it in any way shape or form (outside of my own head). And then there's the 10,000 hours argument – which makes total sense to me, and brings me back to earth in an instant (maybe about an inch off the ground, I can't let go of that dream). I would also like to write, and maybe even paint, but at present I see those goals as something to pursue once I get my life economically on track by starting a small business. I'm sure I could run a business successfully, because everywhere I have worked I've always been painfully aware of what my bosses have been doing wrong. Of course, it's probably very easy for any employee to say this, and no I did not do everything within my reach to correct what they did wrong, but I honestly do think I could do it. However, I've always had my head in the clouds and never really considered that possibility until quite recently. I think my feet are getting closer and closer to ground now. Therapy will probably help make things much clearer for me.

Here is a shorter version of the OP. Hope someone will take the time to reply! So there’s a question that I’ve been trying to formulate in my head today, to try and make this post shorter and therefore easier to digest. And the question goes as follows (after the question, I try to give some background to clarify): Is my hesitation to take up anything seriously due to my fear that in doing so I will start shaping an identity haphazardly, or to put it another way, without following a consciously reviewed and accepted set of moral standards? In other words, could it be possible that I see in the act of creating an identity though daily interaction with the world, which I now avoid, the danger of adopting false or ambiguous moral standards, in the absence or ignorance of an ethical framework. I consider that I have yet to form a real identity – I have yet to solidify, and remain in a liquid state. I know that sounds odd, but bear with me here, I think I can explain it. I was very creative as a child, and liked being alone to explore my own ideas through art and games. I only have one sibling, a half-sister 6 years older than I, who is deaf-mute. All through public school I had very few friends, and as a poor immigrant with practically no parental guidance or attention, I never quite fit in. I was what kids tend to call a “freak” and routinely made fun of. After dropping out of high school I worked a few odd jobs, then moved back to Mexico and have been working in bicycle shops. I tend to look for jobs that do not require too much of me, require me to deal too much with people, or take up too much of my time. I avoid confrontation, and challenges. I recently discovered just how wrong this is in light of my future – if I am to have a future, I must take risks and develop character through action! I understand now just how important this is, and that I have been evading my responsibility to myself. However, there’s an obstacle that I just cannot figure out as of yet. I think that the obstacle is my belief that without a consciously adopted set of moral standards, I will be putting the “child” in me in risk of abuse by setting out to “make my life” without this prerequisite. By “child” I mean that flame, that spark of innocence that I feel is still flickering within me, and which I think I have been protecting by avoiding interaction and challenges. Does this seem at all plausible? Or is it just a pretext for my fear of dealing with an irrational world? edited for spacing

You are probably right about this being more a feeling of regret, and honestly I don't think that part of it will ever fade away completely. And I come to this conclusion because I assume that you like this girl a lot more than you did your ex-girlfriend, and so I think you will always wish that she had been the first. However, don't you think that maybe you've benefited from already having had a relationship? Would I be wrong to assume that you learned something from whatever mistakes you may have made in your first relationship? I say this because in my first relationship, I went a girl who I didn't particularly like but who I knew liked me and being a rather stupid teenager I just went with it. This was an awful mistake because we were totally incompatible, and I learned a very hard lesson from it. I wish my first girlfriend had been a girl I had a huge crush on then, but never had the courage to ask out. Thankfully though, I think I learned a lot from that experience, and in the end it made me realize that it occurred due in part to a lack of guidance from my parents. I wish someone had explained to me the importance of love in a relationship, and of the utmost importance of the sexual act in terms of personal values. I think that if you can consider your first relationship, and in turn the loss of your virginity, simply an honest mistake you committed in a morally ignorant state and a mistake that you have learned from and which has helped you become a better person, then perhaps this sense of guilt would wane if not disappear. We all reach virtue from different paths, and usually we who have had deficient parents tend to travel the longer and harder road to it. Sometimes this means that we have to commit more mistakes in our lives than those fortunate enough to have benefited from good parenting, and these mistakes cannot be erased out of existence. We have to accept them as a sort of scar in our lives, heal from them and learn from them, and move on. I hope this helps. Is there anything more you can tell us about your first relationship?

edit >>> EXTREMELY LONG POST. Sorry about this! Please skip this post and go to #2, unless you have lots of time of course. Hello everyone! I would like to thank you in advance for reading my post, and for any insight you may be able to offer. I have been putting this off for quite some time, thinking that it would not really help to share my problems with the community. The way I have justified this is basically by telling myself that I already know what I must do. In other words, I tell myself that I must seek a professional therapist, that I must make new friendships, that I must sever my negative relationships, that I must be more productive, etc. etc. etc. – and come to the conclusion that you will tell me the same thing, and so that it would be useless to come to you with my doubts and fears. That is all nonsense though, and I can see right through it. I understand that I am evading this need to open up, in fear of coming to conclusions that I may not want to grasp. These are conclusions that I have already come to in my own mind, but perhaps I'm afraid of hearing them from others, or maybe I'm afraid of the opposite – that my conclusions (I'm lazy, I'm too scared, I will never really be normal, I'm too far behind, it's way too hard, I can't do it) are totally wrong, and that this may take some weight off my shoulders, weight that I may be using to punish myself for God knows what (this what is probably the most important obstacle I face). Even doing this right now, is starting to feel quite difficult. I'm starting to feel that sensation in my throat that usually precedes crying. I'm feeling a bit vulnerable, and I think my mind is actively looking for distractions that may help me avoid having to finish this post. A part of me is a bit fearful of the response I may receive, although I acknowledge fully how irrational that is, considering that the responses I have seen here are always quite kind and generally very empathetic and helpful. So, where does this fear come from? Maybe from a general sense of inferiority? The very thought of speaking to Stefan has always left me with a sense of curiosity, alarm, shame, and fear – but in a very disinterested sort of way, like it's something I don't think would ever occur, because I don't see myself far enough down the road of self-knowledge to seek that out, and because I've always thought that I would be able to advance far enough on my own through books and journaling and such. This is probably part of my problem, and I'm starting to acknowledge that. I tend to be too individualistic in the sense that I always think that I can do things on my own, generally distrust others' abilities and capacity to help, and yet never quite seem to be able to do anything at all. However, I blame this on myself, on my constant state of melancholy and inability to concentrate on the here and now. I blame myself for always thinking of what's ahead and never on today. I'm very much a daydreamer, but I know that the sources of this problem are within me and are solvable, and so I am now looking for professional help. I hope I haven't been rambling too much and that the above helps you get an idea of where I'm coming from. Now some background: I'm originally from Mexico, and moved with my mother and half-sister to the US at the age of 6. My father stayed behind. My parents were not married, and my father was 16 years older than my mother (38-22 when I was born). I was a very creative child, and liked being alone, never had much friends, and fortunately suffered very little in terms of physical abuse. I started out well in school (public school as we've always been quite poor, my mother left school at 16 when my sister was born, and her family was also very much poor) and was even put in gifted and talented classes, as I was very good with art and enjoyed reading. However, due to lack of guidance or interest from any adult, I began to do worse and worse in school and finally dropped out of high school at the age of 19 I believe (I had always been a year behind because it took me a year to learn English after I arrived, I think I was a junior then but very much behind). I dropped out because I was told I could just take an equivalency exam and obtain my GED, I was not told however that it was necessary to be an American citizen to do so (I was not) and so that never happened. I worked as a waiter and helping an uncle in real estate for a while, before deciding to move back to Mexico where I could be "free" to live my life as I pleased. I was very proud then, falsely so, and the idea of having to ask someone to break the law so that I could work just made feel so ashamed that the idea of living in Mexico really seemed like a good one. I lived with my father for some time in a small city on the Mexican border (where he had moved to be closer to me after he had been deported from the US for having overstayed his visa) for a while, about 10 months, and then I managed to move to a large city with the help of money my mother made available to me. The time I spent with my father has been probably the worse period in my life, because I depended on him but the guy really is about as broken a man as I've ever seen, and obviously he carries a lot guilt in regards to me, and long story short I'm just really angry at him to this day. After I left my father, I came to Guadalajara, the city I'm originally from and which is quite a large city and had many more opportunities for me. I worked in call centers for a while, and then in bicycle shops (something I'm very much into). I had read Ayn Rand in my teens, and this is what I think saved me and is still responsible for keeping my flame alive. I think it caused a few problems too, because I think I tried to be like her heroes for a while, and well that's really not a very smart thing to do. I think I repressed a lot of emotions during my teens and early to mid 20's because of this. I was very hard on myself. I'm sorry I feel like I'm straying a bit from the point, but I think I know what's next. After living alone for a few years, my father came down here to try and be closer to me. We lived separately and saw each other frequently, but then we had an argument and I basically cut him off completely after explaining everything in a very long text message. I basically said to him that he was a bad influence on me, and that he was the same guy who had abandoned me as a child (by being a bad partner to my mother and forcing her to leave him). I also said to him that his interest in the esoteric was only a way for him to believe in impossible things, which made it easy for him to imagine that he and I could actually have a healthy relationship. Plus, my father was sexually active from a very young age, something I know marked him deeply and is probably the cause of all his neurosis and guilt. Then, I at some point got fed up with my job, and quit. I had only been working and daydreaming in my free time, and I had not been thinking much about my future, or making any friends. I was still very proud then, and had never been very sociable, and found it quite difficult to relate either to nationals or others who too had come back from the US. At this point, I thought I would leave the city and go live in small town, where I could work hard and live a simple life away from the distractions of the city. I didn't plan this terribly well however, and ended up with no money and my things on the sidewalk. And so I reached out my father, or my abuser, and have been living with him ever since. For a good while I descended into a very deep mental fog, and forgot all about what had originally made me break ties with my father. I started working at a bike shop and earning just enough to pay for my basic needs. I lived this way for some time, and was going deeper and deeper into this sort of zombie state. Then my mother came to visit me recently and really forced an awakening which had been building up the months prior to her arrival. I was devastated. My emotions, which had been turned off for years, suddenly were brought back to life and it scared the shit out of me. After having been numb for years I started to really feel and it was all quite overwhelming. My mother, who I'd had a generally good relationship with, suddenly made me see just how unfit I was to deal with reality. When she was here I felt like I was in a way responsible for her, and this made feel totally inadequate. It made me very nervous, and I had not seen my mother for about 7 years, and so this also shocked me into life again. Since then I have taken up listening to FDR again, which I had not been doing mostly due to not owning either a pc or a smartphone, and basically just not looking into self-knowledge before this event. Although, to be honest, I've always had a need to keep a diary, even if at times I have ignored it for months – it's an urge that always comes back, and I have hundreds of journal entries in physical journals, iphone notes, word documents, etc. I may share some if anyone is interested in listening to my inner voice. Right now, I am making enough to pay my bills, and thankfully can do this through one part time job. The free time I have I want to invest in some project that will allow me to make more money in the future, such as elaborating some cycling-related apparel or perhaps developing the talent I know I possess but have not developed. However, I tend to spend most of my time between all sorts of different interests and cannot seem to make up my mind which to focus on. I feel like there's no one in my life that has genuine interest in me or that has the knowledge to guide me in any direction or offer any real advice. Also, I'm still very much in an English-language frame of mind. I speak good Spanish, but am not totally fluent as in I cannot write very well or articulate my thoughts with the precision I wish I could – I'm still very lacking in terms of vocabulary, but I don't have the will to focus on working on my skills because I'm really not sure I want to continue in this country, on the other hand, I don't see the possibility of leaving this country any time soon. I sway between thinking that I will never find anyone worth making friends with here, and that there have to be people worth making friends with but that I will never know if I don't reach out. However, I feel like I having nothing to offer, and like I have to work hard and study hard before earning the right to ask for anyone's friendship. I'm also very frightened of taking the risk in trusting someone only to have their irrationality surface later and destroy the bond I though we had created. I feel like no one is interested in self knowledge, and no one is capable of being vulnerable and sharing themselves openly. I try to be very open and share my thoughts and emotions with the people currently in my life but they are very rarely reciprocal and tend to avoid this kind of conversations. I haven't had an amorous relationship in 10+ years, and have only met 3 women I have genuinely liked in the 8 years I have been here, but I have not had the courage to start a conversation because I just feel so inadequate, so far behind in life, and so painfully conscious that I have very little to offer anyone. I now understand, thanks to Stefan, that I cannot do this alone – but is there anything else I can do beside therapy to strengthen my will, and to find my path? I feel like this isn't really the point of my post, but I don't know how to frame my exasperation into a sentence. It's so many things, a lot which I did not even touch on. I know I need to reach out to a professional, and I'm in the process of finding the right one. If I may ask a question in regards to this – what kind of therapist should I look for? I've come across a lot psychoanalysts but I'm not sure if they're all Freudians, and then there are cognitive behaviorists (?), and a thing called Gestalt. I've looked for analytical psychologists, but have had no luck – they all seem to do something other than individual therapy sessions. Also, is it a good idea to read about psychology? Should I read Alfred Adler, Alice Miller, C.G. Jung ... or could this have the effect of confusing me rather than helping me? Could it not hurt to go into therapy with this knowledge? In the sense that it may interfere with the therapists' work? I'm very sorry for the lengthy post, but I do not know what I should cut out to make it shorter. In a way I think it gives a good idea of where I am – all over the place, confused. Thank you for reading.

I don't think that fourth step is quite as simple as "ask forgiveness" – in the image that accompanies the OP, it is presented as a "humble request that can rebuild a relationship", and it allows for the fact that the hurt party may not forgive you right away or at all and that they don't ever actually owe you forgiveness. In the fifth step, this last point is reinforced, when she mentions that it is important for someone to own up to their part of a quarrel or misunderstanding, where there is fault on both ends, without expecting or counting on the same from the other party. Seen in this light, I mean in light of the text within the image, I think it makes plenty of sense to ask for forgiveness. However, the way that I would probably go about asking it, would be something like, "I hope you can forgive me, but I will understand if you need time to make that decision, and realize that I may not receive it." This way, I think that asking for forgiveness would be a way of letting them know that you value the relationship and want to keep it. Whereas if you just apologize but do not clarify that their forgiveness is important to you, it may be understood by the other party that the relationship may just as well end on that note. And in many cases I think this tends to happen after a strong argument or misunderstanding – the parties involved may just keep their distance for some time, and then slowly build the friendship back up. This however would appear to me to be unhealthy, as the problem would not have been dealt with and could very possibly creep back into the relationship. I think that asking for forgiveness may open the way to a real conversation about what happened, and how to avoid it happening again in the relationship, because to ask for something is to accept that you may be turned down and that requires certain vulnerability on the part of the offender. I don't know – does this make sense?

Have you looked into therapy? You certainly shouldn't feel helpless in regards to your life! However, I'm sure it's quite hard to start taking charge of your life after feeling this way for so long. Particularly if your personal relationships reinforce your feelings of helplessness. If you have the opportunity of speaking directly to Stef, then I would highly recommend it.

Thank you both for your kind response! I've only been "awake" now for about two months, as a result of this recent crisis, and I feel a bit angry at myself sometimes for not moving faster toward my goals. I'm still quite confused, but I know that it's only a matter of time before things start becoming clearer and I really start to work. I know I shouldn't be too hard on myself. I'm looking into therapy, and will hopefully be earning enough soon to afford it! Again thank you, and I hope to interact with you some more as I continue to converse here.

I don't really know anything about interpreting dreams, but here are some ideas (only that) – the door could be representative of your girlfriend, as in a metaphor for her sex, and you being inside the apartment in a fetal position could possibly mean that you feel at home with her, or that you view her as a maternal figure in your life. In a way, it's like you being inside her womb. This could also mean, that you feel that she has appropriated the apartment as her own and you are trapped in it. And you being afraid of opening the door to your parents, may be a metaphor for you being afraid of your parents knowing about the problems you and your girlfriend are having inside the apartment, maybe you are afraid of sharing what you two are going through with them. (Are you?) The pat on your back could represent your helplessness in the matter, like maybe you feel there's nothing you can do to remedy the situation, or maybe you feel that your parents don't believe you are capable of dealing with it, and so they just pat you on the back and walk in. The dog thing may represent your wish that things were as simple as that – a relationship between two beautiful animals, respectful of each other and of their natural duties as partners. In other words, you may see this succession of dogs as representative of the values you seek in a partner. After all dogs are life companions, and friends in a way. I'm sorry if these interpretations are too weird or far-fetched.

I'm very much interested in film, but am not familiar with any of these films. Now I'm very eager to watch them, as I could not come up with any really philosophical film from my favorites. Save V for Vendetta – which yes, is a rather commercial film, but it expresses great ideas and I love watching it every once in a while. I would also recommend Cronenberg's recent film "A Dangerous Method" – it talks about Freud and Jung's relationship and their differing views on psychoanalysis. It's a pretty good film, well worth watching.

This is a very good point. I can't speak for others, and don't want to make generalizations, but I believe most people choose the music they listen to based on their friends' preferences and whatever is readily available that they identify with. However, I think that a great many people refrain from listening to genres or particular artists that they would otherwise enjoy in fear of their peers' rejection and possible ostracization. Also, I think most people tend to give a rather small space to music within their lives – it's rather time consuming to be constantly looking for new artists, especially now that it's become so easy to listen to thousands of artists within most genres, it's tough to find the music you really identify with. I've been listening to music seriously for some time now, and find that I like a few artists within practically every genre, although I do have certain preferred genres and record labels. Most of my favorite music is of a melancholy nature, but I also listen to some upbeat music, especially 80's New Wave, and I really like intricate melodies and interesting sounds and environments. However, though I have tried finding artists in the metal scene to identify with, I have come to the conclusion that this genre just does not fit with me at all. I find most of it rather violent, and emotionally oppressive. It generally makes me feel a bit anxious and the themes it generally covers are just so infantile. Of course, progressive metal is rather different, and I remember liking bands like Tool when I was younger. Tool have rather beautiful melodies, and the singers voice is also quite beautiful in that he has a wide vocal range and employs it very well. Addressing the OP concerns, I think that music can certainly be a way of avoiding change in one's lifestyle. I think that if a certain person is living an apathetic life, for example, the music that they listen to may be a way of reinforcing those ideas to prevent (sometimes even unconsciously) a change that might prove quite difficult. I recently underwent a radical change, after a sort of crisis, and activated my emotions which had been "turned off" for a very long time. And I noticed that my taste in music started to change, because my newly rekindled emotions would not permit me to continue listening to some of the music I had been listening to before. These artists had some very negative elements in their work, and I chose to stop listening to them because of it. In order to move ahead and become more positive. I think that my preference for melancholy in music, has a lot to do with my awareness of the current state of the world. If we are to be empathetic individuals, I think that it makes sense to identify with art that reflects the difficulties we face as a race, and addresses the issues that we all deal with on a daily basis. Life is pretty hard, and the road to happiness is full of obstacles. And so to me, sad music basically helps me feel like I'm not alone in feeling this way. However, it's important that art also give us hope for the future... I don't know, I have a lot of thoughts on these issues, and don't feel like I can express them all now. I recently discoved Elliott Smith, a greatly talented songwriter, and would recommend it to you all. Also, Zbignew Preisner's music is very beautiful – I recommend him as well. You may be familiar with his scores (Krzysztof Kieslowski's films, The Secret Garden)... "Melancholy is the happiness in sadness." - Victor Hugo

Hello everyone! So glad I'm finally part of this community. I've been listening to Stefan since about 2005, if I'm not mistaken. I must have been about 19 years old. This was back when he recorded his show during his drive to and from work. Sadly, I stopped listening to his show from about 2007 up to just about a month ago, when I finally was able to purchase a PC. Plus, I suffered a sort of crisis after a visit from my mother which recently made me realize I was on the wrong path and this need to change for the better also urged me to begin listening anew. Some background: Born in Mexico. Moved to the US at the age of six with my mother, recently separated from my father, and sister, illegally. Attended public school, in which I was first considered a gifted and talented child and then gradually forgotten, from first grade to junior year – when I dropped out, realizing I had no real chance as an illegal and migrated back to Mexico in 2007. Although I apparently showed signs of real potential as a child, no interest was taken either by my family or the schools to help me develop it – my mother basically worked all day to support my sister and I. Thankfully, I was never really beaten or abused in any physically violent way, and so I've managed to remain relatively whole to my twenty-ninth year. I discovered Ayn Rand after reading the The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The Fountainhead changed my life, in both positive and negative ways, but the positive substantially outweigh the negative. The negative was a kind of repression of my emotions, and this idea that I could and should be like her heroes, which I very clearly see now was something completely out my reach (and that of most). Thankfully I read Les Miserables shortly after and saw a different side of humanity, namely the compassion missing from Rand's works, and this gave me a different perspective and leveled the balance a little. The positive should be obvious, since I am here. I believe I suffered a very bad depression from about the age of 15 up to a very recent awakening I underwent as a result of me seeing my mother again after about 8 years. I can see now, that I had been rather desensitized and was becoming quite indifferent to my future. This recent crisis has been quite difficult, as I am now very much awake and aware of my feelings. This has been the hardest part of it – dealing with my feelings – as they are incredibly strong, and something I had been unaccustomed to. Empathy in particular, is a feeling I'm having a hard time with, as it can be overwhelming at times. I'm not very educated yet in the subjects that Stefan explores, but I am ready to begin educating myself and living my life by proper principles. I have always believed I am capable of great things, and continue to believe it, and so I hope to soon become a very active member and to dedicate my time and efforts to the beautiful cause of liberty. Thank you for reading! I hope to begin learning from you soon!