equipoise

Stef was speaking with an elderly Jewish man who asserted that religion was a valid means to arrive at the same point as Stef's "brand of philosophy". Can someone point me to that post please.

Thanks dsayers. I had to cut my OP short. Maybe I should have held back from posting. When I'm feeling generous I will liken people to marauding bears but usually to falling tree branches.

I've been a $20 a month donor (?donator) for a few months, made a couple of posts and over the past 2 years watched and listened to about 600 casts of Stefan's. This post is a personal introduction of myself. In 1983 I began an apprenticeship so as to become a registered nurse and became so in 1987. By then I knew that the illness industry was hierarchical, a haven for bullies, liars and psychopaths as well as ordinary garden variety idiots. What Hannibal Lector describes as "the free range rude". But by then I had a 4yo son and a newborn daughter and the work was physically easy and well paid. I worked mainly "casual" short term assignments at a higher rate of pay which also helped to avoid the political intrigue that goes with working with the same idiots day after day. This went on for 10, 12 years. I stayed sane with my kids, motorbikes and beer. With my wife not so much. By late 1999 I had made way more enemies than friends. Stupid people outnumber rational decent people. It's only a little thing but it exemplified stupidity. Chatty morons everywhere I worked or went wanted to know what I was doing to celebrate the new millenium.... People became ballistically enraged because I was able to count to ten. Within a couple of years they succeeded in slandering me and having me deregistered from nursing.

Yeah. It's only about 15 km from where I am now and I have driven down the street. But you can "perve" a little more in street view at your drunken leisure. And satellite view, check out trees, sheds, pools etc. Problem is of course that street view is maybe a decade old.

Hi Jan_SVK. Yeah, I may well be wishing that. I "take stock" several times a day but so far remain optimistic. At worst it gives me a reason to travel and I'd have free accommodation, pay for what I use of course, but making it so much easier to visit the US. And it serves as a "way out", so as not to appear needy. And it's been 18 months since I've been with her so...?

Thank you Copper_Heart. (And I was a little embarrased over my bad joke and annoyance expressed in my last post). I've hand written, scanned and gmailed a reference that I can live with but may have to explicitely defend if I wish to further cultivate a relationship with this quite beautiful young woman and her mother.

Thanks Walter for your reply. But its unlikely that 9,999 cases out of 10,000 result in a negative outcome. I'm far from being a simpering beta male. And if a person was to attempt to slot me as alpha I may well break their face.

Thank you again Troubadour. Wow, yours is an interesting outcome. I hope you and your son are happy enough. I'm pretty certain that I would bond with and love the little boy. His mother and grandmother have sent me hundreds of pics and movies of themselves, their neighborhood and the child. I'm way older than this girl but atm don't look or feel "too old" for her. In ten or fifteen years I would be too old to be seen as a lover or husband. I'm thinking that five years woul be enough. If she was emotionally healthy enough to find and want a quality man more her age I could deal with that. When she was staying with me in my home city in 2013/2014 I considered that she may have thought she was using me. Using the luxury of my apartment, cooking, laundry, generosity etc. And then she'd disappear for a few days (having said she'd be right back) to use drugs and have sex with the dickhead. Then reappear embarrased and a little unkempt. And I'd say virtually nothing about it. So by saying nothing she knew that I was saying, "You're back you silly bitch". What I might really speak straight away, " I'm doing eye fillet with paté in puff pastry. What do you think? And will we go and get some ice cream". She was smart enough to know that my very cool welcome back was my expression of anger but she couldn't say so. Because to do that would be to admit her awareness that she was behaving badly but doing it anyway. Maybe a glitch, seemed I couldn't continue that post. I could rattle on way more. But yeah. I've stopped just short of begging that she and her mom have therapy. And they haven't. Atm I'm just frustrated that I haven't been able to visit and that she seems hell bent on going to face prison and of course another term of probation. Despite us both enjoying Orange is the New Black I don't think it's going to be quite as much fun.

Thanks guys. @RCali. You've got it right. By good company I guess I mean that I enjoyed her company. It wasn't a sexual relationship. I'm a straight male and she's very attractive but she was too messed up (and still is) to have sex with. But she is pretty smart and a lot of fun to do the stuff we both like to do. @csekavec. But it wouldn't totally kill me if it didn't work out. I'll learn from it however it goes and if I travel and tour Europe or the US that'd be ok. I think her mother is the cause of her problems but she's ok company as well. She visited me in Australia last year and we did a little touring around my home state. @Copper_Heart. I'm involved because I want to be, but that may change. Viable options... well I would prefer that they remain in Turkey. I would have been there already but have had to stick around here for a couple of reasons and need surgery in a few weeks that will keep me here for about another month for recovery. @A.F.K. Yes I have and I might. I'd love to chat with Stefan. And if I do travel I'd want to attend some FDR meetups. @Troubadour. Who I am isn't really all that relevant atm and I've only made one introductory post a few months ago. But you've nailed it in your para 2. She's clearly not well. Turning herself in is not a noble act when it is almost certain that she will seperate herself from her son for at least six months. The authorities will likely be more than happy to lock her up but I doubt that they or the prison staff or other inmates will be much impressed by a mother that would leave her child. This is the opinion that I am wanting to canvas. I don't want her to do it. And she may well be an incurable omnishambles but I'm pretty tough and there are many other things I can do with my life. Thank you for your offer and you have been a help.

A couple of years ago I met an American tourist who was visiting Australia on a 12 month work/holiday visa. She was good company, funny and pretty smart but had a dysfunctional childhood and a recent young adult history of drugs, alcohol and petty crime back in California. She had violated a probation order issued in California and absconded to Australia. As I've said I found her to be good company but she very quickly took up with people in my neighbourhood who use ice and heroin. She got herself pregnant to a guy who uses heroin, works in a bar/club thing and seemed to be a victim of christian fundamentalist parents. She seems to have been thinking that she could rescue herself and this guy by having a baby. Getting a "green card" or maybe gaining immunity from prison if she was to return to the states. It was a crazy drug fuelled fantasy of course. She and her dubious partner left Australia when she was about end of second trimester and sought refuge with her mother in Turkey. She and her mother are American born and both dual citizens of the US and Turkey. She now has a son a year old, walking and talking. The asshole father is gone. She and her mother gmail me pretty much daily and have done since she went to live with her mother in Turkey. She now wants to return to the US to "face the music" of breaching probation. She just doesn't like living with her mother in Turkey. But she risks a custodial sentence? if she returns to California and will be separated from her seemingly so far happy and healthy little boy. I don't want to give her advice and prefer to offer speculations and ideas. I'd rather she stayed put in Istanbul for the time being. I'd be prepared to join her and help her raise her son. But she now wants me to write a reference or travel to California to speak in her favour if she goes back to be served a warrant for breach of probation. What should I do?

Or maybe back from an absence caused by a hideous hiatus hernia.

Hi Tyrone. Until now we had something in common, no one had greeted our introduction. I like the word "hideous" but sadly it was probably a typo,"hideout" having been intended. But then it sounds like you have been busy so "hideout" might not be right either. Maybe you have returned after being laid low by a hideous illness.

I've been freaked out by zombies, blockheads, eye rollers and the garden variety free range rude since the age of four. My ACE score would be built mainly from chronic frustrations, misunderstandings and humiliations. My IQ is possibly 30 points higher than each of my parents who are both long deceased. I feel that Stefan confirms the validity of my perceptions and inner experiences of the last several decades. Prior to "meeting" him online about 18 months ago I had been able to maintain some comfort and reassurance from people who were somewhat rational in some areas. People such as Dawkins, Hitchens, Grayling, Feynman, Penrose, Saramago, du Botton, Montaigne, Rand and Thomas Harris. I don't derive a lot of comfort from people in day to day life. Much of the day my emotions are comprised of various flavours of anger and pity. equipoise